balding angrily

• midline rhyming
• alliteration galore
• never-ending upbeat-to-downbeat syncopation
• Euro-Robo Britney at her Euro-Robotiest
• It hits me in my hips.  When I’m driving and I have it cranked up, it’s 1995. I’m 23, it’s Saturday night, and I’m on my way to J.R.’s. I’m blaring “No More I Love Yous.” I’m ordering a 7&7 because that’s manly. I’m driving drunk. I’m dancing. I’m dizzy from strobing lights. I’m being rubbed by strangers. I’m scared. I’m hopeful. I’m taking some guy home. I’m following some guy home. I’m believing it means something. I’m wearing my pride rings. I’m wearing a tight shirt. I’m showing off my chest. I’m brushing a guy’s hand. I’m talking. I’m confident. I’m shy. I’m perturbed. I’m over it. I’m excited. I’m meeting someone new. I’m the gayest I ever was and the gayest I ever will be. I’m handing out condoms. I’m running my hand through a guy’s hair, looking for the seam of his toupee. I’m crying because someone didn’t call me back. I’m not calling back. I’m buying condoms at Target. I’m lying to family. I’m ashamed and not. I’m riding on a gay pride float. I’m throwing candy and condoms to children. I’m speeding. I’m getting pulled over and openly cursing the cop because he interrupted my trick. I’m walking from bar to bar. I’m hanging my head. I’m stealing glances at the go-go boys. I’m watching the videos on the TVs. I’m trying to look disinterested. I am disinterested, but I’m so hungry. I’m yearning. I’m going home alone. I’m yelling at a stranger that blew me off. I’m ignoring people I know. It’s dark, and I’m driving.

While I’m ripping-off more successful bloggers, I thought I’d rip-off the Grand Poobah, The Big Cheese, The Blogger Before There Were Blogs - Lore Sjöberg.  And I’m not just going to steal his format, I’m going to steal his CONTENT.  Take that, intellectual property laws!

• ass-in-face - Nothing says, “Love me unconditionally” like a winking brown-eye centimeters from your nose.  Like most cat behaviors, this one comes from your cat’s realization that you are not, at that moment, paying full attention to her.  You may be watching TV.  You may be doing a crossword puzzle.  You may be reading an article about the future of genetic science, wondering if someone’s going to invent a virus that will give you the ability to pee Mountain Dew, ‘cuz that would be really cool AND useful.  Whatever you’re doing, your cat will come to you, all affectionate-like and purring.  And you’ll think, “Aww, how sweet; she just wants a little rub.”  And she’ll nuzzle your face with her nose.  And you’ll scratch her back.  And she’ll arch her back and purr louder.  And it’ll be just adorable.  And then she’ll turn around with her tail proudly erect so that you’re involuntarily giving her a rectal exam. D
• pouncing - J & I found out last weekend that we probably have American Shorthairs.  According to Animal Planet, American Shorthairs are descendants of European Shorthairs that were brought over with the Pilgrims to rid the boats of mice.  American Shorthairs are supposedly excellent mousers.  All I know is that when I lay in the center of our bed and scratch the covers from underneath, one of our cats will LEAP over me to get to the scratching noise.  She’s like a mini-Michael Jordon with her hang-time.  Hopefully, as she gets older, she’ll start letting her tongue hang out.  And then I can set up a mini-basketball hoop on one side of the bed.  And I can buy her little kitty basketball shorts.  And she can have her own line of Nike shoes.  B+
• double eyelids - When I was I kid I used to stare at my cat for hours waiting for him to blink.  If I got to him when he was really drowsy, he would blink VERY slowly, so I could watch the inner eyelid slowly close before the outer eyelid.  It’s become a retread to say science fiction promised us rocket packs, flying cars, and teleportation by now.  You know what? They also promised us oculus doorways in spaceships.  Cats’ double eyelids are the closest we’ll get to oculus doorways, and that makes them awesome. A+
• curling in the lap - Again, you’re watching TV or writing on your blog, and your cat leaps into your lap, proceeding to knead your thigh like dough.  You stir your coffee, take a sip, and you’re just content to have a source of warmth and vibration close to your wang.  Then she curls up in a circle, and you stroke her back.  And you feel like a Don.  A+
• rum tum tugger - When I was in high school, I thought I had to love every musical, Cats included.  I bought the soundtrack and played it over-and-over, just like all my other musicals, but I did it begrudgingly.  After a few weeks of forcing myself to listen to both CDs from start to finish, I finally put “Memory” on repeat and ignored the rest.  Then my dad saw the touring show, and he said that I just HAD to see it.  That’s high praise from an ex-Marine.  Then this video started playing on VH1, and I honestly, well …  As a 15 year-old proto-gay living in Southern California, my conceptions of masculinity and femininity were wack.  I remember thinking, “Look, he’s getting all the chicks.  And he’s pretty tough.  If you offer him pheasant, he’d rather have grouse.  That’s straight-up gangsta.”  So, I started singing “The Rum Tum Tugger” around the house, and in another show of my mom’s complete obliviousness, she did nothing about it.  It wasn’t until 1995 when I saw Jeffrey that I realized that maybe, just maybe, “Cats” wasn’t all that.  Bryan Batt plays a singer/dancer who was in Cats because it was the only job he could get.  In the end - SPOILER ALERT! - his character dies; I read that as indictment of bad theater.  D

