If mixed CDs are the new love letters, than this is mine (unsent).
Vol I. 01). Bob Dylan- Rambler Gambler 02). Arcade Fire- Born on a Train 03). Kimya Dawson- Loose Lips 04). Bob Dylan- One of Us Must Know 05). Low- When I Go Deaf 06). Wilco- Pick Up the Change 07). Neil Young- Four Strong Winds 08). Modest Mouse- You're the Good Things 09). Bob Dylan- All Along the Watchtower 10). Modest Mouse- Little Hotel 11). Hank Williams- Lost on the River 12). The Magnetic Fields- Papa Was A Rodeo 13). Rhianna- Umbrella 14). Wilco- Box Full of Letters 15). Neko Case- Knock Loud 16). The Sundays- Wild Horses 17). Yo La Tengo- Sometimes I Don't Get You 18). Built to Spill- Shadow of the Sun 19). Neko Case- Now It's Like We Never Met 20). Ugly Casanova- Cat Faces
Vol. II 01). 22-20s- Things That Lovers Do 02). Paul Simon- Graceland 03). Fiona Apple- The Way Things Are 04). The Magnetic Fields- Things We Did and Didn't Do 05). Frank Black- You Can't Crucify Yourself 06). The Magnetic Fields- I Can't Touch You Anymore 07). The Kills- Gypsy Death & You 08). Fiona Apple- Carrion 09). Frank Black- If Your Poison Gets You 10). The Isley Brothers- This Old Heart of Mine 11). Frank Black- Strange Goodbye 12). Neko Case- Outro With Bees
Post-Script: In an update to an earlier post, my friend Megan just completed her version of the Bitter-Break Up Mix (which you can find here).
New layout, still under construction. New title because I didn't like the old one. I don't really like the new one either. Maybe I'll change the title with every new layout. Bah.
Megan, if you can fix that eye-sore of a poorly repeating background, please do.
I used to think the reason I haven't accomplished anything with my life was a lack of time. Today I played Mario Kart for five hours and unlocked two characters. I felt like I had accomplished something. I'm starting to think there's a flaw in my reasoning.
I sat outside the restaurant I work at tonight and smoked a cigarette while drinking some wine. A seedy looking bearded man stopped his over-sized truck to rev his engine and wave at me, then sped off down the street at a rate of approximately sixty miles an hour. I think this was somehow intended to be a compliment and I felt sad.
The women I work for recently suggested cutting our waitstaff shifts by more than half. When I attempted to lament the unfairness of this she said "Not to sound harsh, but sometimes that's what happens when you chose to wait tables." I still can't think of a reason she's wrong.
In the box of candy hearts left over from Valentine's Day, I found one that said "Let's Talk." My co-worker and I came up with about five different ways that phrase can be a precursor to something bad (or sad), but none for something happy. We also received a package with the phrase "Do not destroy" stamped on the front and decided that's generally good advice for everything.
The book of love is long and boring And written very long ago It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes And things we're all too young to know
Due to a series of recent events, I find myself puzzling more and more over the nature of love, or at the very least, relationships. At first, I chose to believe that my sudden inclination towards romantically-minded philosophizing was not related to Valentine's Day. However, I'm willing to accept that some degree of cultural brain-washing has occurred, forcing me to consider these matters on this, the day that celebrates the marriage of love (or at least hormones) and capitalism. So I apologize, dear reader(s?), if this entry seems contrite, but try not to judge it too harshly for it's untimeliness.
The subject of cultural brain-washing (forgive my possibly incorrect punctuation there) is actually at the core of what I have been thinking of late. Specifically, I suppose I am looking for a cultural source to blame for my completely fucked-up views on the matters of love, relationships, babies, marriage, etc, etc. This, of course, is not difficult to find.
The first target of my scapegoating is without a doubt Walt Disney and the mental mind-fuck that is every Disney princess to ever be created (*ruling out any that may have come into existence after I stopped watching Disney movies in the mid-nineties. So, if the Disney company has somehow created a strong feminist role-model for young girls since then, I stand corrected (and shocked)). Here is why:
Point A: These movies teach us that there is such a thing as the perfect guy. There is not. They teach us that there is such a thing as love at first sight. There is not. Both personalities and relationships are flawed and take work-- these things are not instant and they are never perfect. But worst of all, these movies teach that the perfect guy will not only serendipitously appear without you seeking him out through your own endeavors (including bad dates and failed relationships), but he will save you, again and again. Fuck that.
Point B: These women teach that as fucked up a girl as you are, the perfect man will still love you through no effort of your own. Take the Little Mermaid for example. In a blinding show of both co-dependence and stalker-mentality, this girl abandons her family and her home to follow a man she doesn't even know at all. These are not qualities that make you attractive, ladies.
Yes, blaming the Disney Corporation for making you naive is a banal complaint; I am aware of this. In fact, I've been aware of this specific mental mind-fuck since I was a teenager; however, it was this awareness that led to complete rejection of the entire idea of happy ever after--- leading to Cultural Scapegoat #2: Breakfast at Tiffany's.
My complete infatuation and over-identification with this story is undoubtedly the source of much of my scepticism towards romance. I even love the happy ending added to the movie adapation simply because it was the first happy ending that, even at a young age, even before I had read the original story, I absoultey did not believe. Personally, I've always thought this was the intention of the film-- give the 1960s movie audience (hell, any movie audience) the ending they crave, but make it seem as unlikely as possible. Because that is what happy endings are-- as unlikely as possible.
However, the part of Breakfast at Tiffany's that always resonates with me in Holly's conversation with Doc at the bus station when she tells him she cannot leave with him:
Doc Golightly: I love you Lula Mae. Holly Golightly: I know you do, and that's just the trouble. It's the mistake you always made, Doc, trying to love a wild thing. You were always lugging home wild things. Once it was a hawk with a broken wing... and another time it was a full-grown wildcat with a broken leg. Remember? Doc Golightly: Lula Mae there's something... Holly Golightly: You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky.
How very true.
There are, of course, plenty of other scapegoats, too many in fact, when in truth none of them really matter. A scapegoat, after all, is nothing but a diversion from the real culprit-- which in this case is of course me.
People often compare love to poker. I think this is one of the silliest analogies ever. Poker is, after all, a game of chance and odds. Love, at least in my opinion, is not a game at all, and it is less about odds than it is about pure hard work and compromise. And while in poker you may be able to take bad cards and bluff your way to a winning hand, you can never take a bad realtionship and bluff your way to a happy ever after. As much as you might like to try.
However, I do relate my one recent love-lesson to poker, specifically to something someone very important to me taught me when he was first teaching me to play poker: Once you fold it, let it go. Don't second-guess yourself; don't even look at the cards because it doesn't matter. While I have mastered this in poker, this lesson applied to love is much harder to learn.
To conclude, I've realized once again what I've known all along: No one understands love more than Stephen Merritt. So I leave you with one of those 69 wonderful love songs. Happy fucking Valentine's Day.
Inspired by the recent ineptitude of TinyMixTapes.Com, I decided to start making my own themed mixes, inviting others to join in the process. This first mix, the Bitter Break-Up mix, was conceived over some cheap draft beer at the redneck bar with my good friend Susannah.
Susannah is currently still pieceing her mix together (it will be published here when complete), and I invite any other interested parties to participate. The rules are very simple: all mixes must follow the predeteremined theme and are constricted to the length of a 700 MB burnable CD, or 80 minutes. Feel free to create and share your own mix, or just throw out a few song suggestions if you'd like.
Also feel free to suggest the next theme. So far TB has suggested "Songs You Don't Want to Hear When Having Sex"-- a truely excellent, if possibly difficult theme.
I would also like to remind everyone the goal here is to appreciate music and its cathartic qualities and to maintain a sense of humor in the face of unfortunate events. Melodrama is left at the door.
The struggle for the betterment of one’s self is an American obsession made manifest by our gym memberships and fad diets, our cosmetics surgeries, our “sliming” or “shaping” clothes, and our perpetual need to possess the best, the brightest, the sleekest, the newest “it.” Like any good American, I have my own sense of lacking, my personal gnawing, nagging voice that reminds me that I am not, nor will I ever be, the best that I can be.
Perhaps because I’m lucky enough to come from a family of waifs (or so they were until the dreaded four-oh), perhaps because no one in my bloodline (to the best of my knowledge) has ever possessed any kind of athletic ability or perhaps because four years of studying mysticism has finally generated an apathy towards the physical, my body image is only a mild source of insecurity. With the exception of my flabby arms and inability to throw a decent punch (two insecurities which can be directly traced back to my two week Battlestar Galactica binge), I am fine with my body. Sure I want slimmer legs and a tighter ass, but am I willing to give up my unhealthy, dormant life style to attain them? Not on your life. (Larger breasts on the other hand I could theoretically purchase whilst maintaining my sloth, which is perhaps why out of anything physical, I am most insecure about my boobs.)
