You Tried, Cockblocking Greenline

Boy, did you ever try Greenline. I applaud your efforts to keep me from having sex Saturday night.

If there is anything Casino Royale should have been good for, it's being the kind of movie to get men and women in the mood. Scary movies are good for that too, but Bond movies have exotic locales and eye candy for every sex and taste(The movie was very good even if you don't count it's potential to facilitate fucking, incidentally).

Exiting the Regal theater that night, all seemed to be going well. Kisses before, during, and after the movie. Light touches, heavy touches, and just the right amount of anticipation. Then you stepped in.

The wait at the Chinatown stop for a train going back to Columbia Heights was 17 minutes due to track work. A long time to wait. Now, I'm not saying I can't keep anticipation building for seventeen plus minutes - I'm not a teenager anymore - but this was compounded by the fact that we had seen a late show, and some dreaded yawns were slowly escaping both of our mouths. Plus, she hates waiting any longer than eight minutes for a train(that's the New Yorker in her). Fatigue and irritation, twin mood killers staring me right in the face.

I persevered though. Tender embraces on a stone Metro bench; kisses on the forehead. Chemistry that comes from great physical and mental compatibility is a powerful ally. You weren't finished, though, where you? You played your strongest card, Greenline.

Vomit.

I can play around a lot of things to preserve the mood, but a drunk man puking in the phone booth - right in front of us - is not one of them. There isn't much romantic about vomit, or slurred words of apology to no one in particular. You weren't finished with that, though, were you Greenline?

A bar playa sat his very drunk conquest right next to us, and her odor finished off any thoughts we had other than for the love of God please let the next train be ours, before we start running down the tunnel just to escape the smell of puke and bile!

Finally, our salvation arrived, and I'll bet you thought your work was done, didn't you Greenline? I'll grant you, sex was the last thing on either of our minds as we finally exited Columbia Heights and made the cold walk back to my apartment. But that's what John Legend, Al Green, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye are for. That's what a warm bed and a back massage are for. You failed that night, Greenline, and I succeeded.

The next morning too.

Folds, Black, and Dobler

Ben Folds is going to get me into trouble. Maybe killed.

His very merry, very catchy cover of Dr. Dre's Bitches Ain't Shit is in heavy rotation on my iPod. Folds has turned it into a real sing along; which is what I have found myself unconsciously doing while walking, at a Subway Restaurant, and even on the Metro. Happily bobbing my head side to side, singing "Bitches ain't shit but ho's and tricks, lick on these nuts and suck the dick, just get the fuck out after yer done, and I hops in my ride to make a quick run!"

I have a very low sing-along voice, so luckily no one has heard me yet(that I know of). I really have to work on controlling myself when that song comes on. If I get caught, it won't be cute like the scene in About A Boy where Marcus is caught singing along to Mystikal's "Shake Yo Ass". It will be ugly, like the scene where Marcus sings Killing Me Softly at the high school talent show. Except with more violence.

Ben Fold's interpretation of a gangsta-rap classic is part of my recent pursuit of cover songs, both obvious and obscure. It had led me to purchase the sound track to High Fidelity, just to get Jack Black's rendition of Let's Get It On(which is good, and if you didn't know that, I've just ruined the movie for you. You're welcome). Actually, I'm a bit surprised I didn't already own it since a) I loved High Fidelity and b) John Cusack and Nick Hornsby have great taste in music.

Incidentally, after High Fidelity Nick Hornsby said he wanted John Cusack to play the lead in every film based on one of his books. Sadly this hasn't come true - though in the case of the Jimmy Fallon vehicle Fever Pitch, that's probably good for Cusack - but I don't blame Hornsby for wanting Cusack in all of his movies. In the aforementioned About A Boy, the role is played by Hugh Grant(and he was great), but I could easily picture Cusack in the role. Hornsby writes about the everyman, and Cusack has made a career out of playing the everyman. Cusack also has something extra, though.

I think Chuck Klosterman, in his excellent book Sex, Drugs, And Coco Puffs, summed up Cusack's appeal best:

It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. I cannot fathom how he isn't the number-one box-office star in America, because every straight girl I know would sell her soul to share a milkshake with that motherfucker. For upwardly mobile women in their twenties and thirties, John Cusack is the neo-Elvis. But here's what none of these upwardly mobile women seem to realize: They don't love John Cusack. They love Lloyd Dobler.

Lloyd Dobler, of course, is the hero from the 80s flick Say Anything. A charming, lovable and sometimes goofy teenager, Dobler uttered one of my favorite movie quotes of all time, in a scene in which he tries to explain his future plans to his potential girlfriend's father:

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

You really have to see the movie to get the full effect.

But anyway, I love John Cusack - not because of Lloyd Dobler - but because he always seems like an effortlessly cool, charming guy who somehow falls half-assed into attractive women by virtue of being himself all the time. Not too attractive to be other-worldly, but attractive enough that his movie relationships/hook-ups are always believable: Lisa Bonet in High Fidelity, Julia Roberts in American Sweethearts, Minnie Driver in Grosse Pointe Blank, Annette Benning in The Grifters, Kate Beckinsale in Serendipity, and even Angelina Jolie in Pushing Tin. In none of these movies does the attraction ever seemed forced(incidentally, Lisa Bonet is my favorite; she was so beautiful in High Fidelity that it hurts me now as I write this to think about it).

Once, an ex compared me to Cusack and Lloyd Dobler. It certainly wasn't based on appearance, I might be as pale as Cuscak, but my hair is dirty blond and my eyes are blue, plus he is at least an inch taller. I think it was simply because she fell in love with me for the same reasons Diane Court fell for Lloyd(or at least that's what she told herself at the time).

This has the potential to ruin my love life. Thankfully, I have a girlfriend. For argument's sake, though, let's say I didn't. Now I have a concrete notion of what made one woman fall in love with me. I might try and emulate this niche character as much as I can, banking on this behavior to get another woman to fall for me. In fact, I already often find myself wondering what I could do to act more like many of Cusack's movie characters. It seems to work for him, and with a range of women from the really cute(Driver, Roberts) to the incredibly beautiful(Bonet, Beckinsale and Jolie), the upside would be incredible.

Doing this would also be incredibly stupid. Movies are fake. I know this seems obvious, but most of us forget this routinely. How often have you compared your life to a movie, or a TV show? And I don't mean wishing your life was like that of Carrie Bradshaw, Tony Soprano, Chandler Bing, or Rory Gilmore(or Dexter Morgan, for the really sick people out there). I mean you actually think your life is remarkably like that of a fictional character.

This means you are ignoring all the warts of real life: morning breath, bed-head, grocery shopping, work, dullness and well, no drama. It's impossible for fiction to show us everything that would happen in real life. If it did, we wouldn't watch it. Which means we are essentially living a life we wouldn't watch on TV(the Navy plays on this fear quite well in their commercials). Not, at least, without some goddamn good editing. The night spent watching re-runs of The Fresh Prince? Out. The night you drank too much, punched a guy, but sang karaoke(at a non-karaoke bar) with him later that night, witnessed a taxi cab crashing into a storefront during your drunken walk home, and woke up with the local weather girl? That's in, baby.

Unlike our movie and TV doppelgangers, however, we can't skip the uninteresting parts. They are always several worlds removed from the one we live in. And conducting yourself in this world as you would in the movie world can only lead to disaster and disappointment.

Though, on the outside chance you could land Lisa Bonet, maybe it's worth a shot.

Horror Of Horrors

I walk ten minutes in the cold to see this:



I just want some hot chocolate! Get some hamsters in a wheel or something! Pedal a bicycle! I'll do it; I didn't walk here for nothing!

Oh well. There's always tomorrow for Starbucks.

There better be.

