When I'm stuck with a day, that's gray, and lonely

I'm so excited... and just can't hide it... I know I know I know...

Actually I don't know any more of these lyrics..... but its election day. It's like Christmas, but instead of candy we can all anticipate lumps of coal in our stockings. Its just a matter of checking out the quality of that coal. How efficient is it? Does it burn fast or slow? Does it bring a fire storm with it? Is it perhaps tough to light? Perhaps it will just give off a lot of pollution and not much else?

ONLY time will tell.

But... I will be going home early tomorrow to vote, and I will be staying up late to start and get some off those exit polls.

To make good for the following rant, please see the clip of an adorable bunny at the end of the post.

WARNING: The following is a rant, things will be said, streams of consciousness will be spewed.

Exiting the gym tonight I saw a bunch of students reminding me to vote for Deval Patrick, or in my case not to vote for Deval Patrick. I'm old enough to remember what Massachusetts used to be like before it had a system of check and balance. There is a slight chance that Patrick will be reasonable... but it is VERY slight. This could bring back the taxachusetts that the entire country used to laugh at.

I'm always completely baffled by people who waste their precious time campaigning for democrats in Massachusetts. Its like performing rain dances in Seattle or London... anyway I digress.

Patrick is campaigning saying that the Massachusetts economy has problems right now. This really is a crock of sh*t. The Massachusetts economy went through some rough times, and with Romney's leadership came out on top of the pack. While not perfect, Massachusetts's economy leads the national average in growth, although you wouldn't know it from the TV ads. Trouble is we have a bunch of spoiled Gen-xers and Gen-Y folks who haven't got the slightest clue about what hardship is. They think the government is supposed to take care of them like mummy and daddy. Well a couple years from now after Patrick and crew have made the state more unfriendly to big business we'll see how well they do at the unemployment office. A state bureau filled with many (I'm sure not all.....but MOST are) complacent lazy people who are cogs in a corrupt careless system. (Has anyone had any experience with someone getting a job through unemployment's help? I'd really like to know... additionally, I'd love to hear stories about difficulties getting paid due to misinformation... I have them that's for certain). Lets bring that joy to healthcare, lets expand the damn organizations that brought us the big dig, and everyone knows what fixes everything.... more money. So get ready.... the big dig came out of the Donkey run era. Expect that more of that.

And you know, the Republican candidate just quite simply doesn't deserve to win... which really screws over everyone in Massachusetts (Unless you work for the government I suppose). How on earth did she win the primary? Kerry Healey has run a lousy campaign that no one seems to care about. The one memorable TV add she has is a joke... not to mention extremely questionable. Shoddy editing and accusing her opponent of supporting a rapist because of discussions with his client?! Who dreamed this stuff up?

Patrick has played his cards well. As much as I don't want him to win, he has taken the high road and this dirty campaign and it will only serve to help him.

Healey comes off as being distant, and arrogant. Its almost as if she believes she deserves to win and so she's not going to exert to much effort.

She will get slaughtered... double digit lead, I predict Christy Mihos... and Ross (Who I was tempted to vote for just out of spite :D) together with Healey, won't even add up to half of the total vote. I'm voting for Healey begrudgingly, because it is my only safe bet.... Patrick will win, I just fear for the worst.

Anyway.... I'd say the sun will come out tomorrow, but it probably won't.

Till then....

Gloomy Sundays.....

I feel strangely depressed. OK it isn’t really all that strange, I just have a bit of seasonal depression.

Today played out for me a lot like the days I had several years ago when I used to be living in Lowell. Well I didn’t have any middle aged Asian men try and solicit me for gay sex and trips to strip clubs, but it was “almost” like the days spent living in Lowell.

I woke up, late, not really wanting to get out of bed. I didn’t shower, instead, eventually around 1:00 pm I threw on a ball cap, sweater, and corduroys. Before doing anything of significance (or insignificance) I checked my email and scanned over the stories on CNN.com. I had no mail other than a couple of spam letters and some weekly crap I get from astrologers.com. I sat around a few minutes listening to the distant tick.. tick … of the clock on the kitchen wall, and the hollow drone of jet liner thousands of feet above, circling before arriving on the tarmac at Logan Airport. Eventually I decided to escape the noise of emptiness and I headed out for an afternoon drive.

My initial plan was to drive to Newbury Comics at Square One mall in Saugus. Upon arriving I realized that I had never returned a Blockbuster movie from last weekend. I drove back with the late fall sun flickering through the balding trees, and the car bounded along as though it was hurtling itself off a cliff like a lemming. A song played on the stereo and its lyrics and notes scuttled about the entrance to my mind never quite penetrating.

Upon turning into the Wyoming Station terminal parking lot and re-entering my apartment lot, I lightly cursed my negligence a couple of times. Luckily, I don’t believe there was a late fee as it was a weekly rental.

Video in hand I headed out to Stoneham to drop off the DVD.

After walking around in circles at Blockbuster to reassure myself that I would not have a late fee, I got back in the car. A Subaru was parked next to me, and three dogs inside barked excitedly at me as I seated myself. Once the door was shut, one of the dogs, the oldest, stopped barking. The other two continued until I started the car, and then they gave up their vocal assault.

