I need to start off tonight by offering a heartfelt congratulations to my blog partner in crime / self-professed stalker who is going to be starting her new job on Monday. On one hand I am incredibly happy for her as I’ve been pulling for her to get this job for a while now. On the other, extremely selfish, hand I am now faced with the realization that I have lost a weekday writing partner as well as a fellow unemployed layabout. Now people are going to be expecting me to get a job. Seriously, what’s up with that?
But I will say that this can only mean one thing. Unless someone can come up with something better this means that Monday will be Star Wars-a-Palooza! With no distractions, or at least no one who will force me to leave my apartment, I will partake of my epic quest to watch all six Star Wars films in one seating. Imagine the spectacle, imagine the drama, imagine just how much junk food I am going to consume over the approximately 14 hours it is going to take for me to do this. It will be a feat for the ages.
(Like I’ve said before, I am under no false impression that whatever I write here is going to improve anyone’s opinion of me. I’m just who I am and I’m happy with that.)
For those who are thinking that I am just a lazy bastard right now, well, you are probably correct but I did start writing my novel today. Got through 1,300 words and two chapters both of which will need to be rewritten. I know that I am supposed to silence my inner editor, which is a challenge given that I’ve been trying to do that oh, I don’t know, my entire life but I still am playing around with verb tense and perspective. It’s first person writing about the past but there are a lot of reflections about the present so I don’t know if I’ll just convert it to present tense and have a prologue and epilogue in the future. These are the things that you think about as a writer. That and wondering if you are impressing anyone at the coffee shop.
Oh, and I guess that I should write my follow up to last night, which was probably not the most exciting post that I had ever written but did have myself simultaneously comparing myself to a phone and to Robert Redford and that has to count for something. Overnight my phone miraculously healed itself. I’m not making this up. When I woke up this morning all the disastrous issues that were plaguing my phone had gone away and it was working just as it was supposed to.
This does raise the question of whether or not my phone has become sentient. There is a strong possibility that my phone read my blog, realized that if it didn’t repair itself that it would be sent off to silicon heaven, and then quickly corrected all of its flaws in order to maintain its status as one of my closest companions. I don’t think I can throw it out now because there is a slight but measurable possibility that it will attempt to kill me on the way to the store. I wouldn’t put it past it. It’s already called up old girlfriends late at night without my knowledge. It even mimicked my voice in a way that made me sound drunk and remorseful. Technology is fascinating.
(And of course there is a silicon heaven. If not, where would all the dead calculators go?)
One last programming note before I call it a night. I am going to continue with the request that was made last week regarding changing from a five day a week writing schedule to a seven day a week schedule. Given that the reason I wasn’t writing every day is no longer valid (that after spending all week sitting in an office staring at a computer screen I couldn’t justify spending the weekend doing the same) I really feel that I should make an effort to turn this into an everyday venture. But Fridays and Saturdays are going to be a little different here. Let’s call it the messy room.
I got this from a Frames concert. The messy room is that place in your school or house where you can go and be completely creative and not have to worry about what happens. It’s a chance to let your creativity have free reign. So that’s what I am going to try to do on Fridays and Saturdays. It is going to consist of a lot more fiction, short essays, philosophical analysis, attempts at humor and maybe even some poetry. I’ll probably tell some life stories as well, though hopefully nothing as bad as last week because writing those tend to make me lie on the couch all day in a self-loathing stupor until I call myself an idiot and shake myself out of it. But the main idea is less “what is going on in my life and the world” and more creative, one of a kind pieces. Maybe it will work and maybe it won’t but it will be different. Let me know what you guys think.
Showing posts with label Battling the Current. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battling the Current. Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Mix CDs: Poetry for the new age
Battling the Current Volume 3 is finished! Probably. I think. I’m still playing around with the track list and might try to fit one more song in there but it is effectively complete.
The cover art will most likely be the above picture by Tom Everhart. For those of you who are wondering who this guy is, he is the only artist in the world who is allowed to use Peanuts characters in fine art. I have been a huge fan of his for a number of years as his work is often a wild reimagining of the characters. Thanks to my friends at Jack Gallery in New Orleans I was even able to score an invite to his latest gallery opening in Las Vegas. I missed it (due to attending a Polyphonic Spree concert) but there is something about the fact that my life has advanced to the point where I get invited to art gallery openings that I am incredibly proud of.
Anyway, here is the track listing, order subject to change as I listen to it:
1) Josh Rouse “Laughter”
2) Steve Earle “The Revolution Starts Now”
3) Rilo Kiley “Close Call”
4) Son Volt “Beacon Soul”
5) Paul Burch and the WPA Ballclub “Willpower”
6) Richard Thompson “Oops!...I Did It Again”
7) Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova “When Your Minds Made Up”
8) Jon Dee Graham “Something Wonderful”
9) The Flaming Lips “Do You Realize??”
