Orrrrr play Final Fantasy on my phone?

… Well, it is a really addictive game.

Here’s what I need to do: Focus.

This all makes me wonder: how does one focus?  How do we get done the things we need or want to do?  For artists, how does creativity get funneled into creation?  I’m trying to think of how I write songs, but really I don’t know.  I do know that I am not in a songwriting position right now.  I can’t think of anything good, and no … I dunno, I have no spirit for it.  Sometimes I do, and I write lots of songs.  But now, not so much.  So there goes the concept album idea.

Some people need music playing, some need to be moving, standing, dancing.  Some people need drugs.  Whatever it is, there needs to be some kind of energy medium that takes place, a catalyst, where the potential energy of creativity gets filtered away from the general energy of life.  It’s a strange process.

So now, of course, I’m sitting in bed writing on my girlfriend’s laptop, telling you about this somewhat mediocre thought process I’m going through right now.  Bear with me, I’m still a bit rusty with the whole blogging thing.

Well, I’ve been telling myself for the past year or so that I should start writing again, to start popularizing the online serialized format: despite the prevalence of video and images on the internet, there is a lot of promise, I think, in online serials. It’s like the serials of the 19th century, except instead of newspapers, it’s on blogs, websites, wherever they will give you text space.

And so, beginning Saturday, September 4th, I will begin reposting TQS, chapter by chapter, and also begin writing it again. By the time I get to chapter 29 (where I stopped), I should be well ahead, giving myself much needed editing time.

The website will be quake.zornog.net. I don’t know what I’ll use to post chapters. I might go the old school route and just write up some HTML code myself. We’ll have to see.

So if you’re an old school gamer who grabbed a mouse to play Quake or other games like that, or if you like the Matrix-esque idea of living in an electronic world, I think the Quake Saga will be enjoyable to you.

I’m also thinking about releasing an audio podcast of me reading each chapter, too. So you can listen on your way to work, or school, or something. Either way, this is gonna be great. Stay tuned.

Oh and yes, I am going to try to write more in general, especially on this blog.

What do you say to friends/family who equate the passage of health care reform with the decline of America? People who say “We the people need to take back the power that has been ripped from us” Especially ones that voted for Bush TWICE! WTF?

Well, part of me thinks THEY’RE the decline of America, so what can you do? I can seriously see some secessions or alterations of our country in the next 100 years. Maybe even a civil war. The trouble is that “they” are very militaristic and have guns, while “we” are pussy liberals who want peace and holding hands and such. All we have behind us is knowledge and science, and I don’t know of anyone who wanted to die for science.

You know, we all get worked up over this liberals vs. conservatives fight, and we think Oh man it’s really bad now, but it’s not. It was the worst in the 1860s, because men, sometimes brothers, fought each other and killed each other. But if you look back in history, this kind of dichotomy of politics has been going on forever. Because it’s easier to think as one of two sides. The truth is, there are a lot of sides, and a lot of answers we don’t even know. But that doesn’t mean a three-party, or five-party, or even ten-party will work.

The problem these days is the GOP looks fucking INSANE, and the Democrats look like pussies because I think they don’t want to look as goddamn insane as the Republicans look. I mean, really, conservatives look insane and ignorant right now. They’ll just latch onto whatever is said on FOX News because that’s how their society works — a faith in rhetoric. Where do they get it? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the greatest piece of rhetoric ever written.

So the GOP looks crazy and the Democrats look like cowards, and Obama is trying to be a badass but it’s hard being a badass when things are going as slow as molasses. Nobody is a badass in the checkout line at 2pm on a Sunday, right behind the old lady who decided to pay for her groceries with pennies she’s been collecting since 1924. Obama wants to be Jason Statham, sliding on the hood of his Mustang with guns akimbo, saying, “Yes we can, motherfucker,” right before he signs a bill into law, (which then explodes, of course).

If you read Obama’s tweets or status updates on Facebook, you could tell his frustration was rising. Of course, those aren’t HIS updates personally, but we all know he’s just thinking, “These fucking white assholes are trying to take healthcare away from everyone! They just want money!”

And now we have this “healthcare reconciliation” bill which is going to take FOREVER to get passed, because Republicans can offer an UNLIMITED number of amendments to it, and I think each amendment gets 20 hours of debate. So it’s basically a filibuster bill, it’ll never get passed because it’ll never be good enough for the GOP.

