Bar Flies Like The Wind

The Real Cost?

2012-02-09T01:58:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I read an article that a local music promoter had put up on her Facebook account entitled "Want to Be a Rock Star? You'll Need $100,000". All in all, I found it a pretty worthwhile read, especially for aspiring musicians.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, the gist of the article is that being a musician is expensive, and if you really want to devote yourself to chasing a dream, you had better be prepared to spend some cash in that pursuit. I fully agree. Lord knows I've spent a pretty insane amount of money on all the trappings: recording, CD duplication, making merch, van rentals for tours, etc. It's not easy and it's not for the faint of financial heart. If I sold off every last bit of gear that I own and gave up the rehearsal studio I love so dearly, for the year 2012 I could probably come close to putting myself through grad school again. Yeah, it's that bad. But I don't, because I love playing music, I love being in bands, and I love the friendships I have developed as a byproduct.

But back to the article. There are a few marked differences: first off, the authors, who are members of a band called Two Lights" are further along the musical journey than I have ever been, and they're significantly younger. They are legitimately up-and-coming, and I respect that. However, the management company they pay for and their booking agent don't come cheap at all. They record in high end studios that cost a lot of money, and despite tracking some stuff on their own, I'm sure they work with at least one, possibly more high-end producers who always fetch a pretty penny. Hello Monster is starting to go down that rabbit hole at the minute as we are finally starting to undertake some recording for our new album, so I am more than aware what the going rates for studios and producers can be. In the meantime, does anyone know how I can sell a kidney on the black market? That might help offset some of the pain.

However, in the article, and this is really the heart of what got me writing this blog tonight, the authors start lumping in some costs that I find much more suspect. They lump in a lifetime of music lessons, totaling about $30k. Yes, I took lessons too, but I did so when I was in grade school and a bit in high school. I learned a lot from instructors all along, but did I say to myself when I was in the 7th grade "Bill, you could keep on learning and possibly become a rock star, or would you rather bank some of that money and have an easier time paying your rent when you're 30?" Of course not, I said I wanted to learn guitar, and taking lessons helped. Having said that, ever since I started playing real shows at about 18 or so, I have never taken any additional training. I've bought books and studied some theory on my own and stuff, but that's it.

They also mention the cost of taking taxis to gigs, and paying a drummer to play with them. Both are absurd to me. Yes, I know, nobody owns a car in New York, and if they do, they never give up their parking spot, but you're in a band. They might as well count the money they spend on the subway to practice, or the electricity in their apartment while they are songwriting, since it's all the same. As far as paying a drummer, maybe they should do what so many other musicians have done with great success: find a drummer who wants to play in your band, not just some hired gun who you have to pay to play.

What's worse, is they talk about the exorbitant cost of living in New York, because being in NY is apparently tantamount to their success as musicians. This is absolute bull. Yes, I live in San Francisco, and yes, I am exposed to much more as a result. But look at a band like REM, at one point one of the most popular bands in rock, and they're from Athens, Georgia. Pavement, the gods of the indie rock scene, are from friggin' Stockton fer chrissakes. In short, if you are good, your music will be heard, and if people like it, it doesn't matter where you are. Your music will be heard and it can catch on anywhere, then you can relocate when a record label or management company is willing to pay for you to live where they want you to live.

Finally, they factor in "lost wages" - since they are spending so much time working on being in a band and making it, they aren't able to work full time, and the older brother apparently even has to turn down writing worth $400 a week. Unfortunately, the vast majority of bands I know don't have this luxury. If my bandmates don't work, we don't eat. We don't have somewhere to live. (yes, the irony of an unemployed man writing these words is not lost on me) I know of two different bands who are currently living in a space that is also their rehearsal space, one of which had it so bad that they all had to get memberships at 24 hour fitness so that they could shower. So don't get me started on wages or making sacrifices for your music.

Phew, now I feel a little better. Everyone who has legitimate aspirations of making it in music also doesn't have the delusions of what the cost of those aspirations are. You spend money on gear, promotion, recording, the whole shebang, and maybe some day you get big enough where you can play all that gear in a bigger room for more people, people who give a damn about your music and might actually be more receptive to buying your merch. But until then, the boxes of unsold CDs will continue to crowd our garages, the epic speaker cabinets will still only live up to part of their usefulness, and we'll all hope that the next person that comes to our show is that person who can finally help us get to a point where we don't have these worries anymore.

Sweet Solitude

2012-01-26T01:07:00.000-08:00

This is going to be another one of those posts where I tiptoe around a question because blogging is often a way for me to figure things out. I try not to do these too often, or if I do, I at least try to keep them lighthearted or quirky enough to make them a fun read. Tonight, however, I really feel the need to throw some words up on this page and hopefully some of you read it, and even more hopefully, some of you have an opinion or a take on the whole situation (not necessarily specific to me, just in general).

See, I'm currently reading this book called "Generation Me" which is all about the emerging trend of bolstering self-confidence and entitlement over everything else, and how it is actually making the people it is supposed to be helping miserable by setting up false assurances. Thus far (I'm only about a third of the way through the book) it seems to be very convincing and well thought out, and I'd recommend it to most anyone in my generation. But I'm not here to write a book review, rather, there was one line that really struck a chord with me:

There's also the obvious danger of getting too accustomed to being on your own. If you learn to love yourself and your solitude, it will be a lot harder to adjust once you do find someone to share your life with.

A grim look into my future?

Thing is, for those of you who know me, I haven't had a real serious relationship for some years now, and while yes, there are all sorts of times that I think "I'm a little lonely" or "I don't like being the one single person in the room" there are also hundreds of times where I appreciate being single and only having to account for myself. But my question is this: is that such a bad thing? Is it really detrimental to be happy by yourself? Are we still resorting to judging your happiness and or the fullness of your life by romantic relationships? What happened to self-acceptance and contentment with yourself? What happened to independence? How about friends and family? I got that up the wazoo. I have two excellent roommates, about a sum total of eight bandmates, all of whom I love like brothers. Does this still make me a risk of having difficulty adjusting my lifestyle when I get in a relationship?

My main gripe is that the author is sub-textually inferring that you need to compromise your lifestyle in order to be in a relationship. She implies, rather indirectly, that you need to concede parts of your life you might enjoy in order to build a relationship, which I think is dangerous. Yes, I know a lot of people who absolutely need someone else in their life, and being the singleton that I am, I sometimes have trouble wrapping my head around that, but am I hopeless because I still want to spend time with my friends or my bands when I date someone?

Yes, I know compromises or concessions are made, but that is something we all do in every relationship, don't we? Don't most of us also crave some amount of space from time to time? I love hanging out with my roommates, of course, but I also love nights like this where I can close my door, put on my headphones, and feel like I'm in a house by myself. Does that make me crazy? Am I just a loner? Have I already fallen so deep into this "love yourself and your solitude" mindset that I am jinxing the possibility of meeting someone?

Bah, there I go with all the questions. That's always a good time to stop. Still, if you have any insight, feel free to comment here, call or text if you know how to get a hold of me, or shoot me an email (again, if you have the necessary info). In the meantime, I'm just going to sit here in my bedroom and love my solitude.

The Night Owl Problem

2012-01-06T03:03:00.000-08:00

I was first going to write this post back when I was working, but I suppose the fact that I'm starting it at one in the morning on a Thursday should pack the same amount of gravitas.

Here's the thing: I am not a morning person. I never really have been. Given the choice (as I have at the moment) I prefer to turn in somewhere between three and four in the morning and wake up around noon. It's a weird way of going about life, I understand that, but it's just what suits me best. However, whenever I am employed, that whole lifestyle is turned on its ear: I have to be awake and functioning far earlier than I'd ever choose to be, however no matter how hard I seem to try, I can't naturally acclimate to waking up at 7:00 or 7:30. Try as I may to break the pattern, my body seems to resist it. Even if I try to "get to bed early" (read: midnight or so) I still find myself laying wide awake in bed for hours on end until my body is finally ready to rest. Then when the weekend hits, I'm back to my old habits.

This is why, as I fairly broadly advertise, I am a bit cantankerous in the mornings. I have warned people for almost as long as I have known them: if you happen across me before about ten a.m., coffee or not, chances are, you will be met with some manner of scowl like you just insulted my mother. I honestly don't really want to be that way, but it seems like my body is much like a porcupine with its spikes: it just wants to send a clear "do not touch" message to anyone who can see me. I have famously either glared at or nearly flipped off a number of friends and acquaintances who give a gentle honk to get my attention while I'm on my way to work. Perhaps the most notable of these times was about six months back when my friend's brother-in-law saw me as I was crossing the street in front of his car at a stop sign. He gave a quick honk to say "good morning" and I stopped dead in my tracks in front of his car, thinking he was honking that I wasn't getting through the intersection quickly enough. As I wildly gesticulated and yelled "STOP SIGN" at him, he rolled down his window and said hi. Apparently I seemed so irate that he felt he had to text my friend to have him apologize for the "unnecessary spike in blood pressure" he had caused me.

What amazes me more is the fact that, when working, I tend to end up being awake for so long any given day. It could be the reason that no matter how much coffee, Red Bull, or 5 Hour Energy drinks I have, I am still tired until about 10 or 11 in the morning - I think my body just tells itself that it is either still asleep or about ready to go back to bed. More interesting is in the evenings: I can be dead on my feet at 8pm, and almost ready to go to sleep, but suddenly, once the clock gets close to about 11pm, I wake up like an eight year old who just drank a two liter Mountain Dew. It's like I miss my window to fall asleep, and as a punishment, I am stuck awake for at least three more hours. It's uncanny. What's worse is that during that time is hands-down when I am most productive. I'd say most of my college papers and probably at least a third of my master's thesis were written between eleven at night and four in the morning. It's just how I work, so as a result, I feel guilty since I know I'm not as productive at work as I can be.

One other snag in this situation is that what should be the obvious solution of finding a job where I can work nights is that, in all honesty, I don't want to because, again, I get so much done during this time of the day/night/morning that I wouldn't want to use all this focus and energy for work only to be asleep or unproductive during my other waking hours.

In short, I'm kind of a mess and this post has dragged on far too long already. I'll be back in the next couple of days with something that is hopefully a tad more entertaining than this, but as I said, I've had the idea for this post for some time now.

The Closest Thing You'll Get To a New Year's Post

2012-01-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

Yeah. It's New Year's Day. (Note: it was in fact New Year's Day when this sentence was written) You know what? It's just a Sunday. I am not a big fan of New Year's Eve or the festivities that accompany, so usually I tend to bow out of most invitations for that day.

I was thinking about maybe doing some kind of music review "best of" kind of post, but the simple fact of the matter is that 90% of the stuff I've been listening to this year didn't even come out this year. (Though I will say that both the new Thrice and the new Manchester Orchestra albums are both worth buying and listening to about a hundred times each)

I was going to try to write some kind of "ten best shows I've been to this year" list, but I realized that would be absolutely impossible. The reason is, I have gone to a stupid amount of live shows this year. So, in the spirit of lists, here is Bill's "I went to that show" list for the year 2011. Seeing it all down on paper kind of makes me wonder if I have a problem.

"I Went to That Show In 2011"

1/22 - Old 97's at The Fillmore
1/27 - This Charming Band and Dead Souls at The Rickshaw Stop
2/8 - Sebadoh at The Great American Music Hall
2/17 - Cake at The Fillmore
2/20 - Godspeed You! Black Emperor at The Great American Music Hall
2/21 - Man or Astro-Man? at The Independent
4/14 - Two Door Cinema Club at The FIllmore
5/1 - Explosions in the Sky at The Fox Theater
5/9 - Mogwai at The Regency Ballroom
5/10 - The Raveonettes at Bimbo's
5/18 - The One AM Radio at Bottom of the Hill
6/18 - Matt and Kim & The Thermals at The Fox Theater
7/21 - Soundgarden at The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
7/22 - The Ogres and The La Teen-Os at The Knockout
7/23 - Audiodub at The Independent
8/13 - Beta State at The Rockit Room
8/13 - Outside Lands Music Festival
8/24 - Motion City Soundtrack at The Fillmore
9/4 - Daikaiju at Serra Bowl
9/27 - Jimmy Eat World at The Fillmore
10/5 - Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, and Matt & Kim at Shoreline Ampitheater
10/9 - Yellowcard at Slim's
10/16 - Treasure Island Music Fesitval
10/18 - The Airborne Toxic Event at The Fillmore
10/30- Cake at The Fox Theater
11/4 - Minus the Bear at Slim's
11/5 - Thrice at The Regency Ballroom
11/11 - Benvenue at Sub-Mission Gallery
11/30 - Rhett Miller at the Swedish American Hall
12/9 - Death Cab for Cutie and The Airborne Toxic Event at The Masonic Auditorium
12/17 - Lagwagon at Slim's
12/30 - Kalifornia Redemption at The Phoenix Theater

I am sure there are others, and I didn't include shows that I personally performed at, which would add another 15 or 20 to that list.

Hopefully in 2012 I will be able to make enough money to afford to go to that many shows again.

Getting Comfy

2011-12-28T02:32:00.000-08:00

As the winter is wearing on, everything is all about comfort these days. People are putting on their comfortable winter coats and scarves (yes, even in San Francisco. I am aware that we are all wimps), they are eating comfort food, and doing "comfort things" I suppose. What those are, I can only guess. I just picture sitting by a fire, maybe cuddling, maybe drinking hot toddies.

Ladies, I would just like to say that at this moment, my schedule is almost entirely clear and open if any of you wish to pursue any of these activities with a certain charming and verbally awkward blogger. But my chimney is broken, so you have to supply the fireplace.

I find that throughout the year, I have a whole different comfort tradition: I am a comfort reader. It sounds silly perhaps, but from time to time I just feel the need to go back and read books that I know and love. Sometimes it's because I want to re-capture a feeling that a book stirs up in me, sometimes it's because I want to re-immerse myself in a world that the book creates, and sometimes it's just that I love the story so much that I want to take it all in again. I don't know if this is a unique feature to myself or not. As far as I know, a number of people are not re-readers. I'm not always, but there are a number of books that I can pick up and read pretty much any time and I know I'll be happy about it.

This came up in conversation the other day: I was discussing holiday traditions with some friends, and I mentioned that for probably about six years straight from the time I was a young teenager, I used to read Stephen King's The Shining every Christmas break. It started because it was the first chance I had to do pleasure reading after my Fall semester had ended, really. I had purchased a copy at a garage sale, and found myself so taken with it that I couldn't put the book down. It's the 100% honest truth that reading that book is when I realized I needed glasses: I'd find that reading for more than 2-3 hours at a time would give me one hell of a headache, so I'd have to stop reading, little did I know it was due to eye strain from my farsightedness. But I digress. I read that book in a few days, and decided then and there to make it an annual tradition, and I think that, especially given my recent lack of employment, this is the perfect chance to re-kindle that tradition.

There are other titles of course, the Scott Pilgrim series being a prime example, where I just feel like it is totally worth my time to go back and read it all again. Specifically in that case, they are quick reads, so I can usually knock it all out in a day or two. On the Road is obviously an "A-number-one" example (between pleasure reading and thesis prep, I have got to be nearing my twentieth read of that one).

But I'm not here to catalog books I read all the time, (you can check out my GoodReads account for that). Rather, I am curious about why certain books are so re-readable, and if I'm a freak for having reading habits like this. Is it a book nerd thing? (I hesitate to say "scholar" because if you know me, you know that's not a term I'd usually apply to myself) Is it something else? Is it something that authors actually strive for? I know this seems disjointed, but I guess I just have to keep hearkening back to the base question: am I alone in my comfort reading repetition? I know a lot of people who re-read books, but are there people like me out there who re-re-re-re-read stuff? If any of you out there have an opinion, please chime in, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Dream Big

2011-12-22T16:30:00.000-08:00

I had a dream the other night. It was about a girl. A real girl. A girl I "kind of have a thing for" I suppose you could say. We don't have a relationship or anything like that - we know each other by name, we interact from time to time, and we are friends on Facebook, but that's the extent of it. She has a boyfriend, and myself being an upstanding young man, I would never stand in the way of that. Honestly, I don't believe, even in my most delusional mind, that she thinks of me the way I think of her. Yet still, she popped up in a dream I had the other day. I never tend to remember a whole lot of my dreams, so the details are hazy, but I remember the gist of it, and that is what this whole blog is about today.

See, usually when someone talks about a dream involving the opposite sex, especially a member of the opposite sex that they are attracted to, it is some kind of sexy dream, or a dream where that person is just so overwhelmingly in to you that you wake up feeling like a million bucks. It's something that bolsters your confidence and creates a reality in your dream world that you can never accomplish in waking life. But here's the thing about my dream from the other day: it was wildly awkward, probably just as awkward as I would be in real life. Instead of dreaming of fun sexytimes and what I could do with this girl given the lack of restrictions, relationships, and hangups, what did I do? I awkwardly talked with her for like half and hour, at the end of which I was just as oblivious about her feelings towards me as I am in real life.

So what the hell is wrong with me? Has my subconscious become just as awkward and stammery around women in my dreams as I am in real life? For all my ways with words in written English, for my master's degree in literature, I am absolutely fucking terrible at talking to women. But why should this carry over into my dreams? Shouldn't I be the great Lothario that I always wanted to be in real life? Shouldn't I be witty and charming and suave? Apparently not. Apparently my dreams are pretty much useless in fulfilling any of those desires, even in a dream world of my own creation. Apparently my dreams are trying to tell me that no matter how I try or how far I may go, I will never be that charmer that I would like to be.

Maybe it's for the best. Maybe I'm not meant to be the silver-tongued ladies man. Maybe I will in fact find a girl who doesn't mind the fact that i trip over my words like a verbal Inspector Clouseau. Hopefully, some day my long, mildly awkward pauses wil come into vogue and I'll be every girl's dream come true. But until that day comes, I will continue to be kind of quiet, always short on things to talk about, and a huge fan of telling women I'm interested in that "yeah... you know... I think you're, well.... pretty awesome. And maybe.... some time that works for both of us maybe.... we could, ah, you know, like, get coffee? Or a drink? Or dinner? My treat? I think? Because, yeah, your'e pretty awesome and you're pretty much... you're... definitely almost exactly the kind of person that I want to get a drink or some food with. But if not that's cool." and then quietly slurk away while they are trying to suss out exactly what I'm yammering about.

Revival?

2011-12-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to go making a bunch of crazy promises or anything, but seeing as how I will now have free time again, and feel like I need to make a more concentrated effort to write regularly regardless of my employment status, I hope to bring this blog, like a phoenix, back from the ashes.

But seeing as how I'm at work at the moment, all I'm going to do is insert this video, because it is just everything that is right with the world right now for me.

But check back soon, I will be writing here again. At least for a little bit, ya know?

Rockstar

2011-06-14T01:43:00.000-07:00

A friend recently posed an interesting question to me: as a musician, would I prefer to have a handful of okay hit songs, or to have one major super-hit.

I answered as truthfully as possible, that I'd totally take any string of mid-quality songs, so long as I could keep on playing music as long as possible. While I earnestly believe that this answer is as true as possible, there are some interesting considerations to make.

First off, the case for being a one-hit wonder:

Superstardom - This is hard to overlook; I believe that most everyone who plays music somewhere deep in their consciousness dreams of the spotlight, of being on the cover of magazines, and of hearing your songs played everywhere you go
Royalties - let's face it, when you have a mega-hit, people want to use it for everything. It will probably be in some movies or at least used on a TV show. Radio stations will play it day and night. Soon you'll be hearing your smash hit being used to sell everything from cars to candy to hair restoration treatments. And each time those few notes hit the airwaves, you'll be making a few cents. And that's just sweet.
Giant Shows & Diva Perks - When you have that one song that everyone wants to hear, your label/manager/promoters/etc. are going to make sure that as many people as possible can hear it. This means opening for acts who are way bigger and playing venues that most bands can only dream of. When this happens, you don't have to lift a finger. There is simply no chance in hell if you're playing something like the Oakland Coliseum or Bill Graham Civic Auditorium that you're going to have set up your own drum kit or really even tune your own guitar. You just have to show up, not be strung out, and play that one song that everyone wants to hear.

Now, the downside of mega-hits

Burnout - Think about this logistically for a moment or two. You know how you get all tired and bored with songs when they get played out? You know how quickly you reach for the mute button when you hear that song in that commercial? You know how much you gripe when that super hit keeps showing up on your Genius playlist? Now imagine having that happen PLUS having to go out and perform that song three to four times a day for shows, radio live performances, mall openings, or whatever. Do you think you'd EVER want to hear that song again? Yeah, me neither.
Pressure for a follow-up - There is an almost mind-boggling misnomer about the idea of a "sophomore slump". Bands that blow up on an initial release are really cursed. From the time that big hit or super debut album drops, the pressure is on to be equally impressive on the second record. But you're mired in a huge catch-22: if your follow up sounds too much like your original release, then you're considered uncreative or stale. If you stray too far from your original sound, you're persecuted for changing too much. It's a total no-win situation.
The Brightest Star Burns Fastest - Yes, this is also connected to the "burnout" factor, but this has to do much more with public perception. The term one-hit wonder exists for a reason. Do you think the Toadies wish they could write another "Possum Kingdom"? So do I. But let's be honest; writing a really great popular song is a very difficult art, and doing it consistently is an incredibly rare feat. Unfortunately, the much more common occurrence is that you write one great song (or group of songs) and that helps you crack the big time, and you spend most of your career trying to live up to that.

Now, a couple of considerations on the benefit of being a band that just consistently puts out quality music, but no super hits:

Sustainability - The gold standard that most all musicians I know hold is: can you pay your bills by doing nothing beyond being a musician? If so, you have officially made it. I just spoke to a friend of a friend last night who makes his living as a musician, and despite being successful enough to warrant his own wikipedia article as a musician, he said that he spent his first two years touring in bands being essentially homeless, because he couldn't afford to be on the road and still pay for rent for an apartment back home. Still, he can do it now and he doesn't exist solely on ramen and canned soup. But still, for any serious musician, the ability to do nothing else but write, play, and record music is an absolute dream.
Experiences - I believe that you haven't really experienced places until you've played there in a touring band. By doing so you not only get to see what the night life is like, you have some free time in the day to wander around and experience a place, and if you're touring on the cheap, you usually meet fantastic people and have some of the greatest stories you're ever going to be able to tell as a result. You have some nights where you're totally blown away or caught off guard by some smaller towns or venues, and you have some nights where you can only take comfort in the fact that it's finally over. Still, it's what every musician I know wants to do for as long as humanly possible.
Artistic fulfillment - This is what we also call the "cover band conundrum" - if you make a living as a musician playing original material, you get to enjoy having your music heard night in and night out by groups of people who, for the most part, just want to go out, enjoy themselves, and hear some music. They won't be calling to hear your hit single, but they are also more likely to pay attention to your whole set, rather than waiting for that one song. Plus, you get to play your songs to your heart's content, moving new and old songs in and out at your discretion only.

But, there is always a down side...

