Experimental like lab rats

changes

2005-05-13T09:44:57Z

friends, i haven't liked livejournal for a while now. just go here instead. i might even update every once in a while.

For purposes of personal record

2005-04-29T07:49:56Z

things i like, with the most important one first and the rest in no particular order:
Soozy
Lester
The Futureheads
banging dancefloor anthems
Katamari Damacy
Yuengling
Max/MSP
Arrested Development, Deadwood, and The Office
MSG
Bun B
324 E. 13th St. #7
microKorg
second cousins
and last but not least, making you think that i'm actually going to start posting again

if only a four bar musical phrase could be an lj subject

2004-09-27T06:58:39Z

When an instrumental section or small theme of some rock/pop song just hits you right in the heart, please comment. I'm beginning to think that I'm the only person this ever happens to.

...ANYWAYS...

2004-07-17T01:37:20Z

Phew! That was fun.

Past last Thursday's madness, I've been having fun times not getting a job or being paid. BUT Sunday is the Blood Brothers concert, Monday is the Mobb Deep concert I'm working at the Fox, and Wednesday is the !!! concert for $8 that I'm getting all my friends to go to. YESSSSSSS

And by the way, if you didn't inference it from the last post, go see City of God as soon as possible. It's a-fuckin-mazing. And somebody should shoot me for describing it as such.

As well, this new Belle & Sebastian song "Your Cover's Blown" is quite possibly the coolest indie pop song I've ever heard. Whether it's the best indie pop song has yet to be determined, but it's definitely in contention for the coolest title. It's multi-sectioned, funky, and incredibly catchy. And very sing-along-able. Which I like. Very much.

07/08/2004

2004-07-17T01:30:05Z

It's 10PM on a Thursday night. I'm on the right side of the balcony at a packed Fox Theatre. Directly in front of me, with a big smile on her face, sitting on a stool and swaying in time to the music, is my mother. To the right of me is a girl probably a few years older than me. She is dancing, hands in the air. She is a hippie. She has no shoes on. I realize that until this point in my life, I have never actually heard anything that could possibly sound like a dying giraffe; thanks to this girl, I can no longer truthfully say that statement. On the stage, playing their ... ahem ... unique brand of hippie jam rock, is none other than Boulder CO's own String Cheese Incident. The guitarist of the group is currently playing an extended solo, and he is dancing as well. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem, but this is a fat old guy with gray hair and a beard, and the way he dances is to sway at extreme angles and jump six inches into the air, as he obviously can't make it any higher. They finish up their country-ish song and launch into the Oompa Loompa song. Not being able to take the atmosphere, I quickly tell my mother that I'd return quickly, and book the fuck out of the building.

Twelve hours earlier, I was also at the Fox. String Cheese, fresh off of the cancellation of Lollapalooza, of which they were headlining the second day, were playing a "Golden Ticket" show. This meant that the only people attending would be those who won the metaphorical Golden Tickets on the band's web site. They set their load-in time as a ridiculous 10AM, as they projected needing six hours to get everything in, set up, and sound check. Doors at 5:30, show at 7. There was an ungodly amount of equipment to take in; we took it through the front doors of the theatre down to the upper dance floor, and since there's no ramps down to the lower dance floor, we had to construct a ramp that went from the upper floor straight to the stage. Crazy. Needless to say, by the time I went to my piano lesson at 3, I was pretty much exhausted. My lesson was fine, but by the time I got back, the shoeless had arrived. Now I don't know whether any of you have had the chance to experience hippie stench, but if you haven't, let me leave it to your imagination - I want to think about it as little as possible.

I made it home for dinner at about 6, and afterwards, retreated to my basement dungeon to watch the recently acquired movie City of God. However, events conspired to rip me from the movie's enthralling grasp. My mother, having enjoyed String Cheese the last time she saw them, was wondering whether she could make it in. Luckily for her (in this case, unluckily for me), she's best friends with the parents of the production manager of the Fox; they called up their son and got free passes to get in. They took my mother, who wanted me to at least see some of the set. So at 9PM, I get the phone call telling me to get my ass to the Fox. Let me tell you, if you've ever seen City of God, you'd empathize with my situation. To compound my distress, in parking the car in the one parking spot I could find, I backed into the car behind me, leaving a scratch on their awesome car and making the beer-swilling frat boys sitting on their porch across the street wince.

