| Sunday, May 27, 2001 07:11 p.m. PST |
| holy shit, look what i just found!
a little video clip of the tv interview and live performance lurve (my part-time band) did last summer! for those of you who don't know what i look like, you can see a brief snippet of me talking about how fun playing live is. you'll have to excuse the pretentiousness of the clip; the guy who filmed it told us to look that way.
also read the accompanying article, particularly the last two sentences. i assure you, i had no influence on its content whatsoever. i didn't even meet the guy who wrote it until after it had been published.
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| Saturday, May 26, 2001 01:49 p.m. PST |
| it's come to my attention that a large number of individuals has been visiting this page in search of full-length video files of mtv's controversial salute to idiocy and boredom, jackass. as you've probably already figured out, i sorta fucking hate the show, so it's a bit dismaying to see people coming to my page in search of shoddy media. you understand. but in railing against jackass, i will generously refrain from mentioning the injurious incidents the show has inspired around the country. cuz c'mon, that would be too easy.
ok. so jackass sucks, and i think part of the problem lies in its stated target demographic, american males aged 18-34. first off, i'd like to ask you to take a second to think seriously about the implications of aiming a show composed entirely of stupid human tricks at people like yourself. i would be outraged and insulted, if i considered myself a part of jackass's demographic, which i don't (i'll mention why in a second). i imagine it would produce a sensation similar to the one i experience looking at upn's monday night lineup. anyway, what mtv is saying with this show is that the typical 18-34 year old male in this country is, put lightly, not very smart. if i considered myself an average guy, i think that would bug me just a scratch.
but hey, maybe righteous indignation isn't your thing. i think right about now would be a good time to drop my agenda of convincing people not to watch the show, since i doubt anyone's still on the fence about it. ultimately, i believe that whether someone considers joyce's ulysses or jackass more worthy of consumption is a personal value judgment, and therefore arguing for the objective superiority of either is pointless. if i wanted to get utilitarian about it, i could argue that any show that causes the intellectual dregs of society to euthanize themselves has value, as it produces good consequences for the rest of us. but i said i was gonna leave self-immolation out of the discussion, so i'll leave you to suck on this: i value high intellectual standards and goal-directed creativity, and because i believe that jackass subverts both of these pursuits, i have no use for it. and i consider anyone who does mentally languid at best, and a drooling conformist idiot (to put it crudely) at worst. period. |
| Thursday, May 24, 2001 12:03 a.m. PST |
| well, there doesn't really seem to be much going on right now. my parents are coming down tomorrow fresh from a brief jaunt to sonoma, and they want to take me to dinner someplace nice. it'll be nice to see them, but they will undoubtedly nag me about my future and all the things i should be doing that i'm not. other than that, i'm trying to finish a song, but as usual the vocals are taking forever due to my lack of singing ability.
wolf 359 seems to have made a fan here in the dorm. i gave a copy of my cd demo to a girl who asked to hear my music after i mentioned in conversation that i record my own stuff. she gave it back to me, said she really enjoyed my songs, and offered to pay for the cd. she had mentioned earlier that she liked my stuff, but i thought she was just being polite. as some of you might have noticed, my music isn't quite commercial, so i always kind of assume that people i don't know very well are just being tactful when they give it props. but i suppose i believe her, given her offer. so i decided to give her a copy for free instead of making my first sale. i think detailed flattery is compensation enough for me at this point, especially considering the music's low production values.
there's some other cool shit going on these days as well, but i think i've said enough for one night. |
| Monday, May 21, 2001 08:30 p.m. PST |
| i just completed my entries for the freakytrigger focus group, and i must say the experience was a bit of an eye-opener. lots of your indie types like to disparage modern top-40 music with no firsthand knowledge of it, and now i am no longer among them. i've witnessed the face of the charts, and i can confirm your expectations with authority: it's pretty abysmal. i did find several gems buried amidst the tripe, but they were pretty few and far between. so what i'm really trying to say is, you're not missing much. the following is the preface to my entries, which i reprint here because ft! probably won't print it:
"i’d like to preface my abridged contribution to the freaky trigger focus group by stating that unlike many of your esteemed contributors, i’m no huge pop fan. that is to say, i haven’t listened to commercial radio regularly for about 3 years now—since then, i’ve directed the majority of my musical attention span underground, where contrary to popular (in some circles) belief, innovation and quality still live. nevertheless, i found the idea of a methodical analysis of the pop status quo by an outsider such as myself simultaneously enlightening, challenging, and at times, nauseating. so i took the task on, and these are the reactions that came forth. now that you know where i’m coming from, let’s have us a look-see:"
and then it begins. mike tells us it's gonna go live sometime in june, so keep your eyes on nylpm so you don't miss it. i fired off some pretty sweet bon mots in my critical firestorm, and i'm sure the other group members did as well. but right now you'll have to excuse me; i'm off to the showers to expunge the icky-sticky sensation of westlife's rendition of "uptown girl," if that's possible. |
| Saturday, May 19, 2001 11:23 a.m. PST |
| frat boys aren't my favorite people. not to stereotype or anything, but when a bunch of (white american) guys get together to "have fun," the result is too frequently too self-destructive and prejudicial for my tastes. and that's saying nothing of their universally poor taste in music (and i discuss it with authority because i worked in a fraternity for two years). given my feelings on the subject, i was more than a little nonplussed to find out that one of my proximal housemates is currently hosting his own mini-fraternity by allowing four of his beer-swilling, baseball-cap wearing, dave-matthews-band enjoying friends to stay with him. thus far they've managed to write idiotic messages on several people's whiteboards (including mine), clog the bathrooms, and appropriate the floorspace right outside my door for drinking games that extend into the early morning. a most unsavory bunch, at least from my perspective.
on a completely unrelated (yet somehow connected, in my mind) note, i got more inebriated than i've ever gotten in my entire life last night. let's see: i had half a glass of white wine and half a glass of red wine, at about 24 proof each; and then half a glass of absolut, which is about 80 proof. why, you ask? i was kind of disgusted with the world and with myself, and i wanted a slight alteration of consciousness that wouldn't cost me my life. perhaps some people find intoxication pleasurable, but last night i sure didn't. shit, i could barely sit up straight! and i couldn't stop laughing at even the dumbest shit. i watched a couple sitcoms, all the while trying to keep my balance, but ultimately it was all futile. then i got some chicken wings, made several extremely misogynist observations (in private, thank god) and strolled around campus in the dark. then i came home and waited for the alcohol to wear off. all in all, it did little to increase my self-esteem, plus it was only mildly diverting. fortunately, i managed not to do any irreparable damage to my reputation by spewing nonsense in public. ok. i'm done now. |
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