I thought I was someone new, someone good

Lou Reed directed the video for Susan Boyle's version of "Perfect Day." That is one of my very favorite songs of all time, and while I don't love the Boyle version, I do think the video is pretty spectacular. Really fits well with the sort of ethereal take on the song, too.

Now you must suffer with me

On the day of our final, my science teacher showed us some videos to relax us a bit, one of which has been stuck in my head for, like, 2 weeks now. And apparently my professor's 4-year-old loves them.

Hippo and Dog


Hippo fart annoys Dog


And last, but not least, the creepy German Gummy Bear (also comes in Spanish, French, Swedish and Slovak, but I think I like the German one the best, because German is inherently funny):


Good luck getting it out of your head if you watch it.

Things amusing me today

- Really young, athletic, toned, beautiful people having obviously just come from the gym practically fighting each other for parking spaces in the lot where I work that are close to the door. Or otherwise just sitting there idling in their giant SUV's waiting for someone to pull out of a space that's about 5 spaces closer than the empty one.

- The fact that Hillary Clinton's campaign is over.

- "Paper Planes" by M.I.A.

- I spent three days with my family and only really got irritated, like, once. In fact, I had some of the most fun I've had in ages. Especially with my brother, who I hardly ever get to hang out with. He loved going out drinking, and meeting my friends. He really, really, really wants to come back and visit again already.

- I don't have any more homework. Ever. At least until I go back to school. Assuming any grad school ever accepts me. But that will all be at least profession-related homework.

- I have a new record player and I love record shopping!

- Finding copies of books (on my own bookshelf!) I want and didn't realize I owned.

- "Stimulus" checks.

- My best friends coming to visit me at my miserable job.

- I'm not depressed yet from having graduated. (Give it another couple hours.)

- I have ideas for 3 different novellas I want to write. I'm just aiming for novellas because I'm not sure I can actually write a whole novel. Besides, a novellas are good for people with short attention spans. Like me.

- This performance video of Dolly Parton performing one of the most fucked up songs ever written. I was already familiar with the song, but I played it for Tom last night and it literally left him speechless.



- And along those lines, this really hot cover of "Jolene" by the White Stripes:

Take This Ball and Chain

One of my coworkers, who goes by the name Miss Lauren Marie, and is the singer for a country/rockabilly-type band, told me the other day that she just booked a West Coast tour opening up for Mike Ness.



Anyone who knows me at all knows that I used to in love with Mike Ness! He was my first post-teeny-bopper crush (George Michael was really my first crush ever), and I got really into Social Distortion in 9th grade, when all I listened to was showtunes. And Social D.



For years afterward, I got so hot for guys with tattoos. Bonus points if they also wore a lot of eyeliner and had bad teeth or a gravelly voice. I started smoking in college because I wanted to ruin my voice and make it sound like Kurt Cobain.

I saw Social D. live at least 3 times in high school and college (or maybe it was just college), and decided I, too, someday wanted tattoo sleeves.

Yes. Sleeves. On me.

After Mike Ness my big crush was Tim Armstrong of Rancid.



Oh, boy, I had it bad for him. Skinny, painted-on pants, the sinewy guitar-playing arms, the attitude, the voice. I also held on to the delusion for years that I was punk rock.

To this day, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the ugly, tattooed, skinny, punk rock boys who smoke too much. Or stocky ones (a la Ness). I met him once, after a show in Dallas, and all I could mutter was that he was awesome. He said "Thank you." I've never been very graceful around celebrities. Have I ever told my story about going backstage after an Imperial Teen show and making a complete idiot out of myself? I haven't? Well, there's a reason for that.

So while I got excited for my co-worker because it's kind of a break for her, I only fondly remembered my past loves. I told her to tell Mike Ness that it was he who was my first love and that in 9th grade I stole my brother's copy of Social Distortion and listened to nothing but that and Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtracks for, like, a year. But I eventually got all the records, and even bought that atrocious documentary Another State of Mind (which I still have).

I'm sure she won't remember to tell him, but maybe she will and he'll find it amusing. That's all I hope.

If you have no other choice

Last night I went to I Love Video with the intent to rent Night Train Murders after hearing Eli Roth talk about what a huge influence it was on Hostel 2 on the commentary of that movie (which is great, by the way; I highly recommend it), but instead impulsively rented a little documentary called Follow My Voice, about recording a tribute album to Hedwig and the Angry Inch by a bunch of indie rock hipsters (Sleater-Kinney, Ben Folds, Frank Black, Jonathan Richman, Polyphonic Spree, They Might Be Giants, Cyndi Lauper, Yo La Tengo, The Breeders, Stephen Colbert, and a few more).