So back to the present. I have forgotten to take my cell phone with me, so there is no way to call friends and bitch to them. I'm being waylaid by hippies asking about my all-access pass and asking me to get them into the show. I hate having to pretend I like String Cheese. Fortunately, I find the other interns standing outside; I find it ironic that the only people in the building who didn't want to be there were the ones who had the most access to the band. We sit on a side street with the stage manager, smoking cigarettes and thinking up crazy band names and badmouthing hippies. When I finally go back inside to tell my mother we have to unload gear behind the theatre, she informs me that instead of smoking cigarettes, I should smoke pot. Ack. All the hippies, however, are even worse than before. You can tell that they just can't believe that they're seeing the String Cheese Incident SO CLOSE! Needless to say, I reinvent the phrase "high-tail" in my efforts to exit the premises.

At 1:30AM Friday morning, two and a half hours after the show ends, everything is finished. Highlights from the previous hours include finding the throng of hippies in the alley in back of the theatre where we were supposed to be unloading cases. They were dancing en masse, and they smelled even worse, thanks to the alley. Also, another intern and I were accosted in front of the venue by a small-ish girl dressed up as an Oompa Loompa; she wanted to know whether we would be at the show down in Denver, and looked sad to find out that we would indeed be missing the BEST SHOW EVER!!!! tomorrow night. Afterwards, Justin, the production manager, my boss, a guy I've known since I was 3, offers me a beer. Everyone involved sits on the stage, drinking, smoking pot, and generally chilling. Returning to my car, I find that the frat boys have not done something nasty to it, but simply let it be. I return home to watch the rest of my movie and sleep my life away.

So all in all, the night ended well. However, that fact doesn't discount the heinous day that preceded it. I mean ... the band wasn't bad, but the atmosphere and timeline were just really lame.

Okay, I lied. The band sucked too.

clickandwin @ 2004-07-06T18:44:00

2004-07-07T01:03:40Z

Ah, the weekend of my grandfather's birthday. Always the most stifling weekend of the year - It's held in Detroit, where I eat every meal of every day, spend every waking minute of every waking hour, with not just my parents but all of my family. All of my grandparents offspring and their children and spouses/significant others come together to celebrate that fleeting thing that is my grandfather. He will 96 on the 23rd. On the 3rd, I was 19.

We celebrated such a fortuitous number to be aged (96) as we do every year, by letting ourselves be as preppy as possible. We play golf (mini-golf). We spend massive amounts of money on dinners and lunches throughout the weekend. And I generally get sick of everyone who's more than 15 years older than me pretty quickly.

My parents and I stayed in my aunt's boyfriend's house, and let me tell you, these people are rich. The room I stayed in, the man's son's room, had computer, refrigerator, fishtank, bathroom, walk-in closet, and space for more. It also had an extremely large bed covered in leopard-skin sheets. It would've been the perfect place to bring some ladies back to if, y'know, I knew any ladies in Detroit and wasn't so... me. There was a foosball table and a ping-pong table, and nobody to play them with. There were many video games with no consoles. There were many computers with no internet connections. So essentially I was lost in a sea of jews for 96 hours.

More minus side: Getting asked in every possible situation to play piano for the geriatrics. Losing the mini-golf tournament, even though I tied for the best score. Having to cart my grandparents around every time we had to go anywhere; we had to go to their home to pick them up, wheel 'em down, and switch cars for all occasions.

Plus side? not much. I did get a few calls on my birthday, which were nice. As well, my grandfather managed not to die that day, forcing our grandmother who can't even remember my name to come and live with us and causing a huge feud between my mother and her sisters about who gets what, and of course relegating the date I was born to the annals of history as the date he died.

And, my cousin Karen, age 31, called my cousin Andy, age 19, to schedule time to go have coffee. She told me afterwards that during the call, she could hear him taking a very conspicuously large bong-hit. Funny shit.

