The soundtrack to the Graduate, and Freaks and Geeks - The Complete Series

25 years into it, David had a life crisis. He sent an email to absolutely everyone in his address book, including a supposed Nigerian oil baron and Amazon.com's support staff, detailing what was wrong in the world and that he didn't know how to fix it, and that he felt lost and alone, with nowhere to turn or anyone to turn to. The world was alternatively meaningless and overly meaningful, and no one seemed to realize this except for him.

He didn't receive many replies, though Amazon sent him a few items off his wish list.

The Subconscious and the Superconscious.

1. I was about set to read an article* on USAToday.com, the title of which was "Austrian judge: Chimps aren't people", when I decided to turn on some background music. I flipped to iTunes, glanced at my playlists and picked Jenny Lewis, because I thought that I was in a Jenny Lewis mood. I decided to go with Rilo Kiley's second to last album, More Adventurous, and double-clicked on the first song, "It's A Hit." As I turned back to the article, I heard the first words of the song: "Any chimp can play human for a day..." I did not know the song well enough to pick it based on lyrical content. Was this a magnificent coincidence? I can't believe that it was. I hold the subconscious in too high regard, and I feel just the opposite about chance.

2. A man sets out to meticulously document his daily routine. 6:45am: Eyes open. 6:51am: Get up from bed. ... 10:45am: read article online, listen to music. 10:50am: blog about coincidence. ... 2:45pm: think about the geography of North America. 2:47pm: think about thinking about the geography of North America. 2:48pm: think about thinking about oneself thinking about things. And does one write down every time one writes down an action? e.g. 2:49pm: wrote down "6:45am... writes down an action?" 2:49:35pm: wrote down "2:49pm: wrote down..." etc. What is an appropriate level of self-reflection? Is there one? Is there only one? Is it all or nothing? What does the graph of appropriateness look like? Is it like this?

Or like this?

Or perhaps it's something more complex, closer to one of these?
I really like the blue color I used for these graphs, especially in the wavy ones. Its RGB code-thingy is (0,181,241).

* The article can be found here. It is in a section of "Offbeat" news. I don't think that it is "offbeat." I think that it is an interesting and soon-to-be (sooner rather than later, geologically speaking) important issue. "Man gives birth to clock- radio," now, that's offbeat news. Though I suppose one could argue differently.

Slow Drags tour entry #3.

Wednesday, September 26th, 7:49pm. San Diego, CA.

For the past two days, Scot's mother has been spoiling us something awful, mostly gustatorily. She's cooking for us, buying us food, encouraging us to eat everything in her fridge, mostly comfort food like cookies and ice cream and cake and stuffing and mashed potatoes and etc. And as soon as we have finished what's on our plate, she takes it to the sink and cleans it. She has laid out towels for us, moved laundry from washer to dryer, and made our beds. She even tried to get us to take her bed, offering to sleep on the couch. All this in the face in our protests that we ought to be doing work for her. Those protests have grown quieter and more infrequent, as we realize that 1) she is not listening*, and 2) being spoiled rocks. I know that I should continue to offer to do my own dishes and get my own dessert, but what can I do? I am being given privilege, so I am taking it. I feel like one of the jailors from the Stanford Prison Experiment.

* Of course, she may not be hearing us - Scot says that without her hearing aids, she is deaf as jam.

A glimpse into my future.

You know how some people have certain turns of phrase, certain sayings, certain stories that they repeat again and again whenever you see them? I am trying desperately not to become one of those people, but it seems ever more likely that, in twenty or so years, whenever I stay for a few days at the house of a friend or family, I will say, "Thanks for putting me up -- and for putting up with me!" I think to say it pretty much every time now. It's bad.


Do you have any verbal quirks like this — things you wish you didn't say all the time? What else do I say all the time? Are you tired of it, or is it endearing?

The Dukes versus the Waves.

Just wanted to let you know about an incident we had on tour. Bryan bought a bandana to keep his dreds back, and went with the color green, but what he didn't know was that green and black are the colors of the Del Mar Dukes, which, according to Scot, are one of the oldest gangs in the area. (Of course he doesn't tell us this until afterwards.) So, anyway, we stop by the place we're playing on Friday to check it out, and Bryan says something about the place smelling like his grandpa, and some old dude wearing blue gets up from the bar with his friend and gets all up in our faces about how this is Oceanside Waves turf (again, according to Scot, the Dukes and the Waves are, like, legendary rivals) and it's been that way since we were in short pants, and Bryan says, like, "you mean since you were in short DEPENDS?!" and the guy just clocks him! Well, Bryan pulls his patented move and goes for the guy's legs (of course, he has to get past the dude's walker), and takes him down. Meantime, like, five other old dudes get up from the bar (either the bar stools creaked or they did) and come at the rest of us. Scot kicks one of them in the nuts, Zach starts running really fast around the outside of the fray to confuse 'em, I poke one in the eye, Pat's all like "I'm not in this band yet, I'm not getting involved in this", and then Nick yells "Bombs away, dudes!" and cuts a huge one. In the ensuing chaos, we escaped.

My newest crush.

My newest crush is a woman named Naomi Wolf. I don't know much about her except that she is an author who appeared on The Colbert Report a few days ago to talk about her book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. She seems cute and smart and unflappable, and has a charmingly Jewish name. Anyway, you can read an article by her, which appears to be a digest of her book, published online by the Guardian: "Fascist America, in Ten Easy Steps." You can watch her appearance on The Colbert Report here.

Slow Drags tour entry #2.

Sunday, September 16th, 10:48am. Boise, ID.

The second gig was good. Set up was easy, and we started playing pretty solidly, although we were having trouble with the vocals in the monitors. The place was medium full, and got fuller as people arrived from the Boise State game. It wasn't packed by any estimation, and like we're used to, we got the old spiel from the bartenderess or doorman: "Sorry, guys, we're not usually this slow." In this case, apparently, it was due to the street fair across town and the punk music fest out in the desert. Still, Zach's friends all came out, and by the end of the set, there were enough clappers and dancers to get our energy up nice and high; I'm not ashamed to say that we really rocked it. There were a few downers: 1) we didn't get paid very much, because the headliners had a huge guarantee which wasn't met — the bar manager gave us $100 as a thank you because, as she told me, they really like us a lot and want us back on a night when there's not another headliner to take all the cash; and 2) the aforementioned headliners were rather dickish. The bass player was really impatient to get us off the stage, though we were hustling our asses off - he even started pushing our stuff out of the way while we were packing up. They didn't acknowledge us on stage, which is just impolite. I went up to the drummer afterwards, and I don't think he even knew I had played before him; Scot got the same feeling from the lead singer. We have played with other "established" acts in the past, and have had similar experiences, and I hope we don't turn out like that. Nevertheless, it was a good night – we played well.

Upcoming: watch some football today, eat some food, practice a little, chill out. Rawlins, Wyoming, on Tuesday night.

Slow Drags tour entry #1.

Saturday, September 15th, 2007. 2:54am. Boise, Idaho.





We have landed and are decompressing at Lynn's house - she is a friend of Zach's. This day started 20 hours ago in Portland, but I don't think any of us are exhausted, as we all slept for large portions of the drive(s). Well, maybe Zach, who drove 90% of the way. Still, as I type, he is sitting on the floor playing with Lynn's cat Domino.

"Hey Zach, are you tired?" I ask. "Getting there," he replies. "Tomorrow will be nice," he says, as he waves a sock in front of Domino. "Yes, it will," I sigh. The positive trade-off from driving 13 hours today is that we don't have to drive at all tomorrow, except for the 30 minutes or so to the gig. Nor do we have anywhere to drive on Sunday or Monday. It's like a false start to the tour, which begins in earnest on Tuesday, as we'll play six consecutive nights, driving all the way from Boise, through Rawlins (WY), Gunniston (CO), Denver, Durango and Phoenix to arrive in Pioneer City, CA on Sunday. Apparently the second-to-last leg is going to be the doozy. We might try to do it overnight to avoid the heat; the van was pretty darn warm just today, and my shirt was damp with sweat halfway through.

It took us 10 hours to get from Portland to McCall, Idaho, and we were actually late for our gig at Crusty's Pizza. Well, we arrived just barely on time, a little before 7pm MDT, but set-up takes a while, and we didn't play our first note until half past-ish. We didn't sound that great. But, as always, the crowd was appreciative and complimentary. As much as we can ask for, I guess. We got fed and watered and paid, and now we have the first gig of tour under our belt. It will get better from here, I think. I hope.

DISASTER STRIKES OUR BESPECTACLED HERO!!

(Chris writes, on the 10th of September, as if it is the 11th of August.)

I had a great night tonight. I played a gig with Scott Fisher and 1 a.m. Approach at the Bite of Oregon. The Bite, for those of you not in the know, is a large festival in Portland, held in Waterfront Park. The festival is for food and music. We played it last year on the larger stage, set up by the Morrison Bridge, a day before Los Lobos. That was cool. This year we were on the smaller stage, but it was still cool. It was a beautiful day. My gear was already in the van, so I got to ride my bike to a gig! That was super cool – riding across the Hawthorne Bridge, which is a beautiful bridge, over the Willamette, into Waterfront Park, with my nice clothes in my backpack, to go play some music outside (and get paid for it!). My life can be cool sometimes.

When I got there I saw an old roommate who was the first real professional musician I knew in Portland (I lived in a house with him for a few months back in the fall of 2004). Back then I was intimidated by him, and it was a good feeling to be playing the same festival as him, with a later slot.

