The New Boredom

I was just in a mall this evening (kill me) and was trying to get some gift ideas for the holiday season (yeah early, I know, but there’s birthdays and shit this time of year too, so… back off). I walk into this one store and a guy behind the counter only has one arm, the other one vacant below the elbow, and he asks me “You just looking around or can I point you in the direction of anything specific?”

And I slam on my mouth brakes as hard as I can to keep from saying something horrible like, “Yeah, just nothing to the right, I guess.”

I calm down and just cruise the store. Everything there seemed really “hencho en china-o” but priced for people who ball harder than me. So right as I’m about to leave the other employee and the one armed man are ringing this customer up and the one armed man is having a little bit of trouble juggling the clothing and the bag at the same time and the other guy goes “Here, let me give you a hand with that.”

And I slam on the gas and run the hell out of the store, biting my tongue hard to keep the laughter from spewing through my hands like so much inappropriate barf.

The look on the one armed man’s face so clearly said “Oh… come on, man…” and the other guy’s face immediate after finishing his statement so clearly said “Oh… shit.” And I just couldn’t take it.

I sat down on a big plastic eggs-and-bacon in the kids’ play area laughing to the point of tears (generating some deal of fear in the near-by parents) and reflected on what joke the universe just told me and thought back to this little ditty from my junior year:

It’s good to laugh.

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I spent some time on a roof today. I wish it were more like this.

But really it was more like cleaning rain gutters and sawing tree branches while trying not to fall and break my stupid neck.

So it’s the first snow of the season right now and we all decided it would be a good idea to go get plastered and paint the town fluorescent purple and dance till we can’t stand up any longer. That all goes as it should more or less. Then I’m left with the dilemma of how to get home at 2am in this snow. I ended up walking 7 blocks back to my friend’s house and borrowing a bike. It’s about two miles back to my place from there and I’m on this sketchy cruiser with one shitty brake and half flat tires swerving my way down the icy roads and sidewalks trying to think of routes to go home that wouldn’t be loaded with cops on the prowl.

About half way home I realize that I am about to piss my pants so I pull over, drop the bike and walk over a tree and do my thing. I walk back to the bike, pick it up, and get on and ride about 10 feet when I get blasted by a bright flashing lights. Apparently I had done all of this literally right in front of a cop car- I blame temporary cold-blindness.

Here’s a whack thing about Boulder- you can be given a full on DUI for riding your bike drunk. My buddy Josh went through this a while back. You can also be put on the sex offender list for public urination… also whack- what about all those real sex offenders who had to get freaky to be put on that list? Both punishments seem unfair and undercut the real criminals.

Anyways, the cop gets out in his nice thick, warm looking coat and flashes me right in the face with his 50-suns-power maglight and asks me what’s going on tonight.

“Well sir, I’m trying to get home before I get hypothermic and die in a gutter.”

“Is that so?” he replies.

He shines his flashlight back behind me revealing the following evidence: a bike track in the snow, the bike being laid down in the snow, and footsteps starting, going to a tree, a big patch of yellow snow, and then footsteps back to the bike and then bike tracks starting again leading right up to me.

“Want to explain to me what the story is with all that yellow snow back there?”

At this point I’m running through how the hell I’m going to get out of this when I remember one of my favorite stories of all time involving yellow snow and I steal the punchline from that story and run with it.

“I dunno- squirrels musta peed there or something.”

The cop looks at me like I’m an absolute idiot for a second and then blows up laughing and tells me to “Get outta here, go on, get home before you get sick.”

And I wobble another mile home through a couple inches of snow on this borrowed cruiser bike and eat left over pizza as I contemplate how a BUI and being a registered sex offender would have changed my life. It’s a good thing I read the internet that one time- thanks for getting me out of that bucket of syrup, internet.

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Call me out if I’m wrong but I think that hipster deer on her shirt/dress thingy is wearing wayfarers.

Also she seems pretty attractive. Her toes are way evenly spaced.

It’s amazingly lucky that I got two of my favorite shows ever in one weekend at Monolith this weekend, so even though it was mostly kind of bland overall, Phoenix and The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s absolute shredding made it so worthwhile.

Looking back on things for the last couple days, I thought I should compile a list of some of my favorite shows at least for my own personal record. Alzheimer’s will probably kick in for me by age 30 considering my awesome health track record.

Broken Social Scene with Feist @ Boulder Theater, 2004ish

This is definitely the top of my list. This was touring their self titled album which is my favorite of theirs. This was also touring with Feist who I love long time. After Feist laid down the charm ever so thick, she reappeared a few songs into BSS’s set and played half the instruments while swapping around with the members and singing ridiculously hard. BSS was touring with their largest ensemble that I’ve ever seen, maybe a dozen people on stage at once, all playing their instruments like fucking wizards. It was one of the happiest and most euphoric shows I’ve ever been present for. It also marks my earliest memory of feeling some kind of transcendent connection with hundreds of people simultaneously. I reckon the feeling is why some people describe music as a “spiritual” experience and is definitely a turning point in my life in regards to how I thought about music.

