F E B R U A R Y 0 3
Just about everybody in the Wu Tang Killa Bees wrote something in February. Jeff wrote about his addiciton to couronne. Andrew gave 23-year old Dave his birthday wishes and Jeff did the same. Dave tried to make money on Epinions. Jeff loved the movie Old School and Andrew talked about rockhopper penguins, among other things. Eugena "why are you so mean-a" Jung remembered Superdrag and Good Morning Robinson after Jeff remembered trying out for the band and Don remembered the Legend of the Chinchilla. Dave was snowed out of school for a week, so he wrote about making the contact section, sledding in a Ukranian beer festival, and wrote part one of his Teach For America Chronicles. Mike shared his thoughts on the band Let It Die while Dave gave his take on the February 9th Brass Monkey show. Dave was excited about Dr. Phil on Letterman. Don and Jeff visited Dave in Baltimore, and all the chocolate cake goodness was recaptured by Jeff and Dave. And Daveeda definitely doesn't like cell phones, but music and photoshop are all right.
most addictive game ever...
Very short posting, just want to spread this like wildfire. this game is great, try it out at Miniclip - Couronne.
"Fell on Black Days" Soundgarden "In da Club" 50 Cent
Friday, February 28 at 12:19 PM
the package will be picked up tomorrow
Happy birthday Dave! I hope the concert at the Brass Monkey rocked. I'm sure it did. You're present should be arriving any day now and it'll knock your socks off. Classes are cancelled here so a little snow football is in order. I'll call you later Dave. You're my best friend and the greatest brother a guy could ask for.
"Image is nothing, lobsters are everything" (Reggie and the Full Effect), "The Happy Birthday Song" (Traditional), "Keep Fishing" (Weezer)
at 8:12 AM
happy birthday to dave
well clocking in 32 minutes before the end of a historic day, the 23rd anniversary of dave werner's birth. oh, and about this time exactly 365 days ago, okay samurai was rocking the pants off of many new okay samurai fans at mainstreet bar and grill in harrisonburg, VA. Playing for a staggering hour and a half (still need a copy of the tape dave!), we gave many JMU students what they needed on a wednesday night, great music and a bar full of beer! anyways, i'm glad the tradition is still continuing this year. Hope all went well at the brass monkey and...T minus 1 day until I move into the new crib.
over and out
jeff
Thursday, February 27 at 8:33 PM
just when you thought it couldn't get any more insane
School got out two hours early today due to the continuing snowfall. In other news, chances are that I'll be teaching all new 6th grade classes on Monday! This is the second time that my schedule has been completely changed this year, just when I thought that I was doing all right with my current students. Such is the life of an inner-city school teacher. I signed up for this, remember?
The Brass Monkey concert is tomorrow, which is sort of shaping into a 23rd birthday celebration. The doors will open at 9, so we hope to see anyone and everyone there. Hit me up with an e-mail if you have any questions or need a ticket.
So, yeah, Epinions. Apparently you can make money from writing reviews about just about anything. I wrote 4 reviews of video game stuff during my third year in college and made a whopping $1.86. I figure, hey, if you're going to waste time on the internet, you might as well improve your writing and get paid at the same time. On Sunday I basically looked around my room and wrote epinions on my camera, Gamecube, The Treehouse Book, The Complete Idiot's Guide To Children's Publishing, the new Phish album and the island of Saba. I just free-wrote for 10-15 minutes without stopping for those little things like "spelling" or "logic". The way you're paid is sketchy though. They don't give you an exact formula, but a portion of the money they make through their product reviews goes to you through a complicated system of trusting other members and rating their reviews. On the 15th of every month they distribute money, so maybe I'll get eight cents for all my hard work. Nick joined a couple of days ago and is on a quest to review office supplies like paperclips and markers because, really, who would check out a website for paperclips? Let me know if you decide to waste your time and join too so we can scam the system together (username: okaysamurai)."Pour Some Sugar On Me" (Stone Temple Pilots acoustic version), "The Scientist" (Coldplay) and writing "Cinco Cervezas" (Okay Samurai)
Wednesday, February 26 at 10:56 AM
luke wilson isn't that bad either
wow, old school was a brilliant movie. It was about time there was another movie that has the same fun feel as such films as "Road Trip", etc. If you haven't seen this movie, then WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU? you should get on your horse and immediately go see this movie.
