Comic for Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Posted: 8:35 am, Thursday, March 22nd

Because I have nothing else planned to post, I'm doing a meme from Tom the Dog's site. It's another random shuffle of the iPod one, to scenes from the film of my life. Considering that I'm sitting in the office as I write this, this may not be cheery if we get into much Bright Eyes. (By the way, and I realize probably not a lot of you out there have either seen this ad or are familiar with Bright Eyes, but there's YMCA ad right now that I swear to God is using the music from Lua, pretty much the most depressing song I've ever heard in my life, but with kids singing about going to the Y or something. I'm so utterly confused by this ad that I'd almost prefer the anti-smoking ads New York was running with fat-clogged arteries.)(OK, so, no, not at all. I just thought I'd mention those, too.)

Opening credits: "Givin' Up," the Darkness. And we're off to a roaring start! Truly, what could be a better song to roll over the opening credits of a film based on my life than a song about heroin? If I could only tell you guys how much heroin I've done over my life. Sickboy ain't got nothin' on me. The only way this could work is as an instrumental of me getting up and going to high school or something. Actually, I don't even really give up that easily,

Waking up: Oh, Lord, it's something off the CD Reggie Ho gave me when I got engaged. This is bound to also be appropriate. Skid Row's "Remember You." This is a lot of hair metal for a movie about my life. I guess the director went with farce? Also, this is awfully dramatic for a scene with me waking up. Which reminds me of the time I put NOFX's "The Decline" on the stereo when I was making breakfast once in my old apartment and 2.0 told me it was like waking up and eating an onion right away.

First day of school: "We Are the Few," Streetlight Manifesto. Nothing like following up screaming guitar with super-fast ska. Wait, first day of school? Didn't I just wake up? How old was I when I was waking up? Is this one a flashback? Was I waking up as a five year old to Skid Row? It might be era-appropriate, but age-appropriateness would've had me wake up to the He-Man theme song. Anyway, God, check out how many lyrics are in this song. Well, "we miss you here in hell" is appropriate to my high school, at least. Moving on.

Falling in love: "Ready to Die," Andrew W.K. That sounds precisely accurate. This soundtrack is awesome, but if it's got any narrative relation to the flick, I think the movie must suck.

First love song: "Lowdown," Lali Puna. This may be the most appropriate song so far, in that this is a mostly wordless piece of atmospheric electronica. I got this album from a buddy of mine over in France, and it's actually pretty good. Granted, I know nothing of electronica - even listening to SF-UR in San Andreas is impossible for me.

Breaking up: "Complete or Completing," Annuals. I've only listened to this one a few times. I kind of like their really complex arrangements. I guess that could metaphorical for the complexity of emotions when you're breaking up with someone? I couldn't find the lyrics anywhere, but the Daily Collegian says this song sounds like a tune off Pet Sounds, if Brian Wilson took acid. Which I'm almost positive he did. (Wikipedia's got my back on this. One of the most paralytic fits of laughter I've ever had in my life was actually when I first learned of Wilson's drug history and imagined him performing California Girls in the middle of a bad trip. I couldn't talk for like five minutes, and everyone around me wondered what was wrong with me even more than usual.)

Prom: I like that this meme gives me the credit for falling in love, having a love song, and breaking up all before prom. I see they've taken some creative license with my life. "Whoo! Alright - Yeah ... Uh Huh," the Rapture. More electronica-ish that I've never really listened to. Eh, whatever.

Mental Breakdown: "Sabre Dance," Aram Khachaturian. You totally know this one if you hear it, and it's actually kind of fitting. Probably the most fitting song so far on this mess of a soundtrack.

Driving: "Giving Up, Giving In," Streetlight Manifesto. Geez, a repeat? I have like 25 of their songs out of 4,892 on my iPod. Still, fast and frantic, which Tree and 2.0 will tell you is approrpiate for my driving.

Flashback: Wait, now there's a flashback? This movie makes less sense than my actual life does. I think this is going to bomb at the box office. Oh, God. "The Crane Wife 1 and 2," the Decemberists. The Decemberists make pretty music, but I'm actually not much of a fan. I'd totally have skipped over the last two if that weren't against the rules. I swear, most of my music is by bands people have heard of. Well, 40%, anyway. Uh, I guess this song could be used in a flashback to my growing up on the farm. It's kind of nice, pastoral-ish music.

Getting back together: "Like Spinning Plates," Radiohead. Hey, that's funny, beacuse the Sabre Dance is performed to plate spinning a lot. But who the hell am I getting back together with? The phantom girl from the prom? The only person I've ever gotten back together with was my freshman year girlfriend, and I guess that is a lot like spinning plates, because it was just as ill-advised as going out with her in the first place, and ended the exact same way.

