Emotional Roller Coaster

So the first 20 minutes of class on October 29th was wild. We were starting out how we normally do, trying to get settled. We heard about the no-phone rule, which shook some of us to our cores. We ended up spending about 5 minutes or so talking with our substitute about her life as a flight attendant. Christian asked a few dumbass questions but we got through. He actually had one question that was so bad I have to write it down. 

So we asked our sub where she liked to go most and she couldn't pick one, so we asked where she avoided if possible. She said she didn't like Africa because it was so dangerous and because the armed escorts were scary to have around. Christian goes "Oh shit! I bet that's cause of the lions right?"  The class went silent and reveled in his stupidity. Then we moved on. 

But after we talked to the sub for a while we decided to watch the movie, but the computer locked her out. She called her friend, a guy who works here that I've seen around and I've had as a sub before. He walked in and someone asked what his story was, I recognized him and so I mentioned a lengthy discussion about gun control that I had with him. He got really upset and angry and made us all feel pretty crappy. He said we were being extremely rude to him for just walking in. I guess he mistook people being friendly as insulting or patronizing and got upset. Anyways all of us felt really bad because of how upset he got. We couldn't figure out what the deal was but after that we were all pretty down. 

Then we started the movie. 

Matchbox Twenty

I'm a big Rob Thomas fan. I think he's just a cool and talented dude. I listened to bands like Matchbox Twenty and the Goo Goo Dolls a lot when I was younger and loved it. But recently my love was rekindled. I was watching Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which is an awesome show I think you might like) and Rob Thomas guest starred as himself in a main characters drugged out hallucinations. I saw a whole new side of my man Rob Thomas, so I punched Matchbox Twenty into my SlackerRadio (turned out iTunes Radio blew) and listened for a few days. It took me back to the last days that I enjoyed music by someone other than The Lonely Island as it was released. I'm not big into current music at this point, I've struggled to find current stuff I like so I pretty much quit putting effort in and focused on rediscovering my past favorites and maybe learning more from there. My past week with Matchbox Twenty, The Barenaked Ladies, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Counting Crows has been a blast and I'm gonna keep it going as long as I can

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones blow. I had never even put together that they were at the same time as the Beetles and were trying to compete with the Beetles. I was blown away by their lack of ability in playing. I also think they miscalculated by a lot on a few of their covers on the album we listened to. Especially the Muddy Waters song. In Muddy's version, the piano, emotion and slow pace make it an awesome song, in the Stones version they sped it up, took away the best instrumental piece, and basically just yelled at the microphone. I always never really bought into the Rolling Stones but this album showed me how wrong I was. That album is worthless in my opinion. The vocals are just kinda hollering into the mic and the instruments are shockingly bad sounding. I guess maybe they were trying to look like bad boys and that was there way of not giving a shit, but that was some crappy music. 

They could wistle though. 

The Outfield

The Outfield is intersting to me for 2 major reasons. 

1) They're the only band I know that references baseball correctly. (Other than John Fogerty) The main offender to baseball is Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days. What the hell is a Speedball?

2) They're not even American and they don't reference baseball again as far as I know. 

Your Love is one of my favorite songs ever. The tune is so misleading to what he's actually talking about. Your first listen through, if you don't listen closely to lyrics, you can't pick up on the fact that this guy is trying to cheat on his girlfriend Josie. 

Either way it's one of the only songs that makes me singalong no matter what company I'm with. 

Grimes blows

I think I finally threw in the towel on enjoying ACL. I'm not like a huge fan of live music but ACL is just so in your face for everything I hate about concerts. 

People moshing, not respecting anyone else who's there, and so many drugs. Grimes was the low point for me. Grimes was not music. It was shitty. I understand there is music I may not enjoy or get at all, but I don't have any respect for what she did. It lacked rhythm rhyme and it just sounded bad. I believe music should appeal to the ear in some sense. 

We sat through Grimes to get to Kendrick and it wasn't worth it. 

I think ACL is cool and great for Austin, but it's not for me. 

Bob Marley

Mr. A,

   Today we've been listening to you and your buddies practice Bob Marley's song "Keep on Moving". 

Last night I watched The Boondock Saints for the first time and while going through the IMDB page I saw Bob Marley on the cast list. The pictures hadn't loaded yet so I figured it was THE Bob Marley. Turns out I am an idiot. Bob Marley of Bob Marley and the Wailers died in 1981. Bob Marley of The Boondock Saints acted in the movie in 1999. 

I liked The Boondock Saints. It was interesting how they started each hit at the crime scene with Wilem Dafoe being an unusual variation of the stereotypical unorthodox detective. Wilem was an eccentric, brilliant, gay detective. The way they introduced his homosexuality was hilarious but somewhat uncharacteristic of the rest of the movie. Everything in the movie is so over the top offensive, that you would expect it to be thrown crudely in the watchers face to try to make them as uncomfortable as possible. 

Anyways it was a cool movie. 

-Blake Allen

Live Music

I will not use the Oxford comma in this post. 

Just about everyone in our class is enjoying live music whether or not they are actually in class. Most of our class went to ACL today to enjoy the heat, dillo dirt, weed and music. While Ross, Alec, and Kevin are enjoying the festival and Ryan, Will and Gavin are enjoying their locker room fun, Joey and I are enjoying the live music in class. We've got multiple shows going on, and between the rehearsing of Mr. A's band and Justin's performances of current songs like "I'm Different" I feel like I'm in musical nirvana. The class is much smaller than normal, at the moment there are only 8 of us. This allows me to learn more about my classmates, because some don't use inside voices. I'm listening to Ben Holzman talk to the girl next to him about how much girls suck. He's pretty jaded which is a bummer since he's still so young. Ben is ready to leave, but his lady friend doesn't want to bail. He's visibly frustrated by this and I feel for him. 

Anyways it's been a cool class.