New Developments 2: Electric Bugaloo

The second of my travel plans for the year now looks to be concrete. At the end of April/beginning of May I will be going to a conference for work....in Las Vegas! I just booked my room at Madalay Bay this morning. This should be good. Although I do have to attend conference classes and such during the days, it is a 5 day trip to Vegas where all but my entertainment expenses is on the company dime. Can't argue with that.
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I got an interesting email this morning from Chris Taylor. It appears that they might be short a guitar player for their cover band soon, and he wanted to know if I wanted to step in. It's something to consider. I occasionally go through the thought process that I might be interested in doing a covers gig, mainly for the cash. But to be honest, I never really want to put in the work in either forming or joining a band from scratch. However, if it's with people I know and maybe a little more low pressure, I could be interested. I'll have to think about this one. The main problem? They rehearse in Haverhill which is a bit of a drive.
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Saw Pan's Labyrinth yesterday. No long winded review today. It was pretty sweet. Go check it out.
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Had another Craigslist date on Saturday night. It started out gangbusters as there was a miscommunication on where to meet and what time. As such, we missed the movie we were supposed to see and that would have given us at least one thing to talk about. Regrouping, we met over at the Enormous Room in Central Square, which while it is a room, is not enormous. But it is a nice little bar.

At any rate, this girl seemed nice enough, and the conversation was a lot easier than with the first date, but I don't know that I was exactly feeling that intangible "it".

I do have one more potential date lined up through the ad, but it wouldn't be for a couple of weeks, so we'll see if it actually ends up happening. Other than that, I probably won't renew the ad for now. I ran it for a couple of weeks and got a decent repsonse. I'll let this last date happen (or not) as it will and process. I go through phases where I get motivated and then where I'm less so. Less so seems to be coming up.
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So, yeah, Lucero's pretty good. I'm now checking out "That Much Further West". This whole alt-country/Americana genre is pretty decent. At least what I've heard so far.

New developments

It's official: I'm going to Italy in Septmeber. My mom went and ordered all our airfare over the weekend. So the entire Veneto family is going. Mom, pops, me, Ali and her boyfriend, Julie and Jorge. 10 days in Tuscany, Venice, and Rome. In fact, here's where we'll be staying in Tuscany: www.ricavo.com. Looks pretty sweet. Don't know what we're doing for Venice or Rome yet. I've even gone so far as to order a book/CD to help me learn some Italian. At the very least I'd like to be able to order from the menus without feeling foolish. Anyway, even though it's months away, I'm pretty damn psyched.
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Could I play metal?

Krista's boyfriend's band will be looking for a new guitar player soon. I've heard this separately from both Krista and Joe (her boyfriend), and a third time while we were all out to brunch on Saturday. Joe said that they had thought about asking me. And to be truthful, I had thought about offering when I heard. I probably have time for another band. But do I really want to play metal, that's the question? Because that's what they are. And I'm talking "I'm not kidding, they're really metal" metal. They are good, though, which is the only reason I'd consider it. Of course there's also the issue that I don't really have any metal playing or writing skills. That'd would probably be a problem.

Either way, I don't think I'm going to do it. It's an interesting thought to entertain though, playing something so out of my comfort zone.
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OK, so I went on a date with someone I met on Craigslist. If I'm going to stay true to my slogan of Sexy In '07, I figure I need to at least make some effort. So, I meet this girl on Friday night after work. Now first things first, when you meet someone through Craigslist, there's a pretty certain flow to it. They answer your ad or you answer theirs, you email back and forth a bit, exchange pictures, and if everything still seems good at this point probably meet up. Now, if you're going to be exchanging pictures, why would you send one that is not up to date? Well, I know why, because the current version is not as good. But if it gets to the point where you're going to meet up, that clever ruse falls right apart. I mention this because, yes, that was the case here.

Anyway, we can categorically describe this date as a failure, in the sense that there was no interest in a follow-up. Conversation, which started out OK, ground to a screeching halt (for whatever reason) when we got to Pizzeria Uno, which is where we had dinner. (VMan's note: This would not have been my choice, but I was meeting her near her house down near the Cape, which I don't know at all, so I left the choice of venue up to her.) I mean, we're talking painfully, half minute or more lulls in covnersations while I thought of new things to talk about screeching halt here. To be honest, based on our emailing back and forth, which is another story in itself, I had gotten the impression that we might not be that compatible. But I figured what the hell, if nothing else it'd be good practice. But after about 5 minutes of awkward silences at Uno's I knew this would be a short evening. That is partly why I scheduled it for right after work, so that if it was not a success, I could probably salvage the rest of my evening (which I did by going out with some friends later, having some neat mixed drinks, and discovering a new pretty cool album in the process---Nobody's Darlings by Lucero, if you were wondering.)

