Seth’s Summer Movie Scorecard

So far:

Wolverine: 3 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: 4 out of 5 stars

Terminator Salvation: 4 out of 5 stars

Genius Idea of Ron’s, #743

Today, Ron waxed poetic about how brilliant it would be to make a Holocaust movie (most likely a concentration camp) starring only children in all the roles.  The detainees, the guards, the “doctors”, even a guest spot of Himmler and Hitler–all grade-school age kids.  Far from being joke-y, or making light of the incredible evil that was the Holocaust, this would serve to help us see the event with fresh eyes, since we’ve all seen plenty depictions of it by now.  It would refresh our sense of the fact that these were human beings, and how horrible everything that happened was–it could once again properly shock us.  In addition to that, the use of children would make many interesting statements on the nature of human innocence (or lack thereof), and the opportunities for symbolism would be almost boundless.  Anyone with the time, resources, and talent to make films should do this–provided you pay Ron lots of money (and me a modest finder’s fee).

Yes, It’s Annoying

Seriously, how much gray hair do I have to have–while wearing a crisp white button-down and a black tie, as well as a gold name badge that says General Manager–before I stop getting carded for cigarettes?

Pearl Jam+Conan O’BrienxNew Songs=Holy Shit

I have been eagerly awaiting the beginning of Conan O’Brien’s version of The Tonight Show.  I love Conan, I love late-night talk shows, and I love new shit.

Well, wouldn’t you know, it was just announced that PEARL JAM will be his very first musical guest on his very first show!  And to make matters even crazier, here is a quote from http://www.pearljam.com:

“They will be playing songs from their upcoming studio album.”

Oh banana sandwich!  Does anyone else notice the plural in there??/ And NEW SONGS.  Oh fuck.  This all goes down on June 1st.  here are some awesome Pearl Jam videos (all from previous appearances on late-night television) to whet your appetite (and yes, the “Do the Evolution” and “Porch” are from Letterman, but it was a mini-concert they gave after the show that streamed on the internet–it didn’t air on the show).  Also, SNL gets YouTube to take down all the musical performances, but I found an awesome rehearsal of their performance of “Not For You” from SNL.  Oh and one more tidbit: watch their performance of “Save You” from Letterman, a song in which Eddie says “fuck” about 15 times.  It’s funny to notice how he reverses the word to “Kuf” for television.

Funeral CDs

I was listening to NPR this morning–as I’ve found myself doing more and more as I get older and older–and the topic of the show was funeral music, and how the music getting played at funerals has been changing rapidly in the past few years.  The theory on this is that our society has become more and more about personalization and self-expression (probably not a bad thing).  I mean, even your ring-tone is personalized and "says something" about you.

So anyway, on the radio show there was also a mention of ‘funeral Cds’, wherein the loved ones of the deceased will make CDs of the music from the funeral, or maybe just CDs of the departed’s favorite music, to give to the attendees.  And of course I got to thinking what I’d want on the CD, and what I’d want played at the actual ceremony.

There is a natural question one must ask here: should the songs be mainly what the deceased wanted played, bearing out their final wishes?  Or should it mainly function as a comfort or bereavement tool for those left behind?  For instance, should we stick to the themes normally associated with death, loss, and the passing of loved ones?  Or themes associated specifically with the deceased?  Or would it be acceptable–or even preferable–to simply play the music they loved?

I had wanted to make a track listing for my "Funeral CD", but I simply can’t figure out what I think about the questions I posed above. (don’t worry, this is just something I’m pondering–I’m not in imminent peril).  So I thought I’d throw it out there on the blog for discussion.  What do you think about funeral music?

Seth’s Summer Movie Scorecard

So far:

Wolverine: 3 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: 4 out of 5 stars

I Forgot the Window’s Job is to Disappear

Watching from a field away
the deer get it’s head stuck
in a wayward, long-forgotten fence–
the way it pulled first backward,
then charged minutely forward,
then repeated this defeating process,
it’s day entirely ruined and it’s hooves
ensconced in slurping mud–
I forgot that I could have just pulled the blinds,
or walked to the kitchen to grab a cola and stare at
the calendar with it’s sweet pictures of covered bridges,
and that the window had only been doing it’s job.

Things Catch Fire

I am writing wildly
Poems about total nonsense
(who fucked who
and the meaning of life)
With unabashed glory;
I am scribing vividly
Accounts of lives in shambles
(people who dance on tables
for money,
men with nothing to worship,
women who–while showering will–
slice their wrists with
disposable
razors in nonlethal ways
for the attention of nobody whatsoever,
groups of folks with so little to do
they fire rifles at the moon)
With undiminished enthusiasm.
I am charging forward
With images and words
Nonsense
About life on fire,
On metal striking bone
Pushing for someone (or something)
To take note of it all
(the children riding clouds in umbrellas,
the chimneys falling down brick by brick)
Because sooner or later
It will all catch fire
(in fact, things catch fire all the time)

The Father

When I am deep inside her suddenly I see
what I am doing: I am like a man in a tunnel

clay walls moist, tracks
gliding off into the distance

I carry a weak flashlight,
peer forward

What am I doing?
Do I fear a cave-in?