Mixed in to behind the scenes recording of the record, however, are video diaries of several teenagers attending the Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan, which is a school composed primarily of gay and transgender students (and what proceeds of the CD are benefitting), but open to anyone who wants to come there because they don't fit in at a regular school, or they feel threatened, or whatever. At first the video diaries kind of annoyed me, and I thought they were boring, and I just wanted to see more bands doing awesome songs, but the longer the movie went on, the more it roped me in. I started to see a structure to the film, which is that it was taking the themes of the songs and weaving it into the themes of the kids' diaries to, essentially, create the structure, or plot, of the documentary. It's subtle, and doesn't always work, but when it does work, it's incredible. I got all choked up watching a transgender teenager getting her hair done for prom, while the Polyphonic Spree performed "Wig in a Box" (perhaps my favorite song from the whole movie), which is totally ridiculous, but it just works.

All in all, it turned out to be a really inspiring film, and the scene towards the end, when the high school finally opens as a fully-accredited high school in New York, and the police have to set up fencing to keep back the protestors, but the kids walk through anyway, beaming, as they are also cheered on by many, many supporters, just warms the heart and really gives one hope. (It's also quite reminiscent of footage of the integration of Central High in Little Rock back in the 50's, which is some of the most amazing stuff I've ever seen.)

Okay, I know I'm not being very eloquent here, but I just woke up. If you love Hedwig, or just love rock-n-roll, or just love great documentaries, check it out. You can buy the CD here, though I'm not sure the proceeds are still going to the school, since I checked the actual web site of the record label, and it no longer exists.

In the meantime, enjoy some "Wig in a Box" from the movie!

itunes, mytunes

So, I was perusing my itunes library earlier and thought that my list of most played songs was interesting. I use itunes primarily to download singles, mostly one-offs by people I like but would never buy their records, but sometimes by people I also like, but just download a song for whatever reason. I also load records onto it for the purposes of making mix CD's, and for putting it on shuffle in my kitchen when I'm cooking or cleaning.

I thought you might enjoy a little glimpse into my listening habits when it comes to singles on itunes.

Most Played:

Why not me - the Judds (18 plays since download)

Samson - Regina Spektor (18 plays)

Who You'd be today - Kenny Chesney (16 plays)

Goodbye Yello Brick Road - Elton John (16 plays)

Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen (15 plays)

fart (courtesy of Tommy Strugis) - (15 plays)

Breathe Me - Sia (14 plays)

Bye Bye Bye - NSYNC (13 plays)

Loving Blind - Clint Black (12 plays)

Maneater - Nelly Furtado (12 plays)

Stars are Blind - Paris Hilton (11 plays)

Smoky Mountain Rain - Ronnie Milsap (11 plays)

A Little too late - Toby Keith (9 plays)

Doll Parts - Hole (8 plays)

Fidelity - Regina Spektor (8 Plays)

Africa - Toto (8 plays)

Beautiful Life - Ace of Base (7 plays)

Transatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie (7 plays)

The Seashores of Old Mexico - George Strait (7 plays)

Crying - Roy Orbison (6 plays)

That Time - Regina Spektor (6 plays)

Early Winter - Gwen Stefani (6 plays)

All my rowdy friends - Hank Williams, Jr. (6 plays)

Blue in the Face - Alkaline Trio (5 plays)

The Adventure - Angels & Airwaves (5 plays)

I know, that's a ridiculous list. I can't believe I even admitted to some of those..... I'm also not sure how accurate it is. For instance, I downloaded "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley after they used it on the season finale of The OC and I bawled my eyes out, and I know I've listened to it more than 4 times, but that's how many times itunes says I have. Weird. Not sure how all that works. Irregardless, I don't think that list is too off the mark on the number of times I've listened to those songs.

Catastrophization

Tonight I watched Shut Up & Sing (the Dixie Chicks movie) again, and loved it, I think, even more than the first time I saw it. (It's hard to believe that was almost a year ago....) There were a couple of things this time that struck me, though, that didn't so much last time.

It was still very emotional, and I think towards the end I got even more choked up this time than I did last time, but it seemed less like a personal portrait to me than a snapshot in time. The first time I watched it I think I viewed it through more of a prism of shedding a light on these musicians' lives and this crazy thing that just happened to happen to them while they were out filming a tour documentary already in the first place. This time, though, it felt more like a narrative, like a story, and one that, strangely, I felt like I wasn't totally positive what the ending was going to be. When Natalie gets the death threat in Dallas that basically says if she steps out on stage she's going to be shot, the buildup in that scene is incredible! It would be difficult to write tension like that in a screenplay, and even though I obviously knew that she doesn't get shot, my heart was racing. Watching her deflect her fear and act tough and make jokes about how the suspect is "really cute," but seeing that inside her eyes, she was terrified, is riveting stuff. It's not difficult to make the leap from that scene to the next, where they're recording "Not Ready to Make Nice," and completely empathize with that anger.



