These last few days have been tearing me up. I feel like I've been almost drifting away from my old group of people and moving into some unknown territory. But maybe I'm just full of shit. I've felt intensely emotional recently, and I can't quite put my finger on why. I'm torn, because there's so much that I want to do, so much that I have to do, so much that I should do.
I want to lie down on my bed and listen to ultra-depressing music and get totally wasted and cry myself to sleep. Maybe some nice "Boys for Pele" era Tori Amos and some completely indulgent emo. I want to write a good song, for once. Some variety. Everything I write sounds exactly the same, it's awful. Ugh.
I want to go to radio and chill out with the indie kids for a couple of hours. I want to spend all of my money in one day buying recording equipment to record my new, wonderful songs. I want people to salivate at the ability to read my thoughts. But I don't get everything I want.
I should send some intense e-mails to some friends. I should go alphabetize records in the music library. Actually, I have to do that. I also have to do all my homework, etc. etc.
I was reading this web page online that was telling people how to write to make their weblogs better. At first, I was thinking to myself how I'd like for my log to be more interesting. It would be great for people to come and read my life all the time and think to themselves, "not only is his life superb, but he's a great writer to boot!" But then I realized that this log is just me. Given, it's a side of me, and not some all-encompassing picture, but it's still me. I feel like I try to be entertaining for people all day long, and when I get to write in here I can just be myself. It's a fine line between writing for yourself and letting others see and writing for others entirely. Well, this is for me. I need this. I'm totally melodramatic and unable to talk in a straight line right now.
Maybe if more interesting things happened to me. I've been chatting with people online more, people I rarely or never chatted with before. It's becoming more important, I'm kind of sitting here waiting for them to come on. I feel like there's less of a barrier there, not like in real life. You have to be tactful, and careful, and people are being only partially honest to you in return. There are far worse consequences in real life for revealing yourself completely. But if you know me in RL, don't feel too bad. I'll still try to entertain you, I'll be happy when you laugh at my jokes.
In San Francisco, M. Ward covered "The Entertainer" on guitar. I was never a fan of that song until I saw him do it. He's such an incredible guitarist, I get this huge pang of jealously. I wonder if I'll ever be that good at guitar. I've been practicing more lately, trying to be varied, trying to avoid the same chord progressions that I know. It's so hard to push yourself to new levels at an unnatural rate. I need to change my strings too, they're all green and disgusting. I guess I should learn how to change my strings if I'm going to be as good as M. Ward.
Yo La Tengo - Stockholm Syndrome
Escaflowne Soundtrack - Memory of Fanelia
The Delfonics - When You Get Right Down To It
Tori Amos - Caught a Lite Sneeze
Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet
when i was a child i used to love to watch the rain
stand under the downspout let the water cool my brain
never used to worry if the river got too high
that all the seeds we planted would be washed out with the tide
San Francisco, what an interesting place. Each time I go there I find something new to expound on here. I went to SF to go to a concert, the Desaparecidos. At least, it was supposed to be them. But the concert got cancelled, and I thought I wasn't going to be able to go. But at the last minute, Conor and all his greatness pulled together a show with Charles Atlas, M. Ward and Bright Eyes. Charles Atlas was this instrumental down-tempo stuff that was interesting, but not overly compelling. M. Ward was, simply stated, superb. He has a great voice and is a guitar madman, but I wasn't a huge fan of his songs. Still, he was a blast to watch. And Conor Oberst is Conor Oberst. That's all I have to say about that.
The most impressive part of the whole evening, however, took place on the way there. I was taking the bus, and waiting in line to pay the bus fee, and this old hispanic woman hands me her bus ticket, so I don't have to pay. It wasn't really a big deal, but I was touched by such a small, utterly random act of kindness. I almost never do things like that. That's just hardcore. That woman is my hero. If I could do more things like that, I'd have a lot more respect for myself.
I met two people at the show, Vanessa and Zane, who go to Berkeley. They seemed nice, but not overly interested in me, or what I had to say. But that's OK, because I just met them. I don't think I'll ever see them again, but that's OK too, I think.
Anyway, I was going to end up going back with them, but I got bullied into paying $25 for a taxi back to Berkeley after I missed the bus. God, I'm such a lightweight.
Man, I got my first real indie rocker's view on my music, and it's not hugely positive. I mean, I knew it wasn't very good, but it's hard to get a good view of your music when people are hesitant to tell you the truth, or they're just blowing air up your skirt. Yeah, I guess I'll try to improve. Man, Conor Oberst and Matt Ward are good aspirations but bad direct comparisons. I couldn't live up to them on my good days and their bad days. My songs are so dull...yeah. I need to combine good lyrics with variety and stuff too. My critic heard one of my most diverse songs and said it wasn't diverse enough. Everything sounds the same.
Oy, vey.
Lately I've found out that I'm very cute as well. More on that later, perhaps.
But now, I think I'm going to bed.
Bright Eyes - A Perfect Sonnet (Soooo good live...)
