Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Sarcasmyst: *nods* singing is fun
Phoemeister: it IS
Phoemeister: I wish more people would sing in public
Phoemeister: I think the world would be a happier place
Sarcasmyst: *grin* I sing Latin songs in rounds in the grocery store with my friends at 2 am.
Sarcasmyst: does that count?
Phoemeister: yes
Phoemeister: it SO does
Phoemeister: because the weirder the song
Phoemeister: the better it is
Sarcasmyst: Woo!
Sarcasmyst: I make the world a better place!
Phoemeister: bonus points for it being at a weird time of day
Phoemeister: You DO
Phoemeister: honestly
Phoemeister: I salute you and your friends
Sarcasmyst: *laughs*
Sarcasmyst: Yay!
Phoemeister: The best I've ever done is singing Poisoning Pigeons in the Park on the quad. It embarrassed the people I was with, though, so I had to stop.
Really, I do think the world would be a better place if people would sing for no reason. Most people don't because they think they sound bad, or have some dumb thing about doing anything "embarassing" in a public place. But 1) Most people sound bad. I suck. But I still like singing in public and 2) That's dumb. Like you'll ever see those people again. Who cares what you do in front of strangers.
One of my favorite movie scenes EVER is from My Best Friend's Wedding. Honestly--it's kind of a crap movie. I'm not a huge fan of most of Julia Roberts work. About the only cool character in this is the guy Rupert Everett plays. But I digress, here's the scene I love:
Okay, Julia is all hot for this guy marrying another woman, and one of the various ploys she uses to get his attention is trying to make him jealous of her and Rupert (who would be awesome for her to REALLY end up with, but he's gay). Anyway, Rupert doesn't like being used like this, so he makes everything as difficult as possible, including making up wild, unbelievable stories. So he goes into the story of how they met (this is paraphrased):
"Well, I met her at an insane asylum. She was there visiting a chef that went insane because she gave him a bad review. And I was visiting my friend Steve, who's in there because he thinks he's Dionne Warwick. And I saw her, and she was this, this, beautiful vision. And I turned to Steve, and I was like, 'Oh, who is this marvelous creature! Do you think she could ever love a man like me?' And do you know what he said?" And then he pauses dramatically.
And the whole table of people is really hooked on this story, they're hanging on his every word, and are waiting for him to tell them what Steve said. And Rupert goes, "From the moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup..." and basically just starts singing the entire song in the middle of this restaurant full of people. But the best part: everyone at the table joins in after awhile, then the whole restaurant! If I ever have just one moment in my life like that, I can die happy. Seriously.
I mean, I know in real life no group of people that large and varied would really all know any one song that well. But if I could just get a small table of people to sing a song, that would be enough, even. I'm not even kidding when I say that's one of the top 10 things I would actually like to do in my life, along with the more "serious" things like, "get a fulfilling job," "fall in mutual love with someone awesome," and "actually have a life."
So anyway, whenever that movie is on TV, even though most of it's crappy, I always watch it for that scene. True story.
Friday, July 22, 2005
So I'm still watching Rock Star. It's amazing how much I like it, considering my hatred of reality TV in general and American Idol in particular. My mom and I were talking about it, and she shares my enjoymant of Rockstar and my hatred of American Idol too. Which I found surprising, though she hasn't been really into any music newer than the 70's, what I do know of her tastes points much more to a pop sensibility. I would really think she'd enjoy American Idol over Rock Star.
Also weird: her and I like the same people. Eerie.
I do have to say, though, her and I do have some similar tastes in music in general. Even though she's UBER republican, I mean as dyed as the wool as it gets, she never hesitates on any of it, loves Bush 1 and 2, hates Clinton, hates anyone democratic, etc. etc., she SO was a hippie musically. She's all about Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Simon & Garfunkel, and Joan Baez, and The Mommas and the Papas. About all she doesn't enjoy, hippie-wise, is Bob Dylan. Which, some people would be aghast at that, but actually: I don't find Dylan all he's cracked up to be either. His voice is just not to my taste, but also--most of his songs even covered by others I just get tired of. Obviously, they were groundbreaking for their time and everything, but I can do without.
But I do enjoy The Mommas and The Papas, and I LOVE Simon & Garfunkel. I remember, when I was in my rock n' roll in the cinema class: my prof occasionally asked people things if he couldn't remember. Like, he'd be going on about something and want to say something Hendrix-related, and he'd ask if anyone knew what year Purple Haze came out or something. And there was this one kid, who was like his go to guy on anything to do with the Beatles. And another guy who was like his go to guy on punk rock. Much to my horror, I ended up being the go-to girl on hippie music. I was SO, "Oh, I know what Creeque Alley is about!" It was sad. But amusing. I did make a friend, though, based on mutual Simon & Garfunkel love, though. So good times.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Oh here's something: does anyone else ever have music for specific activities? I've found I do. Here are some of my picks:
For needlepoint or crossstitch: Incubus. Incubus is about the most angry, hardcore band I've ever bought music by. I feel I need the badassness to balance out the girliness of doing a craft project. Even though I AM a girl and there should be no shame. 2nd choice: Breaking Benjamin. They're also kind of hard compared to the majority of what I listen to. But poppy. Like Linkin Park without the rap or annoyingness.
