Why I Oughtta

This is Jamie’s and I thought it was good.

Dear Mr. Gerard,

Normally, when Meredith, Jacob or I send out these notices, we go out of our way to maintain a positive tone. It's not easy serving on the architectural review board of Gurgling Brook Estates, you know. We have to balance the gentle, neighborly manner that we've worked so hard to establish with the firmness necessary to make change. And you, sir, have made life exceedingly difficult.

Let's review our brief history together, shall we? You first moved in after the death of your dear father. He was such a darling man, old David. Always out walking that adorable little Scotty, Chester. When I found out that the stench coming from your backyard was his rotting body, tangled up in the garden hose with wildlife nibbling at his fleshy parts — oh my… The image is just too horrible.

I thought that when you moved in you would be a “chip off the old block,” as they say. Dickens, was I wrong. They had barely scraped the body off the patio before you had your first keg party. Things got so out of hand that night. I've heard numerous reports of neighbors being terrorized by your guests. Mrs. Reynolds up the street insists she saw a man's naked posterior with the phrase “Rectum, don't even know 'em” pressed up against her window.

And then came your “home improvements.” As you know, there are only 5 acceptable paint colors for homes in Gurgling Brook Estates: cantaloupe, sky, chiffon, umber and topaz. When you decided to paint the entire exterior of your house black, save the blood red pentagram on the front door, I felt compelled make a statement on behalf of the community — and my position as chair of the architectural review board gave me just that opportunity.

The day after I served you with what was, in my opinion, a very diplomatically-worded letter, I received it back in my mailbox, smeared with a sexual lubricating cream (I found the empty tube at the end of the cul-de-sac).

Before I had a chance to draft another letter, our next problem began. I noticed that you began your small construction project during the night. The hammering kept Harold and I up until the wee hours. I had to go downstairs and fix myself some brandy to conk myself out for the evening.

When I drove to work the next morning I saw your crude structure. What is that made out of? Twigs and rotten lumber? But I was not pleased with the fact that you applied a piece of plywood to the front and labeled your little shack “The Fuck Hut.” Even more disturbing was the fact that whenever I pass your little construction, there always seems to be something moving inside. I even saw a long-haired man, smoking a cigarette out front and he wasn't wearing a shirt! These are not the individuals we like to see in Gurgling Brook Estates.

I would like to say that it is a heavy duty to ask you, on behalf of the community, to pick up and move out. Instead, I find it a very gratifying task.

Unless, within the next fourteen days, you repaint your house one of the aforementioned colors, disassemble the “Fuck Hut” and issue an apology to the neighborhood for your conduct, we will be forced to pursue legal action.

Yours,

Trudy Smithers

This is a picture of Jenny, Conor and Blake at the Rilo Kiley show. Courtesy of somebody at the Rilokiley.net forum.

There's a two year old who keep staring at me, possibly because I keep staring back. He's starting to whine urgently, and his mother is asking him if he can use words. It's not working too well, so they are just giving him some grapes and that is making him happy.

Last night was the Rilo Kiley show and, even though it was just the four-piece band plus a touring guitarist, it was just as enjoyable as the Black Cat show where they had horns, strings and all sorts of weirdness onstage. Jenny Lewis didn't seem as intense and scowl-y as she did last time — like she was actually having a good time onstage. She must get so much gross attention, being pretty and being a talented rocker babe. Be that as it may, I still might go straight for her.

In the middle of the gigantic crowd shout-along “With Arms Outstretched,” Bright Eyes dragged his drunk ass on stage. He and The Faint had just played a few sold-out shows at the 9:30 earlier in the week. He had a drink in hand and was clearly half in the bag. They came up first to sing on that song, and then everybody and their babymama came up for the encore. Blake played some Who song on the Ukelele that apparently everybody but me knew the lyrics to. The bass player brought his 5-year-old daughter up (I'm still not sure how I would feel about bringing a child up into the smokey loudness of the 9:30), there was Bright Eyes and his greasy hair and then these two random gansta-looking guys.

They didn't play my favorite, “My Slumbering Heart,” but Ii was pleased with “Arms Outstretched,” because they didn't play it last time. And they played a lot of stuff from “Execution of All Things,” which is good because it IS the superior album. Despite Belle's recent flip-flop on the quality of “More Adventurous.” Flip-flop, Belle, flip-flop.

The crowd had a few assholes, especially these three “I'm-a-lesbian-for-attention” girls who kept flirting with each other and butted their way in front of Cynthia and Belle. And the only thing worse than people who force their way to the front at a concert are people who force their way to the front and smoke.

