Electronic Tumbleweeds » Musings

Music Discussion

Jeremy — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:34:48 +0000

So I was sitting on the bus to go home when I had the idea for this back-and-forth between these two characters, one a prominent right-wing gay-basher type and his friend-of-sorts, who I will call A and B respectively:

B: I’m surprised to find that you like house music, since house – and especially the funky house you listen to – pretty much descends thematically from disco which, despite being co-opted by the mainstream in outings like Saturday Night Fever and the Bee Gees, was primary oriented towards gay nightclubs and patrons.

A: And your point is…?

B: You like music for fags, in your own words.

Retort

Jeremy — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:29:22 +0000

I was bored and stumbling across the web when I landed on this blog, and while I can’t quite connect with what he’s saying since I neither know or wish to know anyone who reads the damn books, I thought his opening conversation was much to lenient toward anyone who does. So, I’ve decided to rewrite it myself.

The other day, my wife confronted me for not meeting one of my Man Duties.
“You still haven’t fixed my bike,” she scolded. (I had promised to do so some months ago.) “Edward would have fixed Bella’s bike by now,” she huffed.
“You still haven’t stopped reading those godawful books,” I quickly retorted, fed up with being compared to that shimmering asshole. “Edward would’ve dumped your ‘he sparkles in the sunshine’ ass to smash your sister like I’m planning to if you don’t stop comparing me to that glittery bastard.”
“I hoped you weren’t planning on having sex this millennium,” she huffed as she stormed out of the room. Casualty of war, couldn’t be avoided. You see, I had forgotten the first rule of Twilight-Widowhood – never pick a fight with Edward. You won’t win. Sure, I won this battle – but the war still rages, and the casualties make the victory little more than Pyhrric.
As she stomped off, I suddenly felt a strong surge of kinship with Jacob Black.

4AM makes you do funny things.

Responsible Adultery 2

Jeremy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:51:41 +0000

OK, I said I would write a follow-up to my previous bitch fit about growing old, and here it is. I haven’t had much time to think about the added responsibilities of growing up over this weekend, and I’m glad for it. In some way, this weekend was my final summer vacation of sorts, my last real chance to be juvenile and drop everything and laugh at dick jokes and shirk my responsibilities to go hang out with people I don’t hate. Of course, I’m going to try to make more of these occasions, but I fell as though this will be my last real gimme.

You know, back in late July or early August I couldn’t wait for this and the increased amount of stuff I could do – rent a Zipcar, go to clubs, buy a pack of smokes (I don’t actually smoke, I just wanted to do something I couldn’t before) – but now when I look back that seems a bit juvenile. Early effects of growing older and wiser, maybe? Ha, don’t make me laugh. I’m probably just depressed that I’m going to die sooner now. Here’s how I think I feel subconsciously:

Responsible Adultery

Jeremy — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:44:05 +0000

At the beginning of the next workweek, I will legally be able to drink, vote, drive after midnight, smoke and enter into a legally binding contract. This is an astounding increase in privileges for someone who hasn’t been verifiably shown to have the mental status of an individual older than 14. And I am flipping out. I have no idea what I want to do with my life – as it stands right now I am at a fork in the road, with one path leading down the standard life roadmap: get my degree, get a well-paying job, find a girlfriend-cum-wife, get her preggers, buy a house in the suburbs and groom my child to follow the same path as I have. But then there’s the other path: a path filled with the danger of unpredictability, a path that I dare not record for fear I’ll jinx it (and because I don’t need other people to tell me how much of a pipe dream the idea is). I iwsh This post might seem like a bunch of random jumblings, but that’s because my feelings on this issue are all jumbled, bouncing off the walls of my skull. Anyway, I can’t think right now and I can’t seem to type either so I’ll end this here and come backk with something better on Sunday-ish.

This seems to be an appropriate representation of my current mental state:

Took Long Enough

Jeremy — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:03:02 +0000

It took 224 days, but it finally hit me that a black man is president of the United States of America. And I cannot stop laughing. I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, and I eagerly await the black helicopters.