P.S.
Bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter.

300 days of sunshine a year, my ass!

2004-06-22T00:17:02Z

For all my professed love of rainy days, so many of em in a row really get spirits down. What can you do? Anytime you look through a window, it look's like whatever is on the other side is crying...

Let's look at the Jimmy stock market for a minute:
RST -5.00 FOX +2.00 JUL +5.00 MOM -5.00 RCD +0.25 NYU +.25 STE -2.00 TOB +3.00

An Explanation:
The chances of Jimmy finding a job at a restaraunt is getting very slim.
Working at the Fox has been good, however, what with concerts like the Pharcyde and the Streets, and amazingly enough, some nice, good-looking, similar-aged co-workers.
Got drunk with Juliet and sat around talking until 3AM last night. Good times were had by all. Hopefully.
Mom is almost being as schizo as she was last summer when her brain got fucked up when I almost killed her and my dad by flipping the car over on 76. I was trying to miss hitting a fucking bird. Anyways, going apeshit at me for stupid reasons and throwing things in the kitchen is a BUST.
There's a glimmer of hope of Jimmy getting a job with a recording studio. Glimmer.
Getting back to the city next year is a little more of a lock.
I'm trying to read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson again and failing. Again.
And Triplets of Belleville still rocks my fuckin world.

Looks like a bear market, folks! Stock market, I shrug my shoulders in resignation to you.

Restoring my faith in humanity - not that it ever left...

2004-05-22T22:13:03Z

As I'm driving back home from checking what time I have to be at the Fox, at the corner of Colorado and 28th, stopped at a red light in the right lane, and a car to the left of me, I see an old man, semi-large, on one of those motorized old-people scooters. He is crossing right in front of me, going south. He is wearing a tan, light jacket. He looks like your typical geriatric. Cringe-inducing, though, is the color of his scooter, a hideous bright yellow. Now even this would be somewhat ordinary; however, he was also wearing a badass aerodynamic biker's helmet of the exact same color! So if you're looking up to down, it goes something like YELLOW tan YELLOW. And as he's struggling to get over the tiny hill of the sidewalk island in between me and the right-turn lane, I scold myself for not having a camera. So I look to my left to see if the person in the next car was catching this, and what do I see? The college kid is taking a picture of the spectacle.

Phew.

Unfortunately, it would have been too creepy for me to throw a piece of paper with my email address into his car. Besides, the light turned green too fast for me to write it down. Oh well, at least someone got a good record of the awesome old guy.

Stupid Fucking White Man...

2004-05-22T05:35:18Z

Dear God

I've been watching all these stupid fucking TV shows set in high school. Y'know, them teen melodramas one step down from the OC as insipid popular entertainment. Everyone has crushes on everyone, everyone hooks up with everyone, everyone fights with everyone. General idiocy. Blah blah blah fucking blah. But as much as I manage to understand these shows as academic entertainment, as people trying to create art, I can't help but wonder how much of what is portrayed, as in the way these students, these kids, treat each other, is based on reality. I certainly passed all of this over back in high school. Most of my friends would never talk about anything involving relationships. The others practically already had relationships that they either stayed in or, when they didn't work, weren't seemingly affected for more than a few days. I myself hardly thought about that shit at all anyways. If I had been affected by all this seeming teenage melodrama that didn't really exist, I probably wouldn't have been as into music as I am now.

Whatever, this is all speculation off of what is in the first place a generally questionable premise. I just felt like making some sort of point that relationships, even sexual ones, can go fuck themselves. No pun intended. I just want to have someone to talk to and/or be with. Doing something. Maybe that's a direct product of me sitting at home, alone with the TV for a week. My friends seem to be conspicuously not able to hang out. Whatever it is... wisdom teeth, being out of town, general tiredness, "everything crazy happening all at once," it all manages to keep me confined to my living room. There is also surprisingly little to do in Boulder. So far, I count two: physical exercise, and movies. So basically, one. I also haven't figured out the whole How To Get Beer and Weed thing yet. I should do that, although I really don't feel like either. Actually, now that I think about it, I kinda do. Meh.

Also, on an unrelated note, I should open up and play my piano.

