BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS
Monday, July 26, 2004
New Energy
When was the last time a music video made you feel all warm and fuzzy? Check out Badly Drawn's new video 'Year of the Rat' made by this guy Monkmus. This is one of my most favorite videos ever and Monkmus is amazing because he combines that indie European animation vibe while still being Ameican-friendly-MTV-hip. Being stressed and down these days, the video made me miss Donna, made me realize I haven't received a hug in a while, even a friendly one, since most people here at the lab aren't hug-y people. A few minutes after though, Daisy comes in, Daisy who's never here, who I haven't even seen a glimpse of since grad. She was in a rush but we chatted for a moment, mostly she wanted to know when I was splitting for good ('you should call us up and say hey, you guys should throw a party for me' hehe). And, as an afterthought before leaving, for the first time in the 3 years we were classmates, she hugged me and said it was good we saw each other. Right then, if only for a moment, I totally understood what Damon Gough meant about that 'new energy.'
Everybody needs to know its the year of the rat
Everyday we've got to hold on
Coz if we hold on we could find some new energy
Saturday, July 17, 2004
HAHAHA.
We're hopeless, we can't even take a joke from Jay Leno.
I hope Triumph the comic dog does a number on us so we can hear our senators complain about him. I KEED!
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
I wonder what the real score is behind this troop pull out. I wonder if it's because GMA thinks Dubya's out in the next election anyway and this is a good time to reverse her support for the Iraqi occupation and gain some pogi points for Kerry. Maybe she saw Farenheit 911 and was swayed haha. We shouldn't have been there anyway, but we shouldn't be quitting like this, it's not like the Spanish incident when they bombed a whole train. Even my Korean friends were telling me how stupid it is for 'us' to pull out. In the long run, if the Democrats win, this will seem like a good move politically but it just makes us look so wishy-washy. It's so sad how GMA is devoid of any ideals except getting ahead, that at any given moment she'll say anything if it seems like a good political move. It's intriguing that she's managed to alienate two allies just a few days of releection: Dinky Soliman and George Bush.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Was talking to this this fil-am hip hop dude:
"I didn't have a good time when I went to the Philippines."
"Why?"
"... I don't know a lot of things but, I mean like the air was..."
"...hot and humid?"
"Yeah, hot and humid, but not that, it was just so dirty, you know."
"Where'd you stay when you were there?"
"Tondo."
***
When the hip hop guys were about to leave, the three come over to say goodbye and slap some skin. See this slapping skin stuff always confuses me. I'm used to traditional no nonsense handshakes, I like handshakes, but everything else perplexes me mainly because I don't know what the other people expect of me. I mean some people, when they stick their hand out don't expect a handshake but like a gentle hand slap. Some people expect to slap skin then want to knock fists. Sometimes there's the handshake that turns into a clasp and then you'r expected to knock shoulders together. Apparently that was the case this afternoon so the first guy who I shook hands with clasped my hand. I thought, well ok. Then he thrusts his shoulder towards me and I'm like, what-the?. And he stops and we part and he looks at me funny like I'm either a big snob or a retard. I watch him say goodbye and do the move to the other people and I learn to do it to the other posse. But this has happened to me a few times, I remember this guy Ben one time he greeted us on the street and when he gets to me he sticks his fist in front of me. So I look at it like, what the hell do I do with your fist. The expectation was that we knock fists (I notice him greet other people like that). But since I was too slow, I blinked, he retracted his hand and even if we exchanged pleasantries I could sense he was wondering if I was, again, an asshole or a retard. I'm also very slow with beso, the very chi-chi cheek to cheek way of greeting people. I remember bumping into this friend of Jon a long time ago who I knew in college as this hippie type of girl and when I encountered her she had apparently become more hoity or acted like it and so I said hi and she stuck her head out looking at me like 'ok, make me beso now.' In my head, I was rebelling at the thought- I never made you beso back then why should I now. Again, I blinked and I didn't and that totally ruins moments like that and she looked visibly annoyed and embarrassed and the guys I was with were laughing so hard saying I'm such a snob. But I'm not, really, I'm just slow. Someone should write a book about these things.
Or at least it deserves an instructo-art treatment. INSTRUCTO-ART
This is so funny, it's great MTV's adopted them for interstitials.
