February 2006 Archives
Turns out I can Predict the Future to a greater degree than I was aware. Matt Pond PA is indeed now carried and featured over the in-store play at Best Buy. I guarantee that Panic! at the Disco will follow suit by April. There have been a few additions to the in-store play that caught me off-guard, such as Dresden Dolls' "Coin-Operated Boy", but even the songs that seem good and out of place can usually be linked to one of the soundtracks of The OC or One Tree Hill, of which they have volumes.
I went and caught Matt Pond PA with Alex down at the Barrymore in Madison last Wednesday. They opened for The New Pornographers, who I was familiar with but not schooled in. MPP was more than I could have asked for, amazing live and they had a Cellist who was kind of hot. The people standing next to me were idiots and I don't think they actually knew any of the bands that were playing. One of the girls kept trying to dance to everything with anyone who would pay attention. I'm pretty sure she was doing this without the benefit of alcohol.
Speaking of alcohol- the Barrymore has amazing Beer deals. I'm used to The Rave where--if you play by the rules--$6 will net you a tiny plastic cup of flat Miller Lite, and that's before tip. I generally do not play by the rules and find a bartender that would rather pocket a $5 and give me a glass of actual alcohol, undetected. At the Barrymore, however, I didn't have to do any reconaissance. $4 nets you a 16 oz plastic cup and beer of choice. New Glarus refills after that are only $3. Done! While I was waiting in line post-Matt Pond PA a guy that looked vaguely familiar called me out on being from Milwaukee. He took a moment to try and place where from and then asked if I ever went to Downer Wine & Spirits. That's right- the guy from the fucking Liquor Store spotted me and called me out! What the fuck! I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen. Eh, I guess I did go there quite a bit over the course of a year and a half, especially when I was working at Gamestop. They were, and sometimes still are, my Clove outlet. Plus the people that work there rock, as evidenced by the attendance at this show. In the brief exchange he seemed pretty impressed that I was there for Matt Pond PA over New Pornographers, I'll have to hit up Downer again soon and see if I get any sort of kickback. The chick that works there already told me to show up any time she's working past close and she'll help me out, now I've just got to work on owning that shit on all fronts.
New Pornographers were impressive, I picked up their disc after the show. I wasn't entirely unconvinced that the keyboarder/vocalist filling in for Neko Case wasn't a 12-year old boy. Once she took off her sweatshirt I realized that if this was the case then she was a 12-year old boy with a bit of a problem. I guess what I'm getting at is short hair is all well and fine and has potential to be hot, but there is a point where it's kind of frightening.
Rogue Wave is coming up with Nada Surf, Jenny Lewis is in about a week, Death Cab is playing two shows in April. I think I'm trying to say good times are ahead? I left a DCFC cd behind last time 'round and my dad has decided they are now his new favorite band. He even bought himself and my mom tickets to their Madison show. Huh. I'm not sure what that says.
Stumbled upon this at home. That's the little sister playing either Super Mario Sunshine or Pilotwings 64 Not sure which.
"When I say Shotgun, you say ____"
Panic! At The Disco is a catchy, catchy band. Annoyingly so. I give it about a month until they're on Best Buy Radio. I had them described to me as "just like Fall Out Boy" and that is what I would usually refer to as an understatement. Don't get me wrong- this is an endorsement. In fact I can't pry my ears, if you will. I paused briefly to take in some solo Ben Gibbard and Jenny Lewis, a little Iron & Wine and some Pale Pacific... but without fail I find myself popping that damn Panic! disc in time and again.
This last weekend was Whirlyball.
If you don't know what whirlyball is--and I didn't before this weekend--you should go to their website. Hey, plan yourself a little Whirly Bar Mitzvah while you're at it. Not Jewish? Who cares!
Aside- I underestimated the physical toll a game that requires a Bumper Car for movement can take. I took a chunk out of Jesus's hand when I moved to block his attempt at a pass and the game itself is kind of like taking a half hour to bike point-blank into a wall over and over again. If the steering stick was aimed towards you during an impact it never worked out well and there were a few head on collisions that made me glad I had a seatbelt on. I definitely was feeling it yet a day later when I had to walk around for 8 hours or so at work. And apparently we're doing paintball next. I've never done paintball before but I have no qualms about changing that statistic. What I do have qualms about is our progression from crashing into each other to shooting at each other. I don't know where this is headed... but if someone suggests we all take a leisurely boat ride out to international waters to have drunken knife fights- I'm out.
Maybe.