Wait a sec, did I actually start this post with "Dear God"? hahahahahah

PS I'm working the Sondre Lerche concert at the Fox tomorrow night - More awesome concerts I'm working later are: The Roots, Pharcyde, Gary Jules, and Danger Mouse and Jemini. With any luck, I'll also be working the Streets! At least something in my life is going rather right.

Boulder, biatch

2004-05-16T07:56:31Z

In an attempt to make this journal have the best good-entries/crap-entries ratio possible in this context, I have decided to post more pictures. They will be either interesting pictures or boring pictures- you'll never know unless you look...

I am currently residing east of Boulder, Colorado. You exit my house, you go down a hill, you go up a hill, and you go down a hill, and you're in the city. You drive another 10 minutes, you get to the closest house of one of my friends.

This is South Boulder, taken from the mountains right next to it.

Ain't it pretty?

At my house, I have some pets. Since the only thing I seem to be doing here is hanging around my house, my pets have to serve as my support structure of friends.... certaintly my parents can't do the trick.

PUDGE

This is Pudge. The name on his tag is Mick Dagger. My mom is obviously a freak.
Pudge might not be the best name for the cat, as he is in no way a fat cat, but he is called thus anyways because he makes a beeline for the food bowl whenever he loses his train of thought. He'll be doing something, you'll pick him up, he'll yowl and jump down, sit there for a second not doing anything, and then he'll go eat. He will also hardly ever jump to the food himself; he will sit and meow under it until someone goes and picks him up and puts him on the toilet to eat. The picture above is evidence of his laziness.

Did any of y'all ever read that children's book, Find the Cat? Where the cat was hidden somewhere in all the pictures and the dog (and you) was trying to find him? Well... We shall play find the cat.

BELLE

This is Belle. Belle and Pudge belonged to the same kennel at the humane society as kittens. However, we did not get both of them together. An old lady-friend of my parents went with them to get a cat, and got Belle. She then proceeded to die (a couple years later). We then proceeded to get Belle. My mother has changed her name around 3 times already- to Aja, and then Smudge, and then something else. I don't remember what she's called now, but it can't be worse than naming your cat after either a Steely Dan album or something that people just want to wipe off.
Belle is the Ice Queen. She is fantastically beautiful, and moves very gracefully. However, she does not most of the human body. For the longest time, she wouldn't go near anybody. Now, she likes the hands, but will not be picked up. If you put your head near her, she'll run away. She hisses at my dog. She sits on my newspaper. She stares at me, saying with her icy little eyes, "Can't touch this!"

IVY
I have no picture for Ivy, as she thinks that all cameras around her will flash and scare the shit out of her. She's a mutt. A cute, mid-sized mutt. She doesn't perform well in the rain. The wires in her brain get crossed or something- she goes all apeshit whenever it thunders and runs around destroying things. If she gets out of the yard when it's thundering or raining, she goes around terrorizing little kids and neighbors. She is quite a needy dog, waking my parents up before 7 in the morning to have them take her outside. She whines alot. She also sleeps on my bed, sometimes.

It might not have come across, but I love these animals. They will keep me alive come Monday, when my parents leave town for a week. My friends seem to be ignoring me (not really), so Pudge, Belle, and Ivy will have to do.

On that note, if you're in the Boulder area between the 17th and the 25th, give me a call - (303) 819 7151. I will have a house to myself. And my animals.

Fairly embarrasing pictures

2004-04-25T20:39:09Z

I have a few pictures from fun Friday night. Friday night included drinking in two different rooms, ditching people going to a bar to go to another bar, fun with digital cameras, fire extinguishers, weird-ass livejournal communities, and the definition of the word "emo." The key players were me, Alana, and Marcela. The supporting cast included Patrique, Kristen, Elizabeth, Katie, Kate, Jiggy, Jackie, Rick, Brendan, Spencer, and Pete. And a couple girls I don't know. The Greek choir would be the lawyer and the two policemen who seemingly never showed up after the whole fire extinguisher/Rick incident. Also, despite being awake for less than 10 hours, i still was able to go to sleep at 7am and sleep until 1pm. See, things work out OK even when you have no idea how or when they might.

