spiritual ponderings, tattoos, and intoxicated viewings of futurama...yeah, it's a normal post

currently, i'm sitting at my desk (i made it off the futon! who woulda thunk it??) and i'm pretty damn bored. some season 2 futurama episode is playing on my dvd player, i'm enjoying one of my hopefully-soon-to-be-award-winning christmas beers, and i'm not tired in the least. well, let's just say, i'm not sure if i'm tired, but i know i don't feel like sleeping. in fact, i wish sleeping could be made obsolete. for me, sleep is almost always accompanied with a mild-to-strong sense of defeat. i think i'm in the minority here...i'm good friends with some people who would spend all their time sleeping if they didn't need to work.

it's so frustrating when there is so much to do, and so many things you could do, and yet you end up doing nothing. i could read...i've got about 30 books on my shelf that i'd really like to get into. i could research...my thesis is upon me, and it's not really gonna be easy. i could work on music...but, after being at mcgill for this long, most of my creative, artistic tendencies have been snuffed out "like a stale pall mall" (yeah, i've seen a lot of seinfeld recently). i could mull over the scattered thoughts in my head.....yeah, that sounds about right. and, at least with blogging, i can pretty much get some of them out there to my relatively non-existent audience.

i came across a notebook that i used for my reflections in my freshman year mysticism class today while scouring my apartment for a very expensive set of needle EEG electrodes that i'm probably going to have to replace, and, as usually happens when i come upon this thought repository in recent years, i get a little shocked at how far removed i am now from that time in my life. while i have learned so much since that time of naivete, about maturity, women, goals, friendship, etc., it seems that the promising avenue of spiritual exploration and consciousness expansion on which i was travelling has somehow been almost completely lost. the worst part is that i don't know where i went astray. was it the four straight years of booze? was it every badly-timed pseudo-relationship? was it the stifling experience of professors trying to shape me into a corporate mechanism? it's really difficult to say...probably a combination of many of these experiences. no matter what it was, i'm frighteningly different then i was. i haven't become completely cynical about this field of mysticism, as i am still open to it, but i just have little drive to go down that path recently. come to think of it, it's very possible that i don't want to walk that road again simply because of the pain that immediately followed the opening of my head to these pursuits. i had been almost experience-less in life and dove head first into a realm of contemplation and exploration that is as murky and hazy as the darkest of oceans. i did not end up in the shallow water and bump my head...i dove into the deepest of deep ends, and kept swimming further and further down, to the point when there was no clear way to come back for air. and it was in this confounding abyss that i was barraged with the heaviest and most profound experiences of my life so far. i guess now i'm trying selfishly to protect myself from getting into that position again. the keeping of spiritual rumination and life lessons in separate and distinct moments is very difficult to do. my only hope is that i can get to a place in my life sometime when i will feel comfortable enough with daily life to do another half-gainer into the deep end. damn, i need to quit it with the water metaphors.

one thing to look forward to is that i'm probably going to get my next tattoo soon. i was hoping for jesus (who did my first) to come back to montreal to do mine, but i'm not sure whether he will be anytime soon, so i'm going to get one of the other artists at Imago Tattoo to draw up a rendition of my design, and i'll decide whether he's got the right stuff or whether i'm gonna hold off for jesus. if you live in montreal and want a tattoo, you gotta check out imago. though, when i say tattoo, i'm not talking about just any cookie-cutter, "i wanna get a tattoo just to get one", "i'm hammered, so why not?", found-on-a-colorful-board-with-300-others tattoo. these guys are professionals. it's all custom work done in the most clean, sophisticated tattoo place i've ever experienced. so, i'm just crossing my fingers that jesus is gonna be back, or that safwan (the owner) has an opening, even though last time i checked, he was booked for over a year.

there are other things to look forward to as well...friday will be a blast with dave, jenny, and jen all coming here to watch futurama and taste beer. if anyone wants to join in the absurdity (oh, there will be some absurdity!), let me know. as most of you know, nick's apartment, aka NightTrain's Palace of Procrastination and Inebriation, is always stocked full o' beer and tv shows on dvd, so there's enough to go around.

anyway, i should probably call it a night. i'm gonna go lay on my comfy bed and unsuccessfully try to fall asleep. peace.

music. finally.

the fact that i've done a bunch of posts on this scarcely-read blog and have not once talked about music (or movies! what the hell? ::slaps myself in the head::) kinda hit me today, so i thought that i'd bring up a few things on my mind about bands. anyone who knows me understands that i have a lot to say about music. i can't get it all down here...i can't even get all the music that i'm thinking about right now down here, so bear with the moderate randomness of the rest of the post.

bands of promise so rarely follow through with it. just off the top of my head, there are a lot: mod flanders conspiracy, the workhorse movement, the refused, loop dreams, 30 seconds to mars, snot, etc. notice that some of those bands are still around...this is because they had promise, then somehow unabashedly fucked it up. let's start from the top.

mod flanders conspiracy was a band that really stood out on the hardcore scene. they played screwed-up yet catchy melodies, had one of the most solid singers i've ever heard, were as tight as can be in concert, and had some of the best song titles a band of their genre could ever wish for ('my 7th grade bus driver yells at dead trees', 'bill nye the science guy makes me wanna cut myself'). then, the singer left to join this shit-metal outfit called khoura. don't even bother. i don't know how, but the production of the khoura album makes greg sound like a backup singer for nevermore, layered carelessly on top of extremely banal riffage. this is one of the most difficult ends to see for a band. from what i've read, there was little to no animosity in the breakup, but greg just got tied in with khoura. while they did see two album releases, they were both independently released, so the rest of the world has little chance to join in on the mayhem. i know they're still selling their latest album, 'take a ride on my one-wheeled rickshaw', through the website somehow, so pick it up if you can.