The Brunettes and Portastatic opened. The Brunettes were pretty good — I'm a sucker for any sort of quirky band set-up. They had a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player and then two people who just played whatever they had on them. Harmonicas, horns, keyboards, xylophones… At one point they were singing a song about Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and they all donned Mary Kate and Ashley masks. Pretty creepy, but you can't say you've ever seen that before. They introduced themselves at one point, and since they all have really thick New Zealand accents, when the guy said that the girl in the group was named Heather, I thought he said Hitler. And everyone was wondering why I thought this was funny/shocking. Portastatic was this aging rock band that, while talented, delivered an incredibly dull set. They had this girl in the band who just stood there and played the tambourine for half the set, before she finally picked up a violin. Thank god. It's a pet peeve of mine when there is a girl in the band and all she does is sit there. Pretty Girls Make Graves had a useless keyboard player who stood there and danced 85% of the time. When Belle and I saw Mates of State at WM a while ago, they had this emo band open up and they had a useless, inaudible female keyboard player who disappeared halfway through the set.

1. Dan vs. pavement (age 19): scar by my right eye
Sophomore year, post-Flat Hat writer’s meeting. I get on my bike to ride back to my Ludwell apartment. (I live in Ludwell with with two guys I will never speak with again, for the most part. One is the boyfriend of a friend, the other is some sucker sophomore we found on the Student Information Network who had a lottery number good enough to get us a Ludwell triple)

I ride sans helmet, because I have that devil-may-care attitude that has won me so many admirers. I’m in front of the old College bookstore when something happens. I suppose my front wheel came off, somehow, although I don’t know how it just “comes off.” That’s what I tell people, anyway. I wasn’t going very fast, I wasn’t losing balance. I just remember falling. But before I know it I’m doing a faceplant on the pavement, embedding gravel into the right side of my face.

I was tangled in that bike until these people found me there, apparently on the way to some sort of Christ-y activity. They called the ambulance, along with an off-duty paramedic. I don’t remember how they gathered there, because I was lying flat on my back telling them to just go ahead and call the ambulance. I wasn’t planning on getting up. I guess I can truly say I was touched by an angel that day. I never saw either of their faces, but I’m sure neither of them looked like Della Reese.

At the hospital, I got cleaned off by this burly man-nurse. I was 2 and a half years from confronting any sort of sexuality issues at the time, but he was totally hot. At the time, I was still in my “I don’t have time to come out of the closet, I have another extracurricular activity to join” phase. But he dabbed the shrapnel out of my face and we made chit chat.

Medical attention needed: ambulance service, cotton swabbing done by hot nurse, no stitches but they put this glue on my face to hold the cuts together.

2. Dan vs. pumpkin knife (age 7): small scar on my left hand
Mid-October, I go down the street to visit my friend Nikku. Nikku is a sweet, but pathologically lying Indian kid. Along with him, is another neighborhood kid who would later grow long hair and attempt suicide twice. Nikku and the kid are carving pumpkins unsupervised on his porch. The kid has made decent headway on his, having removed the top and is now working on the face. Nikku, on the other hand, is holding the knife in psycho-killer position and is stabbing the top of it repeatedly. He says this is to make “hair,” but it is clear that he just likes the stabbing.

I decide that, Nikku being two years my junior, it was my responsibility to show him proper pumpkin-cutting procedure. I place my left hand on the pumpkin and cut clockwise with my right. I promptly slash open the skin on top of my thumb knuckle and let out a blood curdly scream. As I run up the street to my house, I hear the neighborhood kid say “Well, he did a good job.”

Medical attention needed: 5 stitches.

3. Dan vs. faucet (age 12): scar under chin
I stepped in the tub to take a shower and fell, slamming my chin on the tub faucet. Nothing more to say, really, aside from the fact that I remember not feeling any pain. I only realized I was cut when I looked in the mirror to see if there was a mark and a stream of blood was pouring down my neck.

Medical attention needed: 2 stitches.

4. Dan vs. table (age 1): scar under left eye
I don’t remember this, obviously, but I’m told my brother pushed me into a glass table. Like the hand wound, this must have been shortly before Halloween, because there’s a picture of me with a gash below my eye wearing drawn-on whiskers and a onesy that reads “Monsters are for loving” on the torso.

Medical attention needed: I don’t know.

A long time ago I asked people if they wanted me to send them mix CDs. I sent out a few and then lost steam. So, here's a make-it-yourself CD that I've made from legal mp3s on the net. Download them soon, because there's no guarantee how long the links will be live. If any of them are defective let me know, although I don't know whether I'll get off my fat ass to correct it.

1. Hot Hot Heat – Goodnight, Goodnight
The first rule of a mix CD: grab the listener's attention. Usually, this means a fast-paced, poppy song. In this case, it's Hot Hot Heat. This is the first single off their new album, which I haven't purchased yet for some reason. It's a good song, at any rate, and doesn't stray from their usual sound of yelpy vocals and and music driven by organ.

1. The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic
Once you've got that momentum going, you've got to keep it going for a while. Enter The New Pornographers. This is off their first album, which isn't as easy to find as “Electric Version.” But it's fun, bouncy and has Neko Case singing. (They have two singers, a guy named AC Newman and a woman named Neko Case. She's the better singer.)

3. The Deathray Davies – Medication's Gone
I really haven't looked into this band as much as I should. I have two of their songs and I like them both very much. This is the better one of the two. The stomping drum beat is awesome, as is the line where he says “only girly boys wear sweaters.” Fun fact: they have an album called “Midnight at the Black Nailpolish Factory.”

