Who's got the crack? ... best buy does!

So I didn't reserve a copy of GTA:IV... I kind of forgot all about it and then found myself low on money. So then game day came and I finally saw the in game footage... I broke my piggy bank and sold my body to science (something about testing the short term affects of swimming nuclear waste...) After putting my body on the line, I took all my pennies (yes, they paid me in pennies) and set out on to see just how hard it would be to find the game with out a reserve.

Here is my journey:

GameStop : Brewster (sold out) The girl gave me a sympathetic smile, but here eyes hinted at my stupidity. A grown man argued with another
associate about his reserve not being on file.

Danbury Fair Mall : There are 2 GameStops, a FYE, Saturday Matinee and another FYE in the parking lot. I was able to find a deluxe edition in FYE but refused it. I'm on a budget here!


As I was searching the newly renovated mall (probably old news, but I'm no mall rat.) I almost felt like a crack head looking for a fix. I set myself up for repeated situations where I fully expected to get shot down. I became more interested in peoples reactions to me asking for the game and the questions I'd follow with... such as "Why didn't you order extra?" "Where can I find it?" "How come there are like 100 unopened copies behind you?" The most friendly people at gamestop engaged me in conversation and basically said that it would be useless to try any gamestop. Gamestop ONLY sells video games and they didn't prepare for the launch? Is there sales manager a fucking retard? (I visited three individual stores and got the same reaction basically)

My next plan was Best Buy, Circuit City, then swing back to Walmart before throwing in the towel. Best Buy had it... and I had a less then enthused employee sell me my copy. He didn't care about my epic journey. He was probably more concerned with my sweaty hands and jolty eyes.

On the way back I felt like Indiana Jones. My holy grail was next to me, but I was unable to enjoy it until I got back home. What would Indy have done with the grail anyways?

During my travels I thought about making this a story about our shitty economy. I don't have the figures but it was estimated to make over $400 million on yesterday alone. This game requires a system that costs at least $450... I kind of void my own point when put into the statistics. I wonder if I have enough in my bank account for a coffee tomorrow... hmm, guess I'll just go back to cruising around breaking the law in my own little virtual world. I wonder if Harison Ford is playing right now...

Sad Sappy Sucker

Yeah, so I guess that's me... I just finished watching Wristcutters : A Love Story. I've been dying to see this movie ever since I heard about it. It was very limited showing, and I never caught it... but now it's on DVD and I finally saw it. (I actually rented it, a HUGE mistake.. I need to own it)

Without ruining it... basically it's about this alternate reality where suicide victims go to live the afterlife. It's done in a very dark-comedy meets cute romance at first, then the best thing happens. Tom fucking Waits joins the crew. Waits is the shit, honestly he's one of the coolest mother fuckers ever.

His quotes are soo great. He carries all the insight the movie has. The last scene before the ending with Kneller is a tear-jerker.

Another great perk to the movie is Will Arnett as the Messiah. Fans of Arrested Development (probably anyone reading this... as 99% of my friends love that show... if anyone reads this...) will get a kick out of the role he plays. It's got all the style of GOB's magician act.

Basically, please check this movie out. If you hate it, I'd love to have a heated debate over it. I'm also currently enjoying heated debates over the new DCFC song, so bring it... that song kicks ass.

p.s. Dahl got me probably the best (very early) birthday present I've got in a while... Smoking Loon wine and a Moose wine stopper. I dare you to trump that.... in like a month... yeah, so I want to do something interesting for my birthday... Beer Garden??

... the aftermath

So this years art and media fair went without a hitch. The bands all played to their full caliber. The usual artists came by and always were welcome faces in the crowd. A few people at times looked offended... and everyone who ran it seemed to have the fun, manic satisfaction that the fair is all about.

It's great to have people who care about art and media. We had probably one of the best crowds that actually sticked around all day. I felt no speaker or band wasn't given respect and a chance.

I hope to see BAM keep chugging along. We had some great new faces involved and I hope they keep sticking it out. Providing people a safe haven for artist expression is very important especially in a community that often close minded community.

Thanks everyone who was involved, who showed up, who played, who read, who performed, who partied with me, and who were there for me when I needed it.

BAM 2009! here we come!!

Qu'est-ce que tu as aujourd'hui?

During my summer in NYC interning at AAM promo a co-intern was raving about a band called Beirut. After argument with the other minds on the validity of this claim I kind of had a headache. I heard a little bit and was satisfied with it. The first thing that kept coming to mind when hearing it was Andrew Bird. While my opinion upon this has changed, I still would use that as a comparison to the work. I received the Lon Gisland EP and really never gave it enough time. The song Elephant Gun was very good, so I never put him off, I just never got around to bothering to engage it.

This seems to have been a mistake. After a music-colleague of mine ranked gave the album a prominent place in her Top 20 of 2007. (Something that I fucked up by failing to notice a 06 band in my list… one of the many signs I need to get my head back in the game.) So I got my hands on the latest album.

The first thing that really comes out with the album is the elaborate orchestration. It hasn’t been since Ys that I was so engrossed in non-typical folk orchestration. The heavy French undertones really never go out of style. Think about it… Stereolab has always been totally awesome, the Arcade Fire is one of the single greatest bands of our time to touch on a small portion.

