Really?

one of the local stations (the one that ate o-rock, which used to be my default radio station) is apparently already playing christmas music 24/7.  really, people?  it's not even thanksgiving yet - that's just ridiculous.

Malaise

i seem to be regressing a little, physically, and because of that, my mental capabilities are suffering too. i need to be packing my house, but i'm so exhausted. i have to be at work in three hours but instead of getting ready and/or being otherwise productive, all i want to do is go take a nap. i leave in a week (ish) and i can't seem to match up my free time with anyone else's to see them before i go. i hate feeling bleagh-y. it's so not helpful or fun...

Life Is a Mix Tape, Part 2: The Albums

"tonight, i feel like my whole body is made out of memories. i'm a mix tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape."

-rob sheffield

sometimes one song just isn’t enough; sometimes a whole album is tied to a memory. hearing any song from that album will bring me back, but it also works the other way, too. i may randomly think of something that happened and then really want to listen to the album that accompanies it. (the playlist at the bottom has selections from each of the albums.)
8 dark side of the moon – pink floyd: besides being an excellent album on its own, this cd is tied to my freshman year in college. we would often put this on at night, on repeat, to sleep to. funny side note: i recently re-bought this album because it had been lost or stolen long ago. i popped it into the cd player and about two songs in, i found myself getting sleepy. talk about your pavlovian responses.
8 sublime – sublime: college, theatre department parties, jono and greyton’s house. jono and greyton were roommates and theatre students a year ahead of me. they had the best house for parties – two stories, sprawling wrap-around porch, and neighbors who were either not very close to the house, or at every party anyway, so they didn’t mind the noise. it was also at the top of a hill (mountain, really) and though it sucked to get up there in the winter, it was a very zen-like area with woods on two sides of the house. every single party started the same way; once enough party-goers had arrived, the “circle of death” table was set up with a pitcher and a few decks of cards, a few joints were rolled, the keg tapped, and this album put on. usually there were a few discs in the changer that rotated around, but this album we listened to straight through, beginning to end, before switching the music. those were good times – i don’t have a single bad or even boring memories from those parties. (note to my mom, in case you’re reading this: i had nothing to do with the pot – that was all jono and greyton, i promise. i stuck to the drinking games and laughing at the fools that couldn't hold their liquor.)
8 when i woke – rusted root: senior year of high school and freshman year of college. rusted root is a folk-funk-hippie-accoustic-fusion band from pittsburgh. because morgantown was only a hour or so away, they used to play every thursday night at the nyabinghy dance hall. (memo to me: there needs to be an entire blog dedicated to the ‘binghy at some point…) because we knew a few of the bouncers – or, more accurately, because i knew a few people who knew a few bouncers – we were let in even though we were underage. we only ever came to see root, and we didn’t try to drink any alcohol while we were there, so mostly they let us get away with it. new year’s eve 1995 found john, dale, and i at the annual root show in pittsburgh, and then at a party at a friend of dale’s sister’s. it was a fun night, even though i spent large chunks of the party making sure the stoners weren’t feeding marijuana to the friend’s parents’ great dane.
8 discography – pet shop boys: i’m not sure why, but this album played non-stop throughout my sophomore year in college. it seemed like whenever john, dale, melinda, and i were in a car together, this album was playing. it didn’t matter whose car, because we all had a copy. it was the default bgm to our wanderings.
8 greatest hits – bob marley: i would like to preface this by saying i love bob marley – quite a lot, actually. however, since it was one of the very few cd’s we could agree on in adventure ocean (the kids' center) on the serenade, we listened to it a lot. incessantly. over and over and over. rob was the worst offender; he always put it on, and we always seemed to work together. it finally got to the point where i took it out of the cd changer and hid it for a couple of weeks.
8 fear – toad the wet sprocket: sophomore and junior year of college. ferruso and i listened to this all the time. it’s another cd that became default bgm. mostly, though, it reminds me of the puppeteers of america festival in ohio. this and an “awesome eighties” cd were in heavy rotation that weekend. we met famous artists and puppeteers, we got rave reviews for a performance we slapped together for a cabaret night, i sliced open my thumb with a stolen outback steak knife whilst carving a coconut out of a nerf ball, we got through some of the lamer performances by loading our travel mugs with zima and sour candy (we couldn’t find any jolly ranchers on short notice), and we met all kinds of fantastically random people just by playing uno in the downstairs lobby. excellent times.
8 play – moby: for a month and a half, while i worked at disney and lived in clermont, this cd was stuck in the player of my car. i couldn’t fish it out and i couldn’t afford to get it fixed. the player was stuck; i couldn’t turn it off, i couldn’t change the volume or the track, and i couldn’t switch it back to the radio. it’s a really, really good thing that this was the cd that got stuck. (and that it was at a decent volume, come to think of it.) it’s one of the (like 5) albums i have no trouble listening to straight through, and it’s a testament to the quality of this album that i never got sick of it and that it remains one of my all-time favorites.
8 elephunk - black eyed peas:splendour of the seas, the sob (that’s the staff and officer bar, thank you). there are many different types of people working on ships: people of different nationalities, from different walks of life, who speak many different languages. it’s no surprise, then, that there was some dispute over the music to be played in the sob at night. for whatever reason, this album was the one everyone agreed on, so it was played almost every night squished somewhere between the british punk rock, romanian trance, and morroccan pop music (most of which i quite liked, actually…).

8 the lion king soundtrack: this is pretty self-explanatory, unless you don’t know about my stint performing at disney. i did both lolk (legend of the lion king) and folk (festival of the…) from the summer of ‘98 till the summer of ’03. legend closed in 2002 (to make way for a 3-d movie – great planning, eisner; way to take away the most popular attraction in the park), but i continued doing shows at folk till i was (wrongly) fired in ’03. (i got my job back… eventually. that’ll have to be a blog at some point, too.) anyway, due to the fact that i heard the soundtrack on a daily basis (at least 9 shows a day at legend, 4 at festival) it is permanently ingrained in my head, along with all corresponding choreography. everytime i hear the songs, i see the choreography in my head; because i knew 5 tracks (roles) at legend, i participated in every scene at some point. i’m pretty sure, given a stage and the appropriate puppets, i could still do either show pretty well, including things i was never trained in. it’s also my curse; the lion king soundtrack follows me. wherever i go, it’ll pop up to annoy me. true stories: 1. we were in skagway, alaska, and headed into a shopping center to get lunch at one of the cafes. as we walked through, “can you feel the love tonight” by elton john came over the loud speakers. really? alaska? and 2. in vegas, rob and i walked into the first casino to “circle of life”. jeez, people, let me have a vacation! there are many more instances, but i’ve done my best to block them out.
8note: the quote at the beginning of this blog is from the book love is a mix tape by rob sheffield - a brilliant memoir of life and love by a contributing editor of rolling stone. it's lovely and sad and inspiring and funny and real, and i'm going to keep bugging you until you go read it.

new mix tape:

Best. Videos. Ever.

this is an audience-participation blog. i know there are lots of awesome videos out there, but as I have had cable only a few years here and there, there are obviously going to be some that i don’t know. so i’m just going to start with three of my favorites, and leave the rest up to you. please leave a comment including the song and artist, a link to the video if you have it, and – most importantly – tell me why it’s so brilliant. i will compile a final list and post it in a later blog.

the first three, in no particular order….

buddy holly – weezer…. this is just brilliant. great concept, great editing... just plain fun.

Watch more MTVM videos on AOL Video

you can call me al – paul simon… such a simple idea, really: two guys, a bunch of musical instruments, and the non-singer lip-syncing. simple, but fantastic.

Watch more MTVM videos on AOL Video

thriller – michael jackson... ok, this is a classic, so i'm sure i don't have to explain to you why it's on here - first of its kind, revolutionized music videos, blah blah blah... plus dancing zombies! and vincent price rapping! i was a young dancer when this video came out, and i remember watching a copy of this over and over (till we wore it out) so that we could learn all the dance moves...

Watch more Thriller videos on AOL Video

so what would you add to this list? comment, let me know, and i'll post them!

Life Is a Mix Tape, Part 1

"the times you lived through, the people you shared those times with - nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. it does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. every mix tape tells a story. put them together, and they add up to the story of a life."

-rob sheffield

music is a huge part of my life and always has been. it’s no surprise, then, that many of my memories have music tied to them. i’ve decided to list some of these, and update as i think of others. also, if you happen to think of a song that reminds you of me or of something we did together, let me know! (p.s. if you’re not sure what a song sounds like, or you’re thinking, “hey! i love that song!” i’ve included a playlist at the bottom for your listening pleasure.)
8 “in your eyes” by peter gabriel: this is one of my favorite songs of all time. and it never fails to make me think – just for a second – about fedan and our obsession with the good morning vietnam soundtrack. i would go over to her house to hang out and we would listen to it nonstop and dance around like fools. and, yes, i realize this song is not actually on the soundtrack; but for whatever reason, our obsessions with peter gabriel and the gmv album are synonymous in my head.

8 “be my lover” by la bouche: we were in italy the first time we heard this song, in a discoteque. the other girls and i quickly found out that italian men come in two varieties – mediteranean god, and sleezy grease ball. we spent the evening dancing in a group, john and jim circling us at intervals to ward off said grease balls (because apparently the god-like men weren’t at our disco).

8 “everything i do (i do it for you)” by brian adams: my junior year in high school, the marching band performed music from the movie robin hood: prince of thieves. i loved the instrumental music, but we also did the popular “love theme”. this was the one piece of choreography that sucked for us in the color guard. our instructor (who is another story in and of himself) gave us difficult, dci-worthy routines, but this unfortunately didn’t continue on to the ballad, during which he decided we should do a dance sans apparatus. it was not particularly good, but what i remember most is my end position; i didn’t have an exact coordinate – i just needed to end up a few yards behind chris bouquot and off to his left. i can’t remember what i ate for lunch yesterday, but i remember a field position from 14 years ago…

8 “the hustle” and “there’s a kind of hush”: when i was little, i was encouraged to listen to any and all of my parents’ record albums. mom and dad didn’t restrict me to “kiddie music” nor did they expect themselves to live on a steady stream of trite educational songs. (also, i suspect that there wasn’t the market on kid songs that there is today.) one of the albums my mom would play fairly regularly was a “workout album.” on one side, there was a selection of six or seven songs with a perky voice calling out the dance/aerobic moves. on the other side were the same songs, sans instructions. both “the hustle” and “there’s a kind of hush” were on this album, so they make me think of dancing around in our awesome black-white-and-chrome living room in huntington with my mom.

8 “my perogative” by bobby brown: we danced to this in a jazz class… there are specific dance moves that go with “i see nothing wrong/ with spreading myself around” and “ev’rybody’s talkin / all this stuff about me”. i feel compelled to do them to this day. maybe if you’re good, i’ll record the moves and upload them…

8 “super trouper” by abba: this was my favorite abba song as a kid. we had a van for long trips, and my dad wisely installed an 8-track player with headphones next to my seat in the back. (that’s right, i said 8-track.) this way both my parents and i could listen to what we wanted. when i was four, my favorite 8-tracks were abba’s the album, a sesame street album, the beach boys’ greatest hits, and hooked on classics. my freshman year in college, i found myself in the cac’s concert theatre during a scenic design class. victor pointed to the back of the house to show us the large professional spotlights. “those are called super troupers,” he told us. “OH!” i exclaimed half a minute later. “THAT’S what they meant in the abba song!” i had always assumed (hey, i was four when i memorized the words) that it meant trouper as in someone who put up with something, like being lonely while on tour – being a trouper. victor glanced over at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “seriously? stop talking, gibson.” this would not be the first OR the last time he said this exact phrase...

8 “don’t stand so close to me” by the police, and “private eyes” by hall and oats: I had a small record player when i was young that played 45’s. these were my first two 45’s ever, and i played them over and over.

8 “satellite” by dmb: i already owned the album, so i’m not entirely sure why this reminds me of sitting around a pool table at a bar in college. i’m not even sure which bar – though i think it was probably the barn, as it was owned by a friend’s brother and we always got in for free. for whatever reason, i remember sitting with john and commenting, “oh, i like this song” as it came on. then we – and the other assorted people with us – starting discussing jam bands. unimportant, really, but i think of it every time.

8 “tootsie roll”: luckily i don’t hear this song very often, as it is a stupid, stupid song. however, it’s burned in my memory because of kenny and jason, two fellow theatre students. i don’t remember why the three of us always traveled together from the evansdale campus to downtown; i lived above the student union (stupid honors program) instead of in evansdale like every other creative arts student, but i can’t remember if jason and kenny did too, or if we had a class together. either way, the three of us often scaled the nine bajillion stairs from the bottom of the mountain, where the prt station was, to the top, where everything else lived. (and i’m not kidding about the stairs. we counted them once, and it came out to three hundred and something. and that was just to the mountainlair – there were several more flights to get up to my dorm. remind me to tell the “alice in wondershit” story at a later date.) one day, for no apparent reason, one of them burst out with the song, the other joined in, and they danced their way up the stairs as they sang about the moves. once they realized how obnoxious this was, they repeated the performance frequently. made me laugh (almost) every time.

8 “the end of the world (as we know it)” by r.e.m.: john and i are singers. we sing along with every song on the radio if we know all the words or even (or sometimes especially) if we don’t. dale, however never joins it. he enjoys the music and will bop along, but he leaves the singing to the rest of us – except on one occasion. we were driving around pittsburgh when this song came on the radio. dale then proceeded to sing every lyric of the song correctly. if you’ve heard the song, you know it contains a lot of random words and phrases sung quickly through the verses. john and i stared at dale for a verse or so and then burst out laughing; it was so out of character for him that it became hysterical. dale looked around at us and kept asking, “what? what’s so funny?”

as i think of others, i'll post them - in the meantime i leave you with an interesting mish-mash of music...

8 note: the quote at the beginning of this blog is from the book love is a mix tape by rob sheffield - a brilliant memoir of life and love by a contributing editor of rolling stone. it's lovely and sad and inspiring and funny and real, and you should go read it.

