the laws have changed

What I Should've Said 2

2007-04-13T15:22:00.000-04:00

[2nd installment in our whatever-part series]

Friday April 13, 2007, 9:45 am. Bond St between State and Schermerhorn.

I'm walking to the subway. A dude wants money.

Homeless dude: Excuse me sir!

Me: (I say nothing. I walk past.)

Homeless dude: You bald-headed mother fucker!

What I said: nothing

What I Should've Said: You can tell???

a doomed, hysterical defense

2007-03-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

Shaboy! Pitchfork brings the clever today in honor of the warm weather, jumping the gun and wheeling out this nice, plushy punching bag a full week before its release. They even give it top billing, saying that this, not their blue-balling non-takedown of Amy Winehouse, is actually the critical story of the day. This, my friends, is the element of surprise, and it is genius and it is beautiful.

But I don't know. Easy? You think? A little?

If you have a second, hop in the wayback machine with me - take a look at the old party line on Fountains of Wayne. Dumb lyrics, repetitive v-c-v structure - but ok say they, so what: "I don't fault the band for being disposable." As well you should not sir. Cut to four years later though, and suddenly We Are Not Amused. "We should expect much, much more from pop music than this kind of bullshit."

Oh.

But truthfully: I expect much, much more from Pitchfork than this kind of bullshit. Especially from the post-2003 Pitchfork, the one that supposedly embraces the disposable, the top 40, the accessible. Faulting a band for getting a hit isn't just A Little 90's You Guys Know What I Mean - it represents the laziest, worst, most cynical aspects of pop criticism. LeMay takes pains to tell us how much he really, really, really didn't like "Stacy's Mom," you guys. Wow dude. Good on you.

I've heard the album, it's not their best. But it has easily as many fantastic songs as Welcome Interstate Managers does (unless we're still pretending to like "Hackensack"), and I want to make sure that bitches are not denying this band their significant, serious place in American pop music.

The lyrics issue is moot. Think about "Radiation Vibe," which I'd bet is LeMay's pick for the band's best song, before they apparently went astray around their second album (by getting a backing band????). I'm not going to write out that amazing song's lyrics, because they are retarded. Overlooking lyrics for melody is not an excuse for mediocrity - it's a listening device that pop music demands as a genre. Look through the liner notes of Pet Sounds and then we can talk.

One thing Fountains of Wayne are doing lyrically, and doing well, is advancing a sort of thesis on which people and stories are worth writing about in pop songs. The epicenter of their songs' landscapes is never far from the suburbs of new york city, which I appreciate selfishly, but also more generally as a statement reclaiming the pop harmony for the east coast, like they're the Biggie to Brian Wilson's Tupac.

Springsteen it ain't. But the hard truth is that even on a weaker album, this band represents a ton of what's right in the pop universe. If you can't remember ever being seriously unable to get over "Mexican Wine," or "Hey Julie," or "Sick Day," or "It Must Be Summer," or "I've Got a Flair," or fuck, even "Prom Theme," then I don't know, man. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that we exist on the same internet.

Fountains of Wayne - New Routine

Here's two things about cars:

2007-02-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

1.
Yesterday my car was broken into. Someone smashed through the passenger side window, opened the glove compartment, rummaged through all my shit, and ultimately made off with my phone charger, my bluetoof headset, $15 in change and a box of juicy juice. Grape.

Stupidly, this morning I took it to a shop before I'd had a chance to take any pictures of this frankly incredible damage, unprecedented even for my car. Me and she, we've gone through a few scrapes together. So in lieu of what I owe you, public, here are some greatest hits I found in my iPhoto:

Well, there was the time I got that flat tire on Eastern Parkway.

There was the time a Wesleyan food services van backed up on me.

And oh yeah, one time I had a block of wood installed, for safety.

And that's to say nothing of the time my speedometer dropped to zero somewhere in Ohio; or the time my windshield wipers started grinding into the windshield, make a seal-like record-scratching noise; or the time Matt backed up into my car at 30mph, folding his car in like an accordion but cracking my taillight; or the time someone slashed my tires in Middletown; or the time when I was 18 and I backed into my parents' garage too far to the right, taking out my side view mirror; or the two-year period when I drove without a side view mirror at all; or the time I turned too sharply out of the Eisner parking lot, grinding the side of my car into a mailbox.

Man, remember that?

2.
I turn 24 tomorrow, but honestly birthdays are nothing to scream about these days. The big news is that I scored tickets for one of the Arcade Fire's five Judson Memorial Church shows, and I get to go on my birthday.

Neon Bible is the Arcade Fire's new album, in case you have a job or a life. A few days ago Rachel tuned me into the fact that it had already leaked, even though it won't come out until March. I fired up my intellectual property theft contraption and grabbed it.

The Sophomore Album is, almost without exception, a situation where you brace yourself for disappointment. You expect the band to have become too good at what they do, or to have already gotten sick of themselves, or to have phoned it in, or slicked it up, or done it exactly the way they did it before - but no matter what, it will not be what you want it to be. Mostly because you don't have a clue what you want.

What can I say? You know what I'm going for here. Once again I lack the critical faculties to really express myself on this. I like the album. I'm really, really into it. I'm listening to it all the time. I'm listening to it when I'm having a great day and I'm listening to it when I'm miserable. It's good, is what I am saying.

But I really only want to talk about the 10th song on the album, the second-to-last track. This is "No Cars Go", and it's actually an old Arcade Fire song, off of their first EP. In fact, it's the first Arcade Fire song I ever heard, back in the summer of 2004, before their first album had come out and before they were the instant and suspicious toast of blogburg.

I'm not bragging. I mean to say that I heard this song far back in the distant past, free of context except that it was late at night, and I knew I hadn't heard anything like it before. Which is so stupid/trite/unwriterly to say, for sure. But hey. Funeral is great and everything, but in my opinion nothing on it reaches the heights of the moment when they yell "Hey!" in the middle of the first verse in No Cars Go.

Anyway, they rerecorded it for this new album, and amazingly it's been jacked up even further. And again, this feels wrong to be saying. No doubt the reviews will single this track out as the least necessary on the album, a retread to an already-strong track that just diminishes the nuance of the original. And this is why I'm glad that no reviews have been written of Neon Bible yet. Here in this age of innocence, I can still say, This song is a fucking tour-de-force. I love it.

And it's just a better recording of the song, too; it's not even really re-imagined. But the vocals are higher, there are more instruments (I hear a little Sufjan whistle at 2:14), and suddenly the full form of the old song comes out. I actually thought they'd written a new ending for it, but then I went back to the early version and realized that I'd just never noticed it before. iTunes puts this track at 21 plays so far, which I know is a lie - but I promise that every one of those times, the last minute-and-a-half has punched me right in the face.

It sounds like the song is over, like it's basically accomplished everything it's going to. But the punch I'm referring to is the moment when Win Butler steps back to the mic, and rallies the band for one final push. I mean, he may not be addressing the band. He may be addressing us, or he may mean someone else entirely. Maybe he's literally talking to who he says he's talking to. (Babies.)

I don't know if this is the Strongest track on the album. But I know for sure that it's the strongest track on the album - it has muscles, and not the kind that critics mystifyingly refer to when talking about bands that make you wish you understood the appeal of metal. No - this song will break your legs, snap off your head. It's everything good and bad about the idea of the sophomore album. It's the idea of More. It's exactly what this band is about.

The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go

What I Should've Said

2007-01-22T13:13:00.000-05:00

Honoring a drunken promise I made to Sara on Saturday night, today I'm reentering the blog-sphere for 07 with a new, semi-regular, real-life feature. Listen up:

A lot of people are able to make the good first impression. A lot of people are able to make a good fifth impression. A lot of people are sharp, charming, always knowing the right thing to say, good listeners, great conversationalists. Able to talk to women in bars. Good for you guys.

Introducing: What I Should've Said.

Monday January 22, 2007. 8:25 am.

I'm getting dressed, just about to leave for work. Dave comes down the stairs, earlier than I expected him to be up. I'm listening to Guster.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that Guster came on shuffle. I'm a big enough man to admit that I was listening to Guster on purpose. Wait, I could have worded that better.

I turn the volume down quickly.

Dave: Don't try and turn that down, I already heard.

What I Said: Hey... uh whatever nothing wrong with a little Guster in the morning fuck you uuuuuuuuh I gotta go

What I Should've Said: Dave, I am doing research.

man this is going to be great.

Top 10 Albums of 06: #1

2006-12-22T09:53:00.000-05:00

Girl Talk - Night Ripper

Here's what I learned this week. I am not a rock critic.

Let's just say I bit off more than I could chew by promising to write up one Best Album a day. One: I'm not a good enough writer to churn out something that doesn't suck every day, and I don't have the extra down time to make up for it. Two: I'm not a good enough judge of artistic merit to put together a credible list. At some point my aesthetic filter breaks down, and this is that point.

Unfortunately for the blogosphere, a countdown turns out to be more fun to read and write than something maybe more coherent. So fuck if I'm totally unqualified to be in charge here. 90% of the people "reading" this page aren't even going through these paragraphs, they're just skipping down to the song they're looking to download. A well-regarded, or well-read, or even read music blog, this is not. So: do I think Night Ripper is the best album of the year? Eh. Was it my favorite album of the year? Well, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Truthfully, I generally fucking hate it when people end their best-of countdowns with Bold Statements - the dude who ends his all-time-classic-movie list with #3 Citizen Kane, #2 Casablanca and #1 "Ojos de la Luna," a little-known foreign Gem from 1974 that apparently has "the most beautiful cinematography man has ever created." You, my imaginary example friend, should get out more.

But that's not how I roll. I promise! Well maybe. Listen: Girl Talk gets the trophy not because it's the Best Ever, but because it's simply absolutely astonishing in a way that nothing else this year was. The first time I heard the Hold Steady album I turned to Josh Kesner and said "this is good. This is really, really, really good." The first time I heard this album, I yelled "holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" repeatedly. It's not greater than or less than - there should really be two different lists. But there aren't.

So yeah. This is an album of mashups. An album of one long string of mashups. The line between "gimmicky" and "a work that stands on its own" is thin these days, as anyone who didn't put the Pipettes on their top 10 will tell you. But it's December and I'm still listening to this album, theoretically loud enough to drown out the protests of the people in the back seat of my car asking "can we listen to a real song now??" And it still amazes me.

So finally, America, let me hear you say: hey, we want some puss-ay.

See you in 07.

Download: Peak Out

buy it.

seacrest out.

Top 10 Albums of 06: #2

2006-12-21T08:20:00.000-05:00

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

People throw around "guilty pleasure" like it's a fuckin aerobie. Kids, watching Friends is not a guilty pleasure. Eating a milano cookie is not a guilty pleasure. Fuck, listening to Britney Spears is not a guilty pleasure. These things are not transgressions. If they don't fill you with guilt, then they're straight up pleasures. Okay? Now masturbation, there's a guilty pleasure.

The key to the good g.p. is dissonance - the conflict over the thing that goes on while you're actually doing the thing. Listening to bad music doesn't pass the test because it's not doing any harm to anyone, least of all yourself. Bad music is either a pleasure or it's not. Good music on the other hand, good music is a violent act. Listen to good music and your friends will think you're a fuckhead. Talk about it to someone who's already heard it and they'll laugh at you. Good music gets between people. It destroys relationships. Guilty pleasure.

