11.25.09
95_Natural Phenomenon
Ahem, do to some unforeseen technical difficulties that we here at The Scene had (cough*Kid*cough), we are now pleased to (finally) bring you….
NATURAL PHENOMENOOOOOON (with extra “o”s to emphasize that it’s written phonetically, as if it were said by a greasy announcer for a pro-wrestling tournament)
_Seeing as how 2012, a movie about the destruction of the Earth due to natural phenomenon is #1 at the box office, it’s time that we talked about these occurrences. There is one in particular that seems as far reaching as the possible destruction that will occur at the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar in 2012. That’s right, we’re talking about the Drinking Game Phenomenon.
_It has occurred to us at The Scene that everything that stopped being cool when you turned eleven becomes an amazing drinking game when you turn 21. I know that this might sound like a conspiracy theory, but the truth is out there. Think about it. Look deep into your life and you will come to see it too. What did you do when you were ten on Halloween? You went around dressed up fancy looking for treats. What did you do on Thanksgiving and Halloween? You played board games and trivia and sang songs poorly with your family.
_And here’s the part that brings it all together. What do you do now that you can drink on Halloween? You go around dressed up fancy looking for treats. Alright, so the nature of those treats might have changed, but that’s besides the point. And when do you play board games and trivia or sing songs poorly now that you can get wasted? Well out at bars of course. Many bars in many cities offer Trivial Pursuit Nights or Trivia Nights and how many Karaoke bars are there in America? Thousands.
_That’s right, it’s been right under your nose for so long but you didn’t want to realize the truth. The Government isn’t going to tell you the truth and you know you’re not going to learn about it in school, but it’s true. You see it every day, you see it all around you. The truth they don’t want you to know is that we as legal drinkers are living out our childhoods as drinking games.
_Don’t you wish every conspiracy theory could be this much fun?
- Kid
11.24.09
94_Mixtape Mondays: Music We Aren’t Thankful For
_On Thursday we will all be sitting around our dinner tables with our families, giving thanks to what we have, ready to eat ourselves into food comas. But for now, it’s time that we reflect on all the things that we really aren’t thankful for, so that those things we think of on Thursday are that much more sincere.
_In light of that, we at The Scene have come up with a few bands that we really, honestly, truly are not thankful for.
_Music We Aren’t Thankful For, 2009:
_ _The Beatles: Now don’t get us wrong. We enjoy listening to The Fab Four as much as anyone else, and we are still adamant that “Ticket To Ride” is their best song. But, The Beatles have become so commoditized that they’re basically on the same level of music as Christmas carols. There are so many different anthologies, best-ofs, remastered, naked and cover versions of The Beatles’ catalog that it’s actually kinda hard to find their original albums anymore. We just want to enjoy The Beatles for what they did, not for what everyone has done to them since.
_ _Fall Out Boy: Everyone I know who listens to the same style of music as us tells us that we would love Fall Out Boy. And every time we hear them there’s about five to ten seconds where we think they might be right until the disappointment sinks in. Fall Out Boy has, to our knowledge, only written three good songs, one per each of their first three CDs: “Dead on Arrival”, “Sugar We’re Going Down” and “Hum Hallelujah”. Since then the only really interesting thing they’ve done is get pictures of bassist Pete Wentz’s package leaked onto the internet.
_ _Jay-Z: Jay-Z is known as many things. Among them, he is one of the most successful rappers of all time, Beyonce’s wife and the Brett Favre of the rap industry. The guy just won’t stop. Since his “retirement” he has collaborated with Linkin Park for a mashup CD, done backup work on numerous singles by other artists and released two full-length albums. It’s like him and Favre have a bet going to see who can accomplish more after they announce their retirement. And we like Jay-Z, we really do, but we wish the guy would make up his mind. Either keep producing great music as a full-time member of the music industry, or retire and spend your time with Beyonce. Whichever he picks we kinda wish we were in his shoes, but please pick one or the other and stick with.
_That’s it for Music We Aren’t Thankful For 2009. Coming soon as an update to this post, our good friend The New Glitterati’s pick for the music that she really, honestly, truly is not thankful for.
_Keep listening, and we’ll see you next week.
- Kid
11.17.09
93_Mixtape Mondays: Music You Need (to be our friend) Round 1
_There has only been one downside to canceling our old Myspace accounts: we have a harder time tracking down the bands we love. We used to have them all constantly sending me annoying bulletins about new merchandise or some such and it made us at The Scene feel warm and fuzzy inside. But, now that those accounts are dead, we’ve had to track down our favorites using our amazingly well-honed internet detective skills.
