Nostalgia

TOP 10 BANDS RIGHT NOW (most played on iTunes)
1. The Strokes
2. The Apples In Stereo
3. The Kinks
4. The Features
5. The Futureheads
6. Of Montreal
7. Oasis
8. The New Pornographers
9. The White Stripes
10. Starlight Mints

TOP 10 BANDS in 8th GRADE (and this is in like order)
1. Oasis
2. Sheryl Crow
3. Everclear
4. Third Eye Blind
5. The Wallflowers
6. Semisonic
7. Fastball
8. The Gin Blossoms
9. The Spice Girls
10. Matchbox 20

CURRENT TOP TEN SONGS ON iTUNES (in most-played order)
1. The Strokes "You Only Live Once"
2. The Kinks "Picture Book"
3. The Futureheads "Area"
4. The Strokes "Juicebox"
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Way Out"
6. LiLIPUT "Split"
7. Roxy Music "Street Life"
8. The Jam "Start!"
9. Starlight Mints "Pumpkin"
10. Starlight Mints "Seventeen Devils"

TOP 10 SONGS in 8th GRADE (no order)
Semisonic "Closing Time"
Fastball "Sooner Or Later"
Matchbox 20 "Real World"
The Wallflowers "One Headlight"
Sheryl Crow "A Change (Would Do You Good)"
Third Eye Blind "The Background"
The Verve "Bittersweet Symphony"
Oasis "Be Here Now"
Everclear "Everything To Everyone"
The Gin Blossoms "Til I Hear It From You"


Now I really want to load my iPod with these songs. Curse my CD collection being in Tennessee!

TV: Lost "Enter 77"

TEASER: Cows! I totally forgot about Patch Eye; just shows how much stuff this show tosses at you. Four minutes in and I already hope this is the episode that Sawyer kills New Guy. Nothing wrong with him except for his uselessness and shoehorning in. How is it a good idea to stick this new guy in every episode and...give him nothing to do? Seriously, I'd rather have Boone than Hispanic Boone.

ACT ONE: Last living member? Is he telling the truth? Are the Others others even to Dharma? One thing for sure, THANK GOD these people ACTUALLY TALKED TO SOMEONE! Yes! Asking questions gives answers! And that look New Guy gave at the ping pong table leads me to believe he may be a ping pong champ. Useless no more?

ACT TWO: Looks like Lindelof & Cuse decided to give the fans something to talk about. A whole scene where a mysterious figure actually talks, answers questions, and does so without causing our heads to explode by unveiling more mysteries. If it's all true, the Others/hostiles have nothing to do with Dharma, which means we both know more about them and less about them. Only on Lost. Oh, but Sayid thinks Patch Eye is lying and we all know how right he was about Henry/Ben. Plus, Sayid's backstory is interesting. Fake names and food!

ACT THREE: Get some rope!! Man, I missed Sayid. And it looks like all the stuff we learned may be false. Oh well, the writers are still on the right track. Maybe next time an info dump will actually be relevant. Sayid's backstory is pretty good, although I can't remember if we've seen an atoning story with him. So much atoning on this show. Oh, and New Guy doesn't even play ping pong. What the heck, Lost?! This guy needs a reason for being ASAP!

ACT FOUR: Hanso talks about the hostiles! That means they're real and Patch Eye may have been truthful! Yay somewhat solved mysteries! Oh, and Locke is the worst guard. Ever. He's distracted way easily. "Ooooh computer chess!" "Ooooh paternal figure!" And poor Ms. Klugh! I'll be searching the internet for that translation soon.

ACT FIVE: A backstory that fits with the current story! Awesome! Of course the building gets blown up and thus destroys contact with the outside world. I'm just glad Kate and Locke weren't in there, thus leading to a lame "they're dead but we all know better" story that would stretch on for a while, with no one telling anyone else that the other party is alive / dead / captured / whatever. And yes, everything Patch Eye said...is true. This is a good feeling. Me likey.