Oh. And to see a better piece on cats, go here.

The other night, when I wrote the last post, I was working through something in my head.  See, I’ve been listening to a lot of Broadway lately - Sondheim’s human pie making duo and Sondheim’s artist with connection issues.  I go through these phases.

The other night I interrupted my scheduled showtunes with a little torn-stalkinged bad grrrl, and it hit me.  Why hasn’t someone snatched up the Garbage songbook for a Broadway production?  The theatricality is already written into the songs.  If Broadway can turn out shitty productions of Abba and Billy Joel songs, why not Garbage?

The challenge in making it a good show would be eliminating the broad from the Broadway.  I’d argue that the only truly great rock Broadway show was Hedwig and the Angry Inch*.  And it wasn’t even on Broadway; it was off. Every other rock Broadway show ends up sounding silly because they cast Broadway warblers to sing rock songs.  And they orchestrate the songs to a Broadway sensibility.  This is a mistake.  Hedwig was different because Hedwig sang hir own songs with hir own four-piece band.  Sure, that’s a strange argument because Hedwig is a fictional character, but I think the argument still stands.

So what I propose is this.  Get Shirley Manson to sing her own songs as a kind of Greek chorus.  Or get some other angry rock goddess to sing Garbage’s songs.  (Just not Alanis Morissette, please.)  I suppose it’s not going to happen for the same reasons it’s impossible to get a movie completed.  The costs of producing a modern musical are through the roof, and the chances of producing a hit are so slim.  And in order to get Shirley up there, I would think they’d have to produce a big musical.

Ah well.  Until my Garbage musical comes to fruition, I can cross my fingers that Aaron Sorkin won’t screw things up with his Flaming Lips musical.  That is if it ever gets off the ground.

 *I’d argue that Jesus Christ Superstar really isn’t a rock musical; it’s really a symphonic musical with rock-style singing.  And yes, I think Jesus Christ Superstar is a great show.

Jerry and I went to Avenue Q two weekends ago. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a Broadway musical featuring cussing and sex-having puppets. We fell in love with the soundtrack when it came out and jumped at the chance to see the travelling version. So we walked in to the plaster sculpture-bedecked theater, and a group of four white-haired, smallish walker-operators sat behind us. Every time one of the puppets smoked a joint or assumed a mutually beneficial oral-pleasure position, we shrank into our seats thinking about our grandmas judging us.

In the midst of Avenue Q, when we weren’t shrinking into our seats, we were laughing loudly. And so was the girl next to us, who was the most straight-laced looking woman of thirty-two I’ve ever seen. The venue is in Fort Worth, and going to Fort Worth is just a strange experience. They have three world-class museums, a kickin’ downtown nightlife (which Dallas struggles to match), the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, and a population that skews grey. In Dallas, you’ll see lots of faux. In Fort Worth, you’ll see lots of mix - genuine mix.

When the skinny, straight-haired, severe woman sitting next to me turned to me, I was thinking, “Dallas Uptight.” Instead she turned out to be “Fort Worth Delightful.” At half-time she introduced herself to us, and in the second half she laughed loudly and jabbed me in the side with her elbow. Meanwhile, her boyfriend looked VEEEERY uncomfortable. That’s what you get when your girlfriend drags you to a musical with puppets doing it doggy-style. And then she spends her free moments talking the two queers next to her.

We’re going to New York for Labor Day, and we’re going to see Spring Awakening and eat expensive food. We’re going to miss our travel companions, Jen-An and Owen. They moved to Los Angeles and left us lonely.

I spent today in a wheelchair; my company sponsored my time, giving money to a local charity. I’ll post the name of the charity when I can find it. The event is designed to make architects aware of the specific challenges of the wheelchair-bound.