So, sally forth! onto these lovely few pictures for you.

Don't me and Marcela look cute in the bank?

After we were at the bank, Alana and Marcela and I ditched all present to go to some bar they described as "full of pedophiles who hit on them." Thus, a cab ride into Tribeca!

Aren't we so COOOOOOL????? Actually, Marcela is so much cooler than me for the sole fact that she has a North Face cap on with a gansta elastic band sticking out.

At this bar, good times was had. We felt it our duty to take as many emo pictures as possible. For example, here's one of Alana and Marcela looking contemplative. They seem to be staring at something above and to the right behind the camera. What is it? We'll never know. All we know is that Alana looks pouty and Marcela is stroking her non-existent beard. And that someone fucked with the color of the picture.

It's a bird! It's a plane! Whatever it is, I don't like it.

And finally we come to it. I knew I'd have to do it at some point. The obligatory "Jimmy looking emo" picture. Luckily I had Alana in the picture to help me ease into the process. Now I expect each and every one of you to write me comments saying something along the lines of "<3<3<3" or "Jimmy don't be sad we love you." Except if you did, we'd just all be propogating a vicious stereotype that nobody needs to conform to.
Ah fuck it, here it is.

We could break out into tears at any moment...

Well that was fun wasn't it? I've had a rip-roarin' rollikin' good time. But I'm off now to slack off some more, and y'know i'm the king of that. So maybe i'll see y'all sometime a lil' later, cowboys and cowgals. Don't party too hard.

clickandwin @ 2004-04-23T04:15:00

2004-04-23T08:47:21Z

My room is covered with empty alcohol bottles. Rolling Rock and Coors longnecks, 24's of Corona, 40's of OE and Bud. Various Boone's Farm and Smirinoff Ices. Even a cheap-ass chardonnay. They litter desks. Every once in a while they migrate to dressers and bed-posts. Have we really had this much since spring break? Well..... yes, not to mention everything consumed in the abodes of others.

Bottles of Coke and discarded junk food wrappers overflow the trash cans. Clothes spill out of the bottom drawers of the dressers. The top of my Radiohead poster keeps drooping over. My keyboard, finally fixed, sits unused next to the closed window, window shades drawn. I have hijacked most of the abundant chairs in the room to store various jackets and books.

I need to get my shit together, classwork included.

I have three weeks left here.

On a lighter note, here is a list of semi-interesting things in my room
-A Tazmanian Devil blanket
-A light-reflective street boundary marker
-A poster displaying Mel Gibson in all his cultish glory, reading: MAD MAX OLTRE LA SFERA DEL TUONO con TINA TURNER
-An OE beer glass
-A full stack of Washington Square News newspapers reading "FULL HOUSE AT NYU" displaying the delicious mugs of the Olsen twins
-A small canvas painting of female lions and cubs
-Half of an Iron Maiden poster for "The Number of the Beast" decorating our reftigerator
-A stolen dining-hall chair, dedicated to Steve
-An entire desk and dresser full of some dude who doesn't live here's stuff! He also pees on our carpet
-Half a carton of Sprite Remix we've had since the beginning of the school year

Three weeks, friends. (errrr... friend)

I need to steal something

2004-04-15T06:55:20Z

I think I'm getting sick. Today I slept from 2:30pm to 8:30pm, skipping loads of classes. Now, 12 hours after I went to bed and 6 hours after I woke up, I'm not tired at all. Luckily, I have no classes until Monday. Still though, I'd rather have class on Thursday then be sick. I think I'm reverting back to what I was earlier in the semester, a night owl. A nocturnal creature only able to function properly in the absence of light. I wish I wasn't like that. I'm lazy and never do my work. I'm too skinny and have no muscle. My nose is too big. I wish I wasn't like that. I'm so stupid for being this sick and being up this late.