But here's the rub, I found myself annoyed the next day. Not at the date or the girl, because of course I know not everything is going to be silver lining. And despite the absolute lack of compatibilty between us, she was a rather nice sort. But I found myself thinking, "I just wasted $40." Silly thing to be thinking, but it's true. I don't exactly have $20s hanging out my pockets or anything here, and I realized that unsuccessful dating could be a proposition too expensive for me to undertake all gung-ho.

Either that, or I just have to be more selective. But rest assured that any further adventures, mis- or otherwise, will likely be reported in exacting detail for your reading pleasure.

Learning new things

I'm going to Italy in September. And as such, I went on Amazon yesterday and ordered myself a book/CD set for learning Italian. I figure if I can get a basic grasp of the language, it would be helpful. Hopefully, since it's another 8 months or so until I leave, I'll be dedicated enough to stick with it and actually pick something up.

Today, I'm reading Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich. It's a true story about a ring of MIT students that developed an all but full-proof system for counting cards in blackjack and taking that system to Vegas and cleaning up in the mid-90s. In one of the early chapters they detailed the basic counting method they based their ring around. Doesn't sound too difficult. Maybe when I get home I'll bust out a deck of cards and give it a try.

All this new learnin'.

I don't want to be here today.

That is all.

Fogey

I bitch and grouse about new music often. I'm pretty sure that makes me an old fogey. But at least I haven't said anything like "Back in my day..." yet.

But here's the thing, it's not that there's not good music out there nowadays, it's that there's too much music. With the nature of the music industry changing from an actual physical medium to downloading, and with the ability to create album quality recordings in your bedroom, record companies seem to have adopted a "throw it out there and see what sticks" mentality. No need to spend money on advertising. Internet, blogs, word of mouth, these are the new advertising for new bands. And the problem there is that with so many options I'm sure that there are so many things I'd like that never see the light of day.

This really is not much different than when I was growing up, except in the sense of longevity. Warhol's 15 minutes of fame was never more relevant. For no longer are artists developed as commodities to be nurtured over time, but merely as hit singles. Oh, what, you have a second hit single in you? Then you get 30 minutes of fame.

The problem, at least to me, with so much music, and so much much of disposable, it seems like it means less. So you miss out on something good? So what? Something else will be along in a few minutes. And I don't have the patience (or time, it seems) to do all the searching for those gems that I know I'll like. I have to rely more and more on that word of mouth and simple, old-fashioned luck.

Back in my day...

But really, when there were less options, it seems like you appreciated those options more. (The irony of this is that "back in my day..." there were still thousands, hundres of thousands, millions? of options.)

This was pretty much all a long-winded intro to the actual point. I don't know if it's a reaction to all that, but it seems like recently a lot of my musical tastes have been going backwards in time rather that forwards. Some stuff that's been blowing my skirt up recently?

The Who - Who's Next. I owned this on cassette in 8th grade but never really appreciated it back then. This is a fantastic album almost entirely from start to finish. In an odd bit of confluence, I was getting into this album anyway, but recently I was watching an episode of Freaks and Geeks where the song, "The Song Is Over" was wonderfully placed in a moment, and it made me run back to that album again.

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours. This is pretty close to a perfect album, as far as I'm concerned. I don't think Lindsey Buckingham doesn't get the credit he deserves as a guitar player. But more than that, impeccable songs.

Billy Joel - Piano Man. No raelly. That's just a damn good album. Never mind the overplayed bar-washed title track, which is still quite good for all that. I originally went and reacquired this album because I wanted to hear "Captain Jack", probably the best song about suburban depression and lonliness, but in doing so, rediscovered a great album.

Motorhead - Ace of Spades. I was never a Motorhead fan when I was younger. Too punkish and raw. I liked my metal differently back then, typically with singers that didn't sound like they had been gargling gravel. But man, this is some good stuff. Great gym album.