Matson Jones and Monofog @ the Aggie, 2005ish

Matson Jones had this amazing, unique thing going for them in the Colorado music scene in which they were able to bring out the most diverse crowds you could imagine, especially in their home turf of Fort Collins. Everyone from 15-year-old hipsters to 65-year-old grandparents came out to enjoy their music and their pre-1985 wardrobe, and their bee hive hair doo’s. They always played hard, often shredding their cellos’ bows to a quivering pile of cat guts by the end of their sets. The drummer would often break a half dozen sticks as well, though my memory may have embellished that number. I somehow waltzed around with a pretty girl and shared ear-to-ear smiles with her when they played “Loving Wife, Adoring Mistress” as they turned on the disco ball that filled the room with stars. Monofog was a real swell bunch headed up by a sassy rock lady named Haley who is now married to the guitar player named Doug. They would play these great songs and for one of them, Doug would play a harmonica onto his guitar on the ground and it made this crazy sound that was completely unique to their band. Any time these two Fort Collins bands would get together, it was going to be a great night for music. But something just happened with the home town crowd that night that took this particular show to rare heights.

Spoon @ the Gothic, 2005ish

They played for probably 2.5 hours. Literally every song that I wanted to hear. And they made them all a little dancier than the album stuff. And they had this modest “ah shucks” demeanor to them that seemed like it would never go away no matter how big they got. It made me a lifelong fan right there on the spot.

Mogwai @ the Gothic 2006ish

This was one of the few concerts I’ve been to with my good friend Pancho. It was also, by far, the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. There were some frequencies in there that were so intense that I could feel it in my heart and in my guts. I know this was a unique night for that because I’ll never hear those sounds again as I was surely rendered deaf in those ranges that evening. It was insanely overwhelming while somehow engaging me instead of pushing me away. It was the auditory equivalent to “walking towards the light” that you hear people talk about when it comes to death or accepting Jeebus.

The Black Keys @ the Ogden or maybe the Bluebird, 2007ish

I’m not sure where this show actually was. The night is a blur. I just remember that I had been so wildly in love with their music since early high school that I was peeing my pants with excitement to see them live. And they did not disappoint. Patrick on the drums was beating the piss out of them. And Dan on guitar was an alchemist with a jillion old guitar pedals. How two guys could make those sounds by themselves is one of the great cosmic wonders to me. The soul and the heart that was being poured out during those songs is still well beyond their years. They are one of the very few acts that really understand the blues these days on the same level as the genre’s creators which is made even crazier by the fact that they are two young white guys from Ohio.

Band of Horses @ Red Rocks, Monolith Festival 2008

I don’t know why I had no idea what these guys looked like but I was shooting this show last year and when they walked out I thought “Who is that vegetarian looking pirate?”… and they started playing and my mind shut down. I don’t know if I got any worthy shots of the band. I was just completely captivated and I don’t remember moving an inch until a security guard was shoving me out of the media pit telling me time was up for photos. As soon as they were done with their set I found myself calling my friend Casey in Seattle, fumbling words out of my clumsy mouth telling him thanks for getting me into that band.

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AHHH! Do want!

Rifle grip for a Bolex?!  Waaaaweeewoawwee!

I went and had diner with my family the other day and was reminded that family is my single greatest source of anxiety and that the only thing I can really do to tolerate it all is to laugh it off. I was also deeply comforted today that I’m not the only one who uses a twisted up sense of humor to cope with reality, laughing away both the good and bad times.

Here’s an example of my family’s interaction from earlier this year.

Grandpa’s Hearing.

Gary- Did you watch the golf yesterday?

Tak- no response

Gary- (louder) Did you watch the golf yesterday?!

Tak- no response

Gary- Do you have your hearing aids in?

Tak- What?

Gary- (louder)  Do you have your hearings aids in?!

Tak- Yeah.

Gary- Are they on?

Tak- Huh?

Gary- ARE THEY ON?!

Tak- Oh- yeah.

Gary- Maybe you need new ones.

Tak- They say I need new ones.

Gary- That’s what I just said.

Tak- Yeah, new ones they say. 8 grand is what they will cost. Never be obsolete they say. That’s what they told me when I got these for 5 grand a few years ago. Never obsolete they said, well now they say I need new ones.

Gary- It sounds like you do.

Tak- What?

I may post up some more of these. They all seem the same to me though.

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lol. how awesome is this photo?

A couple weeks ago I was having a few drinks with some friends which is a rare thing for me. I know what you’re thinking- “friends” yeah right, like this Joe Schmoe has friends, probably explains why he’s drinking all the time.

Well not really, but I’m sad to hear your assumptions about me are so negative.

Nothing of any interest happened while in the act of boozing it up (as is pretty much always the case), but afterward, something magical happened. I had a dream in which Hitler was a major character. Well, maybe not the horrible monster himself, but certainly a union actor playing him.

You see, in my dream I was writing a sit-com with cheesy laugh-tracks and all. The premise for the show was that Hitler survived WW2 and was captured by the allied forces. He was sent through the Nuremberg trials and was sentenced to a life of servitude to humanity. He was to drive people around and just serve them in general, getting to their destinations.

The title of the show was “Mein Chau-führer” … antics ensued.

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Obey the law.

Of love.