4. The Like Young – Looked Up
I saw this band in Chapel Hill about a year ago opening up for Mates of State. They're like MOS, only completely different. In this band, the wife plays drums and sings and the guy plays guitar and sings. Only he sings most of the songs. They're kind of scrappy, but fun. This song makes me think of Belle's mom.

5. Bloc Party – Tulips
This song won't really give you a great indication as to what Bloc Party is all about, but it is a nice change of pace for them. I think their more manic songs get the most attention, but this a low-key affair with twinkling guitars and fake-sounding drums. I like the singer's voice, because it doesn't really sound like anyone else's, even if there's nothing particularly remarkable about it. He doesn't lose his accent, which is nice.

6. Get Up Kids – Overdue
This is from the weirdest Get Up Kids album — On a Wire. It's mostly acoustic. Actually, when I listen to it I feel like I'm in Boston, driving around downtown Medford (which is like a bank and 3 beauty schools). I used to listen to it a lot around this time. Anyway, this is the first song on the album, and definitely one of the best.

7. Damien Rice – The Blower's Daughter
I reviewed Damien Rice's CD a long-ass time ago. I bought the CD in Boston, I remember, even before he dated Renee Zellweger for 18 seconds and had his songs in “Closer.” Anyway, this probably isn't my favorite song on the CD (that would be “Amie” or “Cannonball”), but it's probably one of his most recogizable ones, given that it's the most explicitly heartsick.

8. Kimya Dawson – Loose Lips
Kimya Dawson's a big weirdo. She's like that kid in the second grade who kind of smells and plays alone, but really doesn't seem to mind. Just like that kid, only 25 years older. This is a non-LP track that basically explains what she's all about.

9. Volcano, I'm Still Excited!!! – In Green
I love it when there are boy/girl vocals. This band doesn't have them. But they do do another one of my favorite things, which is tweaking the traditional guitar band format in a weird way. In this case, they replace the bass player with a keyboard player. I don't really know a lot about this band, but I am going to do more research.

10. Pretty Girls Make Graves – All Medicated Geniuses
I listened to this CD — The New Romance — continuously for about 3-4 months. It's pretty awesome. This is the song on this list that you may end up hating, as it is loud and screechy at times, but it's also dark and complicated and melodic.

11. Braid – Killing a Camera
I saw this band at Lodge 1 my sophomore year. They were at a WCWM band night. They're broken up now, but this song is pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.

12. Mates of State – Proofs
This is Mates of State kickin' it old school. In fact, it's the first song off their first album. The thing that is nice about this song, aside from the fact that it is cheery and fun, is that it embodies everything that MOS is about. It's got them singing loudly in unison, with the keyboards blaring and the drums thumping along.

13. Iron and Wine – Woman King
This is the title track off Iron and Wine's most recent EP. It's spooky, with that biblical Southern Gothic thing in full effect.

14. Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous (live on English radio)
Rilo Kiley's newest album isn't as good as “Execution of All Things.” It's a fact. But I think this is my favorite song off it. This is a live version, high quality, that was done on XFM in Britain.

Quentin Tarantino movies — Sure, I thought Kill Bill Vol. 1 was pretty good. And, sure, Pulp Fiction was a decent pic. But Kill Bill Vol. 2 embodied everything that I can't stand about his movies. The empty posturing, the how-far-can-I-push-it violence and the retro stylings to periods and genres best left in the past undisturbed. He's like every eye-rolling video clerk, but he actually gets to make the movies. I don't think I've ever really seen any emotional depth to his movies, even if the plots can keep the action moving. And, for the record, Kill Bill Vol. 2 was about 2.5 hours too long. (On a side note: Uma Thurman — not that hot.)

Rap music — I feel bad, especially for someone who is known to write music reviews, to rule out an entire genre. However, I don't own any rap albums and I've never heard a rap song and enjoyed it, aside from Tone Loc's “Wild Thing” — the first cassette single I ever purchased.

Mushrooms — Gross texture. The knowledge that they are a fungus, the same family of plant that people grow on their feet. Even fresh, they are bad on salad, bad on pizza, bad everywhere.

Angelina Jolie — As I peck these words out on my keyboard I can hear Morgan Johnson let out a tribal scream and start running north along I-95 to kick my ass. But, frankly, there are a lot of actresses (Catherine Zeta Jones, Portia DiRossi) that I think are hotter than Angelina Jolie but somehow she has just become synonymous with sex. I mean, she's not an ugly girl, but come on.

Cats — They hate you unless you have something to offer them.

I hereby offer an invitation to other bloggers (Stickles, Belle) to create similar lists.

Last night I had a dream that Johnny Depp won the oscar for best actor. This is strange considering I think about Johnny Depp very little on any given day. However, if he wins the oscar next year I'll use this to prove to you all that I am psychic.

I was in the Gap a couple of weekends ago and there was a mannequin with a popped collar. I put the collar down and ran out of the store.