The Hold Steady's strength is in their adhesion to formula. They know what they're about, so do their listeners, and so do all the critics in the world. Try finding a review of this record that doesn't contain the words "boozy" or "riffs." Formal innovation this ain't; the Hold Steady is unabashedly the sum of its parts.

BUT - this is Good Music, so we're told, and so I'm supposed to know what those parts are. But I don't. And I feel guilty about this. Bruce who? There was a dude talking to me after the Hold Steady show I saw last month, and for some reason he kept bringing up Love Is All, and I was drunk but I just remember thinking Thank God, a band I can pretend to know about! As long as I don't have to talk about old music!

If you search for the Hold Steady on youtube, you'll eventually find a video where I do a crazy man dance while my roommate tries to mount a shelf in the background, something I promised I would help him with. I'm a jerk in real life, but when I'm listening to music I really like, I'm a huge fucking douchebag. I feel bad about that, a little.

Because the dissonance is built in. The Hold Steady deliberately appeals to people who are older than the subjects of their songs by 5-10 years. At their show I felt like I was simultaneously too old and too young. A girl in a black dress punched me in the face; I was pissed at her, but then I felt guilty about being so uptight, and besides, they were playing this song.

Download: Stuck Between Stations

buy it.

Top 10 Albums of 06: #3

2006-12-20T08:28:00.000-05:00

Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies

A Destroyer album is an event by nature. The New Pornographers may be remembered as this decade's emblematic pop think tank, but they're no monolith; Dan Bejar does not equal A.C. Newman, who refined the Pornos' sound on his own solo album; and he does not equal Neko Case, who has her own thang and betters it on each of her successively more awesome solo records. Bejar has no thing. He'll do whatever the fuck he wants.

So we have 2004's Your Blues, on which Bejar programmed tinny MIDI melodies and laid them under bombastic, reverbed, theatrical vocals, with lyrics about I don't even know what. It's one of my favorite albums. And we have 2005's Notorious Lightning EP, on which he took songs from Your Blues and played them like they were rock songs, and which I can't stand.

It seems like I'm building to the thesis that Destroyer's Rubies is the relieving synthesis of those two albums, but I'm not good enough to set that argument up. I just mean that Destroyer is all over the map, and that other than the thing he does where he name-checks his songs in all his other songs, this album has nothing to do with anything.

Take "Painter In Your Pocket," which is probably the best song on the album, but which was also the one I used to habitually skip. It starts off like a song I don't want to listen to - it doesn't even really sound like a proper song until 30 seconds in, actually. But proper it is, proper like a fox, and by 2 minutes 40 seconds in it's a virus, even though I still don't really know what it's about. Where did you get that penchant for destruction in the way you talk?!?

Bejar's strength as a lyricist is unquestioned by critics, even the douchebag ones. It's his musical choices they harp on, and that's why Your Blues was a divider, not a uniter. This is an easier pill to swallow musically, and it's not nearly as dissonant, even if it's not completely consistent. The opening track is almost 10 minutes long and has at least five distinct sections. It'd be great as a Joanna Newsom cover, if it had more nonsense words. Now that's something I would pay to download.

Download: Painter In Your Pocket

buy it for someone you luv.

Only two more. I get the feeling you're not going to like this.

Top 10 Albums of 06: #4

2006-12-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

Lupe Fiasco - Food and Liquor

"I got this philosophy, right. I think the world, and everything in it, is made up of two things. You got your good and your bad. You got your food and your liquor."

How's that for an album invocation?

Here's the basic narrative with Lupe as I understand it: local Chicago MC gets noticed, lands a spot on a Kanye West track, promptly blows up. The hype machine (not to mention the Hype Machine) works its magic and without a single legally released Lupe Fiasco track, Lupe Fiasco becomes the biggest rapper in the universe. Or at least, becomes endowed with a career-crushing level of expectation.

You know how these stories end. There's no reason for me to tell it from the beginning like that if he's not going to win in the end, and ultimately deliver a record that, though it gets leaked and delayed and remixed and leaked and so on for half a year, succeeds in being the lone rap album I sneak into my top ten.

Like I've said before, the album shows cracks, and there are the little things that still bother me about Lupe: the fondness for rock that seeps over into unfortunate affiliations with people like Mike Shinoda, and more importantly his unwillingness to be just a little more talkative about his religion. Long after I'd already totally fallen for this album, I heard his Muslim re-work of "Jesus Walks" off one of his mixtapes, and it's a masterpiece of a single that just makes you wish the album had more of its juice (Islam juice). I do like the font on the album cover, but this does not count.

Still, lamenting what the album doesn't have is a dangerous game, one that a lot of critics do play, but I simply ain't trying to hear that. Lupe's a relative beginner, but once again, the only standard I can judge this by is that it's just compulsively listenable. I can't wait for his Late Registration.

FNF up.

Download: Real

buy it from amazon

Top 10 Albums of 06: #5

2006-12-18T08:24:00.000-05:00

Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

Wait, this came out this year? Yes. It came out in February.

I bought my first Belle and Sebastian CD in the summer of 1998. I didn't like it. It annoyed me how unfamiliar it felt, how the lyrics dealt with stories and characters that didn't usually come up in the pop music I listened to, how it was unclear who the girl on the cover was. There was a melancholy in it that I didn't understand, couldn't fit into my model of the loud song/quiet song universe. I didn't see what the fuss was about. I was 15; I was mistaken about a number of things when I was 15.

Of course, the B&S of If You're Feeling Sinister ultimately doesn't have much in common with the band that plays on this record. A good chunk of the old band is still there, but it's difficult to imagine a pop-loving 15-year-old putting on Dear Catastrophe Waitress, or this picnic of a CD, and being turned off by the preciousness of it all.

The conventional wisdom is that this is a change for the better; that by Fold Your Hands Child the band had pretty much exhausted their resources and will to be Belle and Sebastian, so they reinvented themselves as a more enjoyable band. I agree with this. Even on the iTunes-only live album, which is just them playing Sinister all the way through, you can hear them having more fun, and the songs sound better, tighter, sharper, stronger. But something is lost, for sure; specifically that quality on the old albums where it feels like the songs are just barely and delicately suspended, almost like the lives of the marginalized Scottish twentysomethings they all end up being about.

Belle and Sebastian doesn't write music like that any more. Their new stories are simpler, their new characters less likely to be found in the corner of a Glasgow library. It would really be a shame if they weren't suddenly so fantastic at the jubilant pop song. But as such, you know. I can live with it.

Download: To Be Myself Completely

buy it, ho

Top 10 Albums of 06: #6

2006-12-15T09:38:00.000-05:00

Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds

Yesterday Pitchfork rolled out their Worst Album Covers of 2006, and He Poos Clouds was criminally snubbed. Oh well.

Class, on Wednesday we were talking about the emotional impact that the Japanese video games we played as kids have had on us as grown-ups. Today we'll take up this CD, which, while it doesn't sound like video game music (and thank god), is a first serious stab at making music about video games.

Owen Pallett, in naming his act Final Fantasy, basically made it incredibly annoying to try and search for his music without coming up with bombastic orchestral reimaginings of Nobuo Uematsu's nerd-quest scores. Which sucks.

But deliberately, I think. When FF's first album came out last year, the name seemed like a purely nostalgic homage, an empty name-check to a proper noun from the distant past, like naming your band after the fountain retailer on Route 46 in Wayne (second reference in two days!). It didn't have shit to do with video games, which was totally fine with me. I understand that band naming is hard, and I tolerated it.

But He Poos Clouds is a different animal, because it reveals that Pallett had nintendo on the brain all along. Take the title track, which isn't the best song on the album but distills the whole thing's concept pretty well, and I which I think, after 100 listens or so, is about falling in love with Link from the Legend of Zelda, or maybe the act of falling in love with Link as a metaphor. Or maybe that's only part of it. I'm bad at this.

Regardless, the album's lyrical content is pretty bizarre stuff, especially considering that Pallett's regular m.o. is arranging and sequencing string parts into hysterical crescendos, like he does for the Arcade Fire and like he did on his first album. Here the strings are more restrained, more thoughtful, and weirder, and the lyrics follow. In interviews he's explained that saying someone "poos clouds" is emblematic of a mysterious and obsessive attraction, I guess akin to the "girls don't poop" myth of yore.

Yeah, it's weird. But it's adventurous anyway, and when it works, it really works. Ultimately you can listen to it not as an art project but as an album about regular old life, with the standard metaphors about love and unhappiness and shit. Gotta find and kill my shadow self. Gotta dig up every secret seashell. Holla.

Download: He Poos Clouds

and buy it from amazon.

Clearly I phoned this one in, so I'm taking the weekend off. #5 coming monday.

7.

2006-12-14T08:08:00.000-05:00

The Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes

I want to start with a short film.

A lot of critics aren't buying the Pipettes. It's fucking derivative, they say, and it's an act, it's not sincere, and musically it's just not impressive. I'm looking at you (again), Chris Ott. Still, I think you and your nayspitters make a valid point - this is probably not the best band ever.

But watch that video again. No fuck it, go to youtube yourself and find another video. Now listen. You're honestly going to sit there and rail on three British girls in polka dots for not being Grizzly Bear? I mean, you can, but do you know what you sound like? You sound kind of like me, at the ninth grade dance, choosing to stay at my table instead of dancing with everyone else, "because N Sync sucks, and they're shitty, and they're untalented and I hate them."

Here's the thing, haters: I was wrong about N Sync. They were fucking great. And I can admit that, because I know that history is and always will be on the side of good pop music. So swallow your pride, critical indie establishment. Buy into the charade for a change, it'll do you good.

The bottom line is that the Pipettes' music does hold up to scrutiny - it's no more derivative than Fountains of Wayne's assembly-line pop, and certainly no less enjoyable. And it's girls, in polka dots. I'm just, I'm speechless, still, after all this time.

Download: Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me

buy it.

and come back tomorrow for #6, ok?

8.

2006-12-13T08:21:00.000-05:00

Hot Chip - The Warning

I want to talk about nintendo for a minute. I want to talk about nintendo forever, but I'm only going to talk about nintendo for a minute.

There's a certain kind of electronic sound that's generally identifiable to my subconscious as "nintendo music." To me, the low-fi midi sounds of certain video games are the sound of childhood, and my id reacts accordingly when I hear something that resembles it. We gets emotional.

I don't think it's just me. The crazy thing that history and science seem to be about to find out is that folks who grew up on video games are starting to make a lot of music that wrings tons of feeling from those sounds. (as for music that romanticizes the content of old nintendo games, check back later this week.) What are we learning? That machines make our feelings better, make them somehow more feely.

I think.

My favorite moment on this record comes at 3 minutes into the 11th track - you'll have to get it yourself if you want to hear it. Here's a powerpoint version of that part of the song that I made while I was bored at work yesterday:

Okay, it isn't exactly the sly comment on music, technology and meaning that I'd hoped it would be. I'm going down the wrong road here. But here's the last thing you should know: this album as a whole, despite 3 or 4 certifiable danceparty hitz, is so, so sad. So here's the emo core, because it's finally getting cold outside, and because tomorrow we are gonna fix you up good.