Pulp Anthropology

Jeremy — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:31:52 +0000

I was reading Reddit for maybe the second time in my life, when I decided to check out the best-of comments. I came across this thread, and thought someone should make this as a video. I can’t because I’m uncreative and broke, but I wrote the script in case any of you 0 readers would want to.

[M. Wallace]

Describe Australopithecus’ role in human evolution.

[Brett]

…What?

WALLACE upends a table, scaring BRETT.

[M. Wallace]

What does Australopithecus have to do with human evolution?

[Brett]

Wha-What?

[M. Wallace]

Australopithecus ain’t no ancestral form I ever heard of. Do they have fossil records verifying our descent from Australopithecus?

[Brett]

What?

[M. Wallace]

Anthropology motherfucker! Do you have a degree in it?

[Brett]

Yes!

[M. Wallace]

Then you understand my inquiry?

[Brett]

Ye-Yes!

[M. Wallace]

Describe Australopithecus’ role in human evolution!

[Brett]

…What? I…

[M. Wallace]

SAY WHAT AGAIN! SAY WHAT AGAIN – I DARE YOU! I DOUBLE DARE YOU MOTHERFUCKER, SAY WHAT ONE MORE GOD DAMN TIME!

[Brett]

Australopithecus….it’s…it’s….it’s a hhhh…hominid..

[M. Wallace]

GO ON!

[Brett]

It’s… it’s… it’s extinct…

[M. Wallace]

Does it not look like evidence for macroevolution?

[Brett]

What?

WALLACE shoots BRETT, BRETT exclaims in agony

[M. Wallace]

DOES IT NOT! LOOK LIKE EVIDENCE! FOR MACROEVOLUTION!?

[Brett]

Y-Yes!

[M. Wallace]

Then why the fuck d’you ask me for more evidence?

[Brett]

I…I…didn’t…

[M. Wallace]

Yes you did – yes you did Brett. You asked for transitional forms. And evolution doesn’t like jumping species in one generation.

Do you read Dawkins? A little passage I got memorized, sort of fits this occasion…. God Delusion: Chapter 8, BEETHOVEN FALLACY:

“Imagine that an intermediate species, say Australopithecus afarensis, had chanced to survive and was discovered in a remote part of Africa. Would these creatures ‘count as human’ or not? …Even if a clear answer might be attempted for Australopithecus, the gradual continuity that is an inescapable feature of biological evolution tells us that there must be some intermediate who would lie sufficiently close to the ‘borderline’ to blur the moral principle and destroy its absoluteness. A better way to say this is that there are no natural borderlines in evolution. The illusion of a borderline is created by the fact that the evolutionary intermediates HAPPEN TO BE EXTINCT!!”

I memorized that because I thought it was some cold ass shit to say before I popped a cap in some one’s ass, but now I understand that you’re Australopithecus, I am the gradual continuity that is an inescapable feature of biological evolution, and Mr. 9mm here is Natural Selection.

I Wanna Be Like Mike

Jeremy — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:43:22 +0000

So I overheard that Mike died on the train coming back from the mall. At first I thought it was just some bullshit joke-type thing, and the fact that they had included Farrah Fawcett in the obit as well seemed to cement its falseness (I knew she had died at the time). You know, just something to cause a sensation.

But then I got home, and – “What’s this? A special on Michael? Why would they do that unless…shit.” I guess that joke obituary wasn’t a joke after all.

I was too young to grow up with him, I missed him at his peak and got him on his slow descent into his current former self, with scandal after scandal after nosejob after molestation charge, but my mother turned me on to what I had missed – the Jackson 5, Bad, Dangerous, but most importantly Thriller.

Who could forget Thriller: PYT, Beat It and Thriller are timeless – no matter who you are, no matter when you were born, those songs will make you get up and dance like you’ve got the glove yourself.

But I’m spacing now, so I’ll just finish with this: rest in peace Michael Jackson, I’ll always remember you as black.

