Sunday, September 30, 2007

More talk about my coif (for those who might care)

So I recently decided to put down the flat iron...and the blow dryer, and the boar's bristle brush, and the defrizzing serum, and the hot oil treatments to keep my hair from drying out, and the defrizzing conditioner, and the defrizzing shampoo...and embrace my curly hair for the time being. It's not like I can never straighten it again. Who knows, I might for a special occasion. It's not like I threw out the (super expensive) flatiron. However, now I've come at another crossroads. Do I want my hair long again or what?

For those of you who know, I seem to not get the exact same haircut every time I go to get it cut. But after the ill-advised, post-breakup, I need to get out of a rut, disastrous bob from last year that ended up looking more Velma than Rihanna, I've been thinking that I kind of might go back to having long hair...but do I want all that hair when it's curly. When I was real young I used to have hair that came down to my butt. And it wasn't curly with defined curls, but it wasn't exactly frizzy either, it was sort of those cotton candy in-between fluff since my mom brushed it out meticulously, not knowing the physics of having curly hair #1 is DON'T TOUCH IT.

It was cute in a "Awww, she looks like a cartoon character," kind of way. Like I had a fuzzy tangle of dark-haired clouds hanging around my head and down my back. At the same time, to me it also felt like I had a foam matress strapped to the back of my head and going down my back. It took forever to dry with my insane amount of hair, it didn't place nice with the weather, and brushing it required setting aside half an hour with my mom hacking away at my head like the prince trying to get to Sleeping Beauty through the forest of thorns.

Needless to say, reflecting on all that I'm a bit hesitant on letting this grow long. I'm thinking "Aubrey Beardsley illustration" but my hair might be deciding on "poodle disaster."

The long debate is slowly being edged out though, thanks to me once again, against my better judgement, being enchanted by a short haircut even though I know I don't look good with short hair and my hair notoriously being uncooperative, but...but...it's so CUTE.

Whilst checking out some songs and videos of Those Dancing Days after someone from across the pond made me aware of their existence, my eyes slowly widened with dawning recognition, and I whispered in awe, "I want Linnea's hair..."



I reasoned with myself. Sure, her hair are looser curls and mine are a bit more tighter ringlets, but honestly all I need are the bangs and a bit more layers to fluff it out into a rounder shape. Doable, yes, but it does not mean I SHOULD do it. Considering that if it goes wrong there's a good chance I'll end up looking like Lionel Richie or Eriq La Salle in "Coming to America," replete with dripping Jheri curl juice...or "Soul Glo" if we wanted to continue with the "Coming to America" theme.



Eriq La Salle's character was as greasy as his Jheri curls =(


I'm going to have to consult with my hair dresser Setsuko about this. Well, actually I like to call her my hair dresser though honestly I only see her once every six months...but I only go to her! Once you find someone who can cut your hair the way you want it, you hold them and you never let them go. Anyhow, she seems to enjoy the challenge whenever I walk in with some brand new half-baked haircut idea. Hell, I've walked in with my own DRAWINGS of the haircut I want and she'll still make it work. We'll put our heads together and come up with something. But not yet. I kind of need this at this length for a little while because there's a chance I might dress up as target="_blank">Delirium for Halloween.



Wait...maybe it might work with the new length...All you need is puffy hair...

Anyhow, here's the video for "Hitten" by Those Dancing Days:

Saturday, September 29, 2007

For your information

I finally went through all my vacation photos. Not many were usable, though. I didn't take that many photos in London. At least compared to Ireland, I felt like I took millions there. Of course, I spent more time there, but also I was in a lot more situations where photography was not allowed and was way too busy running around to stop and really look at things.

I like this one photo from London too much. I don't know why. I know part of me was tempted to like do something...worse? But then I felt like a bad person for contemplating that. I mean, they're just doing their jobs and here I come along, a tourist, and I molest them for my own enjoyment? Besides, I knew they couldn't respond to you, but that doesn't mean I couldn't have been tackled by some security guys. And when I think about that possibility it makes me laugh.



Close runner up is a picture of me with a raven from the Tower of London. Just because it's a flippin' raven. The thing was huge and shiny. I kind of wished I had bread or something to lure it closer. It didn't spook, but it definitely had a perimeter it was comfortable having me outside of. If I got too close it sort of inched away, looking at me, but it didn't try to fly off or anything.