Download: So Glad To See You

amazon link

tomorrow: my seventh-favorite album of the year

number nine

2006-12-12T09:07:00.000-05:00

Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That

Remember during the run-up to the Iraq war, when all the best patriots started boycotting French products? Those were the fucking days, man. I hate the terrorists and I love America very much, so while I didn't deliberately participate in the boycott, I probably did it subconsciously, and I think it's why I wasn't into the band Phoenix until this year.

But how can it be? How could a country that didn't want to fight the evil bad terrorists have produced a band that produced such a good record this year? The answer: Sofia Coppola. Sofia Coppola had sex with the man in the picture and gave him some special powers, and he put the powers on his band and then they made a really good album.

I am pretty sure that this is what happened. If there are any scientists reading my blog, please confirm this.

But let me put my scientific expertise aside for a minute. Do you know why this is one of the best albums of the year? Because (and this shows my true colors as a so-called "indie fan") it doesn't require any effort. It's fun to listen to the first time, and it's just as fun to listen to the thirtieth time. No more, no less.

If you've heard this album and you don't like it, then your reason is probably something along the lines of this: All the songs sound the same! But naysayers, listen to me. Isn't it time we all embraced the ten-of-the-same-song pop album? That one song, which you claim occurs ten times on this CD, is a fucking amazing song!!! More of that same song in 07, I say! Who's with me!!!!!!!

Download: Rally

and would it kill you buy it?

(stay tuned for #8. I wasn't kidding about this one-a-day thing.)

#10

2006-12-11T08:54:00.000-05:00

Without further adids:

10.

Herbert - Scale

Our adventure begins here, inside the brain of a white British dude making dance music. An unlikely place, although as you'll see as the list goes on, maybe not so much.

The lyrics on this album are all about war, religion, apocalypse, that sort of thing. And after listening to this album twenty times, I ultimately learned that by reading a review of it. I was surprised - mostly because this is basically a disco album. I guess I wasn't really paying attention.

And truthfully, if someone had dropped the D-word to me about this album before I'd bought it, I definitely wouldn't have. Listen, I'm an American, I didn't grow up blind. Fuck disco. We don't like disco for the same reasons we don't like Betamax. Because Shut up. Because History.

But I am here to save your mind and your brain from history. I mean Herbert is here to save your mind and your brain from history, is what I mean. Not that this album will convince you to finally start pretending to like "Ring My Bell" as much as, well, your roommate does (sorry matt baer).

BUT - the brilliance of this album is that I can't figure out a way to describe why I like it (ironically, this makes it an exceedingly poor choice for the beginning of this countdown). All the facts point to No, get this off of here and bump the Decemberists up to #10. But fuck yall. I'm going to listen to a chick singing jazz vocals over orchestra samples and white-man beats and there's nothing you can do about it, aside from make me feel ashamed. Which you actually have a good shot at.

Download: Moving Like A Train

(or you could buy it.)

Honorable Mention

2006-12-10T13:58:00.000-05:00

Back to our regularly scheduled doo doo doo. People, I've been soul-searching but I'm not in an apologetic mood. Yes, this is how we do. I'm going to make up for my scarcity of posting with an end-of-year obnoxious-music-writing extravaganz. Tomorrow, the laws have changed dot blogspot dot com starts its Top Ten Albums of 06, one album a day, just in time for Jesus.

Cue the music!! Cue the lights!!!! Take off your pants and jacket!!!!!!!!!!

Oh baby oh baby oh baby oh baby my body aches. It's almost 2007. How was your year? Mine was okay. I have a lot of funny stories, but most of them are personal and they name names. No one likes a snitch, bitch. Did I tell you that I fixed Tilda Swinton's bathtub? Did I tell you about my 5-year high school reunion? But 2006 is over. Get over it. Act your age. "Fuck a wife."

I want to say some things about some good CDs that came out over the last year. Tomorrow we'll start proper. But if I can only do ten, there's a few I have to get off my chest first. I have coined a term for this and I am calling it "Honorable Mention." Which means they're all amazing and you should buy them for a loved one this holiday season, but they're not in the ten. What are you going to do about it.

I am Ozymandias, King of Kings; look on my works, ye mighty, and despair:

Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche

Suitable proof that Soof could release the outtakes from his fart recording sessions and that I would listen to it and love it, not necessarily because I have been brainwashed by the liberal jewish indie media, but because it would be legitimately beautiful.

Download: The Mistress Witch From McClure

The Futureheads - News and Tributes

As sophomore slump albums go, this one is a little confusing because I think the Futureheads probably did not understand what "slump" means. It does not mean you refine your sound and make a tighter and more enjoyable record than your first one, guys.

Download: Back to the Sea

Joanna Newsom - Ys

Five songs, 55 minutes. First time through I was underwhelmed. Third time through I started to have favorite parts. Sixth time...you understand how these things go. But: won't anything appear to be a work of genius if you obsess over it closely and play it enough times? No dickhead, it won't.

Download: Sawdust & Diamonds

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Chris Ott, he of the brilliant Hold Steady takedown, recently turned on the Decemberists and used science to prove why they suck, too. The logic resembles this: a band that gains any measure of success must have made some creative choices at some point. If they made a creative choice, then they are fakers. Hence, it's all an act. Hence, this band sucks. It just makes sense.

Download: Sons and Daughters

The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely

Being sad used to be sexy. Remember Sea Change? Heady times, those were. Sadness isn't cool again yet, but it's on its way (I hope). This isn't the best Mountain Goats album of the last five years, or even the last two years, but no matter. Best album of 2006 for playing while you drive aimlessly in the opposite direction of your problems.

Download: New Monster Avenue

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country

Okay, this is more what I am talking about. At one point Camera Obscura was pegged as the heir to Belle and Sebastian's abandoned twee empire, but fuck that. This is a bigger sound than that, but not as grandiose. Cute, but not precious. Kind of makes me want to stop wasting my life - that good.

Download: Let's Get Out Of This Country

Stay tuned, kids.

by the way

2006-11-15T15:34:00.000-05:00

I spent a few hours the other day switching all the music links in past five songses from EZArchive over to MediaMax, which is a site that actually works. So, there's that.

five songs - exposed lies edition

2006-11-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

Below: Dave does an uncanny impression of me talking about a blog. (Insipred by Domino's astonishing Show Us Your Brooklyn Style contest)

Bonus points for getting the details right: the way I talk really fast when I'm excited about something, my tendency to use my hands expressively but not very effectively, my delusions both about commerce and morality, the way I'm always talking about Pitchfork (really?), and my habit (that I picked up at Harvard?) of using phrases like "critical lens" in everyday converation. Acting!

People, the implication is clear. I'm found out. All joking aside, I'm a fraud. Anyway here's a few songs I must have stolen from Pitchfork.

Beirut - Elephant Gun
Part of me feels bad about lavishing any more attention on a band (person?) that's already gotten an inappropriate amount of praise for a really tiny body of work. (I bought their album and it's, you know, okay.) But they do have a new EP, and I haven't heard it yet, but I have heard this, 28 times according to iTunes.

Page France - Windy
This summer I was barely convinced to see Page France on a whim in the basement of Union Hall. Listen to me, Page France: your band's name is off-putting. I almost didn't come to the show because of it. I did, and then I bought your CD, and it's one of the best I've heard all year, but I almost didn't come to the show. I think you should consider this.

Hot Chip - Sexual Healing
Not better than the original, but this is not the goal. I'm starting to think that Hot Chip is one of those bands that can do no wrong

The Spinto Band - Direct to Helmet
There were two Lupe Fiasco tracks I was deciding between for song 4, but I couldn't decide so I was just like fuck it, they're getting another band of white guys. But the lyrics are clever, so it's almost like rap?

The Magic Numbers - This Is A Song
I think the obviousness of the Magic Numbers actually makes them harder to get into - it's definitely the reason the indie establishment doesn't give them a lot of hype, and it's admittedly why I stayed away from them for a while. But friends!! Enough!!! Throw off your shackles!!!! I have given you an entry point!

Channel 102

2006-11-07T13:35:00.000-05:00

Jess and Mr. Jon Golbe and I tossed off a 3-minute pilot last week for Channel 102 - it made it into the screening, and got just enough votes last night to be picked up for another episode.

It's called the Jon and Jess Variety Hour, even though that's only true if you watch it 20 times, and that wouldn't technically be variety. To my knowledge it's the first time that 102's had two shows tie for fifth place, putting six shows in prime time. Jess tells me I'm wrong, but women aren't good at history, we know this from studies.

Yes, being tied for the bottom spot is an inauspicious beginning, but you don't know the future. I do, but you don't.

ezarchive.com

2006-10-27T14:15:00.000-04:00

What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing, the birth pangs of a new Middle East.

-Condoleeza Rice

We realize that this is a major inconvenience for our large blogger population, but we hope that you will agree that the uptime stability you will get in the new system is worth the short-term hassle of switching over.

-email from EZArchive.com

Yeah, I'll compare my blog to the Middle East. What.

I've said it before, but EZArchive, the file host of choice for music bloggers because of its low rate and (until this fall) speed and ease of use, is the shittiest site in the world. Apparently they're switching over to new servers, which has invalidated all their links and rendered null the meat of this blog.

I'm finding creative ways to upload music in the meantime, but most music links from August and earlier will be dead until EZArchive updates to a system that doesn't suck a fat dee. Anyway, you shouldn't be downloading free music in the first place. Shame.

Jaan-e-day 06

2006-10-24T13:54:00.000-04:00

Matt gave me the alley-oop on this one, and I'm not sure I can live up to it, but I can't back down now. History in tha makin yall. This weekend we finally saw my Bollywood movie.

flashback! the camera pans to the window and we dissolve to 2005

Friends and pals will remember that I spent last fall working as a PA on a Bollywood musical shooting in New York with an all-Indian crew. Kids, culture shock is a funny thing. Due to a technicality (the caste system) in the Indian labor system (slave trade), I was classified as one rung above Untouchable. What I mean is that "PA" is likely a less apt term than "servant."

If you want the basic story dirt, it's back here, at the genesis of the blog. But here's the thing: way more people read and link to my blog today than a year ago, and I kind of want people in India to find this on google while they're researching their favorite stars. So listen up, google.in! I spent two months working as the personal driver for the star Akshay Kumar, on the film Jaan-E-Mann!

dinga dinga dinga dinga dinga dinga dinga dinga

L ro R: Osh Kosh B'Gakshay, Polish hairstylist whose affair
with Akshay I can niether confirm nor deny, Jeeves

I will be the first to say it: I was a bad servant. Frequently Akshay would call me after leaving a restuarant where I was supposed to pick him up. I would be parked two blocks away, and he would be displeased. "Adam! Where are you! We are standing out in the rain!" he'd bark sweetly. "I'll be there in 30 seconds," I'd offer, "but you really don't have to stand in the rain. Go under the awning." But Akshay was right, and I a fool: if he'd gone under the awning, how would I ever learn my lesson?

I promise I'm taking a picture of the sign. Sir, I assure you.