Money - yes, you're making a living doing what you love, but the vast majority of musicians who play and tour for a living don't really put a whole hell of a lot of money in the bank for a rainy day. You don't have a 401k, you don't have benefits, you just have whatever is in your bank or in your pocket. What you're really working towards is being able to have enough money to make it to the next tour, next album, or anything like that. Hopefully you can stockpile a little cash here and there, but it's not an easy route.
Wear and tear of the road - If you're just a working musician, the only way to really make money is to play shows and hit the road. Yes, you make some money selling merch and music online, but it's probably not enough to sustain much of anything. So you hit the road for months at a time. One story I hear in common from almost all the bands I've heard interviewed that gain enough success to be interviewed is that in the early years they always played shows. I believe it was Motion City Soundtrack who said that their first year after being signed to Epitaph, they played something like 325 shows. On a smaller scale, Crown Point, who are friends of mine, estimated themselves as playing 285 shows or something like that in the past calendar year. I don't care who you are, but that schedule takes the piss out of you at some point. There comes a point when all you want is a home-cooked meal and to sleep in your own bed.
Motivation - Let's face it, there is going to come a point where you're going to look up and say "what am I doing all this for?" There are sort of built in "levels" that musicians hold themselves to; whether it's the ability to book a certain size venue, to tour, to make a living playing music, to get signed - it all depends on what the person's aim is. Still, I honestly believe that there comes a point where you realize you've plateaued, and the trick is recognizing that point when you get there. Not every band is destined to have a chart-topping hit, hell not every band is going to be able to play some of the biggest venues in your city. You just have to be happy with what you can do at a given point, or do your best to improve that situation. Do I want to be playing local clubs and venues when I'm in my late 40s? Probably not. But I can tell you right now, all I want to do is play as many shows as humanly possible and tour as much as I can afford to.

That's a somewhat more in-depth look at what into my decision. Again, it's a matter of time frame and motivation, and I feel that has to change with your age and personality as much as anything.

So.... anyone want to sign my band so I can live the dream?

Transience

2011-06-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

Jeez, I tell you what - you start working a contract job that takes the usual 9-5 timetable, and suddenly all my late-night blogging goes straight out the window. Fortunately for you and I (but definitely not my wallet), I am back to my standard unemployed self. And as I wrap up another contract, I can't help but think about how much of my life has been marked by a certain degree of employment transience. It's interesting, for someone who clings to such deep roots, that much of what I do for a living is connected to the "here today, gone tomorrow" idea of impermanence.

First, the roots: I have lived in San Francisco for what most would argue has been my entire life. Yes, there was a short-lived freshman year of college where I lived in the East Bay, but not only was that maybe a 45 minute drive from home, I spent on average four nights in the city regardless, so I was really just sleeping in the East Bay for the vast majority of that time. I still remain close with friends from as far back as pre-school, and I take a great deal of joy in going to any establishment where I am a long-time regular. I mean, come on, don't you like it when then owner of your favorite restaurant comes up to you and greets you by your first name? I know I sure as hell do.

So, taking all this into consideration, I find it peculiar that I have spent so much of my working life not connected to much of anything. Yes, there was my time as a Community Manager, and there was the year I spent teaching full-time, but by and large, I have spent the majority of time since graduating college as a worker who has no official long-term connection to a business. In the nearly five years I spent teaching, as I said, one year of that was full time (a stat that implies impermanence in itself), but the rest of a time, I was a substitute. This means that every day I worked, I was generally greeted by an entire classroom full of strangers in a room I'd never been in. People didn't know my name or anything about me beyond what was written on the white board at the front of the classroom. Still, in that time I feel like I made a number of significant connections with students, teachers, and office staff. I don't know if it's the nature of the job to breeze in and do that, or if I simply have that tendency as an individual, but I feel like it was almost a coping mechanism in dealing with the stresses of the job: if you could walk out of the school at the end of the day and feel like you almost belong, or that you learned something about somebody in those few short hours, it put a whole new spin on the rest of the day.

Freelance work, at least in my experience with it, has been rather different. While I occasionally had moments in my recent job where I felt like I was really part of the team, on the whole, I had a much greater "outsider looking in" perspective on the whole process. I think it's mostly due to the fact that I am only brought in house when it's really crunch time, so everything that is happening around me is a bit of a whirlwind, and I can simply put my head down, turn up the music in my headphones, and tune it all out while I do my drone work for the day. Naturally, there were exceptions to that scenario on a semi-regular basis, but still, on the whole, when I left the office for the day, it wasn't very often that I would find myself thinking about my officemates the way I did kids.

But all that aside, I find the nature of this work rather singular: why is it that I am drawn to jobs that I can take and leave at the drop of a hat? Do I really value freedom that much? Do I just like being able to work around my own schedule and whims that much? I wonder how much of it is that I do indeed have such a wide social base around me that I don't feel like I need the camaraderie of co-workers. Think about it: I have two awesome roommates, great bandmates, a bunch of Rumdums, high school friends, a cop, and a wonderful monkey who are all people that I look forward to spending time with pretty much on a weekly basis, so I don't really need to add to that, so maybe that's why I can come home from work, no matter how isolated, and still have all the social interaction I may have missed out on during working hours.

Who knows. It's just something that's been kicking around in the ol' brain for a little bit, especially as I once again start staring down the rabbit hole of full-time employment again...

(sorry there's no image with this blog post, but searching "transience" on google proved a hell of a lot of really ugly art, and for some strange reason, a lot of pictures of urinals. Check it out for yourself if you're interested)

Transformative

2011-04-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm tackling a subject I don't usually breach on this blog: love. I suppose it's only fitting that I should be so moved to finally tackle the L word (no, Scott Pilgrim nerds, not "lesbians") because of something that I witnessed, not something that happened to me. It helps me keep my gruff and curmudgeonly exterior.

This particular tale is about a friend of ours that my roommate works with, who for the sake of this blog and his anonymity we'll call Bento. He's a good guy, but for the few years that I've known him, he's always been kind of a lovable drunk. Granted, the times I'd usually run into him was after he was leaving the bars and coming to hang out with our crew, but without fail, he was more or less stumbling drunk. That didn't make him any less a fun person, or a nice guy, quite to the contrary; he was always fun to hang out with and nothing but friendly -- the type of guy anyone would say has a heart of gold.

Another mutual friend noticed, as I did one of the last times I hung out with him: for as fun and lighthearted he is when he's at the bottom of the bottle, he's actually a really fascinating and charismatic guy when he's sober. We'd just never known because we'd never really seen him dry until recent times that we hung out.

Now that I've got that background out of the way, let me jump to last night. My roommate had told me over the weekend that Bento's woman of his dreams was in town for a few days, and that his current girlfriend of the last year or so was none too pleased about it. When I was invited to go out with my roommate, Bento, the girl of his dreams, and the girl's sister, I just couldn't pass it up. My roommate had gone on and on about how much different Bento was around her; he hardly drank, he had nothing but her best interest in mind in everything he did, and he just comported himself much differently, so I had to see it for myself.

We met up at the local bar, where Bento was nursing a beer, which I discovered later was the only one he had all night. We decided that rather than going to another bar, we'd grab some beers and go hang out on the roof deck of the hotel where the sisters were staying. It ended up being a fantastic night; we sat out on the deck, watched the stars, listened to music, and had great conversation until sometime after two in the morning. Bento indeed seemed like a changed man - he was practically beaming from ear to ear, re-living old times with a woman with whom he once shared an intimate bond. My roommate and I gave them their privacy as goodbyes were said, but after that, I drove the three of us back to our house, and that's when I got the full story: he had met this girl years ago, fell for her immediately, they dated until she had to move to Chicago for business. He followed her there, only to be absolutely miserable (with the city, not her -- he just couldn't hang with the winters), so he ended up coming back to San Francisco, and they kept up a long-distance relationship for some time, until finally resigning themselves to just be friends.

Up until a few days ago, it had been almost two years since they'd been in touch, but as he described it, when she sidled up next to him at work on Friday, it was if she'd just gone down to the store and come back - every bit of the intimacy, affection, and love was still there. The problem with this, of course, is that Bento has had a girlfriend for nearly one of those years. Much to his credit, he did hands-down the most respectable thing he could have: he came completely clean with his current girlfriend, saying it would be cheating them both if he kept going out with her, knowing full and well that he was in love with another woman, even if she does currently live on the East Coast.

But what struck me most about this whole story, now that I've gotten through it all, was the cliche idea of the "transformative power of love". I've heard a lot of people give it lip service, but to see it in a situation like that, I was almost at a loss. It was incredible; here was this guy I have known for years, but he was like a completely different person, and it didn't have to do with the alcohol in his system, it had entirely to do with the love in his life. I could say he was literally glowing, which is overstepping and misusing literally, I realize, but it isn't far off. I've never seen anything like it, at least not in a long time. Bento kept saying, and I noticed, that when he's around her, he feels like he's about ten feet tall. It was like seeing someone finally realize and live up to their potential. I know it sounds like I'm gushing or being flowery with my language, but that's how intense the response was.

Granted, waking up at our house today, he was kind of in the opposite shape, knowing that as we sat there on the couch, the woman of his dreams was on a plane back to the East Coast, only to hope that it wouldn't be another two years before he saw her again, but I guess that's the necessary evil you have to experience with affairs of the heart. Either way, it was an absolutely fascinating and heartwarming experience to witness from a third-person point of view, and I only hope that I and everyone who reads this will experience love like that at least once in their lives, and kudos to those of you who already have.

Distracton

2011-04-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not talking about the distractions in my life that have kept me from updating this blog on anything more than a sporadic basis. I am just kind of lame, and my moderately quiet blog life is more a byproduct of the occasionally hectic, occasionally banal lifestyle I'm currently living. Sadly for this blog, much of my creative energy is being funneled into Hello Monster world (there will be a new CD sometime before the summer is out) and into the fits and spurts of fiction writing I've been trying to pull together.

But yeah, distractions. See, weekend I spent a lot of time hanging out with a lot of people. Under this blanket term, "hanging out" generally encompasses sitting in places with other people, from two up to probably about 25 at various points, in people's back yards, houses, at BBQs, at bars, you get the idea. In each instance, save for one which I'll address later, there was a widely common theme: distraction. There was always something else going on somewhere which caused people to split their attention from the conversation at hand. I know that it's wildly indicative of our fast-paced modern culture, but it is also a somewhat disturbing trend. Why do we always have to multi-task? Still, there is always a TV on somewhere, or there is someone doing something internetty, or even something as small as everyone constantly checking their phones for missed calls, texts, emails, and all that business. I am a firm believer that if you're going to hang out with someone or spend time with them, that you really owe it to them, if not yourself, to really be there. It's sad that we've lost this ability, but it was really a common theme of much of my weekend: being surrounded by people who were by and large focused on something other than interacting with the people around them. It wasn't constant, but there were so many "oh, hang on, I've got to take this" or "have you seen this internet thing? I'll pull it up on my phone for you" that there was no real reason for people to actually be in the same space.

Now, before I move on, I'll make myself perfectly clear when I say that people will break conversation for phone and internet reference stuff, I am absolutely as guilty as the next person. I do my best to give mostly undivided attention if I'm spending time with someone, but there's a natural tendency in our generation to take any lull in attention or conversation to sneak a peak at your phone. I do it, you probably do too. It's okay, I'm not saying we're bad or insensitive people for doing it, but it does make me a little sad that it's so widely accepted.

But moving on to the exception: today was an absolutely beautiful day in San Francisco. The sun was out, there was a light breeze, and I'd had a wildly productive band practice. I left the studio to see a message from a friend wanting to see if I wanted to hang out, maybe have a few beers, and just enjoy the day. So he came over, and initially I figured we'd watch some TV or maybe play video games or something, but instead we did a fantastic alternative: we sat and talked. Yeah, I was playing music in the background, but other than that, we spent pretty much the whole afternoon sitting in my living room, talking about life, discussing job hunting stories, and just catching up on what has been going on with each other in the past week or two. To make matters even better, a few hours later, more folks came by, and the four of us just sat around talking for another hour, before we went in separate directions for dinner. Even as I was sitting there, I was realizing: this is much more what people used to do. People would visit, friends would go to people's houses to socialize, and you all got a better sense of people as individuals. It sounds cheesy, but I really feel like I know these friends a lot better after spending a few hours just talking about nothing in particular with them. Yes, I have known all of them for years, but there was just a great connection made all the way around that I don't feel as often as I used to when hanging out with people, and I think most of that can be chalked up to just spending a little time doing nothing but talking.

After all, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh said: "Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after."

Sounds for Our Fathers

2011-03-22T01:03:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I am a musician, and music is pretty much my lifeblood. It's cliche, I know, but it's true - the moments are few and far between that I'm not either listening to music or humming or whistling something. I have songs that remind me of some of the best times in my life, as well as songs that hearken back to some of the worst times in my life. It's just part and parcel of my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So I was at the cafe tonight, they were playing a bunch of oldies - or what I was raised to refer to as oldies; songs mostly from the sixties, lots of doo-wop and stuff like that, and I had a comfortable warm feeling creep over me. I realized without a lot of thought that the reason was not that I was drinking (I wasn't - just coffee) or that I was feeling the effects of the thermostat being turned up. Rather, I realized these songs were comforting to me because they were the songs that my dad would always listen to. I never gave it much thought before, but my huge love for doo-wop probably comes directly from the fact that those were the albums (yes albums on vinyl) I heard pumping out of the big pioneer speakers in my parents' house whenever my mom was out of the house for any length of time.

It's funny, with myself being a musician, and my sister once being a very talented pianist, neither of my parents really had a musical bone in their body. My favorite story to tell about my father when asked about my parents' influence on my sister's and my musical educations is this: as a child, my dad was a tinkerer, which led directly to him pursuing a career as an engineer. However, he did take clarinet in middle school. That ended one day when, being the engineer he was, he noticed that all the screws on his clarinet were loose, at least to his perception. So to rectify this, he got out his small-sized screwdriver and went through, one by one, tightening the screws on the clarinet. However, when he tried to play it a few minutes after "fixing" it, he discovered that every single key on the instrument was stuck -- he didn't realize that the give in the screws is what allowed the keys to move, and he'd inadvertently rendered his clarinet completely unplayable. At that point, according to his account, he knew his music career was as good as over.

But getting back on topic - I was enjoying the songs selected at the cafe, thinking of how they reminded me of those cold afternoons at home where my dad would sit at his desk, balancing a checkbook or paying bills, listening to these classics of the fifties and sixties. Then that got me thinking: if I have kids, will they have similar affections to my music? It could be due to my odd tastes, or the fact that most of the bands that I listen to and enjoy the most are all currently active and putting out music, but I don't see my hypothetical kids, when they are thirty, gleefully whistling or humming along to We Are Scientists songs, tapping their toes to Motion City Soundtrack, or reveling in the epic sounds of Explosions in the Sky. Maybe they'll latch onto their grandparents' music, and love the fifties sound too, or maybe they'll like none of it.

It's even a discussion I've had with older generations from time to time: fifty years ago, there wasn't the broad range of music that there is today. For the most part, there was just "popular" music. With the exceptions of specific stations who would play classical or jazz, most mainstream radio stations played a whole range of the music that was popular at the time. There was not the division of stations that there is today. Just imagine if you turned on the radio and it played like your iTunes library on random - oldies, metal, hip hop, punk, indie, whatever. You'd probably complain that the station had no focus, or that it was inconsistent. The best way to contextualize it is to use the retirement home analogy that my mother uses: for her parents generation home, if you were in the common room at the retirement community, if you put on Big Band music, they'll all love it due to the memories and emotional connections to the songs. For her generation, it's early rock and roll and all the other music rolled up into the "oldies" label. So what will happen with my generation? Will we all be excited to hear Nirvana when we're 80? Will Snoop still be a go-to when I'm in a wheelchair? There has become such a divide, with the opposing sides entrenched against each other, over music nowadays that there isn't much of a common ground for my generation.

Am I crazy? Do you think that there is a universal music that captures our generation? Am I overly romanticizing the music of yesteryear? Or am I just a big sappy pile of musical mush because I heard some old Commodores and Four Tops while drinking coffee a few hours ago?

Trapped

2011-03-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

I've said the joke time and time before, but I find as time goes on, I honestly kind of believe that I am a man trapped in a lesbian's body. Yeah yeah, it's a funny joke because straight men and lesbians both like attractive women, but I seriously find that on a semi-regular basis, I find myself most attracted to females who turn out to be lesbians. I don't know how it happens, or what it is about them, but I'll be at a bar or out somewhere or something like that, and check out a girl; I'll think she's cute, I'll keep an eye on her from afar, and sadly more often than not, I continue to do so until I see her pair off with her girlfriend. So no, the attraction is not based on that "woah, those two chicks will totally make out" philosophy that makes a number of guys attracted to lesbians on the surface. Nope, I just find girls I think are cute, and then they just so happen to prefer the company of women.

A perfect example the other day, which is kind of what prompted this blog being written in the first place, is I was driving around town, going down a long stretch of road with timed lights, which means you pretty much have the same cars around you for a few miles. I happened a glance to my left, and saw a girl driving next to me who was about my age. Keeping pace with her, I said to myself "ooh, she's kind of cute." I do this to myself all the time - there's little more joy I find in my day-to-day existence than the fun and excitement of finding that you're driving alongside a cute girl. It's dumb, but it brings me joy. So anyhow, I am driving, and the cute girl is driving alongside me, and after a few glances I notice a few things: I notice she has a cool and what most would call "alternative" haircut. In short, her hair kinda almost looks like an anime character, which for some reason appeals to me. She has bumper stickers of good bands on her car, I don't remember which, but I remember being impressed with her musical taste. However, most importantly, she has an air freshener hanging off her rearview mirror. It took a second or two to finally get it to swing in a direction where I could read it, but once I did, it was clear as day: "I (Heart) Lesbians." All I could do as I drove along was laugh, shake my head, and say "Apparently, so do I."

These are not theoretical isolated incidents either. There is, of course, the ill-fated tale of MUNI girl. For those of you who don't know this story, it may be better served to hear the full version from me in person, but I'll give the cliff notes for those of you who don't have that luxury. Basically, there was a girl I'd see all the time on the bus in to work, it just so happened that our schedules lined up like that. I saw her once in a local bar, and we talked briefly because I didn't know if she was in the extended group of people we were with or not. So months progressed after that where I would see her and wave or exchange pleasantries in the mornings. I finally caved and put up a missed connections ad on Craigslist, figuring I'd cast my fates to the internet. She saw the ad, replied, and we went to lunch one day. That night I received an email from her telling how she usually dated women, but had gone out with men in the past and hoped that telling me that didn't freak me out, which it didn't. Remember, I am a San Francisco native, it takes a LOT to freak me out when it comes to personal preferences. I tried and tried to get her to commit to another date, and after a short while, realized I was making no traction, only to find out via Facebook that she had a new girlfriend some weeks after I stopped calling.

So yeah, lesbians. I tend to dig 'em, much to my chagrin. Even when I don't know it, the world keeps on reminding me of this fact.

Dirty

2011-03-05T13:57:00.001-08:00

That's right, kids. I'm now officially old. This makes me feel slightly better in that now I can feel a tad more justified in being a crotchety old man. Other than that, things don't feel much different otherwise.

So I'll warn you advance, this is going to be one of those sappy "glass half full" kind of blogs where I remind myself that turning thirty is no big deal, and it's just another day in my life, and all that business.

"So what has been going on in the land of Bill?" you ask.

I suppose the main thing is getting settled in the new house, which is always an adventure, but based on the fact that there haven't been bile-filled blogs about how horrible my roommates are, you could say things are going well. Granted, having people around to interact with after midnight has a rather direct relation to the downturn in blog productivity.

One of the pleasant upsides to the current setup is the fantastic quality of coffee in my cup each day. We're blessed to have two fantastic coffee shops a stone's throw from our front door, and they're always a short walk away. Better still, I have two wonderful french presses in my cabinet, and top-notch beans in my cabinet. I get to remain wonderfully caffeinated all day and night, which makes the days skate by easily. Unfortunately, I haven't spent a whole hell of a lot of time in the cafe, but that's due in part to the fact that I have an incredibly comfortable couch that sits in front of an almost stupidly big TV screen and my entire collection of books. I can crank my music as loud as I want (well, while keeping the neighbors in mind, at least) and can do so in the comfort of my underpants if I so choose, so the lure of the cafe isn't quite what it once was, despite it's ridiculously close proximity.

Coffee and my mailing address aside, life just kind of keeps plodding along. Hello Monster is busy kicking ass, taking names, and trying to figure out the most efficient means of fundraising while we start pushing towards recording a full-length disc. I will say that that, even at 30, playing in a band is one hell of a wonderful way to retain grasp of your youth. I tell ya, I feel like a high school kid when I'm onstage. Albeit an out of shape and sometimes tipsy high school kid, but a kid nonetheless.

So as I look forward to this coming year and my new decade, I am excited with everything around me - a new home, great friends (many of whom are expecting offspring soon), great music, and even fantastic coffee. Hopefully a job will finally be something I can add to my glass-half-full list, but other than that, I wouldn't really change much.

The Big Day.

2011-02-05T01:52:00.000-08:00

First off, I am writing this from my phone since all my computers are packed away, so if there are a lot of typos, don't be shocked.

I am lying here in my bed, in the comfort of my hovel for what may very well be the last night. Tomorrow is the big move, and by the evening, I don't expect much of anything of mine to be left here in the hovel. I don't want to get all sappy, but I really feel like I'm approaching a turning point: I am entering a new house with new roommates (old friends, just new as roommates), I am inching dangerously closer to the big three-oh, and, for the first time in recent memory, my car is actually working absolutely like it should. Yes, to be able to make that last statement, I had to shell out almost $750 to my friendly and talented mehanic, but for the way I feel today, it was definitely money well-spent.

I was honestly caught off guard by how happy a properly functioning car made me. I think it's twofold: first, I have been car-less since early Wednesday morning, so I was just plain itching to get back in my driver's seat, better yet without the worries of overheating. Secondly, I think that being in a car that's struggling and not performing correctly, I am immediately transported back to the last year or two that I drove my old hooptie, the '78 Cadillac. I re-live the stress of trying to understand why your car just won't do what you ask, the feeling of helplessness when it starts to break down or idle roughy or sputter when you accelerate. It is a broad, broad comparison, I know, but it's kind of like being alongside a friend or relative in declining health. That car was my first car, I understood it and it understood me, it really felt like a family member at times. And for me to see it slowly slipping, and eventually sitting idly in front of my house when I got my current car was a hard thing for me to do. Harder still was watching someone drive off with it.

But alas, I digress. Today I feel like a kid in a candy store: I have a new home to get all set up, and I honestly feel like someone has handed me the keys to a brand new car. It's rare that I can sit back and enjoy these rare moments of undiluted joy. At this very moment I am not worrying about my finances (something that is short lived - the worrying not the finances themselves I hope), I'm not wondering about a job (again, just a momentary reprieve), and everything else is coming up Bill. I'd say I should play the lottery, but I'm not that dumb.

So here's hoping for a good move, good times, and a great weekend to all of you. I might be sans Internet at the house for the next couple days, but I'll try to update as best I can via either my phone again or by free cafe Internet.

Pages of the Past.

2011-02-03T23:34:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is another "packing everything I own into boxes post", but luckily for you it isn't a bitter or cynical one. Rather, it's a nostalgic one.

This afternoon I tackled one of the final boondoggles in my packing: the top drawer of my dresser. Save for getting out the occasional pair of sunglasses, I don't ever even look into this drawer. I open it once every two to three months, and it served as a refuge in my youth for many random whatnots that didn't have a place elsewhere in my bedroom. I found a very stylish beret (yes I am saying that completely without sarcasm, I promise), old cub scout projects, science fair ribbons, and a giant bag full of old letters.

I did what any good person would do, I went to the couch, put a recycling bag at my feet, and spent almost an hour walking down memory lane. It was one of the more enjoyable and heartwarming experiences I've had in quite some time. I saw letters from friends back in grade school and high school, kids from confirmation camp, a pen pal I'd forgotten we'd set up in the third grade, and, naturally, lost of old schmooze letters from former girlfriends. It was so fun, I damn near want to find addresses for old friends just to send them an honest-to-goodness letter.

Naturally, this made me think about what happens these days. Do kids still write letters to each other? The girl I dated when I was a freshman in high school and I used to write letters all week long to each other, and give each other overstuffed letters with everything in there - pictures, guest notes from our friends, all that cute high school stuff. What do kids do now? Is it all reduced to cell phone conversations at lunch, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and constant text messages? Is there no permanence to their communication? It makes me a little sad to think that freshmen in high school these days will not be able to look back seventeen years from now and see what kind of inane stuff you used to write about that special someone you were completely convinced was going to be the love of your life forever and ever. I got to today, and it was amazing.

The other thing about this reminiscence is that, probably for the best, that era has passed. Imagine if now, at almost 30, I sat in the office all day writing about how much I missed my hypothetical girlfriend. I could talk about how the boss busted my balls, and how if she had been there to give me a hug, it would all be okay again. I could go into the lunchroom and have my friends that I sit with write little notes to them, and say how much they can tell that I miss her. I could even doodle a little picture of me, bored in my cubicle, with a thought bubble of the two of us just cuddling. But do you know what would happen? Either the girl would run screaming because that's kind of insane, or everyone around would refer to me as "that guy". Then again, if I found a girl who thought 14 year old Bill affection was just the bee's knees, I might be a little worried too. But I suppose the opposite would be true - if I found a girl when I was 14 who was content with a meal and some drinks every now and then, I probably would have convinced myself that she didn't give a damn about me.

It's Been Done.

2011-02-02T23:58:00.000-08:00

In the madness of my moving and packing, I have officially packed away my DVD player, PS2, and Xbox 360. This means that I have to watch regular television. Yes, there are far worse fates than watching television, but it also means that I am once again exposed to commercials, which is a little foreign to me.

I saw one commercial, today, that was truly jarring. Apparently, as of today (or yesterday, or some time recently) you can purchase the DVD or Blu-Ray of Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.

Yes. Let that sink in. Smell it. Taste it. Root around in its hideous mess.

Now, let's think logically about this. This is a sequel to a movie that starred primarily latino actors doing voice work for a bunch of CGI dogs who make bad puns and discuss how hard it is to be a lapdog for a spoiled princess. I am sure it's chock full of fart and poop jokes, which, don't get me wrong, are great, but it's not enough to carry a whole movie. Which leads me to my inevitable follow up question: why in the hell do we need two of these movies? Hell, why did we need the first one? Why do we need a third "Fockers" movie? How many more Scream movies are they going to make? I thought the whole idea was that was a trilogy. Why the hell are they doing a fourth?

So just for funzies, let's take a quick peek at what's out there right now:

- True Grit, a re-make of the John Wayne classic. Yes, it was fantastic, and if anyone can pull of a remake, it is the Cohen brothers.

- The Green Hornet - This one double dips: it was both a television show and a comic book.

- Little Fockers - I don't even have to go there. The first movie was great, but yeah, that's all I want to say.

- Tron: Legacy - I have to admit, I really want to see this one. It may be derived from a movie made nearly thirty years back, but I feel like they're at least going about it the right way. Plus Daft Punk does the soundtrack, so it can't be that bad.

- Yogi Bear 3D - Of course, used to be a pretty legit cartoon, but I heard the movie is so bad even the kids don't give a damn. Might be the very worst movie made all year. Might well be the worst idea for a movie I've ever heard, and it makes me shed a little tear when I think that Tom Cavanaugh agreed to do it.

This is just of movies that you could go out and see tomorrow. I won't try to catalog the number of re-makes, re-workings, adaptations, or needless sequels are out there from the past few years, or are in development. Naturally, this makes me think: has the state of entertainment gotten so dire at this point that we can't come up with decent original movies, and if we do make decent ones, can't we leave it at just one? I know, I know, everyone makes their money opening weekend, and the current economic system of movies is to churn out as much drek as humanly possible. I just wish it were a little more sustainable.

However, there is another way of thinking about this that I don't know if many people consider, and that is that the amount of borrowing ideas is not entirely unique to movies. I would never think to re-write something like Hamlet, nor would I try to change punctuation of an e.e. cummings poem and try to re-sell it as another poem. I suppose the closest comparison on the literary front would be adaptations like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" but having read both the originals and the re-imaginings of both those titles, I can tell you that a NUMBER of liberties were taken with the originals. Still, aside from parody, you don't see a lot of replication of work in the literary community. Yes, I realize in music it is much more prevalent; a point that was driven home with a vengeance when I saw a couple of cover bands last Thursday. So I suppose in that respect, re-making a movie is pretty comparable to covering a song. Despite that similarity, cover bands make money and get people to come out at shows, but the primary difference is they're not re-recording albums from the bands they cover and selling those.

So what are your thoughts? Is this whole movie-remake gripe limited to me? Should I look at it like theater arts, where people re-imagine and re-invent plays all the time? Or am I just a crotchety old coot who should just be happy they still make movies and that I can then get them months later on Netflix and gripe about how much I didn't like them to the internet?

Here's to the Experts.

2011-01-31T02:48:00.000-08:00

As my Facebook pals have seen, I have been having some car issues. Now, there was once a time in my youth, where I could be considered a "car guy". It's still true to a greater degree: I love cars, I love classic cars, and hot rods and all those wonderful things. I have a great appreciation for classic Detroit steel, yet at the tender age of about 23 I abandoned my good ol' 1978 hooptie Cadillac in favor of an Isuzu Rodeo. Though I will say, it has served me admirably as long as I've had it.

That is, until about two weeks ago. It started overheating, acting all weird, and leaking coolant like hell. But therein lies the problem: I am generally handy with a lot of things, but there's no fix-all like "unplug it and plug it back in again" with a car. I did what I could: I re-filled the coolant reservoir, checked the oil, topped it off, and walked around the car while scratching my chin. Then I gazed deeply into the depths of my engine, much like the gentleman to the right. Then I wiped my hands and got back in the car and kept on driving.

So what did I do when the problems persisted? What any reasonable guy my age would do: I asked my dad to look at it.

See, unlike me, my dad is from that generation. You know, the generation of guys who change their own oil, who know how to snake a drain (and own a snake to do it with), the guys who know metric-to-standard conversions off the top of their head. The generation of guys who build, measure, draft, re-wire, and repair, all without the aid of our good pal, the google machine. It's not necessarily a knock on our generation; we just have different skill sets, and I guess that's indicative of the change in times. Yeah, we know html, we can work in Photoshop, and we can even assemble Ikea furniture when necessity dictates, many of us just have no idea how to gap spark plugs.

It is an interesting generational chat I had with my folks just today that brought this all together. We were discussing cooking, and my pops made the offhand remark that more males in my generation, and his to an extent, cook for themselves. My grandfather, who was a true man's man of the previous generation (he was a logger, a longshoreman, and for a time a demolitions worker) would never set foot in the kitchen unless it was to eat or to get a fresh beer. Anything else was women's work. But I think it really speaks volumes to the differences in generations, with different skill sets, different knowledge, and really different talents. And while I may not have been able to discern that one of my spark plugs in my poor car had gone kaputski, and that my radiator was leaking, I was able to go on Facebook, ask everyone if they knew a good mechanic, and find a friend who I went to high school with who was an amazing help, and saved me a trip to the auto shop. So sometimes my skills can pay off too. Yes, it was pops who replaced the radiator and the plugs, but it was a high school pal two years younger than myself who identified the issue in the first place.

If You Didn't Blog It...

2011-01-30T03:27:00.000-08:00

Hey all, I'm back yet again. It's been too long yet again. Let's move forward from there. Recently I read a rather fascinating blog written by Anil Dash, who is kind of famous to a lot of us interwebby folks. In it he claims "If You Didn't Blog It, It Didn't Happen", and that title alone really got me thinking; I have been so lax in my blogging in the past year or so. I often attribute it to being busy or just plain not having much in life to blog about. Plus, I figure a lot of the folks who read this probably either check my Twitter or Facebook or Foursquare or something to that effect, or else you just see me in real life. But that's not blogging. That's "having a blog that stagnates while you don't write on it." Still, I have to constantly remind myself that pithy quips or check-ins at local drinking establishments does not online content make. (well, it kind of does, but it ain't great reading) I have prized myself for quite some time now on my ability as a wordsmith; I like to think that I have a certain pizzaz when it comes to writing interesting stuff that most of the general public, or more importantly you folks who read this blog, find both readable and enjoyable. Yes, I get a bit verbose at times, and I also have a rather undesirable habit of dropping a few f-bombs here and there when I get worked up, but all in all, I like to think I spin a good yarn about whatever it is I happen to be writing about.

So, let's get this train back on the tracks and steaming towards something fun and interesting for both myself and for you. The biggest news that has transpired since I last sat in front of this composition window is that I will soon be re-locating from my beloved basement hovel to a posh (posh for yours truly at least) and swanky new bachelor pad by the beach. I am finally laying down stakes (rented stakes at that) in the Outer Sunset. The good news is that I will be a mere five or six blocks from my beloved coffee shop, rather than like two miles, so I should be back on my home turf for classic blogging. The down side, if any, is that I will be sharing this swank bachelor pad with two of my good friends. That will be an ongoing adventure which shall unfold and I'm sure much of it will end up on this fine blog.

On a somewhat more philosophical note, I had a fascinating discussion with a friend tonight about happiness, and more importantly, my own personal happiness. Those of you who know me or have met me all would consider me a fairly happy-go-lucky guy, and you would be absolutely right. By and large I am a very upbeat and cheery gent. Still, overall, I tend to find myself being dissatisfied with various aspects of my life, whether it be the basement hovel, the lack of a sweet young thing to call my own, or the current lack of gainful employ. None of them completely set the ship off course, but overall, and when added together, they can cause for the occasional rough patch in what is usually a pretty smooth sail. I had to admit that the last time I felt completely satisfied with my life, and felt like everything was really coming up Bill was back at the tender age of seventeen or thereabouts. I was finishing up high school, doing well in classes, enjoying playing music as well as playing sports, and I had a fantastic group of friends as well as the general good wishes of most all of my classmates. In other words, I had the world by the balls and the future looked bright and sunny for me. Since then, I can't say that anything major has changed. I am blessed to be healthy still, I still pride myself on the wonderful friends I am surrounded with day in and day out, I still get to play music that makes me feel invincible. None of these things have gone unrealized or unnoticed. Still, there are a lot of nagging thoughts about potential realized and all that jazz. Maybe I was just brought up in a nature of a lot of positive support or something, but I felt (and still feel) that there's something great that I'm meant to do, and I feel like I've spent a number of years searching to find that thing. I have to remain optimistic that it is still possible, but in the meantime I need to also think about paying bills and all that fun stuff.

Plus, the more I thought about this question, I began to realize the other, perhaps more positive, interpretation of why I am seldom completely happy and content: I love challenging myself to live up to my expectations. Yeah, I beat myself up at times or get down on myself when things don't go my way, but by constantly challenging myself do to something bigger or better with my life, I can make sure that I don't get caught up in the day-to-day mundanity that people sometimes get stuck in. Clearly I'm not knocking a regular 9-5. If someone offered me something that would pay the bills that I found even moderately interesting, I'd swoop it up in a heartbeat. But I think a little dissatisfaction goes a long way in challenging yourself to be better at whatever it is you do, whether it's work or school or music or writing or anything else.

I don't really know where I was going with all this, and it's late, so I'm sure I'll re-read this when I wake up in the morning (afternoon) and scratch my head and wonder what in the hell got in to me, but it was somewhat cathartic to get all this out. Sorry if I've rambled a bit, but the mere act of sitting here and writing has been wonderful. Hopefully this is a harbinger of things to come, and I get back on the ol' blogging pony on the regular.

No Flow

2011-01-03T02:12:00.000-08:00

A caveat before you read this: I'm kind of irrationally cranky these days. This may be tinting my perception of the world around me the last few days. I'm also listening to my playlist which I call "Old Sad Bastard Music" so that may also have a little bearing on my current mood. Having said that, I will do my best to put this in a comedic light...

Arright, so I was out buying bread tonight to bring to dinner at my friends' place, and (as those of you who follow my Twitter, Tumblr, or FB already know) Trader Joe's, the universe's standby for bread, was completely tapped out. I am not exaggerating or doing anything for effect. There wasn't a damn piece of bread to be had in the whole store. I'm talking like end of days Y2k stocking up kind of lack of bread. From the right side of the entire aisle of bread to the area where the muffins and cookies are sold, there was not a single item to be purchased.

So, I came up with the brilliant thought to try the Boudin bakery just down the way in the mall. If you are from SF, and have been to Stonestown Galleria, you probably know the geography of this story well, and if you don't, let it suffice to say that I had to trapse the entire distance of a moderately sized mall in order to get from point A to point B. As I made this journey, I decided to make the whole experience a little more interesting by seeing if I could walk the entire distance without breaking stride. It's these little challenges I do from time to time to attempt to restore my faith in the common sense of humanity, and oh what a mistake that was.

If there is one thing I came to realize from this trek through the mall was that the heads of my fellow man are so deeply embedded into their own rectums (recti?) that I might as well have been walking around a herd of misguided cattle. Sadly, I can't count on my fingers the number of people who were just wandering slack-jawed, completely content to meander their way through the evening. (see image at right) Yes, I know people window shop, and I know that not everyone places the value on ambulation that I do, but I can't help but get a little frustrated at families walking four abreast who have to stop to examine spots on the ground, what kind of mannequins are in the window, or how it is that the little garage door-style grates come down to close off stores at closing time. They might as well be like monkeys picking nits from each others' fur for an early evening snack. Even worse is the people who stop to answer their cell phones as if walking and talking were a herculean task that just shouldn't be attempted in public. I damn near ran over two separate people whom I happened to end up behind because they came to an immediate halt to stand stock still, check their phones to see who was calling, and then begin a conversation as if they were the only people within a hundred yards.

Yes, I'm an old coot. I think that there are conversations that can wait. I think that yelling into your phone in a public place to try to carry on a conversation over the general humdrum of the mall is dumb. Still, my bigger gripe is not having the slightest concern for those around you and the fact that they might actually want to walk at a normal pace or not have to constantly side step these odd techno-zombies. I can't help it; I'm a man of decorum - I still look behind me whenever walking through a door that might need to be held open for someone behind me. That happened too tonight - I was entering the mall maybe two strides behind this couple, and I almost caught a faceful of door because I mistakenly assumed that when the guy turned around and almost flicked his cigarette into my chest, he might have realized there was someone right behind them headed in the same direction.

Sorry, I digress. The world is not a sad and terrible place. There are still plenty of things that uphold my faith in humanity, like kitties that wear people clothes, free Tetris, good music, olympic weightlifters who look like they might explode at any moment, Star Wars rock and roll motivational posters, 90210 reruns, and finally, this video of a Corgi doing bellyflops.

Clearly You Must Not Have Heard

2010-12-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

As many of you may have see on Facebook, I have spent an inordinate time on the phone in the last few days with the EDD, who supplies me with my deeply appreciated unemployment checks. But the thing is, it has been a couple of months since they have done so, which means I have been having to bother them on and off about the location of my missing funds.

So here's the story: yesterday, I spent a good hour plus on the phone, trying to maneuver my way around the various touchtone menus, doing everything I could to figure out a way to get a hold of a real live person. Having failed at my valiant attempts, I had to send yet another terse yet understanding email stating my problems.

In the past, sending emails has been a slow and gradual process - you send an email, and you get a response a few days later telling you that you either need to call, or that you will receive a letter informing you of a phone interview. Yes, it's the most absurdly roundabout thing: to send an email and get a letter in reply about a phone call that will happen in the future. Still, that's how it usually goes.

Today, apparently, was the exception. In response to an email, I get a phone call.

At seven thirty.

In the fucking morning.

Seven.

Thirty.

I pose this to you, gentle readers: what unemployed person in their right mind is up for funzies and wanting to talk on the phone at seven thirty in the morning? Who in the devil thinks it's okay to call much of anybody at 7:30 in the a.m. unless it's an emergency? Would you call someone for any reason, personal acquaintance or business associate, on their cell phone at 7:30 in the morning? Didn't think so. Now don't jump to the whole "maybe they're on the East Coast" idea - it's a California-only call center for a California-based government body. What also kills me is that they say "sorry you missed our call, we'll call again later." What they don't mention is that "later" is, from my two or three experiences with missed calls, two minutes later.

Now, think of it this way: if someone didn't pick up their phone when you called, do you really think you have the slightest chance of them picking up two minutes later? Maybe at 7:30 in the morning, I would be semi-consciously stumbling out of bed and not make it to the phone in time, but seriously? Two minutes?

But back to the matter at hand. Two phone calls. 7:30 and 7:32 a.m. To an unemployed person. It's like they are trying to aggravate me. As a matter of fact, despite the fact that I was running on about four or five hours' sleep, I stayed awake. I was so worked up at the sheer gall they had that I couldn't have fallen back to sleep if I tried. So I wrote them an email. I said I was awake and would be for the rest of the day, and sure enough, I got a call back within maybe forty five minutes. The guy on the phone was both pleasant and apologetic; he said "Sorry we woke you up this morning, I probably would have gotten a different response had we called at eleven." To which I assured the gent that they could have called at one or two in the afternoon and I'd probably have still been asleep, though probably considerably more coherent.

Yes, I know that I keep incredibly peculiar hours. Yes, I recognize that normal people don't sleep through the lunch hour. Still - am I wrong? It is not the slightest bit strange for someone to get a call like that so early in the morning? Has the whole world gone crazy with this "get a jump start on your day" thing? Let me know what you think.

Pride vs. Nookie

2010-11-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

So I was going to write a kind of heartwarming feel-good blog tonight about how comfortable I am at the moment, and how things kind of feel right down here in the hovel. I was going to discuss the blend of music (Explosions in the Sky), clothing (a flannel shirt I've owned since the 7th grade), and the warm light from the standing lamp in my bedroom all make the experience of sitting around and reading a book so enjoyable.

But here's the thing: that's about all I had to say about that. Yes, it's been a good evening. Yes, it's been a refreshing relaxing night at home after the madness of the last ten days or so, but then I remembered that I had a post that I had pledged friends that I'd write. So here goes.

Okay, as you probably know, I live in San Francisco. As you also probably know, a week ago our hometown baseball team won the World Series, and proud we are of all of them. You may or may not know that myself, being a man of fine taste and wonderful breeding, am a die-hard fan of the Oakland Athletics, as is my friend Iain, the young man around whom this crux is based.

Now, last Monday, Iain, myself, and our pal Deth (who is a Padres fan for the record) were all together to watch what proved to be the final game of the World Series. Some of you may have heard that the city of San Francisco went borderline batshit crazy for about two or three days when this happened. We met up with one of our more die-hard Giants fan friends, and the four of us ambled our way down to the Lower Haight to soak in some of the revelry. On our walk, as men of a certain age are wont to do, we were speculating on the ease with which a properly motivated young man might ingratiate himself with a willing young lady who was caught up in the excitement, the electricity in the air, and the vast quantities of alcohol that were being consumed. However, at this moment, my friend Iain dropped what the rest of us considered to be a very bold statement: he claimed that he couldn't consider "lending his services" to any female Giants fans based on the fact that they are Giants fans. Myself, being the only other non-committed male of the quartet said that the word female, not Giants fan was the operative part of this phrase, but he was adamant that no woman who claimed allegiance to the orange & black would be allowed to hop on the express bus to Bang City.

This is a very curious statement. I realize that my allegiances are swayed by the fact that I harbor no real ill will towards the Giants. No, they're not "my team", but I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity for nookie strictly because a girl likes them. Yes, I had to think twice when I met a girl who thought that Brian Wilson was sexy. I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks that this yutz is dreamy is not someone I would want to climb into bed with. I understand in some heated rivalries that people feel that way, but for teams in opposite leagues who seldom play each other, I don't understand the hostility and, frankly, the disinterest in cozying up with someone, just because they happen to like a team that you don't.

Your thoughts?

I Couldn't Help But Overhear

2010-10-30T15:19:00.001-07:00

Last night I was out to dinner celebrating my good friend's birthday, and we were in a rather cramped little restaurant. These are pretty status quo for San Francisco: due to ridiculously high rent prices for everything from studio apartments to storefronts, we pride ourselves on cramming the most people per square foot as possible everywhere. After all, we fit a population of 750k people into 49 square miles. That's a picture of the actual restaurant to the right there, and those tables at the bottom are about the layout of where we were.

So we're at this rather nice restaurant in a bank of four tables that are all maybe five to six inches apart. I'm talking I could barely squeeze my forearm between them if I tried. So, this means that it is nearly impossible to not overhear what is being said next to you. Plus, as my friend has a particular penchant for hearing what people around us are saying, we had a few laughable moments at the expense of those around us. And for that I apologize if these people happen to be reading this or have any clue in the slightest of who I am.

Now, the best part of the night was when the table to our left was in the midst of a heated discussion. See, there was some kind of Prop 19 discussion going on between a man and a woman seated next to us. Both were in the late twenties to early thirties range, and the man seemed to be an ardent supporter for legalizing marijuana. Personally speaking, I agree if for no other reason than the fact that here in SF it is so commonplace that it might as well be legal, and we can both lose the social stigma of it being an "illegal drug" as well as make a sweet amount of coin by legal sales. Still, he was amped up to the point that his female companion had to shush him a couple of times, most notably of which was after he yelled out "Come on, it's just weed!" Again, I have heard that argument hundreds of times from many people, but you have to admire the man's conviction given his surroundings.

Funnier still is the fact that I was relaying a few stories I'd picked up the night before. One of which involves a former high school acquaintance who has gone completely off the deep end and was just making no sense in his attempts to wander into conversations. I mean, come on, the guy called me one of the greatest DJs who has ever lived. Yup. The other story was a secondhand tale of some friends from high school and their bachelor party shenanigans which involved a lot of alcohol, a combined bill of nearly a thousand dollars at a strip club, and a friend who soiled his drawers in a drunken stupor, deposited his underpants in a nearby trash receptacle, and continued on partying, only to arrive at said strip club, and upon removing his pants in a private booth, realized that he was sans chonies. Granted, much of this tale was relayed in hushed tones, but still, I can only imagine what the people next to us must have heard. Guess this teaches me to go to a nicer restaurant where people can hear about the wild exploits of my friends.

Couch Potato Week/end

2010-10-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

I've spent a hell of a lot of time house sitting over the last little while - I think I've been house sitting for somebody for six or seven of the last eight days. One thing I always appreciate about house-sitting for people on the weekends is the ample supplies of cable channels running marathons of their programs. That and sports, of course. I've been able to watch playoff baseball, regular season football, and over the last two days, a whole crapload of "Ghost Adventures" on Travel Channel. I don't know what it is, but there's something that is just super entertaining about both learning about haunted sites around the country and watching a musclebound tool with a cock-a-doodle-douche haircut (who just so happens to be a former wedding DJ of all things) getting the crap scared out of him. It's the recipe for a fantastic weekend of doing nothing. But for me, this existence is a little strange - I didn't go out Saturday at all (going to my parents' place for dinner doesn't count), and I haven't left the house I'm house sitting all day today save for walking the dog twice. Yes, literally walking a canine, not the euphemism, you dirty kids. But yeah, this sedentary life is pretty damn foreign to me.

But you know what? Every now and again, a couple of days spent in like this really do me well, more than anything else because now I want to go out and raise hell tomorrow. Usually, I'd just be keeping the status quo of doing a few things here and there every day, but now after two days of doing no work outside of solidifying a nice butt indentation on my friends' couch, I am looking forward to doing some writing, some cleaning, some music composition, hell some anything that doesn't involve sitting down or watching a TV screen. Yes, it helps that I am going to a show tomorrow night, so I know I'll be getting out of the house in the evening time, but I'm talking about waking up at a somewhat human hour, taking the dog out for one last walk before her parents get back into town, and going home and checking a bunch of stuff off my list.

Generally I am opposed to the whole "sloth for fun" idea, since I usually get so distracted, but I tell you what, there's nothing like a rainy weekend in the Outer Sunset to make the allure of sitting on a couch watching cable TV sound like music to my ears. I guess now the big test will be to see if I blog again tomorrow and show that I kept riding this wave of energy to fruition.

My New Car Is So Great, I Don't Even have to Know How to Drive!

2010-10-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Okay. Tell me you've seen those commercials. The Mercedes ones, where the morons talk about how badly they can't drive, but it's okay because because the car fixes the mistakes for them. They get me just unwarrantedly angry. I'm talking I kind of lose my shit. (Yes, the video is right there, but there's another one like it too that's been all over TV lately)

See, I am a simple man who believes in the fine art of driving. The closest I've ever come to a luxury car was my 1978 Cadillac, which was incredibly luxurious, but was considered state-of-the-art for having a tape deck instead of an 8-track player. I've never owned a car with seat warmers, cup holders, a backup camera, or a lot of the other amenities that you hear about with new cars. (No, cup holders are not a new-fangled luxury development, but come on, is a simple place to put my coffee while driving too much to ask, Isuzu?) But here's the thing: I don't need them. I have my four wheels (five if you count the steering wheel hurr hurr hurr), my engine, and an entire brain full of driving know-how. I can parallel park in spots that I shouldn't rightly fit into. I understand merging lanes from an onramp. I can stay in my lane, keep safe distances from the car in front of me, and even stop in a comfortable manner. I know these are all shocking and high-risk maneuvers for some people, but for chrissakes, it's something that should come second nature to people who deem themselves functional enough to actually operate a motor vehicle.

So, maybe now you can understand why this commercial tees me off so much. I am all for these wonderful technologies that will help keep unsafe drivers a little safer. But you know what might really make them a hell of a lot safer? Getting them off the road. Making sure they don't drive because they can't drive. Yes, it's fantastic that a car can correct your drifting into another lane, but if you knew how to drive in the first place, or weren't too busy adjusting your radio, talking on the phone, drinking your latte, and yelling at your kids in the back seat at the same time, you might have not gone over that lane line in the first place. I just find it ridiculous that car companies have given in to the fact that when a vast majority of the population is driving, they have their heads so far up their own asses that they can't be held accountable for actually, you know, driving their friggin' car.

So, help me out folks. I never thought I'd say this, but get on that horn of yours. When someone is driving like a damn fool, use that glorious invention on your steering wheel to correct the driver and their idiot driving before their car has a chance to, or in case their car can't. I will do my part, but I have an Isuzu Rodeo, and if you've ever heard the horn on those things, they can't hardly scare a kitten.

Sorry for all the bitterness and spite recently, but apparently my decreased caffeine intake over the last few days, paired with the warm-ish weather, has made me a bit churlish. I will do everything in my power to make sure that my next post is all silly, smarmy, and wry as you usually tend to expect.

You're Kidding, Right?

2010-10-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as you either read already, or can read by simply scrolling down a little bit, I wrote about the warm weather and all that. I was trying to find a good example of someone to use for a sweaty celebrity to complete my simile. Those of you who are Simpsons nerdy as myself may remember the episode where Homer fell in love with his co-worker Mindy, and tried to write an eloquently stated breakup talk on his hand before confronting her, but got sweaty palms due to nervousness and said "Jeez, I'm sweating like Roger Ebert here." Normally, I would have just recycled that line, but given Ebert's recent medical issues and his downright inspiring fight with thyroid cancer, I don't really think it's anyone's place to poke fun at him anymore. But allow me to get off my soapbox for a second.

So, in the hopes of finding a good, and possibly embarrassingly sweaty picture of some celebrity I just typed in "fat guy celebrity" thinking I could turn up a funny image of some guy that we all know and love who had a healthy glow of well-earned perspiration. I didn't find that, but I think the Gandolfini picture I chose at least works on some level, as he looks kind of big and miserable.

However, in this search, I couldn't help but notice a link towards the top of the page for "FatGuyShirts.com" and being a man of generous carriage who prides himself as having a keen eye for interesting, fun, or entertaining t-shirts, I thought I'd give it a look. What I found was not only borderline offensive, it was kind of worrisome.

First, here's the link, see for yourself: http://www.fatguyshirts.com/

Now, hopefully you scanned at least most of those, but I personally, as a guy who is carrying more weight than he'd like, finds this sight nauseating. Obesity has a nasty habit of killing people, and here in the U.S. we have a distorted view of caloric intake and portion sizes. Yes, I enjoy "extreme foods" as much as the next guy. Yeah, I'd probably try the hamburger made out of grilled cheese sandwiches once, just to say I did, if we had a Friendly's around here. However, as much as I'll defend eating good (yeah, another recent blog tie-in, so sue me), I also think there is a limit to what is funny. When you're trying to convince someone to buy a shirt celebrating the fact that they can't see their toes or bringing up the slogan "Eat Now, Think Later" I kind of want to punch whoever thinks these shirts are funny or appropriate in the face. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that these shirts are available in sizes up to 6XL. I mean, I know it's kind of an extreme example, but to my eyes, this would be no different than someone marketing a line of extra-small t-shirts to people with Anorexia with slogans like "Does my ribcage make me look fat?" on them. Yes, that's a horrible thing to say, but you get my point. I mean, just look at where we are as a country: obesity is gaining on smoking at an alarming rate as the leading cause of death according to the New York times.

Sorry to sound preachy here; you know I usually keep things light here, but this one really got to me for some reason. Still, there is a very, very fine line between being comfortable in your own skin and denying medical knowledge. This may be a bit of my own insecurity speaking here, but I don't want to celebrate the fact that we as a society are pushing towards morbidly obese at an alarming speed. (I was going to make a joke about it being the fastest that overweight people have moved for anything recently there, but it seemed out of place. Thoughts?)

There should be some grandiose closing to this rant of mine, but I kind of feel like I hit all the bullet points I needed to. So to ease the tension, I'll close with one of my favorite "fat guy" jokes:

Two fat guys are drinking together in a bar, and one friend turns to his buddy and says 'your round'. His buddy says 'So are you, you fat bastard.'

Sweatin' Like James Gandolfini Over Here

2010-10-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's been hot here. Not that ridiculously crazy that a lot of people should be complaining about it and all that, and that's only kind of what I'm going to do here. So while I know that it's been warm out, and there's exactly jack that I can do about it, there's a bit of a mental thing people need to remember when it comes to the weather.

See, unlike so many of you people out there who were born and raised in places where the sun comes out for more than about three weeks out of the year, I was raised in the Fog Belt of San Francisco. This means when the weather reaches much of anything over about 75, I start to wilt just a tad. So rather than explain why that is, I will explain how I react to it. See, much like the majestic kangaroo will dig itself down into a burrow and wait for the uncomfortable heat of the Australian Outback to subside, so does the native unreticulated Bill seek shelter from the sun, and avoid all activity unless absolutely possible when my fair city's weather reaches "warm" status. I would be so bold to believe that you, internet friends, already know that about me, since chances are if you're reading this right now, you have probably had some real-life interaction with me, and in the course of that you have probably invited me out for something in the afternoon on a warm day; and unless that something involves indoor air conditioning or maaaaaaybe ice cream, chances are I've given you either a well, well formulated excuse or I have just plain said "It's too goddamn hot for me to leave my basement." It's fine, it's regular, it's nothing personal, and I'll be more than happy to join you come sundown for some nice cool cocktails in the cool recumbent breeze of the evening time.

Somehow, not surprisingly to many, my family has not gained this understanding about the Bill in my 29 years on this planet. Somehow whenever it is too warm for me to wear pants, I manage to talk to one of my parents who encourages me to go outside and get some fresh air. Now, let me remind you of the assertion I have made in the past: I am not exactly the outdoorsy type. I don't go frolic in the sunshine. I don't go for a stroll when it's nice and sunny, and I sure as hell will not schedule one of my rare bouts of exercise for a day when it's 80-plus. Quite simply put, leaving the cool and relaxing embrace of my basement hovel, where I get no direct sunlight and can escape further into the garage for an extra ten to fifteen degree drop on a good day, does not sound like a good or fun idea to me. I know lots of people love to get out and get active on those rare sunny days in San Francisco, but this kid is not one of them. I'm much more inclined to go on a late night walk or hit my stationary bike when it's raining outside. Besides, is there really that much difference on a warm day between reading my book indoors and reading my book outdoors? Nope, didn't think so.

So, if you are one of those wonderful folks who enjoys a nice warm outdoorsy afternoon, I say bully for you! I will never stand in your way, and will only occasionally try to lure you from your self-improvement with a cold pitcher of beer somewhere we can sit outside, but all I ask is that you extend the same courtesy and understanding to those of us who are cold weather kids, and prefer to hide behind fans and cool beverages when the clouds aren't there to comfort us. Most of you do, and I love you for it.

Eating Well vs. Eating Good

2010-10-07T00:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this post has been brewing in the ol' brain pan for a little while here, but I figure tonight is as good as any to dust it off because I have been blowing my nose so much today that I think a wee portion of my brain has ended up in all those discarded tissues.

For those of you who know me, I'm what some might call "portly". I was once a fit and trim young whipper-snapper, but my current corpulence might lead you to believe otherwise. Personally, I think I'm too tall to be portly, but that's all semantics. Long and verbose story short, I'm a big guy and I loves me some food.

Having said that, I do my best to eat well when I can - I always make sure I incorporate fruits and vegetables into my meals, and the closest I come to fast food joints are pubs that serve fish and chips or getting a burrito at my local taqueria. I can't really remember the last time I ate a meal in like a Burger King or Taco Bell or anything like that. Still, at my former place of employment, I had a number of co-workers who were "foodies" but they always tended to eat on the ridiculously healthy and scant side. This got me thinking: when did we, as a society, forget how to eat food that is at least relatively good for you that comes in a reasonable portion? And when the hell did debates go from "chicken or pork" to "quinoa or spelt"? I mean, are ancient grains really that big of a deal for people who eat real food?

This isn't just a "big guy is cranky about skinny people eating tiny bowls of skinny people food" rant; I am thinking specifically of examples in my family and those around me. Yes, my grandfather was an anomaly: he smoked up to three packs a day, drank four pots of coffee a day (yes pots, no that's not a typo) and added heaping mounds of salt to damn near everything he ate. He lived to be eighty five, and had a build somewhat similar to mine. My grandmother (on the other side of the family) is going to turn 96 in just over a month, salts everything she puts in her mouth, and even puts butter on cookies. I shit you not. Now, granted, they didn't grow up in an era where restaurants were churning out two and three thousand calorie meals, they couldn't buy a 96 oz. Coke at 7-11, and they didn't have all the chemically treated crap that we have today. But you know what? They ate. They boozed it up (believe me, I have NOTHING on them in their prime when it comes to drinking). They didn't worry about hydrogenated oils in their foods or if they needed whey protein supplements.

Another perfect example is Julia Child. For my sensibilities, she is everything that is right with cooking and cuisine. She had a ball, she loved to cook, and she loved to eat. A recent article I read classified her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" as one of the top five unhealthiest cookbooks of the decade, yet she lived to be 92 -- what the hell is wrong with us nowadays that we can't eat or enjoy real food? Have you seen that cookbook? Have you read the recipes? There is so much butter in there, she could have singlehandedly saved the entire dairy industry. And you know what else? The dishes are fucking delicious.

So next time you're down at Whole Foods or somewhere like that, and you're wondering if you'd be better eating faro or millet, take stock of what you're eating and try something from the butcher counter instead. Yeah, you might have to put in an extra hour on the treadmill or something like that, but you know what, it'll taste a whole hell of a lot better going down, and you will probably find that it was unbelievably worth the extra effort. Personally I feel life's just too short to tolerate the food you eat, I'll gladly exchange a week or two of the tail end of my life if it means I have cleaned my plate and an completely satisfied when I finish a meal.

If you're like my relatives (and me) you'll probably want to chase that red meat with some bourbon, but that's a whole other blog entry for a whole other time.

Failure isn't all that bad.

2010-10-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I spent a somewhat larger-than-normal amount of time watching sports. I watched college football, end-of-season baseball, pro football, and even a few brief moments of professional rodeo, but that was just in passing, I swear.

Still, in watching these games, I came to a somewhat stunning realization: in our modern sports franchises, if someone does well: they hit the game-winning hit, they hit a home run, or they make just about any play in football that would be classified as "good", they almost always, without fail, get completely whalloped by their teammates. That's why nowadays when a baseball player sees his teammates waiting to congratulate him at home plate, he flings off his batting helmet: he knows with no helmet on, his teammates can't completely whomp him over the head. And don't get me started on the "we won" dogpiles that happen, though mostly in the playoffs. Just take a quick look at the picture at the top of this blog. Yeah, would you want to be on the bottom of that pile? If you sprinkled in a few players from the other team, wouldn't that much more closely resemble a giant fight where a bunch of players have to deal with a few weeks' worth of suspensions? Yeah, thought so.

Football is far worse. Part of it is that it seems like pretty much any time anyone makes a play that just five or ten years ago was considered routine, they have to jump around and wave their arms like they've never made a tackle or defended a pass before in their lives. But I digress. With football, there is a lot of congratulating going on with the other guys on your team. Yes, this is in part because you have plenty of time between plays to celebrate, but still. But the thing about these celebrations that get to me is that they're all violent. It's all headbutting, shoving, and smacking; and I swear sometimes if a guy makes a good play, he gets hit harder by his own teammates in congratulation than they get hit by the opposition. Yes, I know they're premier athletes, and they're in peak physical condition, and they have about four metric tons of pads and braces that make them about as strong (and as human) as Robocop, but there will be a day when someone dislocates their shoulder by shoving their teammate who made a huge tackle. Mark my words. We already had a pie-to-the-face injury in baseball this year.

So this is why I say: sometimes it's not so bad to screw up. Yes, I'm competitive as anyone else out there. I have a strong distaste for losing, and I love the thrill of the hunt. But, if you'll notice, if someone screws up in sports, whether it's dropping a pass, missing your defensive assignment, or giving up the game-ending walkoff home run, that guy becomes a total pariah. They put their head down, they walk to the opposite end of the bench, and nobody gets close to them for fear of catching their suck. You drop one fly ball, and suddenly you're a leper. Yes, it's rough, but you know what? Nobody ever got a concussion from being banished to the other end of the bench. But then again, maybe that's why my athletic career stopped after high school.

"Hey, You Seem Like a Nice Guy"

2010-10-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I was out at the bars, as I am so often fond of doing. However, there was another semi-regular occurrence that I'm not quite as fond of: some incredibly odd, probably drugged-out gentleman came up to me outside the bar and dragged me through about fifteen minutes of odd chatter in which I couldn't exactly get a word in to either engage the person or dislodge myself from the conversational vice-grip this man held me in.

I listened to stories about his growing up in San Francisco, his grandfather, who was some kind of trailblazing pioneer, apparently. I learned about how he thought it was fine to steal a bicycle as long as you needed it but how you had to be careful about the bikes you stole, because he stole one that turned out to be a fixie, and he didn't realize it until he was approaching a busy intersection and couldn't find the brakes. I heard about his new interest in panting, how he loved to repair bikes, and how his brother was a wildly successful community college baseball coach.

And why did I find this out? Because I was standing there.

This would have been fine if it were an isolated occurrence, but I swear to you, crazy people have an incredible knack for finding me. Friends tell me it's because I look like a nice guy and am approachable, but I think I must put off some crazy person pheromone or something, because seriously, this shit is a little out of hand. So I will provide you with some highlights of the vast ocean of crazy person knowledge that I have gleaned in my years on this planet.

From the crazy chain-smoking bum on Greyhound: "Don't smoke. heh heh heh Don't smoke don't smoke don'tsmokedon'tsmoke ahahhahahhahhaha" I proceeded to see him chain smoke six cigarettes in the fifteen minute stopover, all the while coughing some awful sound that resembled a car trying to start and backfiring.

A woman outside Annie's Social Club kept informing me that I was the supervisor, that I knew a vast list of names that she began to rattle off, that I was definitely that muthafuckin supervisor, wasn't I? Also, that my friend and drummer Taylor was on his last strike. Mmm mmm mm, and he better look out, because you KNOW what happen when he get that last strike. Mmmm mmm. Supervisor man gonna have to deal with that. And supervisor man can't be bothered with that, because he's such good friends with (some name I have no idea about that apparently I was good friends with).

Some crunk in the Boom-Boom Room wisely informed me that the problem with the Fillmore neighborhood is that it went to shit because there were no more "corner bums". See, back in the days, if kids were screwing up and causing trouble, there was a bum down on the corner who knew everyone, and he would narc the kids out to their parents. Nowadays that we got no corner bums, we got nobody keeping these damn kids in check.

An unfortunate soul who happened to be leaning on my car after I left band practice down in the Tenderloin spent a long, long time laboriously explaining to me what had gone wrong with his life, why he couldn't get a job, the best way to lift weights, why you have to be good at lifting weights if you're going to prison, why you should love your family, and how he was going to get back on his feet in no time. He was also convinced that I'd just walked out from playing a gig at the Warfield, so I'm not sure he was quite all together.

A very standoff-ish person in the Inner Sunset informed a group of friends and myself that us damn kids have no sense of respect, and that's why the world is in its current state. It was entirely our fault, and if us damn kids couldn't show some respect, we could just go straight to hell and stop being cruel. "Us damn kids" were all 28-32 years old.

A happy-go-lucky gent approached myself and a friend simply to tell us that his personal definition of a psychopath is someone who starts laughing at their own joke as a means of making other people laugh, rather than letting the joke be the reason for the laughter. He proceeded not only to break his own rule a number of times via random interruptions of conversation, but he also claimed that I was exempt from this rule, because I "was already a pretty upbeat guy" so apparently I couldn't be a psychopath.

The list goes on and on, but those are a few of the highlights. Somehow they flock to me, and everyone tells me it's because I seem like a nice guy. Here's my problem and curiosity: if I am apparently such a friendly and approachable guy, why is it that I mainly tend to draw in and interact with people who are completely fucknuggets crazy, but not cute girls? Damn universe.

Complacency

2010-10-02T13:27:00.001-07:00

Wow. This is kind of sad. I can't believe I haven't written a blog post in like 75 days. That's borderline unfathomable. But I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized that I've just kind of settled into life recently, and I can't say that I've been that content with it. Yes, I see my friends a lot, yes I go out, and I've even been working the last month, so that has taken up a reasonable amount of time. Still, other than that, I realize that a lot of my time has been spent just killing time. Yes, it's fun to watch TV or fart around on the internet, and it can be really, really fun to play video games. A lot. But still, when you're doing all that, you're not doing things to improve yourself or your situation, and in that way, I feel like August in particular was kind of like quicksand. I haven't read enough recently, I haven't blogged, I haven't been actively pursuing finding new full-time work. I've been kind of a bum.

Yes, it's been nice, but looking back now, I really do have to ask myself: what have I been on vacation from? I began the official "unemployed" status way back at the end of May, and the final few weeks at the job were mostly a matter of me showing up and keeping my seat warm and keeping my computer from going into standby mode - I'm not saying I tanked the job, or that I was slacking off, it's just that more and more tasks that used to keep me busy at work were being moved to other people. So it's not like I was burned out from being so taxed at the workplace. Yes, I was mentally burned out by being stuck in a job that I fully realized wasn't interested in keeping me around, but that was about it.

So, my freelance job officially ended yesterday (due primarily to the possibility of new full-time employment, but more on that as it develops) and I am trying to mentally challenge myself (and aid that fact by stating it on the internet) that I want to get back in the swing of things. I want to go to the coffee shop and read. I want to write more music. I want to look for a job that will not only support the true Bill lifestyle, but will excite me enough to convince me that I will actually be there for more than a year or two until I figure out what I really, really want to do.

So, the next time you see me, or talk to me, or email me, give me some shit. Ask me what I'm reading, and what I read before that. Check my GoodReads account to see how often I start a new book. Check and see if I'm working on some new songs for the band. Ask me how the job hunt is going. Pull the Stewie Griffin and ask how the novel is coming (it isn't right now, so don't get all worked up). I may sigh, I may look all sad if things aren't going according to plan, but dammit, that's how I stay on task. That and making lists. Lots of lists. So I hope not to be complacent; not to sit around playing XBox or scratching myself, or whatever it is I do when I'm doing absolutely nothing, and I'm asking all of you who read this to help keep me good to my word. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a comic book to read.

A-Poppin'

2010-07-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

The other night, my friend and I were out at the bars, and as tends to be the case, we were having an incredibly random discussion about a number of different things. Among so many of these random points we made, we were discussing what would have to be the greatest monkey movie that Homer Simpson ever watched. While I was a big fan of Hail to the Chimp, we decided that it ultimately had to be the classic Apes-A-Poppin'. This line of discourse led us to another deeply insightful realization about the world in which we live, and this immensely complex English language that we speak:

No matter what noun you choose, if you pair it in a phrase with "a-poppin'", it will always be hilarious. Go ahead and try it in your head a little bit, it's fantastic. You can do it with cute animals, like "Kittens-A-Poppin" or "Goldfish-A-Poppin". You can do it with a city "San Francisco-A-Poppin" or "Chicago-A-Poppin". I find it's almost better with food: "Hamburgers-A-Poppin" or "Filet Mignon-A-Poppin", even "Popovers-A-Poppin".

So now, a bit of a history lesson for you: this fantastic cinematic voyage that is both The Simpsons and their fine dancing monkeys started all the way back in 1941. There was a movie called "Hellzapoppin'" which chronicled the grand proliferation of the Lindy Hop dance craze. So, the Simpsons, geniuses that they are, re-imagined this fine film as a monkeys in tuxedos comedic romp. I tell you this much: I sure as hell would buy a copy of this fine movie if I were given the chance.

Now, one other point, another idea to ponder: imagine how hilarious and fantastic some of the greatest movies would be if they were re-imagined starring monkeys. I mean, just let your mind wonder and dream up some possibilities: "Pulp Monkeys", "The Big Chimpanzee", "Superbad Monkeys", "Rear Window Ape", "South by Southmonkey". Just awe-inspiring.