Mostly, though, it felt this time like an American time capsule. If ever in the future you know someone who wants to understand what a bat-shit crazy post-9/11 United States felt like, point them in the direction of this film. Just a scant 4 years after those infamous 15 words were uttered by Natalie Maines in London, the world is a totally different place. Bush's approval ratings are lower than any president's in history, and most of the country now concedes that Iraq was a huge mistake and badly bungled. But there was a time, most of us would like to forget, I know, that Bush's approval ratings were sky-high, and most of the country supported the illegal invasion. They were terrifying times that didn't seem possible in America. I've always had problems with the hypocrisy of American culture (yeah, everybody has the same rights and same opportunities and it's the Land of the Free as long as you're white, male, heterosexual and upper-middle class or wealthy), but I really think that those couple of years after 9/11 were the first time I truly felt betrayed by my country, and absolutely mortified at my government. And I'm fairly certain I'm not the only person that feels this way. As frustrating and scary as my country is now, I remember a time, very recently, where it was much more frustrating and terrifying, and where there seemed no hope on the horizon at all. Only more fear, dread, anger, pessimissm, ignorance, and blind faith in god and country.

Now that most of the country seems to have awakened from their fear-induced and lazy slumber (and those that haven't never will), it seems impossible that that kind of panic and scapegoating could ever happen again, but as Dylan said tonight, "Well, they thought that after Vietnam too." The only difference being, I guess, is that Vietnam wasn't precipitated by a domestic attack. But that's a scary thought, isn't it? Even after Vietnam we haven't learned. All it takes is some American bloodshed and it's back to the guillotine for anyone the slightest bit contrary. It makes me very curious about what would happen if the United States were to be struck again. Would people be smarter and less knee-jerk reactive this time around, or would we be stuck with the very same "boot in their ass," don't get out of line or have your own thoughts brain-dead mentality that happened last time? I like to think that even the right-wing hard-liners have learned at least a little from the past 7 years of utter incompetence and chaos, but then again, a 30% approval rating eguals about 90 million Americans.

That might be the scariest thought of all.


A great Grammy performance of "Not Ready to Make Nice" if you can get through Joan Baez's introduction.

And here's the trailer for the movie:

On Leave

So, I'm on leave today, once again enjoying the peace and tranquility of Matt and Angela's lovely abode. I actually have some homework I need to be doing for my internship class, which of course I'm procrastinating on. There is so much I could, and want, to say about camp...but I can't. Not until I leave. I have to use public computers there, and I know for a fact that at least one staff member has alredy found this thing. So, tight-lips until then. Not that I really want to say anything negative, because overall, I'm having a great time. But, I just feel like I shouldn't say anything.

...

If no one's been keeping up with the Andrew Sullivan's blogging of the opera singer guy from "Britain's Got Talent," you really should start. The first video is below, and if it doesn't at least give you chills, you're not human (though I could do without the Aerosmith garbage at the end. Just watch it; you'll know what I mean). This guy even left that wretched Simon guy speechless.



And here he is at the semi-finals:



People finally discovering their potential and being able, after years of struggling, to admit that they have something to offer, always gets me all weepy.

Just in case that last post didn't quite reveal the hallowed depths of my gayness, then this one surely will.

Yes, lots of people (like me!) have far too much free time on their hands.

When I was in junior high I loved Jem. It seems many people don't remember this little gem (ahem!) about an all female glam band and their evil rivals, the all female Misfits. But I do. It was a spin off from Barbie characters, and it was awesome, and I watched it almost every day on USA. I loved it.

Then one day my devotion was rewarded with this adorable little video some very bored person fashioned out of clips from Jem and what might be the best Le Tigre song ever, "Deceptacon."



And then, upon further time-wasting research, I found this pretty awesome clip of Le Tigre playing on...Conan 'O Brien? He really is the awesomest. And like, twice as tall as Kathleen Hanna.

They said it wouldn't last, we had to prove them wrong.

I'm not one of those people necessarily that bemoans a time when things were different, or better, or more wholesome. I came of age in the 80's, for god's sake, in an age of Madonna, and "Girls on Film," and "I Want Your Sex," club kids and cocaine, the genesis of AIDS. Though I wasn't really cognizant of a lot of that stuff, I'm sure that somewhere along the way it seeped in, if in no other way than through drug and sex abstinence programs at school.