Friday, September 28, 2007

"At the foot of my rival"

I need to get the New Amsterdams' new album. You can listen to the whole thing (probably just for now) on their Myspace page. I remember they were the first band I went to see on my own when I was working in New York for the first time. This was before I graduated and was doing an internship. Then about 3-4 years later I saw them when they opened for the New Amsterdams. I was impressed that they now had an upright bass player.

Anyhow, likes about the new album: It's got a bit more of a faint folky, alt-country tinge to its indie rock and some songs have a mild "old" feel to them. One song, "Revenge," I'm really digging particularly. It's a bit muffled with a scratchy, tinny quality that makes it sound like either a song being played on a record player in a quiet house, or it sounds like a forgotten song recorded on a whim on a cassette tape found later in a shoe box. I also really like the repeating guitar melody. Especially the jerky way it bridges between the chorus and the second versus. Giving it more of that rough, bad-quality recording sound.

"Silverlake" is one of those songs that has a bit of the alt-country undertone while still remaining indie rock. I think Matt Pryor's voice is pretty key in this juxtaposition because his singing style when compared to something like Neko Case or even Oakley Hall, is still emo/indie rock and The Get Up Kids even as the instrumental after the lyric of "life is too rich wasting waiting around for you," twang and whine. They especially wail away at the end with an instrumental interlude.

I love the instruments for "Lost Long Shot," especially the opening. The sound makes me think of...broken down old toys forgotten and playing on their own in an attic. Like when you think of the lyrics and the music together, there's a sense of victory despite being worded with a bit of melancholy as the music plays on persistently. I don't know, I can imagine some old toys singing a song like this simply because they might be worn, faded and forgotten, but they had been loved and played with and chipped edges and faint paint where little hands touched mean more to them sitting in the dark attic rather than new and wrapped in plastic on a store shelf...yea, I know weird. I keep turning the lines "I've been a long lost shot, a prodigal son by trade" and "Only the fools rush in, but only the frightened wait, I would be foolish than scared of my own mistakes" in my head because I like them so much.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Oh for crying out loud

I managed to break my glasses...

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Les Savy Fav, 9/22 at the Bowery Ballroom: The night I almost beat the asses of two Boston fratboys

Dedicated to that one guy who works there who for some reason decided to pick on my friend all the time and I don't know what his goddamn deal is with her

My plane from London was to land some time between 2 and 3 pm, but thanks to headwinds and usual plane lateness I ended up arriving between 4 and 5. A text message greeted me saying, "Are you back in America yet?" I was due at a the same evening, and was attempting to rush home. However, considering I was depending on the subway to get me home, I suppose "rush" isn't the correct word to be using. I arrived back at my apartment with just enough time to drop off my luggage and do a quick shower and change so that I didn't smell like 8 hours of an airplane.

By the time I hopped down to the Bowery Ballroom it was a bit after 8:30, but the show hadn't started yet. Miss Kelly and I chilled, then went up to the performance area and chilled some more, talked with some people. The crowd looked eager and ready to have fun. All in all, it was a good vibe...at first.

So after the second opening act Parts & Labor got of stage and we were in that waiting period for Les Savy Fav to come on stage, two drunk guys had weasled their way into the space directly behind us.

For those of you familiar with drunks at shows, they usually fall into two categories. One being just asshole-ish drunks who can be a range of combinations of harmless and friendly/excited eager. They're not bad people, they just happen to be drunk. Sure it's annoying, but some people I suppose just like being drunk so what can you do. I personally don't know why you'd get smashed at a show, but hey, different strokes for different folks. The second group is the drunk asshole. No redeeming features whatsoever. They're just an asshole that happens to also be drunk. These two assholes were of that latter group.

It first started out with them just being goddamn rude. For one thing, all they did was talk smack about the girls around them. Either pointing out how funny so and so looked, or making fun of what so and so was saying. All of this being said in that jerk fratboy at a party type of patois. Basically something like, "That Jessica is such a fucking slut...and don't fucking get me started on that fat bitch Susan," type of conversations where they think no one's going to step up to them because they're big man on campus or some bullshit like that. They weren't even from around here yet felt like they could totally just disrespect everyone they saw. I mean I don't care if they were from Boston, but you don't go to some other fuckin' city and just start talking shit. That's like if I was invited to a friend's friend house and decided to start insulting his lifestyle for no goddamn reason.

Now to explain about my friend Kelly. She's that person at the show who will start a friendly conversation with you no matter who you are. She loves shows, she loves meeting people at shows, that's just her. Hell, that's how we became friends in the first place. I'm not that super social at shows, but she was the one to walk up to me and intitate a conversation. Perfectly nice person.

