The Last Semester: Cut-Up

A frequent posting meant to document my final semester of undergraduate studies. Lazy, wandering journal entries for posterity's sake.

friday night parties. Zencu in Little Tokyo for Poda's b-day. she was one of the first people i met here at university. sake bombs, stuffed calamari, grand roll. a beautiful beginning. Denny and i enjoy the views of a SI swimsuit program on TNT during dinner. then back to the apartment, with pabst in hand. then to the big red house where Brown, Peabody and Monsieur Rager have nicked some champagne from the inside 'sophomoric' party (in all the senses they assure me). eventually some roomies show up and we're off to an old parisian amie, Sia.

its a small get-together but nice. Pfff tries to get Sia to take a body shot off of him. she respectfully declines. the house runs out of cigarettes. Joe and Julie say they'll stick around if i go run get some from the 76 down the street. with Feels in my ear i'm off.

hood on, head down to deter any interested parties. cigarettes acquired. pause on the scaffolding taco shop across the way. sit, smoke, and bob my head along to the music. then continue heading back. pass my old building. haven't broken a window in the main entrance in a while. figure its time for it. and afterward i'll just hop out the back - a shortcut to the party. tall metal fence with sharp arrowheads of steel on top. around the side i use an adjacent fence to hopefully propel me over the steel arrows. the second fence begins to sway and i go for it, slicing the side of palm under my pinky open.

fuck.

it doesn't hurt too bad. good thing i had a buzz going. i light a cigarette and walk back to the party. "anybody sober enough to drive?" i'm convinced to call DPS. they take my info and then escort me to Good Sam, Kevin, whom i met earlier, comes as well. the woman DPS officer gets a picture after dropping me at the hospital. i get in to the emergency room easily enough and then wait. next to me is an obese shirtless hispanic man named William. he is having trouble staying conscious. the male nurse takes a picture of my cut. i hear slaps next door and calm shouts of "William. William. We need you to wake up." I look over and see him knocked out with tubes going into his nose. slap, slap, slap. "William, honey." i stare over. his eyes are closed. the nurse catches me and pulls the curtain. After some more slaps William starts to gurgle and mumbles, "Awwwgh! It GHurrts!" more of the same for the rest of the night. i got out at about 4 30 to find Kevin, Will, and Chelsey waiting outside to give me a lift home.

can't hold a guitar neck is possible bad news for a Clue Jr. reunion on march 2nd. but it also means more computer music for me. hopefully i won't fall prey to self-pity and laziness. fingers crossed!

The Last Semester: Week-End

A frequent posting meant to document my final semester of undergraduate studies. Lazy, wandering journal entries for posterity's sake.



its raining in the Grapevine. takes us almost two hours to get there because the friday traffic. although i didn't know at the time the back tires on Bear's car are completely bald. car starts to catch puddles. we seem to float across four lanes then we settle into the far right lane at humble 55 mph. Bear handles it but its damn scary. My 'Road To Max(imum Overdrive)' CD doesn't work in the car. We stop at a Best Buy in Gilroy to Coo's chagrin. New blank cd works and the mix gets us into San Jose in 45 minutes. But no. We go to Sonoma Chicken Coop in Campbell where Overdrive's birthday dinner is finishing up. Hello's then temporary goodbye's as we head to Overdrive's apartment for the bash.

Mickey's, Sierra Nevada, Apricot Ale. Blurry names. Shepherd from Firefly? Leo the Brit? Ms. Hip corners me on several occasions and calls me 'irritating' and two other non-flattering adjectives i don't (care to) recall. i add worthless to her list. Overdrive shows me some incredible Ratatat remixes. as the evening wanes, Ms. Hip and i argue music. The Brit (sans accent) tells us to shut the fuck up. then me specifically. "(Overdrive), i love you, i love most of your friends." mood soured, sleep enjoyed.

Slow morning. Fantastic scene in front of the bathroom mirror with four or five people in their applying makeup, teeth brushing, hair combing, talking as Interpol plays on the small stereo. Then to Cafe San Jose for some delicious hangover cures. Then to Goodwill and the acquisition of a nice croquet set and a Cosby LP for Peabody. Followed by croquet in the park. Your humble author taking the prize both games. Video games and lethargy back at Overdrive's apartment. Then to Berkeley.

Bear's car takes us past Oakland with the tunes of Ms. Hip. a Diplo mix. fine, i guess. We hang out at Qua's house and watch Rain Man. "what's hummus?" the Bear asks. "its greek for dip," i reply. Car 2 carrying Overdrive, Captain America, and Joe French arrives and we head out for burritos, pitchers of beer and I, Robot in spanish. A walk through Berkeley campus gets us to the row of bars. "Brrr, It's Cold!" Sports Bar filled with Berkeley gear. BroTV bores, so Bear takes to the jukebox. "Drain You", "Soul to Squeeze" and some CCR to begin the reminiscing. Then Overdrive steps up (after two whiskey shots from Bear) with "New Year's Day", "Hey Joe" and another that escapes me. The place fills up. A smoke break takes us outside to meet the Joke Writer. Jokes had his "old lady's" guitar and told us how he loved life and once sold jokes to George Carlin on the streets of New York for 50 bucks ("you think those cops over there speak pig latin?").

