The Only Living Boy in New York

Traditionaly a mix tape is suposed to be a sign of friendship, or a way of wooing girls. But I have no friends with tape decks and no girls I'm chaseing after who would apreciate it. So I mainly make tapes for myself. And though this apears to defeat the purpos it works for me. Its a way of theropy. I usualy start out with a purpose but I soon abandon it half way through and just start putting on what ever song feels like it should come next. When I look at the tape the next day its always something that I didn't expect, and its somewhat insightful. Last November I started a tape about depression and ended up telling myself to cheer up. In December I made one that began as a whole bunch of fun songs and finished as something altogether darker. So yesterday was one of the worst days I've had in a wile so I made another. Let me know if you want a copy on cd.

Mix 3/12/08

Side A:
Like Suicide (acoustic) - Soundgarden
What if You Were Right the First Time? - Arctic Monkeys
Love in Vain - Robert Johnson
Videotape - Radiohead
Paper Cuts - Nirvana
You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones
Angeles - Elliott Smith

Side B:
The Birth and Death of the Day [abridged] - Explosions in the Sky
Round Here - Counting Crows
Eclipse - Pink Floyd
It Ain't Me Babe - Bob Dylan
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - The Beatles
The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon and Garfunkel
Midnight Show - The Killers
Love, Reign O'er Me - The Who

Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine
Like it shines on me

Hotwax

JambaSwirl (10:28:30 PM): i commented on your "The End" post again

JambaSwirl (10:28:37 PM): read it

SollyS3 (10:30:16 PM): I disagree

SollyS3 (10:30:24 PM): I think the halves are verry related

JambaSwirl (10:30:33 PM): your wrong

JambaSwirl (10:30:36 PM): cause i disproved you

JambaSwirl (10:30:39 PM): using textual evidence

SollyS3 (10:31:22 PM): you disprovd me?

JambaSwirl (10:31:50 PM): the first half questions whether it is better to do what is moral under consequence, or to go along and be happy

SollyS3 (10:32:14 PM): but look at the case in 1984

JambaSwirl (10:32:25 PM): the second half is questioning whether it is better to do what you believe in (and feel miserable) or play commercial tunes (and still feel miserable)

SollyS3 (10:32:29 PM): if he escaped torchure and was "happy"

SollyS3 (10:32:41 PM): then he would be miserable for selling out his ideals

SollyS3 (10:32:51 PM): so its the same case

JambaSwirl (10:32:59 PM): no

JambaSwirl (10:33:03 PM): the musician makes music for himself

JambaSwirl (10:33:08 PM): you said that yourself

SollyS3 (10:33:34 PM): the musician makes music for himself and starves

SollyS3 (10:33:52 PM): he makes great music and wallows on the street

SollyS3 (10:34:02 PM): he is john lennon the bum

JambaSwirl (10:34:25 PM): yeah, so? in 1984, the guy is miserable after he sells himself out too

JambaSwirl (10:34:31 PM): so that means in BOTH

JambaSwirl (10:34:35 PM): they end up miserable

JambaSwirl (10:35:01 PM): so there its just which one you choose in the end

SollyS3 (10:35:16 PM): but would you rather be miserable by starving or miserable by conscience?

JambaSwirl (10:35:24 PM): starving

JambaSwirl (10:35:32 PM): physical pains are easy to deal with

SollyS3 (10:35:35 PM): miserable by tourcher or miserable by regret?

JambaSwirl (10:35:35 PM): in comparison

JambaSwirl (10:35:44 PM): no im regarding your second arguement

JambaSwirl (10:35:49 PM): take it into reality

JambaSwirl (10:35:57 PM): the first one would obviously a much more difficult choice

SollyS3 (10:36:02 PM): they are the same thing to me

JambaSwirl (10:36:07 PM): no

JambaSwirl (10:36:12 PM): the second arguement is all up to the starving musician

SollyS3 (10:36:17 PM): have you ever been starving?

JambaSwirl (10:36:27 PM): the first arguement is about forced torture

SollyS3 (10:36:37 PM): when you knew that all you had to do was make pop music and be rich?

