Aimee Mann: "Invisible Ink"

The Nada Surf concert fuckin rocked. Opening were "The People" and "Sondre Lerche." Lerche is Norweigan and incredible. You all must download his stuff RIGHTNOW. Not as good as a live rendition of "Bushmeat" but what are you gonna do?

Have you looked into this business of gift baskets for Hollywood awards presenters? Its insane. At the Screen Actor's Guild awards in a few weeks -- not even one of the majors, a union award -- the presenter's gift basket will include: Phillips MP3 Player, Altec Lansing Surround Sound Audio System, tickets to the Indy 500, stays at the Waldorf Towers in NY and the Wyndham Bel Age in LA AND A WEEKLONG GETAWAY AT THE RANCHITO RESORT IN PATAGONIA, CHILE!!! all wrapped in a Wilson's leather suitcase Chile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? All for walking on stage and reciting lines. Granted you have to be famous, but they're the last people that need handouts. And most presenters are also nominees, and most nominees are repeat offenders, so its like this small exclusive club that every March gets these ridiculous freebies. I know the Golden Globes basket had, among other things, a free spa treatment in Arizona. This shit's expensive. Ah, I need to get to a point where I can be a presenter at an awards show. That's all I want. Well, not all.

How 'bout this man in Texas that is accused of abusing his stepson by whipping the bou with a car antenna and forcing the 11-year-old to sleep in a doghouse? Apparently, TX has gone from executing all the Mexicans they can get their hands on to an eye-for-an-eye treatment: the man cut a deal where his punishment is to spend 30 consecutive nights in a doghouse. It is unclear whether or not he is allowed a phone in the doghouse. I'm not kidding. Check it out at www.thesmokinggun.com. This world is whacked.

Tonight I watched the new reality show on ABC, "Profiles" about troops overseas. It was like a documentary sponsored by and with complete cooperation with the DOD. Rumsfeld never made a better decision. This is incredible. To see these real men and women in their duties puts humanity with the news stories. Seeing the environment, the people, the soldiers talking to one-armed Taliban leaders, is all incredible. WOW. Check it out next Thursday at 7 on ABC. Never thought I'd be promoting ABC because normally it sucks ass, but this (and The Mole) is something I can stand behind.

Cindy and I saw "Talk to Her" last night. Now it was my first Almodovar movie, and I was underwhelmed. There were parts I liked and thought were funny, but the movie left me with an uneasy feeling. I know that was its intention, but I am not one of those to applaud a movie that makes me uncomfortable simply because it was supposed to. If I feel uneasy, its a bad thing. I laughed really really hard when a receptionist answered the phone, recognized the caller as her close friend and when asked "what's going on?" replied: "I just took an elephant-sized dump." Do women actually talk like that with each other. God, I hope not. Anyway, I didn't like "Talk to Her" nearly as much as "Y Tu Mama Tambien," which I ranked #2 as my best of the year. Anyone who wants a copy of that list, let me know.

Well, that's it for tonight. I really can't think of what else I wanted to say here, since the beer has killed important brain cells that lead to memory. Emily, that's what I believe and want to believe so don't counter me with all your brainy knowledge. Emily Ralph that is.

Night.

No Music

Yeah, so I'm pretty sure that the pot I just cooked my pasta in had dishsoap residue. It tasted kinda funny. So I threw it out.

I've got a bunch of stuff to talk about tonight, but I'm leaving in about 15 minutes to go to the Nada Surf concert with Jeff and Cindy.

Catching this ridiculous "Hot or Not" for the first time. I'm aghast. Rachel Hunter deserves better!

Ok, I have less thim than I thought. I'll be back later.

Eleven Days: "Meet Me", Remy Zero: "Save Me"

The day's not even over yet and I already have enough to cover a slow news week. Let's start from the top or what happened today.

I finally fell asleep in the two-o'clock hour and when I woke up around 8, I turned over and was convinced it was 2pm. Don't know why. So this feeling of complete failure overcame me, relating to what I professed in the previous blog. Then I realized that it actually was 8am and slept for another hour.