A Late Weekend Recap

Friday

A Foosball table cut my wrist up good this weekend. It looks like I tried to kill myself with a slab of concrete, skinning my wrists instead of slitting them.

I was helping my friend Jamie unload the table at his house; he's storing it for our friend Aaron who is moving to an apartment too small to handle his table. One of the sides caught my wrist when we turned it over. I didn't even notice cut for a while.

Jamie picked me up at the Greenbelt Metro, in a truck, with a small wooden table in the passenger seat. That I was expected to have in my lap for the drive back to Baltimore. Not exactly the ideal set up for having good conversation ("Sup, table bitch!"), to say anything about safety. So I shoved that fucker in the back, despite Jamie's reservations about being decapitated.

"Well, before I would have been decapitated."

"Yeah, but I was fine with that."

On the way to Baltimore, we stopped at my parents' house in Laurel. They were painting the kitchen(they means my brother Scott, which is the real reason I wanted to stop by; I hadn't seen him in at least two months). Now, the last time I saw the kitchen it was in a series of re-paints. I had misunderstood my mother's explanation on what part of the stage they were at, and I thought the color I was looking at was the old color. I said it was hideous; then she told me that was actually the color they had settled on.

"Oh...well, it's dark in here. I'm sure it will look great with all the lights on." I said this in the midst of broad daylight with a straight face.

Anyway, the room Friday night looked great. The hideous color actually looked gorgeous once it dried and was set against some white trim.

Scott seemed a little out of it; I learned later he was taking sleeping pills because he had been staying up for 40 hours at a time the past two weeks. Jamie, Scott and I admired my parents new HD TV for a while, talked some bullshit about football and I agreed to be at my parents house to watch the game with Scott and my Dad.

Jamie and I went the rest of the way to Baltimore with the table still in Jamie-decapitating position; thankfully we made it without any heads rolling. Our friend Paul met us for dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant, were we learned that Jamie and Paul were born in the year of the Monkey, and I was born in the year of the Horse. According to the calendar, I should marry a Dog. Which, according to my ex-wife's birthday, I did. The description of the year of the Dog said Dog's were known for their loyalty.

What do the Chinese know?

Afterwards, the three of us and Jamie's wife Cheryl played a fun game whose name I can't remember. It involved playing roads, castles, and churches(some with roads, and some in the middle of nowhere I guess). Paul was hyped and couldn't stop from looking at his piece before his turn and come up; I was forced to hide the box with the pieces in it.

I slept on a couch in the basement and had a dream that Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was force feeding me the world's worst chili at the DC 101 Chili Cook Off. This reminded me I had to buy some cans of Turkey Chili Sunday when I went grocery shopping(I forgot, and I'm terrified of what dream Flea will do to me now).

Saturday

"Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter's still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years"

- Colin Hay, I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

Saturday morning I awoke to Flea's voice morphing into Jamie's. It was 10 am; time to head over to Aaron's to help him move. We stopped at McDonald's for some breakfast. The cashier in training had a unique way of handing me my change: she just stuck her open hand out, palm up - evidently expecting me to snatch it out of her hands. Jamie observed the trainer of the trainee struggling with removing his ordered milk without spilling the coffee creamers that were piled on top of the milk.

"She'd be a shitty Jenga player," he observed.

We arrived at Aaron's to find his parents, his sister and her husband were already there. Aaron raised his hands in exasperation at our time of arrival, which was curious because he must of known there was no way we would be there any earlier that 11 am on a Saturday.

Things went very smoothly. We loaded most of Aaron's stuff into a large crate for storage; the care was being picked up later and driven to a warehouse. I was completely unaware that such a service existed.

The only thing that went wrong was when Jamie, Aaron's brother-in-law Glenn and I dropped Aaron's mattress in a puddle. It was only one corner, but it was very noticeable since we dropped it right in front of Aaron, in the parking lot. Technically, Glenn lost his grip and it caused his and Jamie's end to drop. However, whenever Aaron referred to the incident again, he eyed me and Jamie exclusively. Such is family loyalty.

After the bed, Aaron's bedroom was barren save a few discarded items from his desk on the carpet. Aaron asked me to get a box from his room. It was near his closet, and next to it, out of the corner of my eye, I caught something peculiar. A flash of some familiar colors. Two pictures were partially concealed beneath a sheet of printer paper. Through the paper I could make out one of the pictures.

Me and my ex-wife, on our wedding day. Probably the last thing I expected to see while helping my friend move. She looked beautiful; I looked happy. I wish there was a word for all the sorrow, foolishness and grief I felt. Only for a second. I wiped away a few tears(thankfully I was alone), asked if I could throw them away, and that was that.

Sunday

I went over to my parent's house to watch the game. The Redskins lost 20-17 to the Bucs, and Scott, James, my father and I screamed at the TV the entire time. It was a frustrating loss.

Afterwards, I helped Scott move a couch and love seat into his girlfriend's house. He and his girlfriend both work at Outback Steakhouse; the furniture was generously donated by a regular. An older, almost sad regular who was giving three waitresses some furniture because he probably gets a thrill getting some bought attention from young, pretty girls.

Sunday night I worked on some record reviews(that hopefully you will be able to read soon), bought some songs off of iTunes(including the Mad World cover from Donnie Darko and the Gears Of War commercial).

Waterfalls

Today's weather is three kinds of shitty: wet, cold, and dark. This morning, I woke up late, realized I forgot to dry/iron clothes for work, and then spent a half hour looking for my umbrella. My search was not successful.

Surprisingly, walking to work in a steady cold rain is making me feel like I'm about to be sick. It feels like my body is glowing red at an increasing frequency, like a video game bomb about to explode(if you never played Legend of Zelda or it's many incarnations, this makes no sense, and I'm fine with that because you are obviously some kind of heathen). I'm hoping a nice hot dinner and some rest will reverse things.

My usual cold lunch was not going to cut it on a day that looked like the day before the apocalypse, so I set out to a nearby Subway for something hot and more filling. As I sat down to eat, TLC's "Waterfalls" came over the restaurant's radio.

I hadn't heard "Waterfalls" in at least seven years, possibly more. There was a brief period in 1995, however, when I heard it at least 100,000 times a week. Besides being all over the radio and MTV, my brother Scott loved that song and played it all the time. Tionne Watkins, Rozonda Thomas, and the late Lisa Lopes where in my house, my friend's houses, the family car, and even school. There was no escape. Even at Pizza Hut.

Once a week my family would eat out, and "Waterfalls" was the soundtrack to every one of those meals for at least a year. My brother would get a dollar, play "Waterfalls", something by Mariah Carey, and maybe something by Oasis, I can't remember. I, being in a defiant classic rock phase, would play "Free Bird", "Walk This Way", and "Go Your Own Way". It was always a game to see who could get their songs to play during the main part of the meal(which was pointless because the jukebox seemed to play the songs in a random order). Our waitress did compliment me on my taste in music one day, making me very happy. Which was strange since she was basically saying "You like music that people twenty to thirty years older than you enjoy, way to go!" and I was at the age when that should have been devastating. My brother(being more socially aware) picked up on it though, and it validated his musical tastes as well. What a waitress.

Anyway, today - with no sibling rivalry to give the song context - I really enjoyed the 13th greatest song of all time(according to VH1, I shit you not. What, can you name twelve songs better? Are you thinking 'Do I have to stop at twelve?'?). I probably enjoyed it 1995 too; though I would never have admitted it. Though the narrative is pretty depressing(drug killings, AIDS), it has a great hook and a memorable chorus. Plus, Chili looked killer in the video. You could eat off those abs.

Giant Lobsters and CDs

One of my favorite things to do at the Giant(a north-eastern supermarket chain) is a thing of the past.

No, it's not staring at the lobster tank(that was fun when I was a kid though...OK, fine, it's still fun now but the Giant near my apartment doesn't even have a lobster tank...no really...OK, I still like to stare at the lobsters).

