Glue

So the other day I had nothing much to do, so I went to work a couple hours early and went into a couple of these cool stores down yonder on Oak Street.

I went into this thrift store called Glue and was immediately assaulted by an extreme amount of incense. The heavily dreadlocked proprietors informed me that everything in the store was 50% off. Aerosmith's Greatest Hits was playing at a louder-than-normal-for-a-store volume. Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and many more posters were like varnished or whatever into the floor. So far this store seemed pretty sweet.

I browsed through their immense selection of t-shirts, but didn't find any that really caught my eye. I then started going through the button up section, and hidden among the usual weird thrift store stuff I found like ten so out of style that they're cool western shirts, complete with yokes and pearl snaps. I found this blue Wrangler one that struck a chord with me for some reason. I'm not really sure why but I was drawn to this shirt. Maybe I saw it once or twice during my childhood or something. Anyway I tried it on, and it fit like a glove. I bought it. And one more. I had to exercise restraint to not buy a dozen cowboy shirts. It helped that the store didn't accept debit cards and I only had 15 bucks on me.

Doggs I broke my toe maybe

On Saturday there was a big game of capture the flag on campus between my dorm and another dorm. It was pretty sweet. Just like back in the day when we'd play capture the flag like every night in Branson and I'd always get these crazy allergies from all the crawling around in the grass and hiding in bushes and whatnot. Those were the days.

Anyway, I was deep in the heart of Wall's territory looking for their flag. I was being crazy sneaky, inching along this wall, when all of a sudden a Wall spotted me. He did the thing where he pointed at me and pointed at his eyes, so I knew that he knew where I was. I took off. He chased. I was running down an alley at an absolutely blinding speed, and just when I thought I was home free my shoe started slipping off. It's really hard to pull a shoe back on while you're running as fast as possible, so it just kind of fell off. Sometime between the shoe starting to fall off and the shoe being completely off I jammed my pinkie toe hardcore. I didn't notice for five or so minutes, because of all this intense adrenaline, but by the end of the night I was going "sssss aaaah" and stuff every time I took a step. When I got back to my room and looked at my foot I was like ooooh snap! Because it looked brutal. I'd take a picture and show you but it's already not that spectacular anymore. But when I woke up Sunday morning I was like holy cow because it was half again as big my other pinkie toe and the purpleness had spread an inch away from the base of my toe in every direction.

I don't think it's actually broken, but now I have a ready made excuse to not run for the next couple weeks. Also I can't wear close toe shoes without wanting to weep.

The next two weeks will not be very fun.

So due to some poor planning, I may not be posting long epic stories about my incredible life or anything in the next couple weeks. I've got a ten page paper due in eight days and a five page one due in 12. I have a Spanish oral exam tomorrow, and I've got to read a lovely book called Londinopolis by tomorrow at 9:30. I haven't started on the book.

My last exam is over on December 11 at noon, so feel free to fly me home any time after that! You can start the countdown now if ya want. Well I'm off to go study.

Hurricane Ida is weak.

So today I rolled into my music theory class and everybody was talkin' about this hurricane. I was like what hurricane? They were all haven't you been outside? I was like yeah but it's just cloudy and drizzly like it is once a week. They were all like dude it's a hurricane. I was like puh whatever.

Then the professor slides up in there and is all like okay first things first: the hurricane. This one ain't a big deal but y'all need to have a plan. I was like oh jeez am I gonna have to evacuate this bidness? I started to get a little freaked out.

After class I figured I should check the weather reports so I headed to my room and got on the computer. I clicked on the beautiful little three colored circle of joy that is Google Chrome, typed in weather.com and waited. And waited. Frustrated, I began to hit F5 over and over. After the fifteenth refresh did nothing I let out an exasperated shriek and stared at the screen in stony silence. After over a minute a lovely screen popped up. "Tulane University Technology Services has detected that your IP address has been using P2P programs for infringement of copyright laws. Since this is your first offence your web access has been cut off for fifteen minutes." It was something like that, and it went on and on. I was like oh jeez, my evil ways have finally caught up with me. I opened up uTorrent and sure enough I was illegally downloading copyrighted material. Damn.

