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That’s what happened to my OS.
It’s been Mack the Knife’d. Murdered. Jack the Ripper’d. It’s dead. Kicked the damn bucket, and no matter how many times I set the bucket upright again, it just fell back over.
So my online time is spotty at best – boding awful omens for my blog :[
Posting, as can already be seen, won’t be frequent until I get this little problem fixed. So.
Hiatus?
I suppose. 
Even though it pains me to say it.
See you guys when I see you…and Merry Belated Christmas to you all :3
My goodness.
I have certainly let myself go, hmm? Sigh.
So much for a new post every single day; I most definitely let the beginning of the holiday season get the best of me, I must admit. I see my extended family much more often than many could say…many would also say that is indeed a blessing, and I do agree. But it doesn’t leave much room for anything else!
We’re in the midst of planning a wedding :] The first to come out of four (assuming all of the cousins that I’m speaking of get married); I have four male first cousins from my mother’s sister. It’s going to certainly be interesting to meet all of the girls as they come along and are embraced into the family…the first is a one Kristin, and she is a gem. : D But she lives in Colorado, so we all have to fly out for the wedding this summer. She came down for Thanksgiving with us, and we all watched the Hogs defeat LSU…yessiree bob. Sugar Bowl. Woo!
We don’t play.
After the short Thanksgiving holiday, I of course returned to school…the entirety of last year and all of this year up until now were filled with the ridiculously distracting (but soon ignored) sounds of cranes and scraping metal and all sorts of anti-learning sounds. (Note: Last year, I recall sitting in my first block AP English, taking the dual Hamlet/Kate Chopin test that melted my brain, and hearing an awful, screeching sound from outside. Instead of jumping to the logical, “oh, it must just be metal or heavy machinery” conclusion, I instantly had to refrain from saying, “Alright. Who has the ring? The wraiths are looking for you.” …Is that bad?) I totally digress…upon our return to school, the entire student body had to move half of the school from one building to another. The new building is beautiful….but obnoxiously large. I believe the construction workers said that if we made the circle going up the stairs, down the hall, down the stairs on the other side, and back to our starting point, that we would have walked a quarter of a mile; that’s huge for us small-town kids. It was definitely a sight: faculty and student body alike, all carrying books and chairs and desks and posters and the like around a whole campus. We were all collectively sore the next day.
Besides all of that fun, I randomly decided I was going to make a new Disney princess the other day; and let me tell you, it is not a feat to be scoffed at. It is a WHOLE lot harder than it sounds. I started drawing with only the certainties that I wanted her to be different from the others (of course) – blunt; kind of permanently cranky, but in a funny way; she’d have tunnel vision when her mind is set on something. I also knew that, without a doubt, she would NOT. SING. I know, I know, it’s a crime. But I thought there could be a running joke throughout the movie…like, everyone would try to get her to sing, and everyone around her would sing, but she would just keep yelling, “I DON’T SING!!” And then at the end, she’d finally try, and she’d suck. But Disney probably wouldn’t like that.
The physical features just came out like this; my grandmother insisted it was a self-portrait, but similarity to myself is completely coincidental. Promise.
I posted her (she still doesn’t have a name) to Facebook, and received lots more feedback than initially anticipated – I was given lots of nice ideas, but also, illuminated to the grating fact that there is indeed a Disney princess that is strikingly similar to my own: Eilonwy, from that movie that NO ONE EVER SAW, “The Black Cauldron.” I was irritated to say the least. Others claimed in defense of my princess that, while the physical features were close and the personalities reminiscent of each other, mine was older and slightly different; more mature. In the end, I decided I’d just keep her the way she was, and if Disney ever wanted her and an issue arose, they could change her haircolor. Whatever.
Upon further pouring over the sketch (it took me three freakin’ hours to perfect that coloring, btw. I had freehanded it in my sketchbook, but it looked awful, so I reworked the colors on my PC.), and examining the ethnicities of all of the other Disney princesses, we all decided that she was closest to being Swedish. I figured that’d be a fun culture to animate, and it hasn’t been done before, to my knowledge. Please, nobody burst that bubble for me. Anyway.
Being Swedish, I, with the help of the girls I sit with at lunch, sketched out my princess’s animal companion. Because every princess has one. We settled on a nauseatingly adorable arctic/polar/white fox, since they are rare, but can be found, in Sweden. And the only other fox we could recall in any Disney production was paired with a hound. My fox wouldn’t talk, so we didn’t think it’d be an issue.
