05.30.2002 – songs, e-mail, emo, tysonbrow, weakerthans
originally written 05.30.2002
song ideas for my still ephemeral project with tim: “special interest” a song about special interest class in elementary school. the most optimistic time of my life. also, want to write a song about the library. about bibliophilia. more tim’s department than mine, really, but sometimes i think i can feel what he and peter talk about. like when i checked out the collector, i found the hardback more than a little satisfying. substantial. tangible. old pages. spilled-on, yellowed, penciled notes in the margins. nice. but yeah. when i think about it libraries have been a really big part of my existence. some of my earliest memories are going to the library with my mom. my dad has been, basically, a librarian for a large part of the time that i’ve known him. they’re such a cool institution. seditionary in a way. what? anybody can get information? for free? i wonder if there was the current copyright debate when public libraries first became common. but yeah. if i wrote a song about libraries, i would make a play on words with “patron” and “patronize”. some kind of word pun. i know it’s there. there aren’t enough puns in songs these days.
speaking of songs … rewrote the intro to e-mail from mallory, so it sounds a little less like the main hook in laid, that now-ancient single by james. that song’s ancient by my standards. wrote ages ago, but i still like it. simplistic as all hell, but the most honest song i’ve ever wrote. a song that wrote itself the summer i was bummed out in austin and got the nondescript e-mail from an admirer of this website. the more and more that i think about that titular e-mail, i’m convinced that it was one of my friends who wrote it to me instead of the mysterious 16 year old girl from pa. at first the idea of that made me really angry. i fealt fscked with, my feelings violated. but, now i’m completely at-ease with the e-mail. whoever the source was. either way it’s a win. if the letter was genuine, it means that two summers ago, there was some kid out there who fealt what i was feeling in life and our mutual knowledge, of just the existance of each other, was enough to make us both feel a little better. if the e-mail was fabricated, it means that one of my friends knew me well enough and cared about me enough to know, precisely, what needed to be said to help me through that period in my life. like i said. a win, win situation. maybe that’s why i thought the idea of a fake letter was so cruel at first. it takes the same thing to be very, very kind as it does to be very, very cruel – an intimate, naked, knowledge of someone.
rock action is such a cool album. good study music for sure. yon sucks because she got to see the mogwai show. figures that they tour the us while i’m in scotland.
peter said this would make me explode. he was right. it’s awful, but seems to be the norm these days. at least they didn’t mention any bands that haven’t already blown up. i still like dashboard and jew, but in a different way than i used to. it’s hard for music to be “emotional” when it’s played in a stadium and you’re surrounded by post-fratboys. if i hear one more person call weezer an emo band i’m going to slit my wrists.
rob and i shaved lines in our eyebrows like the people in the big brother house. sort of like the tyson-line that “iron mike” (shit-talking boxer and rapist) tyson has in his hair except in your eyebrow. totally stupid and horrible looking but good kicks. i think doing crazy stunts cold sober helps redefine people’s notion of antics. also tried to shave a line in hair elsewhere with less success. uhhehe. hopefully the videotape won’t make it across the atlantic.
tim hooked me up with weakerthans mp3s. awesome. emo? maybe, well, not really. weaker than punk rock actually. singer is ex-propaghandi, so the music is like the more melodic propaghandi songs, but moreso. really good. as long as this stuff isn’t mentioned in time articles, the world is safe. letter of resignation is one of my favorite songs ever.