I knew it was going to be difficult, in general terms. Therefore, I’ll focus on a specific.

When did we become so lazy and/or absent-minded that we need a device to close a door for us? I can think of only one place where a door closer is appropriate - at a door that closes in the event of a fire.

You might say, “But Alex, what about at shop entrances? Isn’t that a matter of security? Aren’t automatically closing and locking doors appropriate there?”

No. No they’re not. If we have become so averse to turning around to close the door behind us, we deserve to have our shit stolen. If we have trained generations of people that the door will close itself, then it is our own damn fault. If our national security is at risk because someone forgot to close the damn door, we were never really secure.

You might say, “But Alex, what about doors into bathrooms? Surely, we need to protect the public from seeing dirty bathrooms and/or male body parts.”

No. No we don’t. Again, if you can’t turn around to close a door, you deserve to have your wang looked upon. And again, if, as a society, we have become so lazy that we’re not training people to close doors, we deserve an unwelcome peepshow.

Swinging doors are cloves of garlic to a person in a wheelchair - if a person in a wheelchair is a vampire. Door closers are prickly spines on that garlic - if garlic had prickly spines. Do this. Pick up one of those hand-held counters popular with amusement park line attendants. Carry it around with you one day and click it every time you go through a swinging door. Click it twice if the door has a closer. Fuck it; forget the counter. Just count how many times you have to open a swinging door in a day.

Imagine the number you get is the amount of times you spilled hot coffee on yourself. You would be justifiably afraid of coffee. But you can’t give up coffee, and you can’t NOT spill coffee on yourself. In order to function, every day is a constant barrage of messing your shirt and burning your nipples.

By the end of the day, I feared doors. I feared leaving my cubicle to go to the bathroom. I feared my daily [walk] to Starbuck’s. I feared going to the kitchenette to get a glass of water. I preferred gas pains and a screaming bladder to negotiating the path to the bathroom. I preferred the dull boredom of my computer screen to turning around in my cramped cubicle to look out the window.

But don’t let me discourage you from doing a similar exercise, especially for charity. I’ll do it again next year if only to remind myself how the smallest things can be huge for someone else.

Enjoy.

For me, it’s Architecture in Helsinki. They’re making me do a twist-and-bob-butt-scoot dance in my office chair. It’s like they kicked me in my spleen, if my spleen was full of happiness and bursting it caused happiness to spill all over my body.

Thanks, Crumpet.

Buy my shit. I want an iPhone.

It’ll be here on Thursday.  All my dreams will come true, and I’ll be the most popular boy on campus.  Passers-by will throw sex at me.  I will never get sick again.  If I had cancer, it’d be cured.

Jen-An, Owen, Jerry and I went to Chicago last week. The highlight of my time in Chicago was fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine. Family Guy stole my dream and made it a parody, so you may already know where this is going. I wanted to sit in front of Georges Seurat’s masterwork at The Art Institute and listen to The Dream Academy.

In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I identified with Cameron. I never wanted to be Ferris. I wanted to be - and be with - Cameron. He wasn’t my first movie crush, but he was important. The scene where the camera switches between Cameron’s eyes and those of the little girl in Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte was powerful for 14-year old me. I understood the longing in that exchange.

A little later, I started exploring Sondheim and rented the PBS performance of Mandy Patinkin in Sunday in the Park with George. I didn’t know it was about Georges Seurat’s famous painting until the end of Act I or that it was a multi-Tony-nominated musical; I thought I was making a discovery. The story is about the character of Seurat who isolates himself in pursuit of his art. That’s what I got out of it anyway.

Again, there’s that theme of loneliness with this painting. As a lonely little fella, I connected with this painting.

It’s breath-taking in person, and I nearly cried sitting there looking at it. I feel like Seurat painted it just for me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like that scene is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was filmed just for me. Or that “Sunday,” the song from Sunday in the Park with George, was written just for me. Or that Seth MacFarlane and Co. wrote the parody in Family Guy just for me.

I’m sure that these things are loved by many, many, many people. How Eleanor Rigby of us.

This is the last I do of these because I don’t want for the website to be dedicated to this game. If you wish to follow along, you can download Nick’s mix. You can also read Magnus’s comments where you would normally find Magnus. His review will give a better feel for these tracks because they’re all very personal.