I worked so hard on this. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to draw a halfway-decent looking fox. And even HARDER to make it semi-cute:
That’s about as far as I/we have gotten with that. There is a male involved (of course), I guess he’ll have to be a prince; the vague shadow of his form I have in my head is that he’s super fine (that’s a requirement too) and coveted by all of the local girls, but is completely oblivious to that fact and is actually a total, complete, undeniable, adorable nerd. Or something like that. I have no idea. Suggestions are DEFINITELY welcome…because you’ll probably be hearing more about this whole ordeal. It’s gotten quite out of hand, actually. Haha!
So that’s what I’ve been up to while I haven’t been posting; and now we’re a week into December and the time has just gotten so far away from me. I do apologize. Yesterday I attended a scholarship competition day for my college of choice :] I’m super nervous; I had to write an essay on the spot, do a faculty interview…and they look at my ACT, my extra-curriculars, community involvement…good thing is, I get $6500 just for showing up. Now I need about 22.5k more….eek. Should get my offer by Friday.
I suppose that’s my personal update for all of you…I’m sorry if that was just bone-dry. Ha! :]
For some unknown reason I’ve been listening to lots of sad songs lately…if you want to join/discuss, here’s a list of songs that I honestly cannot give my full attention to, lest I break down into sobs. And just a few that evoke a lot of emotion in me. Oh, being a girl. Sigh. ;]
Evanescence – Good Enough —–> the kicker: the warmth and rising emotion of the song. to me. gets me every time. “it’s been such a long time coming, but I feel good….am I good enough for you to love me too?”
Journey – Faithfully —–> the kicker: the heart-wrenching devotion and yearning. not hard. lol. But there’s something about the simplicity, but sheer power, of these words that is so striking to me. I ball like a baby. “I’m forever yours, faithfully.”
Dierks Bentley – Long Trip Alone —–> the kicker: mm…I get such a sense of humbling loss from this song…and even more powerful that that, the fact that despite this loss, I feel like the speaker still hasn’t given up yet. This song I can’t really explain…but I definitely cried the first time I heard it. It gets to me more so than the others. This line, though the entire song is beautiful, hits me: “And maybe you could walk with me awhile, and maybe I could rest beneath your smile; Everybody stumbles sometimes, and needs a hand to hold, ’cause it’s a long trip alone.”
Just the concept of someone’s smile alone being enough to restore and heal…but the SUPER kicker is here:
“And I don’t know where I’d be without you here, ’cause I’m not really me without you there.”
A.R. Rahman – Latika\’s Theme (Slumdog Millionaire) —–> honestly. if contentment was converted into soundwaves, this would be it, I believe. The simplicity and sweet melodic quality are stunning. There aren’t even any words (well, not in this version) and that only adds. (The movie is a total WIN as well, if you haven’t seen it : D)
Gary Allen – Life Ain\’t Always Beautiful —–> the kicker: this song is amazing anyway, but listen to it in context; Gary’s wife passed away. That’s all you need to know. “Life ain’t always beautiful; some days I miss your smile. I get tired of walking all these lonely miles. And I wish for just one minute, I could see your pretty face. Well, I can dream, but life don’t work that way.”
He’s got such a sincere quality about his voice and his words…hmm.
Lifehouse – You and Me —–> the kicker: again, the warm quality of this song makes me so happy inside; and just the thought of seeing and knowing someone that can stop time for you; that you literally, cannot take your eyes off of. Someone that captivates you so much…but at the same time that you’re so dazzled, they also make you so acutely aware of everything around you, because your senses are so heightened…I think it’s such a beautiful concept. “Something about you now, I can’t quite figure out; everything she does is beautiful, everything she does is right. ‘Cause it’s you and me, and all of the people, with nothing to do, nothing to lose. And it’s you and me, and all of the people, and I don’t know why, I can’t keep my eyes off of you.”
Don’t make fun of me because I’m an emotional female. : P
There will definitely be more to come!! I hope you enjoy…this is going to be one HUGE wall of text..my my my…. ❤
I heard a funny noise in the stall beside me, like something spilling onto the dingy tile of a typical high-school bathroom, or something ripping. I didn’t think anything of it; I swung my messenger bag onto my usual shoulder and stepped out. Two girls at the sinks were staring at the stall beside me, that had emitted the strange sounds. Upon looking down, I saw a pool of vomit forming around two beige cowboy boots. There was a whimper.
The girls that had been doing their hair at the mirrors hurriedly asked if the girl was “okay,” and then stole away quicker than one would usually leave a restroom when the response was a faint “mmhm.” I asked the stall if I should go get the nurse. A pitiful affirmative responded, accompanied by another harsh slapping sound. The pool got bigger. Then again; bigger still. I ran out of the bathroom, past the math wing, took a right.
The nurse looked at me sort of like I was stupid, then told me to go find a “maintenance worker.” I was confused; did she think she wasn’t needed? Before I could leave or protest (I wasn’t sure which I was going to choose, unfortunately), she said she’d call for one herself. Still confused, I just decided to go back to the restroom and wait with the girl.
I had no idea what to say; she wouldn’t come out of the stall and I didn’t want to force my way in. Sitting with a half-crying, half-vomiting girl (still vomiting; I was beginning to fear for her condition) is awkward, especially when you can’t see her.
Footsteps, creaks – the nurse with a wheelchair. So she decided it’d be a good idea to check up on things, hmm. “Baby, what is it that you need?” she asks. Only a squeak in reply, followed by another spill. The nurse asks for a name.
The voice comes, finally, and the nurse’s face changes. She begins to move faster, opens the stall door; the girl is covered in filth, slumped over her knees on the toilet, hair cascading in front of her face. She looks up slowly. She is one of our special education students. I begin to wonder if, had no one said anything, she would have ever gone for help herself.
The nurse runs out of the restroom again. I decide I have no choice but to wait. The girl closes the stall door.
Upon the nurse’s return, I am told that I can leave, after being thanked. I back out of the bathroom, and resume my walk out of the school, worried.
I am sitting on the large, granite tablet that is engraved with my school name. I look up from my phone, and the first thing I see is a girl in a large, red truck, leaning over something someone in the driver’s seat is showing her; or so I assumed. I smiled to myself; I remembered when I had a boy to sit with in his truck. I guessed they were a couple. But before I could turn my attention back to my phone, the red door opens, and the girl steps out. Her hair is in her face. The truck begins to move away before she has even shut the door. She hurriedly slams it closed and then watches it leave. He does not look bothered.
She climbs into another truck, her own (gotta love Arkansas) and adjusts herself in the seat. Then she puts her head in her hands. Looks up; sinks her head back down again. And while I’m sitting there, watching her, I really wish I could talk to her. Because I felt I knew exactly what she was dealing with. I remembered a truck peeling away too, taking part of me with it. I wanted to tell her that she would either receive a phone call explaining about what a complete jerk he was, or she wouldn’t hear from him again. And that either way, things would work themselves out.
The ignition turns over and the girl drives away.
I am left to recall my own memories, and how hard it is to not think of them every day, even when we’re both over it and separated and fine and dandy. It’s funny, how we remember things, and the little things that make us remember at all.
Visions of you leaving, they haunt me sometimes.
Not so much the leaving, as the coming back.
The inevitable clashing of moments, the entwining of the threads
when our nonparallel lives must cross again at some fateful point.
A year later, I can see you, I can see me, I can see our friends.
We run into each other unexpectedly, and there is a fleeting hesitation
on both sides of the spectrum.
A lifetime during which the past is relived in a liquid drop of a minute,
a single plop,
that sends the tiny ripples running.
We smile, it hasn’t hit us yet.
We make polite conversation, it hasn’t hit us yet.
I’m great, college is great. How are you?
Good…ya know. Senior year. Laughter.
It hasn’t hit us yet.
I muss my hair like you’ve seen me do so many times
and you keep talking, you were always good at making conversation.
Well…you look good.
Ha, thanks. So do you.
I guess I’ll see you around.
Yeah..’bye.
Bye.
It hasn’t hit us yet.
I turn on my heel and scamper off, afraid to look back.
The door swings shut behind me like it did before.
I don’t know if you saw me go.
And it hits us.
Or me, I was felled in a blow to shame Achilles,
right behind the knees, a jab to the stomach, a kick in the jaw,
a fluttering of the heart, an overreaction of the tear glands.
It was the first time I’d seen you since that summer night,
and I don’t like the warm weather anymore.
I am torn back to the present by a word from you-
no, four words.
I love you baby.
And I look down, and I don’t know what to think, except
that I love you too, and now I’m so scared, and I don’t want
the warm weather to come.
I don’t want the days to grow longer, because
the stretched out sunsets only call for watercolor goodbyes
and neither of us are good at those.
This all happened in the mist of a second-
it washed upon me with the spray of a million tiny moments
of people who have gone through the same worry as me,
and look, how that worry has filled the oceans.
The worries of loves that float from themselves
into the rivers that all join together
and the worries become one worry, the worry of
being left, of
never knowing, of
never asking, of
always wishing, of
always praying, of
being alone, of
still loving
when you know
you shouldn’t keep your fingers curled around that memory.
It’s a piece of paper, an old photograph, a letter, a thought, a poem,
a fear.