Jaan-E-Mann was formerly spelled Janeman. Before that it was Jaaneman. The inital spelling change happened just before shooting started, when the producer went to a fortune teller, who told him (I shit you not) "one A is better than two for you." Boom. Name change. The second spelling change (reinstatement of the second A, double-hyphen-infusion, extra N because I mean why not) happened after shooting had already moved back to India, but I can only guess that it had a similar (but possibly even more crazy?) reason.

surely I didn't come all this way to not bootleg

Anyway, flash to present. Here we were, about to watch this thing, get it over with, pull the trigger on the last year. We'd made a day of it - Matt and Aaron and I had mediocre Indian food for lunch, then walked around to some of the spots in Brooklyn where Jaan-E-Mann had shot, and finally we'd made our way to the Times Square theater where we'd endure the three-hour extravaganza. LET'S DO THIS

for some reason this movie starts in space

Well, I don't want to belabor it: the movie was three hours long, as all Bollywood films are, and it was a musical, as all Bollywood films are. You see a movie like this, you go in expecting a certain level of absurdity. Or, as Ilana (who studied Bollywood in college and got me this job) told me, You can't judge another culture because you don't understand.

BUT - I am only human, and a racist human at that. This movie was in Hinglish, which is not a language but a style of dialogue that alternates Hindi and English by the sentence. Thankfully, we had subtitles to help us out.

wait you did what?

I did indeed appear in the movie, in a dialogue scene at an outdoor cafe where I was operating the stereo for the background dancers. One common conception Indians have about the United States is that pretty much everywhere you go, there are black people dancing all the time. On the set I'd tried to tell them that this wasn't necessarily the case, but I couldn't prove it, thanks to the group of break dancers Salman Khan pays to follow him around.

Ultimately, I don't regret this experience. I learned a lot about myself as a worker (I suck?) and as a driver (I'm from New Jersey?). And as the movie finally ended, and Preity Zinta finally discovered that Salman still loved her (advice: you find this out quicker when you are not singing 75% of the time), there was only one thing left to do.

Seeing your name in the credits of something is the real closure. In this business, no one gets paid enough, everyone works too hard, but there's something satisfying about being in the credits. Almost like...getting credit. But of the six PAs, only Sam and Ilana were listed, as "Mr. Sam" and "Ms. Elana." After working seven days a week, 15 hours a day, for two months, I got a second of wide-angle screen time and no credit.

India, you're on notice.

new cds

2006-10-13T17:15:00.000-04:00

A lot of people say they like summer because they don't care about sounding cliche, but I prefer the fall, because that's when all the good movies and CDs come out, and because I burn very easily. But this post isn't about sunburns or movies, even though you should see the Departed because it is the sheet.

If you read other music blogs, you've probably already heard a ton about these albums. You're just here for the free mp3s. Fine, I can't stop you.

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Generally it's exciting when a band you like comes out with a new album, but sometimes it can feel like a hassle - you like this band, so maybe you feel like you owe it to them and to yourself to get their new album. But then you have to track it down, go out and buy it or download it or get it from a friend, then listen to it, get familiar with it and internalize it, and the truth is that you don't always feel like doing all that.

I was reminded of that when I perfunctorily bought the new Rapture album, which hasn't wowed me, and I thought of it again last week when this came out. Mostly I thought about how I wasn't especially hyped about a new set of songs that use archaic words like "chimbley" and "legionnaire." But I got it anyway, and what I forgot is that I love this band simply because they write really pretty songs. The song below is about a Japanese man whose wife turns into a crane, but who cares.

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3

Lupe Fiasco - Food and Liquor

This leaked a few months ago, hyped to impossibility, and got delayed multiple times before it actually came out last month. I hesitated to buy it because I already had the leaked version, but it was a good gamble because the official release is significantly different; new song titles, new songs, more guests, etc. And it's really good. By the end of the first track he's already laid down his philosophy for life, and it's a good one.

Unfortunately, the excellent Trials and Tribulations from the leaked version has morphed into a new track called "Pressure," which now has a verse by Jay-Z about (surprise!) how good a rapper he is, and a chorus that goes (seriously), "it's my life, everything I do I do for you." Also there's a shitty track that sounds like linkin park. But other than that, honestly, it's very very good. I'm stating the obvious, but there really is no greater guilty pleasure than listening to rap music on your ipod in a public place where everyone thinks you are just a REGULAR WHITE GUY.

Lupe Fiasco - Just Might Be OK

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

This came out a week ago and there's already a backlash against it, partly because of all the "album of the year" and "anthem for a generation" drool it's already gotten, but mostly because of its almost-perfect pitchfork review. But don't forget that for something to inspire a backlash it has to be good in the first place (exception: Garden State). The main problem people have with the album is that it basically bites Springsteen. But I'm 23, I don't know from Bruce, and as always, if you're going to steal, steal from the best.

The album is 40 minutes long but it feels much shorter, which is a good sign. It makes me want to get drunk, which is a good sign. It inspires a lot of air guitar, which is a great sign. And before the internet, you would've just had to take my word for it. Isn't that super?

The Hold Steady - Massive Night

a heartbreaking work of staggering jesus

2006-10-13T12:06:00.000-04:00

our senior year, meghan made a movie about lounge singers. and lesbians. also it was a musical. she asked me to be a backup dancer in one of the numbers, and I said sure, what do I care if all of school sees it, har har. the other day I realized she'd put it on youtube.

anyway, it's my musical screen debut, in the role of nun #2. check my precision moves at the 24 second mark.

bergen street

2006-10-12T14:16:00.000-04:00

last month I moved, from crownspect heights (I invented this name and I am certain it will catch on) to boerum hill. I already miss the dirt-cheap bulletproof chinese place across the street that I had 4 or 5 times a week, the boost mobile chimes calling to me when I got off the subway, and the ubiquitous fried chicken.

still a neighborhood that has bars and sit-down restaurants in it is pretty cool. now my life has boat, zaytoons, the brooklyn inn and something called the Nascent, a cafe on my corner that sells very expensive snacks to bizzarely dressed people. in general, an upgrade, though nothing can replace the boost mobile chimes.

here's what the old place looked like on moving day:

josh was already tired from not helping me move

and here's what the new place looked like yesterday:

moose head apparently visible from street, say landlords

but no more on the new apartment, because for that we have a blog. yes virginia, a blog.

my original idea for 236bergen.blogspot.com was to have a public forum for myself, matt and dave to say disparaging things about each other. it'll most likely evolve into something broader than that, though I play to say plenty of devastating things about my roommates no matter what happens.

for instance: did you know that matt considers the people of staten island to be second-class citizens? fact. a true fact. and I could go on, readers - these men are deranged. but i'll save it for the house blog.

oh yes this is going to be very stupid. [oh yes this is going to be very awesome.]

HI FOLKS

2006-10-11T23:19:00.000-04:00

hi folks!

I am back to do more "blogging." I took some time off to find myself. Here's what I discovered:

People like me better when I don't blog for two months. Each post on my blog tends to get me at least one "you're an asshole" or "your blog makes me want to kill you" from someone I know. Usually this person is Matt Nathanson, but the point is that for the last two months, Matt hasn't said any of those things to me, and it's pretty sweet.

I considered stopping the blog, so that I could, in the words of thoreau, "simplify." (this might have been emerson. I do not remember and I don't have a google.) [nts: necessary to quote and cite if it's just one word? unclear.] BUT now matt has a blog of his own, so now he knows what it's like to be a public figure assailed from all sides by critics and bitches. and so I press on: in the words of Nas, "you can hate me now, but I won't stop now. real niggas."

I think tomorrow I'll post some photos of the new apartment, and then after that maybe some music. bottom line, it's a blog again. hold onto your peepees.

fives on the couch

2006-08-20T23:20:00.000-04:00

brian eno - st elmo's fire
I've been watching adam curtis's power of nightmares, which is sort of a fahrenheit 9/11 for the I-actually-care-about-the-real-social-and-intellectual-roots-of-the-current-world-conflict crowd. it's fantastic and it uses a lot of music from eno's another green world. but not this song, I think cause it has lyrics

whitest boy alive - burning
erlend øye makes sweet but almost debilitatingly mellow music in kings of convenience, and he released a dj album which could have been great if it didn't include "too drunk to fuck," and you really wonder why he didn't actually consider having a real band until now

snowglobe - rainbow
and the sun woooooooon't riiiiiiiiise

mew - the zookeeper's boy
and the award for most misleading first 20 seconds goes to...mew! the zookeeper's boy! mew the zookeeper's boy couldn't be here but they accept this award graciously and consider it a great honor to be chosen by me for this weird thing i just wrote

the mountain goats - woke up new
once had the idea of making a tape where every song would sort of correspond to a different stage of a relationship, and you could trace the story of it through the lyrics. I never actually made it, because all of my friends would have called me gay and beat me up. note to self: email this song back in time because it would make a good closer and because all your friends will eventually call you gay and beat you up anyway

this one's for matt nathanson

2006-08-09T23:09:00.000-04:00

not the singer

lazy blogging

2006-08-02T18:38:00.000-04:00

a lot of my friends have jobs. they tell me that music posts are no good to them at work, because for some reason a lot of workplaces don't let you just sit around while you listen to music loudly. anyway here's what I got:

1) almost anything chosen from mcsweeneys.net at random will be worth posting on your blog.
to wit: Popular Musicians If England Had Won the Revolutionary War

2) The Believer looks and reads like a smart person's magazine, but its articles are usually about cool non-smart stuff.
numa numa: The Syncher, Not The Song

3) John Hodgman: [insert name] for our generation? I still like his This American Life pieces better than his hobo names.
i'm a pc: Hodg reads his Phantom Menace essay

4) see #1
really, almost anything: Unaired Commercials Featuring "the Burger King"

five songs

2006-07-17T14:52:00.000-04:00

ratatat - lex
what the world needs now is ratatat sweet ratatat (new album in a month)

final fantasy - song song song
from the very fine LP "he poos clouds"

team9 - what's going on yeah
(marvin gaye / flaming lips)
oh my god it is a hundred fucking degrees outside.

rogue wave - are you on my side
I just got this album! it's really pretty

hot chip - colours
every song this band writes is about tostitos and salsa. isn't that crazy? also false though.

p.s. josh wanted me to link to his flickr. ok.

the girl talk game

2006-07-17T11:54:00.000-04:00

I had a Five Songs post ready for today, but there's better shit going on in the universe. I'll do it later.

today's pitchfork has a review of the new full-length by girl talk - they claim it "detonates" everything anyone knew about mashups. what they mean is that instead of using two or three or four songs in a single mashup, girl talk uses somewhere between twenty and a billion, depending on the track.

now, I'm as annoyed as the next guy by any artist that pitchfork takes it upon itself to crown the nextbigthang. and I resent their calls for the death of the old-school mashup. fuck yall. BUT - I find this stuff eminently listenable. it's fun, and hilarious, and skillfull as hell, and it's also kind of a new game.

most of the thrill of mashups, for me, comes from the reveal - the moment when you realize what the other song is, or how they're juxtaposing and aligning one's chorus with another's bridge. you know, the "OH NO HE DIDN'T" moment. on a girl talk track, there are fifty reveals per song, more each time you listen. as the pitchfork review notes, trying to guess every sample is a fruitless game - but it's a game nonetheless. a good one.

girl talk - hold up
here's what I can get: ludacris - number one spot. fitty - in da club. pixies - where is my mind. nas - hate me now. d4l - laffy taffy. weezer - say it ain't so. there must be 15 more.

girl talk - bounce that
lcd soundystem, breeders, britney (I think), elastica? (this one is harder.)

anyway, good luck

more shit that happened to my car

2006-07-12T13:15:00.000-04:00

oh baby.

on saturday I was in the berkshires.

dave opened the back window of my car, and it wouldn't close.

garbage-bagging the window wasn't an option. I had to find a place that could fix it.

