Thursday, May 31, 2001
charles is back, and his house is suddenly a horrible shade of yellow. yesterday was christine's 19th birthday, and we had a pretty pleasant supahstah / llm gathering for her, looked at charles' digital photos of costa rica, and then went to le bon temps to see kermit ruffins, though most of us ended up sitting outside talking and forgetting the show, which was really the same as it is every wednesday night. kermit's not bad, but not really my favorite... all of this was kind of tinged with sadness, since joanna is leaving to go be a doctor in the navy tomorrow. tonight we're having a supahstah potluck in her honor - so i've got to get home early. see, if you've ever grown up, you know that friends leave. when my friends leave new orleans - and most are reluctant - i have a mix cd of new orleans music that i make for them. i think it's a pretty good memento of the warm, dark nights, the fog, the river, the live oaks, the heat and the sweat, the beat up trumpets and tubas and trombones, the shotgun doubles, the crawfish and oysters and abita amber... i always cry when i make one, because i only make them for good friends...
in an unprecedented tie-together of the last two posts, wallofsound came through with three last reviews today, their last day of existence - radiohead's amnesiac, which is out next tuesday; fred eaglesmith's new live album; and air's 10,000 hz. legend. radiohead fared well - i'm looking forward to that - but i felt somewhat vindicated to see the new air album given the 55 rating it deserves... given those few more listens i've given it, i think it is at best, a mildly aggravating, pretentious attempt at 70's background music. i'd rather be listening to serge gainsbourg, and that's not saying much. Tuesday, May 29, 2001
a few things, after a long and generally crappy day: • i was just now making some changes to unapologetic and was suddenly struck profoundly by, of all things, what an amazing color blue is. i was moved. • i got the new air cd, the 10,000 hz. legend, and on first listen, it's just not connecting. it's not beautiful the way moon safari was; it seems too deliberate, too calculated. where the moon safari and even the virgin suicidessoundtrack were feminine, this album seems decidedly masculine, in a very beck/beach boys/ween sort of direction - and not just because of the mostly male vocals on the album, but the whole sound in general. which is certainly bizarre and esoteric, but is it good? i need a few more listens before i come down on either side of that question. but anyway, it was not what i was expecting, and brought to mind the title of the new calexico EP, even my sure things fall through... • to make myself feel better after the above referenced letdown, i stopped on the way home and got the new everything but the girl album, which is ben watt and tracy thorne remixes of other people's tunes - beth orton and dj cam, for example. definitely ebtg quality stuff, and not disappointing in the least. and it's almost redeemed an otherwise shite day.
first the demise of napster, and now this... wall of sound - the music site i've trusted most for cd reviews, that i've been reading religiously for nearly five years now, is closing June 1st. as a serious music collector, you get to trust certain publications for the quality of their reviews, and wallofsound was the best - honest, unbiased, great writers, not prone to kiss corporate ass and rave over every album, and likewise not so pretentious as to pan records unnecessarily.... i think i'm still in shock. i guess i figured this was coming, when disney decided to close down it's go.com portal, of which wallofsound was a part... but it's so sudden, and right before the biggest music release week in recent memory (june 5=radiohead, lucinda williams, rufus wainwright, ron sexsmith) and yes, it is - er, was - a big corporate website. not indie, not homegrown, but some of the best reviews out there, and some of the best writers - grant alden of 'no depression' magazine one of them - in all sorts of genres, and incredibly consistent ratings - when wallofsound gave it a 90 or above, it was a damn fine album, no questions asked. there are other good music review sites out there, and i guess i'll be checking those more frequently, but i'll miss my tuesday morning scan of wall of sound. Monday, May 28, 2001
it's memorial day. it's been a strange weekend, and last night's pool party was kind of a weird deja-vu, with a particularly surrreal ending. whoa... things you don't want to know. Friday, May 25, 2001
my inner rock star is beck, according to the emode.com quiz that's the latest sensation sweeping the nation... or at least my friends in nola and some of my favorite blogs... bebe was macy gray, and holly's was bjork. both of which are pretty appropriate, i think... Thursday, May 24, 2001
i think i'm tired of being single again, after about a year of it. that's how it usually goes, i enjoy it for about a year, and then i suddenly begin to notice how many attractive, intelligent women there are in the world, and why the hell am i not dating anyone? i guess i could answer that in lots of ways, but i feel like it's the same old exuse i use for everything these days, i'm in a transitonal period and not the picture of stability, financial or otherwise... but it is just an excuse, i guess... another example of the inertia that i so desperately need to break lately... oh, and i suppose there's a bit of residual hesitance as a result of being burned in my previous relationships, though everyone has that, i guess... hell... Wednesday, May 23, 2001
r.i.p. buffy. she saved the world a lot. how could they kill buffy??? what's going to happen now, will it be 'dawn the vampire slayer'??? just not the same ring to it... the wb sucks! Tuesday, May 22, 2001
i know i'm not the first to comment on it, but the blog world - something i'm still very new to, but very enthusiastic about - seems to be in a strange way. i'm not talking about the kaycee nicole hoax, so much as the sort of collective pause that's spread through some of the best weblogs. alison at bluishorange is away; loobylu is gone indefinitely; and today, we find that dack.com is gone forever. hopefully, things will even out, new favorites will rise to replace the old, and bluishorange will be back in june.