It’s accessible at a level that is typically hard to convey. At first the listener might be a little taken aback by the vocals and lush orchestration but soon it becomes very inviting. Typically I throw on a cd for background music while eating dinner with my mother. She always enjoyed Ryan Adams for some reason, I guess the universal appeal of some of his work especially off Cold Roses appeals to her. When I put The Flying Club Cub on at one point she asked me if it was Mexican music. While I found it odd, I do always enjoy it when she engages my music. This is where I think the accessibility comes into play. It’s such an interesting album that you can’t help but become somewhat engaged in it regardless of how much you are actually listening to it.

the Coal Mines

Currently I’m sitting on a shitty stool in the corner of West Danbury’s Staples writing this to keep my brain from becoming complete mush. It’s about 8:20 a.m. and the first hour and a half of my shift has been utterly pointless. Currently people are congregating in the self serve to make copies of god knows what. It’s almost sad because as someone approaches me, I keep closing this document as to not get caught. We lost our internet and are basically told we should be standing or cleaning in any downtime. I clean at night (if I close) and refuse to stand for my pitiful hourly wage. Basically my job is a pathetic joke. Ironically I do know that staples can log right into this computer RIGHT now and see exactly what I am typing. I assume if they read this they might fire me, but considering the lack of good employees who stay around, I feel pretty secure.

Some more smucks keep coming into the self yet none ask me for help, hilarious. They fail to realize the high prices they are paying for copies is letting me write a rant about their uselessness. I often wonder what they think of me, especially considering how harshly my mind thinks about their existence most of the time. I think one thing I have over all these people is they I know how to plan in advance. I think I fucking learned that in kindergarten. So many people save things for the last minute and expect miracles from me. Sorry, I’m not Jesus of the Copy Land, d-bag. Have fun listening to your boss rip you a new one.

Currently there is a lady in the self serve… she has basically set up her own little cute office. She has a cup of coffee, a laptop, she has been blabbing on her phone for about hmm… 30 minutes… and she is driving me absolutely crazy…. Where is my cover, I need fresh air and a coffee.

So moving on… I purchased some paper and ink so I can keep sending out my portfolio in the hopes of landing a job. It got me thinking about the dynamics of it all. There is a substantial amount of money that has to keep going into this process for printing, binding and sending them out, yet nothing seems to be working out, so partially my shitty job is fueling my failure to get a better job. Thankfully my mother helps me out with some of the cost to keep printing.

It's annoying because I still seem to be week to week, regardless of what I do. Honestly how do they expect people to live off this amount of money? If I didn’t have student loans, left for work 4 hours early to bike there, had no need for any sort of food, didn’t pay for insurance, ditched my cell, worked 40 hours a week …. I still wouldn’t be able to afford to move out and remain in this area. HOW PATHETIC IS THAT?! What is wrong with this area, or what the fuck is wrong with the economy? I’m making slightly above minimum wage yet the possibility of being independent is impossible… in my no-cost scenario then I could probably just swing it with a roommate. Too bad we need food to survive, eh?

I’m organizing a much more ambitious portfolio sending early next week. Expect to see my shots on the cover of Spin in the next month. I personally feel I’ve been incredibly pessimistic and harsh about things lately (I kind of feel bad)… must be the environment I’m surrounded in… Ha, yeahhh…. If anyone actually reads this… and if they actually got this far, I’m impressed, send me and e-mail and I’ll buy ya a beer next time I see ya.

Bonaventure Art and Media Fair 2008

This years BAM is right around the corner. I helped start and run the original version two years ago. With the help of Rebecca Dahl and Dr. Mark Huddle we were able to create something so out of place yet so perfect.

This years events will only be one day. Hopefully this will make things easier for everyone and keep peoples attention. The saddest part is this is almost marking the year anniversary of my graduation... time surely flies, even when you're not having fun.

I'll have a post BAM follow up no doubt.

fuck me up, steal my records

It was time for another fisherman's weekend, so I grabbed my ax, camera and picked up the essentials. Here are some of the highlights. . .

On Friday night Angel, Brian and I came back upstairs to find Alpaugh playing guitar. We were slightly messed up, but all about playing guitar. As silent as Navy Seals we closed the door, I took a drink of my white russian... as the glass hit the table we all chimed in together playing Ryan Adam's Come Pick Me Up.

Little did any of us know Alpaugh was recording it the entire time. Ha, it came out fairly cool if you ask me.

Saturday was mostly recovery and some production before stealing Alpaugh's brothers Rock Band and playing that all night. We also enjoyed some sick pizza.

Sunday we found ourselves in the studio for a live video session. We all had to get out shit together and relearn some old songs. I think it went very well, everyone had a blast.

Okay enough about that... check out www.boathouserecords.com and www.fishermansfavoritedreams.com

I'm off to the coal mines! (aka the copy and print center)

save me a pint.

So I finishing reading Tucker Max’s collection of stories after a recommendation as my initial chuckle at the title. So let’s start out with the obvious Tucker is an absolute ass-hole. The kind of scum that you typically laugh at and thank god you’re not like him. This said, he is one of the well-spoken & witty writers. I was hooked to the book.

The descriptions of his friends are hilarious and very relatable. SlingBlade is my personal favorite. The description of his apartment is killer. I also love his complete hatred of the average slutty bar girl. Things like this play a nice contrast to Tucker that lets the chaos of the book really take off.

I think part of the appeal of a work like this is the ability to get into a different mind. It's like watching people and wondering what makes them tick. This was my dive into the mind of an over intelligent arrogant closeted-self-conscious pompous jerk. And it was fun.

If I ever meet this guy, I don't know what I would do. He would obviously get internally nervous but then counter balance it with overconfidence and drink more. I'd probably think he was even more of a dick and regret enjoying reading his book so much.

I'm diving into Klosterman's IV now. Sadly I have yet to find a chapter that I've loved yet, but I just started it so I have faith.

Cheers!