And I guess 10 states are suing over the constitutionality of the law: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/22/health.care.lawsuit/index.html?hpt=T1

This quote from Bill McCollum is interesting: “There’s no way we can do what’s required in this bill and still provide for education, for foster care.”

Oh yeah? What about all the countries in Europe which do just that?

I don’t hate this country. I love it, and I love the freedoms granted to me by the Constitution. But I do hate fucktards, and that guy is a fucktard.

So what we have is a break between people, which I think should be solved by dissecting the United States into different countries by way of political and religious ideologies. Basically, give the conservatives the south. They wanted it in the first place, just give it to them. (This is not a new idea, of course.) We’re so stuck on worthless numbers, like 50 states. It’s ridiculous. It’s borderline OCD, really. It just shows how materialistic this country is. Yes, everyone deserves a place to live. And in Europe, countries were generally defined by cultures (Germans, French, Spanish, etc). And I think what we’re getting to in the USA is that there are different cultures emerging. We are not a “melting pot,” nor should we be. But there is a culture of sustainability and liberalism here in the pacific northwest (and bleeding ever so slightly into Boise [Boise proper, not Idaho, believe me]), and it’s rubbing up against a culture of consumerism and capitalism and, well, mayhem, in my opinion, and I think if some of us want to enjoy a little bit of socialism and helping out the poor, then we deserve a spot of our own to do it. And ideally the US would be the place to do it, because of our freedoms, but in a funny twist, we would need more state control to make it work (that’s funny because conservatives are traditionally the ones who favor state over federal control, by the way, if you didn’t know).

Okay, so I’ve rambled on for some time now and didn’t actually answer your question. I would tell your friends and family that they’re wrong, and back it up with evidence. You will find that most people you know who spout rhetoric they’ve heard somewhere do not do any skeptical research. Instead they just say what they heard. This is as true for liberals as it is for conservatives. I think this has a lot to do with how our country works, and I mean “works” literally: I mean how *we* work. We work eight hours a day, five days a week, we are encouraged to work as hard as we can and to take as few breaks as possible. A lot of us sit in front of rectangles all day, staring at bright unnatural screens, typing on unnatural plastic keyboards and subjecting our minds to tedium. This is what a LOT of people do. A lot of people never have the chance to exercise their creativity, their passion, their LIFE, because they are chained to a desk typing, clicking their mouse, staring at their screen in a tiny cubicle. Now, as much as I love computers and what they’ve done to the dissemination of education, information, and pictures of rabbits with pancakes on their head, I also know that this is THE MOST UNNATURAL THING. It sucks away our soul. It takes our spirit and degrades it, warps it, turns it off.

Why do you think people liked Transformers? Do you think it’s because people are stupid? I thought so, for a really long time, and then I realized, it’s not because people are stupid, it’s because people are DYING. Their minds are dying, and the cheap spectacle of brightly colored things coupled with hot girls and base humor is enough to make them happy. In a way, they’re infants, excited by the simple because their minds are being destroyed by tedium.

It’s not even that they choose to be ignorant, or choose to ignore science and medicine and sociology. It’s that it’s too much for them. It places a pressure on them that will make them crack. This is why those “man on the street” interviews, where a clever liberal person will debate one-on-one with a conservative about, say, healthcare reform, are so depressing — because what you are witnessing is a person who has built a bathysphere around their heart because it has been weakened through a lack of, in my opinion, art, culture, science, medicine, good food, good wine, good books, friends who love you even when you’re broken, fantastic, sometimes kinky sex, standing on the top of a mountain and enjoying the view rather than being proud that you climbed a fucking mountain, fucking in a bathroom stall, smoking pot, laughing at a clever joke, not a stupid joke, life, love, LOVE and ART. Being together, not apart.

Our country has become one where everyone stays inside and talks to each other through computers, rather than going outside and talking face to face.

Not here in Portland so much. Portland I think is destined to become the first fully sustainable city, living and working on its own, without outside influence. Just you watch. We’re already pretty damn close.

Oh, christ, I could go on about this forever, so I’m going to stop. Please remember that if you ever meet me in real life, I probably won’t ask you about the fabric of your skirt, or who’s playing in the big ball game tonight, or how cold it is today. But I will ask you what it means to love.

