With nothing else occupying my schedule for the evening, I decided to go to a concert last night. This is fairly out of character for me. Although I’m an avid music listener, I’m not a regular concert-goer. I think live music can be great, but only if you’re familiar with it beforehand. Its hard to hear exactly what the singer is saying and there are lots of distractions, so if you aren’t at least passingly familiar with the music beforehand it would seem to be of little value. Luckily this was Mike Doughty playing, who’s in my top ten favorite acts.
The show was in Buffalo, which was a downer. In addition to being over an hour away, it required actually going to Buffalo, which I avoid. I have no actual grievance against Buffalo, it’s just one of those rivalries I adhere to without reason (Canada, France, the South, dentists et al.) But I made it there and back without any incident, which was somewhat impressive considering I had no map and didn’t know the actual address of the venue. Although the concert was free I did end up paying for parking, which took a small degree of the pleasure away from potentially cost-free entertainment.
Attending a concert is a rather difficult thing; there are so many different elements to avoid. You want to stay equally far away from the smokers and the pot-smokers, as well as the angry drunks and the happy drunks. You can’t stand too close to the speakers or your head will explode before the end of the evening. There weren’t any mosh pits to avoid, but there were groups of both giggling high school girls and bikers, both of which are to be avoided. But eventually I found a spot that I liked and greatly enjoyed the show.
Mike didn’t do anything terribly noteworthy during the performance. He did throw in a Guns N’ Roses cover, as well as one by Kenny Rogers. But otherwise it was all his original stuff, mostly from his most recent album. I was hoping he’d bust out some of his old stuff from Soul Coughing, but no such luck. But I like his newer stuff as well so it was still a good show.
For those of you that haven’t heard Mike Doughty, which I assume is the vast majority, you should definitely check him out. He’s got a very distinctive voice and interesting lyrics. His solo work that he’s currently working on is very melodic and has more of a rock beat to it than his Soul Coughing strangeness. I, of course, like the strangeness, but both are good. I particularly noticed last night the repetitive nature of his music. It’s not really repetitive in a bad way, but it comes across like chanting. For instance his chorus in a particular song is “All these tremendous brunettes around, all these tremendous brunettes” repeated several times. It makes the songs easy to sing along with, and would certainly cut down on time writing lyrics.
Due to impending rain he only ended up playing for about an hour. It irks me greatly to spend more time traveling than actually being entertained, but it just a sacrifice I had to make. He did however have time to do an encore, which I HATE. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to get another couple songs out of him, but I hate the very idea of encores. They’re an incredibly stupid tradition. Imagine being at a dinner party and having the host tell you the meal is over. They then refused to provide dessert unless everyone told them how wonderful the meal was. You’d think they were an arrogant self-centered jerk. If the musician wants to play another couple songs, then do it. If they feel this is due to a good audience, then fine. But don’t do this stupid walking off the stage just to come right back on crap. It’s dumb so don’t do it.
But do go listen to some Mike Doughty.
Suggested songs from Soul Coughing: Circles, Super Bon Bon, Janine, Supra Genius.
Suggested songs from Mike Doughty: American Car, 27 Jennifers, Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well, Grey Ghost, Busting Up a Starbucks.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Don't Turn That Dial
Here’s a note for any of you that happen to run a public radio station.
My local alternative station recently had its first ever fund drive. I’ve never quite figured out why we have an alternative public radio station, but we do. I’m also not quite sure how they’ve been funded for all the years I’ve been listening to them, other than playing Jewish music Sunday mornings. I don’t know why some Jewish contributor paid them to play music on Sundays, but they did.
If you’ve ever listened to NPR, their fund drives are long painful events. There’s tons of chatter, stupid mugs that no one wants and every so often some actual music or other programming. Instead of doing such a horrendous thing to us, WBER had a music marathon as their fundraiser. They started at six in the morning playing songs from 1985, the year they started broadcasting. For every thousand dollars donated they would move onto the next year, eventually making it to 2005 and reaching their goal of 20 thousand dollars for the year. They set aside about a week to raise this money.
