Christmas morning, still in my PJs. Besides the fact that I'm playing it left-handed (how could I be so ignorant???) I think this is good foreshadowing. That Kermit the Frog banjo is pretty awesome. I really, really loved banjos when I was little. I even got one at some point, but I can't play it very well. It's time to learn so I can do justice to the enthusiastic kid in this picture.
I always try to make it out to a few Dodgers games each season, and every year I make a point of going when the Phillies are in town. This year I saw the final two games of a four game series between the two teams. Here's a nice picture of my brother and me on day one:
We look happy because the game started out with Ryan Howard, Greg Dobbs, and Jayson Werth all hitting two-run homers. Things looked good, but little did we know we were about to watch our team lose twice during a four game sweep by a mediocre opponent.
I like Dodger Stadium, but one thing I always notice is its fan class system. We get our tickets and go to an entrance, where we're greeted with "oh, you're in infield reserve, you can't come in here." OK. So we trek up a large flight of stairs to a more lowly entrance that will accept hooligans like us. Then later in the game I decide to meet up with my friend who is at the same game but two decks below us. I go to the elevator, where a guard asks: "Are you going up or down?" "Down." "Do you have a ticket?" "No, my friend is down there, we're just gonna meet up and say hi." "You can't go down there. He has to come up."
Wow. I can't even get in the elevator lest I disturb the higher class patrons below. I felt like I was in the poor deck of the Titanic, but with less water and fewer deaths. So I tell my friend to come up to me. He tries. They tell him he can't go up after the 7th inning. Why? It's just the rules. They don't want him getting mixed up with a lesser ticketholder such as myself.
Weird. So by the end of the second day as we realized the sweep was upon us, we were significantly less enthused:
The heckling from LA fans really wasn't too bad, I was a little disappointed. Maybe Dodgers fans know that they're not gonna win the World Series, either. On a positive note, since LA is my "root-for-them-because-I-live-here-but-not-when-Philly's-in-town" team, I decided to get this sweet "blue blinking beer cup," a completely obnoxious flashing plastic cup full of beer. On my way out, after talking to a Philly fan who called Dodgers fans the "worst fans ever," I said "hey, at least I got this awesome blinking Dodgers cup." I've never seen someone look more disappointed in my life. It was a great moment to cap off a crappy series.
I recently discovered the morbid genius that is "Garfield Minus Garfield," a project in which beloved comic fat cat Garfield is removed from each frame of the perennial strip, revealing Jon Arbuckle's incredibly sad existence.
The task of removing our furry orange friend is not the most monumental, seeing as how there's very little art involved in the background of this comic that's been cranked out by a factory (a laugh factory?) for decades now. But the results are both hysterical and a major downer. Never before have we been so forced to address Arbuckle's hopeless desperation. No longer is his pain padded by feline punchlines that he could never hear in the first place.
I tip my hat to the creator of this darkly funny concept. I can only hope that I don't turn into Jon Arbuckle someday.
I never quite understood when people worried about their personal indie cred. For some people, listening to a pop band that sounds polished and radio-ready is equivalent to selling their soul to Lucifer. That sentiment is fine if the band sucks. But what if the song really is catchy and really is fun to listen to? You shouldn't have to apologize for anything. Sure, maybe you're a devout follower of Bright Eyes, but so what if you hear a Paramore song on the radio and think "hey, that actually kinda rocks?" You've done nothing wrong. If someone else thinks you're somehow less legit as a human being now, I don't know why you'd want to hang out with them in the first place. Their approval means nothing.
The opposite situation is just as mystifying. With some people, if you say "hey, you should listen to 'Red Eyes and Tears' by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, it's a bitchin' song," they'll crinkle their nose and say "I've never heard them on KROQ, I don't want to listen to them." What they don't seem to realize is that they had never heard of the All-American Rejects a couple years ago, but the band still existed. There's a LOT of great music that will never be heard on the radio. There's also a LOT of ass-kickin' tunes that rock the airwaves. And it's more than OK to listen to them both.
It's sort of like clothing, and how people dress like hipsters, goths, punks, rockers, or whatever. In order to completely fit in and be accepted into certain walks of life, you have to dress like them. I can think of nothing more ironic than the cliques that represent rebels or outcasts that won't embrace you unless you look like they do. No one has dressed a certain way their whole lives. They're all changing their lifestyles to fit in where they feel like they belong. Personally, I'd rather belong right where I already am.
Or maybe I don't really belong anywhere. That's sort of how it's always been, anyway. I never really fit into a certain group in High School. But I never really cared. I always felt like being in one group would limit my access to the others, that I could never get the full experience of life from a single perspective.
But forget that philosophical crap. I'm talking about music. Listen to what you like, period. Forget all the pretense and preconceptions and just enjoy music for what it is. Remember why you love it in the first place. Only then can you really appreciate everything it has to offer. I like Crowded House. I like Elliott Smith. I like AC/DC. I like Muddy Waters. I like Elbow. I like Aerosmith. I don't care who thinks what about the music I listen to. And I don't care that the way I dress doesn't do much to define who I am (though that could always change as I am making my way through an image-obsessed music industry).
Sometimes I don't fit in as well because of this attitude. But I've found that fitting in less often means standing out more.