What I am going to miss is the gloriously messy giant Giant CD display. Every week, I stop by - often letting my frozen wares get dangerously close to thawing - and go through a huge pile of CDs, all piled and thrown about on a little table near the magazines and greeting cards. The chaos of the pile dares me to try and find a hidden gem. It's my poor man's version of record hunting. Or it was.

I did find a few albums for myself deep beyond the first layer of Jessica Simpson, Toby Keith, Avril Lavigne, and For Her collections: Black Sabbath's Greatest Hits for $3, Josh Stone's The Soul Sessions for $8, The Ramones Greatest Hits for $6, and Gordon Lightfoot's Summertime Dream for $9.

Last week, I was surprised to see Corb Lund's Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer near the bottom of the corner nearest the bagged candy(I noted this for future reference). Canadian country just isn't a genre I thought a supermarket would carry. I have the song "All I Wanna Do Is Play Cards" off it, and I really liked that so I thought about picking it up. Next week, I told myself. I'll get it next week.

It's next week, and all the CDs are gone. The table has neon picture frames and other assorted nick knacks on it now(at least I think it does, I was too upset to take a really close look at it).

No more CD hunting to liven up the grocery shopping. Oh well, there's always the lobsters.

The Boys

A father and his boys. I found this picture while going doing some late(by about three months) unpacking. It was taken - I think - three years ago. I don't remember whose idea it was, but all the boys of the family where asked to stand together: My younger brother Mike, me, my younger brothers Scott(the Marine) and James(in the red), and my father.

It's the only picture I have and may be the only picture that exists of all five of us together. In the three years since it was taken, Scott has left the Marines with an honorable discharge, Mike and James have both graduated from high school and gone on to college, and I've gone through a divorce.

For most of that, we weren't together. Mike and James still lived in the house we all grew up in, Scott was at various times in California and North Carolina, and I was in between places in DC. Wherever I was, I had this photograph. At one point, I had two copies; one for work, and one on my nightstand, resting on the lamp(I was always meaning to get a proper frame, but I kept forgetting).

Through the hard and hardest times, the photograph would remind me I was not alone. It was taken before my grandmother's funeral, one of the hardest. And even in the wake of grief, we managed some joy. We were all together,all four of us; and when that happens, something unspoken - that assurance of home, comfort, and belonging - takes over. It's having three best friends who will always be there; they will always have your back.

Now, instead of four boys, my parents have four men. James, the youngest, is 18, and I, the eldest, will turn 28 soon. The bonds that bridge ten years are strong, but men need more room then boys do. As boys we played, went to school, fought, cursed, and laughed with each other for what seemed like endless days. As men, the times together are shorter, and they come less and less. School, jobs, careers, and girlfriends all take up our time now. The endless days have ended.

Yet, when we get the chance to hang out, get drunk and play some video games, and fuck with each other the way only brothers do; we get to go back in time. Even if it's only for a night.

My father has one brother, and they rarely speak. That's what years, distance - life - can do. I can't imagine that happening to us, even though as of today, I haven't spoken to Scott in weeks since he moved to a new apartment in Crofton. Where do we find the time? Besides, I will see him(and the rest) at Thanksgiving. Right?

I hope that photograph is never the only reminder I have family.

Giddy As A Schoolboy

My review of the Killers' Sam's Town has been used by BigYawn.net! I'm geeking out! :)

Beautiful Beach House

After nights of heavy drinking, I contemplate weird scenarios: What would happen if Lars Ulrich hadn't stolen the name of his band, would a band named Metal Mania sell millions of records? What if Bob Dylan and the Beatles had never met? And most importantly, if the White Stripes were kidnapped, bashed repeatedly over the head with aluminum tubing and ivory sticks, what would their next record sound like?

Thanks to Beach House's self-titled debut album, the last question has finally been answered: almost ambient, beautiful sounding music, with slide guitar and organ replacing the guitar and drums combination. The comparison to Jack and Meg is pure rubbish, really, it's simply by virtue of the band being the Baltimore duo of Alex Scally (guitar/keyboards) and Victoria Legrand (vocals/keyboards) and not Alex, Victoria, and some other fellows. The Stripes are so ingrained in the music scene now, though, that any guy/girl combo is going to have to deal with it.

On the band's MySpace page, the duo describe their sound in some unique ways: a penny dropping into a cup of oily water, a diamond's best girlfriend, twin camels taking a luscious nap in the Sahara, sound of the ocean through an expensive cell phone. I can't describe it any better; it's eccentrically beautiful.

Is it good? I don't know, it just sort of "is". It's light rain outside your bedroom. It's not unpleasant, and it has a lot of gorgeous moments - but it will have been over for ten minutes before you notice it's gone. This isn't to say the songs are ambient background noise; Legrand's voice is too beautiful and distinctive for that. It's more like the soundtrack to a French film about autumn changing to winter, perfect for scenes of chilly days with wind-blown leaves whipping about some tall, thin, cigarette smoking figure. Whereas in my American fall scenes I'm used to hearing California Dreaming or the theme from Rocky.

The album is very consistent in it's slow, mellow tempo and mood, making it the sort that really deepens with repeated listens. Moments that were at first indistinguishable come into relief, and others recede as the individual tracks start to stand out. Tokyo Witch, Apple Orchard and Auburn and Ivory are my particular favorites. Getting past that first listen, though, might be more than some are willing to give.

This is different, and as I stated earlier, I don't know if it's good. It's beautiful, and let's leave it at that.

Some Local Flavor

Baltimore band ilyAIMY describes their sound as "acoustic mayhem". After seeing them recently at College Perk, I'd have to agree. Beyond mayhem, it's an acoustic attack, an explosion of percussion, joined with powerful, haunting vocals. I bought their album The Fifth Circle right after the show.

Frontman Rob Hinkal plays the hell out of his guitar with such ferociousness it pounds and resonates like a team of hardcore drummers. Hinkal's band has been called an acoustic Tool, and part of that has to be his voice's resemblance to that of Maynard Keenan. Hinkal, however, possesses not only Keenan's howling prog-rock rage, but also a growling, guttural range that makes his vocals more primal than the Tool singer(Incidentally, ilyAIMY members Sharif Kellogg and Rowan Corbett did a kick-ass cover of Sober before ilyAIMY's set at the Perk, part of their IO project).

Hinkal and vocalist Heather Lloyd are the creative core of ilyAIMY(which stands for I Love You And I Miss You). Live, Lloyd pounded on the djembe(a hand drum, being lame I had to look up the real name), belted out songs and was the gravitational center of the band; everything seemed to flow from her. All this while seated with a bad leg(she came in on crutches). I can't imagine how dynamic she is when her mobility is not limited.

Keyboardist Sharif Kellogg and percussionist Rowan Corbett round out the attack. Corbett's double-handed drumming is something that has to be seen to be believed; it's the 400 pound bone-hammered heart of the band.

Fifth Circle does a great job of capturing ilyAIMY's live energy. Any band with a signature sound flirts with the danger of all of their songs sounding the same. Every time I felt I could apply that label to this band, they kicked my ass. Whether it was a vocal harmony, a surprising electric guitar or violin, ilyAIMY shows great depth. My favorite track Strain hits the musical trifecta with music, lyrics, and a vocal styling that perfectly match each other. It's a song that you imagine was born, not written.

Buy this CD now, you won't be disappointed.

Slowly Getting Through Monday

It's taking a little longer than usual to break into the work week and get my brain out of a bus-lagged fog.

Today, I came into work and noticed my cubicle was darker than usual(the fluorescent lights underneath my shelves were out), and I decided this was obviously because of my new flat screen monitor not being as bright as the old one, despite the fact that the monitor wasn't turned on.

