1/27/01 5:59pm
People think that Jared Leto, Milla Jovovich, Russel Crowe, and Keanu
Reeves are some
sort of new generation of rock stars who also front bands. That
they're innovators of the
idea. But this is not so. Check out these '80s and early
'90s bands and their Hollywood
singers who you may have overlooked!
Violent Femmes: Pauly Shore
Talking Heads: Robin Williams
Dave Matthews Band: Tom Hanks
1/26/01 9:13pm
"And when you see the face of God, you will die."
-ranting evangelist sample used in a Godspeed You
Black Emperor! track
"Do not observe yourself too much. Do not draw too hasty conclusions
from what happens
to you; let it simply happen to you. Otherwise you will too easily
look with reproach (that is,
morally) upon your past, which naturally has its share in all that
you are now meeting."
-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet
As for the latter, it kind of reminds me of Lissandra. I showed
her my summer notebook o'
facts and observations one time, and she was struck by one that said
"Shut up and live." I
explained it to her as a simple but important reminder to myself not
to over analyze everything,
that by doing so would be wasting time, time better spent living rather
than reflecting. I kind of
wondered why she found that one so funny. But anyway, Mr. Rilke
puts it better. It's very
narcissistic to be so introspective. You make yourself into,
as the GYBE! sample illustrates,
"the God Man" or "the God Woman". Reality loses its meaning.
This is a bad thing, by the way.
Albert Camus adds a similar statement: "You will never be happy if
you continue to search for
what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking
for the meaning of life."
An unrelated observation that someone made earlier this week is that
we Americans do not
go to art galleries, it's true. The problem they present is that
they want us to go inward when
we view these works of art. It's not good enough to just view
it passively like television. We,
at least those unlike the above introspection addicts, do not like
to come into grips with who
and what we truly are. It's much how I feel about music.
You cannot truly love a work of art
unless you study it, you feel it. All of my favorite music
is made by my favorite musicians. As
I've been saying for weeks now, it's the way a sandwich should be.
If learning everything about
my favorite musicians makes me a geek, then crown me king of the geeks.
Because music means
much more to me than science ever did. No disrespect to science,
I love that too. But when I
get home, I don't spend hours reading the latest science journals.
It's just that I can identify with
the creative more easily than the scientific.
You'll see how today's updates are quickly degenerating in class.
The next thing I have to say is
my observation on the Grammy Awards. They do not honor the best
music of the year, but
rather the most commercially successful music of the year, as well
as new releases by established
artists that many years ago were commercially successful. That's
why I can't take the thing
seriously. It's a farce.
Our president (tee hee) recently has been involved in two bloopers.
I think I heard both of these
from Tom. Anyway, the first one was when an interviewer asked
him what he thinks of the
Taliban. He replied that he hadn't heard any of their stuff.
It's like Mystikal: "Danger!!" Next:
At one of the inaugural balls he went to, he aided in stripping his
own 19 year old daughter. He
was dancing with her, and the fool tried to spin her around, only he
apparently lacks in the dancing
department. He accidentally exposed her breast. She was
facing away from the photographers,
fortunately for her. But, gosh, what an idiot.
If jokes in poor taste offend you, stop reading now. Thank you,
James McHale, for these.
So a guy and a girl are walking into the woods at night. The
girl says to the guy that she is really
scared because of how dark it is. So the guy responds back, "You're
scared? I'm the one who
has to come back alone!" (Did I tell this one right? It's not
a hilarious joke or anything, but it's
more one of those "I get it..." types. Let's see if you like
the next one better.)
A guy comes back to his run-down country home from
a day trip and he sees that his girlfriend
is there sitting on a rocking chair, waiting on the porch for him.
He asks her what's going on and
she answers that she wants to break up with him. He asks why,
and she answers that his friends
told her that he's a pedophile. He replies back: "Pedophile??
That's an awfully big word for a 10
year old!"
Janet Reno visits TRL. Scary photobooth shots.
My top 20 of 2000:
01. Radiohead: Kid A
02. Deftones: The White Pony
03. Outkast: Stankonia
04. A Perfect Circle: Mer De Noms
05. Nine Inch Nails: Things Falling Apart
06. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP
07. Common: Like Water For Chocolate
08. Deltron 3030: Deltron 3030
09. Godspeed You Black Emperor!: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas
To Heaven
10. The Dandy Warhols: 13 Tales Of Urban Bohemia
11. At The Drive-In: Relationship Of Command
12. Ghostface Killah: Supreme Clientele
13. Roni Size/Reprazent: In The Mode
14. Bjork: Selmasongs EP (Motion Picture Score to 'Dancer In The
Dark')
15. Wu-Tang Clan: The W
16. Smashing Pumpkins: Machina/The Machines Of God
17. Air: The Virgin Suicides (Motion Picture Score)
18. U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
19. Neil Young: Silver & Gold
20. Primal Scream: XTRMNTR
1/25/01 4:09pm
"Life is a sum of all your choices."