MY SCORE: **** (out of 5)

You're Going To Love The Features Or Else

My friend Matt linked me to a blog post about The Features (myspace page with music!) that is not only great reading, but mirrors my feelings for the band exactly. It perfectly captures what they mean to me, albeit with some minor changes. It does not, however, capture how much I miss that band and all the people associated with them.

But now I have a mission: some way, somehow, I'm going to expose that band to as many New Yorkers as possible. If you want a mix CD of this band, let me know and I will give you one. Of course, I have to be able to give it to you in person since I'm a loser when it comes to mailing CDs. But if you are interested and like the two music videos I made for them (because I spent a lot of time on windows movie maker in college), I'll hook you up.

And if you don't like the videos below, then still ask for one. Because they're even better than this.

Slippery People

Awesome picture from Spider-Man 3. Too excited. Good comics this week that, yeah, I'm not going to review. Okay, I should write an entry dedicated to the last issue of the Vaughan/Alphona Runaways. Yeah, I'm sure I'll do that at some point...

Saturday afternoon I went to improv practice in a short sleeve shirt and my corduroy suit coat. Today, right now, there's a whole mess o' snow blowin' outside the window. This insane shift in weather reminds me of Tennessee. How I miss home.

The new apartment is going well. I have it all to myself and will have it all to myself for the forseeable future. I'm acting like this is a good thing even though I still have absolutely no, no, no nonono way of paying for it. Okay, I can pay for it and will but the eating is now becoming optional. Oh, and don't expect pictures anytime soon since Thuggy McRobberson took my camera. But the framed pictures of my favorite bands/tv shows have started going up and now that I know I'm roommateless, I can conquer the living room.

I've been having a great 2007 (is the beast dead?) this past week and a half. It's crazy how meeting someone can change your outlook and whatever; I finally feel like I'm meeting people and all that...like I have a social life. It helps to have a person to be social with (no way I'd go to a birthday party in the Bronx alone). I've gone record shopping too, thanks to being with someone who knows their way around. I found actual Squeeze CDs, albums, not the greatest hits...but the money problem from the previous paragraph keeps these things from coming home with me. That's fine.

This has been a great couple days for improv. I saw TJ & Dave on Friday night, which was mighty inspiring. I can only hope to one day be that intelligent and dedicated; until then I'll keep playing creepy clowns and imposter astronauts from the USSR. Which is what I did this weekend during my two practice sessions and 201 class. It's nice to see myself improving, although a couple times this weekend I pretty much blanked out during some scenes because I really had no clue what was going on, which is a problem I haven't had before. So I guess when one problem disappears a new one hops on.

I got to see Davis and his wife Amanda last night, extremely randomly. I didn't even know they were up here for spring break, so it was a pleasant surprise. Make note: I enjoy visitors and now have a pretty gnarly place for people to stay at. Yes, gnarly.

I'm extremely exhausted (another aspect of being social and wanting to spend time with someone) which is both well worth it and, um, tiring. I'm exhausted which is tiring. I just typed that, albeit with a big ol parenthetical statement in there.

I don't have internet at home yet. That'll be fixed at some point.

Boring blog, but things are going well.

Comic Cuts

The new apartment is cutting significantly into my money and some things have to go. I'm down to the unlimited 1-at-a-time plan on NetFlix ($5 saved a month), so the next thing to are the underperforming comics. Every comic I read is graded on a scale of 1-10 using Pitchfork's old standards, and then the comics I currently collect are ranked in order based on their three most recent issues. This helps me monitor which titles I love and which have declined. Here are the first two to be cut.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
First Issue Bought: (volume 2) #40/(volume 1) #481, June 2002
Last Issue Bought: (volume 1) #537, February 2007
Total Issues Bought: 57
Length Of Collecting: 4 years, 8 months

I first started buying Amazing Spider-Man on the strength of Spider-Man 2; I love that movie. John Romita Jr. was the penciler back then and he and JMS, the writer, were doing truly strong and important stories with Spider-Man. The book felt fresh, exciting, and new, not to mention gorgeously drawn by my favorite artist. The book peaked here.

