This week is a twisted sort of Cheddar X. Its a concept borrowed from Intellectual Properties who borrowed it from Indie.Rock.Librarian who likely borrowed it from somewhere else but that's as far as I'm tracing it.
And here we go!
Choose one of your favorite bands and answer the questions using song titles by that band. I think it would add some fun to not name the band and see how hard it is for people to guess (guessing, by the way, does not include using Google so no cheating!). But do it either way you want to.
Are you male or female?
Nice Guys Finish Last.
Describe yourself:
King For A Day.
How do some people feel about you?
The Grouch.
How do you feel about yourself?
Blood, Sex and Booze.
Describe your ex:
Castaway.
Descibe your current significant other (real or imaginary):
Basket Case.
Describe what you want to be:
King For A Day.
Describe your current mood:
Uptight.
Describe your friends:
Having A Blast.
Share a few words of wisdom:
Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life).
I visited China my senior year of high school. It was an incredible trip, to be sure, complete with obligatory trips to the Great Wall, The Summer Palace, the former residence of Sun Yat Sen, The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and even a quick sojourn in Shanghai.
But, for some reason, last night, I had a very vivid dream that recounted, with some inaccuracies, one incident I had very nearly fogotten.
My classmates and I were standing in line at Tiananmen Square to the tomb that houses the corpse of Mao Tse Tung (those Communist nations soooo enjoy preserving their beloved leaders). Just for the record, Mao looked like a pumpkin, and a poorly carved pumpkin at that.
Anyway, as we were standing in line, during a particularly nice spring day, I heard a scream to my left. I looked over, and there I saw three Chinese police officers beating the living shit out of some female Chinese tourist who had either done something seriously wrong or who had done something minorly wrong and was being seriously punished for it. Whatever the case, there was a major league ass-whupping going on not more than 20 feet from me, and I didn't know what to do.
Then, the weirdest thing. While two officers dragged the victim to a nearby car and whisked her away to destinations unknown, the third officer crushed her disposable camera under his heel and then leaned down and unspooled the film, thus obviously ruining whatever was on it.
Just as the woman, kicking and screaming, was being loaded into the car, and just as the officer stood there exposing the film, I started to raise my own camera to get a picture of the bizarre event. No sooner had I brought the camera to my face than Mr. Stern, my teacher, grabbed my shoulder and warned, simply, "DON'T!" I looked at him, and the look in his eyes was as commanding as anything I think I've ever seen. His eyes said "DON'T" way louder than his voice did.
So, I didn't, though there's a part of me that really wishes I did.
Back when I was 18, I shared the universal 18-year-old belief that I was somehow invincible. The concept of death and dying were something I didn't understand, or at least were not something I could imagine ever happening to me. I was 18! I knew all! Everyone should bow down to how brilliant and perfect I was!
Shit, I was so stupid.
How stupid was I? Well, for starters, I thought it was kind of a cool idea to drive around in the country with a friend and a case of beer, a pastime known in Southeastern Minnesota as "going on tour." You basically start driving around gravel roads at night, inflict a considerable buzz on yourself, and then try to figure out how the hell to get home when the beer's gone.
Oh, and you talk about stuff.
Well, one winter night, my buddy, Marc, and I started talking about fate. Basically, he said fate was unavoidable, while I said man had control over his own destiny. From there, the dialogue went something like this. . . (keep in mind, being that we were 18 and fairly buzzed up, this constituted a BRILLIANT conversation for us)
MARC: You can't control fate. Every decision you've ever made in your life has dictated where you are right now, but fate dictated those decisions for you. You just THINK you have control over your life, when in fact fate decides your life for you.
ME: That's such a bunch of shit. If fate didn't have anything better to do than to send the two of us on a road tour tonight, then fate is a pretty boring entity. I DECIDED to go on tour tonight, but I could have decided NOT to.
MARC: But you DIDN'T decide not to. Fate made it impossible for you to decide not to.
ME: Listen, if, right now, I decided to drive into the ditch, I could do that. I could DECIDE to do that. Or, I could decide NOT to do that. Fate wouldn't play a role.
MARC: You can't DECIDE to go into the ditch. Fate would dictate that you accidentally go into the ditch, but you couldn't DECIDE to do that.
ME: Oh yeah? Let's test fate then.
So, with a quick twist of the steering wheel, I careened off the gravel road and plopped my '89 Cavalier snuggly into the ditch which, because it was winter, was chock full of snow. Marc, rightly so, labeled me a Grade A dumbfucker. With a few back and forth attempts, followed by laying heavily on the gas, it became quite apparent that we were substantially stuck.
We crawled out of the car and assessed the situation, and we quickly ascertained that the car was, in fact, substantially stuck. We tried pushing the car. We tried pulling on the car. We tried yelling at each other. We tried standing there and drinking a beer and just staring angrily at the car. All to no avail.