Albert Camus
This is what was at the front of my Dickinson
admission acceptance package. Yes, I'm finally
in. I am very happy. However, they're not offering any
scholarships, merit- or need-based.
They are offering over $6,000 of loans and a work study offer.
I don't know if I'll take the loans
or not, but it's better than nothing. They had a lot of applicants
this year so I am glad I got in, I'm
not going to get hung up over not getting one of their scholarships.
Don't forget to check the
colleges page to see which other 5 schools
I've been accepted into so far. Three more to go!
For
Ms. Peters:
"But in bed he was so fresh and gay,
So coaxing, so persuasive... Heaven knows
Whenever he wanted it - my belle chose -
Though he had beaten me in every bone
He still could wheedle me to love, I own.
I think I loved him best, I'll tell no lie.
He was disdainful in his love, that's why.
We women have a curious fantasy
In such affairs, or so it seems to me.
When something's difficult, or can't be had,
We crave and cry for it all day like mad.
Forbid a thing, we pine for it all night.
Press fast upon us and we take to flight;
We use disdain in offering our wares.
A throng of buyers sends prices up at fairs,
Cheap goods have little value, they suppose;
And that's a thing that every woman knows."
-Wife of Bath's prologue in Geoffrey Chaucer's The
Canterbury Tales (modern translation).
Chaucer was the best rap lyricist of all time.
1/23/01 6:49pm
Bukkake for all...
Wanna appear clinical? Just be proud to be cynical.
And there's plenty to be cynical about lately. This is sad in itself
because cynicism is
annoying, pretentious, and depresses everybody. Here're the latest
sparks of anger.
On his second full day of office, "President" W. has already started
battling abortion. If
you live in DC, you're out of luck, because something like 40% of all
black teenage girls
are with child (or have been pregnant). Which kind of brings me to
my next point.
Something to fuel the inner, only privately revealed subtle racism that
the intellectual white
male has: The results of a study were announced today, declaring the
average black 12th
grader to read and write at the level of an 8th grade white. This is
pretty sad because the
average white student is a rather poor student (and, no offense, not
really a culture of people
I want anything to do with). Let's all go read The Jungle Book
now.
1/18/01 9:03pm
For the last two evenings I have been slowly and methodically driving
myself mad. I have been
immersing myself in the endless resources that are the U.S.
Internet Movie Database and 2600.
Both have been able to bring back fond memories from four or more years
ago, before
everything changed. Anyway, I have several hours at these two
sites and have been suffering
from delusion, dizziness, and extreme wary while feeling the utter
satisfaction of pure, interesting
knowledge. At 2600, check out their archive
of hacked sites. My favorite is the U.S. Department
of Justice from way back in 1996. I actually remember when it
happened because I was just
starting to use the Web. I don't hack; I don't know how and I'm
too nice of a guy, but I really
admire a lot of the social commentary these people made, especially
at the sites of corporations
and governments who have done severe wrong. Brilliant.
On a vastly different note, I was pleased to see justice served by a
major electronics company.
In 2000 I had two pairs of headphones stop functioning randomly.
In each case, the left earphone
would not work, effectively being muted. Only one side would
work. Both pairs were made by
KOSS, so on a whim I looked up their address and sent them back.
What did I have to lose really?
They were both broken forever anyway. One cost about $10
and the other, which only lasted about
9 months, was $27. The latter was a wonderful pair in quality
but I guess it wasn't everlasting.
Anyway this week they sent me two free, identical replacements.
Yay! =) I'm actually going to sell the
pair of lesser quality because I don't need it, nor the $30 pair purchased
in December of last year to
replace the second Koss set. Ironically the most expensive pair
is uglier, hurts my left ear (too tight),
has bad bass, is heavier, and is kinda sweaty. So the moral of
the story is to take chances, especially
when you have nothing to lose. Don't take pity on a million or
billion dollar company over some little
thing when you're the one barely getting by.
Lastly, I am pleased to announce that Jason Newstead, the kind-of-cool
bassist from the despicable
corporate entity Metallica, has left the band after ten or so years.
Metallica really sucks now. And it's
not just because they've sold out (ie: become whores for the RIAA and
capitalism in general) but because
their music has been pretty bad for a long time now. It's time
to give it up, guys. Though they announced
plans to find a new bassist, I do hope the band breaks up. Clearly
they've lost their will to be actual
musicians as they now have successful careers in marketing, acting,
and public relations. They are now
officially a joke.
1/13/01 8:41pm
Ever wonder what that song meant when the rapper informed us he was
sipping on some syrup?