So it seems funny to me that people today are so much touchier about slutty pop stars and celebrities with drug problems. Maybe back then things were just kept under the rug better, and if Madonna had had a cocaine problem, maybe the whole world wouldn't have known about it. Maybe Madonna did have a cocaine problem, and my point is proven. Regardless, on my way to work today, on the Jammin' Oldies station here in Austin (where the use of the adjective "oldies" is used very liberally) I heard the song "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" by Janet Jackson. Surprisingly, it actually held up for me, and despite that I was a little embarrased to be listening to it (even though I was alone in my car), I really enjoyed it, and still remembered every single lyric, despite not having heard it in years and years.

What this has to do with the beginning of the post is that I remember how scandalized I and some of my friends were by the video. Why? Because Janet's wearing some kind of halter-top and frollicking on a beach with two nearly-naked men (though you didn't hear me lodging any complaints about Antonio Sabato, Jr. prancing around in a skimpy white speedo!); it seems downright wholesome today! In restrospect, I guess, it wasn't scandalous, but just unexpected from Janet. This was probably the only light-hearted single off of her Rhythm Nation 1814 record (which I probably listened to twice a day for 2 years), and thus far, her style of buttoned-up tops and having every inch of skin covered, even her hands, had achieved the maximum amount of stuffiness. But she was It for me. She was the Godmother of my personal Holy Trinity: Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, and Paula Abdul.



Whatever, I'm not ashamed. And you know the ironic thing about that is to this day, out of those three, the one whose music I still find the most listenable is Debbie Gibson's. Come on, "Only in My Dreams" is a fucking really cute, catchy little song.



Anyway, I guess I knew it was all over when Janet, at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards, while performing "Black Cat," ripped open her shirt to reveal her black bra and big ole luscious boobs in what would be the first of her many wardrobe malfunctions. Then Debbie Gibson grasped desperately at straws by playing a stripper in a video, and, well, I just realized how much Paula Abdul sucked. (And whose music is absolutely, totally 100% unlistenable to me these days.)

I'd already flirted briefly with some hair bands like Poison and Skid Row, but my sugary pop obsession officially ended, I think, in 9th grade when I discovered Disintegration by the Cure, and Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell by Social Distortion. I had new crushes, and this was the music, along with REM and some other crap, that my brother's friends listened to when they spent the night (he was 4 years older than I was) and walked around in their underwear. And gave me boners.

90's Nostalgia (Come on over, and do the twist)

A few nights ago I pulled down Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield off Kurt's shelf and decided to read it. It was a quick read and I got through it in about 3 nightly pre-bed sittings. It was an incredibly sweet and sad little esoteric slice of someone's real life. In fact, once he started writing about his wife dying, I actually began crying so hard I had to put the book aside and collect myself - twice! A book has never done that to me before.

He has an entire chapter on widows/widowers and what it means to be one in our society, and he incorporates it into the coolest chapter I've ever read about Jackie Kennedy.

Granted, I've never read anything about Jackie Kennedy, but maybe I should now start. He writes about her in the context of being the most famous widow of all time, and how she refused to leave the White House after JFK died, which sounded sort of familiar.

He also writes this paragraph, which I think is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read about pain and grief:

It's the same with people who say, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Even people who say this must realize that the opposite is true. What doesn't kill you maims you, cripples you, makes you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you incredibly annoying.

I love it.

He ends the book, basically, by giving a retrospective converage of the excitment of the 90's music scene, and now, how weird it all seems in retrospect. It's some of the best 90's nostalgia I've ever read, and did make me feel very nostalgic for my youth. Which I guess I've been feeling a lot lately.

I really wish I still had all the seemingly hundreds of mix tapes I've ever made and/or received over the years. What a trip that would be to listen to those.

Scars on my heart

I've only listened to the new Lucinda Williams record all the way through once since getting it as a gift from my brother for my birthday, but so far, one track, "Are You Alright" has really stood out to me. The album was written in the aftermath of a traumatic breakup and the death of her mother, within the same year, so naturally, it's incredibly sad and introspective.

"Are You Alright" is one of those rare, incredibly bittersweet broken heart songs penned for a former lover, just hoping that they've managed okay. It's a song that's written past the real heartbreak, past the anger, and resentment, and just gets to the heart of the matter, which is that she simply misses him. He's vanished from her life, as former lovers are so often wont to do, and she thinks of him fondly. She even hopes that he's found someone new to hold him and make him feel good. The chorus goes like this:

Are you sleeping through the night?
Do you have someone to hold you tight?
Do you have someone to hang out with?
Do you have someone to hug and kiss you,
Hug and kiss you,Hug and kiss you?
Are you alright?