It took less than 12 hours for them to raise the twenty thousand dollars. By the end of the day they had over 24 thousand. How often does public radio surpass their goals? I attribute part of this success to the fact that WBER is an awesome radio station. They have very loyal listeners who proudly proclaim their slogan “WBER: the only station that matters.” Despite the fact that their listeners are several decades younger than those of the classical/talk stations, they were still willing to put their money in. I think another reason for their success is that this was a fundraiser that people actually WANTED to listen to. I sometimes listen to other public stations, but completely avoid them while they’re raising money. But it was really fun to find out what was cutting-edge alternative music in 1985. The only downer was that by the time they were in the late nineties and early 2000s they were raising money so fast that they only got to play a song or two per year.
So do yourself a favor and listen to the only station that matters.
Station of the moment: wber.monroe.edu
My local alternative station recently had its first ever fund drive. I’ve never quite figured out why we have an alternative public radio station, but we do. I’m also not quite sure how they’ve been funded for all the years I’ve been listening to them, other than playing Jewish music Sunday mornings. I don’t know why some Jewish contributor paid them to play music on Sundays, but they did.
If you’ve ever listened to NPR, their fund drives are long painful events. There’s tons of chatter, stupid mugs that no one wants and every so often some actual music or other programming. Instead of doing such a horrendous thing to us, WBER had a music marathon as their fundraiser. They started at six in the morning playing songs from 1985, the year they started broadcasting. For every thousand dollars donated they would move onto the next year, eventually making it to 2005 and reaching their goal of 20 thousand dollars for the year. They set aside about a week to raise this money.
It took less than 12 hours for them to raise the twenty thousand dollars. By the end of the day they had over 24 thousand. How often does public radio surpass their goals? I attribute part of this success to the fact that WBER is an awesome radio station. They have very loyal listeners who proudly proclaim their slogan “WBER: the only station that matters.” Despite the fact that their listeners are several decades younger than those of the classical/talk stations, they were still willing to put their money in. I think another reason for their success is that this was a fundraiser that people actually WANTED to listen to. I sometimes listen to other public stations, but completely avoid them while they’re raising money. But it was really fun to find out what was cutting-edge alternative music in 1985. The only downer was that by the time they were in the late nineties and early 2000s they were raising money so fast that they only got to play a song or two per year.
So do yourself a favor and listen to the only station that matters.
Station of the moment: wber.monroe.edu
Monday, June 05, 2006
Facilitated Inspiration
A cynic’s guide on how to get a calling.
Step 1: Bear your testimony during Sacrament Meeting to establish that you have one and consider yourself an active member of the branch.
Step 1b (optional): Incorporate the balance of intellectual and practical pursuit of gospel knowledge into your testimony.
Step 2: Mention to your Sunday School President that you wouldn’t mind subbing when a teacher’s out of town.
Step 3: Wait approximately ten minutes.
Step 4: Hand your tithing to the Branch President, again showing that you’re active and providing an opportunity for him to pull you into his office.
Step 5: You’re a Gospel Doctrine Teacher.
Song of the moment: “Take Your Momma Out” Scissor Sisters
Step 1: Bear your testimony during Sacrament Meeting to establish that you have one and consider yourself an active member of the branch.
Step 1b (optional): Incorporate the balance of intellectual and practical pursuit of gospel knowledge into your testimony.
Step 2: Mention to your Sunday School President that you wouldn’t mind subbing when a teacher’s out of town.
Step 3: Wait approximately ten minutes.
Step 4: Hand your tithing to the Branch President, again showing that you’re active and providing an opportunity for him to pull you into his office.
Step 5: You’re a Gospel Doctrine Teacher.
