A few weeks ago, I got a call from a friend of mine (lets call him Jimmy) who needed a ride back into town. He was in Sutton (a tiny town about 60 miles north of Anchorage). I got confused at first because when my friend (Maria) and I had left him, he was 20 miles south of Anchorage, camping in a parking lot. I realize that camping in parking lots on the side of the highway isn't considered normal in the rest of the world but it's probably the most normal part of this story.
When I asked him why he was in Sutton, he nonchalantly answered "oh! we hitchhiked! Met a really nice guy." Apparently he and his good friend (Johnny) got bored, so they grabbed two bottles and set off walking down the road with no particular destination in mind. Both of them were completely trashed by the time some young personal trainer picked them up. They quickly got to talking and it was concluded that they all would head to the strip club just outside Sutton. The caravan didn't make it that far. 20 miles from Sutton, Jimmy threw up all over the side door of the good samaritan's car. Johnny swiftly payed for the ride, grabbed Jimmy and they jumped out (though I'm told the man driving just laughed all of it off).
From there they needed to find a place to sleep. What they found was a mattress truck pulled over on the side of the road with no apparent inhabitants and clean mattresses. Obviously they took this opportunity and crashed in the back of the truck. But a few hours later, the driver of the truck came and woke them up and kindly asked them the get out. Nothing mean, the guy just needed to get his shipment to Anchorage on time. This is about the point in time when I received a call. The rest of the story isn't important. They made it back home in one piece.
The reason I'm sharing this is to point out that this shit could only happen in Alaska. The rest of the United States stopped giving rides to hitchhikers in the '60s after the beat generation turned into the 60s counterculture movement and hippies invaded the US. In a way, I guess that makes Alaskans lucky. We can pickup hitchhikers and hitchhike without the major fear that whoever you're sharing a ride with might be a serial killer or rapist. Now, I don't think I'd hitchhike alone but still if I ever need to, the opportunity is there.
I just think it's a shame no one in my generation will ever be able to experience the feeling Kerouac wrote about in his road novels. The spontaneity of just packing up and traveling across the country, and the experiences from doing so were all lost a long time ago. But at least there some opportunity to do so here, even if it is a trip across the isolated, mostly unpopulated state of Alaska.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
I never know what to do when I find out a friend or classmate dies. It's a weird feeling knowing you'll never get to see or talk to someone who you're used to seeing everyday. It's a hard thing to deal with and it's an even harder thing to accept. It's been dubbed socially unacceptable to cry. You're seen as weak and overly emotional. That being said, I can count the number of times I've cried since age 10 on two hands. I instinctively bottle everything up and when it gets to be too much I spend the entire day crying, reading, writing and listening to Simon & Garfunkel.
A friend of mine from school died last night in a plane crash. It was the same crash that killed former Alaskan Senator and major Alaskan political figure Ted Stevens. There were nine people on the plane total. Only four of those people survive, some who are severely injured. Among the five that died was my friend, her mother and the previously mentioned Ted Stevens. So far the only thing the media has focused on Stevens, which with his 41 years serving Alaska is understandable but almost no information at all has been given about the others. It's almost disgusting how desensitized to death people are. Plane crashes happen all the time in Alaska (AK alone accounts for 36% of all of the United States' plane crashes). They happen so often that the 6 o'clock news barley mentions them and the newspapers have tiny blurbs.
My friend had everything going for her. She was a part of the DDF team (drama, debate & forensics), she was in the school plays, and she was a writer for the school newspaper (which is how we became friends). She went to Harvard last year for DDF. She had a good core group of friends. And now she's gone. When talking about her death another friend of mine kept saying things like "everything happens for a reason" and "at least she lived her life to its fullest." Honestly I think that's complete bullshit. Her life and her future was stolen from her. Those phrases would be better to describe the 90 year old deceased Senator than a 16 year old high school student with a bright future.
I didn't write this to get any sympathy because that would be better suited for her father and her brother who've lost a mother/wife and a sister/daughter. My intensions for writing this were to address just how fucked up our society is when it comes to dealing with death. It's even worse to know that the environment that I group up in made me just as fucked up as everyone else. Everyone would like to think that their the exception to the rule but that's almost never the case.
A friend of mine from school died last night in a plane crash. It was the same crash that killed former Alaskan Senator and major Alaskan political figure Ted Stevens. There were nine people on the plane total. Only four of those people survive, some who are severely injured. Among the five that died was my friend, her mother and the previously mentioned Ted Stevens. So far the only thing the media has focused on Stevens, which with his 41 years serving Alaska is understandable but almost no information at all has been given about the others. It's almost disgusting how desensitized to death people are. Plane crashes happen all the time in Alaska (AK alone accounts for 36% of all of the United States' plane crashes). They happen so often that the 6 o'clock news barley mentions them and the newspapers have tiny blurbs.
My friend had everything going for her. She was a part of the DDF team (drama, debate & forensics), she was in the school plays, and she was a writer for the school newspaper (which is how we became friends). She went to Harvard last year for DDF. She had a good core group of friends. And now she's gone. When talking about her death another friend of mine kept saying things like "everything happens for a reason" and "at least she lived her life to its fullest." Honestly I think that's complete bullshit. Her life and her future was stolen from her. Those phrases would be better to describe the 90 year old deceased Senator than a 16 year old high school student with a bright future.