I really like how undramatic the song is; it's a wistful plea for a "sign," and an acknowledgement that her lover might be as lonely as she is. Or he might be incredibly happy. Either way, she just hopes that he's okay. It's about forgiveness and moving on, but still always having that little ache always present in your heart when someone you truly loved has come and gone.

Someday I'm going to compile a top 10 or 20 list of the saddest songs ever. This will be on it, along with "Good Woman" from Cat Power's Free record. Sometimes I swear I just sit in the dark with that song on repeat until it makes me cry. Eddie Vedder's background vocals, verging on that thin line of cracking and holding it together, make me shiver everytime I hear it.

Oh, this will be fun! I want readers to either email me or leave a comment about what songs they think are the saddest, or always get them choked up when they hear. This will be fun. Then maybe I'll take the results and make a Saddest Mix Ever or something.

Juke-Joint Jezebel

Today driving home from school I heard a KMFDM and a Ministry song on the Flashback Lunch thing on the alterna-crap station.

Hearing that stuff always immediately transports me back to the last couple of years of high school and my first year of college. Mandy, of course, always figures prominently in each of these nostalgic trips. We complained so much about how unhappy we were, how bored we were, how everything was stupid, but I think if we're really honest with ourselves, we can admit that those years were awesome. I really miss them sometimes. Those years of figuring out who we were, and being allowed to be really obnoxious about it, and trying on so many hats.

We thought nothing of spending an entire evening dying our hair crazy colors and putting together outfits for the weekend of going to a rave, or going to see some crappy punk rock band at the dilapidated skate station in Fayetteville. We planned whole weekends and road trips to Tulsa, Dallas, Kansas City, Little Rock, Springfield, and Memphis to go see bands like KMFDM, Thrill Kill Kult, REM, Depeche Mode, Reverend Horton Heat, Social Distortion, Nine Inch Nails. Wherever we went we would seek out after-hours clubs that would let in kids under 21 so we could continue dancing through the night until 3 or 4 in the morning.

We got lost once in Kansas City for hours in the middle of the night. I think it was that same trip where those dudes at IHOP threatened to kill us in the parking lot, and they had guns, and the cops were called and it was a big deal. We got yelled at outside Springfield at a Waffle House for singing Roy Orbison songs at the top of our lungs on the way home from a Bush(!!) show. My friend Sean and I drove all night long, two nights in a row, just to go to a big warehouse rave once in Memphis. Whole weekends were also spent just cruising through Fayetteville, desperately searching for something to do, never realizing that the cruising and searching was the point. We blared music in our cars, attended more parties in people's backyards or out in the middle of nowhere than I care to count, got kicked out of IHOP multiple times for commandeering the entire smoking section with our friends and not buying anything but coffee. We lied and told our parents we were at so-and-so's house and then went camping at the lake with 10 other kids, usually sleeping in our cars, sometimes going skinny-dipping if it was warm enough.

I don't know how we possibly thought we were bored. We never stood still for a moment.

I'm sad tonight.

I don't know why; I'm just moody.

I came home from work and had what's quickly becoming my favorite comfort meal: baked salmon with shit-tons of butter and garlic and steamed veggies. I could eat it all day long.

I also love bunny rabbits. Especially bunny rabbits that love each other.



UPDATE: Apparently, loyalty to the Republican party has been on the serious decline since 2002. Sullivan predicts that Karl Rove has created a permanent minority party.

There's reason to feel better tonight!

Inside your mind, indeed

I'm not sure what's more hilarious: teenage goth girls getting weepy over a Phantom of the Opera song, or some heavy-metal dude with a dred-locked beard singing a Phantom of the Opera song. You be the judge. Regardless, it's quite hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing.

This has to be in Norway or Finland or one of those lame countries that's obsessed with metal. And, The Phantom of the Opera, apparently. (Also, he fucks up the lyrics.)

The curves around midnight aren't easy to see.

Today I'm exhausted. I've had some trouble sleeping this week for some reason, and I'm working extra hours at my job (almost 40 this week), and today I officially started my second job at the hospice. So today I was in class from 8 to 12:15, then worked from 1 to 7. (Whine, whine.) I don't know if it was exhaustion or what, but today in the office, while I was counting out methadone, xanax, and countless other medication I couldn't even begin to pronounce, much less spell, I just started crying. Out of the blue. Luckily I was alone in there, with the door locked (since I had medication spread out everywhere), but it was still sort of embarassing. I guess I was just feeling a little emotional on top of quite fatigued. But I have recovered, had a lovely dinner topped off with some gelato, and am unwinding watching my nightly routine of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

Also, for some trivial blogging, I picked up this meme, where you basically create the soundtrack to your life by shuffling your itunes (or ipod, whatever the case may be) and applying each randomly selected song to the various parts of the film they will inevitably make about you when you die.

