Background Noise: My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
So I'm listening to My Chemical Romance - a crazy goth/emo/stupid-makeup-wearing band. It's like every possible combination of things that people should hate, all rolled into one. And I like it. I swear I tried some other album and it was godaweful, but The Black Parade is pretty sweet. Like awesomely so. What's the world coming to that groups I thought I hated are becoming super awesome?
And I just finished (literally) reading (read the final pages to the first few songs of this crazy album) Frank Miller's 300. You may have seen the facemelting trailer. Let me just say, if the movie is even half as good as the comic, well, christ. Heads are going to explode from the sheer awesomeness of the thing. And from the look of the trailer... it may even be better. Better! Inconceivable!
Background Noise: Black Label Society - Hangover Music Vol. VI
Finished watching District B13 half an hour ago or so, over dinner (delicious homemade beef stew so thick and chunky it'd make NFL mothers proud) - a surprisingly substantial move of the, for lack of a better label, martial arts genre. It was dubbed, but I think the important actors were voiced by themselves - or someone that could believably be them. An actual plot, look at governmental/police corruption and such in a believable near future, and problems solved not by violence but brash free press and stubborn idealism.
Somehow I go from that to a second bowl of stew and flipping threw scenes of Crash, and of course the first scene I hit is the Mexican locksmith giving his daughter the invulnerability cloak. First time I saw it, it made me smile in that sensitive way I generally reserve for babies, with a hint of bittersweetness. This time I just cried. So I flip to the end to watch Ludacris set the Asians free. That brings a tear to my eye, too. I guess I'm just feeling sensitive tonight.
Maybe it's all the thinking about finals, or about going back home, or worrying about what happens after I graduate, or getting a job next semester (I converted all my school loans to work study today, so I think I may be stuck now), or wishing I could see my babe more than a few days every couple of weeks, or the frustration of liking this crazy class on nonviolence but being unable to do the work or find the things I'm expected to know so that it's nearly impossible to study for. Maybe it's all of those. Maybe I'm just really sleepy, too, because I know that one's true. I think stress makes me depressed, and depression makes me lonely, and loneliness makes me sensitive.
I'm not complaining, I just felt like putting it down today. Funny, that, isn't it? Probably the combination of teary-eyedness, boredom, and this album, two songs in particular: "Woman Don't Cry" and "Fear." The first one always makes me feel so sentimental - it's just one of those songs where it doesn't even matter what he's saying, which is good because he's not saying much. "Fear" says a bit more, but I never caught it till I looked it up...
The sun that's set on our souls All that's lost as the day is old When the truth becomes one big lie So low you never know when you're high And you thought that you knew it all Think again, in the end we all fall When the truth becomes one big lie So low you never know when you're high
Oh, back home Oh, back home Oh, the fear of being alone
Background Noise: Spacemonkeys vs. Gorillaz - 19/2000-Jungle Fresh
Halloween kicks ass.
But you knew that. Millions of people running around in crazy outfits, girls wearing outfits no self-respecting stripper would dream of wearing out, gay men in clothes so small even the girls are flinching, police choppers overhead, riot police on megaphones yelling "THE EVENT IS CLOSED" like on some crazy techno song. Good times.
I mean, when else can a guy run around wearing nothing but a giant penis? Or go out as a giant penis? Never, that's when.
And man is it sweet to be that guy with the hot girlfriend who everybody's constantly staring at and elbowing each other to check out. Bunnies have never been sexier, I tell you what.
Background Noise: Various Artists - Essential Lounge Brazil
So last night was supposed to be the night to celebrate Halloween, seeing as Halloween itself is on a Tuesday of all days this year. Meaning that nobody is doing anything since they have work and class and all that nonsense. Seriously, you'd think that at least in college people would recognize that Halloween is a holiday deserving a day or two off.
Anyway, it was disappointingly uneventful. Started off at a friend's Birthday/Halloween/Every Holiday Ever party, which was kind of fun. Met some people I didn't know and whatnot, and ate some turkey legs. Although he did forget to mention, to either party involved, that my ex would also be there, until about 5 min before hand. Not that I mind much, since I've got nothing really against her, but she's still pretty awkward about it, which means it is awkward, in general.
So I rolled out with some other friends who showed up to head to a party with another friend's sibling or something silly. That didn't actually pan out, so they were gonna head somewhere else and maybe do something somewhere... so I got dropped off to hang out with a second friend and his roommates, before they hit up another party at the Oscar Wilde house (or however you spell that guys name). We left late, and it was past maximum Fire Hazard capacity when we got there. And there was a $5 fee. And you had to bring your own alcohol. How silly is that? Then it turned out that the frat party I planned to go to, knowing one of the guys helping organize it, was basically the same situation - they invited 800 (on their actual list) and had room for 200, plus everyone else that just walked up... so no luck there.
But wait! There's more.
So we're walking back many blocks down this same street to another co-op right across the street from my pals apartment, when we learn of a frat party that we can get into - huzzah! We get let in all sneaky like, and it's pretty small and lame. The guy who got us in does a keg stand, and finishes off all the beer. So we leave, because nothing's happening, we don't know anyone, and its boring. We get nearly to the apartment and get a call that the party we left got more beer. Everybody is mad. They give up. My friend and I decide to just check on the co-op party, since we're literally 20 feet from the door (but we can't hear anything, so we're not too hopeful). Some guy at the door asks if we know anybody who lives there, so we say who and describe his room. He lies and says he doesn't live there, but if we give them 3 bucks we can get in to an amazing party. We decide he's full of crap and leave.