Then a long walk to a billiards bar. Drinks all around (Racer 5 IPA was it?). A guy in Kanye glasses sparks me to proclaim "808s & Heartbreak til i die!" Observation by Overdrive about your humble author, "your level of intoxication is inversely related to your respect for authority." Captain America is does not adjust his trajectory for bushes or trees. Bear is checking all doors. Wine bottles crash to the ground from a recycling can. The point of going out to bars is to enjoy the walk home. A phone book (my achilles heel) knocks me out of a tree. i climb the scaffolding of the building next to Qua's apartment. i jump from roof B to roof A where we spend the rest of the night enjoying the view, drinking vodka, tossing pots ("when we're drunk we do things that just are not cool"), bullshitting and listening to Autolux.



Waking up on hardwood floor at noon. A Firestone is spotted on the way out of Berkeley. We decide to fix the bald tires in order to survive the Gilroy road and Grapevine once again. Lunch at a burger joint owned by two brothers raised by their grandfather. They've got "sweet plus (chuckles)" but no splenda. Wandering. Another Goodwill visit. less successful. Catch the end of the Lakers v. Cavs game (LeBron is sloppy). Leaving Berkeley by 3:30 with Merriweather Post Pavillion dominating the soundscape of Bear's car. the sea and "My Girls" and we're fucking floating. land in San Jose after the album ends. Moan's depiction of "Wham City" (inset) is incredible and a summation of that week-end as it was coming to its undesired end. Overdrive to work. World's Strongest Ghost promises made. To Santa Cruz to acquire the Coo. Successfully brave the Gilroy and the Grapevine (thanks to the new treads) to get back to "home" by 1 in the AM.

Merriweather Post Pavilion now belongs to that one perfect week-end.

Jerry Fellwell (version 2)

based upon a loop by james meiser. i don't do it justice. a second version that is arguably better than the first.

Altman And Anderson

i'm not fond of multiple character storyarcs that intertwine only fleetingly. i guess i like the idea of it. expanding on supporting characters giving them the fullness they deserve as human beings. but its just been abused as of late with the likes of Babel and Crash. though some of the best examples of this device come from Altman and Anderson. three standouts for me feature their characters being connected by increasingly more surreal events. the assassination of a country star in Nashville, earthquake in Short Cuts, frog rain in Magnolia (this really is the absurdist end of the 'genre'). after those three is there really much else to be mined from this overly realist conceit?

Incredibad.

Like A Boss by The Lonely Island. Incredibad indeed.

The Curious Case of Me Bawling in Benjamin Button

From multiple sources of mine (i refuse to name names), i was under the impression that Benjamin Button was an overlong, mediocre turd of a movie. But i wanted to like it for a handful of reasons (my affinity for sweeping romances, David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Forrest Gump - which, admittedly, this film resembles in a number of cases). Ok, i'll name names: Roger Ebert is completely dismissive (he doesn't even mention Cate Blanchett, let alone anything beyond the concept). He misses the point, however. The moment where everything fell in to place for me i will retell right here, for Mr. Ebert's sake.

Benjamin, at age 7, living in a retirement home because he resembles a geriatric, explains his reverse-aging to a fellow resident. In reflecting back on the conversation he doesn't remember the woman's name but he does recall she taught him how to play piano. After he tells her of his condition she says she pities him, "to have to see everyone you love, die before you. That would be an awful responsibility." I sit in the theater and think to myself, 'that is terrible.' Benjamin had never thought about it this way. She sees his thoughtful stare, "Benjamin ... we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?" I was sad for Benjamin having to go through life the way he does. But in a split second i realized how unfairly appropriate this is. I thought about losing my grandmother last year, and my 20-year-old cousin the year before that. That pain all rushed back as the next scene announced the passing of that dear old woman who taught Benjamin to play piano. They didn't show her in the coffin in the cemetery. Because she wasn't in there. Aaron was. Gramma Smoot was. And i realized that i felt more connected to the plight of that hideous CGI-ed geriatric Brad Pitt than any other character i had seen on screen in many a long while. I wept several times during the movie. Bawled like a helpless infant. I haven't been moved to tears like that by a film in a long while either. Good thing i saw it by myself. It was pretty goddamn embarrassing.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button wanders through life, rarely peaking with the dramatic intensity we've become accustomed to in epic romances (no yelling matches between lovers ending in ecstatic sex - no yelling of any kind really). Its understated tone made the simplistic love story all the more devastating for me. Instead of leaving my wife and child for fear that i will end up burdening them as i regress in age, i'll probably just get divorced like most. And i'll be left sending postcards to my daughter from the faraway lands that i selfishly pursue. I only hope, after all that, i can have someone there for me at the end. Whether its an old love or my daughter. Going out the same way i came in: surrounded by love. Oh, did i mention this movie is kind of corny sometimes too? That may be affecting my writing about it ... maybe.

In And Out (Ed Wood Soundtrack)

from 09's Ed Wood film festival. all blips and beeps by your humble author.



and the video: