Monday, June 27, 2005
kids playing in ma bell’s house
my little bro is in town so he and i went shooting today. we had a really good time just him and i. lately i've been really thinking about the relationships i have with all my siblings. chris and i being the farthest from me, have a different relationship than joe and i. and even though i'm right in the middle of the two, its tough because i'm more in an adulthood where joe is. this isn't at all to say that i don't love the kid just as much as anyone else. we just all relate different. was looking at my sister's closet with all her pics and there are so many with her and chris when they were so young. i never realized that i guess they are closer to each other as far as having that "bond" than probably anyone else. i relate of course most to joe but its pretty sad to think about how much him and i missed of each other growing up. we were always apart for almost as far as i can remember and never became really close friends until so late in life. and even now it almost seems like we really don't know all those things about each other that bros should know. most of this is because we live too far apart so every six months when we see each other its all just about playing catch up and always having to do stuff and not just like me coming over to hang. the shitty part about this is that we freaking lived together for a while and lived like 25 minutes away but for some idiotic reason i didn't do anything with him. i've tried to think back and remember why we never bonded but i can't think why i wouldn't. a ton of my time i know went to girls and what not, but still. guess i just gotta blame it on high school. everything seems to be going to hell right now with my family. grandpa and ruth and larry all just falling apart. and greg trying to be all sweet to me right now and be my friend. i hate him to no end but then its so hard to be angry at him when he's like that. i don't want to give in and allow things to be civil between us. so i think i'll take his gift he got me from tijuana and still hate him.
remember qwest and all the people. i knew an entire other universe that only a select few knew and now its just gone. anders was such a good person. how i miss him dearly. i’m not gonna sit and go through everyone, but there are a few just to make mention of. matt, my dear matty. we are all tired of me praising that unique soul. kristen cooper, all the peggys and that anorexic witch rhonda, ms. truckey, darnell, and joe chambers. the god of our universe and what a caring man. he and i had a relationship somewhere between acquaintance and friend. here is this upper 40’s man, director of hundreds of people, and yet somehow he and i both saw personally each other at our best and worst. now i see his face in my head and its hard to believe that i even knew that person. but he was a father like figure i won’t ever forget. especially since tom, only god knows why, remembers that joe was my boss and reminds me as many times as he can remember. and joni morse. my little friend next door. she was a slacker like i was, but was just better at smoozing her way out of it. she was a good honest friend to me and i really hope she has found what she was looking for, which now that i think about it, i know what it would be. and george, the girl george. and rich who saw through me every second i was there. kenny was a different sort. if there ever was such a thing as the swiss acting devious, kenny would be the leader. but he was that person who would find out first about all my random doings from summer 01. ron, sometimes naïve, other times sharp as a nail. my dear boss cindy. how i let her down. michelle, amber, michael thiel, ron newton, elaine, the neo-nazi village people lookin queer. kristen dawn johnson is complicated. vivian is complicated. paul smith and jan danziger. i was nothing without her lack of care about her job. there are so many, many more. even throw in the good old boys like sol, joe, and that one middle eastern guy who was naccio’s own consigliere. this was a sometimes wonderful world and sometimes more than i could handle. i’ve learned so much from this place. i think back about what might have been there. could have got fired because: 1. they were always firing peeps left and right when i was there; 2. i was a slacker who stopped working at some point in the fall; 3. the project management was the only team we could see affording to lose a person; 4. would have been just my luck. but then again, as a cruel, cruel joke on my sad life, with my luck, had i stayed with them, i might have gotten a better job with them. ron howard was leaving the mailbox manager position to move up the chain and take over his old boss’s (karen) position. once he came to me and whispered that he was going to recommend that i take over his job supervising the mailbox building aspect of voice messaging and being over like 20 something employees. i’ve always been able to scam my way to the top one way or another, but i generally never get too high up in the world. this would have been beyond anything and i wonder if someone like me should actually deserve to take on that privilege. this is the kind of job that gets you noticed and from there on out i would seriously be on a continual climb upward. most jobs don’t get such an opportunity. he was sad to find out that i was planning to leave the company. i hate thinking that this was a possibility. i sometimes try and think really hard back to that time for maybe reasons that would have come up to prevent me from moving up. i don’t see why i couldn’t though. i think kenny ended up getting it so at least i’m glad for that. or did joni get it? and granted, these are just the people in the universe. there was so much more that was part of this life. the travels, lunches, cubicles, rules, elevators, floors, views, drama. it was something else.