We played our set at around 8. I was set up on stage left, facing the rest of the band, and gosh darn it if I couldn't see Mount Hood right in front of me. It was pretty cool, though a little distracting. It is a good looking mountain.

After the gig I got introduced to the new Music Director of KINK radio (a local kind-of indie station – they've played Slow Drags music on their "Local Artist Spotlight") and his wife. I kinda like schmoozing.

One thing I don't really like is the evolution, seemingly over only the last two or three decades, of the handshake. How am I supposed to know what style of shake/fist bump you're going to give me?! How do people know? Seriously, I feel like I'm way behind everyone, and I feel like a fool trying to guess whether or not you want a fist bop or a wrist grab or whatever the heck the kids are doing these days.

Also after the gig, we got a couple free drinks (as musicians are generally afforded), and I got an "Indian taco" from a stand – a local Native American tribe's food stand. A guy I know who is less tactful that I am would say "Feather, not Dot", or he would say "Casino, not Slurpee." But I wouldn't say that sort of thing. That sort of thing is offensive, right? I think it's kind of offensive. The Indian taco was taco-ish fillings on a big puffy bread-like thing, like a thick naan. It was okay.

At the end of the night, there were fireworks. Fireworks are always cool. However, I don't really like watching fireworks alone. Fireworks, as well as lunar eclipses, seem like the kind of thing a person should enjoy in immediate proximity with someone they care about. I was strolling alone (amidst thousands) in the park, and the experience was bittersweet.

The night was ending, so we loaded up our gear, and I hopped on my bike (biking home from a gig! so cool!) and headed home. At Hawthorne and MLK, what the fuck?! I accidentally rode over a large curb and broke a spoke. First broken spoke for me, ever. I bent it and snapped it off so that it wouldn't catch on the fork, and kept going. Should I have walked my bike the rest of the way? I didn't know. It was still 30 blocks, and uphill, and I decided to ride. Fifteen blocks later, a second spoke went. This time it grabbed my derailer and twisted it up. You have to see it to understand exactly how violently it did this.



This is the most mangled I've seen a bike in person. (Later, when I took it in to the shop around the corner, the repairman winced like Nicholas Cage watching the Con Air dailies.) I tugged at it the best I could to bend it back, but it would not be moved. Obviously I couldn't ride it the remaining 15 blocks home. The problem was that I couldn't wheel it either! The back wheel was completely locked up, so it would not roll. I had to carry my bike from Hawthorne and 20th, over the hill, and down to the house I live in, on 32nd Place off Hawthorne a block and change. I felt kind of like a bad ass, carrying an unwieldly object a long distance, and kind of like a jack ass, carrying a bicycle a long distance. Also, because I had taken off my jacket but was still wearing my white shirt and tie, I looked like a Mormon missionary who lost his partner and crippled his bike in some mysterious mishap. I even had a pen in my front shirt pocket. Yes, I definitely looked dorky.

I found the best placement for the bicycle against my hip and under my arm, and made it home sweaty and tired. A block from home, there was a house party; some young hipsters had spilled out onto the porch. A boy and a girl were standing in my way, making out. I walked up to them at 1 in the morning, carrying my bike and sweating like a field worker. "Excuse me," I muttered politely. They looked over, slightly startled and confused, and made room for me to pass. "Wow, there's a loser," they thought. Man, did I wish I could be doing what they were doing instead of what I was doing. To whomever's in charge: that was a completely unnecessary punch in the face. Thanks a lot.

At home, with the bike left dead in the basement, I scrubbed my hands to get the grease off before bed. I looked at them long and hard. These hands did two very different tasks tonight.

Postscript: I said at the beginning of this post that "I had a great night tonight." There was something supremely satisfying about carrying my bicycle that distance. Compared to most people, I guess that's nothing, but I don't have to overcome things every day. So when I do, it does feel good. Sorry to those of you who have real problems. Really, I am.

About two habits I don't have.

A friend of mine cracks her knuckles. She knows it's bad for her, and that eventually she'll get arthritis because of it, and that it is disruptive to her friends, but she still does it because it is habitual and it feels good. Part of me envies her, as I have never been able to crack my knuckles except by pulling on them, and even then only some of the time.




A few nights ago as I was in bed trying to fall asleep, I had the strangest desire to suck my thumb. I was never EVER a thumb-sucker (possibly the reason why my teeth never needed straightening). But at that moment I thought suddenly to do it, that it would feel good and comforting. I didn't do it. Because then I would have been a 26-year-old guy who sucks his thumb. Wait a minute — I'm only 25. That's the second time tonight I thought I was 26. What's going on? Hmm, anyway... So I didn't end up sucking my thumb, but I did push my body and face further into the corner my bed makes with the wall, and pulled extra sheets over me. I fell asleep eventually.