10) Garrison Starr “5 Minutes”
11) The New Pornographers “Adventures in Solitude”
12) Kathleen Edwards “Somewhere Else”
13) Cowboy Mouth “New Orleans”
14) The Polyphonic Spree “The Championship”
Like I said, I still might make a change here or there but this is my first cut. I continue my tradition of having a Jay Farrar track as well as a song named after a city. My goal on this CD, and really on every one I ever send out, is to make people familiar with bands they might otherwise never listen to. Hopefully people hear these songs and become as big of fans as I am of this music. That’s my goal.
If you want a copy (complete with liner notes) just drop me a line with an address, PO box number, or any other location you would want me to drop off a copy. If you want any of the earlier editions let me know that as well. Someday these things will be collector’s items. Mainly because no one will use CDs anymore.
(The best description of my CDs came from Super Dave who called them “like the soundtrack to a good Cameron Crowe movie. I’ll take that as a compliment. The fact that I go through the effort of making cover art and liner notes for a glorified mix tape that I might send to a dozen friends is a different matter completely. But how else are you going to experience Richard Thompson singing Britney Spears?)
Ok, I’m off to celebrate Illinois making the Rose Bowl. At least that’s what I thought I read. I assume it is a misprint and they’ll be sending us to the Alamo Bowl tomorrow. I mean, we’re Illinois. There is no way in hell we’re going to the freaking Rose Bowl. It’s been 23 years since we’ve been in that game. Going into this season I was going to be thrilled with a 7-5 record. Now we get to play in one of the biggest games. That more than makes up for a horrible Irish season.
Best of 120 Minutes: Per a comment posted tonight, The Lemonheads (ok, Evan Dando and three guys who needed a gig) are playing at the Record Bar next Sunday night. To psyche everyone up, here is the World Premiere of Into Your Arms. Honestly, I’d play the video just to feel nostalgic about MTV’s old World Premiere Video introduction.
The 5 random CDs for the week:
1) Victoria Williams “Musings of a Creekdipper”
2) Rilo Kiley “More Adventurous”
3) Keane “Under the Iron Sea”
4) Gomez “Liquid Skin”
5) Joe Ely “Live at Antone’s”
The cover art will most likely be the above picture by Tom Everhart. For those of you who are wondering who this guy is, he is the only artist in the world who is allowed to use Peanuts characters in fine art. I have been a huge fan of his for a number of years as his work is often a wild reimagining of the characters. Thanks to my friends at Jack Gallery in New Orleans I was even able to score an invite to his latest gallery opening in Las Vegas. I missed it (due to attending a Polyphonic Spree concert) but there is something about the fact that my life has advanced to the point where I get invited to art gallery openings that I am incredibly proud of.
Anyway, here is the track listing, order subject to change as I listen to it:
1) Josh Rouse “Laughter”
2) Steve Earle “The Revolution Starts Now”
3) Rilo Kiley “Close Call”
4) Son Volt “Beacon Soul”
5) Paul Burch and the WPA Ballclub “Willpower”
6) Richard Thompson “Oops!...I Did It Again”
7) Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova “When Your Minds Made Up”
8) Jon Dee Graham “Something Wonderful”
9) The Flaming Lips “Do You Realize??”
10) Garrison Starr “5 Minutes”
11) The New Pornographers “Adventures in Solitude”
12) Kathleen Edwards “Somewhere Else”
13) Cowboy Mouth “New Orleans”
14) The Polyphonic Spree “The Championship”
Like I said, I still might make a change here or there but this is my first cut. I continue my tradition of having a Jay Farrar track as well as a song named after a city. My goal on this CD, and really on every one I ever send out, is to make people familiar with bands they might otherwise never listen to. Hopefully people hear these songs and become as big of fans as I am of this music. That’s my goal.
If you want a copy (complete with liner notes) just drop me a line with an address, PO box number, or any other location you would want me to drop off a copy. If you want any of the earlier editions let me know that as well. Someday these things will be collector’s items. Mainly because no one will use CDs anymore.
(The best description of my CDs came from Super Dave who called them “like the soundtrack to a good Cameron Crowe movie. I’ll take that as a compliment. The fact that I go through the effort of making cover art and liner notes for a glorified mix tape that I might send to a dozen friends is a different matter completely. But how else are you going to experience Richard Thompson singing Britney Spears?)
Ok, I’m off to celebrate Illinois making the Rose Bowl. At least that’s what I thought I read. I assume it is a misprint and they’ll be sending us to the Alamo Bowl tomorrow. I mean, we’re Illinois. There is no way in hell we’re going to the freaking Rose Bowl. It’s been 23 years since we’ve been in that game. Going into this season I was going to be thrilled with a 7-5 record. Now we get to play in one of the biggest games. That more than makes up for a horrible Irish season.
Best of 120 Minutes: Per a comment posted tonight, The Lemonheads (ok, Evan Dando and three guys who needed a gig) are playing at the Record Bar next Sunday night. To psyche everyone up, here is the World Premiere of Into Your Arms. Honestly, I’d play the video just to feel nostalgic about MTV’s old World Premiere Video introduction.
The 5 random CDs for the week:
1) Victoria Williams “Musings of a Creekdipper”
2) Rilo Kiley “More Adventurous”
3) Keane “Under the Iron Sea”
4) Gomez “Liquid Skin”
5) Joe Ely “Live at Antone’s”
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