"Syrup" is the prescription-only, codeine-containing cough medicine
Promethazine, popular in the
South as a recreational intoxicant. DJ Screw recently overdosed
on a mix of the aforementioned
with alcohol and marijuana.
1/12/01 8:17pm
Last week I began working for the FCC. It's an interesting opportunity
to learn how they work and
think. It's also $15/hour. We're testing out the billion
dollar auction that you may have read about in
the news. The FCC, who have come to our school to hire 20 students
to do this part time after the
school day is over, want to figure out new strategies that companies
may employ to get the most bang
for their buck (ie: highest value auction items/packages for the lowest
amount). We are also trying to
literally break the system. Fun, complicated stuff. But
I dislike the FCC for political and ethical reasons.
Namely, their denial of the freedom of speech, something our nation
is supposed to protect. By
regulating the airwaves for content we cannot truly exercise this right.
Decency is extremely subjective,
and considering the age and wealth status of the heads of the FCC,
their version of decent is not the same
as mine. On that note, their year long fascist 1995 Communications
Decency Act, which was fortunately
repealed for being unconstitutional, really offended me. For
those who do not know, this was their attempt
at regulating the Internet for content. As far as morality goes,
I see much wrong with how the American
government owned FCC is selling back to us our own airwaves.
Nobody truly owns them. One day we
may have to pay to breathe.
Mr. Parsons, teacher of AP US Politics, a course I took last year, informed
some students of a very clever
way to cheat the postal service. You can use the return address
to send free mail. Try it yourself. Put
your own address in the "To:" section and your destination address
where you would normally put your
own, that is, the return address. Affix no stamp and send it
off. Both addresses must be relatively nearby.
In other words, don't try it with California; stick to your own state,
perhaps even county. The postal
service will see there is no stamp and they will send it back to the
return address. Voila. Free postage.
On a related note, this is an idea from junior Ricky Lorenco (Rikki
don't lose that number...). It's much like
an idea I've always toyed with. That is, angering my school's
reputation of having 100% of its graduates
being accepted into four year colleges by my applying to merely PG
Community College (a two year
school). That would be a waste of my education though.
Ricky's idea is much better. Firstly, it should be
stated that St. Anselm's will not let anyone graduate who did not get
into a four year school. That's pretty
sick, I think. But anyway. Ricky, who is a racial minority
but at no disadvantage socially or economically
whatsoever, suggested that he and other students next year all apply
to UDC, a school entirely made up of
minorities and not exactly a demanding school academically. They'd
also apply to whatever schools they're
really interested in, Harvard, Yale, whatever. They'd get in
to whichever one and then send in their letter of
intent. However, they'd give St. Anselm's contradicting information
saying that their intent is to attend UDC,
even though they were admitted into those other schools. St.
Anselm's would have no choice but to face the
embarrassment of listing UDC as their destination college in all subsequent
newsletters and publications. It
would be glorious.
Has anyone else seen the video for "Good Fortune" playing non-stop on
the lovely, newest addition to
Comcast Cable, MTV2? PJ Harvey is so undeniably beautiful.
On the other end of the spectrum, the young ladies auditioning for the current school play = Lil Bow Wows.
It's weird how there is such a stigma attached to having online friends
that you don't know in person. I was
thinking about how acceptable it is now to email and IM people, but
then I realized it's only okay if they're
your family, coworkers, or classmates. It's still geeky and socially
deplorable to have online friends. This
kind of relates to my situation with my friends. I have lots
of friends, but very, very few good friends. The
reason is not that I am a boring kind of guy or that I am significantly
lacking in any personality traits. It's that
for six years I haven't had a circle of friends, meaning a group of
people who all like and want to be around
each other. Every single one of my friends I have on an individual
level. This is very bad for me because I am
shy and mildly insecure when it comes to people I genuinely like being
around. This is how most of my real life
friendships over the years have ended. I've exhausted my options
of what to talk about and do. Not having a
circle, there are only famous people and not common acquaintances in
which to talk about. It also gets a bit dull
hanging out with just one person. By the way, I mean guys here,
not girls. Up until summer of 2000 I didn't have
any female friends, and when I went to co-ed school I was always so
shy and disconnected that I only had a
few of them, and only one whose house I had ever been to (though about
5 had visited mine). Anyway, the
social environment is one of the key things I look forward to in college.
I was chatting with Matt (Leviathant) today. We talked of the
essence of Nine Inch Nails. This
is definitely
worth reading.
1/8/01 10:31pm
Check out the college page. I should
be more grateful but I don't really feel I've accomplished anything yet.