I think a little part of me is like that old dog. I’ve sort of realized that all of the barking is sort of pointless, even though it may be fun, and it seems to give purpose to my life. Of course like the old dog, a part of me wants something that will get me to start barking incessantly again. You could see it in his eyes. It was the sort of look that said “Oh well…. Life goes on”. Also, much like the old dog, I occasionally drool uncontrollably.

Before leaving Stoneham I stopped at a “Fye” records which used to be a Strawberries. I literally walked in the door and right back out. I looked at the “top twenty sellers” and it was all a bunch of crap. Rap stars with short fuses and brainless bimbos whose music will be about as timeless as snowman that a child builds after a winter storm in Virginia. Nauseated, as I opened the exit door, I believe I even said “This place sucks…” loud enough so that the clerk, and two customers (an old guy looking for some Tony Bennet or something, and a kid with baggy wind pants and crooked hat, aspiring to a life of hate and laziness) could hear me.

I went to Newbury Comics finally, although I couldn’t bring myself to walk around for an hour in the store. I used to salivate at all of the great music that would be there. It was almost as if purchasing CDs would some how enlighten and expand me as a person, and that with every new listening experience I might be closer to some sort of imagined perfection.

Today I was feeling like it was all just a bunch of the same old crap with slightly different perspectives. The thought also crossed my mind that soon Newbury comics, and places like it probably won’t even exist. Hell, if Tower and Virgin records go down how can Newbury comics even hope to survive?!

Anyway I finally bought Arcade Fire, which I had been avoiding for a real lame excuse. I figured everybody likes it so it really can’t possibly be that good. It is pretty good. They are contemporaries of the Talking Heads, and perhaps expand upon a style popularized by Modest Mouse. Unlike Modest Mouse the music is much more layered and polished, and Arcade Fire seems to understand how to combine sounds and harmonies in a manner that builds a much more impressive sound. I also bought Pink Floyd’s “Piper at The Gates of Dawn”.

I next bought myself a small pizza and Buffalo wings at Dominos. (I don't really like the pizza at dominos, but the wings are great, I should have just got cheesy bread) I wolfed down all but two slices of pizza as I watched commentators talk about Iraq, Saddam, and the elections… oh yeah and the gay Christian Fundamentalist who just got fired from his gigantic tele-parish. At least there is occasionally some decent comedy in reality. (ahhh hypocrisy.)

As I write this…. I can hear people hollering in the apartment building across the way. By people, I mean one guy with more testosterone than he knows what to do with. A football game must be on, probably the Patriots. Too bad I don’t care. It would be a nice distraction from myself. Of course if I were watching the game I wouldn’t yell so three city blocks could hear me at 11:00 pm at a game of little significance to the season… I wouldn’t yell like we had just defeated foreign invaders and triumphed over evil. I wouldn’t yell like I had just won a million frigging dollars. As emotionally attached as I might become to a bunch of millionaire thugs with an 7th grade reading level, I’d like to think I'd have slightly better control of myself, and that I'd have an ounce of respect for my neighbors.

Perhaps tomorrow I will write about politics or something more interesting than a couple pages of me droning on about the meaninglessness of life.

HAPPY MONDAY :D Yeh, yipeee!!! Wooo Hooo HOOT HOOT HOOT!!!

The Information

I have been thoroughly enjoying the new Beck album "The Information". As it so happens, I typically enjoy new "Beck" albums, however this one is an improvement over Guero which was Beck's anticipated return to that off beat and often nonsensical sound he is famous for.

The first single, Nausea, actually did not stand out as one of the more memorable tracks from the information (for me anyway). That being said it definitely cooks along. I've attached the official music video here which recollects the Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony".



The thing with Beck is you can't tell when he's trying to be profound or simply absurd.
While often appearing to rhyme for the sake of sound... his delivery is almost always steeped with conviction and a certain style and swagger.

For a Beck album that is the antithesis of his norm check out "Sea Change". It's style is perhaps a contemporary of the sound established by the under appreciated, Nick Drake. There is a cover of Drake's "Parasite" that Beck had on his web site for a bit, if anyone knows a way to get a hold of that one, please let me know.

I'm sure Beck Hansen often sits back either laughing at fans trying to find depth in meaningless rhymes, or perhaps steeped in frustration over a public that doesn't understand him. Who knows... after all the dude's a Scientologist.

Nausea [Version (a)]:

1, 2, 3, 4

I'm a seasick sailor
On a ship of noise
I got my maps all backwards
And my instincts poisoned
In a truth blown gutter
Full of wasted years
Like blown-out speakers
Ringin' in my ears

Oh it's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone
It's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone

Now I'm a straight-line walker
In a black-out room
I push a shopping cart over
In an Aztec ruin
With my minion fingers
Working for some God
Who could see his own reflection
In a parking lot

Oh it's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone
No it's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone

Now I'm a priest teenager
On a tower of dust
I'm a dead generator
In a cloud of exhaust
I eat alone in the desert
With skulls for my pets
I rate the days, one to ten
With lead cigarettes

It's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone
It's nausea, oh nausea And we're gone

Hmmmm.... an expression of the futility of it all perhaps??

The following is a song (video) from the Sea Change album, "Lost Cause". I never saw it because I'm too old and crinkly now to pay much heed to MTV. Amusingly enough, apparently you can no longer say the word "gun" on MTV, as it is censored here. (wow.... I know people are dim, but please give kids a bit more credit than that!)