Lastly- I may be down to one job in a few weeks. Management changes are looking to be a very near reality. I can only imagine employment changes are soon to follow. Actually- maybe just me. Dan has a decent track record and from what I can tell is slowly being earmarked for management, so he should be fine, and Chris is on the ins with everyone else so he should be able to hop ships instead of jumping the one. I, on the other hand, haven't been around as long and haven't been hitting quota. Granted that last part is the problem we all have for the store but the fact is I'm pretty sure the powers that be are regarding my underperformance as a reflection of me and not the poor location and coverage of our store, which is more the case. If they asked me to go work at SouthRidge or Brookfield I have no doubts that quota would be hit. The question is if that's a chance I'll even be given. Either way: if we do have a mangement change here I'm pretty sure I'll be given a 2-4 week ultimatum myself. Maybe I should be giving Verizon a call...
Note: My subject titles are always veracious and clever. Astute. Discriminating and delivered with great precision. Attend me with praise and props. If these come in the form of kudo--I am not one to judge.
A bit of an explanation: Actually, I'm in need of one. I didn't get that drunk last weekend, I remember the evenings both fairly well, but from my take on things somehow I brought on waves of angst from a decent number of people without, as far as I can tell, really doing much to justify it.
Saturday I went bowling with Aaron, Jay & co, had two pitchers of beer with one other person (do the math) and then took off. Along the way home Brandon calls me up to let me know he's having a thing at his place, so I swing over there. Not too much going on, just a handful of people and a keg. After twenty minutes or so of being there I step outside to have a smoke with one of the girls there at her car because she wants me to hear some song off her I-Pod. After about two minutes guy from the party comes out and bangs on her window.
Dude: "What the fuck?"
Girl: "Hey! Hop in, have a cigarrette with us."
Dude: [stares at me for a beat] "I'm not sitting in the back, this is fucking bullshit." [walks away bitching about something]
Me: "Huh."
5 minutes later we head back inside. I notice a few... looks?... from the people in the kitchen. Hm. Ignore it, go and hop in line to use the bathroom. After a moment a girl comes out and stops right next to me, stares.
Me: "Hey, how's it going?"
Other Girl: [pissed] "So I hear you fucked a slut."
Me: [off guard] "You hear I... wait, what?"
Other Girl: [more pissed]: "You heard me!"
Me: "Wow, you're really drunk, huh?"
[guy comes over]
Guy: "Hey, is there a problem?"
Other Girl: [drunkset (that's like drunk meets upset, it's a new word. Deal with it)] "He fucked a slut!" [throws hands up]
Me: "Yeah, you realize I'd probably be in a much better mood right now if that were true..."
[Guy consoles Other Girl]
Me: [looks at empty bathroom] "Oh hey, I'm up. Thank god."
Hit the bathroom, hit the refill action, mill about. More people show up. Chris shows up. At some point a kid in the kitchen punches something. I don't even know. I make some crack at his expense that isn't very clever but seems clever at the time because hey, I'm drunk.
Kid: "What did you just say?"
Me: [repeats]
Kid: "What does that even mean?"
Me: "Hey, take a few minutes. I'm sure you'll get it."
Various pockets of drama start to break out. People are asked to leave. After about ten minutes I start realizing about 6-7 kids are dropping little comments at me when I walk past them, although most of them don't even seem to contextually make sense. One kid makes a crack at me which leads to:
Me: "Aw, hey, way to go! You want- [look side-to-side] You want a high five?"
Him: "Huh?"
Me: "Come on- High Five action!"
[he tentatively holds out his hand. I high five the shit out of it.]
Me: "Alright! Fuckin' High Five! Way to go, buddy."
Now I'm still not sure what this problem is these kids have with me, whether it was because I had stepped outside to have a smoke and someone started talking bullshit or if it was because I called out a friend of theirs on loving the propped collar. Either way, when I run my mouth, as it's said, I really don't do so with malicious intent. I'm an asshole--this is true--but not in the sense that I'm going to walk up to someone and say "Hey dickhead, [insert menacing phrase]." I'm just giving people shit the way I would give my friends or effeminate roommates (not Mike and Maya) shit. But I don't really pay attention to the fact that these are, in fact, not my friends or effeminate roommates. This is a problem that I'm kind of surprised has not gotten me in trouble. It's actually more often than not gotten people we don't want around to turn and walk away. (Case in point: "Aw man, holy shit. You know I can't wait for? Fucking Tetris. The fucking movie. Can you believe that?!") Anyway- apparently I take a few steps over the line this night and now this group of kids wants me to step outside. I'm unaware of this. Chris is a good guy and, from what I gather, essentially tells him if they're fucking with me they're fucking with him. For those of you who don't know Chris- he's much more of an intimidating guy than me. As hard as that may be to fathom- it is gospel truth. So the kids back off. At some point I catch wind that they were that irate with me in the first place and instead of being grateful to Chris (as I am and should've been) I'm far more annoyed at this moment that they couldn't take a joke. If they had actually came up to me and told me how pissed they were... well I probably would have said something stupid and made them more angry. But I'd like to believe I would've calmly told them to take a joke and no harm intended.
