Friday, November 25, 2005
Stupid Pet-Peeve followed by a Top 10
I guess we all have been hardwired in some way that is completely asinine. One of my stupidest hard-coded mental qualms is my ridiculous pet-peeve. I hate it when someone says they were going to do something and they didn’t do it. Example, if I’m at home and my girlfriend walks in the door and I say, “Boy I’m hungry.” The she’ll reply, “Oh I thought about calling you and asking what you wanted from your favorite Chipotle but I didn’t.” Stupid little things like that unnerve me and I realize how maladaptive that attitude is so I hold back my idiotic thoughts and words and I just let it be 90% of the time. But I challenge you to count how many times you or your loved ones to that same very thing.
Because of this pet-peeve I am rendered the worst candidate of any type of scholarship. Don’t get me wrong I love the fact that the Rocky Mountain news wants to interview me for some sort of journalism scholarship but it’s situations like these that brush their slimy tasticals against my backside. It’s situation like these that the orange carrot dangles in front of my face and they present the option of hey, “We can give you some money so you don’t have to work full time to make money and go to school full time but still acquire massive amounts of debt to graduate.” That option is such an ideal for me because it will be the 100% open door invitation for me to follow this little known dream of mine to further my musical education in Hollywood California. When I finally receive my Bachelors degree I want nothing more than to pack my bags (or pay for a storage unit here in my hometown and only pack some of my most needed bags) and head on down to The Musician’s Institute of Technology and really further my understanding of music in an environment that is nurturing to my curiosity. A scholarship would be that golden egg that would financial propel toward that gambling leap into the smog ridden city of L.A. I would be able to not go $50,000 into debt to fulfill my curious desires in music. That amount of debt would be such a menacing foe standing in my way to just going for it. When I say I want music education I guess in my hearts of hearts it would be amazing to get a B.A. in guitar from the school but my tentative goals is to get a certificate degree which is a year and a half of studying on a musical emphasis. (Another certificate they have which is really nice is the Recording Artist certificate. That’s where you buy a top of the line Mac and they teach you how to turn that computer into your recording studio. They teach you Photo Shop so you can make fliers, they teach you how to make your website so by the end you can be an artist that has all the tools to D.I.Y. self starting your musical career from your Mac.)
So yes, I will be interviewed for a scholarship Wednesday Dec.7, 2005. By its very essence it will be riding the backbone of my pet-peeve because I’m sure it’s going to be a typical situation where after I fulfill the interview they will say, “We’ll call you” and they never will (That’s my pet-peeve on top of not getting the scholarship they offered…AAHHHH!!!!) To be honest I’m a horrible test taker. I know a lot of times on test I know the information and half the time I know it well enough to write about it but I just suck at the performance aspect of taking a test. Interviews on the other hand…I would say I’m have versed myself on the art of interviews but I’m sure this interview will be more like a scene from a Dumb and Dumber movie. I could just vision it now:
10. My cowlick is even more cowlicking that day.
9. My fly is unzipped.
8. A big oozing zit formed on my forehead minutes before I walked in.
7. My breath is kickin' up a funk from the coffee I had with breakfast.
6. A radical nose hair decided to grow out the night before and I didn’t notice it until the interviewer accidentally tugged it.
5. My hands begin shaking from the combination of nerves and coffee.
4. I forgot to put on deodorant so I’m like one of those unsure guys from the Sure commercials…(Do they still have those commercials???)
3. The price tag from the Good-Will is still hanging on my oxford button up shirt.
2. They ask me who my favorite Rocky Mountain News writer is and I say Mike Littwin to which they inform me that, “They hate his fucking guts.”
1. I walk up to a desk thinking it’s the secretary (it’s really the interviewer) and ask, “Dude where’s my interview.”
I guess we all have been hardwired in some way that is completely asinine. One of my stupidest hard-coded mental qualms is my ridiculous pet-peeve. I hate it when someone says they were going to do something and they didn’t do it. Example, if I’m at home and my girlfriend walks in the door and I say, “Boy I’m hungry.” The she’ll reply, “Oh I thought about calling you and asking what you wanted from your favorite Chipotle but I didn’t.” Stupid little things like that unnerve me and I realize how maladaptive that attitude is so I hold back my idiotic thoughts and words and I just let it be 90% of the time. But I challenge you to count how many times you or your loved ones to that same very thing.