BoDeans: "Naked"

Took a two-hour nap at the Union today sitting in a chair. When I woke up at 10 to one, I very groggily walked to my class and I know I overheard an Indian man ask another man "Will you be attending death?" like it was an everyday question. Maybe he was referring to India as death.

During my one-o'clock class, a power lecture, I took more notes than I ever have in that class before: two pages. About halfway through, all I could think about was how much I liked the way my South African professor wrote the number "2" on the dry-erase board. I also realized how much I hate Bernie Henry, a classmate in not just this class, but my Pol S class immediately following this one. And he was also in my two Pol S classes last semester. Give me a break! He's one of those pushy know-it-all types that seriously raises his hand and talks for about ten minutes out of every fifteen. I can't stand him. Plus, he's fat. So Mary, your insane theory holds true here. (Mary insists that I hate fat people, which I don't. Let's not forget that my late grandfather was a very big man and I love *him* infinitely. But I made the mistake of laughing it off in high school instead of pointedly refuting it and it has dogged me ever since. But what are you gonna do? That girl is a fireball -- no one stands in her way, which sometimes is a very good thing.)

Travis: "Turn"

How about this weird new Farelly Bros. movie slated for the fall?!? Don't remember what it's called but here's a synopsis. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play Siamese twins and are living large. Then the Kinnear half wants to pursue a career in Hollywood and drags along the begrudging Damon half. Also starring Cher. WEIRD. Let's just hope it has the funny of "There's Something About Mary" and not the lame of "Shallow Hal." Here, Here.

Ben Taylor Band: "Just in Time to Fall Down" Yes, the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon and no, I can't tell its not his dad.

Today in my Pol S 270 class we discussed the dangerous subculture of drug resale. People buying generic forms of expensive drugs from Canada, Mexico and the new vanguard drug emporium: India. They buy them for one or two cents per pill compared to the $5 per pill here in the US, then resell them in poor neighborhoods and really anywhere here in the US. They are making a killing and its a dangerous game to play. Maybe a new prescription drug plan is in order. Hmmmmmmmmm.

My new favorite comic is Sarah Silverman. I saw her on Bill Maher's new show on HBO and though she's been funnier, this made me laugh really hard. Hope it translates:

"My niece's school has banned tag from the playground. They think it fosters unhealthy attitudes through someone winning and someone losing. This is fucking retarded. I think kids should work towards something, and winning happens in real life anyway. I tell my niece that when she doesn't win, an angel gets full-blown AIDS. And you know what? She wins. You have to speak their language."

Primitive Radio Gods: "Ghost of a Chance"

My Pol S 270 prof, Weissberg, today kept saying tostesterone and it got to a point where I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't going to say anything because that would be a surefire failure right there. But my God, tostesterone!?!? It's kinda funny.

Weissberg also offered this little tidbit: "I was talking to this Ecuadorian waiter once and he taught me the Ecuadorian waiter pen trick: when you lend someone a pen, keep the cap... they'll never steal it." What a weirdo. But he's a funny and nice guy. He offered to help me on my resume later in the semester.

Well, children, that's it for me today. I'll be back soon though, so check back often. I've got this blasted midterm to cram for on Thursday, so I'll be here... doing that.

Oasis: "Don't Go Away"

This *will* be long. Fair warning -- though Phil: you get what you give.

I am so frustrated lately. I am nothing but a sloth; a veritable rat's nest. I am lazy, I sleep all the time, I missed both classes today and have literally done nothing productive all day long. I need to get my life in order... I feel like I'm moving sideways, or not at all. What happens in my life is absolutely in my command. My destiny is guided by me. While at this stage of my life, this bookended era of relative nothingness, stagnation and the supposed reflection of the rest of my life, I feel completely unmotivated, uninspired, un-everything. I live day-to-day in the sense that I haven't been working towards goals and because of this I am beginning to feel empty. I don't know why I am laying this all out for people, though friends, to read. I haven't done this kind of thing since the Love List years ago (and whoever wants a copy, let me know and you'll get one). There is trepidation but ultimately relief. But that ultimate letting go is like inching up high towards the edge of a rock peak. You don't want to look down and psych yourself out because it'll be worse that way, but you can't willfully trust in what will happen. Then once you get up the nerve to jump, it *is* an adventure, a free-fall, a weightlessness that feels so good and is addicting. Just the tip o' the iceberg.

