Beck and my love life, part 1

I've always enjoyed how Beck's stream-of-consciousness lyrics can allow his songs to be open to different interpretations at various points in my life. A song that was happy years ago can now be bittersweet, sad, angry...you name it.

But invariably, the only songs that have stayed static in their meaning for me have been the ones I've associated with specific relationships. It's always been kind of funny to me, because many times the girls don't "get" why I associate a song with such strange lyrics with them. Sometimes it's just the mood of the music, and sometimes it's just a couple lines from the song. It's hard to say. So let's start at the beginning.

My first love, Jennifer, got a B-side song that I didn't even hear until well over a year into our relationship. She never understood it, but I'll give a shot at explaining it.



The music itself is perfect teen romance. It sounds youthful from the standpoint that it's not trying to put up the facade of "passion" or "sexiness," it's just sweet and happy to be there. Much as Jennifer and I were at times.

I think lyrically the first verse is the most fitting. "Tonight the city is turned off" is to me a really creative way of saying that you're alone with this person, away from the nonsense going on out there.

"Look at me, I'm wearing your shirt, and it's burnt" was just hilariously "us." We were teenagers, we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and those lines just kind of fit that, for me.

"These sensuous morons are dissing you, dissing me, keeping the friendship in massive supply" kind of described our attempts to get out of the dramatic nonsense that tends to follow around groups of teenagers. And at first, our every trial and tribulation only brought us closer together.

Even the chorus, "That's why I got no mind," was perfect because we weren't thinking about the future, didn't give consideration to a lot of things that maybe we should've...we were just in the moment, and happy to be with each other.

"And where there's smoke and there's grease and an unperfect peace, the free and easy letdown will make it all come alive" was just...Hobart, and the steel mills, and all that adult stuff we didn't want to consider at the time.

"The makeshift scene, mildly insulting...you really said it when you said I was just a scavenger" was the kind of vaguely hippie/alternative group of friends we ran with. Jen and I shopped our asses off at resale shops, and some of our more well-to-do friends got really nice designer clothes and fucked them up to look "grunge."

So yeah. It never made sense to her, per se, but it made perfect sense to me. -grin-

I guess I'll say my next relationship was Kristel, though I may have allegedly had a "thing" with Rebecca before that. Can't really call it a relationship when the girl's engaged to your best friend, though, can you?

Anyways...the song that always reminded me of Kristel is "Feather in Your Cap."



The song is, of course, sad. Fitting. lol

"Make a move with what you can / dead waters rise higher than your mind" was just how Kristel was a pathological liar, and seemed to have nothing but darkness inside her head.

"Disappointment is a feather in your cap / you want the truth so you can brush it in your lap" reminds me of how she would always completely fuck me over just to see the sadness on my face that let her know how much she meant to me. And brushing the truth in her lap was how she treated reality like a pet to amuse and comfort her...not really "real," just there to keep her company when she needed it.

"There's no map that can tell you where you are / You're in between things that only go halfway / Your tangled brain, your tired old refrain / You'll be singing it in your tired old asylum" was just how Kristel was completely lost as a person both because she didn't know what was real (literally, in a nearly psychotic way), and because she stuck by her lies to the bitter end.

"You want the best, you want contests / My eyes are filled with prizes you've been showing / Your disappointment is a card up your sleeve / Place your bets at the door before you leave" reminds me of how she felt like she was this amazing prize much of the time, and she strung me along competing against people who either didn't exist or shouldn't've mattered if she could give a fuck about me.

Um, yes. A rather fucked-up person. That song fits her perfectly. I hope the best for her, but have suspicions it probably isn't going well. Sad, really.

I'm tired, and so I think I'll finish this post tomorrow or the next day. I need to relax for a bit.

A word on classical music

This is an area I've exploring a bit when I'm not yelling "FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-" over some new blues piece. I'm still not over knowledgeable, I'll admit, but here's a few things I've found that aren't entirely "obvious" or "famous."

I love the seemingly infinite variations on the same theme Paganini used on this one:



I honestly don't much care for Mozart, I'm finding. He does these amazing quiet parts, then covers it in grandiose horns and strings. I just can't do it. Calm down, Sparky.

This is very famous, but it's still just amazing.



Fur Elise hasn't aged well for me, by the way.

The real point of this is to play this, though. Read up on Shostakovich here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich

And listen to this amazing piece. It was meant to be his musical suicide note.