SollyS3 (10:36:47 PM): you'd be rich

SollyS3 (10:36:58 PM): but instead your dieing on the street

SollyS3 (10:37:05 PM): and nobody cares about you

SollyS3 (10:37:20 PM): if you died you wouldn't even get a grave

JambaSwirl (10:37:24 PM): i know your arguing the extremeties but if i was a guy

JambaSwirl (10:37:30 PM): that was a starving musician, and genius

JambaSwirl (10:37:38 PM): i wouldn't be a fucking idiot and be a studio musician to get money

SollyS3 (10:37:51 PM): wile if you sold out you'd have 200 people at your funeral

SollyS3 (10:37:53 PM): I know

JambaSwirl (10:37:56 PM): i mean, i would be a studio musician

JambaSwirl (10:38:07 PM): not just some idiot starving even though he can help people with his skills

JambaSwirl (10:38:13 PM): in the form of studio playing

SollyS3 (10:38:44 PM): but you go to people at the studio and they'd turn you away

JambaSwirl (10:38:47 PM): there are so many more options for the musician than the guy who's gonna get tortured

SollyS3 (10:38:55 PM): becase you had no monny to pay them with

SollyS3 (10:39:07 PM): and no record lable would pick you up

JambaSwirl (10:39:09 PM): what the fuck are you talking about, people pay you to play for them

JambaSwirl (10:39:14 PM): studio musicians just play their instrument

SollyS3 (10:39:40 PM): thats true

SollyS3 (10:39:45 PM): but what about you?

SollyS3 (10:39:53 PM): You couldn't be a studio musician

JambaSwirl (10:39:56 PM): why not

JambaSwirl (10:39:58 PM): no theory?

SollyS3 (10:40:08 PM): you have too unconventional tenchnique

SollyS3 (10:40:20 PM): if they told you to play blues you couldn't

SollyS3 (10:40:32 PM): if they told you to do a heavy mettle solo you couldn't

JambaSwirl (10:40:41 PM): there are plenty of different places that want different things

JambaSwirl (10:40:52 PM): i'd just sell my skills to somewhere that COULD use them

JambaSwirl (10:41:06 PM): and by the time im out on the streets, i'll have the technical ability to play blues or heavy metal

SollyS3 (10:41:18 PM): I don't think so

SollyS3 (10:41:40 PM): I realy don't think you'll ever be able to play blues

SollyS3 (10:41:54 PM): Just like I'll never be able to play clisical

SollyS3 (10:41:57 PM): or flaminco

JambaSwirl (10:42:00 PM): dude, those techniques (technical wise) would take me like 3 months to learn most of it

SollyS3 (10:42:06 PM): bull

JambaSwirl (10:42:06 PM): and what are you talking about "i couldn't play blues"

JambaSwirl (10:42:22 PM): if you wanted to learn classical or flamenco you could

SollyS3 (10:42:54 PM): what ever, it was a bad example

SollyS3 (10:42:56 PM): how about this

SollyS3 (10:43:03 PM): a indie film director

JambaSwirl (10:43:07 PM): if your going to give me bullshit like "your not a blues man, you don't feel the blues" cause if its about fucking feeling then there's definetely no problem

SollyS3 (10:43:34 PM): who could either make the films that he feels are his art form and starve on the streets

SollyS3 (10:44:08 PM): or make comercial films for a television company and make money

SollyS3 (10:44:37 PM): what do you do?

JambaSwirl (10:44:58 PM): do the same thing, work with my studio abilites

JambaSwirl (10:45:01 PM): camera man, etc.

SollyS3 (10:45:19 PM): if your a director then you don't know how to work a camera

SollyS3 (10:45:24 PM): totaly different job

JambaSwirl (10:45:34 PM): i'd probably not give up right

JambaSwirl (10:45:38 PM): but get a regular job

JambaSwirl (10:45:41 PM): thats not relating to my art

JambaSwirl (10:45:44 PM): but still keep on doing my art

JambaSwirl (10:45:53 PM): see, for the guy in 1984 , he didn't have options

JambaSwirl (10:45:56 PM): it was one or another

SollyS3 (10:46:36 PM): but how can you be content makeing films that no one would see?