I went to get some breakfast. I bought two small boxes of raisin bran. I sat down, emptied a box into a small styrofoam bowl, and stared at it with the vague sense something was wrong and I usually didn't eat raisin bran like this. Oh yeah, I forgot to buy milk.

After a lunchtime run at the gym, I showered. Successfully. Maybe I was snapping out of it, I thought, as I raised my deodorant to my face with the intention to use it as moisturizer.

Luckily, I caught myself.

Next Time I'll Use Amazon Like A Civilized Person

Where did all those fucking kids come from?

I went to Pentagon City during my lunch break, and teens and tweens or whateverthefuck were all over the place. Do schools let out for a two hour lunch break now? There was no escaping them. I just wanted to quickly buy my girlfriend's birthday present and get out. I didn't count on the pushing and nudging through a wall of minors who stand around slack-jawed, not realizing they are idling in front of the god damned cash register and every one above the age of twenty assumes they must be in line.

"Oh, I'm not in line...sorry!" she says, taking a sip of her McDonald's coke. In the fucking store.

This wasn't just ignorance or rudeness, this must have been some kind of cruel performance art. This was some bohemians' senior thesis entitled "Oblivious Teens In Store Drive People Batshit Crazy, Number Seven".

This means I'm getting old, doesn't it? Shit.

A Puppy Story

Today, I witnessed the rare event that in it's brief life goes from cute, to cruel, to disgusting(this excludes all baby-related stories).

I was having my early-afternoon Starbucks break, when I saw a man walking the world's most adorable puppy(like babies, the most recent puppy I've seen is always the world's most adorable). I have no idea what breed the dog was; I'm very ignorant of such things. Dogs, to me, fit into same three categories as movie popcorn: small, medium, large. Lassie is a medium, the Taco Bell dog is a small, and Marmaduke is the rare jumbo bucket.

This dog was small. He resembled a miniature fox. As he trotted behind his owner, he looked happy in that blissful, clueless way dogs do.

The puppy slipped, and his back legs gave out. His owner, irritated, dragged him along on his little doggy ass. I briefly considered murdering this man for treating something so cute with such disdain. Then, the puppy began to pee.

And he kept peeing, streaking dog urine for a good ten or twelve feet of sidewalk before finally getting back on his feet and merrily trotting away. I stared at the urine streak. I watched as - gasp! - joggers ran over it, business men stepped in it while hailing cabs, and others went about their day with no idea they were stepping in dog piss.

Maybe it was the angle of the sunlight that allowed me to clearly see the streak, a thick nasty brushstroke of liquid reflection that people obliviously kept stepping in and smearing across the pavement.

Well, I certainly wasn't going to walk there.

Anyway, on the non-urine front, I'm frustrated that I don't have the extra money to pick up all the new albums that I want to listen to. Beck, Meatloaf, Jet, John Legend, The Dears, Albert Hammond Jr.'s solo disc, and even My Chemical Romance's latest, The Black Parade.

I know all five of you who read my blog love reading my album reviews, but I would like to make them a little more timely. Oh well, soon enough I will have extra money. It's always fun to write about music; even if it's just for my own amusement.

An Evening

Saturday, I met up with a couple friends for dinner.

We ate at a restaurant in the town I grew up in, more or less. I don't count the six months spent in Hawaii, or the four years spent in Greenbelt. I can barely remember any of that, but Laurel is a fixture in the back of my brain.

Laurel is going through some kind of chain-establishment revival, added since my departure are a Starbucks, California Tortilla, Coldstone Creamery, Shoppers Food Warehouse, Applebees, and a LoneStar Steakhouse. The steakhouse is where we ate.

My three younger brothers work at an Outback Steakhouse. I wondered this meal counted as an act of betrayal. Instead of boomerangs and upside down maps of the world(putting Australia in it's proper place, playing second fiddle to Antartica I suppose), there were fake steer horns and paintings of cowboys taming the wild west; or maybe the taming was already done, since there were no Indians in any of the paintings. The Maryland football game was on the flat screen TVs hanging over the bar; we briefly discussed it and it became apparent none of us had any idea or interest in how the season was going for a school we all used to go to(and should therefore care about), but it was a game on TV, what else were we going to talk about while waiting to be seated.

The food and service were adequate. I briefly speculated as to how many waiters I could trip before they realized I was doing it on purpose. The consensus we reached was three to six, depending on what they were carrying. Then we discussed the best domino strategy, since the staff often traveled in packs of two or three. Trip the lead, the middle, or the straggler? Cases were made for each.

Our waiter himself presented an interesting conundrum, at least to me: how does someone so devoid of charisma get by being a waiter? Saturday night was the closet I have ever come to being served by a robot. An instantly forgettable man. My theory is he gets by because people, not being able to remember much about him, can't remember how the service was and tip at least fifteen percent. I tipped him twenty, because I always tip twenty, and I couldn't remember how the service was. Hell, I didn't remember him taking our order; when the food came I was surprised. Who ordered this? Have we been here that long?

The girl who brought the food, however, was very memorable.

Favorite Albums Of 2006, So Far

Two months and some change is all that remains of 2006, one of the better years in music(for me at least). I know every blogger does a Top X list, so here's mine. Feel free to tell me what great/crappy taste in music I have.

1. Pick A Bigger Weapon, - The Coup. A politically Marxist rap group from California, The Coup made not only the best hip-hop album of the year, but also the best record of the year, period. Filled with clever, cynical lyrics that attack the President, corporations, and other things worth hating, Weapon will blow you away.

2. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - The Arctic Monkeys. Chuck D may have told us not to believe the hype, but in this case, believe it. The Arctic Monkeys are that good. Their blend of indie-rock/punk sensibilities with catchy, story-telling lyrics is superb.

3. First Impressions Of Earth - The Strokes. The third album from the kings of the guitar revival, Impressions does not disappoint. The Strokes rock on songs like Juicebox, Heart In A Cage, Vision of Division, You Only Live Once, and the great stylistic departure Electricityscape.


4. Food & Liqour - Lupe Fiasco. If it wasn't for The Coup, this would have been then best hip-hop album of the year by far. Fresh, clever lyrics that touch on everything from skateboarding to fantasy to politics, delivered with an incredible flow from a new, young voice.


5. Boys And Girls In America - The Hold Steady. A band that plays seventies style rock through an eighties indie filter for a twenty-first century that badly needs them. If this were the 1970s, they would be one of the biggest bands on earth.



6. Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs. A very solid album. Not one weak song, which is what I would expect from a Jack White and Brendan Benson collaboration. I think some people where expecting a supernova of an album; the listening equivalent of multiple orgasms or something. Talent does not work like math, people! We have two great songwriters, and we got some good and great songs from them. Calm down, smoke a joint, and go back to ranting about how there will never be another Cream(or that they were overrated, whichever).

7. Magic Potion - The Black Keys. The Akron, Ohio duo of Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney deliver another great blues-rock record. Although there isn't much growth from earlier albums, their formula still works with some stirring musicianship and a never-boring style.


8. Dying To Say This To You - The Sounds. Infectious indie-punk with pop/new wave stylings, Dying is a great showcase for the best The Sounds have to offer. Maja Ivarsson is a great rock vocalist.


9. Hello Young Lovers - Sparks. Metaphor is one of my favorite songs of the year; Dick Around is an anthem for the ages. The Sparks make great pop music.


10. Destroyer's Rubies - Destroyer. More cryptic, but alluring shoegazing lyrics and "european blues". A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point is one of my favorite songs of 2006.


