“Pick Up The Phone”
“Theme” by Jon Brion
I recently started listening to music, all of my music that’s stored up in the mythical cloud on shuffle…. A song that sampled that this came up and reminded me how great Jon Brion’s score was.
Anyways, I might kick the tires on doing a Tiny Letter thing or whatever the newsletter email thing of now is.
“The Line” by dvsn
Sept. 5th is a great album, but I feel like it got lost in the glut of new music that has been released in the few months.
For a while, I would mostly complain about stuff. Usually movies or indirectly about anxieties and insecurities, but there’s only so much to mine there. Then there was a little thing that switched in the back of my head. All art is subjective and all art is really fucking hard to make. Especially movies!
People spent maybe nearly seven years, on and off, trying to make that Dracula movie with Luke Evans. That Dracula movie that came and went without you probably noticing it. Seven years. That is a long time. Of course, people have a lot of buns in the oven, but just imagine, spending a valuable part of your life trying to bring that to life.
So, whenever I watch a movie now, I have that in the back of my head. People put so much time and energy into this thing and it was not very good at all. I can’t say that something is bad or just a complete and utter mistake because I know how much time people put into it. I just say that it doesn’t work for me.
Another thing, comedy is just so hard to do. When you see one that does not work at all, you appreciate that ones that work so much more. I also get a little mad because I don’t understand why more people didn’t go see the one that worked so well that came out a couple of weeks ago.
So, it’s hard to criticize stuff.
Also, if you want to have a discussion with somebody about an issue, yelling and screaming and calling them a bitch or a cunt isn’t a great way for people to see your side of the argument or want to be part of your movement/argument. Let’s be humans.
Maybe a month or two ago, a large chain organic market opened up by me. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
I went to there opening day because I like food and I wanted to see its selection/size since not all chain organic markets are created equally. So, I’m walking around with my basket full of bread and fake meats when this guy approached me. I want to say that he was in his forties, maybe. White guy. He looked at me and said, “How did all of these people get a job and not me?” I shrugged my shoulders. Then he added something about having ran marathons as if that was a job requirement. At that point, I wanted to run out of the store and never ever come back again. Also, why did I have to be the person he complained about his lack of jobs in relation to his marathon abilities? Unless, that’s an important category on Linkedin that I was not aware of.
Obviously, I got over this incident and went back to this market because they have a good selection of avocados and you know me, I love putting avo on toast.
Yet, we can let these bad incidents spoil things for us. Whether it be an unemployed runner or a overtly talkative person at the Radiohead show, these people spoil things for us. Some times, its for completely petty reasons. I thought a local news reporter was attractive until I saw a photo of her next to Carlos Mencia in a Real Madrid jersey. Yikes.
We, wait why am I saying we, when I mean myself, should not let these preverbal bad apples spoil the bunch, but it’s so hard. It’s really hard. For me to separate the actions of one or a group from the bigger picture.
“Last Caress” by The Misfits
I’m pretty surprised to see that Glen Danzig and Jerry Only are getting back together as the Misfits. Although, I think I’m good since I saw Danzig a couple of yeas ago do a small set of Misfits songs with Doyle (He also did a bunch of Samhain songs; it was great.). I have to assume that its going to be these two shows unless they do a quick cash in tour in October. Imagine going to see the Misfits reunion show on Halloween. It would not sell out the Forum, but they definitely could fill up the Shrine or the Galen Center; if they were do a Los Angeles show.
I think as I start to get back into, mainly things I will to try about might just be about small things that I like right now. Isn’t that what Tumblr was about, in the first place? Sharing the things that you liked or has that function been phased about by corporate overlords and woke young people? At times, its hard to rein the frustration that I have with things. I don’t necessarily think to myself that it could be worse because it’s been at its worse in the last six or seven months. Right now, it’s been much better, but it’s always been a tight rope of sorts.
Back in October 2015, my father got sick and ended up in the hospital for a few days. During that stay, we learned that his cancer came back. About a month later, my father got sick again and ended up in the hospital for a much longer spell. Starting in the emergency room then the ICU then the regular floor before checking out. He’s gotten better, but there have been moments during his chemotherapy where it seemed like he was doing better, he was a little worse than before. Everybody probably has gone through something similar in their life. Yet at times, it’s been a little rough for me. There was a period in January where I just felt like a zombie. I think it was right after David Bowie has passed away and I was listening to the Berlin stuff non stop and I was thinking about how my father was a couple of years older than Bowie and I don’t know. I just felt really anxious this one night and I thought going to the movies would calm me down. I went to see 13 Hours, the Michael Bay movie. I usually sit in the very back row of a movie theater. Right below the projector. I like to see the whole screen. When I walked into the theater, my usual spot was taken so I sat a few rows below. Which should’ve been fine until this sort of sketchy guy walked into the theater and sat in the row in front of me. I couldn’t really focus on the movie and I just felt uncomfortable the entire time and I walked out of the movie. I just had so much anxiety building up in me that I couldn’t even enjoy something I love, probably the most in the world. So, I know that things have gotten better since then because my father is still here and he celebrated his birthday last week. I also have gone to the movies by myself since then. Oddly the movie that I went to see after that was Dirty Grandpa then I went to see The Big Short for a second time the very next day.
So, I know what the bottom is for me and I know that I will try very hard to avoid it. The bottom has put about ten pounds on me so I would to like do anything to shed that from my body. I had to buy new pants to serve as a reminder. Vegan donuts are not the way no matter how good they taste.
This isn’t to say that I’m disappointed by Viceland, the television network because the number of shows I watch/like on the network outnumber the things that I dislike. Before going into what I love (which is pretty obvious with the image above), but it’s just slightly disappointing to see that a season of show about a guy traveling around the world eating is replaced by another show about a guy traveling around the world eating.
The way the network has rotated programming so far has been quite effective. They have not necessarily rotated a like for like (with exception to “Fuck That’s Delicious” and “Huang’s World”). A stand up comedy show was replaced by a show about skateboarders on a scavenger hunt. Its effective and keeps me interested because I always want to see what’s next. It doesn’t necessarily always work for me, but they trying and they’re going for something different.
States of Undress is probably my favorite show on television right now. I can’t explain why, but I love Hailey Gates. She makes me feel slightly more comfortable about the gap between my own two front teeth.