And it crumples under the weight of your hand, you squeeze your soul shut
and toss the wrinkled memory into the water.
As it silently floats away, with the other misty moments,
you turn away and try to think of the silver beams of Now,
the shorter days when love is long,
the moon is high,
and we can sleep in the arms of the stars
far away from the worries of the oceans.
–just a poem I wrote, sometime last year I think. inspired by events going on in my life then; feel free to comment, I’m sorry if you find it sappy. there is definitely a story behind it. :]
Well, I knew this day would come, I just didn’t think it’d be so soon. There’s always a blog post that’s used to rant about things you simply cannot say to others, or out loud. Actually, that’s a lie; technically, anything can be said out loud, it’s just who’s willing to deal with the consequences and who’s not that defines whether you actually say anything or not.
Me, I’ve been called blunt. Apparently sometimes I say things that aren’t considered “polite” or “correct” by regular interaction standards, I suppose, but I honestly don’t know that I’m doing it. Okay, okay; a few times I’ve wished I could hit the rewind because it was so obvious that even I knew I shouldn’t have said it. But most of the time I genuinely don’t see where I’ve thrown out the party foul. I have a problem with giving out advice when it hasn’t been formally asked for yet (I try not to, really) because so many people come to me with their problems. I don’t think before I speak sometimes. I think it’s perfectly alright to say what I think about something if it isn’t too harsh (but apparently my definition of harsh is a little warped). Right now, though, no holds barred, I’ve got to say a few things that even I wouldn’t normally say. This past two weeks or so, I’ve found that my patience has been attached to Achilles’ chariot and sufficiently dragged and ripped and scraped to a stringy, nonexistent pulp, thanks to certain people. So this post is more for personal relief, but I will be examining the personalities of these people and not just chewing them out, so I like to call it “impassioned psychoanalysis.” (BS.) :] Enjoy, if you like. Though I will only be doing two today, because nobody wants to hear me rant more than that. Or at all.
Alright. No names will be used here, just to get that out of the way. So, first of all, we have the:
1. Flirty, Conceited, “I think I’m pretty amazing,” Human Metronome. Now, I’m in chamber choir at my school (and an a capella barbershop group as well). Our chamber choir is a chorus composed of both males and females (altos for the win). I sit on the front row in the middle, and behind me, there is a line of basses. I quite like sitting in front of the basses, for some reason I can tune better than when surrounded by tenors or sopranos. But anyway. There is a certain bass, for now we’ll call him Hector, that sits directly behind me. He is a douchebag. He has a voice, oh yes, sort of a Justin Beiber (except lower) meets Michael Buble` thing, but he’s not nearly as good as he thinks he is. Hector has a girlfriend, but seems to still find a way to flirt with everything that moves. I have actually heard him start a conversation about how “awesome” he is. Not necessarily jokingly, either. He has this little quirk – and blames it on phantom “arthritis” – he moves. Constantly. As in, bounces back and forth, wrings his hands, always keeping time (his own, mark you, not the conducted time. because his time is “better.”) on his knee or someone else’s knee or what have you. I think my favorite is when he bounces his leg to one tempo, pats his knee to another, and sways back and forth in his chair. And when I say constantly, I mean CONSTANTLY. Like I said, he apparently has “this weird form of arthritis that hurts my joints, so I have to move all the time.” When he sings solos (which, he makes sure he always has one), he cannot seem to unstick his elbows from his sides. It’s pretty funny and I don’t know if he realizes how stupid he looks when he does it, but if I told him he’d just continue bee-bopping along, humming the theme song I’m sure he wrote for himself. It REALLY gets me annoyed when he has to comment on all of the literature our director so carefully selects for us; if Hector doesn’t like it, we shouldn’t be doing it. “Mrs. Choir Director, this is LAME. And can’t we speed it up? It’d be so much better that way.” “No, Hector.” “This sucks.” all said while he’s swaying or tapping something or kicking something or what have you. He took over the male a capella group we have; as in, dominated. They do what Hector wants when Hector wants it. I just about swiveled around to him today and started yelling. “HECTOR. THE WORLD, THOUGH I KNOW YOU FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE, DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU AND YOUR NASALLY SOUNDING VOICE. YOU’RE NOT HOT, YOU AREN’T EQUAL TO LIONEL RITCHIE, AND NOBODY REALLY CARES WHAT YOU THINK. YOUR INFLUENCE MEASURES ABOUT AS MUCH AS MY BRA SIZE, WHICH ISN’T THAT IMPRESSIVE. SO JUST STOP TALKING. WE DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU ANYWAY, NONE OF US SPEAK DOUCHE. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME.”