I'm old. I'm fat. I'm bald. My toenails have turned strange. I am old. I am... I have nothing. She'll think I'm an idiot. Why couldn't I stay on that diet? She'll pretend not to be disappointed, but I'll see that look, that look... God, I'm repulsive. But as repulsive as I think? My Body Dysmorphic Disorder confuses everything. I mean, I know people call me Fatty behind my back. Or Fatso. Or, facetiously, Slim. But I also realize this is my own perverted form of self-aggrandizement, that nobody talks about me at all. What possible interest is an old, bald, fat man to anyone?

give me a d...

2004-04-15T06:32:18Z

Drama drama drama drama drama drama drama, drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama. Drama drama drama dramadrama drama drama drama; drama, drama, drama drama drama drama-drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama!

Drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama drama...

Drama

It's Sea Quest meets Tootsie!

2004-04-07T07:07:55Z

In the midst of listening to lots and lots of Daft Punk and sitting at my computer talking to Juliet, I decide to turn on the TV. Bravo. I feel that I should update you with what happens every 10 minutes, because that's how long it takes me to actually look at the move.

What's already happened?
At the beginning of the movie, some black dude was running. At some point, somebody was talking about murders. Later on, Dustin Hoffman was being taught about Alfred Tennyson by some Donald Sutherland-like teacher figure. Then Roy, that actor that was in Sea Quest, was getting strangled by this asian dude that looked like the Oddjob copy from Austin Powers. Roy kicked his ass. Now somebody's cooking something that looks like onions.

Alright, back from cigarette break.
Dustin Hoffman and Roy are at some fancy restaraunt with a chick. Ooh, the chick just got angry and walked out on both of them! burrrrrned....

You know, I don't feel like watching any more of this. It'll spoil the surreality.
Ooh! Roy's at this like secret government agency-looking place with this awesomely lit modern sculpture!
Meh. Hopefully, the movie will finally reveal that Roy and Dustin Hoffman are in fact the same person or something.

On a completely separate note, Daft Punk songs have the best basslines ever.

they don't love you like i love you

2004-04-05T07:19:40Z

An inherent flaw in this damn thing is that if one wants to keep their revelations, feelings, qualms, and writings to themselves, any sort of weblog probably wouldn't work. You come on to it knowing friends, and they see what you write, even if you don't want anyone at all to see it. People can search and find your entries. Have we progressed beyond the super-secret diary? No, we've just made easy-access ones that all can connect to with the click of a mouse. So, if I need to put my OWN thoughts into writing, I will either keep a book or write a document on my computer.

However, the nature of any writing is that it reveals, betrays something about its author. It also serves therapeutical purposes. I shall write, because the last time I did, I felt a lot better; as well, I was able to get through my essay class much easier as I wasn't paying attention.

Speaking of my essay class, I need to write a 5-7 page draft in the form of a letter of a subject about which I have no clue. I am supposed to use texts I have not read. The general jist of the paper is that I'm supposed to come to some conclusion about creativity and knowledge. I'm also suggested to try to not actually use the words "creativity" or "knowledge." The last time I had a draft due, I pumped it out in the hour and a half before class. 5 pages. 1:30. Maybe I can do the same, only this time with a little more time before my class. Although I don't know exactly what my reasoning or conclusion will be, I can tell a good story. Let's see if writing down a little story will be worth my time.

I don't consider myself a creative person in the least. As a pianist, I play music written by others for others. I translate the works of Beethoven and Chopin from the page to my hands through the piano, but do not sit at it and think up my own works, my own Beethoven, my own Chopin. Believe me, I have tried. I have played around with my instrument, thinking up themes, writing them down, but the muse hasn't smiled her blessings upon me just yet. All I want to do is write a catchy tune, something that sticks in my mind. Nothing I wrote has ever done that; if it can't stick in my mind, how do I expect anyone else to like it? However, during the last semester of my junior year of high school, an opportunity to do something, anything, creative presented itself in the form of a class.

My parents were pushing me to take seven classes in eight periods, and I had currently had six. I had the last period of the day off, and looked with my advisor through the lists of classes I could take at that particular time. A class called "Performance" turned up. Performance class, as I would later find out, seemed to be comprised of, well, performances. Each day there would be around three of them, mostly vocal. There were a lot of showtunes, some rock, a little theater, and very little classical. At this point, the only thing I could do was play classical piano; this all translated into the class being one of the higher pressure classes I would ever take in high school, compounded by the fact that there thirty-some mostly good-looking women in attendance and around six guys, two of which would drop out in the first week.

