Sunday, February 27, 2005
Neglect
Alright, at the risk of sounding a little Valley, I'm going to sum my thoughts on the workload that's taking shape before me: woah, like, woah.
After a week's worth of sunrise to sunrise schooling, I set aside Friday and Saturday nights to kick out the jams.
Friday night began and ended at the Wonderland, where the guest DJs were playing so creatively and with such a nod to variety that nary a single body escaped without a good sweat-drenching. Occasional trips to the outdoors saw steam rising from torsos, and, and, because it was someone's birthday (going away party? welcome home party? whatever), cake (chocolate) was everywhere. Some ugly wag pushed me with intent as I was trying to squeeze through her cadre, so I, oops!, spilled my beer down her back. Nicolette poisoned my ear with temptations of an already arranged spring break jaunt down to Jamaica; Violette appealed to my inherent value of laziness with pleas to stay here and do nothing. I figure I worked in a full four hours of cardio, but the benefit from that might have been outweighed by the booze.
Saturday was wretched until about 9 pm, as I sat at the computer and furiously wrote code in anticipation of a Monday deadline, the beautiful day rising and setting without regard. Soon enough, though, I was en route to the Black Cat to see Ratatat. Matt was there, and that other guy I know through Violette had brought his latest fling (and they were whisperrific). The first opening act was, um, a comic tragedy; their music wasn't half bad, but I can best characterize the lead vocalist as a jazzercise aerobics instructor by day mime school dropout who listened to far too much Smiths as a child. His hand gestures were excessive, distracting and altogether the most impressive part of their act (alright, second most--the she-cellist had bouncy starlet hair). The next opening act was better, but the lead vocalist wore an outlandishly puffy muffler (negative points for overdoing the styistic intent) and all of the amps were turned up to eleventeen, causing the most clamorous sequences to blank out into the static of a pair of eardrums whose decibel limit had been thoroughly ignored. They had nice, soothing fiber optic lamps to make up for it. It didn't matter, though, because Ratatat was on fire. Two guitars, heavily distorted, playing over a synth-board background with amazing rhythm and bass programming. The intriguing projection display behind the band was the appropriately placed cherry on top. Speaking of cherries, though, they didn't play my favorite track, Cherry, and instead opted to repeat a song at the end of the show that they had played in the middle of the show. Dudes: if you only have one album of material, plus one new song thrown in for us, don't fucking repeat material until you've run through them all.
After the show ended, it was up to a houseparty across the block on Irving. More good dancing with Violette (my thighs ache today), and one of the bands in attendance, goofing off, played 'Walk Like an Egyptian,' and the house erupted into mania. There was a Bush punching bag, and it was just asking for it. A very drunk handsome fellow was two-fisting bottles of vodka, so I started taking pictures and he gave me his contact information on the back of a Quizno's Subs card. I like my neighbors.
Now that I've come to, my hands are covered with ink, my room is a wreck from seven days of visitors, parties and living at my computer; I'm faced with making the decision of cleaning or coding first (and, in that comparison, cleaning is totally winning).
Mad respect to Matt for this awesome Anniemal CD. Bluestate folks, I was there in spirit, and I hope it went well!
-----------------------
After a week's worth of sunrise to sunrise schooling, I set aside Friday and Saturday nights to kick out the jams.
Friday night began and ended at the Wonderland, where the guest DJs were playing so creatively and with such a nod to variety that nary a single body escaped without a good sweat-drenching. Occasional trips to the outdoors saw steam rising from torsos, and, and, because it was someone's birthday (going away party? welcome home party? whatever), cake (chocolate) was everywhere. Some ugly wag pushed me with intent as I was trying to squeeze through her cadre, so I, oops!, spilled my beer down her back. Nicolette poisoned my ear with temptations of an already arranged spring break jaunt down to Jamaica; Violette appealed to my inherent value of laziness with pleas to stay here and do nothing. I figure I worked in a full four hours of cardio, but the benefit from that might have been outweighed by the booze.
Saturday was wretched until about 9 pm, as I sat at the computer and furiously wrote code in anticipation of a Monday deadline, the beautiful day rising and setting without regard. Soon enough, though, I was en route to the Black Cat to see Ratatat. Matt was there, and that other guy I know through Violette had brought his latest fling (and they were whisperrific). The first opening act was, um, a comic tragedy; their music wasn't half bad, but I can best characterize the lead vocalist as a jazzercise aerobics instructor by day mime school dropout who listened to far too much Smiths as a child. His hand gestures were excessive, distracting and altogether the most impressive part of their act (alright, second most--the she-cellist had bouncy starlet hair). The next opening act was better, but the lead vocalist wore an outlandishly puffy muffler (negative points for overdoing the styistic intent) and all of the amps were turned up to eleventeen, causing the most clamorous sequences to blank out into the static of a pair of eardrums whose decibel limit had been thoroughly ignored. They had nice, soothing fiber optic lamps to make up for it. It didn't matter, though, because Ratatat was on fire. Two guitars, heavily distorted, playing over a synth-board background with amazing rhythm and bass programming. The intriguing projection display behind the band was the appropriately placed cherry on top. Speaking of cherries, though, they didn't play my favorite track, Cherry, and instead opted to repeat a song at the end of the show that they had played in the middle of the show. Dudes: if you only have one album of material, plus one new song thrown in for us, don't fucking repeat material until you've run through them all.
After the show ended, it was up to a houseparty across the block on Irving. More good dancing with Violette (my thighs ache today), and one of the bands in attendance, goofing off, played 'Walk Like an Egyptian,' and the house erupted into mania. There was a Bush punching bag, and it was just asking for it. A very drunk handsome fellow was two-fisting bottles of vodka, so I started taking pictures and he gave me his contact information on the back of a Quizno's Subs card. I like my neighbors.
Now that I've come to, my hands are covered with ink, my room is a wreck from seven days of visitors, parties and living at my computer; I'm faced with making the decision of cleaning or coding first (and, in that comparison, cleaning is totally winning).
Mad respect to Matt for this awesome Anniemal CD. Bluestate folks, I was there in spirit, and I hope it went well!