Just as a caveat, even though I have almost 400 songs in my itunes library, it barely represents a fraction of my entire music collection, but does, however, represent most of what I've been listening to for the past year or so.

So, without further ado:

Opening Credits: "The Bluest Eyes in Texas" - Restless Heart. Since the opening credits song is supposed to set the tone for the whole film, I'm not sure how I feel about a song about being torn up and guilt-ridden over leaving the girl you love, and being forever haunted by the tears in her eyes, setting the tone for my life story. It's certainly romantic and creates a nice ambience. For a really depressing movie. Was also featured prominently (and hauntingly) in the feel-good movie of 1999.

Waking Up: "Free to Go" - Dwight Yoakam. Love only calls us for awhile, and is always free to go. So I wake up the next day, to an upbeat ditty for sure, but clearly having just had my heart broken once again. Or maybe it's just an extension of the night before, when I just stopped at another hotel room. Perhaps I'm feeling better, more zen, about my situation this morning. Nevertheless, I slap on my eye cream and moisturizer (which is the one daily regimen I never forget to pack!) and face the world with the dark circles gone (or at least greatly diminished) and prepare for a new day.

First Day of School: "My Love" - Justin Timberlake. I've never been one to jump head-first into relationships (it's taken me years to come around, in fact), but I guess I meet someone at school I really like a lot. Must be that fantastic eye moisturizer!

Falling in Love: "Hazy Shade of Winter" - the Bangles. Uh.... the man I fall in love with is a coke head? That sucks. But so typical. Ooh! Maybe it's Robert Downey Jr.! Oh, wait, he's a coke head. And he breaks into children's bedrooms. Well, we've all done silly things under the influence of ridiculous amounts of narcotics. Haven't we?

First Song: "Evil Angel" - Rufus Wainwright. I swear to God, I'm not making this up. But it seems to be shaping up into a great film so far. Let's recap: I leave the girl I love, I'm haunted, I'm driving across Texas alone, stop for a night in a crappy hotel in some podunk town and watch the stars. The next morning...I go to school? Okay, go with it. Oh, maybe that's why I left, to go to school someplace far away and start anew. Hmmm... I like this story so far. So the first day of class, I meet this great guy, fall instantly in love, but, big downer, he's addicted to drugs. It's all fun and gaymes until someone gets addicted! Or sleeps in a strange child's bed. So now he's evil (but I still love him!), but I know what I have to do. Which brings us to......

Breaking Up: "Live to Tell" - Madonna. I'm sensing a theme: If I ran away, I'd never have the strength to go very far. It just occurred to me that I'm supposed to be soundtracking my real life, not some imaginary script that fits the soundtrack. Okay, well, I dump the loser, but I can't quite let him go. I've run away all my life; it's time for me to stay and fight for this douchebag, even though I'm pretty much over it. Maybe I'm just still broken-hearted because it's comfortable and I enjoy being the martyr. No, I don't like that. I genuinely want to help him. So I vow to fight.

Prom: "Queen of Hearts" - Juice Newton. The joker ain't the only fool who'd do anything for you. So he gets moderately clean, promises to stand upright, so I take him to the fall formal (go with it). But, darn it, once again I find him in a stall blowing the lead football player for a tiny bump! Okay, I'm done. I realize I miss the girl and decide to go find her again.

Driving: "Daniel" - Elton John. Can't you see the car whizzing through the arid Texas desert, with the "clouds in my eyes?" That must be the coke head's name. That's what I get for falling in love with someone with such a stupid name as Daniel. But I already miss the asshole. Too bad he's a scar that won't heal.

Flashback: "Sour Girl" - Stone Temple Pilots. I won't even get into why this song is even in my itunes library to begin with (it's far too convoluted a story to get into right now). So I get back to wherever and find the girl, but the new love I've found has made her lose her luster. I left the bitch for a reason, right? Luckily, I've found that with time and distance (and some reality) there's always a reason they're gone. Now I remember why school was more important.

Getting Back Together: Since there is not one shred of myself that wants to still be with any of my (two) exes, I'll skip this. There will be no getting back together. But just for fun, let's see what itunes would have selected for this wrench in the plot: "Ready to Run" - the Dixie Chicks. I swear. to. God. I am not making this shit up. Maybe I slept with the girl again, thinking it's what I wanted (or at least talked to her about getting back together and going to some good friends' wedding together and made out), and then the next day she changed her mind. Oh, wait, in my version, I'm the one that changes their mind. I decide to say to her, "The intensity of your feelings terrifies me." Just to be an jerk, and twist that knife a few inches deeper.