A Full Tank of Gas for $27!

after paying between 35 and 50 dollars to fill up my little car's 14-gallon tank, you have NO IDEA how happy this made me.

on second thought, yeah, you do. let's enjoy while we can!

Hoping for the Best

as many of you know, i have never registered to vote. well, until a few months ago. i generally avoid the topics of politics and religion in polite company because they are subjects that anger and incense people - and i have found that, no matter what their beliefs and views, people (for the most part anyway) rarely have a good or compelling argument to back themselves up. then people end up arguing and yelling at each other, talking at instead of to, and resorting to ugly and ignorant phrases because they run out of valid things to say. i have a very low stupidity threshold.

my registration avoidance did not stem from being apathetic, nor was i was boycotting our bizarre electoral process; it was simply because i had never found anyone worth voting for. or against, for that matter. when faced with candidates, presidential and otherwise, i always found them pretty similar. oh, i know they all have different views and different beliefs, but in the end it always seems like the pro lists and the con lists were pretty even (though the items listed might be different). but this year was different. the state of our country - and much more importantly, the world - is pretty precarious right now; we could tip over into progress and healing, or we could continue on our downward spiral.

part of this comes from being an empath; i feel and know what choice would eventually cause the greatest good. part of it is just common sense. and a large chunk of it is about keeping power-hungry and/or easily manipulated people out of important positions. and there was an amendment or two that needed my vote as well. i can only hope that positivity comes from this, and that the positive energy will trickle down into everyone's daily lives - because we as a collective of societies, as a world, have a lot of issues and they're only going to get solved if everyone's willing to pitch in and help. here's hoping...

The Right to Free Speech... and Free Stuff!

because many head honchos realize that this year's election is so important, they have decreed that we should all get free stuff for doing our civic duty. and who am i to complain? unfortunately, ben & jerry's and krispy kreme were both on the other side of town from where we were, but kavitha and i stopped by starbucks and chick-fil-a after work. we got a nice cup of joe and a free lunch for tomorrow. works for me!

Remember My Name!

theatre majors, by definition, are a bit ridiculous. we have very little shame or fear, and we generally love to see people’s reactions to what we do. we also tend not to care what someone thinks of us, as long as we’re having a good time. also, for the first two years we were basically in all the same classes, so we were always walking to or from somewhere in large groups. take all of these characteristics into consideration, and i’m sure you can guess that we came up with some bizarre things to keep us entertained.

one of these things was “fame day.” fame days consisted of someone unexpectedly breaking into a song we (should) all know, and the rest of us jumping in, adding harmony and choreography as necessary. and it was always necessary. and, yes, this could take place in the cac (creative arts center), but it also could happen, for example, in the mountainlair (our student union); on a prt (“personal rapid transit”: think small 10-person monorails) platform; an actual prt (but only once, because that really didn’t go over so well with the non-fame riders); or the side of the road somewhere. usually, we were well received. well, usually we were stared at blankly, but there were always a few people who enjoyed our diversions.

my favorite fame day memory is of at least ten of us at the evensdale campus prt station. someone burst out into a michael jackson song – “beat it” i think, because i’m pretty sure i remember some west side story choreography – and the rest of us joined in, acting out the story line as necessary. there were the obligatory m.j. impersonations, some successful (and unsuccessful) moon walks, and cheesy back-up-girl dance steps. when we finished, several engineering students burst into cheers while others crowded onto the next prt, clearly desperate to get away from the crazy theatre kids. i miss fame days. they were so, so much fun…

A Dog Named Mayzie, Part 2

my apartment complex has slowly but surely been turning from a stately stone color to obnoxious shades that could be found in the kitchen. it ranges from a lemon yellow, which is tolerable, to a mac-and-cheese orange, which isn't. now it's my section's turn to be painted. this sucks for the mayzie-dog, as she is a sit-outside-and-look-at-the-world-around-her kind of dog; she simply can't do that with paint fumes and ladders and construction workers about. so sadly, just two days after coming home with me, mayzie is going to live with rob's parents until the painting is completely over (or maybe till i move). they have a nice fenced-in yard, which she needs, so i'm sure she'll be very happy there. plus, of course i'll come visit whenever i can. maybe she really belongs to rob's parents, or to someone who will come over and meet her. i mentioned before how i felt that i had to take her home but she didn't necessarily belong to me. now she's being relocated... i hope this means she'll find her "true" home soon and be happy.

A Dog Named Mayzie

so i accidentally got a dog this weekend... i didn't mean to and i can't really afford one right now, but it just didn't seem to be an option; she was supposed to come home with me. the weird thing is that i don't think she's meant to be my dog - i think she's meant to be my mom's new pet - besides, she needs open spaces to run in, and i just can't give them to her in an apartment setting. so i guess i'm just dog-sitting until my parents come down in a few weeks...