Not much other news, but I've started the packing process to get ready to move out starting this saturday morning. anybody wanna help?
-jeff
Monday, February 24 at 11:45 AM
2 Skinnee Js, Penguins, Arrowheads and Ghandi
Well if everyone else is writing then I just have to jump in on this. Things have been crazy-go-nuts here at JMU although the ladies have told me collectively that they miss a certain Eugena. I went by Main Street the other day and saw that 2 Skinnee J's were coming by on Wednesday and that this was going to be their last national tour! I really don't remember the rest of the night except that I cried a lot, oh and rockhopper penguins can jump up to six feet in the air. Six feet. Really, no fooling.
Spring break is coming up soon but not before a visit from Clay Meixell. That's right, our superfan from high school is coming to visit me on the first of March. He wrote me the other day to let me know he was studying for his midterms while rocking out to Uncle Charlie's Song. For my spring break I'll be visiting beautiful Connecticut, home of the two largest Indian casinos in the world with a few friends and lady luck. I'll also be stopping by Dave's place in Baltimore to hopefully continue JMU's tradition of beating the pants off everyone else in beer pong. I've been practicing. A few nights in DC will probably also be happening so maybe you fellas want to get together for a little fun? I'll bring the sweaters and kool-aid if you all bring the concrete.
Oh and if you all for some horrible reason haven't been watching clone high on MTV then shame on you. It's the funniest thing of all time. When Ghandi tells Abe Lincoln that numbers don't lie and then a number four runs by yelling "I'm a number five" I laughed for about ten minutes. Really, you should check it out. Out like a trout.
Sunday, February 23 at 4:23 PM
Heeeeeere's Johnny!
Hey, I just thought I'd take a look on the old weblog and saw that everybody was looking back to the old hay days of Okay Samurai. Ahhh, the youth were so simple back then. Musically we were still getting developed through the various tunes that we were listening to. I think I got a lot of crap when I told 'em how much I liked the song "Sucked Out" by SuperDrag...but hey, the cd is actually pretty good, atleast me and Jeff thought so. I think at the time I was also really into ska music. I don't know why, but I just loved horns mixed with the sound of distortion and those off beats that made you wanna jump were really cool. Reel Big Fish was one of my Favorite Bands at the time. You can also tell the influence ska had on my music in some of the songs (try to guess which ones). But alas that scene is dead now, but I still think we could have used Adam Kantor in some other ways (see last entries), maybe as the official Okay Samurai Mascot. We could have dressed him up in a vintage Samurai Warrior outfit and have him yell, "I am Yosaki Yojimbo, the official mascot for Okay Samurai, now I will perform seppuku on myself, but before I do, enjoy this version, and we'd jump out and go straight into playing "seppuku" the song. Man, i have too much time on my minds. Well, now I'm into the whole Punk/Emo Scene, but even that is getting a little saturated, so I see my tastes shifting back to pop/alternative music especially Coldplay....man these guys rock.
Okay Samurai Factoid #4: All of the members of Okay Samurai were once anchor men in the first season of "Good Morning Robinson" at their High School. Dave was the producer, Andrew was the consultant, and Don and Eugene were the actual new correspondants. Jeff Chin even made a guest shot appearance replacing me for a day, trying to trick people into thinking that it was me, you know...cause we're both from Germany and all. We loved doing it, except for this one administrator guy who was in charge of it always made comments about our segments when we were trying to edit our tapes and it just made us so frustrated and we always ended up staying longer than we had to because of him. If anyone remembers his name I will send you an E-card courtesy of bluemountaincards.com.
Friday, February 21 at 2:21 PM
pre-2N memories
Yes, i do remember those days as well. back when i barely knew don and the werner brothers. dave werner was "that kid i saw in my Gamepro mag" (yes i subscribed). And Don, for a while, was that guy that really really REALLY needs a tuner for his guitar. at one point we almost bought one for him! quick okay samurai fact...don didn't have a guitar tuner until senior year, which is i believe his 7th or 8th year of being in that band. How did he get so far along without using a tuner you ask? well, throughout college gigs, he just used mine.