I found one in lenox. it was saturday, they weren't technincally open - just drinking in the parking lot - but they offered to do it.

they probably weren't even that drunk

they ripped the door panel off.

part of me thought I'd find my game boy in there

the mechanism inside was broken, and unfixable. oh well. we decided we'd just close the window permanently.

but what could we use to prop it up?

oh. what about that piece of wood lying over there.

yeah, why the fuck not.

fountains of wayne - survival car

google update

2006-07-12T11:18:00.000-04:00

let me clarify. before last week, no one had ever actually tried googling "five giant penises" or "maybe ludacris is a carjacker." as far as I know. I came up with all my I'm Feeling Luckys through trial and error. sorry guys. I know you think the world is a wacky place, but it ain't so. (of course, now 5-10 people a day are google searching "whorey prostislut" and "tha dargz." this is gonna catch up with me in a bad way, isn't it.)

BUT. browsing through my hit paths yesterday, I did find that someone googled their way to me with "kim stoltz mtvu" (no quotes). checking it out, I found that I am indeed the #1 match for this, thanks to a comment ben left a month ago. we need to discuss this.

kim, in case you didn't go to college with me, was the first member of the wesleyan class of '05 to break through to the famousphere. this was a huge letdown for me, because I had gotten 3-to-1 odds on max goldblatt, and 7-to-1 on the members of the management, and that's pretty good, so I took them both.

season 5 of america's next top model didn't air until months after graduation. bottom line, I'm out 50 bucks.

anyway, just in case more of you find your way here, I want to disclaim this shit up front. The Laws Have Changed Dot Blogspot Dot Com is not a reliable source of kim stoltz news, gossip or information. try totes umbrellas. wait, they're not a blog anymore. I guess you could try refining your search.

king of goog

2006-07-04T01:00:00.000-04:00

So I've been using a hit tracker recently to see how people get to my blog. Most visitors come through the Hype Machine, but some also come through the standard search engines. Last week someone got here by googling info on Akshay Kumar's son Araav. Cute kid. Read the archives.

Then I got curious to see what google search terms send you here, and I found out that I'm much more googlable than I suspected. Below, I put together a list of google searches for which this blog is the first match. FIRST. As in I'm Feeling Lucky first. Anyway, they should give you a good idea of what the laws have changed is all about. And hopefully, they'll solidify my place at the top of those results pages. Without further adee:

maybe ludacris is a carjacker

whorey prostislut

dit dit dit on ya mobile phone

joss whedon class of 87

tha dargz

"five giant penises"

average-sized bottle of jack

molly chafetz

"kickin buffalo chicken sandwich"

more mashups

I love this

2006-07-03T02:44:00.000-04:00

"My name is Dan Harmon. Years ago I bought a plastic female leg from a mannequin warehouse. I found that by dressing it in pantyhose and rubbing the toe on my nipple while I thought about my ex-girlfriends having sex with other men, I could bring myself to orgasm. Afterwards I become intensely depressed for twenty minutes. But I also become a human lynx, capable of great speeds, and leaping great distances. I try to use my power to help people."

http://www.channel101.com/shows/view.php?media_id=1764

wrapped up in books

2006-06-29T20:17:00.000-04:00

book the first
belle and sebastian tickets got gotted.

net worth: $0

essie blogged from the line.

thanks for the bandwith, microchip café

book the second
five songs yall:

the pipettes - sex
the pipettes' march of destruction continues!!!

lupe fiasco - trials and tribulations
like all rap music, this song is about my life.

jens lekman - a sweet summer's night on hammer hill
critical moments at 0:12, 1:59

barbara morgenstern - the operator
allergy warning- this song may contain german

beirut - scenic world
cuz you're not really a music blogger until you've posted a beirut track

book the third
today's hypothetical cultural mashup turned horrifying reality

A + B = C, where:

A = garden state, "the graduate for our generation" (or more accurately, eternal sunshine for the da vinci code set)

B = crash, my second-favorite cinematic punching bag and the only film of 2005 that had the courage and the social conscience to say "maybe ludacris is a carjacker."

C = THE LAST KISS, starring zach braff (holla!!!!!) and written by paul haggis (yoi YOI!!!!), and featuring SNOW PATROL in the trailer. you cannot make this stuff up.

ticketblog

2006-06-27T08:19:00.000-04:00

Essie and I are waking up early today to go get Belle and Sebastian tickets. We might be there for a while. So she started a blog:

http://gettingfreebelleandsebastiantickets.blogspot.com

the hardest puzzle ever

2006-06-22T19:22:00.000-04:00

I need you to take me seriously for a minute.

You need to look me in the eye, and you need to listen to the story I'm about to tell you. You're going to want to turn away and scoff, but please. It is important that you listen to me. I need this.

So the other day I was at a Friendly's in NJ, getting ready to order my usual, the Kickin Buffalo Chicken Sandwich (yes I have a "usual" at Friendly's and I said DON'T LAUGH). They make you wait forever (part of the Friendly charm), but helpfully, they had games and activities for the kids.

whoopee!!!!

I was having a pretty great time finding what the differences were between the two different-colored divers, but then I noticed something. Something amazing , something revolutionary.

MINI SUDOKU.

also the name of my fave j-porn actress

I got right to work on that shit. But...wait. What? What the fuck!!!!!!!!!! This isn't sudoku!!!! This is something totally not sudoku!!!

Check it out. You need to make sure each row and column adds up to 22, using the numbers 0-9 only once each. Not counting the numbers that are already there! Whatever. You can read the directions yourself. Here's my point:

I can't figure out how to solve this. I mean, you can definitely complete it, after a few minutes of trial and error (as Molly Chafetz did, easily, minutes after I declared it "impossible!!!!!!"). But in sudoku, and in most puzzles that look like this, there's a way to figure it out logically, methodically, without just trying a bunch of possibilities. And when you're at Friendly's, and you only have crayons, trial and error isn't the most attractive course of action. I couldn't figure it out!!

Confession. I was really good at math and logic-related stuff in high school. And then I learned to smoke pot. Classic American sob story. It could be that 18-year-old me would've figured this out right quick, but I got nothing, and it makes me pine for my lost youth (brain).

So? Anyone?

p.s. I'm about to hit my 1000th blogger profile view! a totally meaningless milestone, but yippee!!

george washington

2006-06-15T22:08:00.000-04:00

he'll kick you apart. ooh!

five decent songs

2006-06-13T14:17:00.000-04:00

just kidding, they are all awesome songs!

sufjan stevens - the perpetual self
everything is looooost! oh oh!

the futureheads - worry about it later
i was content with the futureheads being a pretty good band, but this is just chronicles of ridic.

jamie lidell - when i come back around
white people: still crazy.

voxtrot - soft & warm
sometimes i think, if only dan stein respected women as much as he respects voxtrot.

the streets - never went to church
happy father's day

story hour

2006-06-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

came home restless tonight. didn't want to go to sleep, didn't want to read or watch tv. thought maybe i wanted to eat- went across the street to the bulletproof chinese place and got some hot and sour soup. no good. it was of the too-hot, not-sour variety, and it turned out i wasn't hungry anyway.

it was gross

earlier i'd got a text from dave, subtly suggesting...something. couldn't be sure. it was a cryptic and veiled message.

from a cryptic and veiled douchebag!

so, options exhausted, i turned back here. and here i am. oh blogging, you maiden of the night! blogging, you whore! you slut! slutty whore! whorey prostislut! i forgot what i was talking about.

doesn't matter. so what stories do I have to bestow upon thee, deareth reader? lessee:

week before last, visiting wesleyan for graduation weekend, I found myself drunk under a giant tent with a few friends and a thousand strangers. i had my camera; the stage was set for something to happen that I could photograph at a canted angle.

and that was when i saw joss whedon, wesleyan class of '87, creator of buffy the vampire slayer and firefly, writer of toy story and the dialogue in Speed (imdb does not confirm this but someone TOLD me that!), dancing. not casually moving. DAHNCING (by himself). I snapped my photo and ran.

yeeah boy

for the next half hour i buzzed around and showed the photo to every friend and sort-of-friend i could find. about every third person told me this: "you gotta get a picture of you and him!" a fine idea, maybe. to some. but no. I was drunk, yes, but not that drunk. (wait for it.) YET.

the moment when my hundredth beer began to kick in coincided more or less with the exact moment that joss whedon emerged from the crowd to walk right by me. mid-conversation with whoever, I made a noise ("be right back" but compressed into one syllable if you can imagine what that would sound like) and dashed off to step into his path. and then:

me: joss whedon '87!!! (i swear to god i addressed him like this)
jw: hey
me: hey joss whedon i was wondering if i could get a picture with you!
jw: totally
me: awesome thanks!!
jw: i'm shitfaced (again, i swear to god.)
me: thank you so much!!!

I won't post the photo here, because he looks bad and I look worse. but the picture does exist, and if you're my friend on facebook, you can find it in my photo album. a little reward for being someone who knows me in real life. though if you're one of my readers whom i've never met, i want you to know: i still love you. dearly. if indeed you exist.

and finally: this guy stood in front of me at a concert in new jersey.

click it, it's a movie

i'm hollywood steve, goodnight.

five dongs

2006-05-19T04:40:00.000-04:00

literally, five giant penises.

I can't sleep, and I'm going away tomorrow. Enjoy my dongs.

camera obscura - lloyd, i'm ready to be heartbroken
organ solo!!!

calexico - all systems red
hey, calexico, i'm ready to be heartbroken

kenny loggins & steve perry - don't fight it
HA! sucker punched you, bitches!

phoenix - long distance call
do not adjust your set, phoenix is a much better band all of a sudden

sigur ros - hoppipolla
og eg fae bloenasir! en eg sten alltaf upp!!!

oh, the places you'll go!

2006-05-18T12:21:00.000-04:00

oh, the things you'll crash into!

5/3/06: day three of a three-day wesleyan visit: an aramark (food services) van backs up into my parked car. thank you again for everything, aramark!

not as bad as it looks

5/16/06: I feel myself run over something on eastern parkway. "probably nothing."

and tell him that your mama had a flatty

anyway, pray for the old lady - she's working now and hopefully ready to get me to cape cod tomorrow, boston next thursday, and wesleyan next weekend. think we'll make it? leave your comments in the comments.

anyone find a leak of the Avalanche yet?

five songs

2006-05-11T13:09:00.000-04:00

gnarls barkley - gone daddy gone
buy this album. buy this album.

king of pants - let's hear it for sunshowers
(MIA / "let's hear it for the boy")
you need another MIA mashup like you need a mouth kick, but this one has too many sublime moments to pass up.

grandaddy - where i'm anymore
meow, meow meow meow meow

feist - mushaboom (postal service remix)
so, the backlash against the backlash against the backlash against the postal service is over. again.

the pipettes - pull shapes

lance bangs

2006-05-10T22:26:00.000-04:00

found a library of videos by lance bangs (not to be confused with lance acord, duh). good things.

pavement

five stages of grief

2006-04-28T20:09:00.000-04:00

today was my last day of work.

1) DENIAL

"wait, what? my job ends today? no, that's not true. that's
totally not true. bull shit. un true. mom, I gotta go."