SollyS3 (10:46:44 PM): that would never be in any theaters

JambaSwirl (10:46:46 PM): you would work for that

JambaSwirl (10:46:52 PM): keep on keeping on

JambaSwirl (10:47:19 PM): while you worked your second job

JambaSwirl (10:47:23 PM): i mean think about it, im gonna be doing that

SollyS3 (10:47:45 PM): and you'd struggle and work in obsurity and do the second job you hated when you know that if you just did something that would sell you make a million

SollyS3 (10:47:50 PM): you'd win an oscar

JambaSwirl (10:48:00 PM): dude i could think that right now

JambaSwirl (10:48:04 PM): i could convert my style

JambaSwirl (10:48:07 PM): i could learn theory

JambaSwirl (10:48:09 PM): but i don't

SollyS3 (10:48:36 PM): theory isn't selling out, you jackass

JambaSwirl (10:49:02 PM): wrong example

JambaSwirl (10:49:14 PM): that was just an emphasis on the fact that i can learn standard techniques and sounds

JambaSwirl (10:49:54 PM): and be concrete in the standard way

SollyS3 (10:50:16 PM): what ever

SollyS3 (10:50:23 PM): the example isn't the point

JambaSwirl (10:50:32 PM): you just dodged your arguemtn through an example that wasn't the ponit

SollyS3 (10:50:56 PM): the example was just trying to ilustrate the question

SollyS3 (10:51:06 PM): but they odviosly weren't adiquit

JambaSwirl (10:51:56 PM): say it without examples

SollyS3 (10:51:57 PM): the point is the question of "would you rather do what you feel is right and be miserable or do what you feel is wrong and be happy"

SollyS3 (10:52:07 PM): would you rather be right or happy

SollyS3 (10:52:35 PM): the first example of 1984 did a better job of saying it

JambaSwirl (10:52:54 PM): happy. humans are known for their arrogance and standing up for what you think is right is not a solution to anything, especially if the case is that nobody saw you and you knew that nobody would.

JambaSwirl (10:53:16 PM): especially since one individual is so insignifigant why would you waste your time trying to be right just like an arrogant headstrong human

SollyS3 (10:54:21 PM): and individual may be insignificant to the world but not to the individual. I mean nothing to everybody else but I mean everything to me

SollyS3 (10:54:39 PM): and me doing the right thing means a lot to me

JambaSwirl (10:54:43 PM): yes thats why its so headstrong

SollyS3 (10:54:51 PM): I wouldn't sell that out

JambaSwirl (10:55:14 PM): i probably would compromise somewhat

SollyS3 (10:55:23 PM): I don't know how I would answer that question to tell the truth

JambaSwirl (10:55:24 PM): i never take extreme sides like this

JambaSwirl (10:55:32 PM): you always write blog posts that are questions

JambaSwirl (10:55:41 PM): and don't answer them

SollyS3 (10:55:48 PM): so?

JambaSwirl (10:55:58 PM): what for

SollyS3 (10:56:06 PM): they are big abstract questions not ment to be answered

SollyS3 (10:56:10 PM): ment to be thought about

JambaSwirl (10:56:22 PM): thinking is overrated

SollyS3 (10:56:28 PM): bull shit

SollyS3 (10:56:38 PM): thinking is all we have

yo soy un disco quebrado
yo tengo chicle en el cerebro

Hoochie Coochie Man

It feels like for the last manny months its been a real turn in events in my love life. Not a particularly positive one but a turn none the less. Wile as long as I can remember I would pine after a girl that I couldn't have. But now for the first time in my life I feel like getting a girl would be a peice of cake but theres no one that I want. I feel like theres plenty of girls flirting with me but they all just seem to annoy me or piss me off in one way or another. On a slightly different note I've decided that all I need is a girl who is in to Bob Dylan.

But y'know I'm here
Everybody knows I'm here

Teeth Like God's Shoeshine

"I'm saying that your going to die, and your going to go off this earth, your going to be dead. Man, it could be, you know, twenty years, it could be tomorrow, any time, so am I. I mean, we're just gonna be gone. The world's going to go on without us"
-Bob Dylan, in a 1965 interview.

Whats the meaning of life? Traditional responses include leaving your mark on the world, helping future generation, forming a happy family etc. These don't do it for me. Because the truth eventually I will be dead and then what does it matter? People will make stupid small talk at my funeral, and if I ever have great grand kids they will never know my name. As far as I grasp it there is no meaning. We're all just some sort of mistake or weird happening. I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of nihilism and I don't know witch way to tip.

