A Day in the Life Welcome Guest | Login or Register

At 17, I am currently part of the most overly-documented-by-Hollywood age group there is. When I look back at movies like Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, and Fast Times at Ridgemount High, it’s weird to think that Spicoli and the greasers from The Outsiders are at my current age.

But out of all the teenage movies Hollywood puts out, the movie that really strikes a new meaning to me now is The Goofy Movie.

The Goofy Movie documents the relationship between Goofy and his son Max, as they take a road trip across the United States with different destinations in mind. In one scene in particular, the characters sing about the last day of school. It talks about the basic stereotypes of high school that I, until pretty recently, thought were fictional. The “cool kids” of the video sing about the joy of “no more Algebra tests ’till September”, and “no more looking at losers like him” while skinny nonathletic kids rejoice “no more gym”.

Whenever it was that I first saw this movie, I would have never guessed that out of all of the characters in the video, I can most closely relate to the little goth girls who say “no more pep rallies to cut” with a puking gesture.

But it’s so true.

I’ve always detested pep rallies, and as it turns out, watching people throw their shoes in to hula hoops isn’t fun either. When lots of people gather to stand up, sit down and recite things on command, it reminds me of my least favorite child hood memory, regularly attending Catholic Church.

And Comedycentral.com stopped uploading new episodes of Daily Show and Colbert Report. That sucks too.

But on the brighter side of things, I’m Boba Fett!! WOOHOOO

Photo Credit Walmart

Like all male pre-teen suburban kids from the greater Los Angeles area, I too once had a Led Zeppelin phase. During this phase, I learned to always find a way to wear one of my two Led Zeppelin t-shirts at least every other day of the week, and Houses of the Holy seldom saw light outside of my CD player. I even read a biography on the band, and watching Jimmy Page wield his Telecaster encouraged me to by one of my own.

Back when “I hate math class” meant “I hate Algebra 1″, Robert Plant’s vain and over-the-top fantasy sequence in The Song Remains the Same wasn’t so corny, and I could tolerate listening to a 4 minute drum solo just for the sake of listening to Led Zeppelin II from beginning to end. But as time went on, I eventually migrated to another rite of passage, The Velvet Underground phase (I’ll tell you when it’s over).

So it was on a whim that I decided to listen to Houses of the Holy again today, and it comes apparent to me my old obsession wasn’t completely unjustified. And while I’m not much of a fan of the opening track, “The Song Remains the Same” because it reminds me too much of that old Hansen song where the little sisters sing ” DOO DADA DO DA DOO DADA DOO DA DOO DA DA”, I absolutely adore “Rain Song” which follows as track 2. “Rain Song” to me is what “Stairway to Heaven” should have sounded like: a guitar riff that you don’t grow weary of in the 6 minutes it is played, and an exciting vocal delivery at the end that doesn’t suck. No guitar solo needed.

The album does have it’s very tacky moments (like when Plant sings “When I read the letter you wrote me it made me sad sad sad” in “Dyer Makr”) and I have been known to unintentionally fall asleep listening to “No Quarter”, but at least I wasn’t listening to pop-punk.

Photo Credit http://www.filmreference.com

Arthur C. Clarke was announced as dead today.

I am not going to claim that I am a huge fan of (nor very familiar with) his body of work, but I do consider 2001: A Space Odyssey to be one of my favorite films ever, along with Rocky Horror Picture Show, Elephant Man, and Dr. Strangelove.

I didn’t even make it all the way at first. Seeing Clockwork Orange in my freshman year inspired me to watch every Kubrick movies as soon as I could. 2001 was the only one I initially thought was unwatchable (although I still don’t think that Full Metal Jacket is on the same level as his other films). Having seen only Dr. Strangelove, Clockwork, and probably The Shining at the time, I did not expect to see such an unconventional method of storytelling that’s employed in 2001 and Barry Lyndon.

I imagine the first viewing was what listening to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music or seeing The Star Wars Holiday Special for the first time would have felt like had I not known what to expect. I made it about 15 minutes in and turned it off.

Photo Credit http://amazon.com

I guess I was just impatient. The long start of the film took me by surprise and had I seen it in a theater, I probably would have stayed just to be stingy, but in the many viewings that have followed since then, I have come to appreciate 2001 as one of the most imaginative and captivating films I have ever seen.

I have a like-hate relationship with Pitchfork Media; I like reading it sometimes, but I hate the idea of being the guy who reads Pitchfork Media.

I think the reviews are almost always well written and I often agree with them (and presumably this one too. But how could it be anything else?). I have even swayed away from buying certain records upon hearing negative reviews (but not always).

It’s just that every time I see the ads on the side bar, I cringe at the thought of being the market for American Apparel.