Because of this pet-peeve I am rendered the worst candidate of any type of scholarship. Don’t get me wrong I love the fact that the Rocky Mountain news wants to interview me for some sort of journalism scholarship but it’s situations like these that brush their slimy tasticals against my backside. It’s situation like these that the orange carrot dangles in front of my face and they present the option of hey, “We can give you some money so you don’t have to work full time to make money and go to school full time but still acquire massive amounts of debt to graduate.” That option is such an ideal for me because it will be the 100% open door invitation for me to follow this little known dream of mine to further my musical education in Hollywood California. When I finally receive my Bachelors degree I want nothing more than to pack my bags (or pay for a storage unit here in my hometown and only pack some of my most needed bags) and head on down to The Musician’s Institute of Technology and really further my understanding of music in an environment that is nurturing to my curiosity. A scholarship would be that golden egg that would financial propel toward that gambling leap into the smog ridden city of L.A. I would be able to not go $50,000 into debt to fulfill my curious desires in music. That amount of debt would be such a menacing foe standing in my way to just going for it. When I say I want music education I guess in my hearts of hearts it would be amazing to get a B.A. in guitar from the school but my tentative goals is to get a certificate degree which is a year and a half of studying on a musical emphasis. (Another certificate they have which is really nice is the Recording Artist certificate. That’s where you buy a top of the line Mac and they teach you how to turn that computer into your recording studio. They teach you Photo Shop so you can make fliers, they teach you how to make your website so by the end you can be an artist that has all the tools to D.I.Y. self starting your musical career from your Mac.)
So yes, I will be interviewed for a scholarship Wednesday Dec.7, 2005. By its very essence it will be riding the backbone of my pet-peeve because I’m sure it’s going to be a typical situation where after I fulfill the interview they will say, “We’ll call you” and they never will (That’s my pet-peeve on top of not getting the scholarship they offered…AAHHHH!!!!) To be honest I’m a horrible test taker. I know a lot of times on test I know the information and half the time I know it well enough to write about it but I just suck at the performance aspect of taking a test. Interviews on the other hand…I would say I’m have versed myself on the art of interviews but I’m sure this interview will be more like a scene from a Dumb and Dumber movie. I could just vision it now:
10. My cowlick is even more cowlicking that day.
9. My fly is unzipped.
8. A big oozing zit formed on my forehead minutes before I walked in.
7. My breath is kickin' up a funk from the coffee I had with breakfast.
6. A radical nose hair decided to grow out the night before and I didn’t notice it until the interviewer accidentally tugged it.
5. My hands begin shaking from the combination of nerves and coffee.
4. I forgot to put on deodorant so I’m like one of those unsure guys from the Sure commercials…(Do they still have those commercials???)
3. The price tag from the Good-Will is still hanging on my oxford button up shirt.
2. They ask me who my favorite Rocky Mountain News writer is and I say Mike Littwin to which they inform me that, “They hate his fucking guts.”
1. I walk up to a desk thinking it’s the secretary (it’s really the interviewer) and ask, “Dude where’s my interview.”
Thursday, November 24, 2005
skeptical SmirkS
I pressed the next button then I pressed the blog this...I don't know what I'm doing but i'm living the life of adventure now...I will post to see what happens...wish me luck
I pressed the next button then I pressed the blog this...I don't know what I'm doing but i'm living the life of adventure now...I will post to see what happens...wish me luck
I hate Herman’s Hideaway
It’s three blocks away
They play that butt rock music
They know how to abuse it
Lyrics from my song social acceptable sounds song…”Man he’s even more punk than me.”