I was so depressed that I'd finally been caught in me piratin' act that I forgot all about the hurricane. Oh well. Turns out it's just a tropical storm anyway. It's not even windy.

I got another job today

So I know I'm supposed to post like every Monday Wednesday and Friday. I know this. I made up the rule, so I know the rule. I'm really sorry people. I am aware of the fact that it's 3:14 (2:14 for you crazy Mountain time people.) on Saturday morning, but since I haven't gone to bed yet I'm gonna count this as Friday. I was gonna just wait to post until Saturday, but now at 3:15 in the morning my creative juices are flowing like the mighty Mississippi river, in which I could be swimming in around 10 minutes if I really wanted to. I don't really want to because there's mad pollution up in that water. Nasty.

Anyway, today after work I rode my bike across South Carrolton to La Macarena Pupuseria and slotted up there and put my thing down. On Tuesday I went in there and put my thing down and the dude who was working gave me a job application. I filled out that job application. Today the owner was in there and he was all kinds of stoked to see me. I gave him my app and then he conducted an interview like crazy right there on the spot. It was the gnarliest interview ever. We kind of just talked. It was wild. He gave me "a very unusual mixture of papaya tea and blackberry tea," to drink and it was incredibly good. We talked for a while and he made me ask him three questions that I wouldn't normally ask my boss. I asked what his favorite alcoholic drink was, when was the first time he got high, and how many times he changed his major in college.

He seemed to like me, because he had the cook whip me up a pupusa so I could taste what I'd be serving. A pupusa is a tortilla like thing from El Salvador filled with queso, frijoles fritos, o chicharrones, or some combination of them, or other stuff entirely. It was the best thing I've ever tasted in my whole life. I was instantly willing to take this job because I'd get a free pupusa every shift. Then after he asked me if I had any problems with gay people (he's gay) and if I was a football fan (apparently some Saints fans would skip work to watch the games) he told me to come in on Monday for training.

So on Monday I'll be slingin' pupusas. I'll see how it works out, but from the little I've seen it should be a sweet gig and a good way to get a little spanish practice in (the cooks and owners are from El Salvador). ¡Muy bien!

This is Wednesday's Post.

Yo Peeps. I didn't post on Wednesday because I'm a bad blogger, so pretend this is Wednesday's post. Aight?

This is a paper I wrote for my songwriting class. I flex my music critic muscles. It got me "A GOOD JOB." Now I'm not sure if i just did a good job, or if I got an "A" because I did a "GOOD JOB." The A was above the GOOD JOB, so I'm thinking the latter.

The Top of the Modern Rock Charts
David Draiman and Benjamin Burley
Anyone who's listened to much hard rock released in the last five to ten years will have heard of Breaking Benjamin and Disturbed. These two bands have sold millions of records, sold out stadiums, and had numerous singles reach the number one spot on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. These bands do most of their songwriting themselves, with frontmen David Draiman and Benjamin Burley writing the majority of the songs for Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin, respectively. The bands play a similar style of rock and roll, putting emphasis on loud guitars, thumping basslines, and hammering drums. Burley and Draiman each make use of a wide variety of vocal techniques, from falsetto crooning to gritty rock snarls to full blown metal style screaming, and each singer often writes dark and haunting lyrics. Both bands have sizeable bodies of work, each having released four studio albums, so here I'll be comparing and contrasting Breaking Benjamin's Breath, a single which stayed at the #1 spot of Billboards Mainstream Rock Tracks for over a month in 2007, and Disturbed's Inside the Fire which reached the top of the same chart in early 2008.