Ryan Adams: "When the Stars Go Blue"

I haven't read a good book in so long. I am literally in the middle of five or six. Like I said: unmotivated, uninspired. I am reading "A Wrinkle in Time" (really) per the demand of Mary. She gave it to me over a year and a half ago and though a note inside pissed me off and was the last proverbial straw of that cycle (we do go in cycles, Mare) and I am ashamed that I've had it for so long without reading it. She was here a week ago and urged me to pick it up. I did and I like it.

Wilco: "outtasite outtamind (acoustic)"

Mary's friend Phil was reading a sci-fi book when he was here last weekend, and he really read it fast by the way, and then he and I were talking a little about books and I mentioned he had to read "The Beach." And Jeff: I forgot to tell you to too. You have to too. I got it from my friend Lisa about four years ago now and I liked it then, saw the movie and appreciated the book so much more (though the movie was ok, see it without the book in mind) and then reread it a little over a year ago and gained a new love for it. It is remarkable.

Jon Bon Jovi: "Standing Outside Your Window With a Suitcase in My Hand"

Here is a very illegal sampling of my favorite passage:

“All These Things”

There are one hundred glow-stars on my bedroom ceiling. I’ve got crescent moons, gibbous moons, planets with Saturn’s rings, accurate constellations, meteor showers, and a whirlpool galaxy with a flying saucer caught in its tail. They were given to me by a girlfriend who was surprised that I often lay awake after she went to sleep. She discovered it one night when she woke to go to the bathroom, and bought me the glow-stars the next day.
Glow-stars are strange. They make the ceiling disappear.

“Look,” Françoise whispered, keeping her voice low so Etienne wouldn’t wake. “Do you see?”
I followed the path of her arm, past the delicate wrist, up her finger to the million flecks of light. “I don’t,” I whispered back. “Where?”
“There… Moving. You can see the bright one?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now look down, then left, and…”
“Got it. Amazing…”
A satellite, reflecting what – the moon or the earth? Sliding quickly and smoothly through the stars, tonight its orbit passing the Gulf of Thailand and maybe later the skies of Dakar or Oxford.
Etienne stirred and turned in his sleep, rustling the plastic bad he’d stretched out beneath him on the sand. In the forest behind us some hidden bird chattered briefly.
“Hey,” I whispered, propping myself up on my elbows. “Do you want me to tell you something funny?”
“What about?”
“Infinity. But it isn’t that complicated. I mean, you don’t need a degree in –"
Françoise waved a hand in the air, tracing a red pattern with the tip of her cigarette.
“Is that a yes?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I coughed quietly. “If you accept that the universe is infinite, then that means there’s an infinite amount of chances for things to happen, right?”
She nodded and sucked on the red coal floating by her fingertips.
“Well, if there’s an infinite amount of chances for something to happen, then eventually it will happen – no matter how small the likelihood.”
“Ah.”
“That means somewhere in space there’s another planet that, by an incredible series of coincidences, developed exactly the same way as ours. Right down to the smallest detail.”
“Is there?”
“Definitely. And there’s another which is exactly the same, except that palm tree over there is two feet to the right. And there’s another where the tree is two feet to the left. In fact, there’re infinite planets with infinite variations on that tree alone…”
Silence. I wondered if she was asleep. “So how about that?” I prompted.
“Interesting,” she whispered. “In these planets, everything that can happen will happen.”
“Exactly.”
“Then in one planet, maybe I’m a movie star.”
“There’s no maybe about it. You live in Beverly Hills and swept last year’s Oscars.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget, somewhere else your film was a flop.”
“Oh?”
“It bombed. The critics turned on you, the studios lost a fortune, and you got into booze and Valium. It was pretty ugly.”
Françoise rolled onto her side and looked at me. “Tell me about some other worlds,” she whispered. In the moonlight, her teeth flashed silver as she smiled.
“Well,” I replied. “That’s a lot to tell.”
Etienne stirred and turned over again.