After Romita Jr. left, Mike Deodato was brought on. His art always seemed too early 90s and not as defined as it should be. Plus there's all sorts of juicy gossip on message boards about Deodato being the Carlos Mencia of pencilers, but he's nowhere near as bad as Roger Cruz. This change gave us "Sins Past," "Skin Deep" and a series of issues dealing with Spider-Man's joining the New Avengers. Okay stories, "Skin Deep" being the strongest of the bunch. Then it all went downhill, with "The Other" and both the lead-up and tie-in with "Civil War" being, really, just boring.

I've been collecting Amazing Spider-Man just to be collecting it for a while, so it's time for it to go.

ULTIMATE X-MEN
First Issue Bought: #16, May 2002
Last Issue Bought: #79, April 2007
Total Issues Bought: 64
Length Of Collecting: 4 years, 11 months

This is a tough one. I read the first two Ultimate arcs in trade paperback before picking up with the book monthly at the start of "World Tour." Millar's hype-machine and antics made the book stand out until he left with #33, but he never really impressed me. It was always good. Never great. I thought the book was going to be great when Brian Michael Bendis took over with #34, but by the time he left at #45, the book was still just okay. Bendis did two action packed arcs and keept up the level of insanity that Millar is known for.

I stuck with the book then just because, I guess, I had the money to. I hadn't heard of Brian K. Vaughan and had no expectations. His first two arcs, "The Tempest" and "Cry Wolf", were okay but nothing spectacular. Then Ultimate X-Men became the best x-book being made. Vaughan remade Dazzler and sent the team to Krakoa and a twisted version of Longshot which showed that Vaughan was really getting the hang of the team dynamic. Vaughan was nailing the chemistry that made the X-Men so successful in the 80s. Vaughan went out with a bang, "Magnetic North" being one of the best X-Men tales of the past five years.

Robert Kirkman, great writer, took over with issue #66 and he seemed to be continuing Vaughan's love of 80s X-Men. Still, his stories didn't resonate the way Vaughan's did and the series really went off the track with the mediocre "Magical" and the what-was-he-thinking "Cable." The title doesn't feel special anymore and now that X-Factor is around and the two main x-titles are the best they've been in years, this doesn't cut it.


I have a feeling more cuts are on the way, especially since I'm interested in Mighty Avengers and have to buy the new Buffy comic. If Ms. Marvel's new direction doesn't tighten the book and if New Avengers doesn't start telling stories again, they're next.

February Mixtastic

The New Pornogaphers "Chump Change"
Oasis "Cloudburst"
Weezer "Susane"
Beck "Think I'm In Love"
Franz Ferdinand "Cheating On You"
The Arcade Fire "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)"
Apples In Stereo "Sun Is Out"
The Features "Concrete (live @ Grand Palace)"
The Dandy Warhols "The Dandy Warhols' TV Theme"
The Quik "Bert's Apple Crumble"
The Beatles "Polythene Pam"
The Hives "Main Offender"
Semisonic "Falling"
Wire "Feeling Called Love"
REM "Exhuming McCarthy"
The White Stripes "Party Of Special Things To Do"
Clinic "Porno"
Be Your Own Pet "Wildcat!"
The Walkmen "New Years Eve"
Roxy Music "If It Takes All Night"
The La's "I Can't Sleep (BBC session)"
Squeeze "Slap & Tickle"
Television "Marquee Moon"
Talking Heads "Artists Only (live)"
The Go! Team "Bottle Rocket"
The Kinks "Big Sky"
The Zombies "Care Of Cell 44"
The B-52's "52 Girls"
Devo "Gut Feeling / (Slap Your Mammy)"
The Buzzcocks "Everybody's Happy Nowadays"

Home is where I want to be.