2. Flirty, Just Plain Annoying, “Me and my mom are BFFs,” “Don’t correct me, I’ll correct you,” Hair Flippy Soprano. Ah. We’ll call this one Lorraine. Lorraine wears size 0 jeans, flips her fried sandy-blonde hair a lot, and never fails to let any of us know that “…Yeah, I pretty much have perfect pitch. Ima try out for American Idol.” ….She doesn’t have perfect pitch. Again, this Lorraine, she has a nice voice usually. She’s actually a second soprano, “But I can hit all of those notes. I just thought the seconds needed me more.” Mmhm. But there’s something else about her…it’s her mother…Lorraine’s mother is one of those “I have to get involved in absolutely everything, look at me, I’m the booster club president, nobody likes my daughter OR myself because we are exactly the same.” It’s…it sounds harsh but it’s true. The mom feeds her daughter’s ego, and they both just jump up and down and plan fundraisers together that don’t actually benefit anyone at all. My freshman year, Lorraine’s mom pretty much snatched the spring concert from our then-director because she wanted to do some big extravagant shenanigan. She assigned us all solos that we didn’t even want, and she is the sole reason I dressed in overalls, tucked my hair up in a hat, and performed “Man of Constant Sorrow” (the O Brother, Where Art Thou? version) onstage. Sigh. Lorraine would be that person that drives in the wrong lane and wonders why absolutely everyone else is going the wrong way, and then proceed to pull over, magically produce flyers that condescendingly instruct passing cars to the “correct” lane, and then hand them out with a creepy, overly chipper, still condescending grin. Besides all of this, there is just some exhausting, unbelievably irritating air she has about her that worms its way under your skin and wriggles around and makes you want to take a shower. Ugh. “LORRAINE. I ACTUALLY ALMOST FEEL SORRY FOR YOU BECAUSE IT IS QUITE FASCINATING THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, AND I MEAN NO ONE, FAVORS YOUR PRESENCE IN A ROOM. MAYBE YOUR THERMOSTAT HAS BEEN CRANKED UP FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, AND YOU JUST, I DON’T KNOW, EXUDE STUFFINESS OR SOMETHING, BECAUSE THE ROOM DEFINITELY BECOMES STUFFY JUST WHEN YOU STEP IN IT. YOUR SOPRANO RINGS ABOVE ALL OTHERS, INCLUDING YOUR MISTAKES. TAKE A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR, WHEN SHE CORRECTS YOU, SHE’S NOT USUALLY HARD OF HEARING; YOU’RE MOST LIKELY WRONG. EVEN SHE DOESN’T LIKE YOU. OR YOUR POKEY, INSUFFERABLE MOTHER. THANKS.”
WHAT ELSE ANNOYS ME:
1. My mom has this incredible knack to ask me questions that I either, a, could not possibly, ever, in a million years, know the answer to, or b, ask me questions that are so painstakingly obvious that I simply cannot help but to answer in a sarcastic manner. Which, usually gets me in trouble, but. Yeah. I guess it’s rude and impolite to ask people to try and foresee the answer to a question, that doesn’t make sense I suppose. I don’t know; it still annoys me. And unfortunately, my mother does it best.
2. People that walk in leisure-mode when I’m trying to get around them. I understand that you have lunch right now; however, I don’t, I have to get to my math class, I’ve already walked all the way around both buildings and I don’t have time for you to stop and hug your new best friend. Please either move or speed it up; YOU actually have somewhere to be as well. But then again I guess we don’t all care if we’re tardy or not.
3. Overly happy people annoy me sometimes; usually only on days where I have low-tolerance (some would argue that’s every day.) I’m not a pessimist but…I guess the unrealistic happiness annoys me. So overt pessimism should logically annoy me as well, seeing as though something may not be near as good as someone says, it may not be nearly that bad, either.
4. WHEN PEOPLE LEAVE TIME ON THE MICROWAVE. Oh lord. this is the big one. OH MY SWEET JESUS, it just wriggles and writhes under my skin and I have no idea why. Obviously, if you put something in the microwave and take the time and effort to set it to a pre-designed, premeditated chunk of time, you should probably leave it in there for that amount of time. Even if you set it a little over for the sake of rounding, take it out when you’re done and then, why not CLEAR it? Reset? Whichever your lovely lovely microwave prefers. You did everything else; why not finish it out? Some closure, ya know? It’s just ONE button. Just ONE more. It could even be your good deed for the day; pay it forward. CLEAR THE MICROWAVE. It’s just nice, and convenient, and it is scientifically proven that the human brain favors things that are COMPLETE and WHOLE and CORRECT. That’s why we try to finish words or sentences and get upset when things just abruptly end. That’s why ending a piece of music with a dissonant or unresolved chord doesn’t sit well with our ear. You know something that’s complete? Step one: insert food into microwave. Step two: set microwave. Step three: press start; wait for time to run out. Step four: take out food. Step five: CLEAR/RESET MICROWAVE. Please. Just do it. For me. Okay? Okay.