Top 10 - movie style

OK, so I did top 10 CDs of 2006. (Which, by the way, needs a correction. Pink is getting kicked out for Edwin's "Better Days" CD. I forgot about him. Somewhat more mainstream and poppy than his previous efforts, but still pretty damn sweet album.) Now it's time for a top 10 movies (that I actually saw, which should be "duh" obvious.)

Note: I fully reserve the right to change this list once I've seen Babel, which by all accounts is excellent. But until then....

10) Clerks 2 - Much funnier than I was expecting. And not to harp on a point, but Mmmmm, Rosario Dawson.

9) The Descent - It's really two movies almost. 1st half is "Ahhh! We're trapped in a cave!" which is plenty scary enough. Then the second half is "AHHHHH! We're trapped in a cave with monsters!!!"

8) V For Vendetta - A timely, meaningful adaptation of an Alan Moore graphic novel. Better yet, a GOOD adaptation of an Alan Moore graphic novel, which are usually hard to translate well to screen.

7) The Proposition - Nothing like a good, brutal, hardcore western.

6) The Prestige - Rival magicians. David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. Scarlett Johanssen. Great movie that's 15 minutes too long, but that(as I described in an earlier blog) is merely a storytelling preference of mine.

5) Casino Royale - The "Batman Begins" of Bond. Bond Begins.

4) The Fountain - I know a movie's good when it can add in a whole section that potentially is only there to enhance the theme and not advance the plot (although to be fair, I'm not entirely sure) and I still like it. Typically I hate that. And not to put too fine a point on it but, Mmmm Rachel Weisz.

3) Borat - Very funny, yes.

2) Night Watch - Sweet Russian vampires (sort of), brah.

1) Children of Men - Sweet near-future sci-fi. Great premise, well thought out. Gritty and "rael" look. Plenty of the good kind of ambiguity. And a battle scene that looks straight out of Saving Prviate Ryan, on what, I'm sure, was a miniscule fraction of the budget. For real, go see this movie. Right now.

Stay sexy in '07

So, New Years has come and gone. I must be getting old or something, as I'm just glad the hoopla of the holidays is over. Sure, I like the extra days off from work and additional opportunities for sleeping late, but returning to normalcy is also nice. It just seems like that time of year drags, and not necessarily in a good way. Last night I was hanging out with Eric, Bill and Matt, at Bad Abbotts and I made a comment about how it seemed like it was 3 in the morning. Partly beacuse the bar was dead, but also because the past few days had all pretty much just seemed like one long day that was finally just ending. One VERY LONG day, though because the night before (NYE) ended for me at about 3:30 in the AM, and the night before that at around 5 in the AM. Sadly, both nights ending alone, although one ending with some nice pasta in a homemade white sauce.

But yeah, so really none of the options for NYE seemed all that appealing this year. While I was interested in going out, nothing really grabbed my fancy. No good shows going on, and zero interest in the regular NYE club scene this year. Luckily, this was rectified by Matt and Dave deciding to have a last minute, small party. And small it was, including only Matt, Dave, Lisa, Kevin, Melissa and her sister and friend, and Kelly (who Matt works with) and her two friends Eleanor and Meagan (who we'd hung out with the night before and who provided the aforementioned pasta and white sauce.) Anyway, low and chill was definitely the way to go this year. No complaints here.

Side note: Did anyone else watch "the ball drop"? Was it me or did it seem like Dick Clark was having a stroke live on the air? Well, either way, he held it together, and really for a guy who's 137 years old, he seems to be doing OK. Although, if there were any young kids watching, his voice probably gave them nightmares.

Side note 2: Speaking of "if there were any young kids watching", how about that Christina Aguilera performance? Now, don't get me wrong, I like the song Candy Man, but again, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is pretty much a family show, and that song is pretty much one of the raunchiest tunes about boning that I've heard in a long time.

So, what's up for '07? Got that trip to Italy in September, that's going to kick ass. Perhaps a trip to Portland somewhat sooner, to check it out? The band should be be getting off the ground, hopefully there's a bass player in our immediate future. And ladies?....that's right, VMan's looking your way. This year's slogan is "Staying sexy in '07". So, folks, if you have any cute friends, cute sisters, cute roommates, cute co-workers, cute pizza deliverers and letter carriers, etc. that like dudes that look like Jesus (or a lumberjack, depending on what shirt I'm wearing), well you just let me know. Now where did I leave that personality? I'm probably going to need it. Oh, yeah, I think it's under the bed.....