Tonight my exhausted body is perched flimsily on this puke orange vintage chair of mine. I prize scouted on that fine internet board called Craig’s list. I paid $10 big ones for it but the comfort and like night blogging this vibrant chair with two front wheels it truly priceless…No I didn’t use MasterCard for the purchase. This past week has been shot full of every roller coaster ride a person could expect. An old friend sent me an internet apology, The Gouts jammed, I celebrated a birthday of a co-worker, I got whisked away to the emergency room where cat scans and pain killers flowed freely, I found out about a new Wal-Mart in A-Town that is run off of a windmill??? It uses solar panels and some of it was built out of recycled material. It’s funny because Michael Medved is a conservative talk show host I try to listen to whenever I get the chance and he admitted that Wal-Mart would do better with our educational funds than the government. Something I cynically suggested in a previous blog…so that’s the synchronicity for the week…It’s strange how people could be such exact opposites. Tonight I went to see a band made up of some lame people in from my lame high school. Yet the damn Herman’s Hideaway was packed. The same popular kids 8 years ago are still plowing away with the spot light today…and playing absolutely horrible music I might add. I walked out of that old brick bar on heading south on Broadway and I realized all those people are doing exactly what I wish I was doing and I don’t’ get it. My old best friend was there with his cousin and she came up to me tonight to say hi because she had a crush on my years ago…But now??? Tonight I feel like some 24 year-old washed up antisocial nitwit. I guess the whole reggae rock thing is not my thing. But as I headed toward my house in the night I looked at the moon and realized…God what am I doing in this life…I got to get my shit together. I guess it’s a little more difficult for me because I’m not part of the 90210 post college years like my fellow Thunderbirds…but I do live in 80210 and I have a voice and ….God forget it…who am I kidding??? I’ll always be an outsider.
It’s three blocks away
They play that butt rock music
They know how to abuse it
Lyrics from my song social acceptable sounds song…”Man he’s even more punk than me.”
Tonight my exhausted body is perched flimsily on this puke orange vintage chair of mine. I prize scouted on that fine internet board called Craig’s list. I paid $10 big ones for it but the comfort and like night blogging this vibrant chair with two front wheels it truly priceless…No I didn’t use MasterCard for the purchase. This past week has been shot full of every roller coaster ride a person could expect. An old friend sent me an internet apology, The Gouts jammed, I celebrated a birthday of a co-worker, I got whisked away to the emergency room where cat scans and pain killers flowed freely, I found out about a new Wal-Mart in A-Town that is run off of a windmill??? It uses solar panels and some of it was built out of recycled material. It’s funny because Michael Medved is a conservative talk show host I try to listen to whenever I get the chance and he admitted that Wal-Mart would do better with our educational funds than the government. Something I cynically suggested in a previous blog…so that’s the synchronicity for the week…It’s strange how people could be such exact opposites. Tonight I went to see a band made up of some lame people in from my lame high school. Yet the damn Herman’s Hideaway was packed. The same popular kids 8 years ago are still plowing away with the spot light today…and playing absolutely horrible music I might add. I walked out of that old brick bar on heading south on Broadway and I realized all those people are doing exactly what I wish I was doing and I don’t’ get it. My old best friend was there with his cousin and she came up to me tonight to say hi because she had a crush on my years ago…But now??? Tonight I feel like some 24 year-old washed up antisocial nitwit. I guess the whole reggae rock thing is not my thing. But as I headed toward my house in the night I looked at the moon and realized…God what am I doing in this life…I got to get my shit together. I guess it’s a little more difficult for me because I’m not part of the 90210 post college years like my fellow Thunderbirds…but I do live in 80210 and I have a voice and ….God forget it…who am I kidding??? I’ll always be an outsider.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
This week the neighbors are gone so I can write blogs while blasting Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Week after week I have troubles expressing my musical desires to my guitar teacher, Ray. Every time I try to explain to him my ideals of learning music I always fall short in my descriptions. The last few weeks it seems that right when I go into my fumbling diatribes he has had this uncanny ability to stop my inferences short. Like his intuition knows where to stop my rapid phrases. He’ll shield my onslaught of pronouns with his anecdotes and his descriptions of the musical journey mostly by negating my futile stabs at expression. For example, Ray is an old school jazz man (and an amazing player I should add) and I’ll complain, how will I use this reading music stuff in a practical way?
In Spanish it is customary to use the subject pronoun redundantly. This concept is deployed 90% of the time but is not necessary. So, when pronouns are taught in school they will usually teach us to use the subject and pronoun is each sentence. My current Spanish professor said he didn’t know that one had the option to use the pronoun or not (because he was always taught to use it) until it came up in grad school! Case in point my teacher is versed in the abstract knowledge of Spanish but he wasn’t using it practically. I guess it has to do with one’s value of practicality. Anyone could retaliate to my comments by saying…”what’s more practical than being able to write in Spanish?” For me the answer is easy…To be able to communicate through speech in Spanish.
