I have recently been getting into Times New Viking.

Song HERE

Myspace HERE

Not only do they make me want to go rehearse with my band, but they also make me want to get loaded and spend time with an earnest, flannel wearing, self-aware girl, who wears no makeup, closes her eyes when taking a drag of a cigarette, and looks deeply in your eyes when discussing dense theory after midnight.

Today is the day. Today is the day. Today is the day. TODAY IS THE Last Day of WOIK. From this day on through the next year I will not have to work (traveling abroad for the year). Wow. So this a a goodbye:

Farewell:

gray walls, dress code, office humor, smiling at 9 am, 1 hour lunch breaks, sitting for 8 hours a day, pretending I am not blogging, compulsively checking email, feeling guilty about not bathing, hearing snide remarks about how I look like shit in the morning, earth tones, meetings, waking up at a set time every day, computer screens, “terrific mondays,” email Memos with exclamation points, selling this college, keeping a planner, using an “inside voice,” and Caring.

I am Out.

The other day I was listening to some Bangers with a friend of mine–

(side note isn’t it funny how “friend” takes on two entirely different meanings–like it could mean high-five pal or secretive, don’t want mom or anyone else to know, rip your clothes off, and bring sexy back type thing…I will let you decide which this is)

when we started talking about getting older. Specifically we started to talk about how we don’t feel like we are ready to be as responsible as our ages make us out to be.  Like I am 23 but really feel like a 17 year old.

At first I just felt kinda bad that I don’t feel older, but then it hit me like an angry girlfriend, if 40 is the new 30, then I am really only 13 and have no reason to feel guilty.  Hmm. Then I started to think about feeling 13 and something else dawned on me.

Hipster fashion totally is channeling this drop your age by ten years thing.  Like it seems that a lot of fashion today is best described as “dress like someone who is ten years younger than you are.”

Like it seems that a lot of “fashionable” and “hip” people are totally channeling the I am a little kid and want to wear everything and don’t care if it matches aesthetic…which i love by the way. Like I see a lot of fashion today and I cannot help but think of my little cousin GiGi when she was 8 or so and how she would roll over to our house with tangled hair, cowgirl boots, a leotard, and a poofy tutu.

I don’t know what do you think?

Do you think fashion today is of the dress like a crazy, fashionably autonomous, little kid variety?

So Suge Knight (Co-Founder of Death Row Records) was recently knock the fuck out by a barber (who may I add was quite smaller than the Knight).   I could really care less how it happened or what the punch by punch analysis is, but what is interesting is how much Suge looks like Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Check this out:

What do you think??? If you do care about what happened Click HERE

RIAA=A bunch of Prixxx

the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is asking Congress to establish a performance royalty on free radio, despite the unparalleled promotional value the record labels and artists receive from radio airplay. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy (D-VT) and House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Chairman Berman (D-CA) have both introduced legislation (S. 2500 and H.R. 4789) that would mandate broadcasters pay to play and promote music. the impact would be catastrophic - for free radio and the local communities who rely on us for their news and information, forcing dramatic cuts both in personnel and content.

Thanks Record companies you are a bunch of dicks. Now you are trying to have people pay you for advertising your product. Really??!!!

Source: acquaintance who works for a clear channel radio station.

This post has a Soundtrack:

For a long time I was harboring the delusion that I wanted to be a professor. I wanted to reside inside the gates of the academy and challenge people to think. I wanted to constantly rethink what it is that I believed in. I wanted write late into the night while drinking whiskey and puffing on the one cigarette a day I allow myself cause I am now a responsible father. I wanted to wear tweed. I wanted summers off. I wanted to be the professor that turns my students onto the genius that is sonic youth or something. For four years I had this romantic idea that this is what I wanted.

However, slowly and surely the realities of “college employment” have been eroding these fantasies. And Last night the nail got drilled right into the coffin and that thought is now dead and burried.

Me and three friends have been holding dinner get togethers once a week for the past two weeks now (there is 1 more left). It goes as such. Each week one person gets a recipe, gets food, and cooks for the other three. We all eat, laugh, and clean. Each week the food and the tenor of the night is different. But regardless good times are always had.

Well sometime this morning I started to look around the apartment. I started to think about the ingredients that made last night so wonderful. Lets think

stereo, music, car, food, expensive alcohol, lots of squares, other party supplies, and of course the leisure time to plan/devote time to all of this.

While getting dressed in the morning I did some quick calculations, and while I don’t major in math I do know that last night was expensive. Then I started thinking about the entire day, and the past few days, which have all been amazing. baseball games, drives up the maine coast, eating out, seeing movies. That too was all starting to add up. This whole mini-audit got me thinking, and I soon relaized money is important to me. I have denied this for a long time, but I have finally started to realize this and to admit this to myself. I like money cause it lets me exercise some freedom. It lets me have fun. I know while typing this that the last sentence is pretty fucked up. I should not have to consume things in order to have fun, but really who am I kidding, even the things that I find fun that don’t obviously feed into this consumption problem do. Take skating or riding my bike. I need to get new parts, tools, and other helpful supplies. So money…that’s what i want. Sorry folk but I am going to business school. I am going to buy into the system. bye.

So a friend and I are on a movie marathon these days, and the theme is sex work. It all started a few weeks ago when she was telling me about her studies abroad and her research on sex workers.  Well of course debates/discussions ensued, but what is more surprising is that a movie marathon idea sprung out of all of this.