Another weird Okay Samurai fact: I (jeff chin) was with Eugene when he went to audition for the bass part of 2nd Nature! Now isn't that weird that I eventually started playing bass for them. maybe it was a gigantic foreshadow into the future.
Anyways, it's friday here at work, and things are starting to slow down severely. in exciting news, i'm finally moving out of the parents house into my new bachelor pad in arlington, VA Joining me will be good ol' college buddy and of course good ol' high school AND college buddy Nick Ovuka. (you might remember him from such 2N songs as "the nick ovuka song")
at 1:01 PM
return of the tiger...
I thoroughly apologize for my extended absence from the Okay Samurai webboard. I am back and on the attack in the true traditional samurai style, and dave, metaphorically speaking we're all on fire... and for all the ladies that have missed me, I'll make it up to you. I bet you ladies didnt know I have a jacuzzi in my master bedroom, well, now you know :-) To tell you the truth I kind of forgot about the webboard until dave sent me his creative portfolio and the link for the dave2n website and I got caught up on the archives from the last couple months and I must say, I laughed my freaking @$$ off!!! I love Eugene's nostalgic Okay Samurai factoids, oh man I almost peed my pants recollecting the infamous "Brian Shea/Richie Pettibon Game". And I COMPLETELY forgot he used to play bass through his jerry-rigged stereo, HAHA! I believe that might have been when we were still GEUI, even prior to the Second Nature era. I believe at the time we were rocking out "Legend of the Chinchilla" and "Chlorine Girl", which was actually written by my sister who had been playing guitar for less than 6 months. Here's another Okay Samurai factoid: I used to play that nylon stringed classical guitar with a transducer stuck to it with a piece of gray playdoh run through "The Beast Trying to Get Loose" (aka 25w Fender Champion 110) Ahh yes, and if you recall I played the very same guitar in our Second Nature "Grasscatcher" recordings and it was out of tune in EVERY SINGLE song... The second chord in the intro to Hammock was the worst, WOW. Makes me cringe to think about it. To confirm dave and jeff's posts about the weekend we visited baltimore, it was earth-shattering. Because of our visit over 2 feet of small was dumped on baltimore, schools were cancelled, fines were given for driving cars, and they're still recovering from the aftermath. And I concur that Super Smash Brothers Melee is phenomenal... Nick has a pure hatred and personal vendetta for Jeff in that game, it really is exquisite and truly quite amazing. And I thank whoever informed me that I should use Samus from metroid because "don you were killing us with him last night when we got back from the party", because I was hammered and didnt remember and was absolutely terrible with every other character i used (however smashing the ground repeatedly with donkey kong was fun) I'm at work and I'm hungry as a hostage so I will leave you with these wise words spoken by a true philosopher... "I feel a lot of good solid positive energy coming out of you great, great its all great. Yeah, a lot of pressure, you gotta rise above it. Harness in the good energy and block out the bad, harness good energy, block bad, feel the flow Happy, feel it. Its circular, its like a carousel, you put in the quarter you pay the toll, it goes up and down and around, circular, the flow, all good things." --Kevin Neelin in Happy Gilmore
at 10:17 AM
this is freakin' awesome
School has been officially cancelled for the entire week. As if almost by cue, as soon as I heard about the good news this morning, the Zelda Gamecube promotional disc was slipped through our mail slot. Then Handel's Messiah played from the heavens and I danced around like a Thriller-era Michael Jackson (the zombie dance...yeah, you know the one). I'm still in my pajamas and probably won't change until we head out to the bars tonight. Life is good.
Oh yeah, and check out the contact section, because I added an e-mail feedback form to it. The only reason I did this was so that people could send anonymous secret admirer letters to Eugene. I already got one question about where I get the little pictures for each of these posts; I use the google image search. Peace.