5. Close-minded people. Just..no.
6. Fickle people…what really gets me is the people that intentionally stop liking something they were a legitimate fan of, just because it became popular and over-analyzed by the general public. (coughtwilightcough. coughmychemicalromancecough.)
It’s one thing if you genuinely find a reason to dislike something, or if the thing in question changes with fame, for the worse. But to decide you just don’t like something anymore, such as a song or novel or movie, because lots of other people caught on? That’s…indescribably irritating. I don’t care if there are rabid fangirls; represent the sane side of the fan spectrum. Don’t be a pussy. Stand up for what you like, and don’t judge other people for what they like.
7. Honesty is a big thing for me. My junior year of high school taught me a lot of things about the value of an honest person. It is now the trait I hold in the highest esteem.
What annoys you? I want to know, comment : D
Music to leave you with:
Mumford and Sons – Little Lion Man <—Crass language alert. I have to warn you guys, it’s only fair. But it’s SUCH a good song.
This isn’t a music blog…but I have several more thoughts on music in general, and it is very important to me, as it is to many people. So, this post is going to be a generalized continuation of my previous one.
Music is defined as, (1), an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color; and (2), any sweet, pleasing, or harmonious sounds or sound: the music of the waves; the bell-like music of her laughter. It’s an interesting thought to consider that, because of music, absolutely everyone on our planet has something in common that isn’t inevitable or a basic need for survival. I’m pretty sure there’s nobody you could ask that doesn’t enjoy at least one specific artist. Music touches us, educates us, entertains us, and brings us all together. Part of the appeal is that there is something for everyone, from regionalized music (I know a little something about that) to classical, to global takeover genres, such as rock. There is a song that every one of us listens to when we’re angry, when we need to be cheered up, or when we’ve just been handed back our hearts roasted on a stake.
So what has happened to music in the recent years? I point out in my previous rant that, in my opinion, even as recently as the 80’s, music was still…well, about music. Where was the breakdown in between hair bands and autotune that stripped away the simple pleasure of making music and sharing it with the world?
Personally, I’m going to point some (not all, but a nice, hairy chunk) of the blame at big-time producers of both the music industry and reality television, as TRASNGRESSIVECINEMA so nicely put (in reply to my last post):
“You sound a lot like me! I can’t be near a TV showing one of these “talent” shows (Pop Idol, American Idol, et al) without starting to spit blood. It sucks all the individuality out of music.
Instead of people getting together and forming bands, now they just stand in line at an audition for a TV show and hope that they fit into the homogenised mould the producers are looking for.”
(That was my very first comment, I felt it fit to celebrate. But I digress.)
We all enjoy and mock the individuals that traipse down to the annual American Idol auditions to make complete and utter fools of themselves, only for their fifteen seconds of air-time. Most of us are aware that lots of these people are completely illuminated to the fact that they cannot sing a note, and that 80% of them probably only went on a “dare.” But nevertheless, the labyrinth of producers and interns that these people had to wiggle their way through let them see the infamous judges anyway. Why is this? Assuming the premise of programs such as American Idol is to legitimately narrow down a pool of talent to one artist with the full package, why do they waste our time and their own with the frivolous middle-men?
Because, mainstream producing has become, dare I say it, sort of a joke.
Entertainment value has devoured actual talent in the eyes of today’s head music outlets. If the masses think it’s funny or even slightly amusing, it’s producible. Even if something is, God forbid, annoying. If it sticks out in our heads, it’s worth something. And this concept is flung out to the blindfolded public, grasping out desperately for anything to hold onto before it falls over.
Who’s next indeed.
Music is not even the focal point of today’s music culture any longer. Look at Kei$ha. I’m sorry if you’re a fan, but she’s a perfect example. Now, her voice doesn’t quite make blood run out of my ears (I can think of a few teenagers with famous daddys whose voices do, though…), but I just cannot be convinced that the girl has any talent whatsoever. It’s almost as if she, in a drunken stupor after a wild night, riffed an almost-clever chorus-line that a few buzzed friends applauded and, jokingly, told her to submit to a record company. Lo and behold, she does it, and is quickly snatched up to be adorned in glow-in-the-dark garments and reduced to a basement-partying, facial-hair-endorsing pulp of the perhaps nearly respectable person she used to be. It’s a shame, really. But she’s amusing, and as they say, “bad publicity is better than no publicity.” Even I have to admit that I sing along to “Your Love (Is My Drug)” when I hear it in the car.