So, I tried to tell Ray my big analogy of my Spanish teacher and the inability of education to lead a person to the realization to see the forest for the trees. I asked him, “How is it practical to read music? I don’t know what the language is saying.” My question failed miserably due to his rebuttal of, “What’s more practical then reading and playing the language of music?” There’s two possible ways that my imagination sums up these occurrences with Ray.
1st- I get all giddied up and romanticize in my own little reverie that perhaps I’m some gifted unique individual and the reason that Ray’s and my conversation doesn’t work is because I have this brilliant way of conceptualizing music that would be 1,000% percent useful to me if I embrace it. No one will understand these ideas in my head until I spend the time to solidify them and bring tangible fruitful gifts to the world by utilizing the gifts of my undiscovered tools. Then everyone will say…ahh I get it and sell my knowledge in some infomercial pyramid scheme somewhere. Yes, this is idea is perhaps my testification due to a delusion of grandeur which in my psychology class is associated with schizophrenia. No, I don’t really believe this is true but it’s a damn fun reverie.
2nd- Ray is some sort of enlightened teacher. He can gage my talents and abilities. He knows that my conceptualized knowledge is much higher than my practical knowledge (that’s what’s causing all my futile questions) and he is expertly shielding me from information that would be distracting to my growth at this point and time. Just like in Spanish we are taught the verb gustar and we are told to say we like things by always saying me gusta. We finally learn in chapter 8 the mysterious ways in which this verb is used. (Back on topic) by shielding me from important knowledge but knowledge that is inhibiting to my growth at this moment Ray also does one extremely underrated and largely over looked virtue in learning….He saves me the power of the ah ha moment. Ray is giving disjointed basic necessarily building blocks to a good music foundation. Right now they are all at such as low level and across the board of music but soon my mind will be able to take these bits of un-contextual info and piece them together like one giant jig-saw puzzle. I will say ah ha this connects to this or oh yeah this applies here nicely etc. He might be able to explain something conceptually to me and I will understand is superficially. Then when it comes time to use that bit of knowledge I might fail to utilize it because I truly didn’t earn it…I guess I’m trying to say that information is not really owned until you have ah ha’d it.
For now it’ back to practicing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Week after week I have troubles expressing my musical desires to my guitar teacher, Ray. Every time I try to explain to him my ideals of learning music I always fall short in my descriptions. The last few weeks it seems that right when I go into my fumbling diatribes he has had this uncanny ability to stop my inferences short. Like his intuition knows where to stop my rapid phrases. He’ll shield my onslaught of pronouns with his anecdotes and his descriptions of the musical journey mostly by negating my futile stabs at expression. For example, Ray is an old school jazz man (and an amazing player I should add) and I’ll complain, how will I use this reading music stuff in a practical way?
In Spanish it is customary to use the subject pronoun redundantly. This concept is deployed 90% of the time but is not necessary. So, when pronouns are taught in school they will usually teach us to use the subject and pronoun is each sentence. My current Spanish professor said he didn’t know that one had the option to use the pronoun or not (because he was always taught to use it) until it came up in grad school! Case in point my teacher is versed in the abstract knowledge of Spanish but he wasn’t using it practically. I guess it has to do with one’s value of practicality. Anyone could retaliate to my comments by saying…”what’s more practical than being able to write in Spanish?” For me the answer is easy…To be able to communicate through speech in Spanish.
So, I tried to tell Ray my big analogy of my Spanish teacher and the inability of education to lead a person to the realization to see the forest for the trees. I asked him, “How is it practical to read music? I don’t know what the language is saying.” My question failed miserably due to his rebuttal of, “What’s more practical then reading and playing the language of music?” There’s two possible ways that my imagination sums up these occurrences with Ray.
1st- I get all giddied up and romanticize in my own little reverie that perhaps I’m some gifted unique individual and the reason that Ray’s and my conversation doesn’t work is because I have this brilliant way of conceptualizing music that would be 1,000% percent useful to me if I embrace it. No one will understand these ideas in my head until I spend the time to solidify them and bring tangible fruitful gifts to the world by utilizing the gifts of my undiscovered tools. Then everyone will say…ahh I get it and sell my knowledge in some infomercial pyramid scheme somewhere. Yes, this is idea is perhaps my testification due to a delusion of grandeur which in my psychology class is associated with schizophrenia. No, I don’t really believe this is true but it’s a damn fun reverie.