***
In my whole stay here, I've come across 5 lost Bank of America ATM cards. The first was with me and Bry, I was going to use the ATM and a card was still there popped out of the slot. The next time, it happened again only at a different ATM. Few months ago, I picked up 2 ATM cards on the street. Just a few minutes ago, as I was about to withdraw money, I came across an ATM that not only still had a card inside but was asking if the user wanted another transaction. Out of curiousity (to see if this was actually happening, like if the opportunity looked as golden as it seemed) I pushed 'yes' and it brought me to the menu where it asked me if I wanted to withrdaw and whatnot. Amazing, but I do still have an ounce of honesty in me and I stopped there and popped the card out and it's in my wallet right now. I'll return this to B.A. tomorrow like all the other cards. Am I just lucky or is the likelyhood of finding a lost card around campus very high because the demographic around here is made up of irresponsible fucked up rich college kids and they probably lose a lot of these things on a regular basis?
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
the old new
Eh, I don't know how to blog anymore. Too many things have happened to play proper catch up. Maybe, slowly, I'll try to digest everything that's happened, but this time let me digress and talk about something innocuous like... pop music. Specifically the current New Wave nostalgia gripping rock-pop music these days.
As I write this, I am listening to the Cure, the new album which I couldn't help buy at Rasputin in SF because the album was blaring in the background and selling for a not too bad 11 bucks plus. And before I popped this cd in, I had just finished watching the new Morrissey on Real Player, First in the Gang to Die (I would've picked up Mozzer's new album too if it wasnt so damned expensive). The song is amazing... catchy and sounding like something from Mozzer's first album. It's almost that good. But not quite Hairdresser on Fire, not quite Sudehead. Kinda like this Cure song ringing in my ears right now, Before Three. It's good almost like it could have come out of the Wish album. I love the Wish album, I love High, Letter to Elise, To Wish Impossible Things, and this song is well, it's not quite High. But's it's good enough. And that's the problem, all the shit coming from the old new wave guard sounds, well, old.
But what amazes me are the new bands these days that sound like old new wave bands. Gray and I were supposed to do this video for this band. Didn't push through, but we got to see them at the House of Blues and they were terrific but very disconcerting. See, the band called the Colour sounds like the Cure doing bouncy dance tunes sometimes shifting into Strokes mode, and the main guy sounds and sings like Robert Smith and gayishly gyrates like Morrissey. But he looks like a freshly scrubbed teenager out of the OC. Much like the rest of the band- kids, these guys are american gen-Y kids singing like they grew up in the 80's. How old were these guys when the Cure hit it big?
When that deal fell through, Gray went through other prospective new bands who might want to work on a video and damn one sounded like New Order complete with synth hand-clap beats.
This nostalgia thing transcends new wave rock though.
When Marc and I were at that Madvillian concert, there was a strong clear nostalgia for late 80's-early 90's hip hop in most of the acts and djs spinning. De La Soul, Naughty by Nature, type of old school stuff. One of the girls who rapped looked like she jumped out of a Neneh Cherry video. I loved it, I was really into hip hop during that period and kinda wandered out of rap after that so hearing music like this was great. So great that Marc and I started to reminisce about old albums like the Judgement Night soundtrack.
This nostalgia thing is what bugs me about the new Beasties record too. Sure it's fun, but it sounds like such a retread, and even if they pump Ch-check It Out ten million times on the radio it still can't hold a candle to something like Brass Monkey and the new nostalgia of the Boys doesn't have the electric charge that came when they started experimenting with live instruments.
To the MadVillian posse's credit though their music was progressive. Catchy but unstructured, kind of stream of consciousness, not sounding like anything really but pleasant enough to get you to try to decipher MF Doom's kooky lyrics. Can't say the same for these new rock bands I've been hearing lately.
I guess all pop music is regurgiration, and the best anyone can do is hide their influences. At Rasputin I also finally picked up the double disc of Big Star. Ely Buendia supposedly ripped stuff off this band. And lo and behold, the first song on the album, Feel, starts off with riffs that sound exactly like the riffs in Huling El Bimbo. Call me an Eheads apologist though but the two songs are different and the uh 'homage' doesn't distract from the brilliance of El Bimbo. Funny, I remember Yano's first album and how it used to irritate me that they kept stealing from the Clash. Maybe if I grew up listening or knowing Big Star I would have been irritated at El Bimbo too.
Remember when EBTG exploded all expectations and dove into electronica? Sure it irritated a hell of a lot of people but it did wonders for their music and the music scene in general. What was the point of this? Eh, I dont know, I guess in a nutshell- the new bands should hide their influences better, do more research, rip off from not too obvious choices, and the old bands currently riding the nostalgia wave, well, they should stop ripping off their own catalog.
Monday, July 05, 2004
I'll update this soon enough.
This is for real.