It baffles me how in five years at St. Anselm's almost nobody has caught
on that I've always taken school
very seriously and that's why I don't talk. It's funny because
I'm much more relaxed and fun outside of
school. I don't know, maybe I'll try to incorporate some of that
outside energy into school now that it's
the last semester of high school. It seems kind of pointless
but I have nothing to lose really.
Songs of the moment:
Dandy Warhols - Sleep
Dr. Dre f/ Xzibit & Eminem - What's The Difference
Fatboy Slim f/ a sample of Jim Morrison - Sunset (Bird Of Prey)
Nine Inch Nails - The Day The World Went Away (acoustic Q101 performance,
never broadcast)
PJ Harvey f/ Thom Yorke - This Mess We're In
1/7/01 1:41pm
Here's the dream I had on the dreaded eve of returning back to school.
I dreamt that, in the middle of
the year, I transferred from my private boys' school into a big public
high school. Apparently I came
during their lunch period, because the first part of the dream was
me entering a cafeteria. There were
two very long tables parallel to each other. One was full of
cool, attractive, chattering people, and the
other of about 5 nerds and ugly people. Two nerds, seated together
at one end of the table, were
talking to each other. They looked like the nerd scientist on
The Simpsons. Anyway, I wanted to sit at
the more populated table just so I could make friends but alas it was
truly full. So I, embarassed, sat at
the nerd table. I observed briefly the crux of the other table,
a perky, blonde haired, blue eyed, not dumb
but not too smart girl who seemed to be the most popular girl in the
class, if not school. After lunch there
were classes. Either between classes or after school, I met this
girl and instantly fell in love, though it was
just small talk. She was nice, surprisingly, but not flirtatious
or particularly interesting. Anyway, I walked
home (?) daydreaming of her. The next day there were more classes
where I watched her again. At lunch,
the cool table was again full. Once more I took a seat at the nerd
table. An observation made by one of the
two nerds at the end of the table hit my mind like a ton of bricks.
He noted that, of all the chairs being used
at the two tables, everyone had a chair from the same set except for
he and the other nerd. Anyway, I
talked to the girl again, briefly. She must have seemed somewhat
interested in me because I think we made
out in a gym, where everyone from school was making out. In fact,
some guy asked me, but not in a way
signifying he himself was interested, Do you make out? (Note:
If you can't catch the symbolism of this
dream...) So, the most popular girl in the school told me where
she lives and she may or may not have
actually suggested that I stop by later, but I did just that.
When I knocked, a woman looking like Aunt
Jemimah answered. Both her and a small, extremely skinny kid waving
his arms out of a second story
window were black, though the girl was white. The girl, whose
name I forget, wasn't home. Then the Aunt
Jemimah type said that they all spoke Tahitian there. I pretentiously
mouthed the word "Woah" and walked
away. I don't remember anything else from the dream.
Does this mean college is going to suck for me?
Speaking of colleges, I think what nailed the coffin in for LaSalle
was my discovery of the DALnet channel
#lasalle. It is devoted to the school. I've been
in there about three times now. I've never seen a
conversation ever, just people asking to be pinged. What killed
the school for me though is the names people
use. Sexy Girl 16, Kool Dude, Wesley Snipes, and similar obnoxious
entities. Yikes, count me out.
1/3/01 12:43am
Instinct is a blessing. Wouldn't it be interesting if, for just
one day, we all trusted and functioned solely on instinct?
Revised: 3:05pm
Radiohead has been nominated for some Grammy's. Album of the
Year, Best Alternative Music Album,
Producer of the Year (Nigel Godrich), Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
(Nigel Godrich). You can
check out the entire list here.
I really doubt they'll win anything. Not because they don't deserve
it, but
because the Grammy's are entirely trend oriented. Boy bands, Santana,
etc. Whatever the current
phenomenon is, they'll award it. I think that OK Computer
should've gotten the best album award a few
years back, but they gave it to a sub-par Bob Dylan record just because
he's Bob Dylan. Interestingly,
Eminem was nominated as well for this year's Album of the Year.
I think he'll get it, which will be funny
considering how much adults and prudish/uptight teenagers hate him.
The real shocker perhaps is the
nomination of Beck's Midnite Vultures in the same category.
No one really bought that record. Well, I
did, but I only listened to it about 3 times. It just shows how
much the Grammy's love Beck; they nominate
him every year in the Alternative categories. Apparently nothing
quality came out in 2000, if you examine
their choices (minus Radiohead and Eminem).
1/2/01 1:46am
Here's what I think. The suppositions that teenage girls have
regarding their possible bisexuality are chiefly
perpetuated by the myth that there is no such thing as a datable boy/man.
This creates a feeling of
hopelessness and a supposed "common ground" with other girls, none
of which will, by this logic, ever find
a worthy partner in a male. So they think the best and truly
only thing to do is to date each other. Modern
culture is not without a sense of humor.
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