Wedding: "Track 08," Anti-Flag. I don't have the tracklisting for this CD (again, provided by Reggie Ho). It's not "When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want to Kill You," although I suppose that would've been appropriate for the weddin' o' me and 2.0. I don't know, this is all a bit fast and thrashy for a wedding, and we're considering a lot of songs for the wedding.

Birth of Child: "Scarecrow," Beck. Why is birth of child right after wedding, huh? What the hell, just because we're married, we have to have a kid right away? Who wrote this list, an overbearing mother?

Final Battle: "Kingpin," Wilco. With... my newborn child? And "Kingpin"? Is our final battle one of dueling banjos? This movie makes less sense than Run, Lola, Run. Which actually makes sense, it's just very random and not particularly interesting.

Death Scene: "Track 04," 7 Seconds. More hardcore, courtesy Reggie Ho. I find it funny that my best man evidently scored my life. Also, what, I die in the final battle with my newborn? Apparently, if 2.0 and I procreate, we have Rosemary's baby. Adoption it is!

Funeral song: "Why Would You Wanna Live?" Wilco. Ha! It's like, "I'm dead, why would the rest of you want to go on living?" I totally agree with this choice. Screw you mourners, I'm dead, you should all want to die, too. Awesome.

End credits: "It Could Have Been You," the Eyeliners. Not an original option in the meme, but if we've got opening credits, we need end ones, too. But, man, not a single Pumpkins song on this thing? Nothing from the early 90s? The odds of this, not strong. Just for shits and giggles, I'm hitting next on the iPod a few more times. Yep, four Pumpkins Song, a Pearl Jam, an Oasis, two Dylans, and four Christmas songs. Also, the end credit music from Katamari Damacy. More like what I would've thought. Oh well.

Other music stuff: How not surprising is it that Clemens was at a Nickelback concert? This is funny because I actually spent a good deal of time reading Allmusic's reviews of the Nickelback "albums" yesterday. My favorite is this one, which ends with, "they're still unspeakably awful."

And that's about it. No Lost discussion without a spoiler alert, if you don't mind - I haven't seen it the last two weeks. Get this, I missed it on purpose last night because I felt under the weather and went to bed at like nine thirty so that I didn't have to miss work today. What the hell is wrong with me? I'm insane. It's like I've been body-snatched or something.

bullfrog

That's an awesome meme. Totally stealing it.

Go watch the last two Lost eps. Good stuff.

Zero

Excuse me but what is a meme?

According to dictionary.com, it is "A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another."

On the internet, it's basically just another reason to talk about yourself or your music collection. Wikipedia's entry is a bit more germane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meme

lost is getting more bizarre by the week....

I think I just figured out how to do something in Illustrator I wanted to do last August, during the wedding storyline. Sweet.

News Flash:

A member of the John Edwards camp has just released that his wife's cancer has come back and he is likely going to drop out of the presidential race. His official statement is at noon today.

Love the dig at Duke with the VCU sweatshirt Adam is wearing.

Unless I'm completely missing some pop culture reference.

Nope. It's totally a dig at Duke. I drew these on my day off last Friday.

My friend 'Licia is probably going to start a strip where the characters go walking around in Winthrop shirts, now.

Edwards is continuing his campaign, though his wife does in fact have cancer. It is not curable, but it is, for the moment, minor.

She's a brave woman.

The Times doesn't have their story updated yet with her health condition - I would not classify an incurable cancer as minor.

I don't think I knew she was first diagnosed right when Shitwit stole the second election. Man, that's a crappy day.

What a weird aside in the now-updated Times story:

A former bankruptcy lawyer, who often spends hours a day on the Internet, she is among the campaign’s chief advisers.

Yeow! Bjork tickets were just as expensive as I thought they'd be - $76 for her shows out in California.

Not sure if anyone cares, but since I spent the last hour doing this, I thought I would post it (I only recently joined the Ipod club). KT's random movie soundtrack!:

Opening Credits: Yo La Tengo - "We're an American Band" - Not an album I listen to a lot. Somewhat depressing, ending in random loud guitars. I didn't think that a movie about my life would be an art house flick...

Waking up: Ryan Adams - "Answering Bell" - Thankfully, this is more upbeat. Talks about butterfly jars and wishing wells. Hmm… unfortunately, upbeat is not how I would describe myself in the morning by any means. Not even after my second cup of coffee.

First Day of School: The Minus 5 - "The Old Plantation" - has a nostalgic feel to it. Could definitely represent first day of school. Can't remember ever listening to this song before. I feel like the only song that people play from the Minus 5 is "The Days of Wine and Booze". Now, that would be an inappropriate first day of school song.