11. Modern Times - Bob Dylan.

12. Show Your Bones - Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

13. Standing In The Way Of Control - The Gossip.

14. Death By Sexy - The Eagles Of Death Metal.

15. Daggers Out! - Magneta Lane.

16. Eyes Open - Snow Patrol.

Albums I am eagerly looking forward to hearing that could change this list: Ear Drum - Talib Kweli, The Information - Beck, Shine On - Jet, Once Again - John Legend, Bat Out Of Hell III - Meat Loaf, Chinese Democracy - Guns N Roses(wait, what? seriously?), Kingdom Come - Jay-Z, Light Grenades - Incubus, Hip-Hop Is Dead...The N - Nas, Beach House - Beach House.

Disappointments Of The Year, So far: Sam's Town - The Killers, A Blessing And A Curse - The Drive-By-Truckers.

No Longer Four-Eyed

I finally picked up my contacts yesterday; a month and a half of glasses in enough for me, and everyone else for that matter.

I relapsed into being four-eyed again pretty easily. 17 years of wearing glasses should make that transition smooth, I guess. My switch to contacts was one shot in a rapid-fire self-improvement spree five years ago(that also included a new haircut, running shoes, and what is possibly the deadliest of all sins - online dating).

Anyway, it's good to be wearing contacts again; I'd forgotten what my unobstructed face looked like. Although my friends will contend otherwise(because they are good friends), I do look better without glasses. At least I get laid more( I realize this may be the result of my improved self-confidence from thinking I look better, but more women approach me sans-glasses than with).

I get my contacts from a trendy place in DC, Blink Optical. Outside it's pretty unassuming. Inside, the place looks like a swank lounge or club; it even has the euro-electronic muzak to go with it's stripped-down urban-industrial chic look(see, I can make up bullshit just as well as any club promoter). Hell, even the staff look like international scene regulars. Throughout the store, slumped and stacked behind the register and perched in designer chairs, Blink is sure to be employing an array of people who are at least three of these five things: a) urban hipster, b) thin, c) tall, d)European, and e) attractively androgynous.

What Blink really is, I realized, is the parallel dimension version of a trendy lounge - the version from the good dimension. It's only open during the day, all the pretty people are courteous and warm, there are no drugs(unless you count the wine - I shit you not - they serve while you wait or browse), and I can see more than three fucking feet in front of me. Euro-electronic muzak must be a multidimensional constant, however.

One thing I didn't count on, now that I have my contacts, is how it would affect my running. I developed the habit of taking my glasses off when I ran at the gym, to blind myself to the numerous gym distractions: TVs tuned to MTV¹ and VH1, group aerobics classes, inappropriate spandex displays, etc. That, and I grew tired of pushing my glasses up Kent style every thirty seconds or so.

Having all those distractions filtered out really helped my focus. Nothing existed outside of step, push, stride, breathe, plant, repeat. My times improved steadily during my six weeks of wearing glasses.

Today, I'm running and I have to work to focus. I can see everything very clearly, but I refuse to take my contacts out in the gym locker room. They go in after I wake up, and go out before I go to bed. Anything else just complicates the entire process and throws the universe into chaos. So to focus, I picked a treadmill from the line of machines that had a clear line of sight to a glass door - giving me a phantom me to stare down while I psych myself up to set a new best time.

One last hazard of this switch: I keep trying to adjust glasses that aren't there, making me look insane in public.

¹I don't know what tripping on LSD or mushrooms is like, but I imagine the disorienting effect is something like watching MTV muted and without context - utter nonsensical imagery full of big, bright colors and quick cuts.

Boys And Girls In America

Twenty-first century indie rock has been dominated so far by post-punk, prog-rock, and art bands who largely ignore much of rock's history. The Hold Steady - much like their predecessors The Replacements did in the previous century - are injecting the indie scene with a much needed reminder that you don't need to tear down the old to make room for the new. Filled with powerful classic rock influences, stories of debauchery and love, Boys And Girls In America is one hell of an ass-kicking shot to the arm(or liver).

Right from the beginning, with the opening power chords and keyboards of Stuck Between Stations, the record grabs you. The band chisels the influences of Springsteen, the aforementioned Replacements, Thin Lizzy, a little Cheap Trick and Meat Loaf into a big, fun, powerful sounding record. Tad Kubler and vocalist Craig Finn's soaring and intertwining guitars never swallow drummer Bobby Drake(I'll won't make any Iceman jokes if you don't) and bassist Galen Polivka's driving rhythm section, resulting in a full, layered sound when they all play together. Keyboardist Franz Nicolay reminds you, yes, keyboards do belong in a rocking band with inspired playing that's as chilled as the guitars are scorching. Not only does he provide the slower songs with depth, but he adds feeling to the faster numbers without being overwhelmed by the rest of the band.

The album even features a beautiful acoustic track, Citrus, one of the few songs that leave Finn's vocals and brilliant lyrics largely alone and unchallenged. One of the albums few weak points is that it's sometimes hard to hear Finn when the rest of the band are all wailing at the same time, which is more often than not.

Finn's singing hits you like a strong shot of whiskey; it takes some getting used to if you're a virgin to either. Sounding like a slightly drunk, American Elvis Costello who is telling stories while shooting the shit with you at the bar, Finn is never uninteresting or whining, and always clever. He writes timeless lyrics of boys and girls trying to make sense of themselves and each other through drugs, booze, and parties.

This is the drinking album for the fall; for house parties with old friends while the record seemingly narrates your memories. It's that personal connection, the ability to make a song seem like it's about you, that's the strength of Finn's songwriting that puts him in the class of Westerberg, Joel, and Springsteen. You Can Make Him Like You will remind everyone of a girl they know, and Massive Nights is the soundtrack of great debauched teenage memories.

Finn and the band even have a penchant for the silly and absurd with Chillout Tent, a mini-rock-opera. The bizarre story of a love'em and leave'em encounter in the unlikely setting of concert detox, the song reaches it's comical climax right after the male protagonist is likened to Izzy Stradlin, whose mention blew my mind. Seriously, I haven't thought about Stradlin in years and hearing his name poked a long forgotten and unused part of my brain. It was like tripping. Incidentally, the lovers' vocals are provided by Soul Asylum's David Pirner(a perennial guest vocalist, all the way back to cussing out the Minneannapolis police on The Replacements Kids Don't Follow) and The Reputation's Elizabeth Elmore.

Arguably the best American band right now; in a prefragmented pop landscape The Hold Steady, with their big, fun sound could have been the biggest band on the planet(and probably could be today, but they would have to dumb it down). As it is, they are playing in 2006 and not 1986, and so are an "indie" band. And using influences unassociated with and therefore largely unused and neglected by the genre, they have delivered the most refreshing indie rock record of the year.

A Fun Night

It's about 10:30 - I just got home from drinks with friends - and I'm happy.

For the last two or so years, there has always been at least one major problem in my life. The kind of problem that you go out and have drinks with friends to forget, but you know will be waiting for you when the fun ends. Sticky problems that gunk up your brain at night and pull at it during the day.

A failing marriage, then divorce, money, and finally regaining independence(financial and spiritual) - problems were always there. After a while, it just seemed normal. This is what life is like, I told myself, one problem after another, and you go out and do your best, and wait for the next one.

Tonight the next one seems far over the horizon. I still have problems, I haven't channeled Tony Robbins or anything. The difference is, the future doesn't keep me up at night. Which is strange, because it for the first time in a while, it seems bright.

Of course, my ancestors have a saying: An Irishman has an abiding sense of tragedy which sustains him through temporary periods of joy.

Fooled Again

I've hesitated to write about this; it didn't seem right to throw dirty laundry onto the lawn for the neighbors to see, especially when the bedsheets were shared. I wasn't going to write this.

Then, a vivid memory came to me: another blog, written over a year ago, where the author proclaimed to anyone with interest or a MySpace account she had left her husband and was looking forward to a new future without him. Below were one line comments of affirmation from people who knew only what they could learn from a lone paragraph on the internet. It confronted me in the cold glow of a monitor in a half-filled apartment that had been full the day before.