No, I am seeking the other man
the rival, the brother, the father

Places For Living: The Wrap-Up

So, I’m ending my ‘Places for Living’ blogs without writing the one about my current apartment, because pretty much the only thing I learned from the exercise was that when one sets oneself a ‘writing exercise’ and then you get tired of it or lose interest, you should just stop it, unless you are a professional writer.  I got bored with them and saw them as a chore, and as a result, the last half dozen sucked.  I was just trying to get through them, while I had much more interesting projects on the back burner.  I apologize for wasting all of your time!

(all of your time?  all of your times?  how does THAT work?)

South Hanover Street, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

After walking up the one flight of warped, uneven stairs, I put my key in the heavy, peeling-paint white door and swing it open. My roommate, Cory, will certainly be asleep—it’s very late at night and he works in the morning, Monday through Friday. As expected, the apartment is darkened except the small, dim light right inside the door, which we keep on when one of us has written a new message on the dry-erase board hanging in the entryway. I sit my bag down and turn with interest to read the message Cory has left me.

I don’t know what the creature is under the salad bowl in the center of the living room floor, but it really freaked me out. I had to go to bed. We’ll deal with it in the morning.

 

 

This, of course, got me very curious. I entered the living room, with it’s sloped, bent floors, it’s walls with quarter-sized cracks running diagonally down them, and it’s trodden-flat beige carpet, and I flicked on the large overhead light. Sure enough, there in the center of the floor, was Cory’s frosted Pyrex large salad bowl, upside down—the way you would sit it to capture something underneath. At first glance it appeared to be just that—a salad bowl sitting upside down. But as I approached it and looked closer, it became obvious that something was definitely alive under there. The salad bowl was frosted, so details could not be clearly made out, but a small creature—the size of a large mouse—was loping around the outside of the bowl, following it as if in an orbit, or like a dog on a chain circles the axis of the chain’s spike in the ground. Except it wasn’t moving like a normal animal; it wasn’t scurrying like a mouse or prancing along like a robin. No, it was moving in calculated fits-and-starts, rhythmically chugging from one stop to the next start, as well as seeming to lower it’s whole body at each stop, and then lift up again when it next moved. It slouched along like some demon beast.

I was freaked the fuck out.

I knelt on the floor and got my head closer to the bowl (after about ten minutes of circling the bowl and considering waking Cory up—I mean really, he couldn’t have left more explanation on the dry-erase board????) and studied the thing’s movements. It was quite bizarre and unlike anything I’d every really seen. However, finally, after many minutes of studying it’s movements, I came to a final conclusion that would prove to be the truth: it was a bat.

I went to my tiny, blue-carpeted, single-windowed bedroom and looked for something I could slide underneath the salad bowl. This proved more difficult than you might imagine, to find something thin enough to slide under but large enough to hold the entire bowl, and also something I didn’t mind having a bat on top of (this last requirement took, for instance, my Pearl Jam vinyls out of the running). Finally, I took my wall calendar down off the wall, returned to the living room, and attempted to slide the calendar under the bowl and the bat.

This was not easy. The bat was not keen on getting on top of the calendar; it resisted this activity greatly. A few times, I was afraid I was going to break it’s leg (or it’s wing—it was impossible to tell exactly what part if it’s body I was hitting through the frosted glass). I ripped the calendar in half down the middle and used both pieces to come at the bat from two sides—a maneuver that required much practice, as I also had to hold the bowl down to prevent the bat from escaping. After what seemed half an hour, I finally managed to get the bat and the bowl firmly on top of the calendar.

Now I had the task of walking this entire apparatus out to the roof. One of the neatest aspects of this apartment was that my bedroom opened directly onto a long, flat roof that extended about 50 yards outside the back of my door, and no one else had access to this roof. I had my own private, large patio, essentially. Many, many fun times were had up there.

After carefully finagling my way out there with the bat, I took the whole shebang as far out as I could take it and sat it down. Now I became concerned. I didn’t want to just take the salad bowl off; the bat was probably angry and confused and could end up flying right at my face. I went back into the apartment and retrieved one of my golf clubs (an iron) and returned to the bowl on the roof. Standing as far back as I could, I slid the golf club under the bowl and flipped it over, immediately dropping the club and running like hell all the way back into my bedroom. I didn’t return to look at the bowl and calendar for at least an hour. By then, the bat was gone. We left the bowl and calendar sit out there for at least a week. After all, bats are gross.

A Day in DC, and the Best Band You’ve Never Heard Of

Yesterday, good buddy Ron and I spent the day in DC. And you may know, I love spending the day in DC. So, it ruled, despite:

A. Cold and constant rain.
B. My budding chest cold.
C. My own slight confusion with a few of the transfers on the DC Metro system.

