Also, I'll Have Rabies

In three days
when they've put the raptors back in their cages
and catalogued all their favourite magazines
now used to paper prison roofs
I will drink coffee still
shaking and dressed in newspapers

as I walk blind to my job at the morgue
where I will daydream of shoe polish
and proper sausage preparation

while outside the drums keep going
and my one half-dead co-worker
says nothing except
how different things were
just three days ago.

Notes from a Christian Wedding:

Jake: You know, if we go somewhere in town I'd like to get my good clothes on.

Ryan: Jake, you are so ugly that it wouldn't matter what you wear.

Jake: At least people love me and I am worth something, unlike you, who is worthless and the sort of person that people hope to go into a bathroom and find hanging from a belt.

Ryan: I've said it before and I will say it again: you make the rest of humanity look pre-fall.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

it probably didn't beat out Jess and John's for Best. Wedding. E-var. but it was top-five easily. And I've been to lots of weddings and in a few. the huge amounts of protracted, gleeful yet calm happiness in both Isaac and April was ridiculous.

and the camping bit allowed 1) a trip through the hard, throbbing metropolis of Chimacum, 2) actual time spent with groom and bride beyond five-minute "heywhereareyougoingforyourhoneymoonyoulooksoHAPPy" sorts of conversations.
3) opportunity for me to forget to bring a sleeping bag or blanket and get about two hours of sleep (in increments) on a blow up mattress in a drafty tent. oh man. 4) jake-vanquishing via rocks and clapping.

we had more fun.

**** ***** ***** *****

April actually had to ask pastor Pete to move it along. Ha.

_

sunburns hurt. beaches are pretty cool sometimes.
so goes the paradox of modern man.

^= ?

as observed by Gusta, there were a lot of pretty girls there, but as I assumed would be the case, they generally speaking were all married or on a 6 month-2 year plan to be so, with a specific subject.

this is fine; I'm getting confirmed more and more that church-related events are terrible places to meet women, since even a majority of the single ones will just want to know if I'm going to make a really good husband




speaking of terrible places to meet women, Monday I'll be up at Poetry Night for Kate and Elissa's feature.

Faith in Women

"Maybe you're just supposed to be like C.S. Lewis, be this writer with all these insights into God. . . and um, lots of problems with women and alcohol."-- Bronwyn, on my prospects.



ladies and gentlemen, my sister, who also put AFI and Michael Jackson next to each other on a mix for me when she was 14.

One (-is the loneliest?) (-21 Guns?)(-more time?)

{jake tucker, who makes promises he cannot keep, has, in the utmost hypocrisy, bugged ME to write something. yes. JAKE bugged ME. we won't speak of recent events, we will simply move forward with grace and style}

Mixtape Piece # 1 out of 734

Female voice through the speakers on a tuesday afternoon,
over sharp, loping guitars, a narrative style to kill for
laced with snarky affection

and I, sitting on my bed,
trying to eek out something on my
sketchpad, I think

"man, if a girl ever put this on a mix for me
well, that would be the day--"

then I remembered
I didn't make this mix, you did.
as the song ended
i realised this is possibly
as good as it gets.

Site vs. Site vs. Graham's Swirling Brain

So now I wasn't going to post about the Pitchfork 500-Song list, largely because well, geez. I've found the site's resources useful over the years, especially in the last few as there's been more on-site mp3s and video (allowing the reader to decide for themselves the merits of a particular track or video) and I've gotten into some good bands via the 'fork.
But when one the arguably most influential music publications of our time puts out it's Best of the 00s lists and a lot if it is, well, confounding, I sort of shake my head. Now tastes are tastes and theirs aren't mine, but there were a few things that bugged me about the list beyond a "Oh, dude, I TOTALLY don't agree with that, laaame" way.

I was talking with Aaron about it recently, and he sort of agreed.

Now, enter site # 2. Buddyhead is a site I wrote for a few times about a year and a half ago and stopped for a few reasons, mainly previously-mentioned reasons about how after a while, music-writing bums me out. Also because Buddyhead's dude-slang approach to music writing can be good for calling bullshit, but as an overall style-guide, it hurts my brain just as much as the 'forkians who can't write looking up 5-syllable synonyms for "pretty" to describe the Best New Music.

but sometimes, you answer a fool according to his folly and sometimes, you just call bullshit.

The article is long, and has a few eye-rolling moments, but it gets at some of the things that bug me not just about the list, but about 'fork's narcissism; its consistent priveleging of groups or artists that the site was instrumental in breaking, the complete lack of perspective, the song-list probably took a while to compile, meaning you have artists and songs on the list (as high as like, no. 8) that haven't existed for more than three months, the near-complete lack of any country music on the list, the complete lack of any music that responded to the political situations in the world and what seems like a total lack of depth or discretion in dealing with hip hop and r & b.

a few gems from the buddyhead article, in case you didn't feel like reading the whole thing:



Of course, Schreiber’s site is his own, and he can pick the hits any way he pleases (and he’ll tell you when you’ve had enough LCD Soundsystem). . . the nerds might have retained a little dignity had they allowed the 2000s to actually, you know, finish, before revising its musical legacy into the soundtrack of a rich, white kid’s gay bar cocaine-binge. A little distance, perhaps even six months, might have given them better perspective.

Because we still remember the 2000s.

And Vampire Weekend is not better than Pulp.

About 499, I’d say.

For instance, ask yourself this for a moment: just how many Eminem singles were better, or more historically significant, than one of Johnny Cash’s last?

Could the answer truly be all of them?

Rankings mean something. “Best of” lists are explicit judgments about both aesthetic value and historical context, and Pitchfork seems to have disregarded both.



there's more, that's just from the beginning, but it's a pretty good read, if for nothing else, the rapper-beef vibe of it. While I wouldn't say Buddyhead has completely "put them in their place," there's a good lot there that's hard to dismiss.

I mean, seriously, Kelly Clarkson?