ok, i have to post a link to this, because although i didn't know much about kaycee, i had visited her site a few times... this whole hoax just goes to remind the net community of the fluid identity that this whole medium allows - i could get into identity theory here, all sorts of thoughts - but for now, check out this page about the whole kaycee hoax: rootnode.org.
simeon apparently learned lot from his high school ten year reunion, judging by his most recent post. But as i sit here in my miserable office, doing what amounts to minimum wage crap at a salary not much better than that - out of some sort of loyalty to my family business, or more, out of fear of leaving what i know, even though i know it's kiling me - there, i said it - and listening to some ookla the mok mp3s - a 'filk' band simeon turned me on to - it strikes me that the song by that band most appropriate for both of us right now would be "aged", rather than "viewmaster". i know this means nothing to anyone else, so if you fall into that category, download the mp3 of 'aged' right there, and since ookla has a nice copyright policy, i don't even have to feel bad about putting it online... Sunday, May 20, 2001
Charles wants to show his father this site, so here's a link to the NASA Satellite tracker, J-Track 3D.
last night was a fiasco. the paralegals we work with in baton rouge came in - allison and gina - and refused to go to commander's with us - thank god, in retrospect - and then the night just became stupid, with arguments and tension about where to go, what kind of bars to go to - stupid touristy bourbon street dance clubs or the quieter, more laid back uptown bars that doug and i are used to. and it was a clusterfuck, oh boy. all kinds of bad vibes goin' on. all i can say is, thank god for the supahstars... Saturday, May 19, 2001
what a crazy day. work in the morning, then rod's law school graduation - which was in an inferior venue to mine last year, but with a much better speaker, so it all evens out... - then to galatoire's with rod's family - then hansen's for a bliz, and now i'm about to be off to commander's palace for drinks and a bite to eat with doug and adam. i hope it's not too much lawyertalk. not feeling up to that, i don't think. anyway, i'm off, more later, maybe.
i just created another blog, but one that's private, just for me, right here . which i didn't realize i'd need until i started writing here and figured out that if anyone else ever did read this site, randomly or otherwise, there are just some things i can't say, or can't have read, heard, or known. so it's all mine, and it's all private, and it might as well be in a real journal, except it's easier this way and i'm much more likely to write in it if it's online. also, it should help me refine and hone my ideas and thoughts for what i'm going to write about here on unapologetic, and maybe it will help me start writing here more the way i've really been wanting to, because i won't really be pulling my punches, and because maybe i'll have had a chance to work some of my deeper ideas and things out, put them down and get comfortable with them, and not just keep putting them off until i forget what i wanted to write about them in the first place. so... oh, i've been needing to say this for a few days, i saw an absolutely horrible awful terrible definitely in my top 5 worst movies of all time movie this week.( thanks simeon.) it was called "the panamanian tailor" and it sucked amazingly. it was about - get this - a panamanian tailor. stupid me thought, before the movie, it might be some allusion to the brave little tailor, you know, "killed seven in one blow" and all that... in the context of a spy movie, that could lead to some pretty cool plot ideas, or something. but no, it consisted of pierce brosnan, and jamie lee curtis, and the most contrived bullshit plot concievable. don't go see it. maybe i'll write more about it when i get to work tomorrow. maybe i won't waste any more screenspace on writing about the godawful thing. goodnight. my narcolepsy calls... what the fuck ever happened to "graphic vampire" and "public insomniac" and all that crap? the 4 day all nighters in college? those were the days, my friend... they're not so far gone, are they?? sure feels like it. Friday, May 18, 2001
check this out, it's like a damn x-files episode... CNN.com - Vigilantes scour New Delhi for 'Monkey Man' - May 18, 2001 Wednesday, May 16, 2001
ashley is out of town, visiting her neices and nephews in charlotte - and she just sent out an e-mail asking the superstahs to write her, because she could use some "adult conversation" after babysitting kids all day. which made me think, "adult? who, me?" it's actually something i think about - how strange it is when people call me 'sir' in a store, things like that... despite my age - 25, almost 26 - and the fact that i graduated from law school a year ago this weekend... i still have a hard time identifying myself with the term 'man' rather than 'boy'. i've heard that it takes marriage, and/or children - to get to that point. if so, i've got plenty of time, judging from my current lack of prospects... till then, i think 'guy' is probably a pretty good term to refer to myself by.
