Briefly: Being back in New Jersey is much how I expected it, awkward and boring. The room that I stay in is generally occupied by someone who my mom has unofficially adopted, so the room is filled with the belongings of this person who I find objectionable and unpleasant. When in the room I know where to look down, what things to turn a blind spot to. I, like my mom, get to selectively edit reality and it sucks. I really just can't do it. I'm wishing to be back in Olympia where I have books and friends and can say "fuck" as frequently as I do.

I finished Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the airport (I was there on Friday instead of Monday- a funny story, but long story short, it meant two more days spent with family) and it ended pretty well. I stole my mom's copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude, but haven't started to read it yet, since I'm in the middle of things at Evergreen and class will be starting and all kinds of things will conspire to stop me from finishing it quickly.

Oh, and my streak of only seeing good movies has been ruined. Once I got back, I ran into a dude who wanted to see "The Sea Inside" which I knew nothing about, but kind of expected weak things. It delivered. It's based on a true story, the name is a metaphor, and the director's the dude that did The Others or something equally weak. The kind of dull foreign-language film that gives art theaters a bad reputation. And I still haven't seen Sideways yet.

I also got to read all of Morrison's Doom Patrol in one go. That was kind of nice, although a weird experience when you're familar with most of the material. So, yeah, here's what happens when that's your experience, in list form:
1. The stylistic tic of employing poetry and the odd juxtaposition of two words is really overused at first, but it stops being done completely about halfway through.
2. When you know most of the weird concepts ahead of time, they mean nothing to you. This kind of goes with the first item on the list.
3. Willoughby Kipling is a funnier joke when viewed all in one go.
4. You start to care about the characters more. Weirdly: I wanted happy endings for them, which doesn't quite make sense. In reality, the reason it's sad when people die is because you will never see them again and won't get to have new experiences, etc. This happens invariably with fiction, simply because the story ends.
5. You're really sad when it's all over.

Went to the mall today, to pick up my mom's gift. I didn't buy it, though. I just found the location in the mall where the silk scarves are.

The mall makes me feel horrible. Two songs ran through my head: Sleater-Kinney's "Milkshake And Honey" ("Baby come home, I can't take the apartment alone") and Pavement's Black Walls ("You shouldn't hate your body, it's part of you. You shouldn't hate your family, they're part. You shouldn't hate your neighbors because they're part of you! These black walls. Black walls, black walls, black walls.") I wanted to sing them as I walked alienated through the department store.

I wish I had a camera for the things I'd seen. Emasculated boyfriends, unresponsive to their girlfriends hanging off them. The pathetic uniforms of the people who sell hot dogs. The fat kids and the old women.

I wanted to yell out "Hold me" and fall into the arms of someone who would either be responsive or disturbed.

And I have to go back there tomorrow, to finish the job. I feel like a Vietnam vet who can't function in society.

Also: Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle gets really good in the third book. Loren got into it early on, but then stopped reading, although he's asked for it for Christmas. I found the beginning largely unremarkable. It's improved almost immeasurably: The weirdness at the edges of the first book's domestic chronicle has builded upon itself and has become the book's new focus. I've heard some people had misgivings about how it ended, but we'll see how I react.

Still waiting on my brother's Christmas gift to arrive via mail. It's got two more days that it can arrive before I'm fucked and will just have to give him an IOU.

Last night I realized that TV shows on DVD are such a default awesome gift. Also: I think I'm over cash as a gift. It just seems sad to me, unless you're young and it's being given to you by your family who are directly responsible for your well-being at least to a certain extent. Amongst extended family, it just feels like they don't know you. And granted: My extended family doesn't know me, and I don't really want them to. Still: Should this really be the case? Best gift I've received from an extended family member ever was a copy of On Avery Island on vinyl. And sure, I've since given it to a roommate who actually had a record player. But the thought that was put into that gift was much appreciated. If it really is the thought that counts, (and I truly believe it is) then cash is the worst gift ever.

You know what would be a great gift from my mom and stepdad? Fucking replacement copies of some of the shit that they ruined and got water-damaged. That would be great.

When it's 5 in the morning and sleep shows no sign of approaching one's body, one's mind turns to deep thoughts. These deep thoughts invariably give way to shallower ones, because that is how one's mind operates.

So it's in this manner that I found myself pondering the idea of making a mix CD for my mom for Christmas, and the borderline impossibility of doing so.

The deep thoughts that led me here, you may ask? Generally: The inability of one human being to communicate or in some way connect with another when there isn't a shared language. My mom doesn't view music like I do. She wants something that is inoffensive. I don't think she engages any music emotionally on any levels other than nostalgia.

She likes latter Flaming Lips. She liked They Might Be Giants. She liked it when I listened to Loaded by the Velvet Underground. She bought a Belle & Sebastian record because she liked the title. She was tempted to buy a Beulah record based on its title and the song titles, but I told her not to because their good record wasn't at the store that day. She generally doesn't like Beck but liked Lost Cause off of Sea Change.

Oh, and I'm paying attention to lyrics too because love songs on a hand-crafted mix for my mom is icky. Too bad that's a fucking huge topic in pop music.

I AM INSANE.

She doesn't seem to like instrumentals.

I want to put on Jesus Walks by Kanye West. Because she likes Jesus, you see.

I AM INSANE.

So yeah, some contenders: Cat Power when not all suicide style, something by Broadcast, Beulah- A Good Man Is Easy To Kill, The Velvet Underground- Who Loves The Sun, something by Jeff Buckley although I don't know what, Palace Music- New Partner, Mirah- Apples In The Trees, something by the Books, something by Manitoba, some kind of Magnetic Fields/6ths, something by Yo La Tengo. Stereolab? The Mountain Goats?

I'm not going to make this mix. Although, probably, I should.

I'm buying her a silk scarf, as per her request.

I don't even think my brother liked the mix CD I made him for his birthday. If I were to give him a CD for Christmas I think it would be The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, although my confidence in such a thing is low.

2004, year in review, part three: My life and what I read.

2004 was no 2003. Which would be an unfair expectation. After that burst of progress, I'm put in limbo. 2004 I mainly just hung out.

2005: My future is uncertain. Will I stay this summer in Olympia? Will I even continue to go to Evergreen? If not, then what the fuck will I do next fall? Probably 2005 will be like 2004, unless my musical ventures take off and consume a shitload of time. Which probably won't happen.

But anyway, 2004. I went back to Philadelphia over the summer, for more of those depressing interactions with my brother and his roommates. I was constantly being reminded of what a loser I was. Even though I got a theoretically cool job, working at a music store. Sure, it wasn't a good one. But, in terms of what it was, it's probably as good a job as I will ever have. And it mostly sucked. I will never be happy. Then there was the lack of all social interaction outside the job. Hoo. A lot like 2003 in that it was a total no friends summer. I did have some interaction with my brother's friends, which as previously mentioned, was frequently vaguely condescending. I have no idea how much any of those people respect me. This is weird and hurts my head.

Then I went back to Evergreen, where I was considerably happier, but still have less friends than I did last year. Some of those old friends left. Some stayed around Olympia, but I felt strangely alienated from them even at the end of last year. The list of new friends is a short one. The list of old friends departed is probably three times as long.

And then there were classes. Looking Backward ended amazingly. But Telling The Truth was an exercise in testicular injury. I had to read Don Delillo's White Noise for both.

I finished Lolita in 2004, I think. I also read Nabokov's The Eye. Also: Borges' Ficciones and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle now. That was mainly it, besides the large amounts of bullshit I had to shovel into my mind for class. Talking about books in a year of review is bizarre except as an autobiographical conceit, simply because I don't read that much new fiction. I think that's true for most people who aren't book critics. I mean, there's a barrage of classics I'll be reading until I die. Getting on top of the new good stuff is hard to do, and I haven't really attempted it. I guess the only new writing I read was in the last McSweeney's, of which 25% of the content was recommendable. Five new authors to watch out for. And that's the new fiction that I would be inclined to like, probably? That had editors whose tastes probably occasionally align with my own? Fuck if I know. I read a great deal of comics, which makes me feel dumb, but you know, they're shorter. It's also a scene that's easier to be on top of. Of what I read: Seaguy sticks out, as does the new Eightball. Those were the highlights. Hopefully I'll have read all of Morrison's Doom Patrol in one go before the year is out. That's it!

2004, year in review, part two: The year in film.

I didn't see a bad movie all year. Actually, I did, but none in the theater, none that were new. And, with the exception of Before Sunset, every movie I saw, I saw in a commercial mainstream movie theater. This is all odd. I saw a lot of mainstream movies which people like to talk shit on, (including me, sometimes) and I enjoyed them.

Which proves my point, although it was one I didn't plan on making: Fuck the indie/mainstream divide. (at least if we're talking cinema) Most indie people are incredibly unambitious. If they do have ambitions, they can't implement them, due to lack of budgets. Not like small films can't be good, just that there is such a thing as indie hackery. Auteur theory! Motherfucking auteur theory! Give smart people money and they won't disappoint you!

Still a few movies I've yet to see: Sideways, The Life Aquatic, A Very Long Engagement, and 2046. 2046 might not even count as a 2004 film.

But yeah, a good year for movies. A good year for comedies.

Movie of the year was Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, duh. I could write tons of weird shit about it that means nothing: Like how I've been on the Gondry tip for years, and prefer him to Spike Jonze. Like how Charlie Kaufman is a champ. Like how Human Nature was slept on and due for a reevaluation: I'm calling it the Being John Malkovich to Eternal Sunshine's Adaptation, more obviously a comedy, but still possessing thematic weight and well-drawn characters. About how the people saying that this is Kaufman's first script with emotion are fucking retarded. Some people said it was sad, with its fatalistic view of relationships. But guess what? Most relationships do end badly, who the fuck doesn't know that? But this says fuck it anyway, take the good with the bad. It's optimistic, but in a way that's also fucking honest. Let the emo kids have Garden State, the people who see the beauty in Neutral Milk Hotel will be watching Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Actually, we might watch both. I like to think we'll all enjoy Eternal Sunshine more.

I think I've gone over every movie I've watched this year in this blog, so you can see the other movies I recommend if you want to. They were all good. The movie I was the least sure of was Spider-Man 2 and I can't even front like I didn't enjoy that, regardless of the cheesy dialogue. Seriously: that was the worst movie I saw in theaters all year, and it wasn't even bad. (Although if you want to get technical, I saw worse movies at the Capital Theater that came out in 2003. This doesn't count for our purposes now.) I saw two zombie movies and both of them were great. One of those zombie movies I can't think of the director, so to a certain extent: Poop on auteur theory too, don't try to be a pretentious jackass. I like what I like. Fuck it. I'm smart. I don't have to explain my zombie fondness.

After I finished Gravity's Rainbow, my brain needed time to decompress. Weirdly, class provided that with its complete lack of mental stimulation. So I read book two of Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in a day. The current reading list is book three of that and the Palomar hardcover. Hopefully, I will finish both of these before school starts up again.

I'm currently wait-listed for the program I wanted to get into. Here's the syllabus:
White Noise, Don Delillo. This is the third program I've had to assign this book. And it's also the third program I've taken.
The Awakening, Kate Chopin. My old nemesis.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I never finished reading this in high school, although it was pretty decent.
The End Of The Road, John Barth. The only American writer who's work I haven't read, and I'm kind of unfamilar, although in general, I hear good things.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of the World, Haruki Murakami. Apparently this one has more of a pulpy feel to it, at least in terms of plot points. Also, shorter than Wind-Up Bird.
Confessions Of A Mask, Yukio Mishima. Mishima came up on a message board thread about Murakami. Good words were said, but maybe untrustable.
Masks, Fumiko Enchi. I don't know anything about this at all.
The Anatomy Of Dependence, Takeo Doi. Same with this. Still, my hopes? My hopes are high.

Also: Films will be viewed. Sweet mother of rock.

Just bought a handful of the books mentioned in the last post from Half.com. Also wanted to say that I should check out the films of Wong-Kar Wai. I've been hearing praise since In The Mood For Love came out, from smart people. No one I know personally, though.

In case the implication wasn't clear: I might be wait-listed currently, but I will fight like hell to get into this class. Although, apparently, the professor I had problems with last quarter was previously one of the teachers of this program, with the one who's teaching this quarter. Which disturbs me, but maybe unnecessarily.

Two things: Alex predicts that the next Animal Collective album will be their last. I disagree. I write this down as to remember it two albums from now. Their next album will be fucking amazing though. We've heard the songs in live form... Hoo. Sung Tongs is pretty great, but it's a weird album for me, as someone who doesn't take drugs. Also: the overall aesthetic seems overwhelming if you don't listen closely to each individual song. As an album, it's a cohesive piece of work, but listened to in passing as a whole, it's almost too cohesive, with a tendency to seem like one giant song with a few breaks. I didn't even think of We Tigers as being a great song until I decided to listen to it in keeping with my "I only like the short songs" theory, (There's another short song, Sweet Road, which blends in with the rest even listened to individually) and it was only today that I listened intently to Winters Love, which others have called the album's high point.

Also: ODB's autopsy results found him with a bag of cocaine in his body. He flew that day. The bag had a hole in it. Official cause is a heart attack, which I'm sure the burst bag of cocaine contributed to. Holy living fuck.

Wednesday I read my Ol' Dirty Bastard essay to class. I got positive feedback, but of a weird variety. People told me I could make money writing music reviews. Which is funny for two reasons: One being that I don't consider it a review, and another because of the fact that I wrote it five years after its release. Also, good music criticism should attempt to describe the music, which my piece, trying to avoid being called a review as it did, consciously avoided. I didn't even mention the beat to I Want Pussy. My professor didn't like it, of course, but he's a fucking douchebag, who insists on calling it a review and refused to call it an evaluation of gangsta rap culture in my eval, even after he said he'd change the terminology of "a review of a hip-hop record" if I gave him something to change it to. What a fucking fuckface of a fucker.

But after class was done, woo! The sun began shining it Olympia! Although not literally. It's been cold and wet outside. But inside, life's been swell. Thursday night was amazing. A song by The Art Project (Loren, Alex, and I) was recorded. A few practice takes. I fucked up the first chorus on each of the four takes. Still. Submitted it for rerecording for the Evergreen compilation, and the practices are currently being edited together by Alex with some guitar feedback drone (courtesy of Loren) to be thrown on top. What we have now sounds good though. Everyone got drunk. John Samson talked some hilarious crazy-talk, asking absurd questions. Like what would be the best combination of two movies. (I said Magnolia and Kill Bill vol. 1, and submitted Koyanaqatski [sic] and Touch of Evil on Alex's behalf. These are combinations that mean nothing, due to the absurdity of the exercise) Later he asked, out of the blue, what would be the best possible pinata. Hilarious night. Hopefully in future there'll be a nice mp3 of the song we recorded available for download.

Short story writing is currently half-stalled. I could probably push through without any problem. Which I might very well do, as the idea of finishing a story quickly is very appealing.

Haha, I'm a goddamn jackass. I woke up Alex to tell him that Animal Collective cover a Low song on this live set (Which, at an hour, is twice as long as the rest of their live sets) and then there's some talk and then fucking In Metal is played... The second half of the set is fucking Low. It's from some battle of the bands. Shit. Still. The songs early on are still pretty fucking great, and once I finish writing this I'll find out the exact moment when the switch is made from Animal Collective to Low.

And I'm finishing writing this now.

Had my eval today. I thought it wasn't going to happen until Thursday, but that's because I don't know what day it is ever. It was strangely anti-climactic. He caught a typo in my self-eval (effect for affect- that's a tricky one) that I didn't change. I guess there's a part of me that figures that no one will ever read the damn thing... There was also a John Cage joke in there. You know, for laughs.

I did get his piece of editing of my final piece though. It's one of the douchiest things ever. My professor is a bad man. The student I have the most distaste for is the one who is the most on his jock. His terrible old-man jock.

I would've loved to talk about how much he hates me. But this is the Northwest, where people are passive-aggressive. Still. After tomorrow, I will never have to deal with him again. Yay.

Got a new idea for writing a short story. Actually an old idea in terms of concept, but a new execution. I'll share it with you, because I'm not sure how feasible it is. This is the whole "magical realism meets indie rock" thing which is both my stated goal and the most retarded high-concept pitch to ever exist. Anyway, the idea has grown to the sort of thing that could be novel-length. But: What if I just wrote a short story out of it, by using the highly-condensed language of song-writing? The voice I wanted to aim for was that of The Hold Steady, which this new idea seems considerably more able to support. But if the ultra-condensed short-story thing doesn't work out, then what I have is one of those things which would have to be expanded to be a novel, which I'm not good at doing at all. It's pretty big in scope, at this point, you see.

I've got to be up in less than four hours. I've got to go to class. I want to get out early, in order to register for class as soon as I can. But according to my professor the asshole, missing the day in question (where I'd be hearing other people read their work... It would be a douchey thing to miss) would be the kind of thing to result in a loss of credit. Alex said he's be down to wake up at noon in order to sign me up, but Alex got pretty drunk tonight. Who knows what'll happen? I'm hoping for "Everything works out okay and I get into the good class."

My computer is virus-ridden. It craps out in a variety of different ways, and seems on the verge of crapping out permanently. The sound is skipping. Sometimes there are other sounds that betray the electric motorized roots. It acts like the wires are exposed and it is running on steam. Sometimes the screen will freeze. It will begin moving later.

I think some of this might be the fault of Firefox. I did have viruses before, but after downloading and installing Firefox, shit started freezing up.

I've sent some writings to myself, but there's a lot of music on this machine. I don't think it's going to die on me, as that is the kind of thing that tends to happen without warning.

Roommate John Samson has a subscription to Rolling Stone. This isn't a smart idea. Also not a smart idea is for said magazine to make a list of the 500 songs ever. I'm not going to talk about how bad their choices were. I will instead simply give my list of the 10 best songs ever.

1. Sweet Jane- The Velvet Underground
2. The King Of Carrot Flowers Part 1- Neutral Milk Hotel
3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea- Neutral Milk Hotel
4. Two-Headed Boy part 1- Neutral Milk Hotel
5. Two-Headed Boy part 2- Neutral Milk Hotel
6. Holland 1945- Neutral Milk Hotel
7. Ghost- Neutral Milk Hotel
8. Communist Daughter- Neutral Milk Hotel
9. Debaser- The Pixies
10. The King Of Carrot Flowers parts 2 and 3- Neutral Milk Hotel

Yes, this post is a joke. This post is also my real beliefs.

I watched Saturday Night Live for the first time in over a year tonight. I should've seen the Modest Mouse episode, but I didn't. Was I at a party or something? I don't know. I probably just forgot what day it was, as that happens a lot. It's the kind of thing I want to be good... A lot of people involved I just think of as being funny people (Rachel Dratch's face makes me laugh, pretty much all the time. She is awesome and I want her to be my friend.) or just... Fred Armisen is on that Les Savy Fav DVD, and he's apparently also on the Wilco I Am Trying To Break Your Heart DVD. Also, in that issue of Vice I recently sang the praises of, he talked about hating the sun. So it would be nice if he was a bad-ass too. I think he was in one sketch, and he was in it as the straight man. He didn't break character by laughing though, so he had that going for him.

But what I saw... I was into it more than other people. There was a lot of the laughing at their own jokes, which is never good, but there also seemed to be a large amount of anti-jokes, especially during Weekend Update, just shit that destroyed the momentum completely so I found it funny. Ben Affleck is really fucking terrible though. Wow. He was not very good at all. They tried to get him to do characters and use him like a cast member, which is in many ways, the best tack to take. But he's not very good at line-readings. Not at all. Also, the John Kerry impersonation was sad and pathetic and missed the target completely. There's also a few people (besides the host) who are painfully unfunny and yet get a lot of face time.

I've laughed at that show in recent years, you know? The Tracy Morgan Woodrow bits were really funny. And they only did it twice, which is for the best. (Is Kel the new black guy? If so, that's a bad choice for a black guy.) (Is Rachel Dratch's Debbie Downer a frequently reoccuring bit? The last two episodes I've seen have had such sketches... And even though she's funny, and it's anti-jokes kind of comedy, and I laugh at these sketches, reoccurring characters are terrible and should just not happen. You'd think that people would know. Like, no one wants to be the next It's Pat! Or at least I don't want to be the next It's Pat! Granted, there's no danger of that happening what with me not being on television, but still... It's Pat! is a fucking punchline.)

TV is terrible. I hope the people I like make the transition to movies and the ones I don't like become swallowed by their drug habits. (Although, shit, the ones I like... They were involved with Mean Girls. What the fuck? Not even that that's a particularly bad movie, as I've heard good things, so much as it's a movie that I would never see. It's not so much a comedy so much as it is just teensploitation, so it seems marketed to an uncaring demographic. So that's why the what the fuck.)

(So many parentheses.)

2004, Year In Review, Part 1: Music.

I could be saving this for a few more weeks, since 2004 isn't done yet. But, in terms of music, it is. Nothing's going to be released in the next month that I would be interested in, as the holiday season approaches. If it were, it would've leaked already, as I've heard stuff due for release next year already. That said: Wasn't a Built To Spill album supposed to come out this year?

Album of the year was, I guess, Liars' They Were Wrong So We Drowned. Which, come to think of it, I had heard by this time last year. I remember listening to it on someone else's stereo in the mods, on a disc burnt for me by Alex. My heroin-addict roommate at the time commented that it sounded like Sonic Youth. I think I had already presumptively called it the best album of 2004. It turned out I was right, because 2004 mainly sucked. And a lot of people hated that Liars record, thinking it unlistenable noise. They were wrong. I also saw Liars live, on March 26th, a day that is both my brother's birthday and Angus Andrews'. The show kicked ass, and kind of helped me put them over the edge.

I saw a lot of live music this year, all of which I could probably give the album of the year too in a half-assed fashion. I saw Deerhoof, and apparently Spin called Milk Man a perfect album. They're wrong. They also gave Liars their lowest rating. They are a bad magazine.

I also Mirah live... Thrice, actually, twice with the Black Cat Orchestra. C'Mon Miracle I've already burned myself out on, actually. I'd done it before it came out, due to the leak. At first I didn't like it so I kept on listening until I got it. I only get half of it, probably, the other half is dull borderline adult-contemporary. But the stuff with weird instruments? Those parts rule.

I also saw The Blow live. Her Poor Aim: Love Songs EP is pretty great, which is weird considering what it is.

For a while I was calling Girl Talk's Unstoppable my favorite album of the year. This was me, being insane. It's not that important. It's completely disposable plunderphonics fun. It's a collage record. Calling it my favorite album of the year is the twenty-first century equivalent of calling some garage band's album my favorite record of the year, like giving a shout-out to the Electric Prunes or something. It's just weird, even though it was incredibly enjoyable, and good for a few laughs. Not really amazing or anything.

This year I got really into the Mountain Goats, thanks mainly to the greatness of All Hail West Texas, which came out in 2002. That record's amazing. We Shall All Be Healed isn't nearly as good, as it's frequently restrained and maybe a bit too slickly produced. But I've been downloading a shitload of Mountain Goats, with iTunes currently listing me as having 237 songs. None of those are live shows.

I also listened to The Hold Steady, who John Darnielle recommends. Lyrically they're awesome... I posted a verse from an unreleased song a while back, and the ones on the album are pretty good too. The vocalist mainly just speaks and the backing music sounds like a bar band. So that's The Hold Steady. I guess they're good.

John Darnielle also likes Destroyer, who I listened to this year. Streethawk: A Seduction was quite the discovery, as was City Of Daughters. But the album that came out this year, Your Blues, isn't very good. It's consciously designed with a difficult, irritating, anti-rock aesthetic, and I didn't dig it. What-the-fuck-ever.

The Arcade Fire and The Fiery Furnaces: Overrated. Pish-posh!

!!! are rad, but the album they put out this year was kind of disappointing, although I guess it's good.

McLusky are great, and the album they put out this year doesn't seem to be getting the respect that it's due. But when I think about it, McLusky Do Dallas just has much more good songs than the new record. When I listened to them at work, I liked both almost equally, but the songs on that older record just stand out and distinguish themselves more.

Wolf Parade put out a really good EP this year, and I think their full-length should be rad. They're not to be confused with Wolf Eyes... Because Wolf Eyes are fucking terrible.

The Pixies put out two new songs this year. Hot damn. Amazing. I guess Loren didn't like Bam Thwok but then, Loren never heard the Pixies until this year so maybe he just doesn't know. Bam Thwok! Wakka wakka wakka! Oh, fuck yes.

This was the year I got to raid the KAOS record library. I guess the best things would be Silver Jews and Brainiac. Brainiac are amazing. Shit. I guess I hadn't heard Hissing Prigs In Static Couture until this year? That album owns. As do their other albums, which I didn't hear until this year. God, that kind of makes the year better.

I also got a job at a record store and it kind of sucked, which is too bad. That's the kind of fact that suggests I will never be happy.

Animal Collective's Sung Tongs sometimes seems like it should be the record of the year: I definitely liked it, and other people love it. It's one of those hippie-kid/indie rock/electronic crossover hits, kind of like Manitoba last year, but I just didn't dig it as much as other people. Most of the songs seemed kind of aimless. It's part of the overall aesthetic, and that whole freak-folk thing was big this year... And they were the only ones who did it well. Fuck Devendra, Joanna, and all the rest. Bah I say. The Animal Collective songs I liked were the ones least in that aesthetic, that were more focused and on-point. When that was the case, they owned it. I'm calling Who Could Win A Rabbit the single of the year. Leaf House might get that honor if it were released as a single, as that one's pretty damn great too.

The Go! Team also had some great singles, and an album I was disappointed by. They're kind of a singles band, but they were also mining the best aesthetic of the year. The songs are just frequently not there. There's never really songcraft in the traditional sense. The comparison to TV theme songs is apt. I liked it a lot in isolation.

Anyway, Who Could Win A Rabbit is the single of the year, but it didn't get any airplay, which isn't surprising at all. In terms of stuff that did get airplay: Modest Mouse. Their album sucked. And I bought it the day it came out. I remember in 2001, getting people into them and feeling bad as the word of their awesomeness got out to lame-asses. Now, all the lame-asses know about Modest Mouse. And I don't feel bad about it. I just feel shocked and strangely alienated from this band that was once one of my favorites. I hope their next record is incredibly weird and alienating. Not to ward off the new fans. But because I like record that are weird and alienating. Interpol got airplay this go-round too. The video for Slow Hands is hilarious: It seems like it's mainly about the one dude's hair. And Antics is mainly a piece of crap, even though it's not really that different.

Yeah, I hate to be the asshole who's all singing the praises of hip-hop radio. Because that asshole is frequently completely full of shit. But I'm calling the two best singles of the year that received radio airplay 99 Problems by Jay-Z and Jesus Walks by Kanye West. The Kanye joint is a distant second. 99 Problems is... I've only heard it twice, seriously. But in theory, it's just so damn great. The video has Vincent Gallo in it for some reason. And Rick Rubin is also in it, but that makes way more sense. I was talking to Alex about this earlier, and he said that there were the highlights of the radio this summer at his job, along with the three Outkast songs on Alaska radio. (two of them were played out by the end of 2003, the other one most people hated but I think is OK) He qualified that they were only highlights in terms of him just being glad they weren't playing the other shitty songs again. These songs got played a lot. But a funny connection between both these songs is they both make references to not being played on the radio. That's awesome. This is not to say that the radio isn't terrible, but to say that isn't to downplay the greatness of these songs either.

I guess I got more into hip-hop this year? I don't know. Still don't own any records. Mainly I just like the fact that some of it is good and there's a lot of the good stuff that I haven't heard a million times, as all my favorite records are the kind of thing I'll listen to three years from now. (Speaking of which: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain got reissued. That's probably the best thing to come out all year, but I haven't heard the bonus material yet.) So I can listen to Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy and finally get into all these classic records that will probably never mean anything to me, and can serve as background noise that still has lyrics to pay attention to if I see fit. And Ol' Dirty Bastard's Nigga Please is a fucking masterpiece, and one I only discovered this year. And then he died. Shit. Saddest death of the year, if it's not too crass to rate such things.

Last year I did one giant post that tied my life into the culture I experienced. This year my life was considerably less interesting. And very little dominated the culture I experienced, so there'll probably be more posts like this, that skim the plain as there were very little highlights. In future: Comics/books, my life, and movies. Movies will come last as a lot of stuff I want to see I won't be able to see for awhile, possibly until the middle of 2005. (Right now it's just Sideways, A Very Long Engagement, and The Life Aquatic, but that could change. What's sad is that those first two movies look kind of ass.) The other two ideas for posts might be condensed into one.

I kind of hate saying this, but the new issue of Vice owns. The theme is Hate. It's not solid gold. But it's pretty damn golden. Compelling and interesting and most of it makes you feel bad and fearful. There's an interview with one little girl who kicks ass and then an interview with two older little girls who make you weep for the future of humanity.

http://www.viceland.com/issues/v11n10/htdocs/index.php

Happy Thanksgiving America.

Every time I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, my heart hurts. Surely, I am unhealthy. It does seem odd that it happens as I eat the sandwich and not afterwards, but this is not to say that there is not a correlation. My heart hurts because I am unhealthy. I am unhealthy because of my diet. I used to think that the lack of effect on my outward appearance meant that I just had the most amazing metabolism, but now I am thinking that maybe my body is just broken.

It's late. I'm not asleep. Waking up late fucks with my sleep schedule rather harshly, and now I'm thinking that maybe I should just push it. I've got some things to do tomorrow, and there's a part of me that likes the idea of doing these things before sleep. The other part thinks this is impractical and I will just end up passing out before I can do anything and tomorrow will be even less productive than today. I keep on thinking I'm tired as I write, but when I lie down, sleep doesn't come. And I'm considerably more lucid in my writings now than I am when I'm tired.

I woke up late today. After 4:30, to be somewhat less general. It's pretty terrible. I've previously said that the key to enjoying life is to wake up late, but I have to reconsider. I woke up as the sun was going down. Nothing will get done today. I feel like shit.

I've got these two short stories I'm kind of working on. One is paused as the characters don't have names. Another is just kind of stalled the way things usually go, and I reread what I have and I don't like the way it reads. I also have the beginnings of a novel which is kind of on the backburner. Then there's shit for class, evaluations and more rewrites of the Ol' Dirty Bastard paper and editing other people's work. I can't focus on any of these things. My other roommates are being productive.

Currently, my reading for class is a book of philosophy by Michael Foucalt. I don't care, not even a little bit. Class next quarter had better work out.

Tomorrow I'll bake pies. And hopefully, my amplifier will arrive, along with the new McSweeney's. Mainly I just want to make music and read things I find interesting, and maybe inspiration will strike.

It's a bad place I'm in.

The Gorilla Foundation Manifesto,
by Brian Nicholson:

Art is a form of communication. It serves a different purpose than conversation, as it attempts to put forth larger, more abstract ideas. Philosophy attempts to do such a thing using the same tools as conversation, and it usually fails due to its insularity. In this and in many other ways, art is better than philosophy.

And yet, this manifesto isn't a work of art, although it is a communication. It is a conversation, a philosophical text, albeit one made by one imagining himself to be an artist. In time, the art will speak for itself. Until then, this will have to do in order to articulate a statement of goals.

Olympia, Washington, is a music town, lorded over by two twin tyrants. One of the problems created by such things is the very existence of such tyranny. The other regards the way they rule, and how they've earned it. Their policies don't speak to the interests of the people, or at least the people I associate with.

And so, Gorilla Foundation exists in the service of both democracy and good art.

Gorilla Foundation breaks down both the hierarchy of the scene, and the distinction between performer and audience. Not fully, as to do so might lead to anarchy and chaos, which is good for a laugh but not necessarily good for art. No, but a balance is struck: Gorilla Foundation exists not in a chaotic state, but it does create something of a shambolic one.

Gorilla Foundation is a band, but it is a band with a fluid membership, open to any who are interested and present at any given time. It has charter members, but that kind of doesn't matter. In interest of democracy, you being there first doesn't mean shit. Take that, scenesters. It doesn't matter how early how arrived. Saying this may downplay the importance of several rather important people, present at initial conversations. Sorry.

The nucleus of Gorilla Foundation are the songs of Gorilla Foundation, whose lyrics are penned by me, but whose melodies are crafted by Evan Hashi. This is partly because Evan Hashi is far superior to I in areas of songcraft, and partly because collaboration is a key part of Gorilla Foundation. It's all about putting your trust in another person's hands. This might undermine the songs I write, and it might confuse the audience's persepective of those songs. It will assuredly create a kind of tension which I find inherently fascinating in collaborative works.

The nature of Gorilla Foundation creates more tension, and undermines the songs. For the performance of the songs, the main members are also Evan and myself. Evan provides the song with their spine, the vocals, the melody, the lead guitar line, the basics of structure. I conduct the improvisational rock and roll orchestra that swirls around that structure.

And this is where the other members come in. They come bearing their own instruments, and they are then conducted. There will be a lot of percussion, a rhythmic cacophony. There may be horns, there may be strings. There may be bounding acoustic guitars, providing counterlines. There may be harmony vocals. There may be basslines, going off the guitar and imploring those not playing instruments to dance.

There is no stage, there is no center. At a Gorilla Foundation performance, there are a good number of things to pay attention to, of utmost importance is the sound.

The sound: Indie rock. Because it speaks to me, goddammit. Because I call Pavement my favorite band, but I know I can't write melodies that good. Pavement were loose and spontaneous, there is a happy energy to their records that I seek to reproduce with Gorilla Foundation, because I can't reproduce it with my other theoretical musical venture, The Art Project.

The Art Project, along with the other musical ventures of Evan and the others involved (Notable in particular is Loren Thor, present in the initial discussions, member of The Tasteful Nudes, and advocate of Olympia scene overhaul) seek to legitimize Gorilla Foundation. The other ventures are to make Gorilla Foundation seem inviting to people outside our smallish circle. We want to paint a picture of a new scene, to replace the one that currently exists. (Well, Loren and I do, Evan seems much more content) That is what the other bands do. Gorilla Foundation is a way to prevent the flaws of revolution, lest we become tyrants ourselves. We our inviting others along, for we insist that ours is a democracy. And its a democracy open to current scene participants as well: We are not opposed to them as people, because some have made some very good records indeed, and some of them are probably perfectly decent as people. We are just opposed to what we view as their rule.

Ours is an open invitation. Come to shows, bring instruments. Join us, for ours is an exciting movement to be a part of; and with your aid, the music might very well end up being exciting as well. Excitement is a very large part of what we are trying to communicate with our art. There are other things as well, but they are comparatively boring. It is exciting to be excited. In a similar vein, it is also rocking to rock. Come rock.

Our protagonist pauses the generic early-nineties indie rock (Archers Of Loaf, again) and then removes the headphones from his head. He asks to anyone who is around to hear, "Eggo makes Cookies And Cream waffles, has the whole world gone mad?" And he hears no response. So he leaves his room and wanders around his dormitory, to discover it was empty. There was no one around to hear his empty words. Don't you hate this fucker?

He was called a hipster earlier in the morning, the kind of accusation that gets his blood up, for no good reason. Oh he can argue the charges. And he would have a good point. These are not the kind of things levied at him in Philadelphia, not even a little bit. But here, at Evergreen, in Olympia, where such creatures may actually exist, there is some confusion. In Philadelphia he is just a lovable loser and no one gives a shit what he listens to, they're just surprised he doesn't like The Misfits.

But let's not defend him too quickly. Because, you know, the third person thing? Oh my god.

Clever kids are killing me. For one, they ain't that clever.

The latest in the ongoing process: The magic eightball/impending death anecdote posted here will be the core of a short story, one that attempts the "balancing magical realism with the indie-rock-kid world in which I live" ambition also posted here. Don't steal that idea bastards!

So, it's 6:19 AM and I haven't fallen asleep. And I have class at 11.

I did have a brief go at sleep, around 1 or so. It didn't take. I woke up again, laid in bed, thought about class, then did some writing. I don't want to do anymore writing about class tonight. And I don't really want to go through the trouble of writing about what I wrote about.

So why am I writing here?

Because I can't seem to fall asleep.

So, how about a quick defense of Pitchfork? It's fallen off lately, or maybe I'm just seeing the seams. I'll defend Mark Richardson's music writing, and I'll say that William Bowers' self-indulgent meta-pieces work better than most of the others. There are other people with varying taste and varying writing ability. I think that Ryan Schreiber generally has decent opinions, although his actual review-writing leaves a lot to be desired. But those first two are fucking fascinating music writers, and they both come at it from different approaches.

And suddenly I'm tired again.