I am not allowed much danger
keep in like you're an old friend stranger
you'll burn me in effigy and I'll burn you in effigy

The End

Something Jackie said today made me think back to when I read 1984. The main charecter in that book, near the end, was given a choice. He could do what he felt was right or he could escape the torture and live a relatively happy life. Of course my first reaction was to do the right thing. The moral high ground. But if your miserable then what use is it? For example, you always hear of the cases of the starving musician who abandons his art for comercial pop in order to pay his bills. He gets called a sell out and a traitor. But what use is good music if no one is going to hear it? And though he feels horrible about it at least theres food on his table, right? But then again, does that really make him happy? I don't know.

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me

Magic Hours

I've been in high school for the last four weeks. Its an on-line school called k12. When I signed up for it I was told a lot of things. It would be self paced, it would be knowledge based not homework based, it would allow me to make up all the credits I needed and allow me to return to albany high next year. All of these proved wrong. In fact, it was almost everything I disliked about high school. My grade is largely based on pointless busy work, made for people with the brains of six year-olds. I have to move at an extremely slow pace with lessons that I should be able to do in minutes. And, to top it off, I will have to work through the summer to even have a hope at making up all the credits. It does differ from high school in someways though. The upside is that I can set my own hours, as long as I get the days work done by midnight. The downside is that it is completely solitary. I have no one to talk to, I am stuck in front of a computer screen all day.
It has become incredibly clear to me that I cannot do this. All my old school habits have returned. I'm irritable, frustrated all the time, depressed, and hopeless. I procrastinate, often getting nothing done at all. I've become prone to shouting at my family for no reason. I destroy things, particularly things that have value only to me. I hate myself for doing all this but when I'm in the moment it seems like the only thing to do.
I feel that I'm left with a kind of ultimatum. On one side I take the GED and go to community college for the next year and a half. All my friends will look down on me and I will feel like a failure for the rest of my life. The other solution is that I grit my teeth , work through the rest of the year and through summer. Then return to albany high, continue to be miserable, and work through next year. On this side I'll feel like I can do it, I'll get back most of the friends I had lost over the last year but I will have no quality of life. Its a lose-lose in my mind and I don't know what to do.

How strange, innocence

Santeria

I generally hate it when someone declares a song's meaning, but I've been thinking about this for a wile. This is just my interpretation, feel free to disagree with me.

Say it Ain't So is one of my favorite songs. Its been generaly stuck in my head for the last two years, and I have probably listened to it and played it a thoulsand times. It is verry lyricly complex and it took me a long time before I came to this interpritation of it.

Somebody's Heiney is crowding my ice box
Somebody's cold one is giving me chills
Guess I'll just close my eyes

The main character (presumably Rivers Cuomo) is out somewhere drinking but something feels wrong. He decides to just ignore it.

Flip on the tele, wrestle with Jimmy
Something is bubbling behind my back
Bottle is ready to go...

So he goes home and tries to amuse himself. Watches TV, plays around with his little brother, etc. He's still very bothered by something and his intial reaction is to drink it away. But as he reaches for the liqueur he comes to a big realization.

Say it ain't so!
Your drug is a heart breaker.
Say it ain't so!
My love is a life-taker.

He realizes that he is not only an alcoholic but that he is everything he hates. He feels that other people's alcoholism destroyed his life.

I can't conform to, I never could do
That witch might hurt you, so try and be cool
When i say that this way is a water slide away from me that takes me farther everyday
be cool

I'm not as sure about this verse, but I think that he's looking for the cause of his drinking. He talks to his father who he's always tried hard to please, perhaps too hard, and he prepares his father for what comes next.

(Repeat Chorus and then:)
Dear Daddy, I write you, despite of years of silence
You've cleaned up, found Jesus, things are good or so I here
This bottle of Steven's awakens ancient feelings
Like father, step-father, the son is drowning in the flood!
(Guitar Solo, Chorus, and then end)

So, as he gets to the root of his resentment he tells his father that even though the father stopped drinking, its too late. The damage he has done to the main character of this song can't be undone. The last line also implies that his father divorced his mother, and the step-father was no replacement.

Sorry that was so long, and pointless, I just needed something to kill time.

Well its love that I need
But my soul will have to wait