2) ANGER

"fuck everyone!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to throw this priority mail box!! fuck this box!!!!!!!!!!
can we maybe try taking the picture in better light?"

3) BARGAINING

4) DEPRESSION

5) ACCEPTANCE

anyway, onto the next thing, whatever that is.

here, listen to this: belle and sebastian - slow graffiti

int. laundromat: night

2006-04-26T08:51:00.000-04:00

"oh man, I have to remember to bring my camera after the dry cycle"

("why is that white kid taking pictures in the laundromat?")

I'm a play this vandross, you gonna take your pants off,

five more mashups

2006-04-24T00:05:00.000-04:00

wasn't going to revisit mashups, but then we had a party largely fueled by them. go fig.

god, these are just so...INTERESTING!!!

DJ MonsterMo - UR Hung Up
(Madonna / MIA)
dit dit dit on ya mobile phone!

Cheekyboy - Close to Scrubs
(the Cure / TLC)
"close to me" is half of every third mashup, but this is a standout

Brian Jay - A-ha Off Your Shoulder
(A-ha / Jay-z)
if you only have time to listen to one of these, it's this.

DJ Payroll - One Thing 2 Float On
(Amerie / Modest Mouse)
hey, and also there's here look at this one

Go Home Productions - Papa Was A Clock
(the Temptations / Coldplay)
GHP's mashups are among the best, although I wish he didn't put so much thought into the shitty names he gives them.

okay, this is my last week of work FOR REAL.

cds i am missing

2006-04-21T00:25:00.000-04:00

Fess up, people.

Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
My favorite Pavement album, missing for some two years now. darlin, why'd you go and steal my pavement cd? do you think it's gonna make him change?
Possible culprits: Mike Comstock, Danny Mintz, Martha Shane

Radiohead - Kid A
It's doubtful that I would listen to Kid A much if I got it back. Had my fill of it by freshman orientation. But it's a hole in my shelf. The Bends, OK Computer, then Amnesiac? I can't even imagine what guests must think.
Possible culprits: Lynn Levy, Meghan McCarron, Brian Cooperman

Paul Simon - Rhythm of the Saints
This is the one that really gets my goat!! Mostly because I am pretty sure that I lost it on my own. But seriously, if you have this, give it back! This isn't funny guys!! There's nothing funny about a guy asking "who stole my paul simon cd!!!!"
Possible culprits: Myself, or my dad, or maybe it's actually around here somewhere

startling realization

2006-04-20T00:14:00.000-04:00

ok, so you know that new play that julia roberts is in? right, who cares. not I.

BUT: reading the times review of it just now, i learned that the the cast is TWO-THIRDS wet hot vets! wow, doesn't that just blow your mind? like, doesn't it just blow up your mind? those fellows who made that movie were really onto something.

thanks google image search, I couldn't have done this shitty blog entry without you!

coop, seriously, fuck off.

revised countdown to unemployment

2006-04-19T01:20:00.000-04:00

Adam,

Can you stay on another week? We think they'll be plenty for you to do.

Jen

Jen Crammer
"Michael Clayton"
Production Coordinator

seven!

five songs from cds i bought last week

2006-04-18T18:28:00.000-04:00

(in ascending order of how good the albums are.)

the flaming lips - pompeii am götterdämmerung
man, i wanted to love this album so much! instead i love this.

brendan benson - cold hands (warm heart)
i know, i already posted this as a video. but gah! that song!

built to spill - conventional wisdom
a few weeks ago someone literally said to me, "not being able to choose a favorite built to spill album is basically admitting you have no personality." obviously lana wilson said that.

destroyer - 3000 flowers
you have to give destroyer some time before you love destroyer! but you will.

calexico - panic open string
and it's the dark horse by a nose. well done, calexico, you've won this round

countdown to unemployment

2006-04-18T01:14:00.000-04:00

three!

a joke i've been making for literally years

2006-04-16T23:49:00.000-04:00

it's almost never gotten a laugh, though. do you like it any better here?

in all seriousness, you should read dinosaur comics as much as possible. in all seriousness guys.

girls and islands

2006-04-06T14:56:00.000-04:00

happy thursday, everyone. sit down, let's make this quick.

A)
The Unicorns were a band I never really liked, but pretended to, to almost everyone I know. hopefully this wasn't the basis of any friendships (though if so, please inform me!). fortunately, the unicorns disbanded. even more fortunately, they seem to have re-banded with some extra members (including Jim Guthrie!!!!!) as Islands. I almost want them to be bad, you know? they're not.

islands - rough gem

B)
Everyone always says that girls can't be funny. "Everyone" in this case represents me. Anyway, today everyone came around. Without more ado: variety shac!

it's like stella in some ways, but yet it's also somehow not like stella! maybe because they're girls? I dunno. featuring andrea rosen, woot.

warm weather can cause happiness

2006-04-01T20:34:00.000-05:00

Yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah! (breath)
Yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah!

The Flaming Lips - Yeah Yeah Yeah Song

five songs about this dream i had

2006-03-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

hi kids! [do you like violence?]

the essex green - don't know why (you stay)
yeah, let's start things off right today.

blur - sweet song
turn back the clock!!!!!!!! (to 2003)

built to spill - carry the zero
haven't found a leak of their new album yet (anyone?), but in the meantime i still like this song better than almost anything else, ever

eels - losing streak
this song is pretty much about the same thing that every eels song is about

neko case - star witness
remember when "i like basically everything except country" was such a big thing?

I like basically everything, except country!

cold hands, warm heart

2006-03-22T11:26:00.000-05:00

I know I've posted some average music videos in the past. That will not be the case today! I swear to you.

death cab - crooked teeth
during the three-and-a-half minutes of this video, it's okay to like death cab for cutie again. a lot. directed by Rob Schrab, visionary behind countless awesome things (Heat Vision and Jack, Twigger's Holiday, etc)

the thrills - the irish keep gate-crashing
turns out that waverly films, the brooklyn group behind Puppet Rapist (now #1 at channel 102) is a pretty prolific collective. this might be my favorite thrills song. oh, speaking of waverly,

brendan benson - cold hands (warm heart)
awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. (directed by the star of puppet rapist!)

the pipettes - your kisses are wasted on me
the video is good, but mostly it's a trick to get you to listen to the song. I wish I didn't have to trick you. make sure you watch past the 40 second mark!

five songs coming in like 20 minutes.

history in tha makin yall

2006-03-14T00:18:00.000-05:00

because my memory of sunday's Michael Clayton mid-shoot party is largely a haze, I can't provide you with the details of the karaoke dance-off between George Clooney and the 2nd 2nd AD. I can only tell you that such a dance-off did take place, and I was there, and I took a bad photo of it. GC is most definitely pointing in my direction.

clooney, background; 2nd 2nd, foreground

worst (best) industry ever

2006-03-11T07:48:00.000-05:00

here's the one thing you should know about the film industry: it sucks. and sometimes there are perks. two things. two things you should know about the film industry.

anyway, tonight (this morning) I worked till 6:30 am. BUT - I left with a free bottle of whiskey originally intended, as you can see, for actor Tom Wilkinson.

imdb the name of the guy you are sending free
booze to before you misspell his name

That's literally a TWENTY DOLLAR value!!!!! I am saving left and right by taking famous people's booze. here's my head next to it so you can get an idea of scale:

That is literally an AVERAGE-SIZED bottle of jack! free! look how fucking stupid it made my face!

I took a swig (I took two) and went to bed.

seen your video

2006-03-11T03:36:00.000-05:00

it's Friday night/Saturday morning, 3:30 in the am, and I'm at work. how awesome is that? anything for clooney, man.

here are some videos I've been meaning to post for a while. ready?

- some super awesome girl giving a great shoutout on the news during mardi gras.

- a clip from michel gondry's upcoming the science of sleep. what?

- the trailer for an upcoming documentary about the danielson famile. we met the dude making this outside after a sufjan show last summer. apparently my caustic and technically "mean" comments are not in his film. but haley's in the trailer, at about 2 minutes. right after sufjan! not fair.

- video for a remix of a beck's "girl". the remix is better than the original. the remix video is... more colorful than the original. you pretty much can't go wrong as long as that song is playing in the background, though.

happy watching, sucker!

RETURN OF THE MACK

2006-02-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

five songs!!

morrissey - suedehead (sparks remix)
stripped of detail and content, our memories become pure impression

matthew sweet - evangeline
love song for an evangelical christian. AWESOME?

new order - regret
come on, everyone loves new order! I am on FIRE tonight!

the replacements - seen your video
yes I'm still importing all my old music onto my computer

bloc party - this modern love
just because

listen to music more often! bye

prelude to a return

2006-02-28T21:29:00.000-05:00

so there are these Boost Mobile commercials now that basically say this: what if rapper Fat Joe hadn't had Boost Mobile as a child? what would he have done? well, he would never have become a famous rapper.

I saw another one tonight. it says this: what if the drummer for Blink 182 hadn't had Boost Mobile when he was 9? well, he would never have become a drummer. that's what.

what the fuck? what does that even mean?

answer: time travel.

my stupid phone

2006-02-12T22:39:00.000-05:00

yesterday my phone, in a moment of rebellion (and high on drugs, no doubt), erased all my phone numbers. fucker. so today I just want to say to everyone who lists their phone number on facebook, or who's ever sent me a text message: thanks for the text message, or thanks for listing your number on facebook. I appreciate it.

now some things:

- an alarmingly academic and very readable essay on Eminem's ouevre (from the Believer)

- a sigur ros video. yeah, this is pretty much the aryan imagery I picture when I listen to sigur ros.

- two songs from the new belle and sebastian album, which is just so much better than history normally allows sixth albums to be: we are the sleepyheads and to be myself completely

- "jane lloyd", a neat short film I found some weeks ago and forgot to post.

ok, I'm going to go clean 6 feet of snow off my car. goodnight.

just a warning

2006-02-06T23:58:00.000-05:00

as I mentioned before, I've been loading all my CDs into my computer for the first time, going backwards alphabetically. I'm into the S bands at this point, and I'm listening to a lot of music I haven't heard in a long time, and I think it's going to take me a long time to blog all this awesomeness out of my system.

For now, though: it's sort of against my rules to reccommend music and not post any samples, but Matthew Sweet's album "Girlfriend" is, as far as I can tell, perfect. use all your resources available to you to, and track down any part of it you can. maybe I'll get some mp3s up soon, but who knows. who knows!!!!!! IT'S ALL ABOUT CREATING MYSTERY, ok bye

p.s. gold digger vs. a fifth of beethoven

manohla dargis answers your prayers

2006-02-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

Q: Why do so many people think Crash isn't shitty?
A: hey, LA sucks!!!!!! and some other reasons.

and other gems from M to tha Dargz. marry me!

(although according to her, my boy robert elswit isn't necessarily a shoo-in for best cinematography. whatevskis.)

sorry there aren't more mashups yet. wait, who cares?

gondry watch

2006-02-02T02:05:00.000-05:00

http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1402480&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300

wait for it...

five mashups

2006-02-02T00:05:00.000-05:00

First: geographically speaking, "mashups" are to "bootlegs" as "soccer" is to "football." I think.