I explain all this to highlight how the following scenario was the height of douchebaggery. So the drunk assholes start cheering and Kelly, who's also excited turns around and goes "All right!" and holds up her hand for a high five. Drunk Asshole #1 shoots her this look and goes, "Don't touch me. That's disgusting."

Kelly just put a whatever look on her face and turns around but the two assholes keep giggling like Beavis and Butthead, no doubt impressed with themselves at the superior "burn" they'd just unleashed. Anyhow, I overhear them and now they're talking about how "gay" it is that Kelly's taking pictures and how they're such dedicated Les Savy Fav fans and how they should be upfront and how they're going to push everyone out of the way once the set starts.

I turn to Kelly and I whisper in her ear, "Hey, I'm about to kick their asses in a second, so if I get kicked out don't get mad."

Right then I hear one of them say, "We should totally push these bitches out of the way."

I turn around and I go, "What the FUCK did you say, asshole? If you have a motherfucking problem, say it to my face, don't fucking talk shit to my back. Your dick so small you need to get drunk and talk shit about people at a show to enjoy it anyway?"

Asshole #1 puts this idiot look in his face like "What did I do?" and starts denying he said anything. I think "What a fucking punkass bitch. At least have the balls to say you said something."

Asshole #2 is "attempting" to defuse the situation and all of the sudden he's all "I didn't say anything."

So I go, "I wasn't fucking talk to you was I? I was talking to your asshole friend here. Hey if you fucking like Les Savy Fav for real, you should shut your goddamn mouth and just enjoy the show with everyone else. I heard you going 'Oh, it's so gay to be taking pictures' you fucking homophobic motherfucker."

The two of them continue to deny saying anything and how they weren't doing anything, but by this time I'm pissed the hell off. It wasn't even like I was yelling or anything I just kept going, "I fucking heard you call us bitches, asshole. What you're going to push us out of the way? I fucking dare you. You touch me or come anywhere near me during the show I will fucking elbow you in the face and fuck you up, you understand? I fucking warned you. Now shut the fuck up, don't talk about me, don't fucking come near me, or I swear to God I will fuck you up."

Now Asshole #2 is fake holding his friend back (who wasn't even attempting to do anything anyway) and says, "Hey, hey, calm down now Judo Black Belt."

I get all up in there and start jabbing my finger in his face and I go, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is that some kind of fucking threat? I'm supposed to be scared you know judo? You fucking know judo? I'll go fucking ghetto on your ass, motherfucker. Just fucking try me. Fucking threatening me? Want me to kick your ass in front of all these people? Want to see your ass get kicked by a girl in front of a bunch of people?"

Anyway, they don't even come near me the rest of the show, but of course later on I see them trying to smack my friend Kelly in the face repeatedly.

Now, I don't like getting into arguments, and I don't look like the type of person to go around fighting. In fact I try to avoid them and honestly rarely do. I just dno't like drama. It tires me and arguments and things like that feel very tedious. So the problem is while it takes a lot for me to get into the mindset of getting into a fight, at the same time once I'm set off, that's pretty much it. Which is another reason why I try to not get into fights or arguments because I go and I see nothing else but the conflict at hand. It takes a while for me to calm back down and that means either a) the other person would have to walk away at some point or b) it just escalates into something uglier.

I had no delusions of grandeur that I was going to beat those guys up. They were two guys in shape. If it had ended up being a physical fight, I probably would've gotten hurt, but I've been in situations where I've been hit or someone even touched me in a fight and I just go berserk. Almost like a fine red mist just settles over my eyes and it doesn't stop until someone pulls me off. I don't go in knowing I'm going to win. I don't know martial arts. I don't have any techniques. I just fight dirty with total disregard to my personal safety. It's more about causing as much damage as possible before I go down. So I know if anyone of them had even pushed me or who knows, thrown a punch, I probably would've been in some serious shit, but at the same time I know that I probably would've clawed off half their face or bitten off a chunk of their nose or something to make sure they were at least scarred for life for daring to even lay a hand on me.

But my point is this. If you're going to saying shit about a girl, you're either such a coward that you can't be talking shit about guys your own size or you're an asshole who thinks putting down girls is funny or some shit like that. I'm no rah-rah feminist, but if you're saying fighting words you better be ready to fight. They might as well have smacked me in the face for all the shit they said, then at least I would've had the equal opportunity to smack them back. It was insulting that they could only talk like they were some big men when they thought no one was listening or would say anything back and it was even more insulting that they denied that they said anything. I've seen some and put up with some bullshit treatment from assholes who thought they could talk to me anyway they could, and seriously, fuck them all. I'm not putting up with that bullshit anymore.