So we passed the night hanging out, talking and whatnot, and finished with a showing of Shaun of the Dead, with the "zombimeter" subtitles on. Turns out it's just the most random and hilarious and interesting of facts about the movie, music, and people. So that was pretty sweet. Then I came home and slept the sleep of the innocent. And now, I'm off to a boring meeting before I start my otherwise uneventful day.
So I was going to write a post, couple of posts, actually, about how much fun it is to actually go out and do stuff on Saturday night (especially when everyone else is drinking - I love drunk people!) and how much I've realized it bothers me that no one makes eye contact walking down the street anymore. But it's super late (well, not super, but I'm super tired - stupid retard-heat and even retardeder heat-wind) and I am super retarded stupid tired. I assume that's obvious. Maybe later.
Background Noise: DJ Tiesto - In Search of Sunrise 4
That's right people, I'm back. In many, many ways.
I meant to do this over the summer, after attending BFD, because that kicked all kinds of ass, but I never did. I'll give a Summer update later on. Most anyone who might read this knows already anyway (but I like to imagine I have a host of loyal fans scattered round the globe, wondering with tense anticipation what I've done these past months).
So. This weekend. Download Festival 2006. Kick. Ass. So. Hard. Oh man.
Here's just who we saw: Rogue Wave (who I'd never heard of but were good), TV On The Radio (who were awesome and every other band after them kept talking about), The Shins (who were themselves but had like a million screeming people watching htem), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who are crazy/awesome), and Beck (who is a crazy, crazy man). There was also Muse (who we heard, but I don't like), Coheed and Cambria (who we missed because we were watching people wave buring chains around and dance with giant green dragons, all to a sweet musical background (see Mutaytor, below), and some other bands I don't know and didn't hear.
Also Mutaytor, which is not so much a band as it is a performance group with a rotating cast of firedancers, crazy chinese dragon people (like the ones you see on TV at chinese new year, only wiht 2 people instead of 20), gymnasts, hulahoopers, and a 13 piece backup band, which consisted of like 5 drummers, a crazy man who ran around hitting things with sticks, one lone guitarist, a 3 piece horn section (the sax player was wearing a purple pinstripe suit), and a DJ or some such. And only 2 of the percutionists had actual drumsets. Or even drums. It was the most crowded stage ever.
Karen O (lead singer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, duh) came out dressed all crazy as always, but halfway through she grabbed this silly little hat, and you realized she was actually wearing a dinosaur costume, and the hat had horns and spikes on it, and so did her shirt/unitard thing. So hillarious. Also she danced/stalked around for a song like a dinosaur. A 5 year old dinosaur in kindergarten. That's just amazing.
Beck was by far the greatest show of the night, and the best I've ever seen. First I have to say that I didn't realize his band was like 7 or 8 people, and that he's obviously good friends with them all. Second, and perhaps best, was that they had this little mini stage up on the actual stage, and they had puppets for the entire band (like the ones from Team America, only about a foot hight), all 7 or 8 of them, and pupeteers acting out every single thing they did. There was a giant screen behind the band that just showed the puppets, and not the band, which was pretty hillarious all on it's own.
And aparently Beck is one of those bands (guys, artists, performers?) that put on shows that are way more Rockin' than their songs are when you just listen to them on your lonesome. Oh man, that place was jumpin. All... however many thousand people in the Shoreline (22,000 actually - I just looked it up).
There was also a segment where everyone but Beck himself (who I think looked amazingly like David Spade, what with his long hair and cowboy hat) sat down at a little dinner table and they actually were served dinner by one of the band guys, while Beck played an acoustic set with just his guitar and harmonica. Except that eventually you noticed other noises/sounds, and after about 3 songs it just exploded with everybody at the table wailing away on wineglasses, plates, silver platters, etc, and making just the most awesome music. It was brilliant.
Then there was the intermission before the encore...
It consisted of a short "documentary" starring the puppets, all voiced by the people they represent, about their day at the Shorline before the concert. It was hillarious. And then they did another short, again with the puppets, called... Snakes On A Bus. Wherein the entire band is killed in gruesome (if you used your imagination to fill in all the gore and whatnot) ways by a really, really bad rubber cobra.
Then the band filed back out (most of it) preceded by two giant teddy bears, or actually men in teddy bear suits, who proceded to fight both each other and one of the band members (previously dressed all in leather, and now sporting a motorcycle helmet to boot) who in turn faught the bears with breakdancing and by doing The Robot. The puppets acted out the bears fighting as well, but the puppet bears (actual teddy bears) had to join forces to defeat the evil rubber cobra from the movie. The real giant bears ended up collapsing a drum set and nearly killing a drummer. Then there was all kinds of rocking and 20 thousand people clapping along to "Clap Hands" as hard as they could when Beck came back out to play again.
I was so very happy.
The only disappointment (and it was kind of a big one) was the Wolfmother flaked. Aparently one of the guys had a baby yesterday (or at any rate, his wife/girlfriend did) which I guess is a pretty good excuse. I was still sad, but that's ok. The whole thing was still mindblowingly awesome.
