I'm Amazed (by My Morning Jacket)

Yesterday, technically only 4 hours ago, I saw My Morning Jacket play live at Edgefield in Troutdale. It was beautiful, spectacular, glorious, mind-blowing/destroying, just...ahhh!!! I'd have to bust out a thesaurus to be able to describe it accurately and articulately enough. See, a normal band plays each of their songs the best they can to sound like they do on their cd's. Jim James & Co. do that and then they like to throw in some sheer funky crazy wildness that you have no idea how to handle. Each of their songs turns into a sick guitar meshing solo that rocks on forever. I got there around 8:00pm and so I missed half their set, which sucked, but the money was well worth it to hear the rest of their 3 hour set. Here are some of the songs they played and if you aren't a fan of MMJ, you should be:

Wordless Chorus (Jim James has quite honestly the highest human voice ever heard on this!)
Lay Low
Dondante
Mahgeeta
Run Thru
Sec Walkin'
Steam Engine
Easy Morning Rebel
Librarian (A song dedicated to all the sexy librarians out there)
Smokin From Shootin
Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pts. I & II (This is a beautifully arranged and layered song. I love how they rolled it all into one)
Highly Suspicious (A real funny song, and great to sing-along to)
Anytime (Love this one so much, off "Z")
One Big Holiday (They finished their huge set off with this one from their "It Still Moves" album. I was so glad they saved this for last cause it's the perfect song to go out on)

I'm so glad I decided to go. At first I wasn't cause I knew it was going to be at least $40, and I was kinda busy up until 6:40pm when it started, but I had to see them so bad. It was worth it, even seeing only half their set. I wish I could've seen 'Gideon' or 'Off The Record' or more stuff of "Z" and "Evil Urges" like 'I'm Amazed' but I still saw them play a ton of good songs. Thank you Jim Jacks and My Morning Jacket for putting on such an amazing show! I can't wait to see you again when you roll through Oregon in the future.

Lost in Interpretation

The title of this post comes from a screenplay I am currently writing about a young Irishman named Colm who decides to visit his American cousin Dillon. I was going to post a few pages but I had a bit of trepidation about posting it because of its strong adult content, and by that I mean the heavy use of swearing and filthy language used primarily by Colm. He's Irish and he swears a lot. You can't blame the guy, it's just the way he talks. The whole point of the story is that he uses so much thick Irish slang that his cousin can't understand him half the time. He curses a ton and uses the dirtiest of dirty words as if they were nothing. I decided not to post this because I'm sure people would be offended, but hopefully not Irish people, whom I love and adore profusely. If you'd like a copy of the script, I'd be more than willing to e-mail you a pdf version. I love the script and it'd be amazing if it was made into a film someday soon.

I think I am starting to feel happier now that I'm posting things on a regular basis, as opposed to just posting about once a month. My blog is still in its infancy, which is why probably only about 5 of my closest friends are actually reading this right now. I'm fine with that. I can't wait until I hit my one year mark. I'll have to do something exciting for when that happens. But enough on that.

So yes, my car was broken into two nights ago by some crackhead/tweaker and it certainly was a terrifying thing for me. What's the worst is that they stole my stereo face and now my stereo is basically worthless and I can't listen to what remains of my cd collection. At least two of my smaller cd carriers were left unscathed and that makes the blow less devastating. They stole some of my favorite cd's. But for some reason, I'm not screaming at the top of my lungs about it.

However, my car on the other hand, has taken a turn for the worse. With the rear passenger window being decimated and having a black trash bag duct-taped in place of it, my car has taken on the appearance of a hoopde. Having been in an easily avoided yet nonetheless stupid accident in May, my front right headlights are unhinged and hooked on with duct-tape. Now my engines heat valve is on the fritz and I constantly have to be aware of my cooling levels so that I don't overheat it and end up stranded. My car, a 1992 Canadian Acura Integra 4-door sedan of 5 years, has slowly begun to poop out on me. Yes, my car is Canadian. My Dad & I bought it from a guy who bought it off a Canadian lady. It's speedometer is in Kilometers; something that I was wary of when I first started driving it. But now, years later, it's second nature for me. So much so, that I want all the road signs in America to change to metric. Come on USA! Do as the Canadians do! I've done a lot of things to my car thus far into its life (in this case, "her" name is Carolina). I've driven it as far as Walnut Creek, California (near San Francisco) and back without it breaking down once. It's served me well and I want it to live for a few more years. I love my car to death. Well considering I almost died in it when I fell asleep at the wheel (Just once mind you! But still it was incredibly stupid of me) that statement could have proven true. I don't know what more to do. I'm at wit's end. God please don't let my car die. I'll be good to her, I swear. Just don't take Carolina from me. She's all I got! Well, I guess it's just her and Madeleine my red bicycle I got off some lady in Vancouver, WA off craigslist. I can't help giving feminine names to my machines. It's a force of habit or something. It will definitely be a sad day for me when I no longer use my good 'ole Carolina the Acura Intergra for transportation. A sad day indeed.