So why did I come back?  There is a long, complicated answer to that question, and there is also a really short, ridiculous answer.

I’ll give you the short, ridiculous answer:

I want to, nay, need to write a blog about my t-shirts.

For the past month or two months or perhaps from the onset of my birth in this blue-green world, I have had this nagging urge to write about my t-shirts.  Specifically, the retiring of certain t-shirts as I buy new t-shirts.  I don’t know why this is.  I cannot tell you why.  I have resisted, I have resisted so hard to write this blog, because it sounds boring, trite, ridiculous, stupid, and yet, here I am, crawling back to you, dear blog, so that I may construct a discourse on fabric that covers my torso.  That sometimes has funny pictures and/or sayings on it.

Specifically, I am writing about a Changing of the Guard.  My life is one built on laziness and resistance to change.  Thus, I have some shirts that I’ve worn for, oh, like six years.  When I moved to Portland I made this Decision that I would only buy band shirts, and wear band shirts around, and when pretty girls came up to me² they would say, “Are you wearing a band shirt?” and I would say, “Why, yes, I am,” and they would say, “What band?” and I would say, “Operation Ass Explosion,” and they would say “Cool,” in that way that hipsters smoking cigarettes in cigarette holders would say, and then we’d make out underneath a bridge but she would somehow be reading Tolstoy behind me at the same time.  I would know but I wouldn’t care, because I’m cool like that³.

One of these shirts that I’ve had for a long time is my Dragon Punch shirt.  Here is a photo for reference:

Actually that one doesn’t really show it at all.  Let’s try this one:

That is my friend Erin, she is pointing at me and probably saying “Hey, it’s That Guy!”

So there’s the shirt.  Very simple, I bought it online at some geek t-shirt website, and this photo was uploaded to Erin’s facebook on May 15th, 2006.  I still own this shirt.  It’s sitting in my closet right now, hanging there, looking at me like a dog that somehow gained the intelligence to know that it was about to be put down.  I’m sorry, Dragon Punch Shirt, this is the way it must be.

A story about this shirt: I once was part of an art installation.  The piece was called “What Does A Human Being Do When There is Nothing to be Done?”  There was a couch and some balloons with cartoon characters on it (no I don’t know why).  The piece needed a person to sit and do nothing, and so guess who they called?  That’s right, the Theatre Majors.  The people said “Act like you’re doing nothing,” and we said “Okay,” and then we all went there and slept because we were so tired from doing shit all day.  See, the art piece was a little misleading, mainly because if there is nothing to do, humans generally do one of two things: sleep, or go find something to do.  And since we were in an art piece and we couldn’t leave the art piece, we all slept.  Except for the weird theatre majors, they just did weird things like stare at the wall or do the splits of whatever.

Anyway, I arrived at the Boise Art Museum ready to sleep in my day clothes and the lady in the gift shop noticed my shirt and she said, “Why does your shirt say ‘dragon punch’ on it?”  She was a really beautiful Asian lady and so of course I stammered and said, “It’s from a video game,” and she was like, ohhhhkay and that was it, but the important thing is that she knew what the shirt said without knowing what the shirt meant!  I thought that was pretty neat.

The point of this story really is that I’ve had this shirt for four years and I need to get rid of it.  I mean, it still fits, it still looks decent, it’s one of the few shirts that I have not spilled food on, but it must go.  And so I’ve made this decision that whenever I buy a new shirt, I will get rid of an old shirt, until I’ve rotated out all of my old shirts⁴.

Then I found shirt.woot.com.  And it was like a baby was born without us even having sex.  And that baby was made out of shirts.

Shirt.woot is like what Threadless was five years ago: relatively unknown, but still pretty cool.  Now everyone and their got damn mother wears Threadless shirts, you know?  If I see one more dude wearing that Refridgerator Haiku t-shirt at a party I am going to haikick them right in the balls.

This is the part of the blog where I start to rethink my idea of writing a blog about my t-shirts.  I mean, what now?  Do I show you what t-shirts I’ve bought?  Do I launch into a diatribe about the philosophical nature of t-shirts?  Do I piss my pants?!

Here’s the deal: I bought a t-shirt that had a hieroglyphic-looking image of Mario, Mario Bros style, on the front.  And then I bought another shirt more recently of a turtle that shot down a rabbit with some sweet guns on its shell.  It’s a … reference to that … fable.  Yeah.