I Think I Miss High School

Jeremy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:31:04 +0000

I never thought I’d be saying this, but after all the shit I went through, all the stuff I had stolen from me, all the times I’d wished I had gone to a school that cared about education instead of passing standardized tests, I think I am beginning to miss Benjamin Banneker High school.
Don’t get me wrong, it might’ve been the worst school in the district at the time – with an interim principal that could make George Bush look like a lame-eagle instead of a lame-duck and a surplus of theiving people that made Ali Baba’s crew look like concerned neighbors – but there were some good people there, some people that actually gave a damn through it all, and I respected for that. It might be the ending of Super Mario Galaxy getting to me, but I miss some people from high school, people I could fuck around and be myself with, people I could laugh with.
I’m reminded of the calculus bowl I went to my senior year with the other top students in my Calculus AB and the higher-up BC class, and all the fun we had the way there and the way back: the the funny things we said were going on in the back seat between DJ and the African girl whose name is on the tip of my tongue and I can’t remember; when we were at the Cracker Barrel up in Braselton and I solved the triangle puzzle while Richard fumbled, all the cracks I managed to get in on Richard while he said his brain was “warming up”; hell, on the way back I saw Road Atlanta for the very first time.
I think I miss the people most of all: Mr. Swann, Mr. Oliver, Ms. Ensmann, Ms. Scretchen, Ms. Goggins, Ms. Mobley, Ms. Burnette, Ms. Salisbury; God, how I’d forgotten these people so easily; how I wish I could see them again since the new principal basically fired them all and scattered them to the wind.
I guess that for better or for worse, Banneker’s always going to be my high school – I guess I could do it a favor and remember the good times a little bit more than the bad.

Super Luigi Galaxy

Jeremy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:44:02 +0000

So after I-don’t-even-know-how-long, I decided to finally get off my ass and go for the first 120 stars of Super Mario Galaxy. I beat the story in about 15 hours, finishing off most of the galaxies at the same time, but in the end there were three stars that I either didn’t know how to get, couldn’t figure out how to get, or hated with every fiber of my being (I’m looking at you, Toy Time purple star). But, happily, I managed to overcome both my inability to understand and my hatred (my scalding, white-hot hatred for the Toy Time purple star and the sadist whose demented mind it sprung from) and get those final stars, bet Bowser for the second time, and play as Luigi. Boy, if I though Mario was hard to place it’s going to be hell with the lanky green one – he skids instead of stops and runs like a bat out of hell, not two qualities that go together, I’ll tell you that. Anyway, I’m thinking it’ll be fun to play as Luigi – but it’s a quarter to two and I’ve been up a while, so I don’t know if I’m qualified to call things “good” right now. But no matter – there’s no way I’m going to do Toy Time purple star again.

Another One Bites The Dust

Jeremy — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:44:40 +0000

So, another thing I kinda grew up with has ended. Everything has its time and place, and I guess that this was its. So anyway, I just want to have an e-moment of silence for Better Days. But it isn’t all bad – the author’s moving to Atlanta! Maybe I’ll catch him at a con – wait, I don’t go to cons. Oh well, I’ll see him somewhere, I’m sure.

Q-tips

Jeremy — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:16:49 +0000

Damn they feel good to stick in your ear when you haven’t used them in a while. It feel so good I shuddered a little bit.

Just Like The Chinese

Jeremy — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:07:18 +0000

For some reason when I try to picture Asher Roth I get my roommate.
I guess it’s true – all white people look alike.