Desaparecidos - $$$$
The Anniversary - Sweet Marie
Pernice Brothers - Shaken Baby
Tori Amos - Pretty Good Yea
Midterms. Bah. I ended up getting a B+ on my Math midterm, which isn't so bad. Of course, I should have gotten a C+, but an arithmetic error responded in my favor. Pass Go, Collect $200. I also took my physics midterm today, which went very well and very poorly at the same time. It went well because I totally understood almost everything, but it went poorly becuase I think everyone else did too. I'm hoping to score well...that B- on my first midterm last semester precluded getting an A for me. So I don't know what's going on.
Oy. I have to do music homework before tomorrow as well. So. I don't have any huge update, but I have discovered some great music.
Zoe Keating - Music for 16 cellos
Zoe Keating - Greenlight
Terminal 4 - AD
Telegraph Melts - Septemberist
Sarah Hopkins - Cello Chi
It's been a little while since my last post, so I shall divulge all. Math midterm was OK...personally, I think I did average, but I get this terrible feeling from it. I feel like I don't understand the material as thoroughly as I would like, and even the material I do understand is...I don't know. It doesn't feel right. But oh well. Math isn't my main concern right now.
Everyone from Leland came up today for the Speech tournament. It's really great to be able to hang out with these people. I sound kind of lame, right now, I'm not overly eloquent. Ah, fuck whatever. Anyway, I had fun with Judy (Judy Cake!), Stephanie, Kristi, Christine, Mary Lou and Linshuang. Yeah, I saw other people, but these were the mainstays. There were a couple of disconcerting points during the weekend where I couldn't even recognize someone who knew me so well. This engenders a great big "what the fuck" in me, because I can usually at least remember who someone is. Well, I don't give no fuck about that.
Perhaps I should mention that Ian (half Korean [that rhymes]) hooked me up with this badass slang that I intend to use to death. Why? Cuz I don't give no fuck!
Anyway. I feel like I should spend some quality time with Linshuang, because I think we have a lot in common, maybe more than there is on the surface. But she was sick, and on top of that seems to be avoiding me. Oh, well. Maybe I'm not deep enough for her anymore. On a similar note, Mrs. Brasher (speech coach), wrote a really sweet note to the other Alex mentioning how much she cared about him and appreciated his efforts in helping out with speech. Meanwhile, I've been just trying to have a cogent conversation with her for over two minutes. I remember having a couple of good talks with her before. Maybe I scared her away at the speech dinner beforehand. God, this is so infantile. Maybe Brasher doesn't think I'm deep either.
I've come to this semi-conclusion that I'm not really deep. I think about things from time to time, but nothing that interesting or important. Generally, I just want to have a good time, and I don't think that's really conducive to being deep. My desire to just have fun seems to be shining through everywhere now-a-days. My talks with K have really revealed this to me, but I don't think that's appropriate to share with the world. At this rate, I won't have many secrets left...
Man, Low is really good. Low being this slow, depressing band that all the cool people I know have been telling me to listen to. Pamelyn really likes them, better than the American Analog Set. They're a little stronger melodically, but they don't have this soothing, background groove like the Set does. They're great though. I'm having great fun listening to them. Heh, great fun.
Apparently, not only am I great fun, but I'm wildly entertaining in how I run. Physical humor seems so cheap, so uncultured and uncreative. It's not like a well crafted joke, or even a well-timed comment, it's just how you look. How lame...and I feel like most of the humor I get doesn't even come from what I think is the most laudable stuff.
Oy. I got an e-mail from Tau Beta Pi telling me that I'm in the top 1/8 of all Engineering Juniors, indicating my eligibility for their club. I don't know what to do about this. Alex says I should sell out and join to boost my resume (which at this point in time is sadly empty), but Oleg doesn't join any honor societies. Then again, Oleg is hugely cool and intelligent and has the knowledge of Russian literature to impress anyone who may cross his path. I don't feel like I know anything of importance. But I guess I'm open and willing to learn, at least, I try to be, I try really hard. It's not always easy. Nothing ever is.
This has turned into a completely angst ridden and miserable post, I can't believe it. I was in such a groovin' mood right before I started. How sad. Maybe it's Low fucking with my head. Who knows.
I'm really going to miss the 6b22 dynamics next year, I don't even want to think about it. There are a whole bunch of cool people there, and even if I'm not on the same page as all of them, it's great to have such an open environment for hanging out. I have a lot of respect for so many of the people there, it's devastating that it might not happen again. But when it comes to things like this, I'm always saying what I've got is great and I'll never reproduce it, but I always seem to.
I want to be a smart Russian now too. Before, I just had a lot of respect for smart Russians, but now I just want to be one. I want to learn a Russian accent too. Maybe I can pass as a genious and everyone will want to hang out with me and I can flex my brain and make everyone say "woooooow".
Or maybe I'll just sleep.
Good luck Linshuang, Judy and Nadia! Woo!
Low - Starfire
Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet
Too tired to list more music. But I have gotten a shitload of CD's recently, so I should be able to pontificate about those later.
