festivals

info from Coachella and New Orleans Jazz...

I want to hear Dumpstaphunk.

bump

okay, that previous post looked so pathetic when I read it back that I want to post this just to move it from the top. jeez.

there's people being ethnically cleansed, starving, dying from horrible diseases--and I'm whining about this bullshit? Enough.

apathy

It's been a little over three years since I entered the wilderness, and although I try not to dwell on it too much, sometimes I can't help but think how much better off I'd be now financially if I had just sucked it up and stayed where I was. Sure, I'd be bored, unhappy, and probably still going nowhere, but at least I'd have a large chunk of debt paid off. Oh well.

As it is, I've worked several different jobs--independent contractor legal assistant, assembly line, preparing tax returns, and now customer service in men's apparel. I guess at this point I'm halfway to where I want to be, only in terms of finances, because at least I'm making half as much as before. But I'm certainly not doing anything interesting that I enjoy. The best thing that's come of it is that I now have a completely new wardrobe since last year, at a small fraction of the price that I would have paid otherwise. That's certainly nice. And at least my boss and the people I work with are cool.

I just feel like I've failed to take advantage of all the help I've had from friends and family, the contacts, the interviews, etc. No matter what I do, it all ends up the same--nothing--and after three years, I've just lost the will and energy to continue doing what I need to do in order to get the kind of job I need. It's not that I won't keep trying, but just the thought continuing with more applications and interviews is depressing, when it seems that I won't get any results.

Then again, when I reached the same point about ten years ago, boom, I landed something good.
I hoping that cycle will repeat itself now.

The Red Studio

Something else by Matisse, just because. When I saw this painting at MOMA, it really left an impression on me. It's also a good representation of something I like about many of his works-pictures within pictures.

A Must

Do we need a blog dedicated to analyzing every R.E.M. song? Yes, we do.

Still listening to Lifes Rich Pageant repeatedly. Some albums just sound perfect to you--the music, lyrics, and themes all seem to fit together as one work. The interplay between the lead and background vocals is particularly beautiful on this album too, although it's always been good throughout their career.

Buy it--nice to see that I'm not the only one who considers this the best R.E.M. album and one of their all time favs.

Easter factoid

from Cracked.com--

"The computations for determining the date of Easter are highly complicated and have been determined through formulae devised by such historical figures as the Venerable Bede and the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. However, during the 1980s jangle-pop music scene, the holiday was simply observed on the birthday of Mitch Easter, noted as the frontman of Let's Active and the producer of the R.E.M. albums Chronic Town through Reckoning."

new find

Thanks to Yee, who drew my attention to rbally, which has instantly become my favorite music blog--mainly because of this, an R.E.M. bootleg from 1983.