The parents got in to NYC at midnite Monday night/Tuesday morning with the Pathfinder full of the winter coats (too late), shoes, records, most of my DVD library, and a couple hundred comics. We went to sleep and woke up early Tuesday morning to go to the management place to sign the lease and have my Dad turn in his guarantor thing. The Pathfinder is so crammed full of stuff, I have to sit up front on the gear shift/in my mom's lap for an hour while we wade through horrible BQE traffic. We get to the management place and are firmly told, for the first time mind you, that it's a no go. My dad lives in TN and can't be a guarantor due to crazy NY law. I make enough money to qualify for a $500 a month place, which does not exist. I haven't been at my job long enough. Blah blah blah, nevermind the fact that the landlord is fine with it as is the broker. But still, harsh no and no guarantor means no apartment. Something they could have informed me of when they asked for one or when I said I had one. I guess they just assume that all guarantors live in New York. I guess that's what Staten Island is for, guarantor colonies.

The frantic call goes to the broker after this meeting since, hello, I am homeless on Thursday and only have a two day window to move. Plus Pathfinder full of junk. Broker shows us to a crack den, a two bedroom crack den no-less! Broker shows us to an okay/small two-bedroom with all sorts of tools and half-finished projects in it! Not ready yet! Broker shows us a crazy inconvenient two bedroom that's a bit bigger but insanely ugly and, also, not finished (a door was off the hinges). In the midst of this insanity, it becomes apparent that we have to look at one bedroom apartments, so broker takes us to a nice little neighborhood to a privately owned house/building that rents out the floors. Bottom floor, huge bedroom, a foyer and living room of equal size, adorable green colored living room, new appliances, retro-ish cabinets, pink tile bathroom...lovely. The guy living there was moving out that day, so it was a tight fit but it would work. Broker got the rent down a hundred dollars and, oh, UTILITIES INCLUDED.

After lots of soul-searching, we took it. I started moving in around 9:00 PM, 12 hours later than planned. We got two Pathfinder loads in before heading back to Brooklyn for the last night and to finish the cleaning. We woke up early Wednesday morning, finished packing and cleaning, and had our final run in with the landlord. My mom called him and left him a harsh voicemail (deserved) and told him that we need our security deposit back. He showed up and saw that, wow, no holes in the apartment. The damage we inflicted by not keeping the door or window open when showering was apparently not as bad as he knew it would be.

Then he starts in on giving me a life lesson about Saturday. In front of my parents. I'm not having this.

"You have to understand that I have 60 days to show apartment!"
"You have the common courtesy to call me, like you said you would, before you do. And I don't appreciate you insulting me like that, especially in front of people you're trying to rent to."
"Hey! I sixty eight years old!"
"Then act like it! We just want our money and to go, drop it."
"You need to learn respect, blah blah blah--"
"I have two parents to tell me this stuff, I don't need to hear it from you."

My parents are holding me back, which is odd since it's usually me and my dad holding Mom back. He starts in with my mother,

"I show apartment to black lady, I no rent to black lady--"
"Which is a great policy, by the way. Real nice" I was done with his racism. He started in on me again and I realized that this was retarded. I slammed the keys on the counter.
"I don't have to listen to you anymore. I'm done."

I left the apartment and took the toaster and rug down to the Pathfinder. My parents were in there for another half hour. They finally come out, we load up, and apparently he's not sure about the security deposit since there are scratches on the stove. That were there when we moved in. That we have pictures of. That also come from using the stove. This is a landlord that expects you to, seriously, hover at all times in the apartment and eat take-out in a Mind Bubble so as to not get anything anywhere. I hope he is chopped up and left in a garbage can by black people, which is the reasoning he gave to my parents justifying his renting habits.

We got the final load to Astoria and unloaded it and began the unpacking process. Things are good. It's not convenient train-wise...at all really, but it's a place that feels like home.

And after the last two days, that's all I want.