I like the way european DJs parse it better, even though I say "mashup," because "mashup" sounds sort of indiscriminate - for me it evokes the image of Marty McFly Jr watching six tv channels at once in 2015. (the "vs" notation that the titles of mashups usually employ is also misleading, I think, because of the discretion and care it takes to weave two songs together.) if you engage people on this, the Back to the Future scene tends to signify the primary argument against mashups - that they're basically another new-fangled and faddish way to multitask. "What's next!!!" the critics cry, punctuating incorrectly in my mind. "So-called 'mashups' of famous works of art? Isn't this just another..."

Quoting the argument against mashups in its entirety is unnecessary, mostly because I made it up. Admittedly, at ther worst, mashups are actually just that - two songs layered on top of each other, hopefully with the tempo matched up. But at their best, or even at their good, they're more like statements. The best mashups are like, I don't know, carefully constructed essays, and they all begin with the creator having the same realization - Hey, this is sort of like this!!

When Ted Leo plays Maps in the middle of his cover of Since U Been Gone, it's the same basic principle: a) look what I figured out and b) look what I can do. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say that's a mashup too, because what are you going to do about it.

anyway, mashups bring me incredible amounts of joy. here are my favorites.

dsico - love will freak us
(joy division / missy elliot)
get your freak on is one of the most frequently mashed-up songs, but this version wins.

go home productions - sexual high
(radiohead / marvin gaye)
#1 most played on my itunes. no shit.

dunproofin' - janet jackson is playing at my house
(lcd soundsystem / janet jackson)
1 + 1 = 3.

freelance hellraiser - a stroke of genius
(the strokes / christina aguilera)
"freelander" is sort of a mashup of "freelance" and "hellraiser", isn't it? still, i didn't make this

loo & placido - dj love affair
(the notwist / curtis mayfield / indeep / daft punk)
i can tell you that daft punk is in this, but you still won't see it coming.

these are all mashups I've had for a while. next time: top five mashups I found on the internet this week.

what's your excuse?

2006-02-01T21:19:00.000-05:00

I got a new computer and I've been making the transition.

yeah, for 2 weeks. what of it?!?

anyway, with a new hard drive and a working CD drive, now begins the task of copying all my CDs into my computer. I'm going backwards alphabetically. I just finished the wrens. next is brian wilson. this. is going to take. forever.

I'm going to go ahead and skip weird al.

let's hear that string part again, because i don't think they heard it all the way out in bushnell

2006-01-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

saturday night's sufjan show at lincoln center: opens with casimir pulaski day, then goes heavy on the seven swans material. with a seven-piece string section. all my limbs fall off my body.

this is where it was:back when matt got the tickets for it, I'd assumed it would be the same as sufjan's bowery shows in august, in a classier setting. not so, idiot. those shows were like a really good party. this was like a really good movie. which I guess is only a good analogy if you really like parties but you like movies even more. pretend.

I'd say more about it but I'm tired and, I think, not as articulate about beeing flabbergasted as I was in my teens. all I can do is throw mp3s at you. it was a really moving show.

sufjan stevens - a good man is hard to find
this is from a performance on KCRW, but it's the same rendition of the song they played on saturday. just cue the strings in your mind.

anyway, yeah, so that was all well and good, but here's the better story: after the show I saw carl newman again! again, he was with his girlfriend, and again, no one around seemed to notice who he was except me. why is this, indie america?? why must you never recognize a.c. newman when he appears in public, and thus put me in the position of having to decide whether to say something?

well, I said nothing. I am ashamed. cripplingly. however, I make this pledge to you, reader: the next time I run into the lead singer of the new pornographers, I will say hi to him.

the new pornographers - the laws have changed
i really like this song and i really like this band.

oh, I almost forgot about bloc party girl!

freshman or sophomore year, my hall adopted a teenage girl via livejournal. she never knew about this, but we did, and we loved her, even though she was really into the juliana theory and stuff like that. anyway I don't know what happened to her, and I also forgot the point I was trying to make. bottom line, though, here is a teenage girl lip-syncing bloc party. awwwwww. she has tiny hands! you want her to be yours, don't you, in a totally non-creepy way.

finally, tonight I was looking for some more mashups, a search that was inspired by an old pitchfork essay that I read at work today. didn't find much that I'm not embarrassed to put up, but here's a solid one by Dunproofin (responsible for the phenomenal "janet jackson is playing at my house"):
Jackson 5 vs. Fatboy Slim - Booty of Choice

anyone got any other good ones? I'm in need.

in defense of the self

2006-01-14T16:40:00.000-05:00

My old, dead ipod held 5 gigs, which meant that for the last 3 years or so I spent a lot of time listening to a fraction of my music. The best thing about my new one is turning out not to be the video feature, but my sudden reaquaintance with a lot of music I sort of forgot about.

Self was a band I started listening to some 5 or 6 years ago, and my love for them was large. By the middle of sophomore year of college they weren't anywhere in the 950 recently played songs, though, so they no longer fit on my ipod. Unfortunate, yeah, but it was a good way to force myself to get rid of dashboard confessional. Sort of a baby/bathwater thing. Sort of.

Here's the basic story with Self: they're only a band in the sense that Bright Eyes, or Cat Power, or Iron and Wine, or (guh) Nine Inch Nails are bands - get it? It's a "project". Really just a guy named Matt Mahaffey; he made an album in 1995, an EP in 1997, and two albums for Dreamworks in 1999 and 2000. He supposedly recorded another album, but it hasn't been released or heard, probably because Dreamworks no longer exists as a record company. Gizmodgery, the 2000 album, was made entirely with toy instruments, but (so?) Breakfast With Girls, from 1999, is his best.

Self - Uno Song

Self's lyrics are so-so, which is what makes it difficult for smart people to like. I tried for so long to understand the Uno metaphor, but it just doesn't make sense. His strength is as a producer. Listening to this song on your computer speakers is like looking at a thumbnail of a photo, and you have to ipod it to really get how fun it is. If I knew anything about the way music was produced, and I do not, I would have some insight into why I like this, but I do not.

Self - What Are You Thinking?

This is the centerpiece of Breakfast With Girls, which makes it maybe their best song. It isn't structured as simply as most of his other songs (versechorusverse), and its lyrics are almost really good. It's gotten better every time I've listened to it, which iTunes says is 10 times, but I know the truth is far more embarrassing. It's definitely a headphone song. And it has strings! If you don't like this, you probably don't like Self, which is okay, it just means you were probably not a teenage boy once.

in conclusion, isn't that an intense subject line?

five chapters no songs

2006-01-05T00:42:00.000-05:00

The Last Two Weeks: A Five Parter

1) In Which My Family Vacates
we went hiking in a rainforest! it rained.

hey, the rainforest looks like summer camp if you adjust the white balance

on our flight home the whole plane played trivia against each other. I dominated because of my college education!

don't masquerade with a guy in shades, oh no
i can't believe it

2) In Which My Google Status Changes
Recently the top result for googling me became this. I didn't write any of it, although I think some of the text is loosely inspired by a text message I wrote to Katey Rich. I did actually jump that high when I was still in college, though. I wonder what this will say to prospective future employers/friends/lovers?

speaking of which, my #5 result is the illegal drug use and (at the time) underage drinking of new years 04. maybe I should get that off the internet.

3) In Which New Years Happens Again Right On Schedule
happy two thousand six anno domini, everyone!

More detail to come in video form.

4) In Which Miranda July And Jack Handey Have A Kid
Didn't really happen. Won't. But imagine it real!

Here's a radio piece by Miranda July that I caught completely by accident. It's streaming and it's not great quality, but it's nice.

This is Jack Handey's piece in this week's New Yorker. I didn't write it, and for that I am sorry.

5) In Which Teren Peck Sells JDate
Is that Teren Peck on the JDate billboard in times square??? Yes it is. Or is it!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, I think it is!

fake teren peck

real teren peck (courtesy of facebook)

Okay, I'm going to bed. But finally, some Italian guys emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me about my favorite albums of the year, and they factored my results into the huge list they complied at their blog. They link to me, so I figure I should do it back. That's the etiquette, right? Or should I say...NETIQUETTE!?!?!? I should, shouldn't I.

five songs about the strike

2005-12-22T21:38:00.000-05:00

Not really though.

even though I fully intended to be a good new yorker and Blog The Strike, I never got that perfect photo that fully encompassed Strike Chaos. not for lack of trying - I took my camera with me every day this week - but just because I missed all the good shit, mostly since I stayed away from the LIRR madness.

but carpooling was fun! Dave and I picked up a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who needed a ride, and then recruited a random pedestrian to get us over the manhattan bridge. He was a british guy who was in marketing or something and trance DJed on the side. people in new york got relatively nice for like 3 days, it was cool. I took some pictures of the traffic, but I'll spare you those.

speaking of things I intended to blog and then didn't, sorry that there's no end-of-year film or music retrospective. I know you count on me to be a pretentious dick like that. so here's what I got: if you didn't hear/didn't like the Kanye West album, you're a racist, if you didn't see/didn't like the Squid and the Whale, you have no heart, and Illinois isn't overrated - you're...over-gay-ted.

anyway.

stars - ageless beauty (the most serene republic remix)
so much better than the original, it's not even not funny

clem snide - end of love
best first 48 seconds of any song this year

kanye west - gone
but if you ever switch sides like anakin...

the futureheads - hounds of love
five songs "of love" edition!

jenny lewis and the watson twins - born secular
hey, the most perfect woman in the world has a solo album. neat.

and that's that. I'm going away with my family all next week, and after that it's new years, and then back to work. you know how we do. seacrest out

the earth is not a cold dead place OR IS IT

2005-12-14T23:14:00.000-05:00

this week it went from the cute, snowy kind of winter to the fuck ass freezing kind. old man winter can go eat a knife! let's do bullet points!

- there's a new michel gondry video! and it's for the second-or-maybe-third-best song on the kanye album! and jon brion has a cameo! yay! ...actually wait this is not very good. I guess between the three of them they've probably earned a get out of jail free card? watch it for yourself and disagree with me. please!!

- what the fuck are we going to do if there is a transit strike.

- my new favorite headline! and look, you can just see how much that guy obviously hates the city!

no five songs for you tonight. instead, just imagine me cursing a lot, because that is the true soundtrack of the 15-degree day.

eulogy

2005-12-09T16:48:00.000-05:00

words fail me.

no one thought you would live as long you did, but you beat the odds and showed them all. four years, friend. four beautiful years. everyone said that your scroll wheel was gay, but they were wrong. you weren't gay. i'm not making a value judgment, i'm just saying.

shalom, chaver.

five songs snow edition

2005-12-04T13:39:00.000-05:00

it started to snow last night at 3 am, and stopped around 6. the window in between, when snow in new york still looks pretty, was wonderful.

final fantasy - this is the dream of win and regine
this band is even better than i gave them credit for two posts ago. can I say "band" if it's just one guy?

beulah - waiting for the sunset
tropical, hey tropical, tropical, icey land

nico - these days
I was trying to find a link to the Fountains of Wayne cover of this, which is great, but then I was like, fuck it.

the boy least likely to - be gentle with me
excellent use of glockenspiel, boy least likely to!

of montreal - wraith pinned to the mist and other games
let us pretend that we are in antarctica

just links

2005-11-30T01:12:00.000-05:00

some awesome things:

- Film Forum is showing a Hitchcock film every day for a month starting December 9! And they're all 35mm prints (if you don't know what that means, it means something awesome)! These are the ones you have to see: Foreign Correspondent, The 39 Steps, North by Northwest, and the 1956 Man Who Knew Too Much. Also Dial M For Murder in 3D!!! wtf.