For writing: I RP a lot, and most of my characters each have a song. Sad, I know.
--The sockpuppet bent on world domination's tune? Megalomaniac, by Incubus.
--The pooka into large amounts of alcohol and fast women: a whole band, The Refreshments. 90% of their songs are about women, drinkin', mexico, or some combination thereof. Reason for anyone to enjoy them!
--The bitter angry one armed self-loathing gay cook who can't let go of his past (yeah... I'm pretty weird. Feel lucky I don't have a song for my anthromorphic trout or his next door neighbor the penguin who suspects his flamingo wife with a glass eye is having an affair with a lawn jockey): Closure, by Chevelle. Actually, nearly anything by Chevelle. They're angry but still melodic. But that song in particular goes on and on about a relationship's closure and how the narrator finally has closure, but pretty much at the end is like, "forget closure!" I feel that Chevelle would also make great needlepoint music!
--The Weyrling (if you don't know what a weyrling is, seriously, you don't want to know) chick who can't get anything right: Good Intentions by Toad the Wet Sprocket. The line, "It's hard to rely on my own good senses/when I miss so much that requires attention" pretty much sums it all up.
For Showering: Don't ask me why, but I always get the urge to sing "Lithium" by Nirvana in the shower. Really. I think it kind of used to freak people in my dorm out.
For pooping: you would be very, very surprised and very, very sorry for me if you knew just how many poo songs I have. For anyone not familiar with my regular blog, I have a disease called colitis that involves a lot of diahrea, a lot of constipation, a lot of pain, and a lot of time on the toilet. So I have poo songs.
First off--"Everybody Hurts" by REM. You can easilly think of that hurt as toilet pain. In fact, I quite often change the lyrics to "Everybody Poos" in my head if I just happen to hear it when I'm not pooing. I actually have done the same with several Good Charlotte songs, changing random words in the song to poo, and it didn't seem to change the lyrical content all that much (Ha! Take that Good Charlotte! But, um, please don't be mad at me because I do secretly love you even though I try to pretend I'm too cool for you).
Another one I like is "Prayer," by disturbed. The chorus is "let me enlighten you/this is the way I pray: living just isn't hard enough/burn me alive inside/living my life's not hard enough/you take everything away." And when I'm morose and in a lot of pain, I am like, "Yeah! God! This sucks! As if my life wasn't crappy enough, you come and make me feel like my abdomen is going to explode with burny pain all the time! What is up with that? You tell Him, Disturbed!"
Lately, I have found Coheed and Cambria good pooing music, because it has lots of dramatic cresendos that make you want to gather up all your energy and poo it all out, even though you know it's going to be unpleasant.
HA! You didn't realize in time that this all was an excuse to talk about poop, did you? Did you!?!?
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Well, I hate to scrape the barrel of reality TV, but I've not had any other music musings lately. Also, there's been no good TV on lately. Also, I'm unemployed and have nothing to do ever.
So I've been watching that show, Rockstar: INXS. It's actually surprisingly non-sucky. Because it's basically just listening to music. Personal drama is minimized in favor of showing the actual performances. Plus, unlike American Idol, they actually play decent music.
I mean, first off: INXS must really suck, because I've never heard any of their music. And they aren't singing any of their songs even though the people are auditioning for their band, because I guess no one cares about their music. Plus, no one knows any of them and they're all old and over the hill, so they drug in Dave Navarro to help them judge, and it's so transparent that that's the reason he's there. And he sucks, too. Not as a musician, so much as a human being. He apparently is unable to not hit on all the female contestants with horribly sleazy come ons.
So far I'm rooting for Blonde Guy and Scarf Guy (I refuse to be the type of person who memorizes names of people on reality shows). But I don't know if it's because I like them so much as the songs they picked. Blonde Guy did the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" the first night, and the one Franz Ferdinand song tonight. And I love the Kinks song. And I honestly keep thinking I've never actually heard Franz Ferdinand's stuff, but I actually had heard that song, and I really like it too. Also, Blonde Guy does a mean robot. INXS downed him the first night because apparently he's a fairly quiet person normally, and then he's krazy up on the stage doing the robot, and they think being totally different in those two contexts makes him a phony. But really, can you be on, doing the robot 24/7? Laaame.
Scarf Guy did Smells Like Teen Spirit the first night and the one other big Kinks hit they ever had, which honestly I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but I enjoy those songs too. I think these two are the only people 2 for 2 on songs I especially like so far. They didn't like Scarf Guy the first night, though, because apparently SLTS is a hard song to do, and he wasn't good enough for it.
Please shoot me.