Thursday, February 20 at 2:06 PM
the blizzard of 03
The snow started late Friday and kept on going until Monday morning. Baltimore got a little over two feet and school has been out with no immediate signs of return. How have I spent my five days home in a row? Beating Metroid Prime on Gamecube, watching every action cliche know to man in XXX (the fist punching out of the snow...classic), sledding, a little guitar here, a little drawing there, and watching my roommates fight when they're cooped up with each other for this long. But yesterday we got out and went sledding for two hours in Patterson Park. Melissa, Mike, Tammer and I shredded down the hill on our slick corrugated "Let Us Make History: Michael Steele, Maryland's First Black Lieutenant Governor" signs (stolen from election day, but that's another story). There was the usual assortment of crazy kids and ramps, but I'd wager that our sled battles were the most fun. We raced down the hill together, grabbing legs, pushing sleds and throwing snow all the way down. Roommate #4 Nick stayed home, finishing up the fourth Harry Potter book. I would normally say that he missed out on a good time, but hey, gillyweed messes you up. So to rub it in, we made up some ridiculous lie that there was a Ukranian Beer Festival going on in the park. Nick fell for it. Big time. The night was spent at a local bar with $2.50 hamburgers, our Patterson Park friends, and Mike getting slapped by the waitress.
Speaking of Ukranian Beer Festivals, I pre-ordered the new Zelda game for Gamecube via Amazon, and there's a promotional deal that gives you a free disc with your purchase. It's got the N64 game Ocarina of Time and a never-released update of that game called Master Quest. Crap story short, although I have to wait until late March for the new game to ship, I got an e-mail saying that the promotional disc was shipped today. It should be fun since I skipped out on the N64/Playstation generation of video games. During that time, I hid my Donkey Kong Country shirt. And my Illusion of Gaia shirt. And my Yoshi shirt. And my Virtual Boy shirt and hat. Ah, those were the days. Now if you'll excuse me, Tom Nook is paying 952 bells per turnip today."Hey Dude" (Kula Shaker), "Gossip Folks" (Missy Elliot), "Let It Snow" (Traditional)
Wednesday, February 19 at 1:57 PM
Dave's Teach For America Chronicles / Chapter One: Recruitment
During my summer breaks from college, I worked at a day care center in Burke, Virginia called Kiddie Country. It was a perfect job for an overgrown kid like me. Days consisted of epic hide-and-go-seek games, beating difficult Game Boy Advance levels, field trips all over the DC region, getting pushed into the swimming pool, singing, drawing, and other general elementary school stuff. Three other staff members made up our summer elementary team, who looked over about 31 kids. We didn't really teach per se, unless you count the time I taught them the moves to Nsync's Bye, Bye, Bye for their Parent Spring Program.
Enter the college job search, post-9/11 economy. I decided I wanted my job to consist of two things: 1) kids and 2) helping others. Naturally, teaching sprang to the front of my mind. It was in my third year of college when first I heard about Teach For America. Peace Corps always interested me, but TFA was part of Americorps, more like a domestic peace corps. An older friend who was in a few of my English classes had just been accepted. She was excited to be moving to California to teach. This sounds good, I thought. She was a smart, established person at UVA. She must know what she's doing.
My fourth year rolls around and there's a TFA information session held in the basement of our charity organization, Madison House. I remember being the first one to help myself to a drink and thinking first impressions, don't spill, don't spill as I poured Sprite from a two-liter bottle into a small paper cup. The info session was great; a UVA alum and DC corps member led the show and answered most of my first questions. I picked up an application and several info packets and felt that this job was right up my alley. A two year commitment meant I could move on if things didn't work out in the teaching world. A handful of friends were at the meeting too, which was comforting.
One day I walked into the Cavalier Daily newspaper offices and was given an assignment to draw a picture for an accompanying article about Teach For America. A UVA graduate had quit her job after just three weeks. Seven murders occurred outside her school during training, rats were thrown at new teachers, and school fires were common. You guessed it...this person who quit was my friend. Crap.
TFA continued to get some negative press, but I remained hopeful. I even drew an editorial cartoon about the situation. I browsed through the application over winter break and started thinking about my site assignment. TFA places corps members in 18 regions across the United States. On the application, you rank the sites and there's no guarantee that you will get your first choice (although most people get one of their top three). I wanted to stay close to home (Burke, Virginia), but I wanted to try something different than Washington, D.C. I had always liked Baltimore when we saw Orioles games, and the site brochure showed that the cost of living was considerably lower than most of the other regions. I thought strongly about New York and Atlanta, but I decided that a first-year teacher salary wouldn't allow me to save as much in those two cities. My final ranking was Baltimore, D.C., Atlanta, New York.