So fuck it.

For now, I'll focus on the most recent business. Maybe, someday, you will be regaled by my divorce scabs and scars(but those are my responsibility). No, what is most pressing is something still the responsibility of two people: money, of course.

My ex-wife and I were a couple just starting out, young and poor. Our first - and only - major purchase was a stylish couch. We shared a nice one-bedroom apartment in a good area of town, blocks from her job. Neither of us had much.

When she left, there was a huge tax bill, credit debt, and six months left on our lease. A lease signed with the assumption there would always be two incomes paying the rent.

The day after she left, I was fired. That was not a good week, unless you count the record number of 151 shots I did that Friday, which I don't.

Despite my one week alcoholism, I found a better job, a better girlfriend, and I paid everything off. It wasn't easy after two months of unemployment, and it took nearly a year, but it could have been much, much worse.

The divorce was finalized a day before what would have been our third anniversary; one of those meaningless coincidences that reminds you the universe is an uncaring mean place. My ex-wife, albeit late, took care of the papers(papers that came to me on Valentine's Day, another coincidence - or the job of a well paid mailman, I suppose) and she even promised to start paying me back her half of all the debt I had paid off for us. She would start in September, she told me in an e-mail that also gave me updates on family members I would never see again.

It's mid-October. Nothing, not a word.

I'm not surprised...no, I'm lying, I am surprised. The money means nothing at this point, it's a past hardship I'd like to forget. The gesture, though, the sign on her part that the marriage at least meant something, even if it was just a debt to be repaid; that meant something. To me, it meant a tiny bit of satisfaction you get from a little respect. I still craved respect from this woman, or I at least liked receiving it.

What can I say, I'm a sucker - I don't learn. And in a year plus since I last saw her, my ex-wife can still remind me of that.

Sam's Town, The Killers

For some reason, known only to them, The Killers have decided they want to be an important rock band making important music. Not being omnipresent, neither you nor I have anyway of knowing when this happened, but I'm guessing it was after the surprise success of 2004's Hot Fuss that Brandon Flowers and company knew it was their fate to be mentioned among the pantheon of rock greats. And like a boy who misreads a kind girl's smile, they plunge headfirst into trouble. Unfortunately for The Killers and their new album Sam's Town, important music can very often be boring and unloved music. All of which Sam's Town, save for some tracks on the first half, is destined to be.

Unimportant music, like Hot Fuss, can be fiercely loved. I adored Hot Fuss. More than just a New Wave knock-off, an unfair pegging it received from far to many jaded critics who still miss Joy Division, it was a great display of catchy hooks in pop songs so full of life they stuck with you like the taste of really good candy. The music was candy. Unimportant, disposable candy shipped straight from Las Vegas; that's what made it so damn good. The unimportant Hot Fuss made The Killers an important band, and I eagerly awaited Sam's Town. Which is too bad for me, since Sam's Town is a track by track record of The Killers abandoning everything great about Hot Fuss.

Now, it's impossible to talk about this record without talking about Bruce Springsteen - thank you Brandon Flowers - as the very prolific frontman told anyone who would listen how 'influenced' he was by The Boss, and how he planned to make the next Killers album one of the best albums of the last twenty years(if you are reading this twenty years in the future, and this prediction has come true, I don't know what else is going on in the world but I'll bet you envy the dead).

This is a very average, but not horrible, album. It only ends in disaster, like a bad relationship or a skateboarder pulling of some really good tricks right before hitting a guardrail, flipping over and falling down the kind of wide concrete stairs that only downtown office buildings seem to have, and breaking both his legs. Except in this case, you can hear every bone breaking very clearly. With some reverb and synthesizers.

The first few tracks of Sam's Town still have some of the energy of songs like Somebody Told Me. The title track itself is pretty good, and For Reasons Unkown could have been a b-side on Hot Fuss. It's around Uncle Jonny, the seventh track, that everything begins to fall apart(spelling Jonny without the h served as a warning, I suppose). Listening to Jonny, I could hear it begging, screaming for a hook, a better melody, something, anything to rescue it from it's own mediocrity. The band desperately tries to sound different; to sound like they grew up in working class New Jersey.

Up to this point, the only sign of The Boss that I could detect was in the lyrics. And when you are listening to a Killers song, the last thing you should worry about are the lyrics. As long as they don't get in the way, who cares what Brandon is singing about? Mr. Brightside could have been an ode to Chernobyl and no one would have noticed or cared. Lyrics, or rather 'deep' lyrics, are not Flower's strength. So when he attempts to write something inspired by Springsteen, we get something that sounds like someone trying to write something inspired by Springsteen. Although listening to the dichotomy of a slightly evolved, but still New Wave sounding Killers against lyrics straight out of a watered-down Born To Run was a little weird, it was still enjoyable and definitely catchy.

Listening to The Killers chaotic and confused attempt at a Springsteen sound, however, is when you begin to hear the bones break. Especially on the next track, Bones, one of the most boring and creepy songs I've heard all year. I don't know what kind of women Flowers plans to seduce with lines about putting bones on bones, but I'll bet Eric Roberts is still stealing them.

After Bones there are some songs that manage a decent imitation of a Springsteen record, but they still fail. I'm sorry no one had the balls to tell Flowers this, but his vocals are not suited at all for that type of rock. Nearly breathless vocals sound very good when you are backed by synth-guitar laden music, but when those elements are layered so densely with a more earthy sound, well, you get the drowned out and challenged singing found throughout the second half of Sam's Town.

Okay, now I feel bad for ripping this album. I really enjoyed the first few songs, and one song in the second half, My Lists, actually does a decent job of Flower's vision. Plus, on the so silly it's fun Exitlude, the band sounds genuinely sad to see you go. So, it should be noted(and it will be, to the dismay of many people who genuinely hate fun, unimportant music) that this isn't the death toll of The Killers by any stretch. Hopefully, they will look at what worked and what didn't and go from there for their next effort. I just hope the band remembers the importance of being unimportant.

A Pattern Developing

I don't know if I could take it if another girl, after telling me how I'm the best thing to ever, ever happen to her, leaves me for not being interesting enough. The downside to dating artsy types I guess.

The beautiful people, the beautiful people,
It's all relative to the size of your steeple,
You can't see the forest, for the trees,
You can't smell
your own shit on your knees!

Wes Anderson, Are You Directing My life?

There's this guy in the gym locker room. He works out in a gray Harvard t-shirt(I can't imagine another color for a Harvard t-shirt) and matching shorts. One crimson sweatband around his wrist to go with long socks bleeding the same right into his unremarkable sneakers. Grey and silver streaked hair above a pair of large mid-eighties era glasses.

So this guy, this fucking guy, turns to me and says:

"Dude...is it fucking cold in here? Or is it me?", in a dead-on Owen Wilson impression.

Except it isn't an impression, this is how he really talks. Panicked, I try and balance things so the universe doesn't get pissed and hurl a comet at us.

"Yes, it is rather chilly..." I say as properly white-collar as I can muster.

A startling moment, the kind that makes you wonder if you are actually part of someones imagination because shit like this just doesn't happen outside of clever screenplays.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Still Magic

The Black Keys are venturing into dangerous territory. Not musically mind you. If their latest LP Magic Potion really goes anywhere, it's nowhere new. No, the dangerous territory is not the result of a new musical direction but rather from the often perilous jump to a major record label from an indie one. In this case the jump is from Fat Possum Records, home of the group's last two albums, to Elektra subsidiary Nonesuch Records.

A major label means not only raised commercial expectations, but also an entire new set of fan expectations that are often just as bad as they are good. Any change to a band or artist's sound will raise accusations of selling out from a fan base that helped the band get the new record deal in the first place. If you built your indie reputation on intertwining guitars and Lou Reed-esque vocals, and all of a sudden you start writing songs that remind people of The Magnetic Fields, you might face some backlash.

