A slightly shielded view

I've been rapping in my head all day today the part in the "P.I.M.P" remix where Snoop spells as only Snoop can, "F-I-F-T-Y-C-E-N-T and S-N-Double O-P." Eventually this began to drive me crazy so I let my mind wander to other things, like that I should update this blizzotch. So, drawing on inspiration from Snoop, I'll tell y'all's what's crackalackin'.

First, The North Carolina thing is pretty much set. I've got a place to live, I'm on the official rosters for my classes, and I've asked to borrow a crapload of money. Once that final part gets settled I'll be good to go. Now let's just hope it happens soon, since I'm plannig on moving the 15th.

Also, I now have a place and date and time to get married. Saturday, May 22, 2004 at 2 p.m. in Finchville, KY. Be there.

Now instead of more news that most of the two or three of you who look at this already know, I'll provide you with a list I came up with today that details me favorite moments of the summer that involve music in some way.

-Getting the new Guster CD and loving it, and finally realizing I trualy loved it when, at the end of "Red Oyster Cult," Ryan sings slowly, "You'll never have to change..." and then the music breaks, then that great guitar groove kicks in. Good music.

-When listening to that same CD with Amanda (zillionth time for me, first time for her), I was commenting on how the CD could be used as a soundtrack for a 60s beach movie. Then, when Amsterdam came on, I said, "See, doesn't this sound like a beach song?" And she said, "No, it makes me think 80s. Like 'you were a super high-tech jet fighter.'" And she had no idea that those lyrics were actually in the song.

-I was listening to Stone Temple Pilots' lastest, Shangri-la-dee-da, and thinking about how much I liked the band and how they've managed to change over time and still maintain a good sound. Then, in the middle of the song "Coma," this guitar riff comes out of nowhere and I felt like I was listening to good rock music for the first time ever again. I can't really explain the feeling, but it was cool. :-)

-Reading Brendan's journal entry on rapspeke, which was a great conversation we had once.

-Philosophizing on the Beatles with Ana at her place back in June.

-And now, finally, three Grandma's Genius moments from last week's show:
1) We played our new smash hit Annie, and then found out that the girl working behind the counter's name was Annie. So we picked on her all night long.
2)We played "Airport Song" with the new drum I got from Dar's mom, and it sounded great
3) The new song "Just the Same" that I've really been wanting to sound good finally came together, and it sounded great.

Sorry this entry was loosely tied together and a little scatterbrained, but that's how I'm feeling and I'm happy. So there. Goodnight.

It's been a while - sorry. Tonight, I'd like to offer some character sketches of some of my co-workers at the animal hospital, just so you can get an idea of my seven-day-a-week-but-under-forty-hours job. We'll start with Clayton, an effeminate 300-pound suh-thuh-nuh who likes country music, Celine Dion, Cher, and is mean to the dogs sometimes. He lives down the road from Tim McGraw and "Kix" Brooks (of Brooks & Dunn glory) and is extremely obviously smitten with Jenny, a formerly chubby aspiring country music Diva with a sweet smile and striking self-confidence problem. Also, she's more frank and open about her sex life than anyone I've known since the late, great Amanda Tuggle. I think Jenny and Clayton will get married one day. They're both sweet. Then there's Lauren, a 23-year-old groupie chick who just moved here from Philadelphia with her boyfriend, who just happens to be the lead guitarist in her ex-boyfriend's rock band. Now that she's here, she doesn't like her boyfriend anymore and can't afford to move out. Plus her ex wants to move down here to be with her. She's going all Cat Metry-Brad the drummer-Peter McFierce over here. I told her she should never date two guys in the same band and she rolled her eyes at me. Tomorrow night I'm going out to dinner with her and Gabe, the hackeysack-obsessed stoner/classical guitarist who's on probation for possession. He says that in the six weeks since his arrest (and subsequent restraint from smoking the ganja) he "thinks better," "feels better," and "saves money." He says he may not even go back to smoking once this legal matter's over. I wonder why it's even a question. My favorite thing about Gabe is that once we had a dog named Buster who was totally shaved bald except for a bowl-cut on top of his head, and Gabe decided that instead of Buster, we should call the dog Todd because he looked like a Todd with that haircut. Classic.
Back in the kennel with Gabe, Clayton, and myself, there's a girl named Ashley. She's about 5'0", a hundred pounds, is a little ditzy, extremely happy, perky, friendly and cute, and is a former varsity cheerleader at the University of Memphis. She also used to do cocaine and is living with her boyfriend who is, in her words, "a multiple felon."
Tonya met her husband-to-be after leaving a previous boyfriend and moving in with a couple of people who wanted a third roommate. As it turned out, the couple of people actually wanted a third, um, partner. She moved in with the guy upstairs after relaying her predicament during a liquor run and they've been together ever since. She's going to eat with us tomorrow night too.
Okay, that's enough for now. I guess I just find it fascinating to finally be outside of the oft-mentioned-but-never-fully-realized Centre bubble and to work with people who I genuinely like (some on a purely professional level, others who I could see myself becoming friends with) who have life experience completely different from my own. At Centre, there was some diversity (and I emphasize some), but for the most part, we had all gone to high school, done well there, and wanted to go to a good college for either a good education or earnings potential. These people are all within three years of my age, older or younger, and have had completely different lives. We don't have the same goals or the same criteria for success, but it's a cool experience. I'll be glad I worked here, if only for the people and the dogs. I'd just be a lot happier with it if I could get a day off every once in a while. :-)