I found out through the mail about a month later that I had been accepted for an interview at UVA. Not only would I be interviewed, but I also had to plan a five-minute lesson to teach to the other applicants. Any subject, any grade, any style. I'll never forget the night before the interview. I was stressed out beyond all belief, still undecided about what to teach. My girlfriend Jasmine helped me decide on "Mr. Werner teaches second-graders how to draw a fish." She printed out the individual shapes that would together form a fish and let me borrow markers and construction paper. I tested it out on her, word-for-word, a few times. I was finally ready.
I only semi-recognized one friend-of-a-friend out of the interview group of about 15. Two women ran the interview. First, the bad news. They let us know that, due to either the present state of the economy or more exposure, their expected applicant pool had doubled. They would still be accepting about 20% of their applicants. Before those pessimistic numbers sank in, it was time to start the lessons. Most people did a really good job. There was only one that I remember being painful to sit through; some girl was teaching us about plural predicates and I don't think any of us had a clue what she was talking about. I was towards the end. I passed out the materials to my "students" and taught them, step-by-step, how to draw a football-shaped fish. The interaction was fun, and I made fish faces and bubble noises...the works. Five minutes raced by and I just managed to squeeze everything in. I remember feeling that I had messed up because I threw some of the example shapes on the floor while I moved on. Pretty soon it was time for a group interview, a roundtable discussion of education. It was like any bad college discussion section where the one annoying guy dominates the show. I think I got one comment in. Annoying guy was talking about politicians and the government, I don't know, I wasn't really following much. We took a break for lunch and then it was one-on-one interview time.
The half-hour interview started off great when the interviewer, a UVA alum, said that she had read my comic online and was glad to finally meet me. That made the rest of the interview go by a lot easier, and I left feeling good about my chances. But here's the best part of the story, in true Zack Morris-esque form. Walking home one night later, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the two recruiters sitting in Arch's, an ice cream place right near my house. They were both going through paperwork and folders; their notes on the applicants and their applications. So I went back home and changed into some nicer clothes, then walked back into Arch's, pretending not to see them while I waited to order. I heard some chattering followed by one of them calling my name. I turned around, feigning surprise, and started a quick five-minute conversation. I asked them how long they were here, how the rest of the interviews went, what ice cream they were having, you know, the usual. I left with a chocolate brownie sundae and everybody smiling.
Shortly after I received a letter in the mail confirming my acceptance into Teach For America and my placement as an English teacher in Baltimore city. Finally, I had a job offer. I was pretty much the last one in my circle of friends to get one. It didn't seem possible that I would be by myself out in the real world in a few months. I flipped through the gajillion (that's a lot) papers TFA sent me. Summer Institute in New York? Pre and post-inductions in Baltimore? Praxis testing? Maryland teacher certification? Whatever I thought that my Teach For America experience would be from these papers was waaay off. I got incredibly tired of people responding to my good news with "Ooh, Baltimore inner-city schools. You're going to have your eyes opened." Seriously, everyone said I was going to have my "eyes opened." How bad could it be?
(Dave's TFA Chronicles are eight short stories about Dave's job as a Language Arts teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools from 2002 to 2003. Read the other chapters: one two three four five six seven eight)
Monday, February 17 at 3:09 PM
please, please let it die
So, I'm listening to the recording of our gig at the Brass Monkey, and I'm astonished by one thing in particular. I didn't know Dave's mic was so loud that you couldn't hear any of the other music over his vocals. Oh wait, that's just the blatantly poor mixing! Yes well, what do you expect for free? You get what you pay for. It was quite the interesting experience, however. It turns out that the Brass Monkey is somewhat of a metal bar, and we didn't exacty fit the mold (check out some of the archived songs from previous incarnations of Okay Samurai). By somewhat of a metal bar, I mean the other three bands played something akin to metal. The first band was a bunch of high school kids, doing their best, but coming up to not-quite-metallica standards, which is fine, because they'll improve, and at least they'll get their diplomas. The next band was pretty good. They played actual real music and they actually sang, unlike the high school kids, who did this sort-of-yelling/I-want-to-be-passionate kind of thing, and especially unlike the band who we switched places with and played right before us. For this band, "Let it Die," I will never forgive Nick. This band had pretty decent instrumentals. Their drummer and guitar and bass player were excellent. Where I parted with them were the vocals. The music was what I could only call Death Metal. As in, you want to die when you listen to it. As in, all our bands are named something like "We Kill Angels and Dropkick Small Puppies" or "Civilization Ending Evil Satan-like Creature." As in, the lead "singer" simply screamed the entire time. Notice the delineation between yelled (as in: the high school band yelled lyrics) and screamed (as in: the lead "singer" for the Let it Die screamed as if his eyes were being gouged out with broken CDs, and there were no coherent words.) We had to endure this traumatic, nightmare-inducing "music" for 45 minutes, all because our promoter/housemate/resident-sell-out sold us out for five beers, trading our coveted 11:30 time slot for the last gig of the night. So all our fans had to endure this band as well. I'm afraid we may have seriously smaller turnout for the battle of the bands on the 27th. And to top it all off this was not a four person band. In addition to the drummer, guitar player, bassist and lead screamer, there was a keyboard player slash backup screaming maniac man. As far as I could tell, he played six notes and some sound effects on the keyboard and spent the rest of the set screaming in tandem while facing the lead screamer, or filling in with some screams when the lead singer ran out of breath. At least their song names are good. I went to the website for Let it Die, and found a song entitled "Parasitic life spray paints her heart." Damn, that's deep.