_So, with two picks of my own and three of The Sexretary’s, we at The Digital Scene present Music You Need (to be our friend) Round 1:
_Kid’s Picks:
_ _Evaline: Evaline is one of those bands that is nearly impossible to describe. How do you describe a band where the lead singer goes from singing to playing piano to standing on top of that piano screaming to playing cello, all inside of one song where none of that feels wrong? Their Myspace has them listed as “rock/ambient,” but that doesn’t begin to cover the variety inside Evaline’s music. Their the type of band that always surprises, even when you’ve heard the song before, and that’s just lovely.
Myspace: www.myspace.com/evaline
_ _Marigold: These guys reinforce the idea that nothing good comes out of Jersey but the music. Marigold is melodic hardcore at its best. Guitars that aren’t afraid to be hard, melodies that flow through the rhythms and eerie vocals alternating with shouted vocals. In short, they’re one of those bands that when you listen to them, you wonder how that all came to happen on the same CD. Then you keep wondering for the next three weeks because you keep playing the CD straight through that entire time because it’s so damn good.
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/marigoldgo
_The Sexretary’s Picks:
_ _Anchor and Braille: When The Sexretary sent me her picks I knew this name sounded familiar. It is none other than the side/solo project of Stephen Christian, lead singer of Anberlin. But, whereas Anberlin is the type of band that makes you feel like both moshing and starting a revolution because you’re so inspired, Anchor and Braille is the calm, insightful music you would listen to to wind down on the way home from the Anberlin concert.
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/anchorandbraille
_ _Sarah Blasko: Alright, let’s be honest. Sarah Blasko is hard to really get your head around. She sounds sorta like Lilly Allen would if she was trained classically rather than by pop. That is to say, her vocals are gorgeous and seductive and every element she uses, whether it’s banging drums or melodic classical guitars, sounds even more seductive inside her songs. She’s hard to wrap your head around because she jumps through styles and moods, but we love them all. And she has an Australian accent that comes out every once in a while, which is really adorable.
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/sarahblasko
_ _The Windupdeads: Speaking of accents, the last of The Sexretary’s picks is The Windupdeads from Sweden. On their Myspace there is a blurb saying that the Windupdeads might be “the best thing come out of Sweden since IKEA.” That is definitely selling them short. You turn to IKEA when you get your first apartment and want to seem classy. You turn to The Windupdeads when the weather is perfect for a good drive and you want to roar along with the sunroof open and the sun on your face not caring about the world.
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thewindupdeads
_Enjoy our picks for this Round of Music You Need (to be our friend). And always, if there are any bands that we need to know about to be your friend, feel free to let us know. We want to be your friend. Even if you do listen to too much Lady Gaga.
_Keep listening, and we’ll see you next week.
- Kid
11.15.09
92_TxtFile: A Word of Praise
_It’s time that we honored one of the greatest enablers of higher education through reading: the college bookstore. That’s right. Do you remember when you were in grade school or high school and they gave you those long lists of books to choose from to read? We remember, and we also remember wondering where we could find such a collection.
_It turns out that the best place to find a comprehensive collection of all that is deemed classic by the Academy is none other than your college bookstore. That’s right, walk in, pretend that you are an English Literature major and grab all that you can from the shelves. Or, even better, log on to your old college account, look up some reading lists and order them all online, thus getting a student discount if you order at the beginning of the semester.
_The fact of the matter is, the classics are the classics for a reason. We read books that we hate in high school to understand how truly good they are in college, and that process continues throughout our educations. Sometimes it takes us a bit to realize that we still read Hawthorne or Shakespeare for a reason: they still have something to add to our understanding of the world.
_So, instead of trolling around the internet for the Next Best Thing all day – which we completely condone, don’t get us wrong – make sure to head to your local college bookstore for a Complete Works of Oscar Wilde or a collection of Gerard Manly Hopkins’ poetry and letters. You never know when you’ll need to bring it up at a party.
- Kid
11.13.09
91_I Love You, But I Don’t Like You
What I’ve learned about parents, from my own personal experiences and observations as well as some wise words from a certain friend, is that you don’t have to like your parents. That’s right, you don’t. You don’t have to like them one bit. You can DISlike them if you want. Now, I love my parents, I really do. And I will be forever grateful and appreciative of everything they’ve done and given me. But this goes beyond that. This is me knowing that my parents are simply that – my parents. They are not my friends, my therapist, or my keeper. I love them, but I don’t have to like them. Confusing, right?