Nearly all of my insecurities are intellectual. I blame this in part on where I am from, and the constant need to overcome the “Deliverance Land” stereotype. I blame it in part on the three boys I grew up with, all of which are brilliant, two of which will spend the rest of their lives in Academia because, by their own admission, “the ignorance of the real world is frightening.” Like me, none of these boys were good at sports, but they spent fourth grade recess reading about the Napoleonic Wars, Che Guevara, and Communist Russia. (This is an actual example. They thought it would make them better Risk players.) The thirteen years from kindergarten to high school graduation were spent with constant attempts to mentally match my three genius pseudo-brothers. I was the better musician (though my musical trivia knowledge was lacking), but that was my one small victory.
In any case, the intellectual competition of those years has had a lingering effect on me. To this day, I still have to have seen that movie, read that book, listened to that band before them, and by extension the general “you.” This is why I force myself to read such annoying sites as Pitchfork Media, or why having watched The Wire before any of those boys made me feel superior. It is not a part of my self that I am proud of, but it’s there. And like any nagging insecurity, it pops up in the oddest ways.
My recent weeks have been a smorgasbord of events I am not proud of and my self, by which I mean my own and others' image of me, is an unfamiliar and off-putting thing. The nagging, gnawing voice to be better, faster, stronger is rearing it’s nagging, ugly face, and while some would take that self-doubt and alleviate it with a good trip to the gym, the church, or Radio Shack, I took my self-doubt and went to the used book store.
I’m not sure at what point I started equating self-worth with literature. Maybe because my parents house is 1/3 living space and 2/3 bookshelves. Maybe because all my favorite people are English teachers. All I know is, I judge people by what they read. Even though I know it’s purely superficial, I am impressed by people who have carefully tended, well-stocked book shelves in their homes, or at least an active library membership. My favorite philosophy professor, already cute due to his wacky sense of humor and well-toned arms, became the academic Brad Pitt when I learned his undergrad degree was in “Classical Language and Literature.” But yesterday, after Carrie and Self-Doubt’s Day Out, I had a mental breakdown after I realized how few of the books on the “Classics” shelf I have actually read.
Mind you, I am not a total literature snob. If you like “Twilight” or “The DaVinici Code,” my opinion of you will greatly decrease, but I read “Wicked” and thought it was brilliant. I am an avid supporter of popular writing. I got into a verbal fight with one of my favorite English professors when she said The Beats should never be studied in a “serious literature class.” But deep, deep down I am very insecure about the fact that to me “War and Peace” is an Audrey Hepburn movie and “The Odyssey” was a Wishbone episode. So periodically, usually whenever my personal life is blowing up, I go to the book store and feel bad about myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I am always reading, but the book on the nightstand next to my bed is usually a good indication of how things are going in my life. When I’m happy, there’s the book that a friend told me I would like, such as “Wicked” or “The Life of Pi” which I happily read despite their “Oprah’s Book Club” status. When I’m happy but a little bored, I read something with a little more prestige but with a high entertainment value, ergo my Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy phase. As things get worse, I turn to Marquez or Salinger, and feel the small swelling of pride that comes from “100 Years of Solitude” and “Catcher in the Rye” and their respectable place in the established canon of the literary elite. Because, to me, deeply embedded in the neurosis of my self is that idea that reading books, and not more books but “better” books, will make me a better person.
And so yesterday, after an hour in the bookstore congratulating myself as I passed the Faulkner, Vonnegut or Orwell, whilst mentally degrading myself before the Steinbeck, I finally settled on Joyce and Tolstoy, two authors with several years on my “Need to Read” list, two authors that can offer my stumbling sense of self-worth a well-respected leg on which to stand.
And so to conclude the lesson is this: I may not be a good person, and I may not be doing anything to improve the things that may make me a bad person, but I am reading “Ulysses,” in my own neurotic attempt to become a better person.
A little while ago my friend Megan started making custom covers for her mixed CDs (see example here). Always the copy-cat, I have decided to follow suit. Megan is a graphic designer; I am not. Adjust your design expectations accordingly.
Anyway, my first mix is for Mandy who will be moving out to Cali later this summer. Mandy, I'll make you a hard copy of this if you like. Others can (hopefully) download tracks by clicking on the links and can also print off front and back covers if they so choose.