Well anyways, I found a wonderful Youtube video on Pitchfork the other day of John Cale in a television game show. There is close to no money on the line, even with inflation adjusted, and the game show is called “I’ve Got A Secret” and it predates the release of The Velvet Underground and Nico by a couple of years. It’s not saying too much that I liked this video because I would watch John Cale eat a sandwich if such a video was available, but I just thought it was great. That’s all.

John Cale’s experimental nature and his overall badassness makes me guilty for always saying that The Velvet Underground is my favorite Velvets album. Next time I’m confronted with the tough question, I’ll say White Light/White Heat. I think picking a favorite of the first three VU albums is like picking a favorite child; you don’t pick everyone else’s favorite because it makes the others get jealous, and so you have to toss a coin between the other two.

Wikipedia is my favorite part of the internet. I have spent countless hours on it studying, doing my homework, and most of all, feeding my self with useless information. This is a documentation of a wiki-journey I take on a typical day.

3-15-2008

It all started here:

Stephen Colbert Interview with Sudhir Ventkatesh

Then I thought “too dangerous for the police? that sounds like a good Wikipedia read”.

Skip to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crips

“The Crips are a primarily, but not exclusively, African American gang founded in Los Angeles, California in 1969 by 15-year-old Raymond Washington and Stanley Tookie Williams III .”

“Stanley Tookie Williams III? what a great name”

click on:

Stanley Tooie Williams III

” . . . executed by lethal injection after clemency was rejected by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, amidst . . . “

“I don’t care what anybody says. Terminator 2 was a great movie”

fast forward to:

Arnold Schwarzenegger

“. . . more recently “The Governator” (a portmanteau of Governor and Terminator, referring to . . . ”

“what a great word”

Off to:

portmanteau

“This usage of the word was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)”

“Lewis Carroll? psychedeliccccccccc”

Lewis Carroll

” . . . the poems “The Hunting of the Snark” and “Jabberwocky“, all considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense“

“literary nonsense? I can get behind that”

literary nonsense

“Literary nonsense refers to a genre of literature, whether poetry or prose, that plays with conventions of language and logic through a careful balance of sense and non-sense elements.”

“That sounds like Talking Heads!”

But no mention of David Bryne, the writer of of lyrics like,

” Ev’rything is divided
Nothing is complete
Ev’rything looks impressive
Do not be deceived
You don’t have to wait for more instructions
No one makes a monkey out of me
We lie on our backs, feet in the air
Rest and relaxation, rocket to my brain

We are born without eyesight
We are born without sin
And our mama protects us
From the cold and the rain
We’re in no hurry
sugar and spice
We sing in the darkness
We open our eyes (open up)”

Really? that doesn’t count?
This gives me no choice but to add the underlined

“Other media

In the field of art, the Dada movement resembles nonsense in certain ways, but is also quite distinct from it. As a genre, nonsense has no particular agenda, though it may imply a kind of subversion in various ways. Dada was more directed, creating an expression of disaffection with art and a society that seemed unavoidably addicted to the insanity of war.

David Byrne, front man of the art rock group Talking Heads, employs a similar technique in songwriting. With Talking Heads, Byrne often combined coherent yet unrelated phrases to make up nonsensical lyrics in songs such as: “Burning Down the House“, “Making Flippy Floppy” and “Girlfriend Is Better”.

In comic strips, Glen Baxter’s work is often nonsensical, relying on the baffling interplay between word and image.”

Since I said “similiar” I think I am relatively safe from being wrong.

Space travel may not be as practical or routine as Arthur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick predicted it would be in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I think we have so much more.
It captures my imagination that thousands, if not millions(?) of people have united under one common goal of creating the definitive collection of all human knowledge.

It’s like 60 minutes on acid!

_{China Photos/Getty Images}

Björk’s chanting of “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of her “Declare Independence” performance in Shanghai has been well documented in the past couple of weeks. What was never really adequately addressed to me, however, was the history of Tibet and the arguments for and against it’s sovereignty (or more precisely, the lack thereof).

Sure, I have always seen “Free Tibet” merchandise and known that Tibet was a territory of China. Having taken AP World History, I also knew a little bit about the Dali Lama and his reincarnation cycle. I had also seen that BradPitt movie for which the actor got a life time ban for China for, but that was in fifth grade and I only remember the part where a white person (presumably Pitt) trick some native Asian people (presumably Tibetans) into thinking that the instruction sheet on his first aid kit was a legal document (presumably to do something he wasn’t supposed to). But when addressed with the issue at hand, I was a little bit disappointed at myself for not having an opinion on the subject matter, when in fact it might be thousand of human deaths that I am being apathetic for.

I was wrong. It is estimated that Tibetan 1.2 million Tibetan deaths have been related to violence since the Great Leap Forward in the 1950’s. Knowing this, I could see it was a big issue, but I wasn’t quite satisfied.