To whomever just stole all of the cd's out of my car

Now I'm not normally an angry person. I'd say I'm a pretty mellow kinda guy most of the time. Most of the time. Except for when my mom pops in my room at 7:00 am to tell me that my car window has been smashed in and all my (at least a hundred) cd's have been taken out. I don't want to go up to see, but the anger has already started to boil up inside me. I try to forget her endlessly telling me not to leave them in there and that I should have known better and all that, but in the years of living here, there has never been a single instance of car theft or burglary. Although in the case of life, shit happens. And oh how it seemed to happen to me. I have to say that car break-ins annoy the living piss outta me and I know that I'm called to love as a Christian, but how can I do that when some crackhead/tweaker/whatever who just willingly defiled my car and took off with stuff that was not theirs! I also know that I should not be complaining because there are far worse off things in the world. Maybe this is God's way of saying I need to calm down and not be so comfortable with the style of life I've been living. I don't know what to think right now as anger courses through my veins. I'd hoped that my car would never get broken into but now it has happened and I'm devastated. I'll live and I luckily have all my cd's on my itunes so it's not like I can't just burn them onto blank cd's if I need to. It just stings me terrible to think that someone pulled the wool over my eyes and got the better of me. I'm embarrassed yet I have the rage of ten men. Sure I'd like nothing more than to see whoever stole my stuff to end up in jail and being man-handled by the police, but also I hope the guy/girl is okay and that whatever problems they're having in their life aren't so bad that they have to steal to survive. I feel sick and I don't know how long it's going to take for me to get over this. It's a complete shock to me. My friends car was recently broken into and had his cd's and his stereo stolen. I should have been more careful after that. It's a messed up world we live in and you can't be safe all the time. I guess that's what has been drilled into my head today. It's a terrible way to wake up though. But I should shut up now because I don't have it that bad. It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be. But wherever you are, stealing cd's isn't gonna help you mate. You gotta find something else for you life, cause obviously breaking into cars ain't cutting it. God bless you. Just don't scratch them, you stole some really good ones.

You don't know this, but you talk in your sleep at night

I wrote this song early yesterday morning at around 6am and I had to get it down before I lost all the words. Sometimes inspiration hits me when I least expect it, and this case usually when I'm trying to get to sleep:

I culled you to sleep
and now you won't wake up
I read the wrong rhyme
I sang the wrong tune
Why won't you wake up?
Why won't you wake up?

Go back to bed
and cry your little eyes out.

I lulled you to sleep
and now you want to break-up
I read the wrong rhyme
I sang the wrong tune
Why did we break-up?
Why did we break-up?

Go back to bed
and cry your little eyes out.

I pulled you from sleep
and now you want to make-up
I'll read the wrong rhyme
I'll sing the wrong tune
I don't want to make-up!
I don't want to make-up!

Go back to bed
and cry your little eyes out!
Go back to bed
and cry your little heart out!
Go back to bed
just don't hog all the covers!

Persepolis

I'm not usually this much of a movie whore, but in the case of this film I'll make an exception. No wait a minute, I'm a complete movie whore. Never mind that first comment.

For the ill-informed, Persepolis is a black and white animated feature length film that was originally a graphic novel created by Marjane Satrapi about her childhood in Tehran, Iran. It's a wondrous film full of spark and wit and French dreaminess. I'm a sucker for subtitled movies (i.e. The Edukators, Pan's Labyrinth) and this one is no different. This one flowed beautifully and I hardly noticed the subtitles once I immersed myself into Marjane's smartly animated and well scripted story.

I had the chance to see this in theaters way back in February, but sadly did not and that's what I hate the most - seeing a film on dvd and thinking that it would have been loads better in the theater. But now I've seen it and I love it and I want other people to see it and comment on it and see just how beautiful a film it is. It's films like this that capture my imagination and tug at the right heartstrings and make me appreciate how wonderful the art of storytelling truly is. It is a gift that we humans can share with one another and I'm so blessed that we have the unique opportunity to watch, critique and enjoy each others stories.

Blame it on Fidel!

If you haven't heard of this movie before, that's okay because I'm assuming you haven't. Go see it - rent it at the very least. It's well worth it. If you have seen it then you know what a gem of a film it really is. "Blame it on Fidel!" or the French title "La Faute à Fidel!" is about a 9 year-old girl named Anna whose parents become Chilean revolutionaries and send her pampered life into upheaval. It's a stunning flick and the lead character is played aptly by Nina Kervel-Bey as the precocious Anna. Imagine a 9 year-old Juno, but French and not Ellen Page. I just watched this so it's fairly fresh in my mind. It was recommended to me by my close friend Cyndi and she knows her stuff when it comes to movies, especially foreign stuff. I love subtitled movies, so you sorta have to have the patience for it. But come on. It's super easy to follow along, and you hardly notice it in this. Go see it now! I urge you! I implore you! It is for the behoof of your human nature!

Cancer in my Bones (Or I'm Waiting For the Death Rattle)

A song that I wrote when I was going through some hard times. Actually I'm still going through hard times, but still this is one my favorite songs that I've written. I'm a real sucker for long song titles. I'm going to post more lyrics up and maybe even some videos. But don't get your hopes up. Here it is:

It's like a heart attack
I'm like a heart attack babe
I'm like a heart attack u won't ever recover from

You're a disease babe, infecting me
Breaking down my immune system
You're in my blood vessels,
my blood counts down to zero.
I ain't fighting back cause there ain't
nothing worth fighting for

Life is nothing more than a blood-clot babe
You can't stop the bleeding, the wounds gettin' worse
My loves an infection, infecting the whole world
I'm never done till my heart stops beatin'

If I'm a heart attack babe, what does that make you?
Well you're a cancer in my bones!
I'll dig you out and crush you into nothing.
Did you hear what I said?
I said you're nothing but a cancer in my bones!

Cancer in my bones!
Dig it out!
Cut it out!
Cancer in my bones!

You've overtaken me and there's no hope
This cancer's spreading and there's no use
You're the disease, I'm just the victim
Get out before it's too late...

No, wait it already is