ahh...the workhorse movement...i remember seeing them open for kittie at the birch hill in old bridge, nj. as always, the birch hill would get a headliner, and then pack like 6 bands before them, to the point where the crushing of the crowd around you brings you to the brink of heat-exhaustion and crippling fatigue as you wade through a slew of normally shitty opening bands. i realize at this point that i must defend myself for paying to go to a kittie show. first, they were hot girls who played metal...that should be enough to justify, but i'll continue. i went with my brother, who was a bigger fan than i was, glassjaw was also playing, and on top of all that, as i found out later in the night, the kittie mosh pit was one of the fuckin' craziest pits i've ever experienced. and i've done them all: slayer(2 times), pantera(4 times), dillinger(6 times), hatebreed, deftones, msi, deicide, dog fashion disco, etc. to this day, i have no idea whatsoever as to why that pit was so harsh. but, i digress. workhorse came on stage, and blew our low expectations through the roof. the sheer energy of the dual vocalist attack and their back-to-back, phrase-exchanging rhythms completely floored the audience. their groove was heavy, unforgiving, but so full of soul. luckily i got to see them two more times after that, but since they have parted ways, much in the same way that at the drive-in did: splitting into heavier and lighter bands. they, unlike mfc, got to release a full length on a big label, so i think they made a decent mark...but they had potential for a lot more. either way, i'll rip anyone a copy of 'sons of the pioneers' if they want, 'cause i wanna get this shit out on the streets.

i shouldn't have to say much about the refused. most of you know them, most of you love them, if you don't know them and love them, you need to head out to your local shop and pick up 'the shape of punk to come'. if you hear this title and immediately think of ornette coleman, then you can clearly see how much potential this band had, and where their influences come from. it did change the shape of punk, not necessarily in a good way though, with post-punk becoming a household term that is getting raped by record companies trying to exploit it for their own benefit. nevertheless, this album will forever stand as a beacon in the music world...one of those albums that completely shifts what you have heard into a totally new realm. if you wanna find out about their breakup, check out their last 'manifesto'.

loop dreams. another one bites the dust. this time for no reason but bad timing. they were a boston-based group that included a drummer, synth-guitarist, guitarist, and bassist, and damn were they exquisite. i got to see these guys open for ozric tentacles at the now-defunct Wetlands Preserve on canal and husdon, lower west side, nyc. if you don't know either the ozric tentacles or the wetlands, we must urgently speak so i can inform you of these two amazing pieces of music history. anyway, loop dreams is basically a live ambient band. they seamlessly weave sonic textures like no other band i've heard, melding live-looping guitar lines, buzzy, soft, and warm synth pads, and loungy beats. layers upon layers of sound just brought the entire audience into a new realm of consciousness...sort of a dream state. it was one hell of an experience, to say the least. unfortunately, certain long-distance collegiate demands hit the band, and they were forced to put the project on hold...on hold indefinitely it seems. they had no releases besides a single full length that they would sell at the shows. thankfully, i've got a copy, so, again, if anyone wants to experience some music that they will never hear in any other situation, just shoot me an email or something.

hmm. 30 seconds to mars. as most of you know, this band is still alive, but there's no way you could also say they were kicking if you heard their most recent piece of garbage. the self-titled debut, written and performed by jared leto (yeah, from requiem, fight club, american psycho, etc.), had so much promise. it was intelligent without being arrogant, catchy without being contrived, and complex without being dream theater. some would argue that its beauty is only a veil of costly production and fancy sonic maximizing, but seeing them play live makes you realize that these guys have talent. the live show is the single test that let's you see a band at its most raw (this is obviously NOT including that popular music crap that gets played from a CD backstage with the 'performers' miming the entire performance). while they were not completely perfect live, they were solid: very few mistakes, good energy, and on-key vocals. the disappointing thing about the latest album is that it has a good song...but the good song is copied 12 times to fill an album. bleh. and, to top it all off, it's a sony release, which makes the disc have copy protection on it. this means that if you ever were to purchase this sorry attempt at a sophomore release, you couldn't copy it to your computer or ipod or similar digital device, even though you purchased the right to listen to this music. thanks, sony corporate jackasses.

snot is the saddest of all. not because i believe them to be better, but because they were forced to split due to a fatal car accident involving the singer, Lynn Strait, while he was on his way to record vocals for the second album. from most reports, everyone in the hardcore scene said that Lynn was one of the nicest guys around, and i believe it having briefly run into him at ozzfest '99. they had a rock-solid sound, and some of the most powerful stage presence in the business. definitely go buy "get some" if you can.

i'm not adding nin to the list, because they were promising, and completely followed through, but i bring them up to point out just how far they have fallen since their long awaited 'with teeth' release, which should really be changed to 'with gums' to conjure the image of the toothless, senile old man that trent reznor has become. don't get me wrong, every release before was simply amazing. pretty hate machine, while mildly formulaic with regards to music, made a serious impact at the time of its creation. the downward spiral is a throbbing, caustic, emotionally-charged piece of undeniable beauty (that is also one of the best "make-out" albums when that type of mood hits). broken, no matter how short, is wall-to-wall classics that will sear you to the bone with its biting rhythms and lyrics. the fragile is delicate, painful, and epic...soothing, unsettling, relaxing, frightening all at once. but, as it turns out, trent needed drugs, booze, women, and withdrawl to achieve these momentous icons of undying love and unending torture. now, he lifts weights. and it seems that the stronger he gets physically, the weaker his music gets. so, as his napoleon complex grows and his substance dependency lessens, we are going to be subjected to worse and worse music. sorry trent, but either find something else in your life to bring back that spark, or stop making music altogether.

well...that's enough for now.