Oh my god this blog post is over.

Anyway, is there really any difference between imagination and reality? How do you know?

This is a really fun question to think about. I have a couple theories. There’s this idea in quantum physics that there are an infinite number of parallel universes that mirror our own. If that’s the case, then there is no difference between imagination and reality, because infinity implies everything; that is, if it can be imagined, then there is a universe in which it exists (think rule 34 but for the universe). So there is a universe where unicorns exist, a universe where Rush Limbaugh is a decent fellow, and a universe where you are the opposite gender that you are currently.

Moreso, my belief is that if you can imagine these things, then you are not really imagining, but tapping into those alternate realities. So when you imagine a unicorn, you’re actually linked with a parallel universe in which unicorns exist.

Of course, this really nerfs the idea of imagination, but I don’t mind. I like the concept of all things existing at all times, but us being only fixed into one thing at one time, probably because that’s all our consciousness will allow. I suppose when we die we ascend to a new level of consciousness where we can perceive all realities at once. This also relates to the theory of our “soul” being energy, and our energy transferring into all things when we die. It’s just that we transcend the third dimension at that point — we become space AND time, and perhaps much more.

So, in theory, death could be the merging of ALL consciousness, of those who died at least. As much as I enjoy having my own identity, the idea of being a part of Everything seems incredibly cool, too.

This also relates to the idea of “Heaven/Hell,” or reward or punishment for our earthly deeds — that is, when we are alive, we are striving for this higher consciousness that potentially awaits us in death. HOW we strive to achieve that is what religion becomes: a system of dogma and guidelines for preparing your soul for the afterlife, for the acceptance of higher consciousness. If we do not prepare our souls, then we do not achieve this higher consciousness (Heaven) and we become … nothing? (Purgatory) or something worse (Hell).

Ahhhh, I fuckin love this stuff!

Also if you want to ask questions, do not hesitate!  I answer every single one of them.  http://www.formspring.me/zornog

Oh yeah I have that little widget to the left too I forgot about that.  Anyway!

how do you deal with loss?

I tend to get very stoic. This is a trait, I think, that I inherited from my mother. I’ve been very lucky in that not very many people close to me have died, save for my grandpa and grandma. My grandpa Jack had a very unexpected stroke when I was young. Jack was a busy guy, he owned horses and a small ranch, and was always working. He had served in WWII as an engineer in Australia, building bridges. He severed the tip of one of his fingers and I remember he had what looked to me to be a bit of bone that stuck out of his finger. I always thought that was awesome.

One day he had the stroke and fell off a ladder he was on at the time. We went to the hospital and learned that his entire left side (I think it was left, I’m not too sure) was paralyzed. It devastated him, a man who would get up early to feed the horses, to be bedridden, and I remember the days soon after were spent with his surliness and anger. It scared the shit out of me, the whole thing: to be struck down, to be bedridden. I couldn’t understand when he spoke, and that frustrated him even more. I wouldn’t say I was particularly close to my grandpa, but we were still family, and it was hard to deal with it. So I think I entered Defense Mode and just shut those emotions off for a while.

After a year or so Jack’s viewpoint changed, he mellowed out and did physical therapy and regained a bit of his left side and became relatively happy again. He was still mostly bedridden, though he did sometimes walk with a walker. He seemed to find a new happiness in this different world, and we were happy for him.

A few years later, he died, and we had a memorial, and I remember being very stoic about the whole thing, probably because I was too young.

And then some odd years later (ten? twelve?) my grandma died, after a lot of complications with diabetes which eventually took both her legs. The truth is that she likes candy and sugary things and kept eating them even after everyone said You Must Stop, You Have Diabetes. I can’t say I blame her — she was old and did what she damn well pleased. You get that luxury when you’re old.

Anyway she died and I was stoic then too. Went to the funeral and was sad but kept it down.

Then a few days later, maybe a week, maybe a month, we had a big party at my house in Boise. I had a girlfriend at the time (the same one who gave me the Loser Cat), and it was a fun shindig, and I drank a lot and made an ass out of myself, as I usually do.

As it got later my GF and I opted to go to bed (bed bed, not sex bed). And as we laid in my bed at around two in the morning, a very strange, very unexpected thing happened.

