What have I become?

I wish I had more to say, or defend myself from this fact, but it is true:

I am becoming my father.

Its really scary, but its true. I stay at work late, like to go out to eat (as opposed to cook), I like to wake up early, I like eggs, I like bananas, I love coming home, taking a shower, kicking back and watching the news as I drift off asleep as my cat sleep on my lap.

I am becoming my father.

I have a strange obsession with William Shatner, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry's possible gayness. I like Apple computer products, am constantly looking at my cell phone, and I actually like studying the civil war.

I am becoming my father:











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...HOLY SHIT ITS TRUE!

Holy shit im stuck in a goddamn elevator

The world is fucking mad. Oh well, it isn’t like it was anything too important. Oh wait, it was! Oh well, Only 30 minutes until they come to pry open the doors. No biggie right? Unless, well, I suffocate. Then that would suck. I wouldn’t want that. No, that would be bad. Hopefully they will be here soon.

Anyways, who cares, these elevators are ventilated right. Shit this kinda sucks though. Im not stuck in here with some hot girl and we have share breath with each other to stay alive. Well, like the indie pixie vixen they don’t really exist anyways, so seeing that would actually be worse than not seeing it. It would mean im hallucinating. Which would be an unfortunate event, leading up to my evaluation with matt. Maybe he’ll go easy on me knowing I was just thrust in a box for 45 minutes without any way out. Or not. Who cares, its just fucking Evergreen.

Do I curse too much? At times I feel like I do. I have to keep the words pure for their use at critical times when it really matters. I want to say when something is fucking good or fucking bad, not when something is fucking alright. Is saying “fucking alright” about the equivalent of saying im an extreme moderate? Im not sure. It feels different than saying fucking normal. That has some meaning. Fuck the status quo, fuck life as we know it, etc. All that anarcist shit. Fuck! I did it again. Oh well, its fucking alright.

Breathe in and out Ben, you aren’t going to die. At least today.

Wow, I really want a cigarette right now. I bet they would even be understanding, but I think that’s in bad form. I try to be a nice guy, and I’m trying to cut down on the cancer sticks. I think going against both would be a pretty bad idea right now. At least that’s how it feels to me. Maybe I should just let it go. But I can’t, so I won’t.

Honestly, Is trying to be a nice guy something you should just let go anyways? That seems like something irrefutably good, worth hanging onto. Alright, Kool Keith’s coming on the final mix of my life. There aren’t many better ways to go out right?

Ben

Post Script: I am alive.

The End of the Beginning

It's 6:40 am as I am writing this.

I only see the sunrise, or what I can see of it on a cloudy day, if i wake earlier than even the most sane man. Anyways, its my birthday. The big 22. Nothing special comes with that number except symetry, but in many ways that may be all I need from the digits. Its a cold day, rainy, dreary. Not surprising for Washington, but it really does feel like a new period of time and I'm glad I got to see the transition. Anyways, as a sip my cheap store brand coffee and absorb the heat of a Target-brand floor, all while listening to Chick Corea it seems right.

I made a new video, with a slightly guided tour of my apartment. Highlights, rearanging my bookshelf and media shelf to better hold everything. Lets just say, its terribly exciting. Also, the cats wrestle at the end, which is always nice. Anyways, I hope everyone's day is a sweet and calm as mine has been. In only 6 hours I will be done with my first summer session and soon headed to Seattle. Hopefully Audrey has the stones for two days of the Capitol Hill Block Party. We shall see.

Anyways, enjoy:

I am not a wuss, but I feel like one.

I have a really conflicted relationship with indie pop, which as I type it I have a problem with defining. Like, that it is the part of an ex that in retrospect I should have noticed in the begin of the relationship before it got all weird. Yeah, its like a nervous tick or a dangerous obsession with Pee Wee Herman to me. Its a part of the musical landscape I pretty much avoid naturally, it just doesn't do much for me.

Maybe I'm an old fogey who feels like most classic pop hooks have been written already, so for me the styling of a Vampire Weekend or even a Belle and Sebastian or their numerous army of twee-poppers feels like a screwdriver being thrust into my skull. I find this really strange. Why is it that this one type of music gets under my skin more than pretty much any other. Is it my inner snob saying "the music is too simple, it doesn't feel like they have listened to enough CAN or Glenn Branca," or maybe I'm just sort of a bro of indie music.

I just don't get it. Maybe I just don't understand whats wrong with me. Maybe I just have a taste in music. And that's that.

Kitty Action part 2.

So its been a week since I acquired little Dmetri and Alexei (and yes, that is the way it is spelled). So far they are, for the lack of a better term, a bundle of joy. It is really amazing how quickly animals grow to love and how much I appreciate that love. It could all be some psychopathic plan of theirs to kill me and eat me, but I don't think they are old enough to know that is an option. Anyways, besides strangely schmaltzy and bizarre observation, it is true, animals really do just make coming home after a long (or my case, relatively short) day's work that much calming and relaxing. They are really great. Plus, they are scruffy!

I set up a flicker account with pictures of my cats, if you really care. This way I don't have to feel like i should set up some album with some witty sayings describing whatever pose they take. Thank god.

Quick Review: Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

I know I should just be doing record reviews in twitter. By the way did you know I have a twitter account? Painful shilling over...


The first time I listened to Grizzly Bears follow up to their in my mind seminal Yellow House, I thought it was underwhelming, boring, and in the worst meaning of the word, workmanlike. It felt very familiar, without any of the immediacy I felt when I put Yellow House in the first time. Of course, the funny thing is, after listening through it four, five, six more times, I think it might actually be a better album. Veckatimest's heights are absolutely as much of the revelation as Yellow House was for me.

The band is playing their tightest pop songs ever, but still drenched in the reverb, counter-rhythmic drumming, and, of course, harmonies that has defined the band for me ever since I first heard their single Deep Sea Diver many years ago. They are working like a working-band, pumping out great songs with great inventive production, fantastic song writing, and excellent musicianship in the best way any good moody indie band can: by not bowing to any pressures, just continuing down their creative path. At this moment, I cannot think of a better way for them to follow up a breakthrough like Yellow House.

Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

Score: 4 yummy, if oddly named animal related pastry!

Kitty action...

I have received the cats. Their names are Alexei and Dmitri, and they are adorable.

Here are some videos about them:

Travel to the East Side and Back:


Kitty War: