At Least I Don't Listen to Boston pt. 2

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T ACTUALLY THINK HALL AND OATES IS A GOOD BAND, I JUST LIKE THAT ONE SONG "FAMILY MAN" BECAUSE IT'S CATCHY. SAME WITH THE OTHER SONGS LISTED IN THE PREVIOUS ENTRY. I REALIZE THAT WRITING THIS DISCLAIMER IS A SELF-CONCIOUS ATTEMPT TO SALVAGE MY COOL FACTOR, AND A MEEK ATTEMPT AT THAT.

In a continuation of the previous entry, let's pretend that hipsters actually DO like the music they pretend to like (this is probably true). Imagine this guy with muttonchops in a Tilly and the Wall (don't listen to them) teeshirt who is laughing along with similarly facial-hair-ed dudes about how ridiculous Lionel Richie is when, deep down, "Hello" was this guy's theme song to his first girlfriend. If all hipsters feel similarly, then imagine how wild it would be if all hipsters took the edge off of what they were saying and openly declared their previously ironic favorite songs to be actually legit. The scene wouldn't change that much, the hipsters would still drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and sing along to "Dust in the Wind" when they're drunk, but now it would be sincere. Eventually this would change the whole cirriculum of what is cool, and soon enough Hall and Oates would be playing at SXSW in a much anticipated comeback like they were the Pixies or something.

And you know who would be the ultimate heroes of cool now? Middle aged divorced women on cruises crying into their margaritas to "Amanda" by Boston. This would be the new face of French indie movie cool.

Think about it.

Journey: The most influencial band on the new electro-mono folk ballad scene.

At Least I Don't Listen to Boston.

I have my suspicions about hipsters.

Part of the whole "thing" about being a hipster is that they must listen to music ironically, which has never made much sense to me. Why would you want to pretend that you like a song that is awful? And, unfortunately for my hipster status, most of the songs that they like ironically, I like genuinely.

Here's a short list of the kinds of songs that the cool kids PRETEND to like that I ACTUALLY like. I realize that doing this is probably going to lead to my demise in any sort of legitimate social circle. But I just really don't mind yacht rock.

"Gloria" by Laura Branigan.
"Push It to the Limit" from the Scarface soundtrack.
"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey.
"Family Man" by Hall and Oates
"Jump" by Van Halen.

Etc. Etc. I have extremely well-developed music taste and enough "street cred" to get by with ironically liking those songs. But I don't. I just think they're decent singles that can get stuck in my head. I'd never get away at a hipster party because if these songs came on (ironically!), I'd know the lyrics. And then it would become all too clear that my hair isn't fluxus enough, my jeans not skinny enough, and my nose not coke-filled enough. So I'll just hang out at my house and listen to Phil Collins and clean my room for now.

Total Vacay!

Yo.

I'm going to Florida in two weeks, which is pretty rad. I've been to Florida once and I absolutely despised it. Granted, I stayed in an overpriced condo in the God-forsaken swamp of Orlando. I didn't even go to Disney World. This time I'm going to Stuart, which I've been told is near West Palm Beach. My dad and I are going to go visit my grandpa, who resides there during the non-hot months. My Papa Al is really a one-of-a-kind saint of sorts. He may be the most selfless, peaceful person I know. But he also has long term battles with my aunt Christine's cat and steals rhubarb from the neighbor's yard. Basically, he's a baller. Also, he listens to smooth jazz.

I love my family.

So I'm assuming I will be spending lots of time on the beach, which means I get to DISPLAY MY TATTOO. Finally. It's been a ridiculously cold winter and spring, and those little winged cats want to fly freely on my left calf for the world to see. Spending lots of time on the beach also means that I might see a manatee! Or a shark! Or old leather bag women in bright orange bikinis, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm excited to get out of Indiana, although a few weeks ago I went to Chicago with my boyfriend for his birthday. That was an epic adventure full of tropical fish (The Shedd Aquarium) and massive coronaries (Bennigan's). I'll post later about that. But right now my fluffy kitten Dobby is sick, and I need to tend to him!

A Change Is Gonna Come

You know how sometimes you have those miraculous, focused moments where everything makes sense and you feel like you really KNOW what to do in this life?

Well I just listened to "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Otis Redding for the first time, and I feel like the rest of my life can be that moment with that song.

Wow.

Good Thing I'm Literate.

Pleasingly (although not pleasing for my room's cleanliness, and my mom's happiness with me), I've been reading a lot lately. At my job, which happens to be at a ridiculously modern Aspen-esque cabin with rows of bookshelves filled with intellectual finds I will probably never understand (I don't "get" Kafka)(my job is babysitting for a scholarly couple--their baby sleeps a lot so I have time to notice these things without endangering the longevity of my career there), I came across The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. I know my mom liked the book a lot, and I vaugely knew it was made into a crappy movie with Kevin Spacey. But now that I've started reading it, I've been really pulled into it. It's about a middle aged semi-loser widower named Quoyle with two kids that moves to his native Newfoundland, basically. But the book profiles the geology of Newfoundland and its inhabitants with such stark lyricism (without being ostentacious-a word I learned today!) that it opens up a new style of writing for me. Also, Proulx describes Newfoundland very vividly and it seems a lot like Rockport, Massachusetts--the place where my mom grew up and I vacation often. Except people in Rockport don't club seals during the winter. So anyway, I reccomend it.


Oh, and it won the Pulitzer Prize.


I also picked up Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman, one of my favorite music journalists. He wrote the hillarious and poingant (as poingant as any memoir about hair metal can be) Fargo Rock City, which I've read more times than I can count. This book is about a road trip he took while writing for the uber-hipster magazine Spin, visiting the famous landmarks where rock stars died all over the country. But that's the bare bones, really; more of the book is about the death of parts of his own life; more specifically, his relationships with women. This book is far more poetic than Fargo Rock City, but still is filled with side-splitting one-liners and observations. For example (in this part of the book he's talking about Sid Vicious's supposed murder of Nancy Spungen):

"Vicious purposefully OD'd on smack before the case ever went to trial, so I suppoose we'll never really know what happened in that room, though he did tell the police, "'I did it because I'm a dirty dog.' This is not a very convincing alibi. He may as well have said, 'I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one.'"

-Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live

And that's only page 7.

It's probably the most relavant reference to Jay-Z I've heard in a long while, except for Barack Obama telling journalists that he's been listening to a lot of Jay-Z lately. Apparently he loves "the art of hip-hop."

He also bowled a 37 in Pennsylvania recently.

A 37!

Barack Obama: I got 99 problems, and my bowling score is definitely one of them.

This blows my mind, kind of. My boyfriend and I recently started going bowling once a week, and while we're still horrible, at least we don't get failing test scores (or even D's!). But then again, he's just a skinny politician. And I'm a floppy klutz that reads instead of cleaning her room. So there you have it.

If I Made a Magic Mix Tape

It would have all of the White Stripes' albums, and "Push It to the Limit" from the Scarface soundtrack on it.

Oh, and I tried to go to the new Sonic today but there was so much traffic that there were FOUR TRAFFIC COPS GUIDING THE CARS. So I went to Ci Ci's instead.