I bawled my eyes out. I laid there, drunk and sloppy, while my teenaged girlfriend probably thought I was a big old loser, and I bawled and bawled and said in hiccuping sobs how much I missed my grandmother. I must’ve done this for at least a half an hour. God bless you, teenaged girlfriend (at the time), for putting up with me.

When I woke up the next day, I felt like a weight had been lifted from me. It wasn’t closure, but it was close.

… That’s not really an answer. Everyone handles loss differently. But there must be catharsis. There must be release. Anger, sadness, whatever. Time of course heals all wounds, but not if you keep picking at the scab.

Anyway, I hope that was … something. Sorry for being so long-winded!

jello puddin pops

Here is a picture of me from New Years Eve.  The caption is there because sometimes, in the right light, I look like I’m doing a Bill Cosby impression.

Here are a few updates from my life:

1. I have started running.  By “started” I mean I literally started today; I ran/walked for about 20 minutes.  I have started a blog about this, and you can read it here: Josh Goes A’Running.  I won’t write about it here, though.  This blog is for self-deprecation and my strange mental patterns.

2. February Album Writing Month is next month (obviously), and I am participating.  I suggest that if you want to listen to the songs I create, you head to my profile there, as I am not going to update my blog about it, because that just seems redundant.  Also, if you are a songwriter or have ever wanted to be a songwriter, I suggest you sign up!  It’s an amazing community full of professionals and amateurs (and people like me, somewhere in the middle), who are all extremely helpful and kind.  It’s almost annoying how nice they are!  If you do sign up, say hello on my soundboard thingy and I will certainly listen or read your stuff!

3. I’m thinking about dumping the joshuabelville.com website.  This will be done because it seems awkward to run two completely separate websites, when all of the good stuff is here on this site.  My new plan is to merge the webspace together (as I had separated it earlier) and just forward joshbelville.com to zornog.net, or perhaps to a subdomain on zornog.net.  What do you think?  Do you even give a shit?¹

4. There is no four.

I said that I would update this blog more and I have been lax about even that, and I apologize.  Truth is, not much is going on in my life right now besides working and watching every episode of 30 Rock on Netflix.  C’est la vie!

So let’s talk about resolutions.  What I resolve to do in this year.  I looked at my resolutions for 2009 and I’ve failed every single one of them.  It’s never been that bad before.  I don’t know what happened, but by becoming less rooted in Boise, I have become more introverted in Portland.

I really only have two resolutions: work out and rock out.  The work out part is self-explanatory: I, like every other unhealthy person in America, am going to attempt to get back into shape.  Right now this is difficult because I have no desire to do this whatsoever.  Quite the opposite — I want to drink soda and eat burgers all day.  Some say people battle depression by drinking alcohol, but for me it’s soda.  In a way it’s good because it means I don’t get to become an alcoholic, but it’s also dangerous because I’ll get diabetes.  So, yeah.

The rock out part is just a funny way of saying I’m going to try and play more music, whether it be live or not.  I really haven’t been feeling creative lately, and it sucks.

I also resolve to update this blog more often, which could be dangerous because I don’t do anything blog-worthy.  Unless you want entries about how good Bioshock is², then maybe a few blogs a month is good enough.

I’m not going to go into detail about why I feel shitty.  That’s the stuff of LiveJournals and other locked away journals.  This blog is about the good stuff going on in my life, stuff that people want to read about.  So I should probably just delete this entry and move along.

But I won’t.  Cause I promised I’d update.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Maybe that sounds pretentious.  I don’t care.  It was my experience, not yours, and I don’t expect you to understand how I felt at the time.  After being in the Rose City for a year and trying desperately to call it home, I finally felt home that night, and it felt good.

With that said, I promise I will blog more.

I am doing the Most Nerdiest Thing right now: DMing a D&D game.  It’s a lot of fun so far.  If you want to read more about it (and the custom campaign setting I’m developing), I suggest you head to our Obsidian Portal site.  If you’re into that sort of thing.

I love you all, thank you for reading and listening and being my friend.  It means a lot to me!