So, we have the battle of the bands on the 27th, but I'm hoping that we can find a new venue, one that fits our style a little better."Poets" (The Tragically Hip), "Jurass Finsh First" (Jurassic Five), "Parasitic life spray paints her heart" (Let it Die) (Yeah Right...)
Saturday, February 15 at 11:10 PM
three-day weekend
* Make sure to watch Dave Letterman on Monday, February 17 (CBS, 11:35 PM), where Dr. Phil is going to be his guest. If you've watched recently, you know Dave makes fun of Dr. Phil every single night and still hasn't been able to get Oprah to come on his show. On a Dr. Phil show this week, the good doctor said he was going to come up to New York and "open up a serious can of whoop-@$$." Don't miss it.
* Fresh off his recent arrest, if you want to attack the Dell dude with a pirate, boxer, ninja and gorilla, go right ahead.
* Singer/songwriter Warren Zevon ("Werewolves of London") was recently diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, but his reaction to the news was pretty optimistic: "I'm OK with it. But it'll be a drag if I don't make it until the next James Bond movie comes out."
* In case you missed it during the Superbowl (or want to see it again), here's the latest trailer for The Matrix sequels.
Friday, February 14 at 12:55 PM
don and jeff take over baltimore
wow, what a saturday day night that was. and yes, holy beancakes was it fun.
-never underestimate the learning curve of G5 and O4 for super smash brothers melee. Once again, I don't discriminate. great game, but we're still unbeatable in Super Mario Kart battle mode.
-thanks to the TFA folks for letting us destroy all your guests at beer pong. Trashtalk quotes from opposing teams include "what's he doing, calculating his shot?" (seconds before i nail the last cup, and beat those guys by 6 cups), "We usually only play 6 cup" (said by the same guy who by the time we hit 10 cups, he had only hit 4), "You all are calling your shots!" (said by dave werner as he freaked out with cake on his face) and finally "THOSE GUYS ARE GOOD!" (said by just about everyone in the place).
-sorry about the dirt and everything. I did not even realize what the hell was going on."Shiver" (coldplay), "No one knows" (queens of the stone age), "gossip folks" (missy elliot)
Tuesday, February 11 at 7:08 AM
don and jeff visit dave
Jeff and Don came to visit me in Baltimore this Saturday, and holy frijoles, the effects were catastrophic. Here's what I remember:
*We introduced o4 and G5 to Super Smash Brothers on the Gamecube. We played before going out for the night, once we came back, and the next morning. We unlocked secret characters and stages or something; who knows how we did it. It brought back memories of the old Super Bomberman 2, Tetris Attack and Super Mario Kart days for Super Nintendo with these guys. We still yelled things that didn't make any sense to each other.
*I love chocolate cake. I mean, I'm coming up on 23 years old and I still spoiled my dinner with leftover chocolate cake tonight. The party we went to (held at the house of the infamous Akshay, my summer roommate) had chocolate cake, and I helped myself to about 3 or 17 slices. Each time I just shoved the cake in my mouth. When some party-goers tried to hide the cake from me, it was no use. I spotted it on a high kitchen shelf and was allowed to wrap it up and bring the rest home. I think I ate the entire thing myself. I now weigh 347 pounds and have chocolate oozing out of my pores like Play-Doh spaghetti.
