_As we sit here researching and writing 15 – 20 page papers on Hamlet and Oscar Wilde, two thoughts occur to us: “Get us out of this fucking library” and “Thank God for Pandora.”

_Pandora.com is an online radio station that makes use of the Musical Genome Project. The MGP is something that, once you hear about it, you think “why didn’t they think of this years ago?” The MGP gives bands and songs different characteristics, such as “hard-rock influences” or “heavy bass beats” or “layered vocals.” So you choose a band or song and then when that first song is done playing, Pandora starts playing songs that have either the same or similar characteristics. So all you need to do is type in the name of your favorite band and sit back while Pandora plays an entire playlist of that band and bands just like it. It’s like the “If you liked this, you’ll love ___ ” part of Amazon.com put into practice.

_And since we don’t have to run through playlists picking and choosing songs that we like, since Pandora is doing that for us, we’re free to sit back and work our way through these papers. Which we’d actually rather not do. Damnit Pandora, we can’t help but get to work. Maybe we don’t like Pandora after all…

_Keep listening and we’ll see you next week.

- Kid

_This post is a varitable Voltron of posts. It’s as if the literary excellence of our Sunday TxtFile posts, the musical madness of Mixtape Mondays and the wrandomness of wednesdays all came together to form into one massive Japanese robot of a post.

_And what could possibly encompass all of that? Why book soundtracks, of course.

_Book soundtracks are a fairly recent invention and so far have not been encorporated much into the actual act of reading a book. Amazon.com does have an interesting article, found here about soundtracks built specifically for certain books. Some of them are inspired bys, some of them are meant to be listened to while you are reading the book itself. Other than this handful of CDs, the only music we’ve come across that’s meant to be listened to while actually reading through a work is the CD that comes included in Laura Esquivel’s “The Law of Love.” The book contains comic book segments that are meant to be looked at as you listen to the selected CD track. It’s a cool experience, even though it can be a little awkward to read, as you can see below:

_We enjoy a book soundtrack moment:

_There has to be a better way…

_While these specific soundtracks are few and far between, ad-hoc soundtracks are compiled by authors daily as they come to connect the music they are listening to/inspired by with the stories they are writing. Catching on to this trend, the music blog Largehearted Boy has a Book Notes section in which authors talk about the music that inspired them and give a few songs that the reader can listen to to get into that same mindset. If you’ve ever want to know what Sloane Crosley, Augusten Burroughs or Joe Meno were jamming to while they wrote, Largehearted Boy is the place to go.

_And so, let’s get this ball rolling. Fellow writers/music lovers, get your jam on and compile your soundtracks so that we can rock out to all the tunes that will greatly enhance our reading of the material. Since this is an educational thing, you know.

- Kid

_Last week we commented on some music that we were not at all thankful for. This list included some very popular acts that, for reasons of our own, we don’t care to listen to. As you can see in this picture of Kid expressing his lack of thanks for some of the music we have been provided:

Photo courtesy of The New Glitterati

_But that was before we entered into the official Christmas season.

_In light of the fact that we are now heading into a month solid of Christmas Carols and Holiday Specials, our good friend at The New Glitterati would like to add her pick to the list. She is not thankful for Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne.” And neither are we. As far as Christmas songs are concerned, they tend to range from bleeding ears to merely bearable. And this one is an ear bleeder. It’s cheesy, it’s country, it’s got love on Christmas Eve in a grocery store. You heard us, a grocery store. In the second verse Fogelberg mentions drinking, which is what we are going to go down to try and wash this song out of ears.

_Keep listening, and we’ll see you on Monday.

- Kid

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

_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

_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

_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

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.

_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

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.

—–

On a blue day, she might lie in bed for hours, letting the alarm beep itself hoarse. She may lie there with her eyes closed, losing all train of thought and simply falling into a trance of a daydream. The hours roll by slowly behind her drawn curtains, outside of her warm covers. An entire day might pass before she is able to get up. She can’t really explain why she can’t get up, she just sometimes can’t.

On a yellow day, she may throw herself into madness. She’s reckless and dangerous and sad. She runs herself ragged on these yellow days; she can’t stop thinking and can’t stop doing. Impossible to keep up with – the ups and downs and emotional surge. But it’s how she has always been and what’s always been part of her. She doesn’t really know why it happens, and she doesn’t seem to know how to stop it.

On a pink day, she could wake up still drunk from the night before, running on nothing but Smirnoff and Marlboro’s. Pink days are the days when she tries to live the day before… a Bill Murray Groundhog Day kind of complex. She is still living the night before, still tasting the liquor and breathing the smoke. Coming down from her high, she falls hard and hits the ground in a mess of vomit, tears, and shameful regret. She doesn’t know how she gets through those days, but somehow in her intoxicated haze, she manages to forget about how much it will hurt to fall and wake up on the ground.

—–

That blue day, that was the worst. She’s celebrating life with a bottle of dark burnt-yellow rum and vanilla vodka. She’s letting the fear drown under 70 proof, waiting for him to grab her hand a drag her back to the dorm room with the window that won’t quite close and the carpet that her toes sink into when she tiptoes out of the room after it’s over. When they’re there, they hit the alcohol harder, and she watches herself walk away from the bottle and over to the desk covered with biology homework and empty liquor bottles. She picks up his license, sticking out her tongue in concentration as she traces the card across the porcelain plate resting precariously on the edge of the college-issued desk. She takes an audible breath, dropping the license on the floor, leans over, and elegantly snorts a line.

—–

She wakes up the next morning still drunk and high. She sits up in bed, pulling the sheets over her nakedness, putting her head in her hands. She’s seen the bottle and the empty porcelain plate. She cries, and her cheeks turn pink.