Despite these factors, it still ruled. Here’s why:

A. Ron rules.
B. I rule.
C. We capped off the night by seeing an amazing concert (more on this later).
D. Did a bunch of DC stuff I hadn’t done in a few years. Went to the Museum of American History, after it had been closed for two years for renovations. There, saw The Puffy Shirt, Kermit, George Washington’s military uniform, a section of the Twin Towers, a Ninja Turtle costume from the first (and I still say good) movie, the original C3PO, and just oodles and oodles. Walked past the White House (haven’t done this since I was a teenager) and it’s still bizarre to stand in front of (and behind) that building, having seen it’s image so often in media. There are of course pictures of all this on my MySpace and Facebook accounts; I’m still a holdout as far as photobucket goes.
E. I just straight-up love being in cities, I don’t care if it’s raining, snowing, or whatnot. Would temperate sunshine have been better? Of course, but what are you gonna do?

Also, before we left for the day, Ron and I stopped by Paul‘s house to give him the poster I bought for him at the recent Presidents of the United States of America concert which he was not able to attend.  It’s signed by all three members of the band!  it was a belated birthday gift.  It was great to start our day by seeing Paul’s disshevled early-morning face.

So, around 6pm Ron and I made our way toward the outside of town, to the Howard University/ Cardoza area, where the show was at, in a small, shitty club called The Black Cat.  The band is called Man Man, and they’re probably never going to be famous.  Ron and I first saw them two years ago, when they were the opening act for Modest Mouse.  We were just completely blown away and, quite frankly, probably talked more about Man Man after the show than we talked about Modest Mouse.  There is no way to actually describe what this band is like.  They’re incredible, but also certainly not for everyone.  Check out this youtube video of them playing live.  It is one of their more laid-back songs.  I implore you to watch the whole way through:

After seeing them open for Modest Mouse, Ron ordered one of their CDs.  I’m not sure how Ron feels about it, but I found the studio Man Man music to be a bit of a let-down after the live experience.  I didn’t feel the freneticism, energy, and profound wackiness that I felt when seeing them live.  So I never did “get into” them as recording artists, though I would frequently listen to a song or two on their MySpace page.  Ron and I did, however, follow thier career, watching as they keep coming oh-so-close to hitting it big in the U.S., only to have it not quite happen.  Spots at Coachella, SXSW, and the Austin City Limits Festival failed to ignite a sizable fanbase, and eventually they go back to playing tiny shithole clubs like The Black Cat.  Mostly because, probably, the band is really fucking weird.  Thier lead singer calls himself “Honus Honus” and their main drummer calls himself “Chang Wang”.  But I had always vowed to Ron that the next time it was possible, we’d be seeing Man Man again.  And so we did.

We got front row, and at The Black Cat, that really means something.  There’s no barrier, so you are touching the lip of the stage, and the stage is very low, so that even on a man as short as I, the stage was at my waist.  The stage is also not very deep.  Chang Wang’s drumkit was about 3 feet from me.  It was like watching a band play in your living room–if your living room was incredibly tiny.  I have never been witness to such an intimate show (and not intimate like singer-songwriter-y intimate, but like watching two of your closest friends have a fistfight and then fuck.)

Here is the song they opened with, “Engrish Bwudd”. (the YouTube user spelled it wrong). There are no YouTube videos up from our show, so this is from a different show:

Here is a different version of “Engrish Bwudd”.  The sound and video are horrible, but it gives you a good idea of the energy and insanity that is being front row at a Man Man show:

Honestly–and this is not just post-show euphoria here–I really think this may have been the best rock show I’ve ever been to.  The band was fully committed, and quite passionate–both emotionally and physically–about every song they played.  And they can work up a head of steam unlike anything I’ve ever seen–sometimes without even a bass or a guitar!  And the crowd, though it was relatively small, was enthusiasticto a point that bordered on hysteria (some even showed up with Man Man-esque white war paint on their faces…and let me tell you, I might be 31 years old, but the next time I see them, I’m considering doing face paint as well); I like to dance and jump around at shows, but this crowd was so gonzo that at some points I was physically forced to jump in time with the seething masses, their combined inertia moving me in time with them.  I turned to Ron a few times and saw the big lug just wearing the world’s largest grin.  There was a feeling everywhere that something truly special was taking place–something that can’t happen just cause some guys or girls strap on guitars and put up microphones; it was a communal energy and a life-ravishing performance.   If you’ve liked any of the above videos, I invite you to partake of this one more.  This song was one of my favorites of the night:

OK wait, one more. This one’s called “Big Trouble”.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I truly feel that Ron and I, and everyone else in that room–and anyone else who’s ever been at a small-club Man Man show–may in fact be some of the luckiest people in the world.

Man Man’s official website is http://www.wearemanman.com.  Their myspace is http://www.myspace.com/wearemanman