Songwriting is an odd thing, at least for me. I know there are millions of us in the world, and I would guess that we all have slightly different ways of going about doing it. Some are able to write whenever they feel like it, turning everyday experience into lyrics and music with seemingly little effort. Others have to wait until something major happens, then they draft and write and rewrite until exactly the right words come out. Still others will get an inspiration and immediately rush to brainstorm on the nearest napkin so that they can write a song later. I do none of these.

I have to search for my muse, decide on a song idea (or sometimes just a song title) and let it sit in my head for an amount of time ranging from days to months. Then one day, I'll know the song and it'll take me little more than a few minutes to write. Unfortunately, over the last few years this has happened to me somewhere between five and ten times. It's hard to be an aspiring singer-songwriter when you write two to three songs a year.

With all that said, something cool is happening. As of right now, I have around six or seven partially-written songs, all which have come about in the last two weeks. I guess when the better part of your afternoon is spent walking dogs around a yard, you have a lot of time to be creative. So anyway, I have songs in progress tentatively titled "DMV," "Doghouse," "Golden," "Gun," "This Town," "You've Been Right," and "Later." Check back fifteen years from now, when I've managed to finish writing them, arrange them, and record them for my next album, tentatively titled "Forty-five and Dime." I don't know what it means, but I think it's going to be one of my lyrics and it's a neat-sounding phrase. So there.

Oh yeah, and also for the album, I'd really like to sample Strong Bad saying, "How was that phraseology, the sneak?" I think that'd be SO GOOD!

I'm rambling. Goodnight.

I should be working on my resume right now. There's a grad assistantship available for me in the student development office at Wake, and I really need to put my all into getting it - otherwise I won't be able to eat next semester. For some reason, however, my motivation to do something as simple as changing a few lines in my resume and writing a cover letter is seeming harder and harder to just do. I guess I could blame it on my job situation, which is interesting (working part-time hours at an animal hospital seven days a week, which will probably be the topic of an entire post at some point), but that seems lazy. So I guess I'll just do it as soon as I post this. Right.

In other news, I might have a lead on an apartment in Winston-Salem. A couple of guys who live in what seems like a pretty sweet apartment complex contacted me about needing a third roommate, so I hope that works out.

Also, if you want updates on the cutest dog ever, look right and learn about Dar and Lucy, two of the world's greatest representatives of their respective species. I think there should be some sort of picture of Lucy posted on the interweb for all to see. In fact, I'd like to get her in the plastic mullet. Let's work on that.

A while ago, Brendan invited his friends to start sporting blogs. He was mainly talking to the legions of Centre freshpeople that hold him in high regard. However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that a tiny mental itch could be scratched by posting the occasional series of thoughts somewhere on the interweb (I also didn't want to be outdone at holding Brendan in high regard by a bunch of freshmen) . So then, here is this.

First of all, I vow to never reveal any information here that Hasn't first been revealed to those important to me. I also can promise that there won't be many lit reviews or discussion about tech-type stuff. Not because it's bad, but because it's not my field. With that said, I think this could be fun, especially since I'm going to be experiencing a lot of new stuff pretty soon that some poeple may want to be kept up to speed on. I figure there's no better way to keep people up-to-date than through this future-machine.

Quickly - my first entry about something other than disclaimers.

The new Guster CD is very, very good. It's got a warm, fuzzy, 1960s thowback (and yes, I omitted the "r." Get with it.) feel. The funny things about it are this: Adam has absolutely zero writing credits, which is only funny in a very very pitiful sort of way, because I really like Adam. Also, Ryan is no longer the band's worst caught-in-my-nerdy-sophomore-year-of-high-school-and-bitter-about-girls-and-the-popular-kids-who-pick-on-me songwriter. It's now the thundergod himself. Who knew? He wrote all the emoish lyrics on the album - Amsterdam, Keep it together, and especially Homecoming King. Final verdict: It's very good. I love, love, love Careful, Ramona, Keep it Together, and Long Way Down. I don't like Homecoming King. The music is great, but the lyrics are just plain whiny.

I'm done for now. I'll probably never write another one this long again. But I hope so. Keep it real.