On Being Brown...

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A Cal Test

2008-06-17T11:21:00.001-07:00

Scariest Sign Ever

2006-01-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

So driving to work the other day I saw the following sign in a neighborhood park:

(Photo taken from car)

This park used to be full of ducks... now there is not a duck to be found. I think it's safe to say that I have a somewhat unreasonable fear of snakes. As such, the only sign that I can think of that might be scarier would be:

For more on Flying Snakes.

... It'll Last Longer

2005-12-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

Question for the day:

If a man posts on his blog, and there's no one left to read it, does it still make him pretentious?

Given the above photo… I think so. Anyway, I’m hoping that my gift of a new digital camera will serve to breathe some life back into my blog… though I fear this solution is akin to a couple who attempts to redeem their ailing marriage by having a child (though not really now that I think about it.)

Anyway, all of this is really just an attempt to get off of Brett’s DL list.

Halloween

2005-10-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

snowflake eating
she is mildly self-defeating
and the secrets that she’s keeping
we’ll they're really only dangerous to her
ships ain’t sinking…

Single Tear

2005-10-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

I think I may be breaking up with my blog. It's me... I think I'm just a different person than the man who started it.

I feel like I'm loosing my best friend.

Plight of the Navigator

2005-08-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

If you’re reading this then chances are you know of, or regularly attend, “It’s Meat Night!” – a weekly BBQ club where me and a cozy group of friends gather for meat, fellowship, and the occasional argument over a board game.

Lately, we have taken to watching movies from our collective childhood. If you can accurately identify the picture bellow you would probably enjoy “It’s Meat Night!” If you can quote the line resulting from this scene then you would feel right at home.

Walgreens Murders My Soul

2005-08-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

Beelzebub reigns in Walgreens and the parmacy is his temple.

Defeated

2005-07-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

Do you think he every believed it would come to this?

The man fought in a world war... at very least she could have left him to read his paper in peace. As it is, she took half of his bagel and the remainder of his self-respect.

Like Precious Moments... But Edgier

2005-07-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

I'm now collecting pictures involving kittens and firearms.

Come on Feel The Illinoise is for Lovers

2005-07-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

He's a believer and he has artistic integrity.
Sufjan Stevens you are just too much!

If you don't have this album, go and buy it... now.

On Being Bride...

2005-07-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

My friend Megan just started a new blog. Her first post was on weddings, and it kind of got me thinking about how girls think about them.

I’ve always equated a girl’s thoughts on weddings with those she might have toward landing the lead of a high school musical. If you disagree, ask yourself how much fanfare the groom gets…

I mean look at this... look at the size of the font on "groom"... oh and speaking of the groom???

If you ever need to pin a guy down, catch him on his wedding day. It’s the one day you know exactly where he is, and he doesn’t have a thing to do other than stand around and look nervous. Now… enter the bride… literally… enter the bride. At my cousins wedding they backlit the rear doors of the sanctuary so that when they swung open the combine effect of the floor lamps and the boom of the organ lead me to believe Christ had returned to rapture only that church in particular. I couldn’t see anything but red dots for a week.

All of this to say, the grooms role is mostly that of a supporting actor… he mainly feeds lines. And I don’t know, but have a strong suspicion that, a girl spends a great deal of time rehearsing the line “I do…” you know… just to get it perfect… (Standing in front of a mirror) “I do” (solemn and serious… suggesting a life of devotion and commitment even through the hardest of times) “I do” (starting high and ending low… suggesting that her heart is just too full of emotions she can hardly express) and finally “I do?” (Inquisitive… as if asking if she is really ready to make such a huge life changing decision… then she probably giggles as if to say “of course I do” and then she might try her dress on again.

Bridesmaids and groomsmen make a good chorus. If you plan it right, they should blend well with the background without drawing anyone’s eye from the bride. Groomsmen are covered… put a guy in a rented tux and he cleans up a little better than he normally would without being conspicuously handsome. As to the bridesmaids, a dress that is not overly flattering will work fine (note: this will not keep single men from checking them out.)

Anyway, I really do have a great deal of respect for the convenient of marriage... I guess I’m just getting more jaded… either that or I’d just like to see more weddings with musical numbers.

Blame Canada

2005-06-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

I'm here right now and you're not... However, you may be in Scotland, New York, East Asia, Russia, or Italy. (I still hate my friends)

Ryan Adams - Stubbs

2005-06-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ryan Adams can be a fickle friend. I was sad when a buddy called me last Wednesday night to report a sulking Adams that played a mere hour and fifteen minutes before saying, “Thank you, goodnight” (his only three words of the set) and stumbling off stage. This could not be more different than the Adams that played Stubbs on Thursday.