Even if the change is much less drastic than that, a band can expect anything from mild grumbling to fans ready to form pitchfork and torch wielding mobs. Whether or not the new sound is the product of corporate tinkering or just a new artistic direction doesn't matter. Ask Spoon or Metallica. All that matters is you changed from what made you great, and everyone thinks you have more money now. Suspected rich people get very little critical slack.

Which I guess means good news for the Akron, Ohio duo as the Keys have stayed true to their lo-fi, blues-rock sound on their fourth full-length album. In fact, they stay so close to their blues roots it seems they have actually gone backwards since 2004's Rubber Factory. That record was also a collection of short, blues-riff driven songs - even their great interpretation of the Kinks' Act Nice and Gentle fit right in. Potion is more of the same, with seven of the eleven tracks coming in under four minutes, with the one long standout being Goodbye Babylon at 5:56.

Dan Auerbach provides a smooth groove with his guitar work, starting with the attacking, chugging riff of the album opener Just Got To Be, then into an even faster tempo only one track later on the sizzling Your Touch. Fitting the blues staple of devilish lust perfectly, Your Touch features some of Pat Carney's best attacking drum work to go with Auerbach's equally violent guitar playing. It's definitely the most obvious highlight of the album.

After those two scorchers open the album, the Keys move into the slower You're The One. It's tempting to call any slow rock song a ballad, but to do that to any Keys song would be a disservice. Even their slower offerings still hum with garage-band energy.

From here, the Keys settle into a nice pace in the middle of the album with songs like Just A Little Heat, Give Your Heart Away, and Strange Desire. Here we see the only real change from previous records, as the rest of the album is devoid of the up-tempo songs the Keys usually have throughout their recordings. Maybe Dan and Pat thought we needed a break. The album closes very solidly with Elevator, a nice reminder that the Keys have no use for filler material.

Lyrically, the Keys stay close to earthy, gritty side of life with songs about love, lust, family. The songs Modern Times and Goodbye, Babylon however, deal out commentary on current events, a new wrinkle not found on previous records. Modern Times has some vague lines alluding to hurricane Katrina. Goodbye, Babylon criticizes the Iraq War, and seems to be a reference to the destruction of some ancient Babylonian ruins by the U.S. Military since the 2003 invasion.

The band also released an EP earlier in the year, Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough. A tribute to the late bluesman and former lablemate at Fat Possum, the blues covers were apparently also a signal that the Keys had no plans to deviate from their formula. In fact, Chulahoma actually used additional instruments on one track, Have Mercy On Me, meaning technically it had more "growth" than Potion.

That said, Magic Potion is a solid blues-rock record. Though there is nothing "new" musically, listening to the album is like hearing your favorite band play new songs that remind you why this band is your favorite, while at the same time they don't threaten the internal idea you have of what the band is about. Often when a band does go in a new direction, the result can alienate fans used to the band's old sound. Ask Metallica(but not Spoon). I don't see The Black Keys ever making their equivalent to Load. If anything, they seem to be working their way towards being the AC/DC of indie blues-rock. Or now, just blues-rock.

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As a bonus, here is a screen shot of my iTune ratings for Magic Potion:

Lupe Fiasco: The Next Big Thing?

Whenever a new artist brings something fresh or new to music, there is often a temptation to label them "the future" of whatever genre of music they make. In the case of hip-hop, a genre approaching thirty, there has been plenty of artists that were fresh and new that unfortunately didn't always turn out to be the future. Usually, they were a great diversion before being drowned under the current of mainstream music as it moved on towards whatever moved the most product. Labeling something as the future really just means it's the future you hope for.

That said, I hope the future of hip-hop includes more skateboarding anthems and tales of zombie gangstas all while being socially conscientious. Lupe Fiasco brings all of this and more in his first full length album, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liqour.

Lupe Fiasco, real name Wassulu Muhammad Jaco, received his first taste of mainstream success with a guest verse on fellow Chicagoian Kanye West's single, Touch The Sky. With the aforementioned skate anthem, Kick, Push, the first single off Food & Liqour getting good radio and MTV airplay since it's release in July and leaked(but incomplete) copies of Food & Liqour circulating online generating huge buzz, the album was one of the most anticipated releases of the year. All of this has Lupe poised to be the breakout hip-hop artist of 2006.

Push, well, kicks with a simple strings sample and a steady beat. There isn't that much to the production, the attraction is mainly Fiasco's flow and lyrics. The story of a kid's love affair with skating, it shows Fiasco's empathy for and admiration of the skating scene:

I dedicate this one right here/ To all my homies out there grinding You know what I'm saying?/ Legally and illegally

The album even features a shout out to Tony Hawk on the latter track Outro, an eleven minute monster that appears to thank anyone who even remotely helped with Food & Liqour(probably the only time Tony Hawk will be thanked alongside Talib Kweli and Jay-Z). Kick, Push also contains themes found throughout the album; feelings of alienation, the hope for love, and the search for a place that feels like home:

And away he rolled/ Just a rebel to the world with no place to go And so he kick, push, kick, push, kick, push, kick, push, coast So come and skate with me/ Just a rebel/ Looking for a place to be

In a stark contrast to most mainstream hip-hop, Fiasco features plenty of strong female imagery, fittingly for an album dedicated to a grandmother. The skater protagonist of Push meets a skater girl:

Met his girlfriend she was clapping in the crowd/ Love is what what was happening to him now Uh, he said I would marry you/ But I'm engaged to these arials and variels And I don't think this board is strong enough to carry two/ She said Bow, I weigh 120 pounds Now, let me make one thing clear/ I don't need to ride yours/ I got mine right here

Assertive skating women, the new staple of rap? The motif continues in other tracks: He Say, She Say, a plea to an absent father from a woman who doesn't want him around her, just to be there for their son. On Hurt Me Soul Lupe admits he hated hip-hop for it's degradation of women, but also admits being a hypocrite and singing songs that refer to women as bitches, even if he wouldn't sing that part. In an art form where male posturing is such a large part of an artist's supposed marketability, this is remarkable.

Lyrically, Food & Liqour is way beyond mainstream hip-hop, finding better company with the likes of Talib Kweli, Common, and Lupe's stated direct influence, Nas. His flow is effortless from verse to hook to verse. Subjects range from his dislike of gangsta-oriented hip-hop on the catchy I Gotcha; Lupe serves out "realness" while telling us: I Know You Sick Of Them Players Big Car And Watch Ya/ Either They Pimps Or They Macks Or They Mobsters. He continues his assault on the scathing second verse of Daydreaming, a thorough dismantling of bling-bling clichés. A Muslim, Lupe links the liquor stores prevalent in the ghetto to keeping funeral homes in business and quotes his prophet on American Terrorist saying: the ink of a scholar is worth a thousand times more than the blood of a martyr.

Food & Liqour also makes great use of it's many guest artists. Unlike a lot of hip-hop albums, these aren't merely brief, uninspired appearances strictly meant to get a well-known name written on the track list. Fiasco makes full use of his collaborator's talents on tracks like Just Might Be Ok, He Say She Say(featuring Gemini), American Terrorists (featuring Matthew Santos), and holds his own against the world's most famous semi-retired rapper on Pressure(that rapper being Jay-Z).

With clever lyrics and a catchy delivery style, along with a refreshing break from current hip-hop, Lupe Fiasco has definitely put out one of the, if not the, best hip-hop albums of the year. Save for The Coup's Pick A Bigger Weapon, nothing else comes close.

Damn You Everyman Paul Walker

Understand, I didn't want to watch Eight Below. There are no choices, however, on Peter Pan buses. The inbus movie is not a democratic matter. You don't even have the option of escaping the movie, since unlike planes headphones are not required. So I was stuck with Paul Walker, his biceps, eight dogs, and at least two tragedies.