Friday night started late again; Paul and I were determined to get some sleep before we headed out to a very long night of music.  I ended up taking a two hour nap, but Paul wasn’t as fortunate (this totally makes us sound gay, like we were sleeping in the same bed or something.  We weren’t, but if it makes you feel better to imagine that we were, that’s fine.), so I was nice and refreshed and he was still a little bleh.  We found ourselves getting food instead of seeing the 8pm bands (we hadn’t heard of any of them).  Food was sushi.  A quick tangent¹ about sushi: I love it.  I grew up hating seafood.  I still do, really.  In landlocked states, fish is smelly and disgusting, having been frozen for some time.  Once you get over the cascades, it generally tastes better.  I can eat salmon, because there is fresh salmon in Idaho, but other than that, get it away from me.  Lobsters, shrimp, etc?  No way, dudes.  I don’t want to eat ocean bugs.

cucumber rolls: the training wheels of the sushi world

My first experience with sushi was with an ex girlfriend and a platter from Fred Meyer².  It tasted awful, but since I didn’t know what sushi tasted like, nor did I want to look stupid, I said it tasted good.  After that, I didn’t eat sushi again until I moved to Portland, and it was with another ex girlfriend, and it was at Dragonfish, and it was a lot better.  I hate, hate, HATE tuna fish in the can; I think it smells awful, tastes awful, and I pitied my cat when he got some, but the tuna sashimi I had at Dragonfish was great.  Probably because it didn’t taste like fish, which is the number one comment about good fish, something that strikes me odd — let’s eat something that doesn’t taste like what it is!

Oh well.

After sushi we traveled to a place I’d never been before — Jimmy Mak’s.  We went to listen to M64, a band I’d never heard of.  At first I figured it was an older build of M83, but then I got wind that it was a jazz club, so I figured it was jazz.

We got in and the place was packed enough to force us to stand.  The lady in M64 (it’s a lady and a guy who is a DJ, I think?  I wasn’t paying attention) was singing and doing that jazzy shit that jazz singers do, and to be honest I wasn’t that impressed.  Where’s the muted trumpet?  Where’s the oboe?  All jazz bands require an oboe, I think it’s in the Jazz Constitution³.  The venue was great — small and dimly lit, bright sexy red everywhere.  It truly was one of the few places where hazy cigarette smoke would’ve really just made it perfect.  We ended up going upstairs into a narrow balcony overlooking the stage.  There were a few seats and tables, and the seats were all taken.  We might’ve stayed anyway, but there was only one problem — our feet.  As in, they were hurting from the previous two nights.  So we decided to leave.

Off, off, off we went to Holocene!  Another place I hadn’t visited yet.  My hipster cred is low; right now I’m at Level Two: Unironic Eyeglasses, well past Level One: Still Shops at Walmart.  Only a few more XP before I level up to Level Three: Heard of Sonic Youth, But Don’t Like Them⁴.

Holocene is a bar (obviously).  I find that I’m not describing these locations as much as I should be, but I don’t really know how to describe Holocene.  It’s a bar, there’s a hallway and an offshoot room where the bands play.  That’s about it.  Really, when you’ve seen one bar, you’ve seen them all, even the trendy ones.  Bars are broken down into three easy categories: dive, sports, and trendy.  Sometimes the trendy ones are called “clubs.”  Remember this when you turn 21, young readers.  The mystery of bars is solved.

Really, turning 21 is fun for about a weekend.  Then you drink too much, then you realize that the best reason for being 21 is having a beer with your buddies, not going nuts every weekend.

the prids

Anyway, the band that was up when we got there was the Prids.  The picture here isn’t quite accurate — there was a girl playing keyboards, but I can’t find a picture of her.  The Prids have actually been quite a mainstay in the Portland scene.  They formed in Missouri in 1995 but moved here soon after and have been kicking ass since 1998.  They play bass-driven “dark-pop” music, and it’s very good.  They were also involved in a pretty heavy car accident in 2008, where everyone was injured to some degree and their equipment was destroyed.  Pretty nasty stuff.  Fortunately they looked good and rocked at Holocene.  This weekend was a lot of new bands being awesome, and the Prids were no exception.