Knowing that Ryan’s mood dictates his set can be a little nerve-racking. The first five or six songs he played with his hair in his face, leaning into a low set mic and interacting little with the audience or his band. Finally halfway through “Cold roses” he motioned for his band to stop, apologized to the audience, and claimed that he couldn’t hear a thing in his monitors... “Sorry... it’d be great if I were Prince or something, but I don’t even know my own songs.” Ryan then left the stage. His bandmates didn’t seem overly concerned, lighting cigarettes and telling jokes while rodies bustled about unstacking amps and shifting monitors. When he finally came out five minutes later he apologized explaining, “It’s all better now... I thought since we were playing outside it might be fun/cute to stack my amps... as it turns out it just made my guitar feed back into my amp making me sound like Darth Vader.” At this, the band picked right up were they left out and Ryan belted out with a renewed vigor that he maintained throughout the show. Much of the first set was a mix between Cold Roses and stuff from the new albums that no one had ever hear before. Here’s the set list:

Set1
A Kiss Before I Go
Easy Plateau
The End
Let It Ride
What Sin
Cold roses
Peaceful Valley
Beautiful Sorta
September
The Rescue Blues
Trains

Set 2
Call Me On Your Way Back Home
Oh My Sweet Carolina
Come Pick Me Up into brief cover of “Run For The Hills” (Iron Maiden)
Shakedown On 9th Street
To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)
Improv About Austin
Wharf Rat
Bird Song

Other highlights of the night included an improv song about Austin with a fitting refrain of:
Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas
Everything is in the shape of Texas
Doritos are in the shape of Texas
Dirt clods here are in the shape of Texas
Stubbs is in the shape of Texas

The song had a great chorus of “hot girls are 5 to 1 to ugly guys in Austin.”

The show wrapped up with Adams inviting special guest Phil Lesh (former bass player of the Grateful Dead) to play two Dead covers before thanking the audience and heading off stage. The only real disappointment was when Adams didn’t return for an encore (though this may have been due to a noise ordinance.)

I’m tire... I’m going to bed. I hope to have something from the Dallas show up soon.

A Mere 20 Hours...

2005-06-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Ryan Adams, Prostitutes, and Tulip Gardens

2005-06-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

My buddy Seth uses the phrase "sense memory" a lot. Basically sense memory denotes memories evoked by the senses (yes... exactly as itsounds). For instance, if you were to walk into your old Jr. High,the smell of freshly waxed floors, dusty books and pubescent pheromones would likely conjure the emotions and thoughts that dominated your life at that time (in my case, physical self-consciousness and social inadequacy).

Yesterday morning at work I threw on a pair of headphones and scrolled through my I-tunes library. I’m learning that each Ryan Adams album is a bit like an old friend to me... the ones you don’t have to talk to everyday to remain close with. On this morning I chose Love is Hell Pt.1.

For whatever reason, Lost Highway decided to release Rock n’ Roll and Love is Hell Pt. 1 on the same day. The day they were released I was in Europe – Berlin to be exact – and I missed the better part of a walking tour of the city looking for them. While I was able to locate Rock N’ Roll fairly easily it wasn’t until Amsterdam that I found the first part of Love is Hell.

Amsterdam is perfect Ryan Adams. There’s a bitter-sweetness to it... hedonism wrapped in beauty. The sticky smell of marijuana wafts from brown cafes and mixes comfortably with cool salty air; the lights of the Red-light district dance with the warm glow of street lamps on the waters of its canals. It’s a city of prostitutes and tulip gardens.

If you are every in Amsterdam and need a place to stay, you might look for a tiny barnacle-ridden houseboat docked behind the city’s main train station. It was here that I first experienced Love is Hell. I hadn’t brought any CDs to Europe and had gone nearly two months without music (save a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that I bought in Budapest). I’d lie for hours on a sofa in the ships tiny common area sating my withdraws... the boat rocking gently in time with the cadence of the music.

Funny how I can’t hear “Political Scientist” without going back there... (que Wonder Years theme)

Anyway, I’m stoked about Thursday’s Ryan Adam’s show (and Friday’s for that matter) but as this post is becoming excessive, I’ll save it for later.

Know Nothing Stays The Same

2005-06-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

The following was going to be a reply, but got so long I just made it a post. (see lazy)

Anonymous said...
Doug, is it somehow telling that you have more to say about other people's live than you do about you own? By the way this is my favorite of your posts because not only are you wrong but you admit it. I very seldom hear that.

I’m certainly wrong enough to admit it every now and again. Also, I think that we occasionally go through these rare points of honesty in our lives where we wonder if we know anything about anything anymore… I think I’m there. I don’t think it’s a bad thing – not like questioning convictions or anything… rather looking around and realizing that so many people are, in so many ways, smarter or wiser than I am. To be honest, lately I don’t feel smart or articulate about much of anything… I think its God’s little way of humbling me.

