dommah!

give you everyhing i got for a little piece of mind

Today, with the help of the Internets, I figured out how to play the Beatles' "I'm So Tired" on guitar, It's a trickly little bastard with a G# major chord where an F#minor would usually suffice, an E augmented that I wasn't sure how to voice, and also cute aternating betwen major and minor on the 4 chord, It's one of my favorite songs and also fits my recurring state, that is, love-inspired sleep deprivation, So that was a happy accomplishment.

It's a kick too because once you actually play that unusual progression all the way through and hear how perfectly it sustains the melody and the vibe, it doesn't seem so complicated. Every piece fits together perfectly as if there were no other way the song counld be constructed.

I'm not sure what's up with the Beatles revival this year. The Cirque du Soleil show was great, and this Julie Taymor movie "Across the Universe" looks kind of exciting, Arguments about purity aside, I always thought it was strange how Beatles songs aren't constantly at the forefront of our popculture mix, given that they are the best songs in the universe. I'd think that four out of every five movies would want to have a Beatles soundtrack, every TV show should have a Beatles opening theme, and all band should be required to do a Beatles cover at every live gig. And every Beatles song should be mashed-up into a hip-hop jam and a club mix. Hearing a badly-done Beatles song is till better than hearing 98% of all other songs. And they were the last ones to write about peace and love and actually mean it. We still can learn a lot from those four blokes.

again heard in the casino

it's always disturbing when someone uses an expression like "it was like being stabbed in the face" and they actually have a big noticeable scar on their nose. i imagine it's like if an amputee says something about having an itch you just can't scratch. and the person speaking is not a fluent English speaker, so she doesn't exactly bombard you with English metaphors in casual conversation. the scar i was looking at today was probably just from plastic surgery or something (it's a really cute nose) but still, made me wonder about the word choice.

text me

i guess i'm just slow, because i did not realize til just now that text messages were invented so that the cell phone companies could make money off the fact that their products do not work very well. i mean, i can't hear ANYBODY on my cell phone. it's much more efficient to text people. and of course, great at rock concerts. especially if you're seeing, like, Nickelback.

what my boss said to me at the casino the other day:

"So do you want to hear the good news first or the bad news?.....Oh wait, there is no good news."

And she was correct. There wasn't.

what happened?

what's wrong?
why don't you just be related to someone famous and tell everyone about it?
why don't you just make six figures and forget about it?
have you tried spending sixteen thousand on figurines and jeans?
why don't you quit your job and live in the woods?
why don't you make fun of others? you'll feel much better.
what are you crying about now?
why don't you just take some time off?
what?
where's your self-confidence?
what are you scared of?
are you scared to see me?
what's the worst that could happen?

listening

I recently picked up my guitar for the first time in, oh, five years. I was expecting not to remember anything, and to be further impeded by the fact that my ears have definitely worsened over the past five years of doing the casino job (eight hours a day of people screaming and shaking a brass dice cup take their toll). But surprisingly, although my hearing is measurably worse, my musical ear seems to be a little bit better. I managed to pick out a few Beatles songs that I never would have attempted before, since I am afraid of those songs written by actual musicians who use tricky chords and stuff. Of course, it's possible that with the weakened hearing, my pickings just sound acceptable because I can't discern that they are wrong.

I also notice that my habit of thinking too much often gets in the way of my listening. I'm trying to amend this by watching old movies and paying attention to what's happening. This sounds like duh, but it's more of an exercise with the old movies because the spoken dialogue tends to be richer and more pointful, and also one has to take into account the cultural differences of the period.

one resolution for next year

To stop Answering my own Questions, but still ask them.

just saw that movie "Shortbus"....

I haven't cried at a movie since I don't know when, maybe never. I don't know if it would have affected me so much if I weren't such a lonely sap right at the moment, but it did. And the auto-fellatio scene alone is worth the ticket price. (I know I'm going to get a lot of crazy spam comments having just used that word, but whatever.) My only complaint that it was a little full of itself and there wasn't a strong Red-state character to dialogue with the whole free-love utopian countercultural vibe. But that aside: funny, touching, invigorating, wonderful.

xmas spirit

I can't believe I'm 31 and have never known that there was a song called "Dominic The Italian Christmas Donkey." It starts like this:

Hey! Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
It's Dominick the donkey.
Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
The Italian Christmas donkey.
(la la la-la la-la la la la la)
(la la la-la la-la la-ee-oh-da)

Santa's got a little friend,
His name is Dominick.
The cutest little donkey,
You never see him kick.
When Santa visits his paisons,
With Dominick he'll be.
Because the reindeer cannot,
Climb the hills of Italy.

....and goes on exactly like that. It's horrible. Here I thought that nun song was annoying.

And when I say "annoying" and "horrible" I mean I secretly think it's the best song in the universe.

i did the video for this show

...and i think it came out pretty cool. There's a teaser with some of the video segments here.

...and you can find out all the details about the show, playing through December 3 in downtown LA, here.

....unfortunately, in the process of working on it i broke my camera. So if there are any generous artistic-patron-type people out there who would like to contibute to the repair and resurrection of my beautiful, indispensible, currently-unusable DVX100, please go here.