Got thoughts? Lay them on me....

Funemployment

2010-07-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

That's right kiddies, your friend and humble narrator is currently sans employment, but to be completely honest, I'm kind of thrilled about it. Not that I didn't like getting a paycheck, and the stability in life that full-time employment provides, but it sure is nice to stay up until four in the morning when you so desire, and to wake up to the sun coming in your window at two in the afternoon. So, while the termination wasn't exactly my idea, I still hold that it's a blessing in disguise.

So this means I am now rife with free time; I finally have time to write some music, to update all sorts of social media, including this blog, my Twitter, my Tumblr, my band's blog, my band's YouTube account, and all sorts of other things. You know how that goes. I also finally have time to read again as much or as little as I want, so if you have a GoodReads account that I'm not aware of, by all means let me know!

So begins the "Summer of Bill" - I have a modest severance check coming my way, I just finished filing for unemployment, and I should be able to at least spend the rest of the summer just relaxing and doing what I do best: being Bill. I'm back to that excited, well-rested, over-caffeinated ball of fun that most of you may remember from the good old days of grad school and even the undergrad years. Still, if you know a good place to work that is on the lookout for a copywriter or editor type person, let me know, a good job is totally worth sacrificing the tail end of the Summer of Bill for.

I suppose that's all for today, I plan on heading out to the coffee shop a little more regularly soon, and that always makes for excellent blog fodder. I'm also thinking that I might finally dust off "Godspeed You White Blogger", my music blog, and get that thing up and running a bit more regularly too.

Excelsior!

Quiet, Please.

2010-05-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, I'm trying to work towards updating this blog more regularly. You've heard it before because I write it at the beginning of almost every entry.

Still, today I was disturbed enough to be moved to blog.

I will preface this whole story by saying this: when using a public restroom, if I have to pop a squat, I am incredibly self-conscious to the point of OCD avoidance. Especially around the office, where our entire floor has a shared public restroom, I have put off trips if there is someone in the restroom who might see me enter a stall instead of approaching a urinal. It's crazy, yes, but that's just how I roll. Everybody poops, but I don't when it's public knowledge that it's me in there. I will wait for people leave before exiting a stall, and if someone is in the stall next to mine, I'll crowd away from the divider so my shoe isn't there to tip anyone off. I have issues, but it's okay. My issues are part of what keep this blog going, infrequently as it may be.

So, back to the case at hand. I'm in the restroom at work, which as I said is shared with the entire floor of our office complex and any guests that these businesses might have. I'm quietly sitting in a stall, making myself invisibile and inaudible if at all possible. Someone comes in and sits down in the other stall. This is fine. This happens every day. Again, everybody poops. It's life. I am sitting there, doing everything in my power not to shift or make other noises. Then all of a sudden I hear it. Something nobody should ever have to hear.

The poop moan.

You all know what I'm talking about. That slightly relaxing exhalation of satisfaction when "legislation has been pushed through" if you catch my drift. Mortified, I sit there in mild shock, bug-eyed at the fact that some random dude would just let that out in a public restroom, especially knowing that there'someone sitting there a few scant feet from him with nothing but three quarters of an inch of particle board keeping us apart. As I'm sitting there staring straight ahead, trying to plot my move, it happens again, but worse. So I immediately finish up and get the hell out of there with the maximum possible speed.

But this experience got me thinking - is it me? Do normal people just make themselves at home when they're on the throne, no matter where the throne may be? Am I over-reacting? I know this whole entry is a wee bit of an overshare, and what happens in the bathroom should stay in the bathroom, but the fact that now, hours later I am still kind of shivering about the whole situation, I had to get it out there. I think the other guy in there, knowing that there was someone in the stall next door, was way out of line. You don't just go into a public space and start making rampant noises of personal satisfaction with your bowel movements. At least you shouldn't, because that shit's nasty. Literally and figuratively.

Another Generic Update Post

2010-04-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. My lack of updates is pretty disgraceful, and I agree. But see, there's stuff brewing at the moment that I'm not necessarily at leisure to discuss at the moment. Nothing too earth-shattering or life changing at the moment, but still, exciting nonetheless for me.

Anyhow, let'a go through a little laundry list of what Bill has been up to over the past little while since he last wrote a passable blog:

- Been to a handful of shows, the Morning Benders and Spoon being the highlights of the past few weeks

- I've watched almost the entirety of Cowboy Bebop again (I'm just three episodes from the end of the series as I write this)

- got new glasses finally. Don't get me started on that one. All I'll say at this point is to be wary if you happen to do your eyewear shopping at West Portal Optical. The glasses are fantastic and well-constructed, but I'll be damned if I didn't wait for about a month longer than promised for the damn things to show up.

- Caught the A's home opener, which unfortunately they lost, but we still had a real ball. Gotta love how the season has started for the old boys in the green and gold

- Music, music, music - as if that were any different. I'm averaging three band practices a week, and a whole mess of other band duties outside of that. Speaking of which - if you want to get your hands on the new Hello Monster buttons, be sure and let me know.

Generally speaking, you can keep up more with the minutiae and links that my life are filled with, check out the Twitter feed or my Tumblr account, both links are off to the left. I do miss having a more regular blog, but when you're hardly ever home, it's hard to find the time to churn out compelling content. Hopefully soon enough...

Gawt Damn

2010-03-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'll set the scene for you: about two weeks ago, I was meeting a friend for lunch at the Ferry Building. (For non-San Franciscans, that's a big complex with frou frou food and other delicacy options) It was a relatively boring Friday not unlike any other, and as he got held up at work and was running late for our pre-determined meeting time, I had a little bit of time to kill. I decided to kill it the best way I know how: by drinking coffee! Since there is a Blue Bottle kiosk right there in the Ferry Building, I could happily go about that very task.

So I proceed towards the line, and can't help but notice a cute girl on crutches sitting near the espresso machine. She kind of perfectly strikes that balance between cute and hot. Like, you know she's good looking, and she knows she's good looking, but there's something in her overall look that doesn't emit that "Yes, I know I'm hot, please leave me the hell alone" vibe, which is very refreshing. So I'm standing there, staring at her while not trying to make it blatantly obvious that I'm staring at her. The whole time I can't shake the feeling that there's something slightly familiar about her.

At this point I feel it bears mention that I have a memory somewhat like a steel trap. I remember people. I remember a ton of people, and have much more ease remembering people if they happen to be attractive females. Some would call it a gift, I just call it a knack. But I digress.

The more I look at this girl in a polite way that is both non-stalkerish as well as non-pervy, I convince myself more and more that I have seen her before somewhere. In particular, her smile really strikes a chord with me. It could be that it's one of those incredibly cute smiles that somewhat coyly turns up just like so at the corners, but I can't help but feel there's more than that.

I'm still two people away from the register when they call her name to collect her coffee: Rachel.

Rachel.

Rachel..... hmmm....

I start scanning the memory banks, hoping for any flicker of recognition so that I can possibly strike up a "hey, I think I know you" conversation. Nothing. Granted, I had probably ten seconds to dig it up, but there wasn't even a little spark of recognition as she got up, gathered her coffee and hobbled away. I proceeded to order my coffee, and had a few minutes to let the name rattle around my head. Still, by the time my friend showed up, it still hadn't come to me.

Flash forward maybe twenty minutes or so, we're sitting at the table having lunch, and suddenly it hits me like a bolt out of the blue: Rachel! Rachel who was in my short story class my junior year of college! Rachel who used to have reddish hair, but now has it a sort of chestnut brown! Rachel who still wears glasses and still has that amazing smile that used to drive me nuts back in the day! Rachel who was friends with the two baseball players in the class, who may or may not have been an athelete herself! Rachel who I thought was awesome but it didn't matter because I had a girlfriend at the time! That Rachel.

The moral of this story: if you're really cute, chances are I will remember you damn near forever. Also, Rachel is incredibly cute, and got even cuter over the last eight or nine years.

That 'burns.

2010-03-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

Damn, Kat Dennings. I thought we had something. I think you're one of those fun cute, quirky actresses. I am even moderately amused by your love for all things hamsters and other quirks. I'm willing to overlook the "I don't really drink" thing, and a handful of other eccentricities that come with fame and stardom and all that.

But then, on an otherwise fine and dandy kind of a day, I fire up the ol' Twitter machine, and what do I read?

This tripe.

Yeah, for serious.

What the hell? Sideburns? You're going to take issue with sideburns? Think about how many great and handsome fellas had sideburns: Elvis, James Dean, Don Mattingly, Dylan McKay, Justin Pierre, Morrissey, Chester A. Arthur, and yours truly just to name a few. I mean, with the exception of me, those are all pretty good lookin' fellas, all of whom have their distinctive facial features enhanced by sideburns.

Apparently, I was no the only person out there who read that and was somewhat up in arms about this whole sideburns-gate issue that arose on the Twitters. The uproar was so large that good ol' Kat had to post this follow-up, to which I say "Feh. I wouldn't want to be kissin' on anyone who didn't like sideburns anyhow. No matter how much of a tiny celeb crush I may have once harbored, it's gone now." Next thing I know she'll be bashing on bass guitars, Kerouac, black hoodies, and Wes Anderson films while she's at it.

So I say to all of you out there, grow your sideburns, rock those mutton-chops, and just dig into whatever kinds of facial hair accent you feel is right. The Sideburned Human League is there to get your back, no matter what celebrities might say about them!

The Voices in Your Head

2010-02-10T22:59:00.000-08:00

No no, not schizophrenia, nor in that talking to yourself and getting lost in the thought of what you're saying inside your head. Rather, what I've been curious about lately is the phenomenon of people reading, particularly fiction.

See, apparently I happen to be a bit of an anomaly: when I read books, I do next to nothing when it comes to envisioning characters beyond what the author describes or applying any voice to the characters I read. Apparently, when most of my friends that I've talked about this with, and the majority of the people I went through the master's lit program with at SF State have primarily said that they assign some kind of voice to the characters in what they read. There is part of me that fears I am somewhat missing out on this. On the other hand, it could be argued that by eliminating a voice when reading, I can more freely receive (and in an academic setting analyze) what is being said and by whom.

Now I won't try to say that I am completely immune to this; I clearly distinguish mentally when a narrative voice is changed. I also realize that in some situations I certainly attach a voice, namely when reading writers whose voice I know, or whose voice is such a strong part of their work, for instance with Bukowski or Kerouac, but I don't know if that really counts, since each author writes from a somewhat autobiographical point of view.

Still, it hasn't been until recently that I've become more cognizant of this fact. I suppose part of it would relate to hearing something read out loud. As I said before, I don't attach voices to the characters, but still, from time to time I'll either hear of an actor cast to play a part, or I'll happen across an audiobook rendition of something I've read, and I can say with complete certainty whether the person chosen is "right" or not.

So how does this work? Do you have distinct voices for characters when you read? Do you adhere to regional accents? Inflection? Do you picture characters a certain way, other than what is listed in the descriptions from the book? Have we become so centered on multimedia experience that we can't simply take literature at face value? Or am I missing out, desensitized by all the reading I do on a day-in-day-out basis, plowing through books and not being able to distance myself from the academic pursuit of reading? Leave a little something in the comments - I'm curious to hear what you have to say.

So Bill, Why Are You Looking So Confident Today?

2010-02-04T23:42:00.000-08:00

No kids, it's not my masculine scent. It isn't the fact that I know I brushed my teeth extra well this morning. Nope, it's not even that the rash finally cleared up (I kid, I kid, relax). No kids, that devil-may-care, mothers-lock-up-your-daughters look can only be brought about by one thing: new underpants. That's right kids, good ol' Bill was just gifted a fresh pair of undies, and I couldn't possibly be any happier. Let me also tell you, that this is no ordinary pair of underpants, kids, this is a pair of special travelpants.

Inspired by the Rumdum Las Vegas "One Suit, One Weekend" trip that was such a resounding success, my wonderful friends the Desimone sisters decided to get me a gift that would take the whole thing one step further: one suit, one weekend, two pairs of underpants. See, these babies are not just lightweight and moisture-wicking, they are insta-dry, and they are meant specifically to be worn, washed, wrung out, and worn again. As the instructions on the packaging told me: "wash them, wrap them up like a burrito, stomp on them to dry them, and enjoy." While I have been washing them in the traditional way (you know, that modern marvel we call a washing machine). Still, the fact that I could essentially wet myself, run to the bathroom, wash up in the sink, and be almost ready to go in no time. I'm not saying I would consider wetting myself, least of all intentionally, but still, I sleep a little more soundly know that if I so desired, I could, and in the end, isn't that what really matters?

But I digress. Anyhow, new underpants. Good stuff. It makes me happy, they fit like a glove, and they keep me comfortably dry.

PS - yes, those are the underpants I have, but no, it's not my junk.

Man, I'm Terrible at This

2010-02-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

Blog, did you miss me? Well, I missed you too. I'm not making excuses about the lack of blogging recently, I just have been lame. And by lame I mean going out a lot, and keeping somewhat odd hours, oh and I got an Xbox, which is never good news for free time at home. But yeah. Blog.

See, here's part of it, and I've been thinking about this recently: I talk to lots of people all the time, I tell stories, I shoot off silly emails to my friends that are of an almost bloggy nature, but this way if a story involves something or someone, I don't have to make it 100% public. Now I know you're wondering what I have to be all secretive about, and I promise you, it really isn't anything. I just find that by the time I get home from work I tend to be a little worn out on typing out my life again. Chances are I've done it already once that day, not to mention the whole "I write blogs for a living" kind of thing I have going on from time to time. I know it's an age old joke, but damn I'm glad I'm not a gynecologist. Wocka wocka wocka.

So, for instance, I emailed some of my buddies today with this little tidbit that's an amusing anecdote for my usually mundane everyday life. So part of my team's job at work is to generate content for our weekly newsletter. With our Valentine promotion in full swing at the moment, the three single kids have to riff on and on about all the wonderful things you should be getting for that special someone without really having special someones of our own. Well, that and my general hatred of all things Valentine, except the SF Pillowfight. But I digress. My coworker was working on a top ten Valentine gifts lists, and was stumped as to what men want for Valentine's Day. Chances are if you know me or happen to either possess or have regular access to a pair of testicles, you already know where this is going. Here we are, verbatim conversation via instant messenger:

Coworker_1: morning
bill_bergstrom: hey hey
Coworker_1: what do men want for v-day?
Coworker_1: top ten is not easy for a single gal
bill_bergstrom: honestly, I have no idea what to say
bill_bergstrom: men only really want sexual favors
bill_bergstrom: but you can't exactly offer cash back on those

See, this is the kind of knowledge I be droppin' day in and day out. We don't need a blog full of this silliness, now do we? And we sure as hell don't need me griping about MUNI any more than I already do. Hell, have you seen my Twitter account? I should get sponsored by MUNI, except the complete opposite. Which is really what it's like - I talk a load of shit about how badly they fail at doing anything, and they take my money all the time. Reverse sponsorship. Boom. Patent it. Trademark by me, 2010.

It's evident that it's late and I probably stopped making sense after the first few sentences of this blog, so I'll wind it down. But still, blog! Hopefully I'll be loopy tired and sitting at home tomorrow too so I can do this again. You know, like back when I used to blog all the time.

Not to be derivative, but....

2010-01-21T09:24:00.001-08:00

"Look at this fucking love connection."

Happy Thursday, y'allz.

So, how did you meet?

2010-01-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

I know this post is entirely overdue, but I still rave about this over a week later. I was watching TV unassumingly a few Mondays back, celebrating the long-awaited return of Heroes to NBC's Monday night lineup, and at ten o'clock I shut the TV off. As you know, I'm not one to watch television just for the sake of watching.

Ten minutes later my phone rings and my friend says "Turn on the TV to channel seven. I'll call you at eleven when this show is over."

Naturally, you can't resist that kind of temptation, so I did as I was instructed. It was then that I first discovered what might be the greatest breakthrough in both network television as well as in American dating in the history of network television and American dating.

I was watching Conveyor Belt of Love.

The beauty of this show, outside of the speedo guy with the lap dog,

was the fact that it gives EXACTLY what it promises. Men go by on a conveyor belt, girls sit there with little paddles indicating if they're either interested or not interested, much like an auction. But rather than a constant stream of beefcakes who look like they're on break from ASU, there are a bunch of freaks. There's the fat guy with the really respectable Chris Farley impression. There's speedo guy. There's a magician who calls himself "The Filipino Chris Angel". There's nunchuck guy who also won't stop dancing. There's the ukelele guy who, it turns out, did gay porn. There's the weird nature boy who may or may not have B.O. There's sleazy investment banker-looking guy who desperately argues his case that he's deserving of a date. I could go on. I'm not alone - Zap2It published a blog about the wonderful lessons one can glean from this wonderful broadcast experience.

This is what our society has come to. Men on a conveyor belt. You know what's worse? It's still one of the best reality shows I've ever seen. I'd watch it a thousand times before considering watching American Idol. Maybe it's that people romantically humiliating themselves is more interesting than people humiliating themselves because they think they have talent.

This great revelation in television came at an interesting time. For some reason, a handful of the females I associate with (mostly co-workers) have been talking at length about their fear of dying alone amidst a crowd of fifty cats and stacks of old newspaper. This kind of thought process always fascinates me. I know it's got to be part of female body chemistry and hormones and all that jazz, but I can't for the life of me think of any man who, especially before the age of thirty, says "oh no, I'm going to die unwed with an excessive amount of pets." Yes, I know the stereotype of the "cat lady" is something that strikes fear into most every single unattached woman above 25 or so.

And yes, I know there was that episode of Sex & the City where Miranda was afraid she was going to die alone in her apartment and her cat was going to eat her face off (don't ask why I know it, I'm just well-rounded), but still, it seems odd to me the frequency with which females seem to express this concern. Stranger still that they would express it to me, who has been famously single for almost as far back as anyone can remember. I don't really have any insights into what to tell these women, but I'm just curious if any of you who happen to stumble across this blog might be able to shed some light on the issue? Do we, as a culture, preach fear to women if they aren't well on their way to marriage by their early-to-mid twenties? As someone whose mom didn't marry until forty, it's pretty foreign to me, so maybe you all can help me out.

How to Spend an Afternoon

2010-01-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

I'll be brief, and there should hopefully be some good blogs coming down the pike. I think. If I am ever home in the evenings.

In the meantime, enjoy two of my great loves mixed together:

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski

You can thank me later. And thank Phil, I got it off his Facebook page.

The Cobra and the Mongoose

2009-12-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

A little over a week ago, I went with the fellas in Hello Monster to see Live 105's Local Band Showcase and Battle of the Bands. The battle had something slightly more than your average "handshake and maybe some cash" at stake: the winner of the battle wins the opening spot for Live 105's Not So Silent Night, which is their big Winter concert at the Oakland Arena. The winning band gets to open for Muse, AFI, Vampire Weekend, and a few other heavy hitters.

So why the title? I was trying to come up with the classic conflict, and it seemed fitting, but the comparison I'm making is the ancient struggle that I witnessed that night at the show: the struggle between a band and a sound guy. See, it's an odd symbiotic relationship, and there is a reason that most of the major bands you see much of anywhere all bring their own sound guys with them once they can afford to. Even in my limited experience, unfortunately there tends to be an unspoken rule that bands have to pretty much bend over and take it if the sound guy at the club is being a dick. It's how it goes: it's his club and his gear as far as he (or she, of course) is concerned. Many of them are great; a lot of sound guys I've worked with have been both wonderful people and talented at their job. But when they screw you.... boy do they screw you.

So here's the long and the short of it: the band that was pretty much the front runner as far as I'm aware hit the stage with their work cut out for them. Another band from earlier in the night absolutely blew the place up and had the entire crowd eating out of the palms of their hands. As soon as they hit the stage, something was clearly off. At first I thought it was a matter of my ears - it just seemed like the vocals were off key and the mix in the house just wasn't right.

Then between songs, the lead singer/guitarist asks for more vocals in his monitors. They play another song, he asks for more vocals in his monitors again, and it is distinctly heard that the sound guy tells him that he has to turn his guitar down before he can get anything else in the monitors. This request is ignored. See, this is the dance between bands and sound guys. Guitarists especially (I am speaking as one here) know for a fact that there are "sweet spots" in amplifiers when they are pushed to a certain volume. Sound guys want a much quieter signal, usually, so they can have more control over the volume from their soundboard.

And so it goes.

So a song or two later, the sound guy comes onstage to adjust the bass drum microphone mid-song. It's not uncommon, but it wasn't so glaring that the adjustment couldn't be made between songs. So, the singer from the band makes like he's kicking the sound guy the whole time he's on stage. I personally believe he made contact at least once, but that's still open to debate. So they play, they announce two more songs. They play another song, they announce one more song. They start said song.

Something is wrong.

Something is very wrong: the guitar is about a fifth as loud as it was. Then it hits me: they got yanked. The band tries to end gracefully, which is hard to do when your lead singer is trying to sing into a microphone that isnt' making any sound. So they wrap it up, they throw down their instruments, complete with the guitar leaning up against the amp so it feeds back, the singer flips off the sound guy and storms off stage.

As they are making their way off stage, the sound guy can clearly be heard saying through the monitors "You're done. Get the fuck off the stage."

Now let me elaborate: there was apparently existing beef going all the way back to sound check. Sound guy was a dick to the drummer, and some words were apparently exchanged. Still, to his credit, the band did have to adhere to a time limit as per the schedule, and they may well have gone over. I don't know for sure. I don't know if anyone does. But either way, by being completely punk rock about it, the singer won his band the admiration of a LOT of people there that night. But then again, his band just sounded off for like half an hour plus.

So who wins? Honestly, nobody. Except the band, that is, who was announced the winner of the battle the following morning.

My Dreams in a Nutshell

2009-12-11T00:27:00.000-08:00

This is an instant messenger between myself and a much-revered coworker. I feel it captures my interests as well as personal tastes rather well.

if anybody on the planet would appreciate this link more than you, I would probably pay a tidy cash reward

http://www.youtube.com/user/AlieandGeorgia

two cute girls

who dress up kinda like 50s housewives

and make bizarre cocktails

that usually involve meat

I want to swoop up on the two of them, steal them off to Utah, and have a good old fashioned polygamist wedding and live in alcoholic meat bliss

Though I will admit, I find it somewhat surprising how frequently polygamy factors into my life, you may recall, I recounted my desire to do a similar thing with Au Revoir Simone not too long ago.

Naturally, in a perfect world, I could join my musical brides with my alcoholic meat brides into one giant super mega-fantasy life.

The Censorship Thing

2009-12-03T00:50:00.000-08:00

So a co-worker of mine sent me a link to this article about two weeks ago, and it raises the ever-important question about censorship. See, in lit programs the whole banned books and all that jazz comes up on a moderately regular basis. From my years of teaching and just riding the bus and all the time I spend around young-ish kids, I remain bitter and cynical, which makes me wildly liberal on the censorship thing when it comes to kids. I tend to live by the creed that if kids are reading, we are making epic strides, because they could just as easily be doing any of a million illegal or immoral things, rather than reading a book. Plus, there isn't anything in a book that they can't find on the ol' internet.

First I'll give you a chance to read or skim. Go ahead. I'll wait...

http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/1011029.html?a

There. Ready? Okay, great.