At about this point most of the people causing drama are quarantined or banished, Chris, a few others and myself are sitting in the kitchen drinking decent beer Chris brought. One of these people is Brandon's roommate. Didn't catch a name-- don't really care. I tried to play nice and I didn't get the impression she was worth a whit. Do you know how little a whit is worth? No, you don't. No one does. Earlier in the night pre-drama I was talking to Brandon and his roommate was sitting next to him.
[spawned off an earlier conversation. It's what we call a callback.]
Me: [to Brandon] Oh, is this your roommate?"
Brandon: "Yeah."
Me: "Hey, I'm Landon, one of Brandon's friends."
Roommate: [silence]
Me: "I saw your You Forgot it in People earlier and just wanted to give you credit, Broken Social Scene rocks."
Roommate: [curt] "I know." [flashes condescending smile]
Me: "...Huh. I think I'm going to walk back to the living room now."
Now, sitting with us at her kitchen table, she tells me and Chris we're the biggest assholes there. I can't remember how it's said but I believe it implied Chris was ok and I was just an asshole.
Roommate: "Well, you know, all scene kids are losers."
Me: [unsure of where that came from] "...okay?"
Roommate: "Hey, that's what you said."
Me: "Wait, I didn't say that."
Roommate: "I heard you in the living room before. 'All scene and indie kids are losers'. You said that."
Me: "Actually, I didn't, but if you do want to know my opinion of the average scene kid it's not very high."
This was spawned off a conversation I did have in the living room. A girl did essentially say what was attributed to me. What I actually said:
Me: "Um, you realize I'm wearing a black-overshirt with a pink logo, right?"
Girl: "Yeah."
Me: "That's about the same style."
Girl: "Well you're not like all those, you know, [makes quotations]emo kids and all those [makes quotations]scene kids."
Me: "Actually I think they're pretty much the same category."
Girl: "Huh?"
Me: "I think [makes quotations]scene is the broader category and smaller ones like [makes quotations]indie and [makes quotations]emo are under it."
Girl: "Well I don't like those people."
Me: "Yeah, I'll agree that the people who do it for style can get ridiculous. But hey, I'm wearing a Movielife shirt so I can't really knock them too much."
So by this point I had inadvertently pissed off the girl who lived there, a huge group of kids who thought I was being a dick to their friend, and a large chunk of random people who must have heard some bizarre rumor about me while I was outside. Although I'm pretty sure this last one was instigated by the guy who came out after us very irate, but he seemed to be cool with me after the night went on a little bit. Either way I decided to take off. I'm pretty sure I'll get another chance soon enough to finish the job. But if I'm going to be pissing people off I want it done right- next time I expect an angry mob to chase me down the street, brandishing pitchforks and torches.
(read: Chris: You should have a pitchfork and torch party)
I didn't mean to drag that out quite so much but hey- it's what I do. A vast majority of the people I'm talking about are on MySpace, so this could be interesting. I wanted to save time to mention that this weekend is Whirlyball on Saturday, or that I have tickets to see Jenny Lewis in March and it'll probably be the country-est concert I've ever been to, or the fact that I've been so sick the past three days I was a little concerned last night I was going to stop breathing and not wake up in the morning. Eh. What can you do? I can't go against the blog god and the blog god is telling me to go do something better with my time. Done.
Bush hit a very important topic last night, one that's very near and dear to me...
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.
I think it's great that he's finally getting to the real issues this country has. Fucking human-animal hybrids. I know when I walk around the streets at night I'm going to feel a lot safer knowing that Manimal's aren't going to leap out of a dark alleyway, looking to steal saucers of milk or catnip or something from my wallet.
We do, however, have to realize that this is going to give Bush a whole new set of enemies...
And believe me- you don't want to fuck with The Thundercats. And once they start calling in their friends... it's going to be rough.