Breath is a dark and heavy hard rock piece that features a prominent bassline, crunchy distorted guitars, a kick drum heavy beat, strong vocal melody and harmony, and emotional and relatable lyrics. Burley on rhythm guitar and bassist Mark Klepaski provide a strong harmonic foundation on which guitarist Aaron Fink plays strong melodies. Drummer Chad Szeliga pummels the listener's ears, driving home every word that Burley sings. The song features masterful use of dynamics: during parts of the song Fink's guitar without distortion is the only instrument, before the entire band rejoins him in a sudden crushing wall of sound. During the verses Burley croons a haunting melody over an intricate bassline while Fink plays arpeggios over a stripped down kick and snare drumbeat. Barely audible whispers in the background add to the creepy ethereal quality of the verses. The prechorus shifts back into high gear with full blown overdriven power chords and crashing cymbals underneath Burley's powerful yells enhanced by Klepaski and Fink's harmonies, quickly drops back to a single guitar and Burley's voice, and just as quickly kicks back into overdrive when the chorus comes in. The production on this song is masterfully handled: the intricate layering of multiple vocal parts on top of lush instrumentation couple with the continual changes from soft to loud and back again add to the emotion and intensity of the piece.

Lyrically the song is very relatable. The words are ambiguous enough that virtually any listener could apply them to their own situation. Anyone who's experienced loss or rejection can relate to Burley's painful howling of “You take the breath right out of me / you left a hole where my heart should be.” The listener may not know exactly what Benjamin is screaming about, but it definitely tugs on their heartstrings as they remember that girl they fell in love with who later shattered their heart into a million pieces. The stream of consciousness verses don't make a whole lot of sense, but the beautiful melody coupled with the skilled instrumentation make the verses very singable. The lines “This will be all over soon, / Pour the salt into the open wound / Is it over yet? / Let me in,” may not make perfect sense, but it paints a vivid picture of someone in agony, and the vocals are so well done that listeners can't help but be moved as they sing along. Between the stirring vocals, the intricately orchestrated dance performed by the guitars and bass, and the heart thumping drum beats it's small wonder that this song was so successful.

Inside the Fire dominated the charts last year, and was a big reason why Indestructible became Disturbed's third straight album to debut at #1. Inside the Fire is a fast paced rock and roll number, that features excellent guitar playing, heavy drums and bass, and powerful singing. While bassist John Moyer locks in perfectly with drummer Mike Wengren's powerful driving beats, and Dan Donegan displays impressive mastery of the fretboard in his guitar solo, the real strength of this song comes from David Draiman's incredible melodies and downright scary lyrics. Draiman has always had a knack for coming up with soaring melodies that mesh perfectly with the band's pummelling hard rock sound. As my friend Josh, the drummer in a band I was in during high school, once put it, “dude, Draiman's melodies are just... huge.” The staccato vocals in the verses complement the machine gun guitar riff beautifully. Draiman's voice starts to soar in the chorus, as he entreats the listener to “give your soul to me for eternity.” The lyrics of this song can be described as anything from haunting to straight up scary as hell. Even before really listening to the words I caught lines like “she was taken, and then forsaken,” and “fire, all you desire,” which conjure up creepy images which wouldn't seem out of place in the latest horror movie. If you really listen to the lyrics it becomes apparent that something very creepy is going on. Draiman is singing from the point of view of the devil, or someone like him, and trying to convince the listener to kill themselves to rejoin a lost loved one. The stark descriptions of “Devon,” the dead lover, during the verses, prepare the listener to pay heed to the devil's ever more insistent entreaties that they should join Devon “inside the fire” during the chorus. While not everyone may have contemplated suicide to be reunited with a dead lover, most can appreciate the story spun by Draiman, and the gravely growl he uses to spit forth his frightening lyrics is very appealing to hard rock listeners. The gritty unapologetic story is told through a gritty unapologetic medium, a formula Disturbed used before with singles like Down With the Sickness and Stricken.