Here's what I think is at the heart of these issues: the age and technology gap. That, and the whole zealotry thing of individuals who think if they don't protect children from the evils of the world. You know, kind of like what parents should theoretically do in the real world. I don't really want to get into dwelling on the article too closely. It's a deep and convoluted issue, and I don't think I could really do my opinion justice here and now. I will just say that there is one line in this article that sums up these ladies and their crazy:

People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head.

I'm not saying it's strictly a religious thing. I would never go so far as to say that most religious folks would act like these ladies, but man, this is an award-winning comic book, not Penthouse Forum. Heaven help them if they happened across Watchmen or something like that. I guess they could at least find comfort in Rorschach's morality.

Technically it's Not Cheating

2009-12-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Some of you might gripe that I am just re-posting something from somewhere else, but seeing as how I personally wrote this blog last night, I think it's perfectly legit for me to just hit you with a link. Feel free to comment here, but you just have to read it over at Myspace (no account needed). Yes, I could have cut and paste, but come on now, will one click really kill you?

Hello Monster: What Exactly Happened at Kimo's

Enjoy!

Caught in a Landslide...

2009-11-24T09:55:00.000-08:00

Happened across this little bit of wonderful via Twitter this morning, and it just makes you feel amazing. Maybe it's just me, but I could watch this video all day long and not get tired of it, so I felt like it would be prudent to share it with all you wonderful folks.

Back on Track

2009-11-24T01:22:00.000-08:00

I know I know, it's been a while again, yet I haven't really been keeping up too well all year really. I was just looking at the totals for this year, and jeez, I have been quiet as all hell. I mean, granted, it's better to remain quiet if you don't have much to say, and yes the working world has added a wee bit more monotony than I tend to like, but still, that's a little crazy. I mean, I wrote three times the blogs in 2008 than I have thus far in 2009.

So I'm hoping to find my way back to regular blogging. Tonight feels like a good night to catch up. I've been catching up gradually on the TV shows I regularly watch. For being one of those people who is kind of a jerk about the whole "I don't really watch TV" and "I don't have cable" thing, I am a huge fan of "Heroes" and "Glee". Yep, that's right, kids- captain negative pants, the guy who has something critical to say about damn near everything, happens to have a major weak spot when it comes to a TV show chronicling the singing and dancing escapades of a group of lovable high school outcasts. I mean look at the blissful dazed expression on that little monitor fella in the middle of the picture above, that's about how I feel when I watch Glee. It's downright silly, folks, it really is.

In other news, work has been pretty hectic, I'm just a tad under the weather, and part of me fears that has been the result of me doing everything all the time. I feel like I've been running around like a madman for the past few weeks, so from time to time it's nice to be able to sit back like this, and enjoy the finer things in life, like the occasional episode of TV on Hulu.

Geez, this shaped up to be kind of a schmaltzy "what I'm thankful for" post a few days in advance. Sorry - I will probably be back to my traditional crabby, cranky, bah-humbug self in no time.

Wordless Wednesday, Attempt #1

2009-11-18T23:15:00.000-08:00

So I'm trying to do some of these themed, weekly blog entries. I've seen a handful of bloggers who have done this whole "Wordless Wednesday" thing where they list photos and whatnot. I'll start it off with a bang. This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. Hope it does the same for you.

Damn Right.

2009-11-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

This is me, forty years from now.

http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays/statuses/5772660192

The Fading Traces of a Handstamp

2009-11-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

So, as you may have noticed, I haven't really been writing a hell of a lot lately. There are a number of reasons for this, the main one of which is the simple fact that I am essentially never home. I pop in and out from time to time between band practices and all the other social obligations, but that's really about it. Of these varied "social obligations", the main one over the past few weeks has been going to shows. Certainly I'm not complaining, there's little in the world I'd rather be doing, especially on some random weeknight. So you know I'm not exaggerating, let me break it down for you:

Sunday November 1st - Built to Spill at the Fillmore
Monday, November 2nd - The Airborne Toxic Event at the Fillmore
Saturday, November 7th - Los Dryheavers and Get Dead at Annie's Social Club
Monday, November 9th - The Pixies at The Fox Theater
Thursday, November 12th - Headlights at Cafe Du Nord

Five shows in eleven days. It's been a wild ride. Toss in about five band practices in there, plus my regular full-time work schedule. But it makes me stop to think: what is it about seeing live music that gets me going so much. I mean, it's time, and I don't want to think about how much I've spent in that time span between tickets and drinks. But still, seeing good shows (and I can say that pretty much all of those were excellent shows in their own right) does two things to me: it makes me want to go out and see more good shows, and it makes me want to play more shows myself.

There's also just something about going out, seeing people do their thing onstage and having a great time, there's a certain amount of pride I feel in walking into work the next day, the remnants of a handstamp fading off my hand or wrist, knowing I probably had a better and more fun night than most of the people I walk past. Still, I'm kind of looking forward to a week or two that I don't have any shows on the calendar to go to. It might actually give me a little chance to take some of that inspiration of seeing all these bands and write some music again.

Come on barbie.

2009-11-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

I've noticed a trend here and there from time to time, and even witnessed it firsthand the other day, and it was terrible. It's the bald-head-with sideburns look. Shaquille O'Neal did it for a while and it didn't quite work, I've seen a few other celebs try it and it's been worse. Naturally, as the title of this posting might indicate, the most famous violator of this look was that dude from the band Aqua, but his were even worse, as it was an over-the ear band of hair that connected into a semi-sideburn that was just chock full of douchiness. A more recent violator is Tim Nordwind of the band Ok Go. Paired with the fact that he always tends to be a bit more flamboyant in his clothing choices than the rest of his bandmates, he is further proof still of why you never want to be that guy with the bald head and the sideburns. Just let it go, man. Just let it go. I mean look at him, he looks like Powder (or Michael Stipe) with giant caterpillars crawling past his ears.

The other violator that is similar, which also seems to be making a comeback is the shaved head/full beard combo. Again, just because you can't grow hair on your head somewhere doesn't mean that you should try to compensate by growing it elsewhere. Imagine how bad that could get - some dude has a completely shaved head, yet compensates for it by growing an epic patch of back hair to make up for it. No facial hair but a massive carpet of chest hair peeking out from over his collar. (Tubes, I'm looking in your direction) I won't even go into the hair in "other parts" that might be grown to compensate, because that's gross.

There's only one person who can pull off the beard and bald look, and that's Kimbo Slice. I may or may not actually think that, but look at the guy. I'm really quite sure he could tear me from limb to limb, so in the sake of preserving my life, I will say "lookin' good there, big guy."

Some Rainy Weather Free Verse

2009-10-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

From my co-worker:

Fuck
Left
Sunroof
A crack
Shit!
Bill
Theres
A puddle
Its a leak
Not the window
Fuck

Hang tight, PT.

Button it Up

2009-10-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yes. I know I haven't written in over a week. I'm lame and terrible and am breaking the cardinal rule of blogging, that whole thing about how if you don't write frequently enough people will stop paying attention and reading and all that. Then again, that might be why my technorati rank is 1,603,173. Oh well.

So, a while back, I bought some new jeans. I heard that Gap was doing that big ol' campaign about their new jeans, and when they released them, they had all sorts of kick ass sales. I decided to take advantage (due in part to the fact that my jeans are getting sorrier by the week) and I finally got around to wearing one of the new pairs recently. I like the look, I like the style, and all that jazz. I feel like it was money well spent and all those other frugal platitudes.

But here's the thing. The damn jeans have a button fly.

I don't know who invented the button fly. Secretly I blame the Amish. But then again, I totally can. This is the internet. Lord knows the amish aren't online. I don't even know if they can, in accordance with their culture, read things that have been printed off the internet. Interesting question. If you have the answer, let me know.

But anyways, back to the fly. Button flies are awful. While they're buttoned, it's not all that bad. But gawddamn, god forbid I really have to pee. It's so awkward and difficult. Needlessly so. I swear, it's like having a corset for your junk - you're all bound in there and it takes a degree of skill, dexterity, and coordination in order to get out of there. I just don't get it. Well, I guess the bright side is that, after all that ordeal, I don't have to worry about walking out of the bathroom with my fly down. Well, I guess there was that time the other night where I skipped a button. That was... an interesting sensation.

All Doors Are Closing

2009-10-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

I need not remind you all I'm not a morning person. If you ever, ever forget that fact, just call me before ten in the morning. I hate to sound redundant, but it's an important reminder from time to time, and it is a rather necessary preface to this little tale.

This morning I caught the bus at pretty much the same time as I always do. I tend to be pretty much within the same range all the time. Today's bus was a tad more crowded than usual, and I wound up with a pack of grade school girls standing across from me. This was fine. But to give you an idea of just how close they were to me; one of them leaned back and went headfirst into my book, which was already leaning up by my chest.

This invasion of personal space continued for much of the ride from various people at various angles, but I can absolutely accept that as a necessary evil of public transportation. These things happen. That is not my gripe. Just, at the end of the morning's ride, I was already in a somewhat aggravated, somewhat fragile mental state. So getting off the bus was a bit of an adventure, and I'll tell you why:

Because all the damn morons who clog the bus stops of my fair city can't understand the simple concept of allowing people to exit a bus before putting their head down and trying to force their way into the doorway as if the bus will drive away and never come back.

Today, at my stop, I had to trip and stumble my way to the door, contorting myself like an Eastern European acrobat so as not to brain the people sitting down or to dry hump the poor overweight septuagenarian who no one was willing to give up a seat for. I see daylight, make my move, just happy to keep my shoes on my feet, and the next thing I know I'm almost taken out by the kneecaps by two women with jogging strollers who are trying to press their way onto my streetcar. They seemed to be hoping that, despite the fact that my large frame scarcely escaped with all limbs intact and no bodily harm inflicted on my person or that of those around me, that they might fool the keepers of the doors into somehow creating space for them so that they may magically board and ride comfortably.

This, dear readers, is not how I want to start a Wednesday. I try to be mindful of those around me, and I don't like to play the role of linebacker around my unsuspecting fellow commuters, least of all those with small children in tow, but I'll be damned if I wasn't close today. So the next time you go to board a bus, give those exiting ample time to get out of the bus (and out of your way - funny how those things coincide). It's rule number one of riding MUNI. Literally.

Au Revoir Simone

2009-09-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

So, you kids should hopefully be aware of the band Au Revoir Simone. True, you have to be somewhat in the know when it comes to modern indie music, but damn are they wonderful. It's three drop-dead gorgeous hipster girls from Brooklyn playing indie synth pop exactly how it should be played. While all their music is just gangbusters, there is one song in particular that especially sets my heart aflutter, and they just released a video for it:

Now, since my dear sweet Zooey D is married away to Mr. Death Cab, these ladies are now the cutest thing since bite-sized sliced bread.

So here's my plan: I own a MicroKorg, which is a pretty respectable keyboard in it's own right. I'm thinking that sooner or later I'm going to book a flight to Brooklyn, find these lovely ladies' rehearsal space, keyboard in tow. In due time, I'll convince them that what they really need is a fourth member. A male member. From San Francisco. (hurr hurr hurr, I said "member".... twice!)

Then, after a little time of learning all their songs, making myself a productive band member and trusted friend, we book a tour. Said tour will inevitably swing through Utah. Once we're in Utah, BAM! I marry all three of them on one fell swoop.

Then we start a family band and live happily ever after in music and looooove. And maybe kittens. Those girls have gotta love kittens.

So Bill...

2009-09-17T21:54:00.001-07:00

... what have you been doing all this time since you last raved about chili cheese tots?

I suppose the best answer would be "a little bit of everything." Things have been kicking in the music world, with Hello Monster putting the finishing touches on our still-yet-to-be-named EP. The Lava Rats are practicing regularly-ish again, and the Reducing Agents still rock out when time allows. I've been going to a lot of shows, hanging out with the fellas (successfully) and chasing the ladies (unsuccessfully). And work work work. Oh, and I've been building bookcases
for Nate.

But tonight I'm back in my element: somewhat sleep deprived and sipping a cup of coffee at the cafe. And dammit does that feel good.

So as I tend to do when I have issues coming up with what to write about, I went back to the archives and looked for inspiration, and today I noticed, no surprise at all, just how much this blog reflects what my main focus in life is: while I was writing the thesis, I wrote a ton of posts about books and literary theory and all that jazz. When I was unemployed, I wrote mostly about the interesting things happening in the world around me, and all throughout I've had music stuff interspersed pretty often.

So what have my posts been about for the last little while? Pretty much nothing. And that's when I realize I'm in a bit of a rut. Much as I feared, free time has not treated me well. I tend to be the type of person who needs a fire lit under their ass, and my buns are barely warm at the moment. So I'm hoping to get something new going, I don't know what. I have a few ideas scattered about, so I'm hoping that once I figure out where my energies might go, it will kickstart a little bit of creative life again, and I will be that much more engaging here on the blog. So with that bit of a downer, I'm calling it a night because I don't really know when I'll be able to get some sleep in the next week or so. Which makes pursuing new projects harder still. Humbug.

Tots, Part II

2009-09-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

A quick one before I succumb to exhaustion. You may recall, and I'm reaching way back into the vaults for this one, but I wrote a year and a half ago about cheezy tots. Unfortunately, up to this point I have still not ventured into the flavor country known as cheezy tots. Alas, I tend to not be around Burger King in the mornings, and I don't necessarily think that will be changing any time soon.

However, today I happened upon another fast food place I pretty much will never go to again: Sonic. (before going on, I will say that I'd love to go to Sonic a lot more often. However, considering that the closest location is about sixty miles from my house, I don't have a lot of chances to make it out there) At said Sonic, I discovered one of the most wonderful taste sensations from the advent of those golden-brown crispy goodness known as tots. For those of you who know Sonic, you might know where I'm going with this one. For those of you who don't know Sonic, I present you...

Chili-Cheese Tots. That's right kids, cheezy tots are soooo 2008. In the past year, scientists the world over discovered that mere cheese was not enough for tots. No no, good friends. They realized with the addition of chili to said cheese and tots, that the flavortastic wonderment was increased tenfold. Now we can chili-fy our hunger zones in new and fantastic ways for under five bucks.

So, while I still would like to try the King's attempt at injecting the pillowy potato treats I love so dear with cheese, I thumb my nose at them for not having realized the utopia of flavor that is gained by adding chili to these delightful treats.

Thank you, flavor science of the future, for giving my taste buds a five minute siesta from the workaday world while providing me hundreds of empty calories that I can carry around just above my belt for weeks to come.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

2009-09-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

I will be brief, as it is once again late, but man, this cracks me up.

I happened across this image in the course of my work day. The writer of the list is a nurse, writer, and blogger from the North Bay, and I'm sure she's a wonderful woman. I really appreciate what she does for women, and I even feel bad snickering over her, as I believe she does a a lot of good. But problem number one: she's a blatant hippie. Like, really blatant. Also, she put on her to do list, which she shared publicly on both her blog and her twitter account, to have sex with her husband. I mean, tally ho -- good on her for rockin' the Casbah still after all these years -- but to put it in a to do list?

At least it out-ranks catching up on Twitter.

(plus, did she miss my post yesterday about how once you say something publicly on the internet, the universe conspires against you? How can she jeopardize her sweet nooky by telling the aether that she's gettin' some tonight?)

Minor Fail

2009-09-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I made a tactical error in writing publicly that I would be able to achieve epic amounts of blogging this evening. I forgot one of the cardinal rules of the internet: never claim you're going to get something done, because once you hit "publish", the universe will conspire to keep you from achieving anything you have said you would.

Kind of like when I said tomorrow I was going to NOT become a millionaire....

So I'd cooked up this plan to write up a ton of blogs and pre-date them so that they'd publish throughout the week, since I know I won't have time to write much this week. Again. Then I came home, and the passenger door of my car was in pieces. So, since I cannot hardly write to save my life when in my humble abode, I got this blog done and that's it. Because I'm horrible and unproductive. But on the bright side, my passenger window now rolls both up and down. First time in... oh, a year and a half. Maybe more.

There is one thing I wanted to discuss tonight that I suppose ties in somewhat to my blog inabilities of the evening. See, no matter how much I want to or how much I may plan, I seem to lack the general ability to get to sleep at a time most people would deem "normal." See, I am a night person. You know that. You see when I usually write these blogs. Myself and night time go together like peas and carrots. But this is the thing: I've kind of been exhausted for a good two weeks or so. Tonight was one of those rare nights where I have not spent the night out somewhere. I did not have band practice. I didn't need to meet anyone for drinks (and yes, I do need that from time to time). I didn't have tickets to a show...

But guess what? It's currently 12:55 in the flippin' morning, and I am not asleep. I am horrible at this. Could I have written this anywhere in the five and a half hours since I finished dinner? Absolutely. Did I? No. Because apparently I have some dire need to make each morning at least as miserable as the morning before if not moreso. I know I wrote that blog about a month ago about that whole "getting up in the morning and being well rested" thing, and I believe that's probably the last time I woke up well-rested and chipper when waking up to an alarm.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go try to make up for my never sleeping. By sleeping. I hear it's the bee's knees.

Ante Up!

2009-08-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday!

Look forward to much blogeration tonight.

So Bill, How Did You Spend Your Weekend?

2009-08-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks for asking. I spent the entire weekend at PopSmear studios in San Rafael, hanging out with the band, Scott, our fearless producer, his engineer Joel (from an amazing band called Scene of Action), and Scott's dog Cooper. And I tell you what, dear readers, recording is some exhausting stuff. You all know me to some degree, and you all know that I'm not one of those people who sleeps, really. Yeah, I sneak in a day here and there to really put head to pillow, but generally speaking, I trend to not require as much sleep as the average bear. But man, I tell you what, recording is some exhausting stuff. It's not mentally taxing, it's not even specifically physically taxing, there's just some combo of having to be listening critically, being ready to play at any second, and drinking that really takes it out of you.

So now, after three full days in the studio, we have the vast majority of four songs recorded (sans vocal harmony, but that's about it, and everything else sounds flippin' fantastic). And now that I'm home for the night, I'm dog tired. Things sound great, I got to rock the CD in my car all the way home, and all I can do is think about hopping in the shower and sleeping like the dead.

Of course, as happens in the life of Bill, I happen to have plans every night of the week. I know they say no rest for the wicked, which makes me wonder what cosmic being I pissed off in order to wind up like this. You'd think I slept Vishnu's sister or got drunk and punched out God's cousin. Oh well. Thus is life.

Nerd Transport, Part 2: The Segway

2009-08-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay - I was out of town all weekend, and haven't hardly been in front of the computer since Thursday.

But, walking to work this morning, not only did I walk behind the tool that fell off his scooter some days ago, another block closer to my office, I saw coming towards me such a singular abomination, I couldn't get the camera in my iPhone ready in time to take a picture. Coming towards me at about 5 mph was a Segway.

Yeah, I see them around, I know about all the tour groups that use Segways as easy transportation, and I think it's wonderful. Then again, they also use those silly little electric yellow three-wheeler thingies, but I don't see private citizens running out to buy one of those.

So once again you have it: nerd status symbol, lazy transportation, and yet another means of transport that I wouldn't be caught dead on. See a few weeks back, I had a discussion with a friend about Segways. He said they were compelling, and that it seemed interesting, and I agree wholeheartedly. However, the problem is, if I actually got on one of those things except for on an organized tour, I might have to punch myself in the face.

Yet another piece in the puzzle of my Segway aversion: this past year in the Jeopardy Teen Tournament, there was a chubby lad of about seventeen whom most of us would call a dork. Granted, the mere fact that he was on the Jeopardy teen tournament probably didn't bode well for him. Still, he had a rather unfortunate bowl cut, glasses, and was wearing a blazer that looked like it needed a crest on it. So in the regular "meet the players" part of the program, Alex Trebek talked to him about his plans for college and the fact that still at almost eighteen, the gent didn't have a driver's license. He informed ol' Trebek that he never really planned to get a license either. And when asked about going around campus, Alex asked if, like most people, he was planning on getting a bike.

Of course, he replied that he had one plan: to use the money that he might use on a car to purchase a Segway. Thanks kid, for confirming every single stereotype about doughy nerds and their choice of transport. No bike, no car. Just him leaning forward ever so slightly to get wherever the world needs him to be. Plus, we know all too well, there is only one person on this whole planet who can make a Segway look cool...

Confession

2009-08-12T01:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to come out and say it: I don't like camping.

I suppose even that is a bit rash. See, it's not that I don't like camping, it's just that even the idea of camping has absolutely no appeal to me whatsoever. I know it's wonderful to get away, to find places with no cell reception or anything and just "be one with nature" and all that. But not for this guy. No way. Not me.

I really quite like getting outdoors, even out of the city. I like a good hike from time to time, I really enjoy both the fresh air that is to be had out amongst the wonderful trees, and there is hardly a single sight I enjoy than a pitch black night with a sky full of stars. No noise pollution, no air pollution, just a clear night sky through the treetops. But here's the kicker about all that: I like to take all that in, and then go have a nice snooze somewhere inside. On a bed. As much as I tend to enjoy relieving myself in public (I mean, come on, who doesn't?), I prefer having that be a second option behind indoor micturition. It's the simple difference between choice and necessity.

The other big lure everyone talks about other than sleeping under the stars and getting away and all that is the whole "ohh, every night you can have a camp fire to sit around." Well, I find fores to be far more enjoyable when either on the beach or when they are across from a couch with a nice young woman on it. Again, proximity to a bed is a factor in this one, but you know what I mean - wink wink. Then again, no cozy fire anywhere has done me much good in general lately.

So for all the wonders of relaxation, starlit nights, and communing with nature, I think I'd do much better with a flushing toilet and a bed.

Stability: Or, The Nerd Scooter

2009-08-05T01:10:00.000-07:00

I work in a part of town that panders to nerds. It's commonly called "media gulch" in tech circles, and there are times when I'm walking around that I don't know if I am more inspired by the hipsters from the Academy of Art, or mildly repulsed by the nerds who talk about processor speeds and latency with the fervor that most people reserve only for discussing carnal relations.

So it is with this kind of "slightly over all the nerds I encounter every day" mentality that I set out of the office at the end of the day yesterday. I've been in a wee bit of a funk as of late, and therefore I have not been the most empathic person in all of the SOMA district in the past week or two. One thing that I have been consistently rolling my eyes at for the entire duration of my past year's employ at my company has been all the grown men (because, let's be honest, it's always the men) going around on some nerdy "professional" version of a Razor Scooter.

You all remember the Razor scooter, right? They kind of went out when Hansel rode one to the VH1 fashion awards back in 2001 when he upset Derek Zoolander for Best Male Model. You remember them - the scourge of college campuses not because of the sheer number of people riding the, but for the number of people who fell all over the place in an attempt to ride them. Well, thing is, for some tech "professionals" they never went out of style - they just got a little bit bigger, and for some, they got motorized.

Now it's these motorized ones that bother the living hell out of me. They're noisy, the people that "ride" them tend to be asshats, and they leave a nasty trail of exhaust. So despite my funk, I had a little glimmer of sunshine on my walk to the bus yesterday. One of the office buildings I walk past every morning and evening has a long winding walkway (in accordance with the ADA), which I've seen a handful of hotdogs ride their bike up. So as I'm walking towards the bus, awash in the sounds of Explosions in the Sky, I notice a dork with a motorized scooter exiting the building. Rather than being rational, and waiting to crank up the old motorized scooter, he apparently decided that he just needed to risk the hairpin turns of the handicap walkway. So in the blink of an eye he cranks his motor, heads down the ramp, and thwap he goes ass over handlebars, over the railing on the walkway, and into the bushes.

