Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Hundred Years to Live

Here I sit the night before New Year's Eve and I am wondering why I simultaneously choose to be alone but wish that I were surrounded by friends, friends, and more friends. The first friends are the friends that I have always had and I should not take them for granted. The next friends are friends of friends. I wonder how my friends became friends with those friends and whether, by the associative law, I could be friends equally with those friends. The third friends are for friends that I have recently made but, more importantly, am soon to make. Sometimes I don't believe that third friends exist. You might think that I am lonely. Not exactly. I live in my head and I could easily add friends there. I can add not just friends, but random people from the street like hobos and plumbers. That's probably why I am comfortable being alone. Alone in the sense that I'm not twittering or facebooking people til kingdom come. I'm not overly obsessed with acquaintances and how I can develop their status into friend territory. It's trouble enough to just maintain the friendships that I have, that adding new people into what should be my circle of five (ten, fifteen, etc.) feels like work. I feel that if I don't even try then I won't have to suffer the humiliation of someone rejecting me as a person. And let's be honest, 99.9% of all rejection is a personal rejection. So I put up fluffy walls that can easily be crossed by me or by futur friends. It's fluffly because really scary walls scare people and I'm not like that. I don't want to scare people, of course, I just feel comfortable with my head on something soft and not having to worry about being liked.

The good news is as long as you're alive there's always hope. I forget what movie or book I recently learned that maxim from, but it's a good start to 2009.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Punk Rock Princess of Baby Shakes

I just found out today that, this whole semester, I've been in class with a rock star. Can you believe it? The same girl I've developed a thing for, wondering what she's like, wondering how such a cute girl could have all these tatoos (two). Just today, my friend facebooked me and said to check out the basis of this band. I recognized the band in the link as the band that that girl in my class has a bag of. Right before I clicked the link I already had a feeling something was up. Could there be a link? Why did I think that? Well, me and my friend were recently just talking about that girl and it's sort of become an inside joke of sorts. And when I say talk I mean me curiously talking about her a little too much (just see the last few posts on my friend's wall).

So Frack me when I click the link and see that the basist is the cute girl in Spanish class. It totally answers the tatoos. She's in a punk/pop-punk band-- and it's all girl. All cute girls. I don't know many basists but this girl falls in the intersection of cute basists and cute girls I take a class with. She sort of gives off the vibe of "why do I need to be in class? I'm a goddam rock star". She's quiet but not in the shy way, like in the way that borderlines I'm better than you status. I was so excited when she sat next to me in the past. I thought she was just the artsy type because she had those art portfolios and during a lesson on "cursos de universidad", she described where the location of the art facilities.

You should have been in my head this whole semester. I had made up all these diabolical plans of how I was going to finally have a conversation with her. The first plan was to catch her right after class and casually talk about how my brother also likes art and whether she knew any good way to get art framed. That's sort of true because it is and I like to think that it would have worked except she always leaves class early. Should I have been the weirdo that also leaves class fifteen minutes early (Umm, are you stalking me?) right when she does. Obvious.

I also thought of a plan that involved winning some Coldplay tickets to a special Yahoo secret concert. I'm of course a huge Coldplay fan, but something tells me had I won those tickets and asked that girl, she would have been less than thrilled to go since she's so punk and all. Apparently, Coldplay makes you gay. Me gay. Also, I never win cool things, especially when it involves Coldplay. I don't even know why I'm in that frickin' mailing list when I can't even see them live for shite.

Anyway, she's now 100 times more out of my league now that I know she has a secret identity. It's hard enough to talk to girls. Plus combine that issue with the fact that she's pretty gorgeous and then the fact that she's a rock princess of punk and I might as well become celibate.

To think I was about to right a poem about her. Eso es mi vida.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Reboot Heroes

This post has been a long time coming, so here goes: Heroes is horrible. Watching it now is an absolute chore because on the one hand I am a die-hard fan, I defended it after it's bad second volume, and even after several wonky episodes of this third season. But now, this show makes no sense and I care nothing for any of the characters.

Back in season 1, I like a handful of the characters. Each character felt trapped by their mundane lives, and realized that they had extraordinary abilities. Connected by some destiny that would only be realized at the end of the season, and you have yourself a great story. Forget even that it's a superhero story.

Season 2 was bad, but I use the word bad only because I have had the privilege of trudging through the third season. It's as if the first season and all it's back-stories and character development never happened. Now the characters are not acting like themselves, which would be acceptable if the show ran with this but Heroes' characters flip-flop so much that you'd think that they were puppets being played by first graders. No-- I actually remember classmates in first grade making better stories with our action figures.

I can't even list all the crap that pisses me off about Heroes now. I will pretend that season exists in a vacuum, in a world where everything past the last five minutes of the first season never occurred.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Prospekt's March

I freakin' love the Prospekt's March, sans Jay Z of course. But it's so good that adding Mr. Beyonce is almost entirely canceled-out. Coldplay probably did that so that the new EP would not be too awesome, 'cause you know, you have to leave the fans wanting more.

Let's do a track by track analysis, shall we?

  • Life in Technicolor II -- What happens when you take the best non-track ever from Viva La Vida (the track is basically a less-than-two-minutes instrumental) and you make it a "real" track? You get a part two that's even more awesome. Who knew that adding vocals to one of my favorites would make it so good? Well, actually, I did.
  • Postcards from Far Away -- This is probably the equivalent of Life in Techinicolor part 1 from Viva La Vida. It's also an instrumental. But this time it consists of only piano. It's a short, tiny morsal of warmth. Maybe if there's a second EP (please!) then Postcards could become a smooth balad.
  • Glass of Water -- l love when Coldplay rocks out by banging wildly on the piano. Clocks and Speed of Sound from their last albums were great, but Glass of Water has this great off-beat chorus of thundering piano. I'm not as musical as my history would say I am, but I think the timing changes during the chorus and makes you want to grab a piano and smash along with it. Go crazy. I can imagine Chris Martin just doing his weirdo dance while playing this song. Coldplay at its best.
  • Rainy Days -- This reminds me of Beck for some reason. It sounds like there's a turntable in the beginning so it sounds nothing like Coldplay in the begining, but you start to realize that you like it still. Then the strings come in during the chorus and Chris plays around with the lyrics in a syncopated matter. You'll find yourself waiting patiently for the chorus everytime.
  • Prosepekt's March --Here is the title track. Love the smooth feeling and the lyrics are great (Don't you wish life were as simple/ as shooting fish inside a barrell when you've got the gun?) . Though it's slow and there's a simple guitar riff, Chris really sings the song well. Another track that makes you feel good.
  • Lost+ -- Jay-Z. meh. Sounds like Jay-Z phoned in the lyrics, literally, rather than show up to the studio and jam with Coldplay. This is disapppointing considering that had the two actually come up with something original, it would have been oodles better than this weak effort. I loved all previous Lost versions, but this one is bad.
  • Lovers in Japan (Osaka Sun Mix) -- I absolutely love this track on Viva La Vida. This is pretty much the same track. There's a slight change in the middle where there's some faint extra singing added. Also, this is no longer a two-fer-- no Reign of Love. So it's a good addition to the EP not like that bastard Lost plus.
  • Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground -- This is acoustic Coldplay. Slow and Calm. It's a good change of pace and an end to the EP.
I love Prospekt's March. When Viva La Vida intially dropped this summer, I did not get the chance to buy it. However, I believe that my not buying it was a sign from the music gods. They delivered to me this little gem. Especially, now that there's a Viva La Vida: Prospekt's March special Edition.

So, yeah, I love Coldplay more than ever.