yeah, right. i knew damn well i wasn't going to make it home that easily. i broke down and went to the clapton concert with my dad and his friend chuck and my sister jessica. got there late, thankfully, after stopping to wish my friend amanda happy birthday at her birthday dinner. anyway, my initial inclination was right - i could have lived without the clapton concert. the man is just getting a bit too mellow in his old age, and the bulk of the show consisted of oozy, formulaic white-boy blues and jazzy instrumentals more reminiscent of kenny g than of cream... eric clapon just seems to have ceased to rock. he's fallen into the mold of his buddies rod stewart and phil collins - and that's bad company, in my book. even the older tunes - cocaine, layla, sunshine of your love - were subdued and mellow and just had no fire in them at all. Also aggravating were the trippy, psychadelic lighting effects - accompanying decidedly not trippy, not pshychadelic music. so it's true what sickboy says in trainspotting: SICK BOY: "well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone for ever. All walks of life: George Best, for example, had it and lost it, or David Bowie, or Lou Reed -" RENTON: "Some of his solo stuff's not bad." SICK BOY: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either, is it? And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite." eric clapton, i am sad to report, looks like he's lost it... but then, on the upside, his guitar playing never faltered, and was as exciting to watch as ever: he's still got that. interestingly, he played the entire show using only one electric guitar and one acoustic... Tuesday, May 15, 2001
i don't know why, but i just turned down a chance to see eric clapton's 'reptile' tour, tonight at the new orleans arena. for free. i just didn't want to go. i've seen him twice before, and he's great, but i'm just not in the mood for bluesy guitar balladry tonight. no, i'm in the mood for, um, sitting late at the office after even the cleaning people have gone, and writing to a weblog that no one has ever seen but me and a few of my closest friends. what the hell is wrong with me? great. now they've turned the air conditioner off. i'm going home.
wow. all my favorite musicians and bands - well, lots of them - are coming out with albums within the next month. oh, cruel world...
it may look like i've been slacking for a few days, with no posts since the weekend and those even as short as they are, but i've been working on getting a blog up for simeon. but i think today, i'll make up for lost time - my mind is spinning with thoughts to write... Saturday, May 12, 2001
douglas adams is gone forever. so long, and thanks for all the fish. and books.
what a strange and interesting night. simeon and i taught a fourth grade girl how to play darts. her name was nina. her father was irish, which explains why she was at o'flaherty's at 11:00 on a saturday night. and why her parents didn't mind her playing darts with two twenty-something guys drinking guinness. i guess. but it was still weird. Friday, May 11, 2001
last night was an amazing, record-setting, ground-breaking experience - i actually got to sleep at 9:30pm. 9:30!!! that's before midnight. it's even before 10! and after such a long week, i can't tell you how good it feels to be well rested - and ready for the weekend, which i'm sure will bring me right back to the sleep dep blues again... Wednesday, May 09, 2001
the problem with a guy letting pretty girls at parties put iridescent blue nailpolish on his fingernails is not the putting on itself, nor the wearing (if the guy is sufficiently comfortable with his masculinity), of said nailpolish. it's the fact that later, when the novelty has worn off and the joke is over, the guy has no access to nailpolish remover. and thus, in a manner not unlike a trapped animal gnawing off its mangled limb, the guy, stuck in a hostile environment like, say, the office - begins an ugly, desperate nailpolish removal process which includes things like paperclips, scissors, and keys. the aftermath of which is... um, as yet undetermined.... spent a long night with the superstahs bidding adieu to susan, who's going home to NC. we'll miss her. she had the coolest shirts. Monday, May 07, 2001
minor redesign: colors slightly off register - and a manga-style self-portrait. what do you think - does it look like me or no? let me know what you think of the new look.
i've been zoned out - that just woken up, half asleep swollen feeling that i can only describe as 'puffy' - all day. the bags under my eyes are still there, 8 hours later... it's not lack of sleep, i got plenty last night, if a bit fitful - and then nothing has gone particularly well today - including lunch, which just hasn't happened to materialize yet... maybe all the weekend's late nights have decided to hunt me down after all... thpppt...
yes. i like golf. golf is not boring. golf is fun. playing golf is fun. watching golf is fun. i had fun sunday, watching golf. all by myself. then i had hansen's snowbliz and crawfish. with charles and rod. how very new orleans of me. i am about to implement a comment thingy, in case some day anyone besides me ever sees this site, and feels compelled to share. i'm beginning to think that unapologetic may be ready for primetime. or at least, i keep wanting to mention it to people. but i don't. yet. i think i have more to say, but i don't care to elaborate... Sunday, May 06, 2001
damn it, i wanted to post more today.