One thing was certain, though. In order to free the vehicle, we needed traction. The problem, of course, is that snow is not known for its traction. I put my 18-year-old buzzed up mind to work to try to figure out a solution. The solution I dreamt up was, to put it mildly, brilliant. And by brilliant I mean it was quite possibly the dumbest idea in mankind's sad history of dumb ideas.
I removed my shoes (Nikes, I think), and I stuffed one shoe under each front tire. This, I reasoned, would provide enough traction to free the vehicle if we just gunned the accelerator. Upon watching me, Marc just looked at me as if my brain had somehow just drained out of my ears. Once again, he labeled me, rightly so, a Grade A dumbfucker. But, friend that he was, he offered to be the one to hit the gas.
Marc got back in the car and, with a dramatic "3-2-1" countdown, he pushed the accelerator to the floor.
My shoes flew about 100 yards through the air in a perfect arc, attained a maximum height of about 30 feet, and came to rest in a fairly deep snowbank. The car, on the other hand, didn't move an inch.
I nominated Marc to go retrieve my shoes because, after all, I was only in my socks. He was so angry when he got back with my shoes, the snow practically was melting in a three foot radius around him. The anger, it turned out, worked out for the best because, in an act of strength reminiscent of Hercules, he managed to push my car free while I obediently ran the accelerator. I'm still not sure why I decided to put my shoes under those tires.
Fate, I guess.
Far be it for me to piss anyone off but, according to some people, Americans should be ashamed about buying stuff during the Holiday season, or something like that.
In other words, American consumers shouldn't buy anything because to do so means we've fallen victim to the marketing bogeymen out to taint the Christmas season with the smear of capitalism. They've killed Christmas! Those bastards!
The problem I have with people making such asinine claims is that they just seem as though they want something to complain about, and they see a few colored lights and crazed shoppers and they yell "See?! See?! This is what's wrong with America! This is what's wrong with the world!" Whatever.
I like Christmas. No, scratch that. . . I like the Holiday season, and I don't particularly care that it has crept as far back on the calendar as Halloween. So what?
Has Christmas marketing hit a state of overkill? Sure. But, as with most things that have hit a state of overkill, I've become very adept at ignoring it. Just because the powers that be have decided that I should want to do all my Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, that doesn't mean I'm paying any attention to it.
What I do pay attention to are the things about Christmas I like. For example, considering that I live in Minnesota, where everything dies in October and the shortened days means it's pretty damned dark come 4:30 p.m., I really kind of enjoy the explosion of Christmas lights adorning all the houses and bushes and trees outside. They provide a splash of color and light during a particularly dreary time of year, and I secretly applaud those folks who keep those lights burning well into January and even February. Back when I was in high school, during the longest and most grueling (yet awesome) sports season in existence, wrestling, I would drag myself home after practice, my recently washed hair freezing into triangular crinkles, and the sight of houses bedecked with lights just made me feel, I don't know, somehow warmer. You may see Christmas lights as a beacon of the commercialization of Christmas, but I sure as hell don't. Ditto for Christmas trees and wreaths and anything else that reminds me that green trees and foliage DOES exist.
And, damn it, I don't care what all the naysayers groan about Christmas being an excuse for people to be nice for 1/12 of the year. I'm a realist. I understand that people have a buttload of personal problems, as trivial or monumental as they may seem to the rest of us, and so they're not inclined to be particularly pleasant during the rest of the year. If the Holiday season gives them a reason, however brief, to smile or wave at me for a change, then wonderful. And, yes, I realize that the suicide rate spikes during the Christmas season but, seriously, if Christmas didn't exist, those people would find some other time to off themselves. Maybe Yom Kippur?
Those who rail against the commercialization of Christmas seem to hold onto some sort of misguided righteous indignation that the holiday is just an excuse to buy gifts for people when, in fact, people should be buying gifts for people thoughout the year if they mean anything at all to you. That's a very touching sentiment, but. . . puh-lease.
I buy my girlfriend little things throughout the year, and I think I've invested enough in dinners with her to put five kids through Harvard. But, I just don't have the money to buy her truly wonderful and thoughtful things throughout the year. Christmas gives me a holiday, a day on the calendar, to save up and buy nice things for those who mean something to me. I really have a hard time finding the problem with that.
And, you know what? There are people on this planet who truly enjoy shopping. I mean, they honestly get off on doing battle with other shoppers to get a stellar deal. Shopping: it's their anti-drug. In other words, if they want to hop on the hype wagon and fight shopping crowds during the busiest shopping day of the year, where, exactly, is the problem with that?
I'm not one of those people. I detest shopping. I detest long lines. I detest labryinth-like parking. But, you know what? That's why I'm NOT a holiday shopper. I don't begrudge those who do participate in the hooplah. More power to them, I say. I'm more than happy to watch them on the local news, but I'm not interested in joining their ranks. But, you'll notice something about those shoppers when they're interviewed. Typically, they're smiling ear to ear. They're enjoying the living shit out of themselves.