Blues History: Robert Johnson

There's nothing I can write that hasn't been written, so just a link to a wikipedia page, and five songs. But take into account that these songs were written and performed in the mid- to late-30s, and we still haven't really figured out how to play them. Seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson

Blues History: Charlie Patton

This is someone who's kinda new to me, as I try to expand on my knowledge of the blues. I will probably choose to keep this short, since I'm still learning about him. If you're interested in more, just read this. Frankly, I'm not going to be able to expand on it much anyhow. Not without going into mythology, anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Patton

The song that really did it for me initially was "Spoonful Blues." Check out the amazing slide guitar.



What I'm discovering as I get further into his recordings is the gravelly scream he used on most of his songs. "Spoonful" is rather subdued compared with some of the other songs.

This seems to be a rare recording where he actually had a proper microphone and recording equipment. So many of his other recordings are scratchy and in poor condition. Actually, it may just be the condition of the source tapes/albums.



I try to be better informed before I start a post, but I was excited to hear a new blues musician I wasn't too acquainted with.

Fuck my horseshit. Just check the man out. I gotta listen to "Spoonful Blues" again.

This was the best Christmas EVER.

I was wondering what the hell I was going to write about, and I realized that I hadn't written at length about what was, seriously, the best Christmas I've had in 32 years on this planet.

It wasn't because of anything I got, and I don't mean that in some grubby, wannabe-hippie, anti-consumerism way. I got some good things this year: a hooker-stickin' blade, cyanide in a Binaca spritzer, a baseball bat with railroad spikes hammered into it...this was a good year for me. Don't get confused.

No, this was the best Christmas I've had because of what my brother received. Now, to fully understand the wolf's den that is our family, maybe some Freudian background about his childhood is in order.

Early on, we knew we were destroying him, and it made us giggle. One day when he was maybe 3 or so, he was told by our parents that he couldn't do something, so he started running out of the room screaming, "You suck! You weawwy suck!" I started laughing, so he glared at me and yelled, "You suck too, Gwegwee!" That was when I knew he was gonna be okay.

From Pictures

One of our favorite pastimes during parties was to...well, to give Travis brain damage. Travis was a big fan of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, so we improvised a game where he would try to attack me with his Megazord, and I would send him flying across the living room by hitting him with a hard pillow. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but this was one of those pillows where you could "pack" the stuffing, and it would be like getting hit with a goddamn flail. There were quite a few times I thought I'd hurt him, and he got up giggling, ready to run back at me.

From Pictures

From Pictures

I think my favorite thing of all-time has to be the zombie game, though. It was simple enough. You'd be sitting watching television with him, or playing video games, and out of nowhere you'd stick your arms out, get an intense dead stare in your eyes, and try to attack Travis. He'd run out of the room screaming, "Mom, mom! Greg turned into a zombie!" Well, mom knows this game too, so she'd do the same thing, and you'd hear him scream and run out of the room. "Dad, dad! Mom and Greg both turned into zombies!" "Urrrrr!" "Ahhhhh!" And then you'd find him barricaded in his room half an hour later. That was the best.

From Pictures

So, you kind of get the impression of a kid who's maybe a little weird. Maybe a bit off the beaten path. Somebody who likes offbeat gifts, perhaps. Well, he got a couple this year.

My mother is already a notoriously bad gift-giver. Like, if it's going to embarrass you or make you look corny, it's yours. Gift-wrapped, no less. I honestly don't know when that started, either, because I remember getting some really kick-ass gifts from her over the years. Either way...it ain't good now.

So let's just go straight to Christmas morning. He unwraps a box cutter knife and some work-related stuff. Good. Great. Guys tend to love that shit, because we're too retarded to buy it for ourselves. We'd walk around in tattered rags at work, if left to our own devices.

Then my 19 year-old brother, who has had girlfriends...who has been blackout drunk...who has had to make a lot of adult decisions...opens up this:

From Pictures

A guitar shirt. That functions. You can...play it...while you...wear it.

My brother looked excited enough that I was going to nominate him for an Oscar.

But not to be outdone (by herself) my brother opens up his next gift, and it's like one Yates child after another. Just when you said it couldn't possibly get worse, it did.

From Pictures

A Criss Angel magic kit.

My brother is 19. Without being crass, he has...known women. Does my mother expect him to be at his next party doing...tricks...going "Taadaa!"?

From Pictures

And that, my friends, is why Christmas 2011 was the best Christmas I could've ever asked for. Seeing the juxtaposition of his trying-to-look-excited face inside our grandma's house, versus the exasperated "What the fuck am I supposed to do with this shit?" rant in the car was...magical. I wish everyone I know could've been there. It was better than just about anything I've ever experienced.

Oh, by the way...since my brother's work has been slow lately, he's holding a magic show/benefit event at my house in a couple weeks. Call me for details. 708-TAA-DAAA.

Smashing Pumpkins, "Rocket" acoustic

What a great band.