Track 1

• :02 Starts out with some solid, hard beats, and some possibly ironic piano playing.
• :25 Then the strangled voice comes in. This voice isn’t unpleasant. I might be able to listen to an album of this guys singing.
• 1:05 Some falsetto. What’s this song about? “I am my father’s son?” And how does it relate to “I wish I was a little girl so I could root myself in the shower?”
• 1:55 Some rough guitar solos. Lots of dirtiness to this track. I’m refraining from the word grunge because it’s too specifically linked with the 90s Seattle scene. But if the word grunge hadn’t been co-opted by that ultimately paper-thin “movement,” it would apply to this track.
• 2:40 Overall, not bad, but not to my tastes. I like the noisiness, the dirtiness, and the feedback. But it doesn’t hit me in a personal way.

Track 2

• :00 I like the understated opening. The higher guitar hitting the arpeggios is very nice. It sounds like a dreamy night under the stars.
• :24 This is a really nice waltz. Ethereal but it doesn’t take shit from anybody. It stands on firmly planted feet with those assured drums.
• 1:55 The third time I heard this I was watching a runner, and I started to imagine this as a soundtrack behind a race scene. It has that triumph-filled-with-pain feeling.
• 3:08 Changed key signatures to 4/4.
• 3:27 This is the real triumphant pain theme, and they’re doing a nice job of transitioning from 3/4 to 4/4 with the 3-3-2 beats. Someone’s been studying their text books.
• 4:57 Now we’re at the final run to the tape. The lead runner, our hero, knows he’s going to win, but he feels the intense pain in his chins and lungs.
• 5:37 The dénouement. Overall, beautiful track.

Track 3

• :01 “Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say…”
• :17 This voice is smooth. It puts me at ease, but at ease in a pub where I’m never fully at ease. I’m comfortable in a alcohol-induced way.
• 1:28 Nick, you really like a waltz. I can imagine you can show your partner around the dance floor.
• 2:18 Not enough can be said about the Hawaiian-by-the-sea feel to this track - the trumpet, the ukulele-sounding instrument. The accordion is a little out of place for Hawaii, but it still feels tropical.
• 3:31 I feel like he took some lessons from Peter Gabriel and just started mumbling word-like sounds into the microphone.
• 4:32 Very cool long coda that strips out the drums and strings, leaving it to the trumpet and accordion - a really brave way to end a track.

Track 4

• :00 Where are my glowsticks? I NEED MY GLOWSTICKS!
• :20 UH-UH-UH!!!
• :37 I told a friend one time that there are some tracks that just make you want to fuck. This is one of those.
• 1:03 Fuck underwater, to be specific.
• 1:24 I can do without the chorus. Or they could’ve found a stronger chorus because the lead singer overpowers the back-up.
• 2:15 This is “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid as interpreted by The Prodigy.
• 2:58 Seriously, the back-up monks need to go.
• 3:16 If you can’t tell, I really appreciate a thought out ending. That final guitar scratch is perfect for this track.

Track 5

• Because this song is pretty much a stand-up routine, I can’t really live-blog it. Once you’ve heard the jokes, a fourth or fifth listen doesn’t reveal anything more. I really like the “Kiss” motif around 1:27 and later. I also liked the “team-building exercise” T-Shirt because Jerry used to lead team-building exercises. I like to think that he’s singing to one of Jerry’s students. Since I know some of the females he’s taught, I like to picture these particularly frumpy people.

Track 6

• :03 If I would respond to this track I would respond with something from Björk’s Selmasongs. It has that everyday-noises-as-rhythm-section philosophy.
• :56 These ethereal voices are definitely not Björk-like. I feel like I’m underwater with this track.
• 1:24 This track sounds like it came from either a Sofia Coppola or John Hughes movie. I can see a young Alan Ruck looking deep into a pointillist masterpiece in front of this song.
• 2:32 The key signature changes. Things I’ve learned about Nick from this mix: he likes waltzes, songs that change time signatures midway through, and music that have a water feeling to them.
• 3:32 The Beach Boys have nothing on these guys.
• 3:49 You know what they say about water in dreams, don’t you? It’s all about the sex. So, Nick is obsessed with sex; it’s so obvious.
• 4:36 “Sixth floor: swimsuits, snorkels, underwater masks, tropical fish”

Track 7

• :03 Sorry, Nick, this is my least favorite song of the group. I really like positive messages in raps à la Common, but this song just lays there.
• 1:05 I do appreciate how you connected to Wowser’s song with the saxophone. That’s a brilliant connection.
• 2:18 This is about the time I go to sleep. See, in Wowser’s track the soothing sounds were welcome. This is boring interrupted by some guy rapping with false bravado.
• 3:22 But it’s blessedly short.

John’s up next. John, do you want to publish to this website or to Magnus? Magnus, will you have our friend be a guest blogger on your site?