For the little part of me that couldn't help but stifle that "man, I hope he's okay" reaction, there was a huge part of me that smirked and thought "and this could have all been avoided had he simply not been a tool and tried to take his scooter down a wheelchair ramp.

But before you curse me and the fact that I'm a heartless bastard, rest assured - he got up, walked his scooter down the remainder of the walkway (as he should have in the first place) and rode off around the corner.

The "We" Thing

2009-08-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

I spend a decent amount of the week (and really a decent amount of my life these days) around a number of married friends and coworkers. I am a big fan of all of them, and all of their respective spouses (at least those I've met, and hell, even those I haven't met). There's one thing, however, that does tend to grind my gears a little bit.

Yes, I know this comes from my bitter single self. It comes from having oh... six years or so of fairly contiguous singularity. But I tell you what, it still kind of makes me a little grumpy from time to time when friends only in the "we". And no, I don't mean the royal "we."

For instance, when I ask a friend what he (because let's be real, it's a he 95% of the time) did the past weekend or what he's up to that night, I am asking him. I know that for most married couples (at least I'd certainly hope so) their evening and weekend plans often involve one another, but come on. Once you light that unity candle, there's a reason you don't blow out your individual candle. To hear statements like "we don't get out as much as we used to" or "I have to see what we're up to this weekend" it is really just a way of making it seem more passive that you have to check with the wife before doing things. I get that. I understand that. Hell, I support that. By all means, please communicate with your loved one. Just don't try to pass it off as something it isn't - just say "I have to check with the wife" or whatever it is. And when I ask how you are doing, I am asking how you are doing. Allow me that and give me a straight answer; chances are, right after I ask that, I'll ask how the wife is doing. (or the husband, or the life partner - I love 'em all)

Yes, I realize in the sick twisted world that is English Grammar, the plural of two people is also "you". If anybody knows that, it's me. But do you really think your single buddy would really be asking about the coupled activities that filled the days of you two people sharing in matrimony?

Again, I know that I just sound like bitter single guy, but I really don't think I am (at least not in this particular instance). I congratulate and commend all of you wonderful married readers for your years of wedded bliss, and I wish you many more, and in this case, I do mean you as in you two, whomever "you two" may be. But I just want to put the word out there as a public service announcement for all you wonderful married folk, be mindful of your "we" since there are some people who have been an "I" for entirely too long.

It Finally Makes Sense to Me

2009-07-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

Two facts you may have already gleaned from me:

1) I am a night owl, and therefore quite the "not a morning person"

2) I have been under the weather recently, and therefore I have been getting a lot more sleep lately.

Suddenly, everything makes a hell of a lot more sense. See, last night I was feeling kind of like garbage, so I hit the ol' hay around nine o'clock - a feat I have not accomplished since the ripe age of... I don't even remember when. I still woke up at the usual time, around 7:15, yet something was off. I wasn't really cranky. I didn't immediately feel a distaste for anyone I laid eyes on. My stomach was completely settled, my head was clear as a bell, and I felt a bit of a devil-may-care attitude as I woke up.

Suddenly, I realized: this is what it's like for those well-rested morning people. See, all those mornings that I was tired and frustrated, those smiling masses were waking up from their eight or ten hours of sleep, ready to tackle yet another day as the sun rises.

So what's my solution? Now that I'm feeling better, I am staying up until the wee hours of the morning writing a blog about the whole "wow I got sleep one night and felt like a normal human in the morning" thing. Perhaps old blue eyes put it best (not that this applies to me tonight or at all this week): "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day."

Amen, Frank.

Just So You Know

2009-07-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sick. Not in that fun, exciting "sick in the head" kind of way, either. Just the whole "I have a cold and should never be less than five feet from a box of tissues kind of what. Which is really friggin' boring. As a result, the vast majority of my life has been devoted to either being at work and blowing my nose, being at home and blowing my nose, riding the bus and trying not to blow my nose, and sleeping.

So unless you're up for a long diatribe about how much I dislike my mucous glands, I will just pack it in.

Thanks.

How I've Missed You...

2009-07-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

So it turns out everything was all about coffee. I went back to the coffee shop in the first time in quite some time, and I think that a portion of my general ennui was stemming from my lack of late-night caffeination.

All of a sudden I feel alive again for the most part. I'm running into people on the street everywhere I go (a very classic Bill thing to have happen) and again, to the comfort of many people, the people I've run into recently have not been calling me a legend.

Also, tonight I finally finished reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. It's one of those books that is a "challenging read" -- it's 760 pages long, has (according to Wikipedia) over 400 characters, and isn't really about much of anything. It's artfully written, it's clearly a great literary accomplishment, but it's not what a vast majority of us (even folks with a background like mine) would consider pleasure reading. I will say this much: it's hands-down more enjoyable and engaging than I found Finnegan's Wake.

But I can't help but ask: why do I read these books? Yes, Gravity's Rainbow won the Pulitzer, and it was included in Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Greatest Novels, which oddly only includes English language novels from 1923-2005. But still, it bears the question, is it a status thing? (I hope not) Is it a mental challenge thing? (getting warmer) Really, I think it's just boiled down to the fact that at this point in my life, I feel like there are certain books that I should have read. And it's not just part of that BBC list or anything like that.

Am I alone here? Do you all have stuff like that? Movies? Books? Albums? Anything like that? I guess it's like peoples' desires to see all the Major League ball parks or to visit certain cities before they die or something like that. Now back to some more accessible, fun, light reading. Then Infinite Jest. THAT will be an experience...

Well Then

2009-07-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

I have to just up and say it: I've never been quite to uninspired in my life. At least not in recent memory.

My days consist of the same wake-bus-work-bus-band practice-sleep schedule day in and day out. I haven't been to the coffee shop in probably close to two months, I'm tired more and more, and I just feel like I've fallen into a sedentary pattern that is really wearing on me. Hell, I almost talked about the weather again in this blog.

And on that note, I bid you a fond good day.

Oh Dear

2009-07-21T01:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, been sitting here trying to come up with something to write for damn near an hour.
Hopefully I'll have something for you tomorrow.

Abomination

2009-07-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

I emailed this to a handful of my folks, but I had to post it here if you were overlooked in my email.

This is a screamo cover of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights". I applaud these silly lads for their ability to jump at the same time, and their well-coordinated side-stance headbanging. I do not, however, applaud their ability to NOT butcher an otherwise wonderful song.

Best part? They're a Christian metal band.

Read more here.

Legend?

2009-07-12T22:37:00.001-07:00

Whenever I toss out the word "legend" I can't help but think about "The Legend of Boggs" but unfortunately, that's not what tonight's blog is about. Rather, narcissistically enough, it's about me. See, last night I was at an old stomping ground after hours (Seniore's Pizza, for you in the SF cognoscenti) and as often happens to be the case when in an old stomping ground, I ran into some guys who I went to high school with.

The two young gents were both about two years younger than me. I know it's commonplace to look up to the older guys when you're in school and all that, but apparently this has somehow hung on with a few of the fellas. See, as I was walking out of the pizza place last night, the two fellas I know started calling after me, saying that I was "A San Francisco Legend", as if all the people around should know my name and who I am.

A similar thing happened a few weeks ago with another friend from high school who is a few years younger than myself. He introduced me as "the legendary" Bill Bergstrom. So here's my thing: I don't consider myself to be the slightest bit legendary. I don't think I'm really exceptional, and while I'm not looking for a pat on the back or anything like that, I just wonder what the heck happened. I know I had high school figured out, I know that I was kind of a big deal back in the day, but I don't know what happened in the meantime. I don't think any of my current compatriots would call me legendary, though I certainly am held in high regard. Then again, I was also much smoother with the ladies. Guess maybe it just goes hand in hand.

Guess I have to change my description.

Only in San Francisco

2009-07-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

Part of my job these days is to email users of our website asking them if they would be willing to help out by talking a bit about our site and their experience using it for some TV and radio spots and whatnot. Earlier this week I was doing just that, and I emailed a user, who for anonymity's sake we'll call Anita. Anita had an email address along the lines of "Anita_hottie", which was compelling.

Anita was one of the first of our users to respond to the batch of emails, and said something to the effect of "I'd be honored to help you out, I love using your site. I'm just not sure that I'd be the right person to go on TV. But I guess we'll have to meet in person for you to see what I mean. Much love, Anita" or something like that.

Naturally, being the curious type, I couldn't help but do a little interweb-sleuthing. What did I discover?

Anita is a man.

Anita is a man who cross-dresses.

Anita is a man who cross-dresses like a schoolgirl.

Anita is a man who cross-dresses like a schoolgirl on a "sissy porn" website.

So yes, there we have it. Welcome to the constant oddness that is my life. I am trying to find some friendly and wholesome housewife type to say how happy they are with our site. What did I end up with? A man who dresses up like a schoolgirl and gets spanked on the internet. I love my life.

This is why I'm Hot

2009-07-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

We all know my feelings about talking about the weather, but goddammit, it's too damn hot these days, and daylight savings time is really getting to me. I think it's my generally nocturnal nature, paired with my rearing in the fog belt of San Francisco, but the fact that it's usually daylight when I wake up in the morning, and remains light out until some time in the neighborhood of eight thirty or nine in the evening is throwing me way off.

See, I'm not going to say "I like the nightlife, I like to boogie" (even if it is true), but I will say this: I find to an increasing degree that I really need a certain number of waking hours after sundown for my well being and sanity. It sounds funny, but I really find that I feel far more awake and alive in the nighttime hours, I feel like much of my waking time with the sun out is spent waiting for the sun to go away. Yes yes, I know, I spend most of my daylight hours at work, and the night is when I go out and get into trouble and all that, but to be honest, I'm the same way when I'm at home. Still, I find it increasingly difficult to not roll my eyes when the people at work get all up on their "ooohhh I'm so happy it's so nice and sunny out today" - it's just another too sunny day for me.

So I say, "Up yours, sun. Quit following me around. Just to get back at you, I just might go visit Sweden at the equinox so I can spend like 38 hours without having to see you. Jerk."

As a means of illustration, this picture below would be me, if I were an Italian plumber named Mario.

Delinquent as Ever

2009-06-29T00:47:00.001-07:00

Well, I suppose it would be safe to say that all of last week represents a rousing failure in that "blog post every day" goal that I'd set for June. I suppose that's what happens when you pair family in from out of town with a general feeling of malaise and ennui.

I will say that in addition to a new tattoo and a fantastic piece of art that I got over the weekend, I did have a funny little tidbit to relate.

In the ever-fascinating world known as the internet, I happen across people from my past who I have all but put out of my mind. Naturally, many of those people who have not crossed my mind tend to be tossed in my direction via Facebook. I am constantly amazed at the random ability of this site to pick certain needles in haystacks and bring them to my attention. Tonight, for the first time in my membership of Facebook, I was recommended a seemingly random person, considering that we have no mutual friends or anything, just the fact that we "both went to SF State". You could say that about thirty or forty thousand people every few years, so tell me, Facebook, you wily dog, how in the world did you pick a girl I once dated and haven't spoken to in years? Yeah, you know the one - the random one who just literally stopped returning my calls and disappeared. How did you know, Facebook, that there was ever any connection between the two of us?

Well, maybe some other random girl from my past will start following me on twitter or something soon. Welcome to the oddness that is my life.

The Benefits of Being Slow

2009-06-18T01:31:00.000-07:00

True story from earlier today:

I took what is pretty much my usual lunchtime trip to the coffee kiosk down by the office, and since this is part of my daily routine, the staffers know me by sight. Luckily for me, a handful of the coffee ladies are of the "cute indie girl" persuasion, so I also look forward to the chance to make with the nice-nice with a couple of wonderful young ladies while they make delicious, delicious coffee.

Now, before I continue, there's one aside that bears mention. As some of you may well know, I tend to be rather "punny" - I make jokes, oftentimes to myself, that tend to be met with resounding groans. Yes, even when I make said jokes to myself, I can't help but groan at them.

But back to the task at hand. Today I was at the kiosk, and the barista we affectionately refer to as Willow was working, so I was chatting with her a bit since I haven't been over to get coffee in the last two days. So we're chatting a little bit, and I'm as charming as I always am (though I reluctantly admit, I'm more charming in print) when she looks down (as I do) and notices that the milk she is steaming for my cappuchino has run over the side of the little pitcher she is steaming it in. She made some crack about how "that almost never happens to her" and I quip back something clever along the lines of "I have that affect on people." We complete the transaction, and I head on my merry way.

So as I am walking back towards the office, I think to myself "when that milk was puring over the side, I should have said 'my cap runneth over'... hurr hurr hurr...." Then I realized that from time to time, it is a very good thing that my mind is sometimes a step or two behind, since some of the shit that I come up with I would invariably end up saying out loud, and no one, and I mean no one needs that.

Scotty Iseri: Genius or Madman?

2009-06-17T00:46:00.000-07:00

I have been singing the praises of Scotty Iseri to a number of my friends. If you haven't been among those people, I encourage you to laugh yourself silly while watching these videos. Start from the beginning, because it's worth it to epic proportions.

http://scottyblog.blip.tv/

Yes, this is another lame excuse for a blog post, but it's late and I'm weary.

No News is Good News

2009-06-15T00:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the quiet recently, but "Bill the blogger" got pushed aside by "Reverend Bill" for a little bit, leaving me spending most of my time writing a sermon rather than writing blogs. I've also spent pretty much 95% of the weekend running around taking care of wedding stuff, which leaves little time for being surrounded by crazies. I suppose that speaks volumes to my friends Pete and Sara, because their friends who were at the wedding ain't got no crazy on my coworkers and my fellow commuters.

If nothing else, I was able to at least log an hour or so in a dive bar. I didn't make it into the Mission, and I didn't go to any of the regular haunts, but it was kind of like a fun field trip to a new bar in a part of town I never hang out in. It's like an interesting anthropological study to see what type of folks hang out in other dives around town.

I realize this has been a bit of a lame blog, but I'm trying to make it to sleep at a decent hour, and as I'll be off having all-you-can-eat pizza tomorrow, I need to conserve my energy.

Gas, Brake, Honk.

2009-06-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

For all my complaints and gripes about MUNI and the number of times I have been subjected to a bunch of weirdos in my general vicinity, I still actually prefer it to commuting. Not only do I not have to just sit idly in my car as I inch along slowly towards my destination, I get to read, and best of all, I don't have to worry about taking my life in my hands every damn time I try to change lanes.

I was reminded of this fact this morning. See, I was walking towards work, which is almost directly across from an onramp for the Bay Bridge. I'm snapped out of my drowsy morning stupor by dueling car horns. As I look up, two very fine import cars are neck in neck coming up the street. Quickly, the issue is evident: the one in the onramp lane does NOT want to be there - they want to merge to the right and continue down the street. The second car is on the street and wants to merge left into the onramp lane. So essentially, they want to switch places. But here's the issue, gentle readers: neither of these cars wants to slow down to let the other one in. Quite the opposite, really. So how do they deal with this miscommunication/battle of wills?

By frantically honking at the other car while speeding way up. Because that makes sense.

Next thing I know, these two asshats are blowing down the street at about fifty miles per hour. The rest of the traffic is even hanging back because this can't end well. Finally, one of them slammed on the brakes and let the other merge. I didn't look because I didn't want to really witness the outcome, but I did hear the tires screeching to a halt.

So in the remaining half a block or so, I started thinking about it. Maybe there is a different code for people in cars and people on foot. I mean, naturally there is, because no pedestrian ever ran over a car and killed it, but you know what I mean. Then a sudden thought popped into my head.

My nightmare: horns for pedestrians.

And I'm not talking some little "beep beep" button or a bike horn. I'm talking about one of those gnarly pressurized air horns like boats have. Can you imagine that? Someone in front of you is walking slower and you can't get around, just reach in your bag or whatever, and honk the living fuck out of 'em. That will teach them to walk on your sidewalk! Someone brushes your shoulder as you pass them in the opposite direction "wauuuuuugh" and they will know just how awful they are. The possibilities are limitless, and if it ever happens in the real world, I would have to find some other means of going places than driving or walking, which might make things a little more... trying.

And I leave you with the words of the great sage Homer Simpson:
I pity those poor suckers on the freeway. Gas brake honk. Gas brake honk. Honk honk punch. Gas gas gas.

Unplug for a Little Bit

2009-06-10T01:27:00.000-07:00

I know this will seem a tad strange coming from a guy with three laptops, but I have noticed more and more the insanity of people needing to be in front of their computers every damn minute of every day. Seems like almost every day I see more and more people on the bus working on their laptops with cellular wifi cards. I'm more than used to folks working in coffee shops, even bars from time to time. But let's face it folks, there's a bright and shiny world out there beyond the comforting glow of your monitor. It's not just the bus, it seems like everywhere I look, someone else is on a laptop somewhere. I see them when I walk around on my lunch break (granted, I work in the tech-laden neighborhood known as media gulch), I see them all over both airports and airplanes alike, but there's one place that I can't help but gawk: I have started seeing more bums with laptops.

Now here's the thing: I know it's not their fault. Even knowing that something is stolen, they're not exactly going to turn it down. I suppose I should be happy that the residents of my fair city aren't willing to buy clearly stolen goods. Still, I can't help but shake my head every time I see some dude pushing a cart or set up with a mess of sleeping bags in a doorway poking away at a laptop that's almost as nice as mine. Welcome to the 21st century. Next thing I know that crazy lady with all the cats will be asking me if I know about any good new apps for her iPhone that she can use for "whatever her that insane stammering, gesturing, and yelling was".

This isn't the guy I see around, but I'd be more than willing to lay a solid bet that this picture below was taken in San Francisco.

PDA Plague

2009-06-09T01:07:00.000-07:00

I was doing so well, folks. I really was. But I tell you, today kind of pushed me over the edge. I don't know what it was -- I pretty much kept my daily routine as I always would. I took my regular buses, I worked my regular shift; the only thing out of the ordinary was that I went out to a show tonight. But dammit, I swear, I couldn't escape people making out all goddamn day.

On the bus in the morning there was one of those cute couples who commute together. Usually they're all fine, usually it's a little smooch as one gets off at their stop. Oh no, not today. Today there was a couple to the left of me who I swear were making out for a good five minutes. At 8:30 in the morning. I mean, I guess it's good that they both brushed their teeth in the a.m. and didn't have nasty morning breath, but dammit, do you have to do it in my line of sight? I'm just trying to read.

Then on the bus home, it was more of the same. Granted, there was a high school graduation letting out near where I catch the bus, but it went beyond that. I think I witnessed at least four couples making out at different times. That was augmented by the fact that at least two of those four couples involved either lap sitting or straddling (like the above picture, but on the bus. I feel bad for whoever got those seats next) which is just uncalled for in public.

So I put up with it for a little while, and I thought I was past it when I got to the show tonight. I waited in line to get into the venue, and I look behind me and what do my wondering eyes behold? A couple pushed up against the wall just fiercely making out. I get inside, I wait for the opening band to start. I look to my left: making out. I look to my right, a couple is all intertwined in each other. It was just a little bit more than this fella could bear.

So you wonderful folks, if you are lucky enough to have a special someone or even just an insignificant other to make out with when you so happen to choose, all I ask is have the decency to keep the public stuff more on the PG side, and save the hardcore face-sucking for more private quarters, where you are not around people with such a sensitive gag reflex. Thanks.

Jesus Loves Drum & Bass

2009-06-08T01:45:00.000-07:00

I know it's a cheap excuse for a blog, folks, but alas it's late and I am completely bereft of ideas for the night. So with no further ado, I give you:

1) "Holy Ghost"

and

2) "Super Sunday"

These make me laugh uncontrollably. Have a great week.

Ughhhhh

2009-06-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I was reminded of a lesson I need to get refreshed from time to time:

When your employed friends all say "I'm going home" and your unemployed friends all say "Let's go to another bar" for the love of all that's holy, go home.

Five hours of sleep and sheer post-bar exhaustion is no way to face a Friday.

That is all.

A Close Shave

2009-06-04T00:44:00.000-07:00

If you know me or see me on a regular basis, you are probably well aware that the razor is no friend of mine. In fact I think I could probably count the times I've been full-on "clean shaven" in the past year on my fingers and not have it hinder my typing one bit. I generally keep my looks pretty clean, but I just don't really see the point of having that baby-bottom smooth face. I know it works for a lot of people, but especially when you are goateed like me, having a smooth neck is more of an afterthought than anything else.

Despite my personal feelings about facial smoothness, I was downright impressed the other day when a co-worker told me he was leaving the office on his lunch break to get what he affectionately referred to as a "real man shave". For fear of the fact that we were in San Francisco, and you generally are better off not inquiring into others' grooming habits, I did not ask him to elaborate. However, as is his style, he continued on. It turns out he was getting what I really believe is a real man shave -- he was going somewhere (a barbershop or tonsorial parlor I have to assume) to get a shave in the old-fashioned way: steaming hot towel, hot lather, and a straight razor. I suddenly hold this man in even higher regard than I did before.

See, it's not that I think it's so cool and kooky that he gets a shave like that from time to time, it's just that I find the whole "having someone shave you" be a very intimate experience. I haven't gotten professional shaves, but my barber has been known to do a little fine tuning on the edges and the neck with a straight razor, and the amount of trust I place in the man is through the roof. I mean, granted, I'm already putting a lot of trust in him to cut up my thick and luscious hair in the first place, but if he screws that up, I will just walk out of there kind of looking like a jackass. If he screws up a close shave, I might be walking out of there with a tourniquet. And that's the beauty of the "real man shave" - you are placing complete and total trust in someone who is an artisan in a lost art, and I know that had I the coin to pay for something like that on a somewhat regular basis, I'd be walking around the day of my shave with a swagger that would make John Wayne look like a prancing little dancer. Trying a shave like that on yourself, however, just seems foolhardy. These people are professionals for a reason, and it's hard to carry yourself with a cocksure swagger when you might need stitches for that gash under your chin.

Dust

2009-06-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed. I tried to set aside a little extra time tonight to the ongoing struggle of me versus my bedroom, and now that things are a tad more squared away and in order, I have noticed something: apparently I let off more dust than the average bear.

Inspired by last night's posting, I picked up my busted up old acoustic which I just have sitting out on a stand all the time, and I tell you this - it looked like my black shirt suddenly was cursed with bleach stains from all the dust that had accumulated (and then put itself on my shirt). So I started looking around, and my god. It's disgusting. Nothing negligent, not dust bunnies or anything, and I'm pretty darn vigilant about vacuuming and all that, but apparently I'm fighting the losing fight here.

But what gives? I have one small room. I am one single person. None of the windows open, so it's not like anything blows in here -- can one person really create this much dust? I don't even spend all that much time in here (though during that whole "thesis writing" thing, I did spend a little bit more time than usual burning the old midnight oil) but really, dust? You're going to play me like that? Coming up in my humble abode and just settling in like you own the joint?

I will leave you with the following words of wisdom, spoken by the character Mark from SLC Punk: "The earth has no way to clean itself. That is why there is so much dust." Paging science: get on that one, please.