I leaned over and kissed Françoise. She pulled away, or laughed, or shook her head, or closed her eyes and kissed me back. Etienne woke, clasping his mouth in disbelief. Etienne slept. I slept while Françoise kissed Etienne.
Light years above our garbage bag beds and the steady rush of the surf, all these things happened.

After Françoise had shut her eyes and her breathing had eased into a sleeping rhythm, I crept off my plastic sheet and walked down to the sea. I stood in the shallows, slowly sinking as the tide pulled away the sand around my feet. The lights of Koh Samui glowed on the horizon like a trace of sunset. The speed of stars stretched as far as my ceiling back home.

I want to write like that, I want to live like that. I want to have moments of clarity where everything and outer space makes sense. I yearn to have moments of genius, like a fish who learns to play dead like a party trick (lame joke to Winnie); in light of these things, in light of other people, in light of life itself and what I'm missing, I yearn to live and I really don't feel like I'm living to the best of my ability right now. Maybe its the fact that its late and I slept thirteen hours last night. Maybe its the fact that I don't belong in a rural environment. Maybe its the fact that I'm poor with no prospects in sight. But whatever it is, it needs to be fixed.

Freddy Jones Band: "In a Daydream"

Right now, before bed, I am going to begin by cleaning my room a little. Tomorrow I don't want to miss any classes even if it means going to my Logic class that I've been to twice all semester despite the fact that the book is *still* not in yet. I am going to see "Talk to Her" with Cindy either Tuesday or Wednesday night depending on when she gets back to me, so fun is in the breakfront. I vow to restart my flax regiment, to minimalize my laziness (perhaps for Lent) while maximizing my output. I need reminders though. I *will* fall back into stagnation, that much is known, for I am weakwilled and lazy. But I have a list of things I need to work on, things to finish and things to start. Hopefully this will take this time.

Tori Amos: cover of "I Don't Like Mondays"

Ah, today was such an oddly filled day, I tell you.

This morning I woke up really early (8) on very little sleep (roughly 4 hours) and groggily showered and went to my practice LSAT. I actually think that I did alright, despite my best attempts to suck to give myself a future inflated sense of accomplishment. According to my own calculations, I got somewhere between a 140 and a 160, not too shabby for barely studying my Princeton Review book past the tips sections. Part of it may be sheer luck though. I find out my actual score next Saturday.

Then I went to Panera and ate for the first time of the day, lazily scored my own test and got really pissed off at some local bitch. It seems I inconvenienced her with my car when I was waiting for a parking space. It seems I was too close to the parked cars and she had to move one foot to her right to get through. Then she gave me a nasty sigh and look. I hated her.

I came back here and slept for three hours, feeling completely groggy afterwards. But I remember having a weird dream, but have since lost it.

Ass Ponies: "Little Bastard"

Around 7:30, Jeff Philips contacted me about Cindy's play at 8. We hightailed it over there and it is safe to say that, while I don't regret it, it was easily the worst "play" EVER. Cindy was in the first of four or five little vignettes before the actual play, like Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes cartoons before movies in the olden days. They were all pointless and unfunny, but it was really cool to see Cindy act.

Neil Halstead: "Hi and Lo and In-Between"

After we snuck out of the horrible trainwreck of the play (seriously, it was about whether a man and his superhero alter-ego could share an apartment. "Short answer: no" was actually written in the playbill), I came back here, tired and having to do laundry. Then I watched SNL and it was actually pretty funny with Christopher Walken, who normally scare the shit out of me. But there were too many cameos by surprise celebrities: Steve Martin, Will Ferrel, Britney Spears and Jim Carrey (I never saw him at all til they thanked him at the end. I mustve missed his skit).

Now, I'm probably gonna go watch an episode of "Mr. Sterling" to keep up with Mary. It's our newest favorite new show since I tied her down and made her watch (and love) "Ed" a couple years ago. "I disagree" still gets her every time. That or read. I have a lot of reading to do. Since I napped earlier, I'm sure I'll be cursed with being awake all night. Drop me a line if you want.

JJ