Money and glory also seem to play more of a role in the times of today. The thirst for fame and fortune can turn a beautiful dream into a completely selfish act. Instead of making music for the people, WITH the people, the concept turns into a chore. I can almost see someone today saying, “Really? Another song? Can’t you just pay me and let me go home?”
The amazing ideas and stories that music gives to us has become second-fiddle to the amount of money that can be made from what is now known simply as another “product,” instead of the art that it should be.
Reality television and over-use of the “how marketable is this person?” policy in general has grotesquely morphed “every-day life” and activities into something that is eaten up by millions and able to be controlled by the push of a button (voting off of islands, music competitions, dance competitions, etc…) This all leads up to a disturbing idea:
We, as a hunk of population all rolled together, have a massive, overgrown, awful, twisted, intense demand for instant gratification. And, worse than that, a large, hairy tumor of a God complex. As soon as someone becomes boring, or if we become annoyed or angry with them, we crane our big, collective neck looking around for the universal number to vote them off of the show! We’re like cavemen; when we become displeased, we point and grunt and expect whatever we’re unhappy with to immediately change into something more acceptable. We want to have complete reign over whatever it is we’re interacting with, and if it becomes unworthy, we throw it aside and look for the next entity that the world will toss to the sharks.
So what does all of this mess say about music and what exactly has happened?
Well, the flaws of the public combined with the industry that is so willing to profit from something that everyone enjoys makes for the superficial system of “music” we see today. Some of the genuine artists still exist today – but they are a minority now. What can be done to fix this problem?
Nothing, probably. It’s a monster of an issue that, if I must be honest, people most likely won’t work that hard to remedy. We’re left to sort out the true artists for ourselves, something that a lot of us have been doing for a long time now. To all of you that do, I wave the flag for you.
There we are – my thoughts on the music industry as a whole, I suppose. Comment as you please, with thoughts to the contrary or to support. All are welcome.
Stay classy, everyone.
And after all that thinking and becoming depressed via the flaws of today, I leave you the first song that popped up on my shuffle, a bluesy tune that immediately made me relax:
The Rolling Stones – Beast of Burden
: D
Disclaimer: I’m aware that there are plenty of artists that are passionate about their music and write their own songs, etc etc. Don’t get your panties in a wad. :]
I’m just going to jump right in here:
What happened to the celebration that was the core of the classic rock era?
I’m into many different types of music. Honestly. My tastes span the spectrum, but my heart lies mostly in the 70s and 80s.
Nowadays, people my age couldn’t pick Slash out of a crowd and they think Jim Morrison is a hobbit from Lord of the Rings; Steven Tyler is their older brother’s name and they don’t know of Dio, but they think it’s in Italy. The only classic rock song they can name is Smoke on the Water or Back in Black, the only reason they like the Beatles is because Beatles Rock Band came out, and they equate Paramore with Heart.
I mourn for those individuals.
Most of my friends have their radios turned to 94.1 before they pick me up (our local classic rock station), and they always ask me why I’m so partial to the oldies. I always think about it for a minute, and then explain that there’s just something…genuine about the sounds created in that time period. To me, this music is a celebration. It’s exciting, playful, fun, clever, pure adrenaline; it’s just good music. I miss the days when you wrote your own songs and figured them out on your Les Paul, then blew out stadiums. I wasn’t even AROUND for those days and I long for them. It seems that nowadays, music is played AT you; “Listen to me go, I’m so great, Imma win an MTV music award because teenie-boppers like my hair.” I get a more intimate vibe from classic music. When they were playing that music on the stage, they weren’t just on stage. Go watch them. They’re jumping around, going crazy…they were in that music, right in the middle, creating the very essence that they experienced WITH you. They layered harmony atop harmony atop harmony, and threw in an improv guitar solo to boot. Look at Led Zeppelin; they made up a lot of live performances on the spot. Their ability to improvise is true talent. They were going with the flow and playing what came out of them, not what they’d recorded with a synthesizer and autotune** in a studio. These bands may have been in it for sex and drugs, but they were also in it because they loved music enough to get up and do something about it. Now it’s a big money thing for some artists, and I know that detracts from the passion of the music.
Now, don’t look at me and list every single indie artist and alternative rock group you know that you connect with on a deeper level. I’m not saying T.Swift doesn’t write her own songs or that B.J. Armstrong doesn’t really play the guitar. They do. And furthermore, there is an exception to every rule. I’m simply wondering why they just don’t make music like they used to.