- a good essay in which we learn why we are too old to listen to death cab but we still like to sort of

- Anniemal!

- a live panel discussion of Trapped in the Closet. featuring aziz ansari. friday at midnight. this is going to be the greatest thing ever, ever.

- a machine that makes up hispter t-shirts automatically, like a machine. the point is that hispters are stupid, right? i have all these shirts by the way.

only links tonight. maybe tomorrow i'll put up a picture or something

five songs

2005-11-26T01:09:00.000-05:00

ready? ok!

ted leo - bridges, squares
a song about boston. hi friends in boston!

final fantasy - peach, plum, pear
while i'm iffy on the rationale behind naming your band final fantasy, this is a fantastic cover of my favorite joanna newsom song

the thrills - our wasted lives
it's not like i've got time on my side

u.s.e. - emerald city
bonus points for what i guess is an allusion to "I Love L.A."

art brut - emily kane
best song of ever

test your knowledge, knowledge face!!!

2005-11-22T20:31:00.000-05:00

so you think you are all smart and shit?

then congratulations, smart head, you get to take the Name That Band quiz! it's an excel file. download it here. (right click, save link as, blah blah)

this has kept me occupied for the last 24 hours. i wish this same insanity upon you, because i hate you.

JK!!!!! oh my god, jk.

film event of year

2005-11-16T23:44:00.000-05:00

tonight I saw Jeff Tweedy! he was fantastic.

and I wish I could tell you all about the show, but tonight there is bigger news:

Whose house? Big Momma's House!!!!! 2!!!!!!!!!!!!

don't all transcend at once guys.

a story of literally no importance

2005-11-14T22:34:00.000-05:00

stephin merritt parkway

last weekend ben and I visited a place where we used to live. I took some pictures of it.

but wait till you go inside

we went inside and were shocked to learn that the new residents were much better at interior design than we had been. we immediately regretted everything in our lives up to that point.

That is a bicycle wheel with christmas lights on the wall.
We didn't even have a couch.

However. The shelf I built in my bathroom was still there. Look at the cardboard keeping it level on the left side! I built that! Seeing this shelf again felt amazing.

Some things will be forgotten but some
things are never going to be forgotten.

In conclusion, don't visit places you used to live, it's better to look to the future. Do a dance!

don't plug the knife!

2005-11-13T23:15:00.000-05:00

omg I plugged the band The Knife and suddenly their street team was all over me like a fox!!! check it:

so I know who steve is, and I know who mike is, but who are those other guys? my theory: A Street Team!!!!! Lordy!

anyway, don't plug any bands or talk about music on your blog ever, i guess. cause then people will post on it. and who wants that.

kickstart, jr.

2005-11-04T01:25:00.000-05:00

Have you ever tried to explain the Go! Team to someone? It renders human language useless.

Anyway their show was good.Right on, fist pump guy. Right on.

News: I got a job! More PA work, but what's that you say? I'm working for native english speakers? How now!!!!!!
(i actually got two jobs, one of which doesn't pay, but don't tell my friends. if you are my friend, then the reason i can't hang out on the weekends for a little while is because...it is because i am a batman.)

two songs:
Ben Lee - Float On: Not new, or relevant, or (some might say) even a particularly interesting cover. ok, fine. Why are you being a dick?
Magnetic Fields - Take Ecstacy With Me: Also old. Wait for the chorus.

okay, goodnight america, love adam

five songs

2005-10-30T18:40:00.000-05:00

because i don't have my own webspace to put these on, they're all found links. you should expect them to go dead at any time, and if you want to download them, get on it. ok?

hark!

broken social scene - ibi dreams of pavement
well! I! got! shot! right in the neeeeeck

my morning jacket - gideon
another from a very fine cd

the knife - heartbeats
dance, mr. bojangles, dance (said in a whispered voice)

stars - reunion
awww

clap your hands say yeah - details of the war
I couldn't find a link to "let the cool goddess rust away", but this is also awesome

things we did and didn't do

2005-10-30T14:04:00.000-05:00

last monday: eugene mirman! he was very funny. after the show I went outside and carl/a.c. newman was standing there! unfortuantely I did not say anything to him or take a picture with him.

the next day i took a picture of a magazine cover to try and compensate. it was a funny idea but it would not ease my piercing regret.
last tuesday: jon brion! When he plays shows (and he almost never does in new york), he does this thing where he has a bunch of instruments on stage and uses a sampler to build up multiple tracks by himself. So, he'll sit at the drums, play for 30 seconds, then he'll stop playing and the sampler loops it so the beat keeps going. Then he does the same thing on the piano, bass, and guitar, and this is how he performs the song. And he takes requests! He played until around 3 am. holy cow.
Possible highlight:
Jon Brion: Okay requests!
Guy in the back: Sail Away!
Jon Brion: You mean the Randy Newman song, right?
Guy in the back: y...yes sure
Jon Brion: Good, because if you meant the Styx song I would have to maim you. [then he records a bizarre vocal aaaahhing sample on a casio keyboard and plays Sail Away under it]

And then he exploded into light!
(this week: the go! team)

deep in my heart, that's where the knot comes loose

2005-10-23T23:50:00.000-04:00

my morning jacket - knot comes loose

text message revue

2005-10-20T22:30:00.000-04:00

recently my soviet computertank of a phone deleted all the text messages i'd saved in it, which was an incredibly sad thing for me. fortunately i took a few pictures of some good ones a few weeks ago. let's do this:

this first one illustrates how much dan stein likes famous people. seriously, that guy loves running into famous people. when he sees a famous person, it's like he turns jewish or something.

next!

Few things are as gratifying as a good T9 error. This was supposed to say "fucker!" and instead ended up saying something almost completely opposite. Duckies, bitch!!!!!!

moving on

remember when that happened? anyway.

i like this text message because it's just one typo letter away from either of two completely different sentiments. i'm still not sure if he wanted me to be raped or not.

rape's not funny! bye

movie rundown

2005-10-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

a history of violence - i remember too little from college to be able to say if this was Hitchcockian or not. still, it was the shit. there is a lot of blood and also a 69ing scene! really. A.

40-year-old virgin - so good. seriously, so good. so much better than wedding crashers, plus it doesn't hate gay people as much. 92%.

wallace and gromit - did you know that this movie is about clay? still, surprisingly engaging. 8.2.

capote - it was very Good (i made that g capital on purpose you guys!), but i thought it was a litttle boring. keep in mind that i am retarded. 3 silver peepees out of 5.

a squid vs the whale - if you were ever a teenage boy you should see this movie. if you were ever a teenage girl, it's 50/50. it depends on...what sort of girl you are. i'm not saying you're necessarily a dyke, but this movie is really really good. a million stars.

everything is illuminated - the actor and douche liev schreiber took a book that i love very much and made it into an inconsequential, self-important movie. was there any way he could have succeeded? no. do i blame him? i blame god!!!! 1.5 stupid liev schreibers out of 5.

good night and good luck - a really good movie that i saw with a couple of indians. they had no idea what was going on. two of them fell asleep. the other one invaded pakistan. i literally could not believe that he did that, invaded pakistan, right in the middle of the film. i was so insulted. david straitham is very good as edward murrow. thumbs up.

dancers in front of the manhattan bridge

2005-10-20T21:05:00.000-04:00

this is from some 3 weeks ago, when the shoot was still happening, but it is wonderful.

i apologize for not posting

2005-10-20T20:43:00.000-04:00

look, i'm sorry.

and i heard em say

2005-09-27T04:00:00.000-04:00

Jaaneman was on a night shoot schedule for a few days, but now we're back to day shoots, which means 18-hour days again, which means even less internet time than usual.

I owe you an entry about the New Haven Film Festival, but not tonight. soon. maybe.

today i listened to the belle and sebastian song "slow graffiti" a thousand times. it is the greatest song in the world, i think.

tonight i went to channel 102! in the middle of work. don't tell the indian film industry! it would fire me.

basically this is a livejournal.

the party's crashing us now

2005-09-21T13:30:00.000-04:00

first things first: the 50 states song is what sufjan stevens plays at the beginning of shows.

Did you know that I am working on a Bollywood movie? You did. Here is me at the beginning of the first day of shooting:
I was badass! I was in charge and confident and full of life and if you messed with me i would kick your face!
Then the first day happened, in its full 14-hour glory.
And there you have it. I am starting to think that this blog will be 90% pictures that show how tired I am. Which to me sounds pretty great. Anyway, here's me a few days later:
Awesome.

This is the view from our "production office", which is really just a tiny hotel room:
I have such an awesome sense of composition it kills me. It literally kills me dead! Fuck!

Okay, so in addition to being a white slave on set and driving around Akshay Kumar, I also drive around his wife and his son. This is his son Araav:
Araav and me are tight. he is 3. He thinks my name is "Madam".

This is Araav and Nittin (Akshay's assistant) asleep in the back seat, something I am never allowed to be:
It's really pathetic the way a three-year-old will crack under a 16-hour production schedule. Come on, dude. Cowboy up.

OK. This is me and Amaan, one of the supporting actors in the movie, in the park. He'd never been to New York and "wasn't impressed," so I told him he should go to central park, and he asked me to take him, and since he is the talent I literally am not allowed to say no to anything he asks, so we went.Amaan is a nice guy - just shy of famous, he's down-to-earth enough to spend an afternoon with. But here's the thing that I figured out today: Amaan's character in the movie exists solely to grab women's asses, and then get slapped. I swear. He only appears in scenes where he grabs a stranger's ass, makes an "oo" expression, and gets slapped. wtf bollywood!

OK. I have to be asleep and awake in 3 hours for another day and night of shooting. the next update might include stuff like some pictures of locations where we've shot, or maybe a list of songs you should listen to, and also more anecdotes!

buy the new sigur ros album!

in conclusion, matt nathanson.

you'll be better and you'll be smarter and more grown up and a better daughter

2005-09-09T03:35:00.000-04:00

life is being updated! blog is being updated!

So now i live in brooklyn. I have a new apartment, and a new roommate, and a new job.

my job is that i am a production assistant on a bollywood movie shooting in new york. today, my specific job was to drive around this man. he is a big star on the indian subcontinent!

another thing: today I bought my first digital camera, which is a big deal for me. i will show you the first 3 pictures i took, in order to illustrate my life:

This is our living room! This illustrates how many megapixels my camera has! you can see the titles on our DVD collection. awesome. next:

look at my eyes! they are red, and i look like i am stoned on pot weed. but i am not!!! i am tired. this is because my job makes me tired. I am so tired that my apartment is still not fully set up!

that's my room. whaaaaat a fucking mess. I haven't given myself time to set it up or clean it or anything. you can also see that i don't even have curtains or shades or anything yet. but that is okay!!! neighbors, you may see my peen, but you will not break my spirit!!!

anyway, what surprises me is how unfazed i feel by all these changes. there's only one thing that really irks me these days, and that's that they changed the way itunes looks. what the fuck. what is this.

ok bye
-love adam

a blog appears to have happened

2005-09-03T00:06:00.000-04:00

dear diary, today i started a blog. it will be big and great.