Yeah, I Play a Little Guitar...

2009-06-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case so much these days. See, I've kind of become a bit of a bassist these days, and while that's a fantastic thing, I miss playing guitar. I still play a bit from time to time, but in the last eight or ten years, I have mostly limited my guitar playing to band practices. Now that I don't play guitar in said band practices nearly as often, I don't take enough time to sit down and crank out the music as much as I used to.

So what does this mean? Well, it just means I have yet another thing to do with the time that I don't really have all that much of. Still, I feel like I'm somewhat musically stagnated from a creative standpoint, and I think getting back in touch with the ol' guitar is exactly what I've been looking for. I mean -- look at this face, that sheer joy on my face...

You'll have to excuse if this was a somewhat lackluster posting, but I'm really just trying to get into the swing of nightly postings again. I'm setting a bit of a goal to write a post every day in the month of June, and so far I'm two for two, but I've got a little while before I start counting my chickens. But hey, is' a good start.

Re-focus Time

2009-06-01T00:50:00.000-07:00

So again I've been afforded the time to blog, and I have noticed that more often than not these days, my issue in blogging has not to do with a lack of time, rather it has more to do with what I consider to be a lack of compelling things to write about. I've been going for the longest time with the byline of "Rants and raves. How to be Bill. The finer things in life and the not-so-finer things from my mind."

Alas, I started this blog back in the beginning of 2008, I was unemployed (somewhat happily so, but I do have to say that this whole "paycheck" thing does make life a lot more fun) and was sitting upon a world of free time. One of the beauties of having so much free time was my time to get out and mix with the fine and interesting individuals that reside in my fine home town. So here we are - a year and a half later, I am gainfully employed (due in part to this blog) and I have received my Master's degree. This is all well and good, but it doesn't make for a whole hell of a lot of interesting blogging fodder. So now, in the hopes of overcoming the writer's block I have been currently facing, I turn to you good folks. I somehow doubt that you really give much of a damn about the day-to-day of movie watching, book reading, or the everyday in and out of work. So the question is: what do you like to read from me?

It'd be good to get a little input to hopefully right the ship a little bit - get the ol' blog up and running like it was back in the glory days. Believe me, I want to be writing fun, witty, and entertaining postings as much as you want to be reading them. So hit me with a few suggestions, and hopefully I'll be back into the swing of things naturally anyhow.

Just A Check Up

2009-05-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

Hey all, I know I've been remiss as ever in this whole "I have a blog" thing over the past week or so, but I have actually been out catching up with my friends and partaking in some good old fashioned revelry. Truth be told, I think there's just a little part of me that is happy to know that I don't "have" to write anything if I don't choose to.

I don't want to bore you with specifics, but suffice to say I've been having a good ol' time. Alas, having a good ol' time doesn't make a lot of blog-worthy material, just long nights and less time to blog. But hey, cut your ol' boy a break - I've been doing a bang-up job of distancing myself from this computer while I have been out actually doing something mildly uncommon for a lot of us bloggers - I've been out interacting with people instead of staying at home and writing about it.

Streaming My Love to You at 128 mbps

2009-05-20T14:09:00.001-07:00

So I've been to a few shows in the last week, and have seen some of my favorite bands; also on Sunday I rode down to San Jose, listening to a mix CD. All of this got me thinking about what it used to be like, when people actually made honest-to-goodness mixtapes. I'm not talking about the hip hop "Man, you gotta hear my mixtape, I'm going to be huge some day." I'm talking about the old fashioned TDK sixty (or ninety) minute marvels that really meant something.

I assume almost all of us have heard the whole "the making of a great mixtape is a subtle art" monologue from High Fidelity, so I'm going to spare that. Still, the physical act of making a mixtape used to have to mean something. You had to generally create a playlist of the songs you wanted the recipient (or just yourself) to hear. You were generally limited by the music you had on hand, and if you were without a song that you really felt needed to be on there, you had to tape it off the radio, hoping and praying that the DJ didn't prattle on over the intro or outro of the song. You festidiously wrote down track names, maybe even created some artwork if you were of a more artistic bent. You even had to work it out to find songs that were just right to get as close to filling out each side as possible. Then, when you were all ready, you rounded up all your tapes and sat in front of a dubbing deck for generally at least two hours to get that mix perfectly. I miss that. Making mixtapes was one of my fonder memories of growing up. I feel bad that generations from here on out will never really know the labor of love that was the perfect mixtape.

Nowadays, thanks to the wonders of mp3 and the computer, making a mix CD can be done in mere minutes. Don't have a song? Drop a buck and a quarter and you can download just that track. Chances are you can find somewhere just to download it for free, provided it's not an exceptionally obscure song. At least there is some artistic merit left in mix CDs and their packaging, but that is provided you are willing to put in the effort. Still, you toss it all into a playlist, you can even give it a test-listen to make sure everything flows according to plan, and it can go from computerized list to actual physical completed CD in somewhere around five minutes.

However, the other day I saw something that damn near broke my heart: rather than buying a CD or even downloading the album yourself, an artist offered the chance to buy a custom designed USB flash drive with his latest album on it in mp3 form. I do appreciate that there was some artistic merit put into it, it wasn't just like you get a cheapo flash drive with some songs on it, but still, it's the idea. I'm not saying it's the same as a romantic "these songs say how I really feel about you" mixtape, but that could be another logical step.

Another step, and what might be the end of the line in mixtape creation: the streaming online playlist. While it's a great and convenient format for sharing music and playlists, there's no art to it other than arranging the songs. There's no labor to it. I have friends (Augie, I'm looking in your direction) who are incredibly adept at making great public mixtapes, but I just fear that such innovations are leading generations of kids to not know what it's all about. Now I know some audiophiles out there will gripe about the loss of fidelity in copying tapes, and remind me that tape was a poor format to start with, the deterioration, and all that. But dammit, the term mixtape has stuck around this long for a reason, and it sounds a hell of a lot more personal and customized than "streaming playlist available at this url."

While romance may not be dead, the era of the mixtape sure seems to be.

Bill's Triumphant Return to Bloggery

2009-05-14T02:49:00.000-07:00

Greetings once again good readers. It's great to be back at long last. This means one thing: I've finished my thesis. It's pretty friggin' exciting, I'm not going to lie. So this means that I will have more time in the evenings and whatnot to really focus on the blog again. I am cooking up a little plan to post a new entry every day for the whole month of June because, well, it's the middle of May already, and I know I'm not going to be doing a ton of blogging next weekend with graduation festivities and all that.

Unfortunately that's about all the news that's fit to print at the moment. I have been so wrapped up in my thesis, I haven't hardly had a moment to think about the random stuff that makes its way into my blog postings or to interact with the weirdos who prompt some of my more memorable writing. But fear not, tomorrow I'll be out and about throughout the day, and I'm sure I'll have some experience with some crazies out there that will send me running home to my laptop.

Actually there is one thing. I have been home the last two afternoons because I've been running around like a madman at State during hours I'd usually work, and I've noticed that now more than ever there are a lot of what I call "loser commercials" on afternoon TV. They all have the same message "Hey, I was once a loser like you, but I called the number on the screen, and now I'm not. I may be a loser, but hey, I have a job and you don't. So call this number, loser."

It's sad. I actually remember the days when my employment was a tad more... scant, and these commercials bothered the hell out of me, and now it's gotten more desperate. Now instead of "I have a kid but I still did it." It's turned into "I have four kids, two of whom need highly specialized medical care that my deadbeat baby-daddy ran away from, but I had time to pick up this phone and call, so now that I work in a pharmacy I can steal my child's meds and they pay me at the same time, so I can put food on my table and still have enough for the french manicure you see from when I picked up the phone when I was pretending to be destitute.

So the next time you have an afternoon off, watch a major network at around 1:00 or 2:00, and you'll see all the commercials I'm talking about. And if you need to, call the number, because they'll help you be not a loser or a deadbeat, but it all starts with a phone call, deadbeat.

That's Gross MUNI Rider. Volume 2.

2009-04-29T01:16:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to write this blog for a while. Alas (and I realize it's definitely a good thing) I have been burning the candle at both ends getting my thesis done. Tonight, however, I took one night of reprieve to relax, have band practice, and get some much needed sleep. Don't look at the time stamp of when I wrote this. It doesn't count.

So anyhow... Not too long ago I returned taking the streetcar in to work in the mornings, after my CEO had ever-so-generously been giving me rides in the mornings. As deeply appreciated as it was, it's good to have the morning to read and shake the ol' dew off the lily. So part of the "joys" of riding the bus is the cast of characters I happen to share streetcars and bus stops with. One such public transportation utilizer I tend to wind up on a lot of trips with is a man who has earned the auspicious title "Snail Man".

I see him from time to time, he gets on and off the bus at my stop, he's not terribly far from my age, and he's an epic geek. Not in the good way. You can just tell. So I tend to be generally indifferent to most passengers, and with my wondrous headphones, I usually don't have any occasion to interact with people, but I just got a weird vibe off the guy from day one.

Then, one day, as I'm walking down towards the bus stop, he is about ten or fifteen paces ahead of me. I find it a little odd that he seems incredibly focused on something along the wall [I should take a second here to insert the fact that I live across the street from a school and public playground, so there's a lot of plant life and all that]. So as I get a better look, I see he's picking up a snail and putting it on the top of the wall. Odd, but hey, whatever. Then he stops again, about ten paces later. And picks up another snail. He places it down on a plant just the other side of the wall. Then he picks up a third snail off the wall, and tosses it into the street.

Odd.

I have kept my space a tad more, as I don't necessarily desire to be in especially close proximity to someone who chooses to handle snails when hand washing is not an immediate option. The other day, though, it was a bit more than I could handle. I am standing at my bus stop, as per the usual, and up walks Snail Man. It's just he and I, and as much as I am doing my best to ignore him, I can't help but see: he's put something down on the edge of the railing that protects me from being crushed by runaway vehicles. At least on the one side. But I get a glance at what he has placed on the railing.

It's a fucking snail.

This is not some impetuous "moving a snail along a wall where it already was" or "giving it back to nature" thing. This man, a seemingly normal individual, decided for some bizarre reason to pick up a snail, carry it from wherever he first got it, transported it across the street, to the bus stop, and was placing it somewhere unsuspecting where anyone could easily accidentally manhandle this poor snail. This, to my eye, is not normal. Then he proceeds to board the bus, hold the handrails with his possibly slimed hands, and proceed to what I can assume is his day's work. This is gross. This makes me want to vomit when I think about it. I mean, hell, hasn't he heard about swine flu? Maybe he's bearing some weird strain of snail flu. Either way, I have yet another reason to wash my hands vigorously any time I leave the bus. Thanks for that, Snail Man. And whatever you do, don't ever try to shake my hand. Because I won't.

On a completely unrelated note, I have added a little poll to the right hand side of the blog, below the links section, which is also recently expanded with some wonderful blogs from some wonderful people.

I am too nice...

2009-04-24T01:12:00.000-07:00

... or "When crazy people talk to Bill randomly in a public place, volume 47."

So tonight I'm at the cafe, trying to do some thesis work, and finally making a little bit of legitimate progress. I'm in my "don't bother me, I'm working" mode: hat pulled down, glasses on, headphones on, intent stare on my monitor, papers spread out on the table where I'm working.

This kid walks up, asks if he can sit at the table. Since this is not the least bit uncommon, I happily oblige. Naturally, I do not engage. I continue as I was, staring at the monitor, trying to write. I make a momentary mistake and look up for a split second, and the kid starts talking to me.

So on and on he goes. How he's from Hawaii and on a road trip. How he's taking a semester off to pursue his photography and art. What a wonderful town Albuquerque is. How much he loves San Francisco. The wonders of being on hippie hill in Golden Gate park at 4:20 on 4/20. How the energies of the universe converged to have him discover a six pack of beer from the Kona Brewing Company in a fridge at a friend's house in New Mexico. How literature is fantastic because there's so much in this world to write about. How he may be young but the world is teaching him all sorts of wondrous things as he goes.

After imparting all the world's wisdom to me, he wants to show me his photography... on Facebook. It's cool, I figure I can at least get him to wrap it up and get back to work. It's now been some forty five minutes. So I look at his pictures. They're good enough, I can see he's got an eye for what's what. Then what happens? While he's signed into his facebook account, a chat window pops up. What does he do? He starts chatting with this person - "a fellow traveler." He continues this... for twenty to thirty minutes. I sit there, trying to be polite.

Then, as his conversation online winds down a bit, he begins to regale me with his tale of woe, how he was in Berkeley and lost his friends, how he wound up here but doesn't have the phone number of the guy he is crashing with, how is phone is almost dead. "Can I use your phone?"

Three phone calls later, he's gotten in touch with his friends and is back to chatting on my laptop. I at least got some outlining done in the meantime, since lord knows nothing else was going to get accomplished. In the end, I lost damn near an hour and a half of my life for being polite enough to give up a seat at a table.

Is there a sign around my neck that says "I listen to all your crazy shit and even occasionally feign interest?" Or do these people just have a heightened sense of someone who won't tell them to screw off?

Attention Twitterholics

2009-04-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

I just added the "retweet this" button above the post. See it? Like right there?? Almost directly above these words... little green thing... theeeeere you go.

So you know what to do. If you don't have twitter, I just gave you the reason you've been waiting for to sign up.

You're wonderful. Real content should resume any day now, depending on thesis progress.

Type cO-dependent Negative

2009-04-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Today I went to donate blood. I haven't done it in a little while, and I always feel good to do a little something from time to time to make the world a better place. So I walk in as usual, fill out my form proving that I'm neither a drug addict nor a man-whore, and I go to the seating area to wait for my name to be called for the little interview process. I'm greeted by a somewhat odd sight: there's a guy there in a t-shirt and jeans (which is common) with his girlfriend, who is in a little black dress and heels. This is odd enough in and of itself, however, they are all over each other. It's absurd. They're holding hands, they've got their heads up against each other, they're sporadically making out when the mood so strikes them. I am used to seeing way too much PDA all over the place, but the blood bank? Seriously? So he gets called in for his interview, and the girl tries to follow him into the little interview room. She gets turned away (hence "confidential" interview). She goes to the cantina for a cup of coffee, and by the time I get out of my interview, she is standing there, staring at her dude in the chair giving blood. I mean, she isn't moving, she isn't looking around or anything like that, she is just frozen in space and time, gazing longingly as liveblood is slowly removed at a safe pace.

I am a little weirded out by this whole thing as I settle into my chair/bed slot and the nurse begins taking my blood. Not three minutes pass and a guy walks in to the blood-donation area... followed by his girlfriend!! She (like the other girl) tries to follow him up to the table, only to be (like the other girl) turned away at the entrance. So what does she do? She sits on her knees at the partition and rests her chin on it so she can watch him the whole time he's donating blood. Like a sad puppy looking out a window waiting for its owner to come home, she's sitting there watching him longingly, as if she may never see him again. Then, at the cantina after he's done, she's sitting practically on his lap, stroking his hair, rubbing his back, and talking about how brave and strong he was. It was a fucking voluntary blood donation! It's not like dude made it out of surgery okay, or ran across a minefield to donate blood. He came in, got it over with in about fifteen minutes, and got a friggin donut when he was done.

The first couple I can kind of wrte it off - they were probably both under 21, so they can still have that cute "kid love" where your whole being hinges on never letting your significant other out of your site, but the second people were old. Dude had grey hair. There is absolutely no fucking reason for this sad puppy dog kind of affection for people like that. See, I've gone with a friend to give blood before, it's fun. It gives you someone to make small talk with, but that person was also donating. I've never seen people bring their significant others to the blood bank like it's some sort of breezy Saturday afternoon date or something. Or at least if they have, the people had the goddamn sense of self that they could sit alone for ten minutes while their dear sweet lover sits a whopping thirty feet away from them.

So, in about 3-4 months when I can donate again, does any fair maiden out there want to come dote over me while I donate blood? I'll let you give me a shoulder massage, and maybe even call me something adorable like "sugarbear" or "Beefy McSexpot" - if interested, you know how to get a hold of me...

Fuel to the Fire

2009-04-17T01:17:00.000-07:00

As per the usual these days, I tend to be a little off on my blogging. The bright side of this is that I am a stone's throw away from finishing my thesis, and therefore actually having free time once again to blog to my little heart's desire. But until then, you'll have to be content with my sub-par ability to keep up with my updates as much as both you and I would like.

So a while back, (370 days ago to be precise! bizarre...) I wrote a post about Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs and how much she bothers me. As some of you might have heard, they have a new album out, and it's really quite good. I give it a thumbs up if you're on the fence. The copy I got has a couple of bonus tracks, and I was reminded of a realization I'd had some time back: Karen O is actually a ridiculously talented singer. She's just such a spastic freak onstage that I think even she forgets it sometimes. See, the YYYs have an acoustic EP out on iTunes, and the bonus tracks have acoustic renditions of a few of the new songs, and every time I hear them, I am really floored at her voice. It's crazy - if she really gave a damn about singing more often and not trying to be that wild unpredictable maniac that everyone can't help but write about, she could go down as one of the better female rock singers of our generation. But unfortunately she's so busy screaming and acting like a weirdo and just generally forgetting everything anyone ever learned in the history of singing that it just doesn't come through. So this begs the question: does "showmanship" (and with her I use the term incredibly loosely) trump talent in our time? Are we willing to settle for someone with real natural talent doing a half-assed job at what they are good at in order to put on a show?

I think overall the same thing can be said for Charles Bukowski after a while. Sadly, later in his career, once the word had spread to the general population about his work and his readings, he bought into the image he tried to put forward. He was a talented writer; not great, not the best of his time, but he expressed things flatly and clearly in a style that was all his own, but half the people who'd show up to his readings were there to see him get shithouse drunk and make an ass of himself. If he didn't it was as if he were not keeping up his end of the bargain. However, on the other hand, it was the casual reader that would show up to his readings to see him get drunk and make threats and talk about women that really paid his bills for a decade or so.

Exhibit C in this little melange is reality television. With the exception of a few random folks here and there on some of the talent-based shows, nobody on reality TV has a single iota of talent. Yet we still flock to the toob to watch it all the time because these people make such a friggin' spectacle of their everyday lives. Is it really entertainment? Hells no. But does it help TV live up to its reputation as the opiate of the masses.

In closing, and I was going to try to tie this in with the Karen O discussion (as I so subtly did right there), I wanted to let you all know that I have registered, though I won't be writing in it for a while, a new blog that will be music-centric. I know some of you out there think I ramble on about music too much sometimes on this blog, and to some extent, I agree. So, with you good folks in mind, I will be writing a second blog just talking about new music, old music, and all sorts of other fun like that. The blog is called Godspeed You! White Blogger and I hope you all enjoy it!

"Bee boo beep beep boo" Means "I Love You"

2009-04-06T16:31:00.001-07:00

So something has been kicking around the back of my head recently, and I thought it has finally come time to get it on paper. Er, monitor.

Anyhow, with my sister's recent nuptials I got to thinking about the wild and wacky world of dating. I find it interesting that in our modern interwebby times, so many people have turned to online dating. There's nothing wrong with it; it clearly worked out smashingly for my sister, but hell, she's a rare success story from what I've heard. It's sad really, people who I know deep in the depths of my heart are fantastic catches exchange information on successes and failures of the various dating sites they've used. It's like exchanging information on car repair places or dentists.

Is this what we've become? Are people getting to the point where we get everything online? I know that I love the convenience of the 'net: I can get shoes, a computer, books, guitars, and anything else that can be bartered or swapped for. But is this really where we should be looking for love? Plus there are seemingly tons of sites to choose from. But I suppose the thing that almost weighs most on my mind is: if all these wonderful people I know are using these dating sites, and apparently not having any luck, what the hell chance does a guy like myself have? I mean, the folks I know who are using some of these dating sites are good looking, smart, have killer jobs that they love, and are just plain altogether good and interesting people. How is it that they're having to use an online personals site? Is this just the trend that is emerging in our more and more web-reliant times, or are people just giving up on more "traditional methods" of meeting people more quickly?

Stop and think about that for a hot second... fifteen years ago (not that it really applied to me at the time) people who were still single in their late twenties and on were probably not running off to the newspaper to post personal ads in the papers. Is this just another logical step? I mean, I know a thing or two about social networking and stuff like that, but goddamn, I just can't feature it.

So riddle me this, dear readers, is this whole online dating thing just the furthering of our internet reliance, or is it an instance of people giving up on the good ol' traditional means in favor of something new?

Update

2009-04-01T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hey kids. There's something weird here asking for some authentication for some site biddles.uk -- DO NOT PROVIDE ANY INFO. I have no clue what it is, but I'm checking it out right now.

Be safe.

UPDATE - turns out it has to do with an image I used in the book page (they must have changed to a password-secure page at Biddles, which is an online publishing company)

Everything is fixed. Thanks to Nate for picking up on that!

Givin' the People What They Ask For

2009-03-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

So the other day I had a little free time, and was checking out some stats on this blog. I can't help it folks, blogstat checking is kind of part of my job nowadays, so it's kind of bound to spill over into my everyday life too.

Anyhow, I noticed two very interesting things:

1) Far and away, the most popular and re-visited postings are my cranky old codger rants. Seems that an angry Bill is Bill at his top form. Seems to me that I have a knack for tirades that are at least moderately entertaining.

2) A vast majority of my older postings are friggin' entertaining. I'm not saying that the last few month's worth of posts, infrequent as they may be, aren't solid. But man, there was some grade-A dynamite back in the archives.

So in that spirit, I'm going to treat you to a little brief sendup of a new trend. I feel as if some time in the past I voiced my distaste for the high-waisted jeans that had crept into the fashion world like a year back or so. There are some things from the seventies that didn't need to come back, and those are definitely one of them in my book. Still, I was a good boy. I kept my mouth shut for the most part. I chalked it up to the fact that I'm a guy and I just didn't find them to be especially attractive on, well, anyone. But there's a new trend folks, and I get it even less: the boyfriend jean.

Yes, yes, yes, I get it kids. Androgynous dressing is all the rage. Hipster boys are squeezing into girls' jeans all over the place. Folks are looking to date others with similar builds so that they can double their wardrobe. I can hear the battle cry now: "gay guys have been doing it for years, why can't us heteros adopt the trend?" But folks, it's time to put my foot down. Take a look for yourselves:

I know, it's probably just a backlash against the insanity of skinny jeans, which have gotten to the point that they resemble sausage casings more than articles of clothing, but come on. Wearing baggy jeans with holes in them don't make you look stylish, it makes you look like you don't give a fuck about what you look like. It's ironic; isn't the baggy jeans/not giving a shit thing something that females have given guys grief about for years. If I showed up to work or to the bar or anything else, would I not be ridiculed if I had on baggy, ripped-up jeans? So how the hell does it work that because major designers suddenly said "get this look" and now every friggin woman is all abuzz about how wonderful it is.

Let me be blunt: ladies, when you wear jeans that appear two sizes too big and "distressed" you don't look hot, you kinda look like a hobo from the waist down. Especially when it's paired with some super-cool chic top and nice shoes.

In short, "boyfriend jeans" are cute when they're actually your boyfriend's. And even then, it's only cute to him. And it's only cute to him because when you're in his pants, that means he has a great chance of getting into your pants. And not in the hipster "I wear my girlfriend's skinny jeans because it might accent my junk" way, either.