And that's the problem with moronic excercises such as Do Not Shop Day. The only people who really observe that day are those people who have already decided they're not going to shop that day. It's like me deciding I'm not going to buy a car on Oct. 15, and then joining a club dedicated to those who have decided not to buy a car on Oct. 15. Pointless pointlessness. Actually, in my opinion, most everything initiated by AdBusters are exercises in pointless pointlessness (basically a group that advertises anti-advertising: how avant garde *groan*).
I'm not a sucker for advertising, with the exception of Axe Body Spray, of which I now own three bottles thanks to those fun commercials. Still, I'm not going to go out and buy a Humvee or a diamond bracelet or a genetically modified puppy just because the commercials tell me that they're what people should aspire to buy. I buy what I want to buy, usually oblivious to the siren call of advertising. I find it extremely easy to tune out most of the Holiday marketing. Seriously, it's not that difficult.
Unless, say, you've decided to have a problem with Christmas. Then the commercialization of the season is hard to ignore, because you're already convinced that it's bad, and it's wrong, and it's evil. Then you see it everywhere, which is too bad, because the Holiday season is really kind of cool.
Oh, and in a disconcerting development, on Friday I recieved a registration form for the American Association of Retired People (AARP). That's right. Here I am, 28-years-old and ready for retirement.
Now I just need a cane and droopy long underwear with a button-up backside so I can sit on the deck and wave angrily at those young whipper-snappers and I'll be set.
UNRELATED UPDATE: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you DICK Gephardt. (via A Small Victory)
ANOTHER UNRELATED UPDATE: Porn break. Porn break II. And porn break III. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts. Kiera Knightly breasts.
I've never been a real huge fan of loud music. I don't understand the point of it. Why blare music? Why crank up the bass so much you can actually feel the bolts shaking loose in a car and the enamel cracking off your teeth?
I just don't get it. Is it somehow supposed to be cool? And, if it is supposed to be cool, shouldn't people lose the urge to be cool somewhere between the ages of 18 and 20? Seriously, there is a point where folks pass the age threshold of cool and enter the realm of annoying and ridiculous. I mean, when I see people in their late 20s or early 30s pass by in a vehicle that electrifies the air with the rumbling bass, I think "now there goes a real carload of idiots."
Maybe it's just me. I have this problem about loud music: namely, when loud music is blaring, I can't hear people around me talking. I have a hard enough time filtering out background noise and focusing on the person directly in front of me without a cacophony of ultra-loud music permeating the air.
The whole idea seems stupid to me. What's the point of going to a nightclub or bar or dance and having to shout everything? I went through that bizarre ritual countless times in college, and I always thought just how much easier the whole meeting and greeting thing would be if, instead of shouting and spitting in the face of an attractive female, we could seclude ourselves in a nice corner booth while, in the background, a soft-playing jazz band provides just the right amount of volume to provide both mood and ambiance without making my ears bleed.
But no, that's just not the way it works. Bands today apparently compete to see just how loud they can play. And, the worse the band is, the louder they feel they have to play. Apparently, the belief is that you can drown out a lack of talent just by turning the volume dial to MAX. That belief is wrong.
On Saturday, for example, my hometown held a charity dance for the local fire hall. It was a typical small town gathering: lots of drinking, lots of smoking, and lots of familiar faces who I should have known but couldn't for the life of me remember any names.
But, there I stood, beer in hand, unable to hear anything except the worst band in the history of bands, who had an audio system set up so they could be clearly heard in India. And, considering how abysmally terrible this band was, we can expect an official diplomatic complaint from India sometime in the near future.
I've been to a few concerts in my time, featuring actual big-name rock groups, like Metallica and The Rolling Stones. These are bands who have earned the right to sport large audio set-ups, because these bands play to venues consisting of thousands and thousands of people. They need to be loud because they need to be heard by the people in the back rows over a mile away.
But, in my hometown, where the local dance hall can, at most, accommodate, maybe, 300 people, there's simply no need to crank up the speakers until they shatter glassware four blocks away. Yes, band, we can HEAR YOU JUST FINE. And, yes, you're TERRIBLE. When did it become universally understood that bands have to blare their music no matter how incredibly awful they are?
Just for the record, the drums should not drown out the rest of the band. If the snare drum occasionally is louder than the vocals, there's likely a problem with your band. Drums should set the tempo. You should be able to hear the beat somewhere in the background. The drums should NOT be louder than the rest of the band combined.
Oh, and if you're playing a guitar, do NOT contort your face. Although I myself am not a guitar player, I find it incredibly doubtful that the act of playing a guitar can be even remotely as difficult and strenuous as you make it out to be through your facial manipulations. Yes, your music may be painful to the ears, but please refrain from looking as though you're about to defecate an entire watermelon. I'm not buying it. Please put more emphasis into actually trying to play your instrument with a semblance of talent.
I don't know. You people are smarter than I. Perhaps you could explain why small crap bands feel compelled to play so freakin' loud!