Friday, June 24, 2005
how have you been? i'm doing alright i guess.
and here is some random bullshit that has been piling up in the bin. enjoy:
i read this in some article from yahoo news:
"Joining the Bushes were Vice President Dick Cheney and wife Lynne. News organizations hosted show business and sports stars such as Goldie Hawn, Richard Gere, Jane Fonda, Mary Tyler Moore, tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams and a few supermodels."
i just thought it was funny that they just tossed in the supermodels at the end. nameless bods that show up to special events and do reality shows.
we had this game for light bulbs not too long ago. if one went out, each of us would just hoped the other would change it but no one ever did. so we had a light out in pretty much every room. even the bathroom which are big round ones above the mirror. so her parents were coming for a weekend, and kim caved and changed them all the night before so that they didn’t think we can’t afford light bulbs. then the house got all bright again and it sucked. all the rooms got really hot from all the bulbs. then i started thinking that maybe (after her parents leave) we should keep 1 bulb out of each light fixture that has more than 1. i bet it would save a bit on energy because of the usage of each bulb out and the fact it will naturally keep the house cooler. we probably won’t save any money in the costs of light bulbs unless there is some kind of interaction between the bulbs that affects their usually short lasting supply of magical power. the cons in the deal are that we have to look like po’ white trash when people come over. so i ran it by kim and i'm gonna be enforcing this pretty soon. i'll report back on results.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
suicide is pointless
well i'm back. next up: an even longer review. i can't tell if i'm at a high or low point in my life right now. i have weird habits now like this staying up late thing. i'm so unmotivated to write this right now. i think i don't want to go to bed because i'll feel like i wasted such really nice quite time in my life. or time in general.
so been reading the da vinci code finally. i've only owned the book for over a year now. to be honest, its not the greatest book ever like people say, but it does make you think a little. and its really slow too. some say that its all fast pace, but i'm saying that 15 chapters will go by and nothing has happened. don't get me wrong though. i'm all for seeing the movie next year staring my beautiful audrey tautou.
that's really all i got. i spend more time with my laptop than with all those other people. just kidding. i'm gonna get a beating for that one. and ryan is supposedly coming next weekend. i'm crossing my fingers that he does cuz i've gotta smack some sense back into this guy. oh yeah, and the lsat class is gonna have to become reality again. i shudder at the thought.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
my friend is coming
man, i don't know why i can't seem to find time to post crap here. lately i've been doing practically nothing. i just don't feel that inspired anymore.
for you smart asses out there, no i'm not gonna make a list of anne bancroft movies i just have to see.
i've decided that eve 6 plays really different music than anyone else. i really like them a lot. i also like the killers just because i can hear so many bands within them. their sound is a combo of like 5 6 other people that i can pick out. anyways, interesting stuff.
so coldplay, oasis, and the white stripes. pretty big lineup. don't think i'll be going for the white stripes are the moment. i like them more when they are rocking big time and i read this is more acoustic-ee. i'm digging coldplay's single like mad. its near perfect so i'll probably pick up that album sometime. and oasis has matt's seal of approve so i'm totally down for picking that up. ozma was something pretty special and its kinda sad they are gone. those three albums of mine brought a lot of joy during some fun times in my life. so hat's off to ozma today. oh yeah, and san andreas is coming out so i gotta get that too. anyone wanna donate to the spoil ethan fund please do so.
you know, these last few weeks i've been really content (despite that wretched class, although now that its over with i actually kinda miss it). and so what if its fake and because i take drugs everyday. is that such a bad thing? that's really open to debate, but i don't think its so wrong. i'm actually happy for once. of course this drug thing might not last forever, but we'll worry about that when the time comes.
what if you were born like ten years after you were really born. like i would have been the class of '09. i wonder how that would change your original life. would you still end up being the hollywood video manager? like, would einstein still be einstein had he been born 10 years later? i don't think he would have. within that ten year span without the einstein we all know and love, other scientists would be making discoveries. of course it probably wouldn't be just a single man figuring it all out like al. but, over time the stuff would eventually get done. as long as people are living, progress will just go on. and back to our trivial lives, i had a ton to say but its starting to get complicated because in order for it to all work i gotta talk about having a soul and if there is preordination and then i'll want to get into details on that. so lets just wrap it up.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
slept till 1300, did all things below, its 0336 and i'm still going strong!
while running tonight, i put two and two together and determined that i really pride myself in my driving skills. to some, like kim, this won't come as a shock. to everybody else, you could care less one way or an other.
funny how we'll have different opinions about a person if that person dies. like karen and i know ryan as much as anyone else. karen knows things about him that i don't, and vice versa. yet when he dies and karen and i pass along the story of ryan onto our kids, we will be telling them very different stories. that last sentence tends to imply that karen and i will be having children together. kim, there is something i've gotta tell you. haha. just kidding. and not to just pick on kar and rye, but just think about other people. basically, match up three people and try it out. and this isn't supposed to be a big shocker that i've discovered. obviously people have different experiences with each other to give us a number of possible impressions of that person. this was merely conversational and interesting to think about.
my horrible five days a week for five weeks class about nothing by the worst teacher alive is finally over with. i've been having quite the party in my head. all i've been doing is playing games in my laptop. like its so different from my computer i'm typing on right now, but i love it. currently i'm working on my 100% of gtaiii and also playing metal of honor: allied assault. yes, these are very old games and have been sequeled twice over now, but i'm trying to get myself used to the controls of the keyboard so that when san andreas comes out i'll be all set. that sounds really retarded.
with tupac continuing to blow up charts left and right, i wonder how he feels about his music that people put together. does he look down at us from thugz mansion and just shake his head at how they produce his songs? i wonder how he would have put these songs together had he been alive today. would be cool to compare the two versions. hey, that could be a nice double album. maybe pac wouldn't like nate dogg doing vocals on everything he can get his hands on. i hope he approves because i still like all of what i hear.
speaking of, isn't it funny that as soon as summer hits all the rap stations start pulling out all the mexican hip-hop. i guess we all like the image of mexicans rapping in a park in socal drinking their 40s. that is what summer has turned into. not that i'm complaining. i love that 'sub-genre' or whatever you'd call it. i'd rather hear is a mexican do hip-hop than a black guy. mexi-rap though i can go without. it hard to know what they are saying since most of the time its in spanish. anyways, i'm glad summer is here. today was beautiful.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
the shiz-nittle-bam-snip-snap-sack!!!
Wuthering Heights (1939): i'm getting sick and tired of laurence olivier. interesting. who names someone heathcliff? besides cathy being a terrible person in the movie, i didn't have many thoughts on the movie. worth seeing though.
i'll tell you what, this is completely biased and completely not true, but my school i swear has some of the best teachers in the country. or maybe its just their crazy variety of personalities.
man, i don't know if i'm ready to be a dad. kim is in cali and its taken me three days to remember to feed the cat. i'm such a retard.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
unfreakingbelievable
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
beyond spoiled
Sunset Boulevard (1950): lots of cheesy lines. too much narration too which gives everything away. remember folks, show not tell. strange to say, but the man characters (crazy old rich lady and young naive man under her wing) reminds me a lot of the relationship between yoda and luke (prior to luke finding out his little friend's true identity). its really a downer movie and very demented. story is kind of too weird to care about. there has got to be some statement they were making about hollywood or something when they made this movie. not sure what it is though. huge rip on the fans of silent films? who knows. too many hidden meanings that we just don't get. or maybe it was pretty cut and dry and i'm just too analytical. here's cut and dry for you: don't see.
been letting the cat venture out of our little dwelling into a much bigger world than i think he can take. we let him out of our bedroom window since he was kind enough to pop the screen out. so i'm getting ready this morning in the bathroom and sure enough comes our sweet little jonas with a freaking live bird in his mouth. not knowing what to do, i shut myself in the bathroom in fear of what i'd have to witness. as i shut the door the bird got loose and a wild chase began. i chose not to take part and kept getting ready. few minutes later i come out to see jonas eyeing the bird in our bedroom closet on top of our hung up clothes. so i lock the retard in the bathroom and make my attempt to save whatever is left of this poor little bird. all attempts at capturing it failed because apparently it wasn't that injured. he kept flying all over our room and running head on into walls, the window, the mirror, furniture, etc. it probably got more hurt trying to get out of the house than anything boo boo kitty did to it. so i'm ducking and dodging and trying to use a towel to get the sucker out and after about five minutes he flew out the window. way more excitement than i wanted in one day. i didn't even think our cat was smart enough to snag a bird in the wild. guess he showed us.
bought a laptop on saturday. its a sony vaio. i know there are lots of peeps out there how aren't the biggest fans of vaio's after owning them, but for a number of reasons this turned out being the best laptop for me. reasons that i'm too tired to type here. just trust me on it. haven't had any major problems yet. trying to install the game XIII on it and of course its not working, but then again, the game didn't work on my pc either. p.o.s. game. but i really wanted to play it though. christmas is coming for me (like saturday wasn't enough to tide me over). june 6 or 7 san andreas comes out for pc. what perfect timing. my older bro made me realize that i have too many hobbies in life. no time for them all. i wish i could cut down but i love everything i do. soon this movie nonsense will end though. freaking amen!
Friday, May 20, 2005
3 B's of a wife: breeding, brains, beauty
Rebecca (1940): very, very dramatic. i adored joan fontaine's performance! for the first half hour the only thoughts i had about the movie was that she was the perfect actress. she is so convincing. the story was pretty interesting and you can totally see that its hitchcock in his making. the movie will only works if the ending blows the audience away, which it doesn't really have. the big twist at the end is given by a looong explanation. most the movie is predictable, but it does make you realize the crazy things love will make a person do. and i couldn't figure out who won in the end; rebecca or all the people she ends up 'haunting.' seems like everybody loses. i think its worth seeing just to say you've seen such a classic movie like this. not the best, but classic in every sense. i'm not sure if that made sense but it works for me. like any of you are gonna watch it anyways.
i’ve been sick of the rain already. it just would not stop. and then someone told me about a week ago that its gonna be like that until mid june. mid june!!! what he hell is that? i was dying for the day i could stroll over to the park and sip some juice with the homies on those warm summer days. summer is like a lot of my friends. take tom for example. there is only so much of him i can take believe it or not. but after so long of being apart, oh how i yearn to be by his side once again. winter was nice, but i'm ready run at night without the rain on me, to lay my fatty self out in a park and pretend like a tan will improve such hopeless conditions, and to be stingy with the AC in the jeep and get baked while blazin up with today's hottest hip-hop and r&b on U-92. luckily today was that day. no juice, but lots o' sun. high of like 80 something and tomorrow will be the same. of course i burned odd parts of my body but i'm hoping it will be a nice tan sometime in my life. wanted to go running this morning but it was already 74 by about 8:30. even tonight when i went it wasn't cold enough to keep me really cool while i ran. but i'm gonna keep at it. there is really no point but i get an A- for effort at least.
i just realized something really terrible about a certain person in my life. its basically an opinion i guess i’ve had for years, but just never thought about it i guess. and if this person found out about this, i know they would be really hurt by it. its no one that actually reads this blog, otherwise i wouldn’t have written all of this. either way, i obviously won’t reveal to the world what this opinion i have is. news spreads fast, too fast. however if you care to know, i'd be glad to divulge.
Monday, May 16, 2005
buy an island and stop already
Double Indemnity (1944): very cheesy. probably only a handful of people in the 40’s talked like fred macmurray. found some major plot holes. the movie is interesting, but it should have been bogart playing the main part. it was kind of slow and i didn’t like the constant narration, even though people probably consider it a trademark of this movie. don’t see.
The Interpreter (2005): nothing happens for about the first two hours. just lots of boring questions and no answers. all the action you will ever see was in the trailer. everyone overacts and sean penn is ugly. don’t see.
Hamlet (1948): i could already tell from the start that it would be hard to get through. wish i knew what was going on half the time. i got the gist of it but because its shakespeare, there are times when i’m clueless. doesn’t help that i’ve never read hamlet either. sound quality bad, cinematography and framing really good. props to any shakespearian actor. this stuff is hard. if you care for shakespeare, enjoy. all others enjoy something else. very good sword play for its time. plus this puts me to have seen every best picture winner to 1947. woo hoo!
so i saw this headline “lucas plans ‘star wars’ spin-off tv series” and immediately thought that this is an example of someone who doesn’t know how to go out on top. its not that this tv show will destroy him, but if he quits after this next movie, he will be looked back on as having a near perfect record. if he does this show and it sucks, and i promise you, it will not live up to expectations and it will suck, then he will be looked back on as someone who did some of the most amazing things, and kept going back to tv for some unknown reason and failed every time. the only way this show would ever do well is if you had exactly the same actors play the characters, and had exactly the same if not more of a budget to work with. it has to basically be 48 minutes each week of what we would expect on screen. that’s impossible to live up to, unless he puts his entire fortunes on the line.
"According to Lucas, both shows will take place during the period between the end of Star Wars: Episdoe III - Revenge of the Sith and the original Stars Wars: Episdoe IV - A New Hope, when the Emperor became all-powerful and started hunting the Jedi down."this is disappointing to read because this means that there is going to be a huge gap in time between III and IV. i think it would be much more interesting to bridge them together as close as possible where you can just pick up right into IV. wouldn't it be sweet if we could see all the way up to where vader's ship is chasing leia? but i don't come cheap and i would want carrie back on screen and like 100 lbs lighter of course.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
two orange tabby's
Bringing Up Baby (1938): i couldn’t stand cary grant playing this nerd guy. but katharine hepburn is awesome. i think she would be my 30’s and 40’s girl until liz comes along. the movie is actually really funny. the characters end up going through so much random stuff that i don’t remember how it all got started in the first place. soooo funny though. the actors seemed to have done a ton of their own stunts which i’m all for. Very good, good acting. Buy it.
so there is an apartment across from ours in the next building. same lower level except the front of ours meets with the bedrooms of theirs. about a month ago the old tenants movies out and i remember telling kim something like, “well, there goes another one.” so after that, i remember i would always have to walk next to it and would notice in the windows of how empty the place was. not too long though, i could tell people were now living in it. i don’t remember how i could tell because i never actually saw people. i think what tipped me off was i would notice open windows and some windows where the screen had been taken off. my first sign of real life in our new neighbors started at about 6:45 a.m. as i trotted off to work and there in one of the open windows was a woman of some sort smoking a cigg. i never saw her face because i was looking down at her from the sidewalk and her head was behind the wall. anyways, it scared the shit out of me. and of course she never flinches from her smoke. after that i didn’t see anyone for some time, but would see the occasional light on or random chair in a room, but usually no more than 1 chair. i have yet to see furniture in the apartment, that includes the bedrooms and living room and kitchen. i assumed that it was just some couple that got the place and they are starting out and don’t have furniture yet. which still may very well be the case. the only real life the place seems to be some new tail for jonas to chase. a clone of our own cat roams outside and they have a sort of love-hate relationship. their story is too long to get into. today i was outside cleaning the windows of my jeep when this random, sweet lookin audi s4 and out comes this tall, lanky guy wearing these grey jeans, darker greyer sports coat looking thing, and black shoes. he was one of the most designer looking characters i’ve ever seen. he would be the christian bale in american psycho of today. super ultra trendy young rich guy. and he always had his back to me so i never got to see the front of him. mr. bale glided right into that apartment and gave a quick “hey” (not to me) before slamming the door. and that was it. i really think that whatever is going on over there i’m sure i want a part of. i need to meet them. i feel we have a connection because of our cats.
the hitler mom upstairs had another hissy fit today. i was listening to save the day’s ‘banned from the back porch’ at a very reasonable level as i always do, especially since the last time she acted like a baby. but there she goes stomping like she 3 years old. and she didn’t just keep her routine to just this room, but i heard the stomping travel out into the hallway, into the living room, then stop just short of the kitchen. i just sat there in shock at what i had just witnessed. if i was clever enough i would have just turned the music up louder cuz it’s a great song. i haven’t decided if i should retaliate or not. part of me wants to just let it go and keep the music to a whisper for rosemary’s baby. however i really think she deserves me pulling a tony soprano on her and putting up some permanent tunes on for her during the day.
i love staying up this late. i'd do it every night if i could.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Advance the flag of Dixie, Hurrah! Hurrah!
i hate work and hate school. need a vacation and quick.
lately i’ve been really digging the cure again. what’s weird is that its not the same stuff as what i used to listen to from them. back in the day i was really into their late eighties to late nineties stuff, basically from kiss me, kiss me, kiss me to wild mood swings. i still had all their earlier stuff, but it just never stuck with me. now all i listen to is their early and mid eighties (seventeen seconds to head on a door). and of course i have always loved disintegration. remember kids, disintegration is the best album ever. and for my own personal enjoyment, i’ve categorized all my cure albums into sub-sub-genres. enjoy! oh i will ethan.
eighties brit rock, pop, early goth,
the peel session (1978)
three imaginary boys (1979)
boys don’t cry (1979)
goth heavy depressive deep gloomy
seventeen seconds (1980)
faith (1981)
pornography (1982)
japanese whispers (1983)
the head on the door (1985)
staring at the sea (1986)
disintegration (1989)
pop, brit rock, deep, love driven, sad
kiss me, kiss me, kiss me (1987)
mixed up (1990)
wish (1992)
show (1993)
paris (1993)
wild mood swings (1996)
galore (1997)
back to both heavy depressive deep gloomy
bloodflowers (2000)
the cure (2004)
i was coming together with my list of most talented bands out there. the cure, u2, bright eyes, dave matthews band, and frankly that’s all i can think of now. feel free to add or subtract your owns bands while i try and think of more for mine own.
there are a few houses i pass each night of running that are worthy of mention. they are a row about 4 or 5 houses one block from my place. i generally never notice the houses as i begin my run and trot past them. well my run each night consists of walking back part of the way so i end up passing these houses at a walking pace and they are totally utah county’s version of the hill in boulder. they are kinda big houses that are old and not the best well kept, but still nice. on any given night you’ll see a billion cars parked out front of one of the houses, trash cans knocked all over the place, a little band playing in one of the houses, parties, and crazy college looking psychos walking into one of the houses that had its door just wide open but no lights on except for some weird colored lights upstairs, and random huge screen tv's and shitty furniture all over the place. think tom's place. nice to have a piece of home with me here.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
i would have been pope lando II
Shane (1953): sounds a lot like the plot of pale rider. bad transitions between shots. the kid actor ain't that bad. has one of the nicest locations i've ever seen in a movie. all the stupid symbolism the director is trying to use is all so obvious. it has the mother of all bar fights. most of the fights though were insanely long. and as i thought about it, its not bad transitions but just bad editing over all (as you can see, it wasn't even nominated in that category). i hated the cast because none of them actually fit the parts they were playing. most don't quite look or talk the parts except the kid. movie wasn't really even about shane but more about the husband. some really good cinematography. and funny that it was never actually night in the movie. i enjoyed all the random jokes used to keep a lighter mood. got a bad climax too compared to most westerns but i forgive them since this came out first. still, see the later westerns, not this. and why was there no sequel to this? don't see.
life would be so much better if we all had theme music. just imagine. and i've been getting excited to watch a birth of a nation because it will probably be the oldest film i ever see.
i was first unsure from the start when i saw the other two albums being released tuesday with weezer: dave matthews band and the starting line. both bands i love with more than a passion. but, i was true to my roots and purchased weezer. (yes, i could have just got two of them, but i don’t think kim would buy all that passion root stuff) but it was a sad thing to hear the album. i do like it, but i also enjoy listening to the killers. a soul wouldn’t dare see me at a killers’ show however. is the weezer status at a point in my life where i might just not go to a show? i knew i had to grow up sometime and conform to all the adults listening to whatever. i hope its not my time. there is nothing in me these days as far as music though. i don’t have any favorite album this week or this new genre that i’ve found. i’m empty. a number of songs did please though. its the ones that didn't please me that make me sick. they have always walked that fine line between rock and pop, but always leaned just a little to the rock which is why they had the main fan base always stick by them, but always be able to sway the rest of the population when the new album is released. but this time they went far into that realm of pop music and tried to make it not so obvious by throwing in some heavy power cords. this won't cause me to rebel against the band and denounce them. i still love all their early stuff and still consider them one of my all time favorite bands. and i'll still get the albums and go to the shows. but a little piece of me seems to have faded. its something that we've known for a long time, but never wanted to admit. now it has hit a number of those hard core fans in the face. you wonder why they went off into this direction. because they can? if they wanted to sell records, they new they should of gone in the reverse direction. they produced the work once, so why can't they repeat it? i'm curious to see what their next single from this will be. there are a few they should do if they have any common sense left in them at all.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
i submit
-ms, may 05, 2005
Weezer Make Believe
[Interscope; 2005]
Rating: 0.4
If you're one of those poor souls who while away the day job by keeping a scorecard of music review sites, there's one thing you already know: There are two distinct groups of bad albums. The more prevalent kind is the fodder that fills a critic's mailbox, bands with awkward names and laser-printed cover art that don't inspire ire so much as pity. The second group is more treacherous: Bands that yield high expectations due to past achievements, yet, for one reason or another, wipe out like "The Wide World of Sports"' agony-of-defeat skier.
Often, these albums are bombarded with website tomatoes for reasons you can't necessarily hear through speakers: the band changes their sound and image to court a new crossover audience, perhaps, or attempts a mid-career shift into ill-advised territory. Or maybe they start writing songs about Moses in hip-hop slang. But sometimes the bad album in question is none of the above; it doesn't offend anyone's delicate scene-politics sensibilities or try to rewrite a once-successful formula in unfortunate ways. Sometimes an album is just awful. Make Believe is one of those albums.
Weezer have been given a lot of breaks in their second era-- both The Green Album and Maladroit were cut miles of slack despite consisting of little more than slightly above-average power-pop. The obvious reason for this lenience has to do with the mean age of rock critics, and the fact that most of these mid-20s scribes were at their absolute peak for bias-forming melodrama when The Blue Album and Pinkerton were released. Even for someone like me, who came late to the Weezer appreciation club, it was impossible to hear these "comeback" albums without the echoes of the earlier alt-rock pillars ringing in our ears.
But now there's an antidote to that nostalgic interference. Right from the start of Make Believe, when Weezer lurches into a flaccid take on Joan Jett's "I Love Rock N' Roll" with an unfathomably horrible speak/sing vocal from Rivers Cuomo (think "I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch"), you can hear hundreds of critics mouthing "no no no" and going into crumpled shock. What's more disconcerting is that the song gets worse over the course of its three minutes (let's just say "Framptonesque voicebox solo" and get back to repressing the memory)-- and it's the album's first single.
Hearing a song like "We Are All on Drugs", which nicks the classic melody of the schoolyard "Diarrhea" song (you know, "when you're sliding into first..." and so on) for an anti-drug message stiffer than Nancy Reagan's "Diff'rent Strokes" cameo, it calls into question whether The Blue Album was really that great, or whether it just stood out as a rare beacon of guitar pop in a grunge-obsessed era. Trying to wrap your mind around the land-cliché-record lyrics of songs like "My Best Friend" and "Haunt You Every Day" leads me to wonder how Pinkerton could ever have seemed like such a cathartically resonant treatise on unrequited love. Was Rivers Cuomo always on the notebook-scrawl level of "I don't feel the joy/ I don't feel the pain," and did we not notice because scrawling in notebooks was the depth of our emotional knowledge at the time?
Okay, let's not be so hard on ourselves here: I'm pretty sure this is all Rivers' fault. Pinkerton triumphed by being an uncomfortably honest self-portrait of Cuomo. On Make Believe, his personality has vanished beneath layers of self-imposed universality, writing non-specific power ballads like he apprenticed with Diane Warren, and whoah-oh-ohing a whole lot in lieu of coming up with coherent or interesting thoughts. Coupled with his continued obsession with tired power chords and bland riff-rock (surprisingly not sonically boosted by producer Rick Rubin, whose post-"99 Problems" grip on relevance is now officially spent), the creative driving force behind the Weez is asleep at the wheel.
Considering Weezer supposedly went through hundreds of songs and several discarded albums to arrive at this final product, the laziness of this songwriting borders on the offensive. Whether recycling dynamics from the band's back catalog (see: "Perfect Situation") or taking the easy Mother Goose rhyme (see: every fucking song here), these 12 tracks sound as if they were dashed off in an afternoon's work, maybe with Rubin holding the band at gunpoint. The one half-decent song on the record, "This Is Such a Pity", fails to even maintain its status as a pleasant Cars homage, interjecting a guitar solo that sounds like it was cut from the original score to Top Gun.
So does Make Believe completely ruin not just present-day Weezer, but retroactively, any enjoyment to be had from their earlier work? I don't know-- I'm too scared to re-listen to those first two albums-- but it certainly appears that Make Believe will expertly extract the last remaining good graces the critical community has to offer latter-day Weezer, unless my colleagues' memories of slow-dancing with Ashley to "Say It Ain't So" are more powerful than I can possibly imagine. Of course, if Ashley went on to break your heart, fellow critic, Make Believe might be just the medicine you need; put it on repeat and watch your emotional scar be obliterated as collateral damage in the torpedoing of Weezer's legacy.
-Rob Mitchum, May 9, 2005
Saturday, May 07, 2005
lets roll
Grand Hotel (1932): now this is an all star cast of A-list actors. from the start i was hoping that the movie wasn't just about six people's lives in a hotel because i've seen countless movies about the lives of x amount of people and i'm getting bored of them. i noticed that the actors talked so beautifully back then. both joan crawford and greta garbo are great. each the their stories are very unique, but not everything was super interesting. this is a remake waiting to happen with the baron played by deniro. you can pretty much tell exactly what is going to happen at the end and throughout the movie. in the end, it wasn't half bad and will go on my B-list to buy.
do you think people have taken 2001 so far as to make a religion out of it? not that i'm planning on renting out some space in a strip mall to open doors for sunday worship. just curious.
so this week from hell is finally over. actually it will end today at 1 pm when i get off of work. school is so terrible right now. i have this five week class that is straight out of high school. then i had 1 night to put together a 20 minute powerpoint presentation for another class that i did yesterday. class everyday, work everyday, wedding yesterday for kim's cousin rachae or however its spelled. that wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. i got to dance with kim's mom and sis which was a blast. dancing with my girl was fun too. i'm so far behind in pretty much everything. i've got movies to review, thoughts to post, things that have happened that i'm sure i've forgotten about, and still more homework. k's fam is still in town and leaves tomorrow. ryan graduated this past week and today is his grad party which i wish i could have gone to. jessIE's going to meheeko for the week and is gonna miss a ton of school. she's also interning at the fourth district court which is awesome! and i'm getting into this nasty habit of sleeping at work. its not bad in that it is affecting my performace at this place, but i'm just not getting anything done as far as homework and this here blog. i need to break it so that i can get crap done at work.
i wonder why pope jp2 didn't come to the u.s. more during his papacy. i have my theories, but it would be interesting to have known the real reasons why. and i have to say that benedict doesn't have the sweet look that jp2 had. in fact, no offense to the church, but he's kinda ugly. jp2 for his first few years was actually a really good looking sweet man. wonder if that will make any kind of difference in the end.
and my quick little mention of saddam hussein. he will be tried in a court, but i think it will be pointless. obviously he will be found guilty. imagine if he was found innocent. that would be so embarrassing for the united states and the pres. it is war and we should just put him away or kill him. we are only going through a court so that some day when history looks back on us, they will say that we were just and fair to even our most wicked enemies. we are deceiving the history books because we are not just or fair when it comes to non-americans. usually the winners of war make the rules without much interference from anyone else. nuremburg was a waste of time because obviously they were all guity. the allies decided they were guilty, not the court. if the court decided they were not guilty, then the winner would not be the winner. this is not to say that any of these men deserved anything less than death. i'm just saying lets skip the trial because its all for show. saddam may or may not deserve to die, but bush already decided his fate by winning iraq. lets just get on with it. can you imagine a u.s. president on trial for war crimes? i can't even fathom, but can only hope.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
open the pod bay doors hal
The Greatest Show On Earth (1952): it wasn't looking good from the start. this is the worst plug or product placement for a company in history of film. it was such a freak show with no plot. it felt like a tv show with 40 characters like some crappy soap opera. i can't imagine this movie influencing any one to actually go to the circus. you get a life time worth of circus in only 150 minutes. you get to see charlie heston kick some ass which is always good. i would have hated to be in the circus crowds for the movie because they had to endure days of shooting the marathon circus, whereas we only get a few hours shoved down our throats. and who is the target audience? its too circus gay for adults to care but too damn long for kids. i hope b&b's circus today isn't as ghetto as they were then. but this movie is entirely what i remember circus's being like back in the eighties. that could have also been what i remember at circus circus. but i doubt the circus life is this eventful. the fx are ugly. spoiler: but i will give them a compliment about the crash scene because i really did feel for everyone involved because so much story led up to this. you start to almost feel like you are part of the circus. lastly, wouldn't they suspect something from a clown that wears his makeup 24 hours a day? i'm talking about jimmy stewart playing 'buttons', the wife killer hiding in the circus as a clown, who actually has a big heart and is really nice and is able to save the day before being hauled off to jail. its one of the worst movies i've ever seen. honestly, gigi was better. and gigli for that matter.
10-14: gigi put me to seeing every best picture winner since 1952, the greatest show on earth puts me to 1948. and yes folks, there are still more to see.
there was a defining moment in ape history when he (or she) was able to reason, use a tool, etc. god said when this happens, apes are now all humans. everything prior to these new humans are not apes and is what separates man from animal. or maybe only to a point where they can understand and comprehend the existence of a god. just one of the many revelations of 2001.
tonight is my last official movie night and these mini-parties so i betta get crack-a-lackin. ho.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
.935
Gentleman's Agreement (1947): they start off with some terrible wastes of green screen or whatever color it was in the black and white days. almost like just taking and cutting film and overlaying on top of other film. anyways, it got really boring. la-dee-da, so people treat jews bad. try being black for six months or mexican. these people get crapped on but there isn't a movie like this for them. the movie white chicks might have been the closest. i didn't like the acting much. if this movie won best pic that year, i would have hated to have seen the ones that didn't win. must have been a crappy year. i actually have a complaint about the lighting also, being too unrealistic and sucky. and the guy didn't really have to try and find reasons to tell people he is jewish. he could have just walked around saying 'oh vey!' good point though made about the fact that we call jews 'jews' like its a race or something. i counted and they smoked sex thousand and twelve cigarettes. the chick in the movie is the most romantic talking girl ever! the lead guy is a big, whiney, grumpy child (sound familiar?). they make the wife of him look terrible and she was one of the nicest people in the movie. its way too idealistic. only see the movie if you are a jew.
WWI and WW2 didn't really involve us like it did other country's. it was really britain's, france's, and germany's war. we of course played a huge part of it, but we just sent over massive amounts of troops. aside from pearl harbor, we were not being attacked like the other countries. the way we feel about russia's involvements in the war is probably what the global opinion of the US's involvement is. so when we think of the wars, i bet we don't look at it like brits do. but for all these years, i really would think the world's thoughts on the wars were the same as the US's. of course these were our biggest wars, so on a US scale they should be up there. however globally, our involvement was less than others.
for the past few weeks i've been having movie nights with myself. i basically stay up on the days where i can sleep in, and watch movies until sometime between 3 and 6. its 2 right now meaning i'll be able to at least finish the hour of the one i'm watching now. this will only last until classes start next week for summer. this summer is not going to be pretty. five weeks of classes each day of the week. i added a ton more shifts to my schedule at work and also gave my 'notice' for august 21. i'm tired of the rain and clouds, not because i don't love rain and clouds, but because the time for that should have been at the beginning of this month. now should be the time of nice weather transitioning into shatty heat. something is going to have to be skipped over once this rain goes and no one has the good luck that it will shave a few boiling days off the calendar. my bet is that since this is the time for good, the rain is taking that time away and the sun is just itching to evap that little rain up and keep us a desert.
i've gotten 2 A-'s and 1 A. i feel retarded because on one hand, i'm pretty disappointed with the A-'s because so far those two have actually brought down my gpa. but of course i'm being an idiot because A-'s are of course wonderful to receive and i know that many people work their tail feathers off and still can't get A-'s. i should be happy about it all. those A's would have been nice though.
i bought some 'tom approved' jeans today that i must say are mighty fine. a new pen is what i want. the one that i believe clive owen has in closer. its strange to think that after so many years, california is not where i consider myself from. i don't recall how long its been that colorado has been my baby. in fact, now that i look back on that dusty, smelly town i came from, i'm not sure i would want to represent it anyways. i'm not knocking my fres peeps, but you all know how it is.



