No deep philosophical musings today, just silliness because its five in the fucking morning. I need to adjust my sleep schedule before monday, when classes start.

Anyhoo...

I saw my death today. It came to me as if in a dream. I had a premonition, you could say. Almost an epiphany, but not. I don't know when and I don't know exactly how, but I will die because of Cheetohs. Perhaps I'll be hit by a truck carrying Cheetohs. Perhaps a ton of Cheetohs will be dropped onto me and I'll suffocate trying to escape from the pile. Perhaps I'll simply choke on a Cheetoh, perhaps at a movie that I smuggled a bag of them into because concession stands are so damn expensive, and the management will refuse to revive me because I wasn't supposed to have it in there anyway. Or perhaps the radioactive orange cheez (not cheese) dust will build up in my lungs and cause a brand new disease that I can die from and can then be named after me. Maybe I could get poked in the eye, stumble about and then fall off a ledge, cliff, or the roof of a tall building, or maybe out of an airplane. I should definitely never tour the Cheetohs factory, because odds are good I would fall into the machine and be turned into Cheetohs myself. Maybe I'll put an Cheetohs bag over my head in an attempt to make some kind of joke and accidentally asphyxiate myself that way. Or I could be forced into a dramatic gunfight like in a John Woo movie, but since I have radioactive orange cheez dust all over my fingers, I'll have to pause and lick my fingertips clean (I don't want to get radioactive orange cheez dust on my gun, obviously) and in that little interval I'll be shot fourteen times in the head, chest, stomach, shoulders, and arms. I mean fourteen times total, not for each location.

That's all the ways I can think of right now that Cheetohs can kill me. I know there are more, and perhaps the one that will day get me is one that I would have never considered. I just hope its not 'get fat from eating a lot of Cheetohs and die of a heart attack while climbing stairs to some store to get more Cheetohs.' That's the one way I don't want to go. Pretty ignominious, I say.

  posted by Matthew @ 5:37 AM

 
I'm giddy, absolutely giddy.

I have cable! My internet connection has just been quickened exponentially. (I don't mean that literally, I'm just using it for emphasis)

And here's what's really got me giddy (I wouldn't have known without the internet connection): Al Franken is publishing a book called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." Yes, its blatantly partisan, but with people like Anne Coulter out there, its necessary to have somebody working for the other team. Anyway, Fox News brought a lawsuit against the publisher of the book, because they had supposedly trademarked the words "fair & balanced" for their slogan. They said that this book was intended to benefit from Fox's popularity and confuse its viewers.

The judge practically laughed them out of the building at the first hearing. Try and find some quotes, because its just glorious, at least to me. I'll give you a couple to get you going, though. He said the lawsuit was "wholly without merit" and that it was ironic that a media organization should be working so hard to undermine the first amendment. Bill O'Reilly, a fox commentator with a history of negativity with Franken, wrote a book called "The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in America" or something similiar. The judge asked Fox's lawyer if this was not very similar to the movie title "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" which is also copyrighted. Fox's lawyer replied, "I don't know."

Its hilarious how much this suit backfired. Fox News comes off looking like the idiots Franken's book is trying to make everyone realize they are, and Franken gets millions of dollars worth of free press. His book is a number one best seller on Amazon.com right now, thanks to this lawsuit. I think its one the best things I've heard in recent memory.

Cheers!

  posted by Matthew @ 6:07 PM

 
"Funny how fate plays tricks on us that way..."

Yesterday, I was railing against love songs and relationships in general. I was as cynical as I'd been in recent memory. I felt like I could not appreciate anything that wasn't entirely ironic. Last night, I would have turned up my nose at any kind of sincerity that anyone would have put in front of me, and dismissed it as absurd or drivel.

Well, I was clearly mistaken, in a large part. My cynicism has all but melted away today. I'm still confused about love, no question. But I don't think I'm so skeptical about its existence. I believe that it's real again tonight. I heard some love songs that I have to believe in, and that did it for me.

Warren Zevon released The Wind today. A year ago, he was diagnosed with mesothilioma. Rather than wallow and spend his last days locked in his room or running with his tail between his legs to some beach in Mexico (both courses of action which I would have been unable to hold against him) he decided to head to the studio and go out with a bang, releasing one last album. In his three and a half decade long career, he put out a lot of songs that had the sentiment of "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" (the title of one of his songs, in fact) and now, he put his money where his mouth is. He recorded that album, actually living to see its release.

This is one piece of art that cannot, cannot, cannot be removed from its context. Released by some no-name artist, with nothing known about him, its a good album. Its okay, its got some good songs. But, when its released by Zevon, at this time, its absolutely incredible. I hope and pray that when my time is up, I'm able to go out with as much aplomb and dedication. I can see how the prospect of imminent death can make one a little lackluster at times. He has some songs that are his ordinary rock songs - I like them, but they're not my favorite. Bruce Springsteen plays a mean guitar on "Disorder in the House" though.

But his ballads, oh his ballads... First of all, there's a startlingly appropriate cover of Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" which is already my favorite version of that song. At the end, he shouts "Open up, open up, open up for me..." as the music fades. There's the last track, which rips my heart into pieces. Its called "Keep Me In Your Heart for a While" and features the line "If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less." He's since admitted that he almost regrets it, because it might come across as a 'woe is me' song. I think - in his position - he can do that. And that's not even what gets to me. The love songs on this album are real. Honest-to-goodness, stripped bare of pretense and irony, entirely sincere love songs. "She's Too Good for Me", "El Amor de mi Vida" and "Please Stay" are all in their own way heart-wrenching.

"She's Too Good for Me" is, in perfect Zevon fashion, a love song about love lost. That's what he does best, and that's what speaks to me most at this point. "I want her to be happy. I want her to be free. I want her to be everything she couldn't be with me." That's love right there, isn't it? "I have everything she wants, and nothing that she needs." This is my kind of love song, apparently. I can sympathize with this, I can understand it. I don't know. I think what it really is that I found the softie inside me again, for a little while. I can't say I'm not glad.

"El Amor de mi Vida" is about somebody Zevon lost, once again. The chorus is exactly what I was deriding last night so furiously, albeit in Spanish. "You are the love of my life. If only I could find you. With all my heart I would tell you, you are my one true love." Why, why, why does it mean something when I hear it in this context? He's singing about a girl he lost, and he's glamorizing the past. I know it. But... A part of me thinks that he really did have something special with her, something I can't even begin to understand. And he's written the song to tell her; he's setting his affairs in order. The rest of the song is no less meaningful. "I only wish it had been us, but I'm happy for your happiness." Again, I understand that. Even when the people I've loved in the past found something they wanted with somebody other than me, I'm glad that they found somebody. Maybe that's closer to real love. Real love would mean you can't be jealous when the other person loves somebody else, right? It'd have to, I think.

And the kicker, "Please Stay" is a stark and simple piece. The lyrics are minimal, but they get right to the heart of things. Unlike the other two love songs, this one is written to the person Zevon was actually with, not a memory or a glamorization. Its written to his girlfriend, and it's the most powerful admission of his fear of what he's heading towards. "Please stay. Two words I've thought I'd never learn to say... Don't leave me here when so many things so hard to see are clear. I need you near to me. Will you stay with me to the end? When there's nothing left but you and me and the wind." Zevon's voice is already deteriorating on this track, its obvious that he's weak. (he recorded the last several tracks at his home, as he was too sick to make it to the studio) And to make it even worse for me, the lyrics mix with an achingly beautiful saxophone solo. The solo saxophone is without question my favorite instrument. I just find it to be incredibly moving. This album brings me to tears, I'll admit it. And that's reassuring, because I know I'm not the cynic I'm scared of becoming, at least not yet.

It took Zevon 56 years to learn how to say "Please stay." I think its probably a little unfair of me to complain of my problems in that area with a mere 19 behind me. Thank you Warren, you've revived the Romantic (capital-R) and sentimentalist inside me. And just 24 hours ago I was thinking that it all seemed hardly worth it. Like Jim White says, "Funny how fate plays tricks on us that way."

  posted by Matthew @ 2:58 AM

 
I don't believe in love songs anymore. I used to, I think. Though I have no idea why. All of that "I'll love you forever" stuff doesn't make any sense to me anymore. Nobody loves anyone forever. It doesn't happen these days, and I don't know if it ever really did. Even if somebody thinks they mean it when they say it, they don't really. Billy Joel wrote the lyrics, "Don't go changing to try and please me... I love you just the way you are." And he's alone now. He and his third wife split up. He meant it when he wrote it, I'm sure. But it clearly wasn't true. I mean, he was with Christie Brinkley for a period. The words always (or forever) and love should never go in the same sentence together. In his screenplays for Roxanne and L.A. Story (not to mention shopgirl and his plays)Steven Martin writes some absolutely incredible romantic dialogue. He is also alone these days, despite having dated two women who are at or the near the top of my personal "incredibly attractive" list: Bernadette Peters and Helena Bonham Carter (Victoria Tennant, too!) And yet, he's alone.

"Love you forever and forever, love you with all my heart..." Its crap. Absurd, meaningless drivel. Its a lie, plain and simple. Not a malicious one necessarily, because the people who say it think that its true, more often than not. But whether or not they want to, people change as time passes. They drift apart, or maybe just realize that their previous closeness was illusory, or predominently imagined. I have no evidence to suggest that all the couples who have stayed together aren't just lying to themselves, or sticking it out solely because its easier than dealing with the breakup, or maybe just satisfied with the routine.

I'm going to stop looking (I'd like to say I already have, but I know I know myself better than that) for a "perfect" or "true" love, because I'll never find it. And the false hope is slowly killing me. I don't know what exactly I'll be looking for instead.

I think perhaps the only course of action, one that I imagine has been taken by a good number of people in my position, is to write love stories and live vicariously through my characters. I'd be perpetuating the myth, but I'd also be able to survive. Maybe that's the only way it keeps going.

Then again, I'm more likely than not being overly dramatic and pissed at the fact that I have gone nearly 19 and a half years on the planet without even a moment of time spent as somebody's "boyfriend." I'm reminded, in a sick and twisted way, of my problems getting a job. Since I had little to no experience previously, I couldn't get my foot in the door anywhere. Well, its tricky getting your start when you're nearly twenty when it comes to relationships, too.

Seems hardly worth it, sometimes.

  posted by Matthew @ 3:04 AM