Song of the moment: “Take Your Momma Out” Scissor Sisters
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Microcosm
Life is funny. That sentence was completely meaningless, so let me explain one way in which life is funny. You can easily summarize years of your life in a sentence, or even a sentence fragment. What have I been doing for the last three years? School, work, watching Homestarrunner. That pretty accurately describes over a thousand days. Alternatively I can spend page after page describing a single day. I won’t exemplify this to the full extent, but here is an idea of what went on yesterday:
Earlier in the week I finally decided that I should go to the U of R instead of Stony Brook for medical school (this should warrant an entry in my blog, but honestly I don’t feel like writing it. I thought, I prayed, I decided) This decision resulted in a bunch of extra paperwork and phone calls, all of which seemed highly unnecessary. But the most immediate requirement was getting a physical. It’s a bit odd that you must be examined by a doctor before going to train as one, but this seems to be standard procedure. I had already filled out all my medical forms for Stony Brook and schedule a physical, then changed my plans. Unfortunately this meant that I needed a whole new set of forms, and my physical was scheduled for Friday. So I had to drive to the medical school to pick up the forms so I would have them in hand for my physical that afternoon. I have yet to find the guest parking at the medical school, so brought my brother with me so I could just pull up to the curb, run in and get the forms without finding an actual parking place. Of course to do this I needed incentive for him to come with me to Rochester, so we stopped at the new anime store on the way home. My cunning plan went off without a hitch.
The anime store was a fun diversion. I haven’t bought any anime merchandise in years, but still enjoy seeing what’s out there. There were several items that were almost cool enough for me to spend money on, but not quite. I nearly bought a couple movies, nearly bought a poster and nearly bought a t-shirt. But miserliness beat out nerdiness yet again and I left empty handed. The storekeeper probably wasn’t terribly happy with us since we were in there for at least thirty minutes and he had nothing to show for it.
I hate making multiple trips, so always bundle my errands together. To accomplish this I often make up errands that don’t really need to be done, simply because I refuse to drive half an hour away to do just one task. So I successfully combined the anime store with the med school trip, and tagged the YMCA on the end of the trip. We weren’t able to stay at the Y for our usual length of time, but got a decent enough workout before returning home.
I was in a hurry because I had my doctor’s appointment to get to. By far the worst news of the trip was that I was that the nurse recorded me as being 5’8”. It’s a well known fact that I am in fact 5’9.3” so this was a grievous insult, and an indication that I need to watch my posture more closely. My physical went fine and they gave me a couple new immunizations which have since made my arm quite sore. Again I refused to simply return home after driving to Fairport, so decided to do some creative driving.
I have proven countless times over that my navigation skills are quite lacking. Evidently the fact that I earned the orienteering merit badge doesn’t really mean much in the real world. Without a map or any directions I attempted to drive from an area I’m not really familiar with to another area I’m not terribly familiar with (the dollar theater.) In order to further challenge myself I spent most of the trip on the phone, only later remembering that this was illegal in New York. Sadly I didn’t make it to the theater, so may never see Silent Hill. But I enjoyed driving around the greater Rochester area and learning some new areas.
This much description only brings me up to 3 o’clock. I could go on for another couple pages about music marathons, getting a job and losing it the same day, eating squid, risking meningitis (this has nothing to do with the squid) and cats eating éclairs.
The point is that A LOT of stuff happens every day of your life. When pressed you can go on and on about all that you did in a 24 hour period. When you add in everything you thought and felt during that period you could write whole novels. Some of it is mundane, but a good portion of it is interesting and amusing, at least to those close to you. I think it’s nice to be able to unload at least a portion of this massive quantity of information that you come across each day. You can certainly survive keeping it all to yourself, but in the end I think it makes the day itself less enjoyable.
Song of the moment: “A Little More Time” The Beautiful South
Earlier in the week I finally decided that I should go to the U of R instead of Stony Brook for medical school (this should warrant an entry in my blog, but honestly I don’t feel like writing it. I thought, I prayed, I decided) This decision resulted in a bunch of extra paperwork and phone calls, all of which seemed highly unnecessary. But the most immediate requirement was getting a physical. It’s a bit odd that you must be examined by a doctor before going to train as one, but this seems to be standard procedure. I had already filled out all my medical forms for Stony Brook and schedule a physical, then changed my plans. Unfortunately this meant that I needed a whole new set of forms, and my physical was scheduled for Friday. So I had to drive to the medical school to pick up the forms so I would have them in hand for my physical that afternoon. I have yet to find the guest parking at the medical school, so brought my brother with me so I could just pull up to the curb, run in and get the forms without finding an actual parking place. Of course to do this I needed incentive for him to come with me to Rochester, so we stopped at the new anime store on the way home. My cunning plan went off without a hitch.