Falling in Love: Blur - "On the Way to the Club" - Interesting… someone appropriate. I love the chorus on this song: "And I just want to be, darling, with you, the music's made that way". Ends on somewhat of a confused/torturous note.

First Love Song: Nickel Creek - "Out of the Woods" - This is so sweet! "if this is going to run, round in my head, I might as well be dreaming". "I wish you out of the woods, and into the picture with me." My first love song is pretty naïve, that's for sure.

Breaking Up: Feist - "Let it Die" - Wow, so far, except for the opening credits, these songs have all made sense. This song is so sad and yet so beautiful at the same time. One of my favorite songs. "The saddest part, of a broken heart isn't the ending so much as the start". I swear I'm not cheating.

Prom: Train - "I Wish You Would" - Considering I didn't go to prom, this song is pretty upbeat. "I don't know if I'm going to redesign my mind" It's not like there was someone at the time that "I wish would" have asked me. After going to my 10 year reunion, I realized that it wasn't so much that I was socially awkward in high school, it was more that the people at my high school just sucked in general. This is a good 'moving on' song. I think this is the point in the moving that the producers edited things to make my life more interesting/crowd friendly.

Mental Breakdown: The New Pornagraphers "Ballad of a Comeback Kid" - this would be on the upswing of a mental breakdown, because it's too peppy otherwise.

Driving: Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter "You Are Not Gotten Here" - this song would have been more apropos of the mental breakdown song. Depressing. Maybe if I was driving through a run down neighborhood on a dingy grey day or something.

Flashback: Q and not U "No Damage Nocturne" - this movie is really all over the place. It hasn't quite decided what it wants to be. I'm not sure when this is flashing back too. Haven't listened to this album in awhile.

Getting Back Together: Stephen Malkmus "Church on White" - "but all you ever wanted was everything everything, plus the truth only bored you, half alive"

(Note: this is a long endeavor!)

Wedding: The Elected "Fireflies in a Steel Mill" - "those ideas that never get finished, well that's what we are"

Birth of a Child: Neko Case "Guided by a Wire" I love this song, but then again, it's Neko Case so how can you go wrong. "even in my darkest recollection there was someone singing my life back to me" "I could never choose the ones to love. And the ones who took the credit left me reeling" "life is not a constant thing, it's only made of short stories" My child is going to grow up plucky and a little bit country!

Final Battle: Counting Crows "Raining in Baltimore" - Again, depressing. I need to get some more upbeat music! This would be a really boring battle scene, unless it was done in some kind of artful slow-motion. "You get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way" This song would be better for the Death scene, below.

Death Scene: Jens Lekman "Jens Lekman's Farewell Song to Rocky Dennis" - My Ipod seems to be picking a lot of solo artists. "I wish I had a proper reason to cry, a reason not so abstract" Can't say that I've ever listened to this song before. Sad and upbeat at the same time. "I could have made all those right decisions, but now I don't know where my friend is"

Funeral Song: The Magnetic Fields "Sunset City" - I like it. It's a more optomistic good bye song, like I'm choosing to move on: "I don't care what people say, life is too short to hang around. So I stay so long in a place and then move on to the next town" "And in the morning, I'll be gone, for other towns and other lives." "And I won't miss you and you won't cry."

End Credits: Neko Case "Margaret vs. Pauline" - right about now, the movie goers are filing out thinking, 'what the heck did we just see'. This song is contemplative enough to walk out to.

Nothing's more fun than hitting random on the iPod. OK, well, a lot of things are. But this is still fun.

Like you, Bullfrog, my soundtrack didn't hit on the artists that are most populous in my Ipod - such as Modest Mouse, American Analog Set or DeathCab. Although any life soundtrack set to Modest Mouse would be pretty f-ed up, unless you just played "Float On" over and over again. "Workin' on Leavin' the Livin'" could be a very literal death/funeral song.

Hey, I just realized, nobody pointed out the Al Bundy action Pete was working yesterday - was that a result of my lack of drawing ability, or has the genius of Married With Children already passed into the Grey Havens?

Went back and checked... hard to visualize the Al Bundy front pant hand tuck with the other leg in the way. Al would usually sit with both feet on the floor and simply let the couch envelope him and then proceeded with the ABFPHT. Usually with a satisfied smile.

I loved MWC, until they killed it with the new child (I often disavow that those episodes happen).

Probably explains my fervent attraction to Christina Applegate.... I've even watched "The Sweetest Thing".

Could I request a No Ma'am shirt on Pete?!

Dear God, I heard brutal things about the Sweetest Thing.

The only prolonged stretch of watching that show for me was during sophomore year of collitch - I've never watched more television than when I lived with the soccer team. Man, those guys watched TV constantly.

No Ma'am! Totally forgot about that. Yeah, you're right - Pete should probably be sporting more neanderthalish t-shirts from time to time.