As to finding other people’s lives more interesting… that’s not true… it’s just Melody’s right now. I think we go through these other points in life where we truly change as a person… I mean all the way to our character and the core of who we are… I don’t think it happens often, maybe only a handful of times in a lifetime, but when it does it’s sudden and beautiful and painful all at the same time and it’s the closest thing to being two places at once that you’ll ever feel. It’s not like being conflicted but rather holding two conflicting ideas in your mind and believing them both equally. It’s like something akin to homesickness. I think I just stopped making sense.

Anyway, I think I’ve been there and it seems kind of like what I've seen on Melody’s blog lately. While it’s sad, it defiantly makes for better copy than my average day. I guess this is basically just me stealing Melody’s crap for material on my own blog…. Sucker.

Tomorrow... The Real Labor Day

2005-05-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

I went home this weekend for Labor Day... now I'm back

How dare you judge me.

Free at last...

2005-05-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve learned my lesson... I honestly believe that I will be a much safer and more astute driver from now on... Not necessarily because I feel that I benefited from the defensive driving course material, but because I’d rather do pretty much anything than sit in front of my computer and watch small pixilated videos of men with sideburns telling me that it’s important for me to wear a seatbelt that doesn’t even have a shoulder harness.

I will admit that I did slow down for (and when I say “slow down I mean “actually watch”) the drunk driving videos (good call Melody). I think they would have been much more convincing if they would have actually let the people in them drink to a B.A.C of .08 (or roughly five 12oz. beers in the course of an hour for a 180 pound man – see I paid attention).

I have no idea what this picture has to do with "drunk driving", but it's what I got when I did a google image surch for it.

Wordsmittys

2005-05-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

Lyrics of the Week:
Feel free to add anything that’s been haunting you.

“I’ll be around… you were right about the stars… each one is a setting sun.”
Wilco – Jesus,etc…

“I was born in an abundance of inherited sadness… and fifty cent picture frames bought at a five-and-dime.”
Whiskeytown – Jacksonville Skyline

“My mind ain’t full of nothing but cats and rocking chairs.”
Ryan Adams – Easy Plateau

“Looking into the mirror
Don't like what I see
Ain't looking like me
I want to be near her
There's no way in hell
And there's no time to tell her
Love will not find you tonight
When you're preaching love, thinking love
Holding back
What were you thinking
When black arrows
Shot at your bleeding heart?”
Whiskeytown – Black Arrow, Bleeding Heart

You should also check out this album (though none of the above lyrics can be found on it).

Three More Hours

2005-05-15T21:54:00.000-07:00

I've done everything I can to avoid defensive driving today. This includes cleaning my house, paying my bills, reading every blog I could find, and writing this post. It's amazing how much we can get done when there is something we dread doing more.

Just Being Defensive

2005-05-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

Ahh the wonder's of the World Wide Web. It's been some time hasn't it? I'm happy to say that I've finally found my way back by means of a new wireless connection via a network card for the ‘ol desktop.

I really must admit that I’ve enjoyed my hiatus from the ready distractions that this sinful box affords… I’ve spent time reading, journaling, working, interacting with real-live people. Also, I spend 8 hours a day in front of a monitor, so it’s been nice to detach myself from a computer on my own time. However, I do know that there are positive aspects to being back online – not the least of which is this blog. A friend asked me the other day if I felt that my blog was dying… ouch… true through.

Another reason I’ve been away is because I didn’t want to pony up the cash for the necessary wireless desktop adapter card. I do have to pat myself on the back a little here. I justified the price of the card as a necessary expense for a defensive driving course. You see… it’s actually cheaper to buy the card and pay for the online course than it would be for me to have gone somewhere and taken it. I’m not sure how I justified picking up three packs of Tick-Tacs (orange), a 30 pack of CDRs, and a Criterion Collection version of “The Life Aquatic” while standing in the checkout line (Best Buy has the most random yet effective impulse-buy section I know of)

I’ve spent the last three hours learning how to be more defensive about my driving. As best I can figure, defensive driving is the states way of making me sit in time out for about six hours for a few bad driving decisions. I think I would have just preferred a spanking or a stern talking-to.

On a completely unrelated, but no less (actually much more) exciting note: Ryan Adams just launched a new website, so be sure to check it out. I can’t express how excited I am about the two shows I’ll be seeing in mid June, but that’s a different post. In the mean time, take a look.
.

The Other Adams...

2005-04-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have a friend that tells me I’m “evangelical” about the things I love… books, music, movies, Jesus... you name it. So I started thinking: What better way than my blog to plug the things I’m into to the five people who are already sick of hearing about it?