Wedding: Oh, this is working out perfectly! So, I go to the friends' wedding solo, sad, but okay otherwise. The song that plays in the "getting ready for the wedding" montage, including tying the groom's tie for him, which I'm honored he asked me to do, is "Famous Last Words of a Fool" - George Strait. Boy, I'm really conflicted. I still love the girl (and poor strung-out Daniel), but I know that neither one is right. So even though I love them, I have to convince them both, and myself, that I don't anymore. You won't break my heart/and I don't love you/the famous last words of a fool.

Birth of a Child: "Crazy in Love" - Beyonce. I don't know whose baby it is, but this song seems appropriate for the crazy, rushing to the hospital, barely making it, and some crazy slapstick things happens, third-act scene where the baby is born and everybody believes in love again, or some stupid shit.

Final Battle: "Blue in the Face" - Alkaline Trio. Even though everyone is in love with the new baby and happy and life couldn't be better, I realize that once again it's time for me to move on. I actually find this song to be incredibly sad. In a wave of self pity brought on by soul-crushing loneliness, I pack up my trusty Chevy and head off in the middle of the night, leaving a good-bye note to my loved ones on my bed for someone to find. Because even in my absence I have to be melodramatic and make a grand exit, even if no one actually sees it.

Death Scene: "Bloody Mary Morning" - Willie Nelson. Somewhere in Houston I stop to have breakfast and upon leaving the greasy spoon, drunk at 7 am, I slip off the curb and get smacked by a bus of morning commuters.

Funeral Song: "Deathly" - Aimee Mann. Now that we've met, would you object to never seeing me again? I actually really do like the idea of this song being played at my funeral.

End Credits: "Falling" - Roy Orbison. Finally, in death, and over the end credits, our Young, Tragic Hero finds the peace he'd always sought. The song is about faking being in love with someone to get her to sleep with him, but then (oops!) he really accidentally falls in love with her. But she's leaving him anyway. So I guess he doesn't find peace. But now he's dead, so who cares.

The End.

I have far too much time on my hands. And so do you if you actually read all of this.

Tomorrow's Forecast: Chaos?

I'm not one to buy into "fear hype" typically, but there is one area where it works on me every time: global warming. The prospect of environmental global chaos, water shortages, and all the other sundry issues that go along with it, is probably the most terrifying thing I can imagine. More than terrorism, more than an alien invasion (don't laugh, that's my #2 fear. I'm serious), more than...I don't know what. I know it makes most people nervous, but it really does keep me awake at night if I think about it. I think it scares me so much because it's something that (at least by the time it gets to that point) is completely out of our control.

Yeah, you can always just check out, but for some reason, the thought of doing that because I'm more or less forced to makes me realy mad and apprehensive. As opposed to the idea of doing it because I choose to, which makes perfect sense to me. It's just another alternative to living. But what if you want to live, but wars are being waged over water, and the globe is in complete anarchy, and everyone is suffering?

It scares me bad.

On a somewhat related note, the new Explosions in the Sky record is fucking awesome. Of course. I love the first song the best.

They said, "Tammy, stand by the jams."

I have to confess that one of my favorite singers of all time is Tammy Wynette. Her voice is just so full and rich, and glides over your senses like...I don't know what, I'm bad with metaphors, but like something nice and warm and lovely.

Tonight Dylan and I watched the episode of The Simpsons where Homer befriends Lurlene, the country singer, and he rockets her to stardom, but then at the end, despite his temptation, realizes that he only loves Marge. I seriously got tears in my eyes when he goes back to Marge and Lurlene sings the song on live TV about how she just lost her Homer. Anyway, "Lurlene" is clearly modeled after Tammy Wynette, and the episode made me bust out the one Tammy Wynette CD I have and listen to it while I was fixing dinner.

Hillary Clinton once decried "Stand by Your Man" as the most insipid and most unempowering song ever written, and part of me agrees with her, but another part of me wants to tell her to lighten the fuck up. It's definitely in my top 10 of favorite songs ever, but honestly, I can see her point.

But check this shit out:


There's a weird part of my brain that I have to turn off when I listen to Tammy Wynette, and that's the side of me that wants to tell her to stop being such a cry-baby and a victim and a doormat, and just get the fuck out. But then I realized that that's the true beauty of her music.

Anybody who listens to old country just has to get over the fact that it's completely mysoginistic, and if people talked about homos back then, I'm sure it would have been incredibly homophobic as well. But the thing that appeals to me about that (at least the songs written for women, and Wynette's seem to be a little worse at crying about victimhood than most of the others) is that they're totally visceral and just... so fucking sad. Which is of course why I love them. There's no pretense, there's no bullshit, the songs are just about pure, unadulterated emotion, right from the gut.