My parents and I share genes and characteristics and a dislike of cats, but other than that, they are not the kind of people I would look at and say “Hey! I like the looks of those two – they seem to be a conservative white couple who drink too much and indulge in politically incorrect digs. I’m going to go make myself some new friends.”
This discovery was highlighted under one of those industrial stadium lights construction workers use at night, when my mother discovered that I’m serious about getting a Monroe piercing.
I’ll save the gory details, but it ended with her crying about me ruining my beauty and demanding to know when my fanatical piercing was going to end and how far was I going to take this kind of insanity?! I know it was mean, but I laughed. On the inside, but still – it was a laugh, and I think a smirk may have slipped out. She was dead serious – she is convinced that I am ruining my life with these “acts of self-mutilation” and that I’m doing it as a way of retaliation and means of getting attention.
Enough with the teen-angst drama. The reason forthat sob story is to highlight my real point. My parents and I don’t like each other. We don’t like the decisions the other makes and we don’t get along with each other. And that’s ok. Really, it is. While a therapist would say that in I am actually upset by this fact and I’m retaliating by suffocating my feelings and instead using my stubborn nature as a shield, but I know now that’s a bunch of bullshit.
My parents are who they are and they will never like what I do and they will never be ok with my tattoos, piercings, friends and boyfriends, and that’s just going to have to be ok.
So moral of the story, kids? It doesn’t matter what your parents think and it’s OK not to like them! If I’m not a good enough role model, I’ll hook you up with the inspiring story of the aforementioned friend who has mastered the art of the “I don’t like my parents and it’s ok” speech. It’s quite inspiring, actually. I may like to hear it again myself.
11.08.09
90_TxtFile: Subject Matter
_First, a big thank you to The Sexretary for sharing her first Creative Non-Fiction assignment, the one I liked so much. Also, an equally big thank you to her for not telling the Halloween story. That’s for another day.
_But the title of her post made us think about our subject matter. The lady that teaches the Advanced Fiction Seminar that The Sexretary and I are taking keeps telling me that there’s too much drinking in my writing. I suppose this might be true, but I also suppose that if I played bridge every night, that’s what I would write about.
_But it’s a fair point. Sometimes it’s hard to realize the line between where we dictate the subject matter and where it dictates us. There does come a time when we, as writers, start doing things simply to have something to write about. And that’s bad. So this week we’re here to remind you all that subject matter is simply something you write about, not something that rules your life. If that’s the case, you need to reevaluate your life as a writer.
- Kid
11.05.09
89_Apparently, I’ve Always Liked to Write About Alcohol, Sex and Drugs
I know, I know. I’m a day late (and more than a few dollars short, after the celebrating that went on this past weekend). But I’m here and have for you something both exciting and embarrassing:
My story from Creative Non-Fiction.
The story that brought me to meet Kid.
The story that moved Kid so much that he was compelled by some unknown emotional force to ask me to write for The Digital Scene.
The story that led to Halloween 2008, when we… well, never mind.
Bottom line, this story led to a lot of interesting, embarrassing, awkward, hysterical, and insert-your-adjective-here. It’s kind of the story that got me started. So here it is. I like to think that I’ve grown as a writer and that my pieces don’t sound nearly as juvenile and sophomoric as this, so don’t be too hasty to judge. Actually, do judge. In fact, send us your story – the story that got you started… that way we can judge you too and we’ll all be even and feel better about ourselves. Ahh.
[Author's note: being that I was not yet acquainted with Kid and lacked his literary wisdom and ingenuity (oooh I bet he's loving this...), I came up empty for a title]
If she was a color in the 64-count deluxe Crayola Crayon box, she would be Cornflower blue. A Paul Newman blue. That kind of sky blue that is so unreal, it makes you think you’re looking through a pair of tinted sunglasses. Blue. She looks blue and feels blue.
In her bottom desk drawer, hidden under the old history notebooks and math folders and long forgotten college applications was her version of a Bucket List. At the top of the paper, in her careful cursive, was printed in blue ink “To Do Before I Die.” The rest of the page was empty.
—–
If she was another color in the 64-count deluxe Crayola Crayon box, she would be Unmellow yellow. A sunshiney yellow. The kind of yellow that is almost obnoxious in its bright fluorescent hue. Yellow. She looks yellow and feels yellow.