That said, you should really check out the upcoming Ryan Adams Album, “Cold Roses” that comes… out… well crap. Thanks Brett.

But seriously… If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Wilco play live, I highly recommend it. Last weekend I was in Hous…ton… I believe that this is what is referred to as “social inbreeding.”

Anyway, The only thing that I can think of that Brett doesn’t already have a post up about is a series of books called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The hitchhiker’s trilogy consists of five of the funniest books I’ve ever read. They were written by a man named Douglas Adams as a spin-off of his successful radio show of the same name. Rumor has it, Adams didn’t really want to write the trilogy, but was persuaded to do so by a lucrative book contract. The contract gave him a year to write each book. About four weeks from deadline he would start writing, get depressed, and then spend the better part of a fortnight in the tub. Somehow he always managed to get the final draft in under the wire. Nice to know you aren’t the only one who procrastinates huh?

You can find the series in the science fiction section of your local book store… yes science fiction. Your going to have to trust me on this one… and no… I don’t usually read science fiction. In fact, I equate the feeling of going into a bookstore’s sci-fi section to what a dirty old man must feel going into the adult section of a video store – get what your gonna get, don’t make eye contact, and get out of there. It’s worth it, trust me.

Am I Hip Yet?

2005-04-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

Alright, let’s see. Create a blog… check. Use a title that incorporates your name in a clever way… check. Provide links to any friends that picked up on the trend before you did… check. Post pictures and/or links to bands that are good, but not overly popular… (working on it). Alright... I've read my friend's blogs (the shorter postings at least) and for all I can tell, I'm off to a good start.

So starting this blog has brought me to the realization that being hip really isn’t in the cards for me. Its not that I don’t want to be hip, It’s just that I come from a long history of people that don’t even have an original last name. I think it’s safe to say that my family has come in late on pretty much every trend of the past 100 years… automobiles, color TV, polio vaccinations... Last weekend my dad asked me if I’d heard anything about dot.coms. For the most part, when it comes to recognizing upward trends, I probably fall somewhere between you and your parents or grandparents.

What is a Hipster?

As I see it, there are about three cardinal rules of hipness:
1) You must be able to sniff out a trend well before it enjoys any kind of main-stream popularity.
2) You must act as if you could care less whether or not anyone else thinks that the trend is cool (note: it is often more hip if no one does)
3) You must pull out well before a trend is accepted by popular culture.

It should be noted that there are a few caveats. For example, in deference to rule 3, hip people will often embrace trends that are extremely popular. Hipsters refer to these as guilty pleasures, and they can be extremely useful. You see, no one can have a perfect track record in accurately choosing each new popular trend, and so the hipster will pad any future foapas by preemptively liking movies, music, literature, and people that are extremely popular and/or have very little artistic integrity. This is geniuses, and my friend Tracy has made an entire blog based on it.

Alright, so now we have defined our parameters, how can you know a hipster when you see one?

Identifying a Hipster

Clothes:
First, you will like their clothes, but doubt that you could ever pull them off. Vintage tees, old western button-ups, wool knit caps… these are the staples of the hipster wardrobe. Do they look good on you? Nope… sorry.

Music:
This is probably the fastest way to identify a hipster. Ask the following question: “What is your favorite band?” Did they have one? Then you’re not talking to a hipster. Hipsters love music and their I-Pods (yes, most all of them have I-Pods) weigh about five pounds more than yours does. Your much more likely to hear an answer like:

“I don’t really limit myself to any one genera of music, much less a single artist or band. I have a pretty diverse pallet, that embraces a wide range of sonic expression. Right now I’m really into a band called “Borrowed Silver Stockings,”…have you heard of them (you haven’t)… yeah they have kind of a west-southwest-coast post-emo neo-alt-country indie-rock feel (humorous side note: most hipsters are against the categorization of music). I would say they probably fall between (some band you have never heard of) and (some other band you have never heard of)… yeah, I’m not surprised you’ve never heard of them. Pretty much me and my stepbrother’s roommate are the only people who have…”

Movies:
Hipsters like a lot of the same movies you do… They just liked them the first time that they saw them – it took you about five viewings and a number of coffee shop visits to come around. They also generally have a predilection for old black-and-white movies, foreign films, and documentaries.

Not hip? Now what?

If you are not hip, don’t fret… there is still hope for you. You can still be cool… but that’s a different post, and just to skip to the last page… that didn’t really happen for me either. So here’s what you can do… find hip friends. It’s perfect! They generally have great taste in most everything and they are more than willing to share a cup of coffee and tell you all about what they are listening to, who they are reading, what they’re favorite movies are, or any number of other things. For further resources, please refer to “people I often disagree with” to the right.