**and WTF is up with autotune? It used to be a cool, useful tool. Part of music is being on-pitch. It’s an art AND a science.
Being on-pitch consistently shows a lot of talent (and not to mention care and respect for the quality of the music)in a big way. Now, it doesn’t particularly matter if you screw up half of your song, because if it can’t be completely patched up with autotune, it’ll just sound cool anyway. Let’s release it.
No, no, no, no, no! :[
Autotuning strips all of the raw emotion (3:03 especially, if you click on that link) out of a voice. Honestly, I’d rather have a slightly flawed recording than a creepy robotic one.
I guess the entire point of this rant is that I wish the larger than life, epic (in all connotations and denotations of the word), passionate, simply kick ASS music that just isn’t around anymore could come back. Even the power ballads are better than a lot of today’s stuff. The music videos are funny and just pure fun, everything about it is, well, a celebration!
Musics to leave you with:
Well, salutations : D
I would say that I should tell you a little something about myself, if there wasn’t already a profile to do it for me. Also, I’m a strong believer in getting to know someone YOURSELF – i.e., making your own list of traits and impressions about them. I’m not going to sit here and tell you what you should think of me, I find it an odd sort of narcissism.
Now that that’s out of the way..
As my debut blog post, I do believe that it’s a good idea to address the following inquiries:
1. Why did you make a blog? Do you have too much free time?
2. Why do you think the general public should spend their precious life even THINKING about something some random internet person says? What makes you so special, you conceited, nasty hoe?
3. Do you think you’re funny? Huh? Do ya?
4. What exactly will you be wasting my time (and yours) with here?
Well, okay. Here goes.
1. I…honestly cannot answer that question. I guess because I have so many thoughts flinging themselves at the sides of my skull, just crying out to be acknowledged, that I cannot just outright say in an every day setting. For example, when Mr. Math (characters in my life will be referred to by nicknames made up on the spot; teachers, by the subject they, of course, teach) asks me some sort of grossly arithmetic-infested question, I cannot point out that instead of focusing on him, I have instead been wondering who sat down and said, “you know? I think I’m going to invent a pointless-yet-incredibly-infuriating, colorful cube composed of smaller cubes just to confuse the entirety of the populations of the WORLD.” I mean, it sort of pertains to math…but anyway, what I’m getting at here is, I needed an outlet for my ramblings. Here it is. We’ll see where it goes.
2. This question kind of sort of mostly pretty much 100% makes me a hypocrite. Because every time I see some random twelve-year-old with a vlog on youtube, the same thought pops into my head without fail: “what exactly made this kid think that ANYONE on the planet gives a frolicking, winged, cake-eating CRAP what they think about ANYTHING?”
I honestly don’t care that “Sarah with an H” from “super sunny Cali winky face” is totally in love with the obviously deep and incredibly thought-provoking Justin Bieber, but “wasn’t a super huge fan sad face” of Bruno Mars’ newest single.
Why should I waste my time stressing over what someone else thinks? Well, I shouldn’t. I guess if it’s amusing, it’s not a problem. If you enjoy reading/watching/listening, then okay. I can testify that I have willingly watched and enjoyed some opinions of others (Brotherhood 2.0, anyone? look it up.) I’m not conceited…as aforementioned, this is an outlet for me first and foremost…but if, by some unicorn-magic miracle, if someone out there finds my words remotely interesting, by all means, read my comma-splice infested posts. I really would appreciate it, all jokes aside.
3. Well…not particularly. I do think I have my slightly witty moments but they are by no means rampant nor legendary…but if you think I am, you’re my best friend. : D
4. Hmm. What will I be covering in this thinger? Just…any thoughts that pop into my head, really, but I think I want to try and give every post some kind of “theme.” The first few will most likely be on something slightly pertaining to myself (pet peeves, music, movies, etc) or what I like, just for you to get a feel for what exactly you’re dealing with here. But they’ll be generalized discussion as well…to keep everyone involved. Haha, I like how I’m assuming people will read this. Anyway.
I do think this is long enough for a first post…boring, perhaps. But something I WILL be doing every post, or maybe only once a week, I haven’t decided: leaving you with a song and/or band that you should MOST DEFINITELY CHECK OUT. It’s the appropriate way to end things, I do feel. So, our first post’s song of choice is….(it’s a link, click it!)
Florence and the Machine – Swimming
Just…a great song. Gotta love Florence. and with that…
Stay classy, everyone : D
seasonsofautumn 