So of course, I went to Youtube and searched “Tibet”. What I found was a 55 minute video called Tibet The Story of a Tragedy and I decided to watch it. The Documentary was no Ken Burns production nor was it anything that could be called the Loose Change of Tibet documentaries. It has extremely slow moments and it’s poor quality footage is worsened by Youtube. It also restricts itself to history fairly well, which in the era of Loose Change, This Film is Not Yet Rated, and Who Killed the Electric Car? left me thinking “when are the experts going to come in and tell me my future opinions?”*. The documentary manages to be semi-compelling in the least expected of ways: by simply telling a story. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It’s boring as hell and as I later found out, all of the information is better presented in text.

*note sarcasm. I also want to say that unlike Charlie Sheen, I do not believe the theories in Loose Change.

I am still confused on how I would have it. It seems apparent to me that the situation is a direct violation of human rights and oppression, but I am also skeptic on Tibet’s ability to function by itself without being the next Israel because as I learned from the Björk incident, a lot of people are strongly against the independence movement.But although I would not call myself an expert on the topic (I only looked into it on Sunday), I feel my confusion is better informed than before.

EDIT: After looking into it and thinking about it a little more, I think that Tibet’s independence is both achievable and neccesary. I don’t think people react the way they do to Israel unless an ancient religous text indirectly instructs them to do so, and the human rights issues were more severe than I thought. I wish they would publish more statements from the other side of the argument, but all I find on the internet is random hacks going “fuck you, why doesn’t America give it’s land back to the Indians first?”. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but I guess there is no need to argue when you have it your way.

And they say our false idols should never bring up their political views.

This is long overdue, but Teo Macero died last month following a long battle with illness at the age of 82.

Teo Macero produced many Miles Davis records including In a Silent Way, Kind Of Blue, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson as well as other work for Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. Macero was also the genius behind the production of the groundbreaking Miles Davis masterpiece, Bitches Brew.

I always have a hard time actively buying jazz albums because I never grow sick of the ones I already have. With pop albums I can only take so much of the same songs at a given time, but a jazz album is a gift that keeps on giving. There is always an aspect of the music that is fresh, and it’s wordless melodies often leave the mood to different interpretations at different times. Seeing that I have yet to buy a jazz record I don’t adore, and because I love jazz inspired music like Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad, and Frank Zappa’s Roxy and Elsewhere. Macerero’s death has reminded me that I don’t own nearly as many jazz albums as I should (I own only a few Miles Davis Albums, Grant Green’s Idle Moments, a Django Reinhardt compilation, two Herbie Hancock albums* and Weather Report’s Heavy Weather*)

* very funky albums that barely qualify as jazz.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but I had no idea who Teo Macero was before his death even though he produced some of my favorite jazz albums. Now I know what name to look for in the back next time I’m in the market for some new music.

I’ve always been pretty good with analyzing literature, because I always treated it only as a way to exercise writing really boring essays. I have just figured my making stuff up was just as legitimate as anyone else doing the same thing, and that that’s all analyzing really is anyways. And I am excellent at making stuff up.

So it was an unusual moment in my life when I decided late at night, while simultaneously studying for my Psychology test and listening to Jeff Buckley’s Grace, that I thought about what the Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is all about. And Cohen must’ve been trying to say something, having written 15 verses for the song.

“After I saw [Cohen] perform at the Beacon I asked if I could have the lyrics to “Hallelujah”. When I got home one night there were fax paper rolls everywhere because Leonard had insisted on supplying all 15 verses.” - John Cale

Sometimes it comes to me as an extremely cynical view at fundamentalist religion ( Maybe there’s a God above, but all I ever learned from love/Was how to shoot at someone who out drew you) and at times I just appreciate the beautiful Biblical metaphors (Your faith was strong but you needed proof/You saw her bathing on the roof/ Her Beauty in the moonlight overthrew you). But most of the time, I have no idea what he is talking about (But I’ve seen your flag on the Marble Arch/ And love is not a victory march). Looking at the lyrics separately make him seem like a cluster of unrelated thoughts, but the song somehow manages to flow through extremely well.

Background checking is no help in this either. Cohen claims to be Jewish and is still credited with conflicting quotes like:

“Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered”

And Jeff Buckley claimed it’s about the “hallelujah of having an orgasm”, but seeing that he is not the author, him saying this is no more valid to me than if I just made something up.

I understand why Cohen will not go out of his way to explain what he feels it says. On a touchy subject like this, either religious or not, it will probably turn off a lot of people who interpreted differently. Besides, it’s much more interesting when it’s up to interpretation. It’s like Eraserhead; I never want to know what that movie is supposed to be about.

And in my opinion, it’s not even close to being his best song. What an amazing poet Cohen is.