Take one of my favorite songs of Wynette's, "My Arms Stay Open Late," for instance. The first line of the song is, "The baby cries/I could almost die from lonesome." The entire song is about how she's stuck at home taking care of some schmuck's baby while he's out carousing around, drinking, and having a good time. But nevertheless, there she is at home, the loyal wife, waiting up until dawn to greet him. One of the concluding lines is, "But when the lights of Broadway go off/and every honky-tonk is closed up/My arms stay open late/So you'll come home."

Another song, "It Keeps Slipping My Mind," is all about how she keeps meaning to tell her husband/boyfriend/whatever he is that he's neglecting her, she's lonely, and she wants to leave him, but, well, she just keeps forgetting because darn it, she just loves him so much.

Yet another one, "It's My Way," is all about how she thinks her husband/boyfriend/whatever he is is cheating on her, and there's evidence, but if she freaks out and accuses him of it, and he's hurt, well, she's real sorry. That's just her way of loving him. By being hysterical and ignoring evidence that he is, in fact, cheating on her???

The closest any of her songs that I'm familiar with come to about taking a stand on anything, which happens to be my #2 favorite Wynette song, is called "I'm Only a Woman," except that, well....she's the other woman in the song. And the man won't leave his wife, so she's putting her foot down about it. And leaving him, because she knows that he'll never leave his wife. So, yeah, there's still sort of that victimization aspect of it. But, I mean, who can resist a line like, "Don't you know it hurts to know her arms will hold you/Don't you know how much I wish those arms were mine!" In the most pained voice imaginable.

I realize things were very different back then, but good God, it wasn't the stone ages! But like I said before, it's the pure Sadness of these songs that really gets to me, and, I suspect, everyone that listens to this crap. They're good songs; they're catchy, mid-tempo, incredibly melodic, and her voice! Ah! It's amazing. And it all seems so genuine. And despite what anyone may say to the contrary, I think we've all had these kinds of feelings for people, or been in these terrible situations that we didn't want to leave for one reason or another. It's a universal sentiment, but so few people ever want to admit that they've been that weak, or vulnerable, or just...that in love before. Or, frankly, are that comfortable playing a victim. So that's why I'm so happy Tammy does it for me.

But then again, speaking of victimhood, there's this....

Okay, I guess I'm a little obsessed....

For those of you who may not have seen the video before it was removed from the previous post due to "Abuse," according to the web site, you can still watch it here.

Let's take a minute, though, shall we, to just, you know, run the second verse by ourselves again and really pay attention to just how many double entendres are in there. Do you think it's coincidence (emphasis mine)?

"Read the Bible
You'll be sure
to enter Heaven
there's no back door.

Righteous man
Get on your knees
There lies no virtue
in sodomy."

All sung with that cute little mischievous grin of his. He's kind of cute. I bet this guy was a total hit with the bear crowd that loves to go hang out naked in the woods. I wonder what turned him off of that scene? Maybe they didn't like his pink shirts.

I also love how on his web site he has a list corruptive gay bands for parents to watch out for. But then next to Morrissey's name he has "(questionable?)"

Huh? I thought it was a pretty astute list until I got to that. It even has Le Tigre on it, for crying out loud. But Nickelback, Metallica, Eminem??? You'd think this guy would be a fan of Eminem. His safe bands list is real boring, predictably. Except for the inclusion of Cyndi Lauper. I have no idea what that's about.

All right, I'm done. I'm off to read all about crazy Mormons slaughtering innocent women and little babies which I started reading last night and is totally fucking fascinating. You wanna talk crazy....

Okay, so maybe the snow days are starting to get to me a little bit....

In the true spirit of winter, I've been sleeping almost 10 hours the last few nights (thank you, St. Eds, for cancelling classes!) and eating like there's no tomorrow. For instance, for dinner last night I ate a plate of lasagna, then my managers at work made chili, and I had a huge bowl of that, then I came home and ate two bowls of beans and rice that Dylan had made, then I had two brownies and finished off a pint of ice cream. Then I saw a pizza commercial and a Taco Bell commercial and I wanted them both. The last three mornings I've gotten up and made giant waffles from scratch, too, which were absolutely delicious and drowning in butter.

Also, I have been doing a lot of YouTube watching this morning.

This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious videos I've ever seen. My favorite part is near the beginning when Stephen Dorff throws all the magazines at the paparazzi. I burst out laughing. Then he just goes on throwing things. To, you know, show how angry he is.

I have to admit I've always really liked this song, though.