*Don and Jeff still rock at Beer Pong. They won about 5 games in a row. They stayed true to their 10-cup game even though some locals wanted to switch to 6-cup. They talked trash, they backed it up; it was great.
*Don't dance in a muddy dumpster outside and run around in a dirty basement. You'll track mud all over the house and spend a good portion of the next day cleaning it up."Still Waiting" (Sum41), "Me and my Bass Guitar" (Victor Wooten), "Killing Me" (Graham Colton), "In My Place" (Coldplay)
Monday, February 10 at 4:18 PM
2.7.03 - okay samurai @ brass monkey
Yesterday was a surreal, fast, and entertaining day. Nick woke me up in the morning to say that school had been cancelled due to the 6 inches of snow Baltimore received. After sleeping in until 11, I saw we had a phone message from the promoter for the upcoming February 27 Brass Monkey show. A band had cancelled because of the snow, and she wanted us to fill in. I said sure and thanks, hung up, and then realized a few things. a) Mike (roommate and drummer) was nowhere to be found, having gone to the bars the previous night at 12:30 after banking on school being cancelled. b) Our newest addition, Andrew Jennings (bass), had never played with Mike and I before and didn't know any of our songs. c) We had to report to the venue at 8:00 PM.
Nick immediately became our manager, grabbing the TFA directory and calling anyone and everyone about the show. Mike eventually showed up, Andrew came over, and we practiced for about 4 hours nonstop. We ate a quick dinner, loaded the band equipment into two cars and made our way about 20 blocks away to the Brass Monkey.
The Brass Monkey is a smaller venue that seems like a house that was converted into a bar. We brought our stuff up a narrow staircase and left it in a crowded room on the second floor. We were playing with three other bands, so if you can imagine four bands' worth of drums, guitars, amps, and people, you get the idea of the glamourous backstage room (although a monkey made out of neon lights hanging on the wall was a nice touch). Finally, we went down to the bar and began to wait for our 11:00 spot.
Now here's where things get interesting. As Tragedy of the Wicked (highlights included Hypocrite, Infected, and mom videotaping the show) and Catalyst ("I didn't know Silverchair/Creed was opening for you guys," someone told me) played their sets, our TFA friends slowly began to trickle in. Pretty soon TFA had basically taken over the bar, with about 35 people enjoying themselves and even a few people dancing to the heavy music. And then Mike brought over one of the members of Let It Die, the fourth band scheduled that night. He asked if they could switch spots with us, saying something about the singer having to go home or work or something that I couldn't hear very well over the music. I was talking to Mike about it, but Manager Nick stepped in and said we'd do it if the guy bought us a round of beers. I actually agreed to it, but Nick was chastised the entire night for "selling out Okay Samurai for five beers." So the hardcore metal continued with Let It Die, and our friends were nice enough to stick around even though we were now starting at 12:30. The set ended, we quickly moved our stuff onstage, and the show began.
For three hours' practice, we played surprisingly well together. A very easy selection of music included old Dave and Russ songs like Forgot About Dre and Straight Up, as well as the TFA Baltimore anthem Akshay151, an original song by Andrew called The Robber, and an acoustic Hawaiian Treehouse. It was a fun, fast-paced set that we played well considering that Andrew learned the bass parts that afternoon. We even got paid, received two cases of beer (one which an inebriated Kurt dropped on the way home) and an offer to play at a Mardi Gras show. Not bad for a snow day. A few people crashed at our house afterwards, and between Kurt dropping a jar of olives on our kitchen floor and Nick eating snow, it was just as entertaining as the rest of the night.
Don and Jeff are visiting me tonight, so the partying continues. Thanks again to everyone who showed up last night. Have a good weekend."Chick Magnet" (MXPX), "All I Want Is You" (U2), "Big Yellow Taxi" (the new Counting Crows / Vanessa Carlton version), "You Really Got Me" (The Kinks)
Saturday, February 8 at 10:31 AM
cell phones shmell shmones
Andrew has an infamous story from college where one of his classmate's cell phones would always ring during class. One day, after annoying guy's cell phone rang again, Andrew let his fake plastic cell phone ring. He then proceeded to take out a hammer and smash said phone on his desk.