(for the most part kidding)

Uneasy Hesitance

Jeremy — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:09:05 +0000

I listened to Nine Black Alps’ latest single, but I couldn’t be bothered to blog about it until now. Anyway, I didn’t name this post “Uneasy Hesitance” without a reason:
When I first heard Everything Is, their first album, in its entirety I thought it was made for me. It was the rock music I wanted to hear – hard and heavy, making no qualms about being angry and making you want to be angry too. I fucking loved it – the first time I heard Shot Down I wanted to fuck someone, break something and burn the world and I’ll be goddamned if I wasn’t proud of it. I officially made it my favorite song a few days later and I’ve listened to it so much that that urge had waned, but I still think back to when I first heard that song with all the love in my heart.
Then came Love/Hate.
I’m not saying it was a bad album, not at all – it shows that the band isn’t a one trick pony, and has the range that I think they will need to really go the distance – but it left everyone who loved the band for their first album hanging. Sure they had a couple songs on the album that had some of that angry swagga that made me love them, but it seemed a bit…orchestrated. I’m sure that’s not the word I want to use, but it’s the only word I can think of to accurately describe how I’m feeling at 1AM. I’m not the only one – I perused their forum hoping to find some drum tabs for Shot Down when I read someone comparing “Forget My Name”, one of the few what I will now call “angry” songs on the album, to Nirvana. I had listened to the song myself prior to reading this and I thought the same thing. This was a big deal to me because I, someone who has listened to very little Nirvana, thought they sounded like Nirvana and it made me think they were losing their original, angry, “burn the world” sound for commercial viability, but to add insult to injury I don’t believe it sold all that well. I began to have doubts.
“All their albums can’t be winners.”
“I can’t like all their songs.”
“The third album will be better.”
“Will their third album be better?”
“God, I hope their third album is better…”
I put it out of my mind and gave it no second thought.
Later, I picked up Glitter Gulch, a six-song EP that showed me that they still knew what their fans of the first album loved. It only had two “angry” songs on it – Over The Ocean and Ilana Song – but they were enough to tide me over. Especially Ilana Song – it gave me that same feeling that I got when I listened to Shot Down the first time; if I was alone I would have turned up the volume until my ears bled and rocked out with my cock out until I passed out from exhaustion. I thought that maybe I _could_ keep hope alive, that their third album will turn it around – you’ll see!
Now I’ve heard the first single from their third album, Buy Nothing, and I don’t don’t like it, even though it looks on paper to be everything I asked for. It seems like they’ve gone back to their roots of anger and heaviness but it sounds overdone. It’s like with Buy Nothing they’ve tried to get from Love/Hate back to Everything Is but overshot and gone to Dragpipe, another band I listen to. The addition of political subtext in the lyrics is also an unwelcome change to their normal Seinfeld-esque songs about nothing in particular yet angry all the same.
So now I don’t know where I stand – I listen to Love/Hate and say they should be more like Everything Is, but when they do, I think they should tone down what made me love them in the first place. To quote someone from the Nine Black Alps forums, this new album will choose “between whether I say ‘I’m a fan of Nine Black Alps’ or ‘I’m a fan of Nine Black Alps’ first album’.”
I’m with you.

Jason X Gave Me An Epiphany

Jeremy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:47:05 +0000

I was reading The User Pool like I tend to do (and you should too, 0 readers, it’s awesome-o), and I read about how he burned to death in a pretend fire drill. In the beginning, he talks about how he never believes in fire drills because he know that when a real fire breaks out all hell is going to break loose, no matter how much you cut into company productivity to practice “drills”. Anyway, he got me thinking: I know that what he’s saying is true, you know what he’s saying is true, and anyone who’s ever been in an office during an actual fire knows this is true, so why do they practice?

And then I got it – to make them mindless slaves to the fire alarm.

Think about it: if you practice a drill every month for 20 years or so and a fire does break out (and you don’t see it, this is critical), when the alarm goes off you’re probably just going to think “oh great, another drill” and trudge out of there without pushing any old ladies down any flights of stairs or trampling the people in the red vests. Thus any panic and mosh-pit-like deaths are avoided because you’ve been trained like one of Pavlov’s dachsunds (I doubt he actually used dachsunds, but I like the imagery) to groan frustratedly and trudge outside at the sound of the alarm.

However, this is all dependent on nobody seeing the fire, because when they do they will panic and tell everyone it’s a real fire, which will cause everyone else to panic and the guy in the red vest and fireman’s helmet to get a size 12 footprint on his face.