Also if you fucking love a band so much, then just enjoy the damn show. That's the least amount of respect you can pay to the band. Don't be insulting or ruining the experience for other people who came for the exact same reason you did. You can't talk about how much you love a band or their music if you're going out of your way to actively ruin it for other people who want to enjoy it too.

Besides that, if you couldn't tell, it was a fucking awesome show.

B-b-b-b-b-back

Yea, just got back from London today (well, I guess yesterday since it's Sunday morning now) and just got back now from a Les Savy Fav show. Too tired to talk about both of those now, but I already have a title for the latter, so tomorrow look forward to "Tonight I Got Very Close to Beating the Asses of Two Boston Fratboys; But Luckily It Stopped At Me Just Creating a Huge Scene Where I Chewed Them Out"

Sunday, September 16, 2007

'All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go. I'm standing here outside your door...'

In a couple of hours I'll be flying over the Atlantic...if everything goes right. I don't know, I always get pre-trip jitters. Not about flying or anything, just I always worry that I made the reservations wrong or something like that. I'm more afraid of my ineptitude than of flying. Hell, I love flying...and airports. I'm sick like that.

Anyhow, wish me luck on my trip and I'll see all of y'all in a week.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

This is dedicated to a certain someone

You know, I was feeling a little run down and not that into it today, but you, the cute guy who works in my building but on a different floor with another company, you turned brightened my day.

I almost bumped into you on the elevator in the morning and when I said, "Excuse me," you said, "It's OK." Then in the weirdest of coincidences, you held the elevator door for me at lunch time. Cute AND nice and polite.

So, this is to you. Shine on you good-looking, nice and polite star, you.

Monday, September 10, 2007

How in the world are people getting laid nowadays?

Quoth a rather charming young gentleman who passed me on the street today:

"Can I put that back out for you?"

Say what, what?

No, seriously. Does that work? Do all the fair maidens swoon at the very silver-tongued compliment you're paying them there? People, please. I'm just very disappointed. That's all I have to say.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

London trip countdown

Ten more daaaayyyyssss.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Revisiting B'z

I've been listening to B'z today a whole lot and just wanted to explain what I really loved about them.

I just loved their sound because to me it was at once this really Western rock sound, but there were undertones of very Eastern sounding lines. For example, "Calling."



The first snippet of the song is very rock, rock, rock with its straight forward guitar backdrop, but then the song all of the sudden mellows out and it's like the bastard child of power ballads and enka or Korean ponchak/teurohteu(trot) or something.

It's like this:



...got its nasty on with this:



Just listen to "Calling" again starting around 0:58. It's very enka/ponchak-esque in certain elements. The way Koshi Inaba does that "turn" in his voice at certain points...it sort sounds like it weaves in and out of minor and major chords? Very reminescent of enka to me. At the same time the crescendos with violins and piano is so rock ballad. It's very Eastern yet Western at the same time. I don't know, you just have to keep listening to it.

You can really hear it in "Blowin'"



Just listen to the melody on this one. Pay attention to the beginning before the vocals kick in, because once the vocals kick in, especially at the chorus when the base melody plays against Inaba's voice you can hear how the melody itself has a very Japanese sound to it, but Inaba's singing "Blowing, blowing in th wind..." over it totally transforms it.

Or how about "Time" for that matter?



Tak Matsumoto's noodling at first sounds like you're about to get ready for some Lynyrd Skynyrd (though he noodles quite a bit more for this live performance), but listen around 2:15, which is where the song really starts, and listen how it transitions around 2:22-23 before it full on hits you at 2:30. A small minor tweak, but it goes from like a Zeppelin moment into something else.

Then listen to:



or



I'll even throw in one of my mom's faves, "Blue Light Yokohama"

I don't know, B'z's sound is just so new yet so familiar on so many fronts. Definite love.

The stages of dressing nice for once

1. Bargaining. You look in the mirror one last time before leaving the house going, "OK. You look fine. Don't change, don't change. It just looks weird because you don't usually get all dressed up like this...OK, if you don't put on the necklace will you not change?"

2. Denial. You get to work, like in the mirror and think, "Oh, God. I look like a hard up hooker from some hard-boiled B noir. I'm the chick Mike Hammer smacks around."

3. Doubt. People compliment you that you look nice. Maybe you don't look so bad after all as you intially thought, or maybe they're just being nice?

4. Dread. You realize if people actually like how you look...maybe you have to start dressing like this all the time to keep up expectations.