The latest issue of Rolling Stone had a blurb about the increasing popularity of purchasing cell phone ring tones with a strange picture of John Mayer pointing at Nelly's celly (that took me all day to think of). How many times has a cell phone user played their collection of dial tones for you? Am I missing something? I'm all for personalizing something, whether it's your room, your computer, you signature, whatever. I even like that you can have different rings for different people. But this facination about showing off your cell phone ring tones is beyond me. There's a hint of egotism there, hoping that your phone will ring in a crowded area just so everyone can be subjected to your awesome Macgyver cell phone ring. Wait a minute, that would rock. Seriously, that's the greatest idea ever. Okay, forget everything that I just wrote.
I've never felt that I'm "on the go" or "important" enough to get a cell phone, and I probably won't for a while, or a lifetime, whatever comes first. I'll tell you what's crazy, though: those cell phone TV spokespeople. Did you know that Brian Baker, the Sprint PCS Trench Coat Guy, has been in over 37 commercials? Yeah, I'm impressed too; and continuing with the sarcasm shower, I wonder what his cell phone ring tone is like. T-mobile could use Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas-Zorro a lot better than sticking her in a bowling alley with magical Zack Morris time-out powers. And I do have to admit that my life is not an "mLife," and as such is pointless and meaningless. Calling who you want, where you want, whenever you want? That's mLife (or stupid, take your pick).
Yes, yes, such harsh words. See, I did a report on the history of the telephone in the greatest high school class ever in the history of the world, Mrs. McElveen's 11th grade Chemistry class. Before they came up with the "ring" idea, early telephones would just open up the line. Then the person calling would have to yell for the other person to pick up. If cell phones ever revert back to that, I'll be converted instantly."Please Let That Be You" (Rentals), "Get Over It" (OK Go), "Happy Together" (both the Turtles and New Found Glory versions), "Legend of Zelda Theme" (System of a Down)
Thursday, February 6 at 3:09 PM
i'll give you public disorder
Photoshop is crazy, that's all I have to say. I've been drawing pencil sketches, scanning, and putting them through all sorts of filters and colors and things that sound dangerous. I made this last night; by no means a masterpiece, but it's crazy that 12 minutes before it was a quick pencil sketch of a guitar. For the non-photoshopped: filters will basically imitate some art style and apply it to your picture. Colored pencils, wrapped in plastic, behind a pane of frosted glass, watercolors, pixelation, neon glow, stone carvings...it's sick.
I've got bad news and good news...what do you want to hear first? All right, the bad news is that Russ is having oral surgery tomorrow and right before the concert, so he won't be playing with us (this time around). Best of luck with everything Russ; try to steal some novocaine for me. The good news is that Andrew Jennings, also TFA, also at Northeast Middle School, might fill in with bass. In more music news, Eric "I play Guitar like I play Hungry Hungry Hippos" Espiritu sent me some great photos for his website-in-progress. It should be going up in the next few weeks.
I'm going to start leaving a short list of the music I've been listening to lately. For some reason the "blogging community" likes to do this, along with what movies they're watching, what they're reading, how they're feeling, what their current favorite link is, what their latest online quiz result is, blah blah etcetera. For those of you who simply can't live without knowing what Care Bear I'm most like, my apologies. But I've always liked getting listening suggestions - what's the worst that could happen? So you waste 5 minutes downloading and listening to a song. Music's great like that; just because you don't like Radiohead doesn't mean that you're not musically intelligent, just like you shouldn't be ashamed if Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River" brings a cold, embittered tear to your eye. I was probably the only music major at UVA who actually admitted to liking Nsync. But I also liked a 17-minute soundscape of the New York subway system, Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, John Cage's 4'33" and some Iannis Xenakis. Doesn't mean that my musical tastes are more "refined" or "better", just that I love "music" with an extremely broad definition. So yeah, this is some of the current background music that's playing during non-school hours of the day."Clocks" (Coldplay), "The Irony of It All" (The Streets), "Love Soon" (John Mayer), "Staralfur" (Sigur Ros)
Monday, February 3 at 2:34 PM
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