That said, I don’t suggest that anyone quit smoking. I love the smell of smoke. Cigarettes smell really good to me. They smell like an apple pie baking. -David Sedaris
Dear Cigarettes, You have been the calming voice when I was angry. You have been the sobering voice when I was drunk. You have been the soothing constant when I was stressed. You have been the loyal companion, the sympathetic ear to all my worst moments. Cigarettes, you are the best friend I’ve ever known. You are chic, fabulous and timeless. Others said horrible things about you, Cigarettes, but I never believed. To me you were always the exemplification of class.
But lately things have changed. Others that I love, others that I trust, have warned me about you, Cigarettes. The blinds I cleaned only a year ago swear it was you that turned them yellow; my dearly-beloved vintage coats confessed that you are responsible for their newly acquired fowl odor; my lungs (initially as skeptical of your reputation as me) accepted you into our circle but after five years have begun to doubt your loyalty.
My dear cigarettes, I love you but there are just too many voices rising against you. I believe you are a toxic friend. It used to only cost me two dollars and some change to see you. Now spending time with you forces me to forfeit time with my other loves. Over-priced coffee and microbrewed-beers were the first to complain of my absence. Knowing their tendency to be self-absorbed and demanding, I ignored them as long as possible, but Cigarettes, your demand of $5+ per pack is now affecting my relationship with electricity bills and basic foods as well. Once I realized you were allied with the wrinkles that have begun emerging in my face, I finally accepted the truth. You are a user, Cigarettes. You took me for my money and you left me aged. And yellow. And smelly.
It hurts me to leave you, Cigarettes. You possess a savvy and a sex appeal I will never be able to equal. I have envied you, loved you, and aspired to embody your nature since I was a teenager. You hung with Audrey, Bogie, Marilyn, Kurt, and Sid. You are the embodiment of sex, rebellion, angst, and sheer class. You are more than I can ever be. But Cigarettes, you are a back-stabbing bitch. You’ve never loved me. And your phony feelings, as Mary L. Blige says, have “led me to want some real love."
Dearest Cigarettes, I thought you were the answer to the question in my mind, but it seems that I was wrong. And if I stay strong maybe I’ll find a real love.
Update: Nevermind that, Cigarettes. I'm sorry for my harsh words.... I wish I could quit you.
I've come to realize I don't like blogging; I like making blog layouts. Which is further proof that I should have gone into a two year program to learn all that fancy web-design software, which would have enable me to enter the work force three years ago when people were being hired for that sort of thing. As it is now, even the "Hey, I can do something techy that you can't do" gimmick ain't getting you hired. Apart from accepting my dislike of blogging, I've also fully realized my dislike of many other things, including my job, my town, my school, my house, my car, my associates, and my majors. On the other hand, the things I do like of late are pretty much my clothes and my haircut, thus leading to my final realization that superficiality is my true calling and I would be really good at being Lauren Conrad.
So this isn't my mouth, but it might as well be. My bottom wisdom teeth are completely sideways. And my dentist won't pull them because he's afraid he will hit the nerve that goes through my jaw. So I have to drive for an hour and a half tomorrow to go have a consultation with a surgeon who may or may not pull my teeth before my insurance runs out and may or may not still hit the nerve in which case I will lose feeling in my face!!!
I hate the dentist.
And, to top if off, I got an e-mail from my department head asking if I would be okay with presenting my thesis to my department faculty at the restaurant where I work WHILE I'm working! Apparently, he thinks if he is bringing business to the restaurant my boss won't mind letting me off for 20 minutes during the dinner rush to come present my paper, or (his alternate plan) I can just present WHILE WAITING TABLES. He seems to not understand that a). we only have one server per shift, b). presenting a paper is stressful enough without having to do it in front of your coworkers and customers and c). my boss probably doesn't want a member of her staff presenting a paper on Satan in the middle of her restaurant. We live in the fucking Bible Belt.
I guess I'm old fashion enough to think academic work should be done in an academic sitting. My department has always been pretty informal, but in my opinion, presenting a thesis in a restaurant (especially while I'm working) is crossing a line. Not to mention degrading as fuck.
"My paper covers the development of Satan in Judaism and its implications for the Judeo-Christian tradition, and what can I get you to drink today?"
Thank God I didn't buy a Great Dane puppy. For reference, this isn't the same specific dog, but this is likely how big she is now...
Vol I.
Vol. II
So this isn't my mouth, but it might as well be. My bottom wisdom teeth are completely sideways. And my dentist won't pull them because he's afraid he will hit the nerve that goes through my jaw. So I have to drive for an hour and a half tomorrow to go have a consultation with a surgeon who may or may not pull my teeth before my insurance runs out and may or may not still hit the nerve in which case I will lose feeling in my face!!!