Her long straight hair used to be yellow, that unmellow yellow. Yellow hair that didn’t stay yellow for long. She’s fueled by a fear of remaining the same, of staying one way for too long, and the manic need for change was what pulsed through her veins as she tried to become someone else under a coat of Easy Dark Brown # 4, haphazardly drowning the blonde and coloring in a new picture of herself.
—-
If she was yet another color in the 64-count deluxe Crayola Crayon box, she would be Wild Strawberry pink. A pretty pink. The kind of pink that reminds you of a lipstick stained mouth. Pink. She looks pink and feels pink.
Ironically, she’s allergic to strawberries. But it’s not like she can escape them, what with the strawberry birthmark staining her back in a pink blossom. It is something to be loathed and loved and forgotten and reminded of. It will always be there, but like other parts of her person, she can sometimes manage to forget it’s there, marring her skin.
—–
11.02.09
88_Mixtape Mondays: The Morning After Playlist
_So last week The Digital Scene turned 2. We are now in the terrible twos, and to kick it off, The Sexretary and I spent the week celebrating. Yes, for a whole week, culminating in a very sloppy Halloween.
_And now that we’ve recovered (for the most part), it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming.
_So today on Mixtape Mondays, it’s time we talk about something that we have come to know a great deal about over the past week: hangovers.
_That’s right. There’s nothing worse than waking up with that head-crushing, stomach-churning, “I’m never drinking again” feeling after a wonderful night. So even though it hurts to hear loud noises when you’re hanging like a demon, we here at The Scene have put together a few songs that will sum up your hangover experiences.
_The Morning After Playlist
_ _Alkaline Trio – “Crawl” This song is perfect for those days that you wake up and, as the lyrics say “zero in on medicine.” Perfect for those days where it hurts to even open your eyes.
_ _Dave Matthews Band – “Grace Is Gone” Sure it’s a bit old, but this song is perfect for those lucky days when you wake still a little loopy from the night before and can grab a drink to take the edge off before pounding the water and coffee.
_ _The Dandy Warhols – “Sleep” This one goes out to everyone that has ever had to work early in the morning with a hangover and spends the entire day thinking “oh I could sleep forever.”
_ _Kings of Leon – “Use Somebody” A perfect, mellow, non-abrasive, but awesome and cute song to play with your significant other while on the way to get breakfast when you wake up at two in the afternoon, both still half comatose from the night before.
_If you didn’t know about those songs and their curative properties, you do now. Enjoy our playlist and as always, feel free to send us yours.
_Keep listening, and we’ll see you next week.
- Kid
10.25.09
Happy Birthday Baby
Happy Birthday Baby
Two years ago yesterday, the Digital Scene was born. I wasn’t in the picture back then. Two years ago yesterday, I had just come back to Baltimore after a not-so-tragic breakup, but was seeking solace in lots of home-cooked Jewish food anyways (courtesy of D).
One year ago yesterday, Kid invited me to make an appearance on The Scene. Oddly enough, I have yet to post the story that got me involved, but even so, I’ll be forever grateful for the Creative Non-Fiction Writing assignment that got Kid’s attention and led me to where I am today – sitting on my couch with Desperate Housewives on in the background, writing the “Happy Birthday to The Digital Scene” post.
This birthday is kind of a big deal. Turning one was nice and all, but it just meant that we’d survived. Turning two means that we’ve actually established ourselves. We’re not questioning whether or not we’re going to make it, if we’re going to reach people, if we’re going to turn into what we want to be. We’re sure, now that we’re two. We’re getting places and doing things (big, amazing, awesome things that are soon to come) and making The Digital Scene something to follow. In one year from yesterday, we’re going to have even more to brag about, and I know that I, for one, am damn excited about that.
So keep reading, keep writing, keep watching. Big, exciting things are coming… as soon as we recover from our serious birthday celebrations.
Happy Birthday to us, The Digital Scene. Here’s wishing for another year of snark, sarcasm, wit, and brilliant writing.
10.21.09
87_Health Care, Insurance, Obama, Oh My!
Health care. Insurance. Obama. Three things I am always terrified to talk about. For one thing, I am not well-versed in politics and the great entity that seems to be Obama, nor do I know much of anything about health care. What I do know, however, is that the health care and insurance systems are really, really fucked up.
I won’t be able to eloquently paraphrase the content of this news clip, so your homework is to watch it, read about it, and tell us what, if anything, is wrong with this picture.
I may not know insurance, but I do know crazy-talk.
UPDATE: Said insurance company has apparently reviewed the aforementioned case and has changed their tune