I didn't write this to get any sympathy because that would be better suited for her father and her brother who've lost a mother/wife and a sister/daughter. My intensions for writing this were to address just how fucked up our society is when it comes to dealing with death. It's even worse to know that the environment that I group up in made me just as fucked up as everyone else. Everyone would like to think that their the exception to the rule but that's almost never the case.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Holy Mindfuck Batman!
Every single movie that has come out in the past two years have been hit or miss for me but mostly miss. They're either completely shitty or fucking amazing. I hated Transformers. The countless explosions and visual effects don't make up for the awful plot line and script. I loved the Iron Man movies. I hated Alice in Wonderland and I thought Wolfman was hilarious (in the way that all the Twilight movies are hilarious). The amount of money put into these films is ridiculous and what's even more ridiculous is the fact that those people shellin out the money for the movie don't have any sense of how shitty the script is.
That said, Inception is probably the best film I've seen all year. The plot is incredibly interesting and there's twists everywhere. The story is told perfectly from the foreshadowing of the start to the cliffhanger ending. The acting is phenomenal. Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard give Oscar worthy performances and Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are fantastic, as usual. It definitely makes you think; I've been told you should see it more than once to fully understand it. But I've always been a firm believer in that the best kind of movies are the ones that make you think (I still love Hannibal because of this fact).
Also, if anyone has seen The Runaways, let me know if it's worth the money. I don't want to waste money on Kristen Stewart but I love Joan Jett.
Bomb the Music Industry!: The Documentary
A woman by the name of Sara Crow Goldstein is been making a documentary about Bomb the Music Industry!, the philosophies of Jeff Rosenstock, and the current DIY scene in the United States. Up until now she's been paying for the film out of her own pocket but to go any further with it, she needs help. She started a kickstarter project and it's one of the only projects that I wholeheartedly support. I have an immense love for all things Rosenstock and so I naturally will love this documentary. But for those who need more convincing, the documentary will be a deeper look at digital downloading and donation based downloads. Bomb were one of the first to give their albums away for free online (yes before Radiohead) and the documentary will go further into how the idea came about and why Rosenstock made the decision to have all his music be free. Plus it'll be nice to see some live footage of Bomb thats not shitty youtube videos.
Donate here
Bomb the Music Industry website
Donate here
Bomb the Music Industry website
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Please & Thank Yous- Mind Yr P's & Q's
So I promised these guys when Mind Your P's & Q's first came out that I would happily post a review. Five months and dozens of listens later, I'm finally getting around to it. Mind Your P's & Q's is a big improvement from their last release Thank Yous... (a compilation of live tracks and demos). The vocals are better, the hooks are bigger, the drums are more creative, the bass lines are more melodic and the lyrics are ten times stronger. The Please & Thank Yous play with such energy and such emotion that it's hard not to like them. Their sound is much more distinguished. They play pop-punk. Not the shitty Boys Like Girls pop-punk. The good pop-punk (think early The Promise Ring and The Ergs!). The Please & Thank Yous are all about simplicity and it works for them. I would highly recommend this album to any music fan. Sorry it took so long to tell you how awesome you are guys.
Key Tracks: "Be A Tree...Che?" "Speaking Of The Devil" "Fucking Honestly"
You can download the entire album for free here.
FIrst Impressions & Rock 'n' Roll Problems
For the few that read my old blog, only Brian Fallon knows why you stuck with me this long and for the new readers, hopefully you'll have enough patience and staying power to read more than one post. My last blog (bnos) focused on music rarities that I felt needed to be shared with the world. That's all fine and dandy but this one's going to be different. Sure, my main focus will still be music and sure, I'll still go off on rants and tangents but now I won't be confined to talking about just rarities. If this blog were my world, it'd be my oyster. Hopefully I won't get sick of the smell like the last one and the world won't end.
Now that introductions and explanations are taken care of, I'd like to take the time to say that I really love the Hold Steady and their amazing new album just brought that love to heights few have known. If I was Sting, I'd be singing "Every Breathe You Take" to the Hold Steady's new album. That's right, I stalk that shit. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love their old music but the main reason I listened before was of the piano and with the departure of Franz Nicolay (their piano player/multi-instramentalist) I was convinced I would hate this album. I will never doubt this band again. There isn't a song I don't like and it fits together perfectly. The album is called Heaven Is Whenever and I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. Oh, and if this album gets better with time, Craig Finn may have a new stalker fan on his hands. Here's a song from the album to give you a taste and a video of their appearance on the Colbert Report.
The Hold Steady - The Sweet Part of the City by stucky
Now that introductions and explanations are taken care of, I'd like to take the time to say that I really love the Hold Steady and their amazing new album just brought that love to heights few have known. If I was Sting, I'd be singing "Every Breathe You Take" to the Hold Steady's new album. That's right, I stalk that shit. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love their old music but the main reason I listened before was of the piano and with the departure of Franz Nicolay (their piano player/multi-instramentalist) I was convinced I would hate this album. I will never doubt this band again. There isn't a song I don't like and it fits together perfectly. The album is called Heaven Is Whenever and I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. Oh, and if this album gets better with time, Craig Finn may have a new stalker fan on his hands. Here's a song from the album to give you a taste and a video of their appearance on the Colbert Report.
The Hold Steady - The Sweet Part of the City by stucky
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Hold Steady - Hurricane J | ||||
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