For the past few days we have been only watching films with sex workers as main characters or the setting is a place where sex work occurs.

This is my list so far. Let me know if I am missing anything

1.) Pretty Woman

2.) Leaving Las Vegas

3.) Risky Business

4.) Show Girls

5.) Strip Tease

6.) Hustle and Flow

7.) Indecent Proposal (demi moore selling her body counts)

8.) The Players Club

9.) Memoirs of a Geisha

I have repeatedly devoted time and energy to thinking about dating in this modern world (see like like and like like revisited) because well, I am young and fairly privileged, so like Jane Austen, these sorts of matters take up a lot of my thought space. Anyway, recently I have begun to make some more observations. Thoughts about modern romance. What’s on my mind grapes:

1.) If you want to know if you are just a booty call or if it is something more get sick. Seriously, if you are not sure if what you have going on is a “booty call” or “something that is on the road to a relationship” just get sick.  Your partner’s reaction and behavior after finding out you are sick will clear everything up.  If it is a booty call then they will say “feel better” (if anything) and “call me when you feel better.”  If it is more they will  offer to come take care of you.  Soup, medicine, and company is a sign you are not in a booty call type arrangement with someone.

2.) If you want to know if you and your partner are compatible, don’t move in together. This shows nothing. Rather, go on a vacation together.  The stress of traveling will reveal everyone’s darker side.  If traveling is not an option. Go grocery shopping for a two pages of obscure goods in a supermarket that you are unfamiliar with for a dinner thing with guests that is happening in a few hours.  If you can make it through this without yelling at one another, fighting, or becoming a sarcastic prick then you two are compatible.

3.) Never ask “what are you thinking” unless you like being lied to. No one ever answers this question honestly so don’t even bother.

4.) This kind of goes with #3, but Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Ignorance is not bliss, but it is masochistic and stupid to throw a bowling ball up in the air knowing good and well it is going to come right back down on your head…it is a metaphor.

5.) There are three ways to know that things are getting serious (aside from the sick part). Two of them are obvious.

1.) is that they have a drawer with some sleep wear and a change of clothes (no walk of shame).

2.) They have things like a toothbrush or lotion at your place

The third is not so obvious…

3.) They have food they like in your refrigerator.

I am not sure what comes first.

Everyday I check a series of blogs.

I check fashion blogs like:http://facehunter.blogspot.com/ , Music Blogs like: http://hypem.com/ , Art blogs like: http://www.woostercollective.com/ , and Cultural blogs like: http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/

Generally, I surf away from them feeling inspired and informed.  And with the latter having had a good quiet chuckle.  But recently there has been one particular blog that has left me feeling incensed.

The blog in question is Graff News.
Now as you may or may not know, I am very interested in studying graffiti and street art as a cultural movement, and particularly invested in unpacking the racial and gender politics in the cultural movement.  Well, consequently I read everything I can about the subject. Magazines, messageboards, DVDs, blogs.  Most of the material documents the art and or the motivations of the Writer. However, Graff News has been taking a different approach of late. Recently there have been a series of posts chronicling the arrest and sentencing process of Graffiti artists/vandals across the globe.

Now, for the record my beef is not really with Graff News.  Really I value them broadcasting this information because it needs to be out there. My reason for feeling as if I am under the bell jar after reading these posts is that i just cannot believe that lawyers, police, and judges across the world are really trying to send kids away to jail, bankrupt families, and transform KIDS into criminals for writing their name on a wall. I know it is illegal, and I am not trying to petition the legality, rather the severity of punishment.  Are we really going to jail someone who writes their name in the same place that houses people who rape, murder, and commit other violent crimes against human beings?  It is just sad that it has come to this. It is just sad that something that does not damage or physically harm anyone is being treated in such a way. Fuck. This almost makes me want to go to law school and to specialize in defending Writers.

The digital age never lets you forget. There is no memory loss in the digital world. Our mistakes and our other selves are cataloged forever. Sometimes we are reminded of this while scrolling through facebook.  Other times it is while purchasing a mother’s day gift from Amazon.

Amazon has this “you might also like” function that suggests things based on your recent purchases.  Some see this as convenient, me, I see this as a peep hole into who I was/am/will be.

In this particular case they were suggesting I buy a Jefferey Brown comic, A Bob Marly DVD, and the DVD series UnDeclared.

What this says about me and my past is this:

1.) I am not just a comic book nerd, but one who reads the comics that can be called graphic novels. I am silently pretentious.  geek glam. I am straddling two worlds because while comics are not really cool these types are deemed alt. cool and provide me with indie street cred and license to feel better than people who just don’t get “it.”

2.) I went through a stage where I thought that smoking pot made me more creative and more in touch with peace. I was once a college cliche. I once thought a riveting  friday night was chiefing and watch Marly play music on DVD. Now that the bong smoke has passed I can see how fucking typical i was back then (i know I am just as typical now…variations on a theme).

3.) I have a fascination with tv shows that are deemed ahead of their time for their ability to accurately capture youthful awkwardness, get canceled after the first season, and again are not widely thought of as cool but allow me to feel as if I have a heightened sense of humor.  Also these types of shows allow me to say “hey i remember seth rogen back when he was doing freaks and geeks and undeclared” which is kind of like saying you own the Japanese EP of a Sonic Youth Album on Vinyl.