The anime store was a fun diversion. I haven’t bought any anime merchandise in years, but still enjoy seeing what’s out there. There were several items that were almost cool enough for me to spend money on, but not quite. I nearly bought a couple movies, nearly bought a poster and nearly bought a t-shirt. But miserliness beat out nerdiness yet again and I left empty handed. The storekeeper probably wasn’t terribly happy with us since we were in there for at least thirty minutes and he had nothing to show for it.
I hate making multiple trips, so always bundle my errands together. To accomplish this I often make up errands that don’t really need to be done, simply because I refuse to drive half an hour away to do just one task. So I successfully combined the anime store with the med school trip, and tagged the YMCA on the end of the trip. We weren’t able to stay at the Y for our usual length of time, but got a decent enough workout before returning home.
I was in a hurry because I had my doctor’s appointment to get to. By far the worst news of the trip was that I was that the nurse recorded me as being 5’8”. It’s a well known fact that I am in fact 5’9.3” so this was a grievous insult, and an indication that I need to watch my posture more closely. My physical went fine and they gave me a couple new immunizations which have since made my arm quite sore. Again I refused to simply return home after driving to Fairport, so decided to do some creative driving.
I have proven countless times over that my navigation skills are quite lacking. Evidently the fact that I earned the orienteering merit badge doesn’t really mean much in the real world. Without a map or any directions I attempted to drive from an area I’m not really familiar with to another area I’m not terribly familiar with (the dollar theater.) In order to further challenge myself I spent most of the trip on the phone, only later remembering that this was illegal in New York. Sadly I didn’t make it to the theater, so may never see Silent Hill. But I enjoyed driving around the greater Rochester area and learning some new areas.
This much description only brings me up to 3 o’clock. I could go on for another couple pages about music marathons, getting a job and losing it the same day, eating squid, risking meningitis (this has nothing to do with the squid) and cats eating éclairs.
The point is that A LOT of stuff happens every day of your life. When pressed you can go on and on about all that you did in a 24 hour period. When you add in everything you thought and felt during that period you could write whole novels. Some of it is mundane, but a good portion of it is interesting and amusing, at least to those close to you. I think it’s nice to be able to unload at least a portion of this massive quantity of information that you come across each day. You can certainly survive keeping it all to yourself, but in the end I think it makes the day itself less enjoyable.
Song of the moment: “A Little More Time” The Beautiful South
Friday, June 02, 2006
Necare Tempum
Need some random websites to go visit? I thought so. Here’s some random stuff I’ve located relatively recently.
http://guilherme.tv/tyger/
This video makes me feel bad about how I use my free time. Perhaps these guys made this clip as part of their livelihood, but I imagine it as a side project that ate away a year worth of weekends.
http://www.geek-week.net/gw_archive.html
Watch the Secret-War Reenactment Society. This is funnier if you know what the Secret War was, but I think anyone should be entertained.
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2698113?htv=12
All the webnerds have seen this already, but if my blog is as nerdy as you get, go check it out. By far the best juggling I’ve ever seen.
http://gprime.net/video/
There a bajillion videos on this site, about a third of which are funny.
http://www.last.fm/
This site is really fun. Just type in your favorite band and it will find a bunch of groups that are similar.
Good luck wasting time.
Song of the moment: “For What It’s Worth” Buffalo Springfield.
http://guilherme.tv/tyger/
This video makes me feel bad about how I use my free time. Perhaps these guys made this clip as part of their livelihood, but I imagine it as a side project that ate away a year worth of weekends.
http://www.geek-week.net/gw_archive.html
Watch the Secret-War Reenactment Society. This is funnier if you know what the Secret War was, but I think anyone should be entertained.
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2698113?htv=12
All the webnerds have seen this already, but if my blog is as nerdy as you get, go check it out. By far the best juggling I’ve ever seen.
http://gprime.net/video/
There a bajillion videos on this site, about a third of which are funny.
http://www.last.fm/
This site is really fun. Just type in your favorite band and it will find a bunch of groups that are similar.
Good luck wasting time.
Song of the moment: “For What It’s Worth” Buffalo Springfield.
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