Even if the listener has no idea what the song is about, as I didn't until I read the lyrics, it's still very powerful musically. A synthesized keyboard intro segues into Disturbed's easily recognizeable brand of hard rock, and the song opens and closes with Draiman laughing creepily in the background. The pummeling tempo never lets up, keeps the energy level high, and the way the vocals and instruments lock together provides a great listening experience.

Each of these songs brings something unique to the table, but they've got lots of similarities. Each song's subject matter is fairly dark and moody, which is reflected in the dark feel of the instrumentation. Burley shows his flair for soaring melodies, introspective lyrics and lush arrangements, while Draiman lets his powerful voice and masterful melodic abilities push his lyrics to center stage. Breaking Benjamin's sound is a little fuller and richer, due to an extra guitar and the fact that the guitars are tuned several steps lower than normal. Disturbed pummels the listener more, with faster tempos and more aggressive intrumentation. Draiman's voice is much grittier and angrier sounding than Burley's; Burley sounds like a velvety voiced smooth jazz singer next to Draiman's inhuman growl. Burley has two more voices (Fink and Klepasky) singing harmony behind him however, so Breaking Benjamin's rich vocal arrangements provide as full a sound as Draiman's raw vocal power. Both singers make use of screaming, and quick shifts in dynamics are prominent parts of each song. Lyrically the songs are very different. Draiman's song vividly tells a story, and if one listen's carefully to the lyrics it's fairly obvious what's going on. Burley's stream of consciousness style is harder to follow, but can be applied to many situations and is extremely relatable. Both singers are excellent at producing hooky melodies that stick in the listener's head long after the final notes of the song have faded.

Burley and Draiman have each discovered the way to craft a popular hard rock song. Stark and haunting lyrics sung over thick crunchy rock and roll instrumentation, coupled with tremendous and easy to remember melodies are what allows these songs to stand out in the sea of generic hard rock. Each man has crafted a song that is very unique and personal but is also relatable enough to be successful in the mainstream rock and roll world. Each singer is also lucky enough to have a group of extremely talented musicians behind him on the stage. Although each singer has a different band to work with and each takes a different approach to crafting a heavy rock song, both Draiman and Burley are masters of the modern hard rock scene.

I'm aware that most of y'all aren't really very involved in the modern hard rock scene, but here ya are anyway.

Halloween

Halloween in New Orleans is huge. It's basically the second biggest party of the year in this city, which practically means it's the second biggest party in the country. The big thing is to go downtown to Frenchman Street and party.

All of my friends and I decided that we should go experience this huge party, so Saturday night rolled around and we all got all fancied up in our mad duds. My homebody Martin and I were Connor and Murphy MacManus, or the Boondock Saints as they're more commonly known. If you haven't seen The Boondock Saints then do yourself a favor and go watch it right now. It's a cult classic. You wouldn't like it, Mom, and Dad would say it was "the stupidest damn thing ever" or something like that, but it's truly a piece of cinematic brilliance.

Anyway, we all got our costumes on and congregated in one dorm room. There were about 20 of us. We chilled in there putting the finishing touches on our costumes for about an hour, and then we set out. For some reason, several of our group started getting violently ill, perhaps with some kind of extremely fast acting stomach flu that seems common around here on Saturday nights. So before we even got to the streetcar stop the group of 20 was down to 16. It's fairly difficult to get a streetcar downtown at 10:00 on any Saturday night, but on Halloween it's next to impossible. We waited for the streetcar for over an hour, during which time two more people had to leave the group because one of them got violently ill, and a couple more got bored and wandered off.

I don't know exactly how many of us finally got downtown, but it wasn't more than 12. Frenchman street was crazy, there were awesome costumes everywhere. There were people on stilts and a skeleton brass band, and I saw Dr. Jacobi, or however the shrink from Twin Peaks is spelled. At some point on Frenchman The group got split in half and I ended out the night with seven people.

Because of the large percentage of our group who spent the night in the grip of some terrible disease we're gonna have a second Halloween in two weeks. It's gonna be brutal. Hopefully everyone will stay healthy and I'll be able to put up more pictures. Bam.