The tragedies are why I didn't want to watch. I knew the Disney feature would be the kind of insipid, corny, and wondrous crap that only a child's open mind can appreciate, but also knowing that two of the eight dogs die before I even got to the first heartwarming doggie moment was too much. How I knew this isn't really important, but I'll tell you anyway: I'm the kind of person who wants details about movies I will never see, mostly so I'll stay literate in useless culture. I asked a friend if all of the dogs made it, and I was very sad to hear his spoiler. So, even without seeing the movie, I was already sad.

And after saying goodbye to my girlfriend that afternoon, I was sad enough, thanks. If I had showed the driver my shirt smeared with make-up and tears, maybe he would have turned that heartbreaking movie off. That washed-out tan blotch right over my heart might have persuaded him. That isn't the kind of thing you can tell bus drivers, unfortunately.

So I watched two dogs die. I tried taking off my glasses, but the cold and tiny bus TV was only one seat away. I couldn't fall asleep; the snow-filled movie illuminated the bus like a second moon. Even my beloved iPod didn't save me. So, I watched two dogs die - noble, heartbreaking deaths - and the sadness brought me back to the moment I left my girlfriend's apartment.

Leaving is hard. Leaving is full of holding, shoe-gazing, and kisses wet from tears. It's not for the weak of heart. Especially the part when you think you've pulled yourself together, and the deed can be done. There is more crying, then false goodbyes(because you always try to band-aid it and do it quick, but that never happens), and, finally, there is the moment when you turn around and don't look back.

After that moment, late Monday afternoon, I walked up 116th street to the subway. Squinting against the sun kept the tears away. That moment sat on my shoulders during the walk to the subway, and it hunched me down in my seat as I rode the car to Grand Central. Packed with people staring off beyond the car windows, I became intimate with the worn patches of my jeans.

The moment stayed with me through the subway ride, the shuttle to Port Authority, the Peter Pan bus, and finally the walk home.

When I could finally call to say I had made it, and I heard her voice(no longer sad), that painful, lingering motherfucker of a moment finally ended.

This isn't a happy ending, though, since the moment will come again in two weeks, and two weeks after that. It isn't a sad ending either. That moment, as terrible as it is, is nothing compared to all the time that passes before it. Time filled with joy, happiness, and kisses wet from passion. So I'll keep living that moment.

If Old Yeller is playing on the bus home, I will seriously start to look into flying.

For Friday, My Quirks

• With the exception of the song Hallelujah, I don't like any song with Hallelujah in the title.
• Every night, before I go to sleep, I imagine the deafening sound and blinding flash of a nuclear bomb going off not far from my apartment. I'm not sure if this makes me strange, or normal.
• I use all of my towels exactly twice before washing them. And work clothes.
• I always put the sun visor down when I'm driving. The sky is distracting.

Anyway, I'm off to NYC for the weekend. Everyone enjoy the rain.

What am I?

What can you make of an e-mail from your boss with the subject line You're It!, ? I thought Oh damn, what am I? The guy now in charge of re-filling the water cooler, a company representative at a conference, the new office monkey? What? What am I!?

As it turns out, I was just the back-up for the day. Not the boss, mind you. I couldn't start giving orders or arbitrarily tell people to go home or anything. Nope, I'm just the back-up. Not in a vice president kind of way, more like the president's secretary.

Whew. This was good, because I don't want to be the boss. Her job seems pretty hard, and we have great team members. I was once the boss in my previous job, more specifically a team lead. We did not have so great team members. Team members who came in late, left early, and made plenty of mistakes. Fun mistakes, for me to correct. Like deleting entire directories of files, accidentally. Fun times. Even more fun, my boss decided I was just the person to scream at for this, even though I had almost no input on the hiring of these people. The stress level there made my jaw clench and my arm go numb, like right before a heart attack. In fact, that's when I had my first heart attack. Did I say heart attack, because I meant panic attack. I haven't had a heart attack yet, but I imagine I won't be too surprised when it happens. I feel like I'm back at that shitty job...oh fuck I'm having a heart attack...still, better than that job.

Back to the e-mail, though, it would have been nice if I had been the chosen one, or even the new office monkey, or if the e-mail had finally told me what my purpose on this planet was.

Anyway, things are much better now. It's good to be tagged 'it'. My co-workers are great. If they were a band, they would be The Beatles. The best I've ever worked with. I don't know which ones would be John, Paul, George or Ringo. I think I'd be Stuart Sutcliffe.

It was still about 70 degrees today, but I wore my new fall coat anyway. I bought it two weeks or so ago when it was just freezing every morning, and it's been warm spring weather ever since. I like the coat, I like the way it looks, and I'm wearing it, body heat be damned!

Well, that's enough out of me. If you need me, I'll be sweating in my stylish fall coat.

A Break

Finally, a chance to sit down and catch up on reading, music, and other things that have been piling up. There was nothing to do tonight but fix dinner, then relax. Best of all, there was time to relax with.

I've settled into a nice weekday rhythm. Since I moved back to DC, it's been wake up, work, workout, work, fix dinner, sleep. I'm only now getting better at inserting some fun in between dinner and sleep. I think tomorrow I'll break it up and see a movie right after work, maybe The Science Of Sleep or Last Kiss. Both seem well suited to my frame of mind.

When you finally live alone after a long period of cohabitation, you only have yourself to blame if your life is still boring. There is no family or partner holding you back anymore, those responsibilities are gone for the most part. You can't blame them.

I could get used to eight hours sleep every night. Already looks like I'll get seven at the most tonight, but that's still good for me. Especially lately. With good night's sleep, everything seems a little better, a little easier. Even the Metro ride.

Speaking of the Metro ride, I saw a rather disturbing incident the other night. A little girl was riding with her father. She was terrified of an ad on in the car that featured an angry looking man talking into a cellphone; it was part of WMATA's campaign to discourage people from having loud conversations with people not actually in the train.

So anyway, she told her father that the man scared her. He was buried nose-deep in a newspaper, and replied "So shoot him then."

So she did, turning her tiny fist into a tiny gun, and popping a tiny cap into the scary man's large, angry head.

And that was a little...weird, to say the least. In ten or twenty years, if there is a metro serial killer popping off irate Verizon¹ customers who certainly won't be hearing anyone anymore, I can offer some marginally helpful information to the authorities. If anyone believes me.

¹Verizon cellphones are the only ones that work in the DC Metro, so rest easy non-Verizon cellphone users. Little Susie won't be gunning for you.

Sick In The Head

I hate feeling sick. I especially hate feeling head sick. Stomach sick is bad, and often feels(at least physically) far worse than head sick. Head sick, though, always bothers me because it's so close to where my brain is. My thoughts are here; I'm here! And there is sick, right by it, and I can't shake it! It's like trying to drive a car while the windshield is covered in bile and the wipers can't cut through it because it's too thick, and it's clogging the engine. It's unsettling and disorienting, with phlegm thrown in at the end.

I couldn't even work out today. I hate not working out. Hopefully, after some rest, I'll be right as rain tomorrow. However right rain is, since I personally have no direct knowledge of the inherent rightness of rain.

Okay, something in the office smells like a shopping-mall hair salon. And that's not good. Every time I take a walk around I get a strong whiff of it and I feel like I'm eight years old again, being led against my will to the Hair Cuttery while the arcade mocks me from across the way. Last week, something in the office smelled like straight up feet. It was nasty. I don't even want to know what it was.

Anyway, to move away from the subject of office odors, the Redskins won 36-30 in a game that had my sick ass jumping up and down in my apartment with excitement and rage. My apologies to anyone who had to hear me shouting.

Tonight, I'm going to just rest and catch up on my reading and writing. Should help get the engine unclogged.