2nd- Ray is some sort of enlightened teacher. He can gage my talents and abilities. He knows that my conceptualized knowledge is much higher than my practical knowledge (that’s what’s causing all my futile questions) and he is expertly shielding me from information that would be distracting to my growth at this point and time. Just like in Spanish we are taught the verb gustar and we are told to say we like things by always saying me gusta. We finally learn in chapter 8 the mysterious ways in which this verb is used. (Back on topic) by shielding me from important knowledge but knowledge that is inhibiting to my growth at this moment Ray also does one extremely underrated and largely over looked virtue in learning….He saves me the power of the ah ha moment. Ray is giving disjointed basic necessarily building blocks to a good music foundation. Right now they are all at such as low level and across the board of music but soon my mind will be able to take these bits of un-contextual info and piece them together like one giant jig-saw puzzle. I will say ah ha this connects to this or oh yeah this applies here nicely etc. He might be able to explain something conceptually to me and I will understand is superficially. Then when it comes time to use that bit of knowledge I might fail to utilize it because I truly didn’t earn it…I guess I’m trying to say that information is not really owned until you have ah ha’d it.
For now it’ back to practicing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Samsara
Samsara is the vicious cycle of birth-and-death according to some Buddhist texts. This weekend I came down with this crazy intestinal bug that put me into the emergency room. Since that fateful event took place my stomach hadn’t been rejuvenated back to 100%. So my normal coffee indulgence had been left unsated. Coincidentally, I also hadn’t ingested any other form of caffeine, as coffee is my main medium of the miraculous drug. Today the headaches came back. The ones I know all so well from a repeated cycle of my minion-esque behavior of caffeinated consumption followed by a dead stop in its indulgence. Samsara is my addition…but is it an addiction to coffee and the vibrancy of its caffeinated spirit or is it my addiction to the fatal blow of those migraines and the pain I must endure from my very sudden and reckless stop? Regardless, it’s samsara it’s samsara.
Samsara is the vicious cycle of birth-and-death according to some Buddhist texts. This weekend I came down with this crazy intestinal bug that put me into the emergency room. Since that fateful event took place my stomach hadn’t been rejuvenated back to 100%. So my normal coffee indulgence had been left unsated. Coincidentally, I also hadn’t ingested any other form of caffeine, as coffee is my main medium of the miraculous drug. Today the headaches came back. The ones I know all so well from a repeated cycle of my minion-esque behavior of caffeinated consumption followed by a dead stop in its indulgence. Samsara is my addition…but is it an addiction to coffee and the vibrancy of its caffeinated spirit or is it my addiction to the fatal blow of those migraines and the pain I must endure from my very sudden and reckless stop? Regardless, it’s samsara it’s samsara.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Ramblings before bedtime
I listen to all the plans of those around me and it’s like damn I’m off the track. I see the accomplishments of those around me and it’s like damn I’m off the track. I put in the Modern Machines album and I’m like…I forget to think and just have a good time jamming listening. I want to move people like that…with my words, with my music.
Last night I went to see 40 Year Old Virgin with my dad and girlfriend at Tiffany plaza’s good ole’ $1.50 theater. It reminded me of all those typical 80’s movies. Even something about the look of the film gave me that vibe. I’m glad it did so well in the box office. I hope “Holly-Weird” (as Michael Medved calls it) makes more flicks like it.
It’s strange to think that one night I’m being whisked away in an ambulance to the emergency room for intestinal problems and the next night I could be going to the $1 movies. It’s cool because I have a wicked bruise where they put the IV…at least I have something to show for it.
I listen to all the plans of those around me and it’s like damn I’m off the track. I see the accomplishments of those around me and it’s like damn I’m off the track. I put in the Modern Machines album and I’m like…I forget to think and just have a good time jamming listening. I want to move people like that…with my words, with my music.
Last night I went to see 40 Year Old Virgin with my dad and girlfriend at Tiffany plaza’s good ole’ $1.50 theater. It reminded me of all those typical 80’s movies. Even something about the look of the film gave me that vibe. I’m glad it did so well in the box office. I hope “Holly-Weird” (as Michael Medved calls it) makes more flicks like it.
It’s strange to think that one night I’m being whisked away in an ambulance to the emergency room for intestinal problems and the next night I could be going to the $1 movies. It’s cool because I have a wicked bruise where they put the IV…at least I have something to show for it.