I should mention at this point that some girls were handing out Red Bulls, and I took one, and I hadn’t drank a Red Bull (or similar energy drink) in about two years.  So I was pretty intense for the rest of the night.

explode into colors

Next up was Explode into Colors, three hot girls playing hot rhythmic dance rock music stuff.  I don’t know how to explain them (use the photo for reference): the girl on the far right was short, played a simple bass line on a regular guitar (and sometimes some scales), made a lot of “OOOHHH” noises into a microphone, and seemed upset because her sample pedal wasn’t working.  The girl on the far left was probably one of the most proficient drummers I’ve ever seen, playing beats that looked impossible with flawless precision.  The girl in the middle was playing some toms and cowbells and whatnot, and sometimes a keyboard, and sometimes a melodica, and was also whooping rhythmically whenever possible.  It had a raw energy to it that I haven’t heard replicated on any tracks of theirs I heard (a similar issue I had with Finn Riggins — I’ll write about this in general tomorrow).  I tried to explain them to my coworkers that Monday.  One of them took a listen to their stuff and didn’t get it, and the other said, “Oh yeah, I made out with 2/3rds of that band.”  Go figure.

Anyway, I really enjoyed them, and their grand syncopation.  It takes a lot to sound that good, rhythmically.  I think they could’ve benefited with some extra instrumentation — it was kind of weird to just listen to a bass line and a lot of drums — but overall, really cool stuff, and, in a way, my introduction into this kind of dance/rhythm indie rock (live, at least).

We quickly ditched the Holocene after Explode into Colors, because part one of my whole reason to go to MFNW was about to happen at Berbati’s — THE LONG WINTERS!  I can’t say how much I love John Roderick and his cryptically-honest lyrics and pop sensibilities.

the long winters

The last time I got to see the Long Winters was when they opened for the Decemberists back in … 2005?  06?  Something like that.  I remember them rocking my face off⁵, and then buying their albums and saying, “Hmm, these don’t rock as much on CD.”  But they quickly grew on me regardless, Mr. Roderick’s lyrics being heart-wrenchingly honest at times, yet still behind a haze of obscurity — like listening in on someone telling stories of past loves: names you don’t understand, places you’ve never been, jokes beyond inside.

So you can imagine my glee at seeing them play again, after three (or four) years.  I had been watching the 13 Songs With John videos on YouTube, so I was aware of A) his long classic rock hair, B) his broken front tooth, and C) his love of Air Supply.  I won’t get into it, but the set was awesome — and the crowd was not nearly as packed as it should’ve been.  I mean, I understand.  John hasn’t released an album since 2006′s “Putting the Days to Bed” (a wonderful album), and he hasn’t really toured that much since then, so I can see why his popularity would wane.  Fortunately, those in the crowd were pretty hardcore fans and knew all the lyrics (even me, having them be sucked from my brain and popped into my mouth without even realizing it), and John and crew seemed to be having a great time.

They played their last song, got a raucous round of applause, and then came back on for their encore.  For some reason Paul and I weren’t expecting it so we started to leave.  The encore was “Nora,” which was really cool, except that it started becoming a jam session.  Now, I love you Long Winters, but I do not like jam sessions, and also we had a VIP party to go to, so we left before you were finished.  My apologies, but it was worth it because we got to the party just in time to see…

THE THERMAAAAALLLLS

Arguably the best band in Portland (who doesn’t play Portland a lot because they’re constantly touring) was the band playing at the VIP after party, which started long before the Long Winters start, but didn’t have the Thermals until we arrived.  We walked in, they started playing, and we rocked out for about an hour or so.  When I say “rocked out” I mean I haven’t danced that much since I graduated college, where I was taking dance classes all day.  The after party was held at BodyVox dance studio, which is definitely the largest dance studio I’ve been in, so that helped.  The Thermals played in front of the giant rehearsal mirrors that lined the far wall of the studio.  We were very close and just to the right of the speakers (saving our ears).  Close enough to see the sweat fleck off of Hutch’s hair.  The Thermals are such a good band because they have fun, but are tight and play each song just the way we want to hear it.  They’re loud, simple, and fucking awesome.  I danced like a maniac, that’s all I’m saying.

It’s really hard to encompass the sheer sense of … home that I felt at MFNW that night.  I finally felt like I was in Portland, and not just a really far borough of Boise.

Tomorrow I promise promise promise that I will write about our final day of Musicfest (yes, final — we didn’t see Modest Mouse on Sunday.  I’ll write about that, too).

Also, mix CD!  Yes.  I have to find good tracks for you.  All in good time.