oh my god. that's daylight.
the clock on the microwave in the kitchen said 4:58 when i walked in. out till five with the supahstahs, dancing the night away to the strains of the newbirth brass band at the twi-ro-pa mill - i'm not sure how i know this, but that stands for "twine-rope-papyrus" - anyway, it's a venue now, like a rave style gutted building with a stage... rebirth and the soul rebels were supposed to be there, but when we left at 4:30 they hadn't gotten there yet... highlights included dancing like a complete fool for 4 hours, and the legendary, beautiful, smiling ashley hansen, of hansen's snowballs, being there too. anyway, perhaps i'll fill in details later. for now, i need sleep, so good night. when i wake up this afternoon, it's off to english turn for the compaq classic pga tour golf tournament. Friday, May 04, 2001
i don't suffer fools very well. i keep reminding myself of what william s. burroughs said in his 'words of advice for young people': "do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill; it is a bottomless pit. tell them firmly, 'i am not paid to listen to this drivel -- you are a terminal fool.'...otherwise, they make you as crazy as they are." and then i remember that currently, i am paid to listen to this drivel. horribly underpaid, but paid nonetheless. and becoming as crazy as they are. which reminds me of what beck said in 'loser': "things are gonna change, I can feel it..." Thursday, May 03, 2001
oh. and more jazzfest today - lucinda williams is a badass. no, i mean a real badass. in the johnny cash/steve earle sense of the word. she's from here, sort of. she's better than britney. who is also from here, sort of. um...yeah.
right. so after reading a few of the more recent entries on charles' blog i've realized something rather sad, something that i don't think i'd ever really thought about quite this simply, before... i don't really have many strong childhood memories. what i have are more recollections - re-collected, re-constituted ideas of what went on in my life, pieced together later on, after the real memories had evaporated like dreams. even those are fuzzy, a little sketchy on facts and contexts - not vivid, not clear. they're explanations of photos in albums, repeated over the years, until they become the truth, a reality that may never have been real. and here's the sad part - between those photos, there's not much there, at least not accessible to my consious contemplation. i have the typical major incidents, but even with many of those i'm vague on details - but in the interstitial spaces, there are great voids. maybe it's like that with everyone. maybe i'm just older, and memories are gossamer, ethereal, ephemeral, fade. maybe there just weren't that many stories. maybe i'm just trying not to remember them.
i saw the louisiana philharmonic orchestra last night, in a tribute to louis armstrong. they were completely overshadowed, no eclipsed - by their guests - dr. michael white and his original dixieland jazz band. the orchestra was even eclipsed by a 2 minute 'sacred' drum and dance slave spiritual demonstration... in short, european classical music and instrumentation (restrained, ordered, melodic) basically got a beat down from the african-american forms (much more freely emotional, improvisational, rhythmic.) conclusion: fuck the symphony, go hang out down the street at donna's or the funky butt, and hear some real music. otherwhere, i got a cuecat at my friendly neighborhood radioshack the other day, but it's pretty useless as yet. i found some freeware that decodes the scan data, but i need something to look up the codes and integrate with access or something, to make it useful. i want to index my cd collection, ultimately... Tuesday, May 01, 2001
have you ever enjoyed being sad? i heard once that there is a spanish word, or idiomatic phrase - one i don't know, apparently, although i'm an almost native speaker - that means ' to sit in nostalgia' - i guess another way to put it would be 'to wallow in melancholy'. that's where i'm at right now. it's sort of a blissful melancholy, a beautiful blue funk - a knot in my throat, a tightness in my chest, that makes me feel as if i'm liable to cry at the slightest provocation - a sad song, a memory induced by the scent of magnolias on the breeze in the dark out there - and a desire to be so provoked. it's like swimming out to the beginning of the undertow, just to feel it, colder than the rest of the water, tugging gently but persistently at your feet - or like standing on the edge of an emotional precipice, looking over - and what's so strange about it is the giddiness that comes with it, and the feeling that i don't necessarily want it to go away. they say - and i believe - that the fear of heights isn't so much the fear that you'll fall as it is the fear that you'll jump. i don't know what's behind this mood, or at least i know that it could be any of several things - issues and fears too broad or deeply personal to discuss, at least directly, here, and that less out of the fear of other people reading them (but that too), than the fear of actually writing about them myself and thereby making them concrete, giving them substance - impossible to deny, or ignore, or forget, or hide from. i have to figure out that word. |
