Archive for category Ａｂｏｕｔ

12.7.84 Oklahoma City OK […] During the second set, the crowd was that curious college type. They have what I call “R.E.M. Sensibilities” and Black Flag has a tendency to make them react in strange ways.

I’ve had this example in my head since I read Get In The Van a couple years ago about contradiction in writing and how blogging and the internet in general—having everything everyone has ever said on record being easily available—is destroying any young person’s attempt at achieving emotional maturity and enabling everyone else to sink even lower, to the point where everyone can act like a bunch of 5th graders and no one even thinks it’s weird anymore. Problem is, the example doesn’t exist in the book the way I remember it. There’s two R.E.M. references in the book, but they aren’t close enough to have anything to do with each other (somewhere later he’s simply listening to them while writing: “R.E.M. on the stereo”). The way I remember it, he’s coming down a lot harder on the fans, then soon after he’s grooving out to them with no qualification. It’s not exactly scandalous however you embellish it but I figure, if this was a blog he’d have to have some bullshit in there like “hey guys, I know I said these R.E.M. people could never do what I do and that I would destroy them, but you know…the band does have some catchy tunes.” The comments would be apeshit. Backpedaling would be demanded, yet not at all accepted. Anytime he did anything: “Rollins? That fucker can’t even make up his mind about R.E.M.” Nonsense.

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Man, this WordPress 3.3 is great. Recently I’ve been realizing I take my internet knowledge for granted. Never thought about using it to get a real job, or any job. Just been doing whatever menial work and only thought about doing more of the same until I got some “break” of some kind. Well, I guess I know some stuff. Not too great at selling myself obviously. Saw the Weekly was looking for someone to write up live shows a while ago, but that’s their “intern” position and it required a resume and cover letter. I could see free shows as a fine enough type of payment but if I had a decent resume I would at least attempt to be getting a real job with it. Never understood the cover letter. I’d rather dig trenches for a year if I could skip the cover letter. I have to sell you the quality of my past trench digging? Can you just look at these trenches? Deep enough? I’ll dig some more. The last job I applied for before I had to move back in with my parents was dishwasher at a waffle house, 45 minute commute by train and bike. Anything but retail again. But I had no experience. Or they assumed I was crazy. I mean, that’s reasonable. Really wanted that job. But this WordPress update is great. Highly Recommended. %

Moved all the links that were just bookmarks to tumblr. Also managed to get into the my old livejournal, which I had lost the password and the email for but I finally got in there, cleaned things up a bit, changed the links to updated personal links and consolidated the rest (most links were to dead or deleted blogs anyway). I’m not going back to posting there, but there is a livejournal feed that works for this blog now, since I’ve redirected the feed from the old blog (does this make sense? It does for some.) And for I while I haven’t been linking to blogs that are already showing up on my blogspot profile. There’s some fuzziness to the whole process that keeps me from trying to make a “best of the internet” list which is a good way to make you want to quit the internet and/or life. Both will end on their own time. I mean…cheer up? Happy holidays.
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ffffffffsssssssss. Ha. Anyway, can you believe no one has typed out the entirety of Get In The Van somewhere? Unbelievable. I’ve been trying to find this Rollins quote about R.E.M and I basically have to find my copy and reread the whole thing. Which is not so bad, but it’s getting down to the end of the year. I wanted to tie the whole R.E.M. thing together tho and it’s bugging me and I’ve blown the segue. And the goddamn end of the year list. I don’t even know if I got 10 albums this year for a list but I’m going to figure that out too. I got top 10s for 2001 and 1991 too that would be pretty dumb to do after this month. Those are good years to look at. What was I really listening to? Gotta think about it. This blog is not what I’m doing with the entirety of my life, people…anyone. Helps me keep things together. A blog could only be year-end lists, couldn’t it? Think I’m killing all the blogging activity with my band/musical project, Hakujin. It’s like painting a statement of purpose into the painting, which I’m sure has been done a dozen different ways by now and I was mostly just fucking with people anyway. The mess started when I put the thing on MySpace. It is not about interaction. Hilarious it ever went in that direction, but I’m that serious about experimentation. Yes, I went to art school. It was relatively affordable then. I had a partial scholarship. Alright? My parents are maybe overly optimistic. I don’t know what any of us was thinking now that I think about it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta hit the reset button on your brain. Shake out the console. Blow on the cartridge. Step back, ponder your metaphor-hoard. Yes, we’ll need some restocking. Ok. Back to work. %

Which is…what. But I gotta keep doing it. So, I took the JLPT on Sunday. More than that I cannot say. That thing is locked down tight…I may have already said too much. My failing score could be voided! I might have passed, but barely (it’s simply pass/fail). The test is not easy is what I’m saying. I find out in February. Oh, I’ll take the thing again regardless. I got 3 more levels if I pass this one. What else have I got? This thing was at Villanova, which is just outside of North Philly. I never get up that way and I sure have no other excuse to be on the actual campus. Seems like a hell of a school, couldn’t imagine it. Makes you think. I might have bummed me out more if everything were not in the shape it is. That part of the school was all devoted to business classes and a few years ago you’d be thinking all these kids are definitely getting better jobs right out of school than I will ever get. But now, who knows? You almost feel bad for them. Yeah, I don’t know. Things in general…not looking too great. But you could almost forget all that on such a nice campus. Colleges are like the malls of intellect. On the way there I noticed a few random protests; on the way back I saw a lot of sandwich boarders announcing going out of business sales. Lot of panhandling, a couple bums, but a lot of charities and kids from schools. Lot of activity in the streets. Went slightly out of my way to check out a sound art installation I had heard about but it seemed to have been taken down. Some interesting neighborhoods along that way, at least, parts of neighborhoods. Glad I have a car now to check stuff out like this but I barely ever have money to do anything after the obvious. But I used to be horrible with money when I had steady retail work. Think about going back to that sometimes (or if it’s even possible) but I was so depressed. I’m a total fuck-up right now but I don’t want to kill myself. I think some things can get better. Like it might seem like I’m selfishly wasting resources just driving around “checking things out”, but I’ve set it up so I can decontaminate sea life damaged in oil spills while I’m driving. Some people (haters) will say it’s too dangerous to operate a motor vehicle while combing sludge off a puffin, but what’s “safe” really? You’ve got to pick your battles. %