During the course of the semester, I would perform three times, not counting the five or six other performances I accompanied or generally helped out with. And let me tell you: performing was scary. Every time I would have serious doubts as to whether I knew my piece. I would stutter as I played, go back and redo sections I didn't know. I had to have a spoken intro to each act, which I usually butchered. When I accompanied, I also didn't want to let down the performer who was really on the chopping block (usually a cute girl). You see, after every performance, comments were thrown out from the audience as well as the teacher. Both could be pretty harsh.

After my first two performances came the final. The extra-special one that would make up most of my grade. Now I'll tell you any day that I'm a space cadet, but I know when I'm going to screw up. I felt that simply playing a piano piece would be stupid of me, that I would mess up as I always had. At the time, I was playing the first of Samuel Barber's Excursions. The piece, at least to me and my teacher, sounded like some sort of train. What I realized I could do, the great solution I had to my creative problem, what would make me famous in my own eyes, was to try to set an acted scene behind me set on a train. So I recruited friends to play parts. What we came up roughly with was this: I would enter, say my introduction, and begin to play my piece. Two of my friends would come on, playing lovers. They would sit in one car, represented by two sets of seats facing each other. Another friend would play a girl sitting in the car behind the couple who starts to hit on the male lover as soon as the female left for the bathroom. She would return to find the distressing situation, and the tension of the actors would be echoed by the rising and falling of the piece. The girl would leave, and subsequently return to try her mark once more. The piece would reach its climax as the girlfriend would be fuming and the distraught girl storms off. Then I would slow down, representing the end of the train ride, as the various characters left. A ticket taker, another friend, would usher me off the stage at the end.

The piano was on stage right and everything would be occuring behind me. I would not be able to see anything. Besides the props, everybody would be miming, like a little silent movie where the score was being performed by a character within the film. When this finally came together, everything fell right into place. Due to my introduction, everybody was able to follow the concept quite clearly. Not everything was absolutely perfect, but I personally played better than I ever had in the class. My friends made the audience laugh. It was all I could have wanted. Both the audience and the teacher found it enjoyable and gave wonderful praises at the end. Well, at least the audience did. I think I ended up getting a B+ or an A- on it. I forget. What matters to me is that I finally came up with something original. I had done something that was able to subscribe to my own strict standards of creativity. I don't know if I had ever seen anything like what my friends and I came up with, in person or through media. To this day, I feel it is the only work I have ever had a part in really creating.

There is no future in what I did. It now only exists as a memory to me, my friends, and hopefully the audience, as well as a small segment of a videotape that my mom took during the performance. There is almost no way I can take it and turn it into something that will help me keep being creative. It is not my medium by any means. Simply, I present it as a means of judging me, my standards of creativity, and how it is that I have not done anything even remotely approaching it's coolness since. I still wait for that moment of inspiration in my new chosen field, that moment of knowledge, that moment of clarity. I only wish it will come sooner. I'm in need of some way to have an emotional outpouring that does not have to do with words on a page.

I only realize just now that there's probably going to only be one or two people reading this for a while. If there's anyone who's going to find out anything about me from this, it will probably be my teacher in class when I present it to her as a paper. So, maybe this can be my letter to a friend of whom I needed to tell my rather nonexistent conclusion about creativity and knowledge. Now all I need is a couple more pages and a reference to an outside source. Wonderful.

conquering the world

2004-04-05T04:56:28Z

"Check mic 1 checking mic 1 mic 1 check chhhhhhhhecking mic one; good? okay"

"Mic 2 checking microphone 2 ch ch ch puh puh puh check k k microphone 2"

"Mic 3 pow. powwwwww pow tuh tuh checking mic 3 ree ree"

"Can we have the monitor for the guitar up a lil? Yeah that's better"

"Checking mic 4"

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"Whoa there. Can we fix that? fixed? good"

"We're turning the house lights down...."

"Alright... take it away... Cancer Schmancer"