Best of 2009

2009 is about to pass and with that in mind I decided it’s time to jot down my favorite albums of the year. Maybe I’ll edit this later with favorite movies too, but that might be too crazy… Anyway, here goes. Feel free to bash on my list and tell me what I forgot in the comments!

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains
4. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
5. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
6. Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue
7. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
8. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
9. fun. - Aim and Ignite
10. Real Estate - Real Estate
11. Mayer Hawthorne - A Strange Arrangement
12. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
13. Hotels - Where Hearts Go Broke
14. Girls - Album
15. Fanfarlo - Reservoir
16. Say Anything - Say Anything
17. Passion Pit - Manners
18. Miniature Tigers - Tell It To the Volcano
19. Atlas Sound - Logos
20. Ramona Falls - Intuit

mixed up turtle vol. 1

so i decided to make a mixtape of songs i’ve been jamming lately, and what i thought would be just me throwing some songs into a playlist and burning it turned into getting gnarles and mixing the songs together so they flowed. flow is key in a mixtape. i wanted it to sound like these songs were supposed to be together and i think i did a pretty good job. so don’t you be using shuffle now. hopefully you can find a song or band you like that you’ve never heard before.  alriighttty now time for the goodness..

tracklist:

1. does it offend you, yeah? – dawn of the dead
2. miniature tigers – like like me
3. phoenix – 1901
4. cymbals eat guitars – some trees
5. grizzly bear – two weeks
6. no age – teen creeps
7. friendly fires – jump in the pool
8. death cab for cutie – long division
9. vampire weekend – m79
10. tv on the radio – dlz
11. passion pit – sleepyhead
12. los campesinos! – we are beautiful, we are doomed
13. dirty projectors – temecula sunrise
14. department of eagles – phantom other
15. japandroids – young heart speaks fire
16. so cow – casablanca
17. facing new york – comin up
18. radiohead – paranoid android
19. animal collective – no more runnin
20. deerhunter – nothing ever happened

runtime: 1:16:51 (it fits on a CD)

download!

let me know if you like it, i had a lot of fun doing this and will make more if there’s interest.

they think the future’s bright as halogen/ we know it’s pretty bleak

been a while since i’ve posted on this here blog so i’m here to spew some nonsense for ya. lost my ass in vegas. it kinda sucked, but i had a really good time with my homies. money ain’t everything ladies and gents. lost ended last week, and in lost finale fashion it had an insane mindfuck twist at the end as well as a crazy “THEY CAN’T END IT ON THAT!” cliffhanger. it’s kind of pathetic but as the clock ticked closer to 11PM i was already getting sad that i would have to wait 8 months for another episode. i need my lost like i need my crack cocaine. i dont even do crack cocaine, but i would imagine that it exert the same amount of addiction as by beloved sci-fi island journey television show. lets time travel back to the present shall we? patterson is a fucking riot. we brought a notebook with us to vegas so we could write down all of the ridiculous things he said and he indeed did say a bunch of ridiculous things. some of my favorites were “i would destroy megan fox. she’s the kind of girl i would tie up.” and “your dad fucked her?” when have you EVER in your entire life been talking to some of your friends about someone who banged some chick and that certain someone was your DAD? never. never never never. i absolutely do not understand how he would think we (i forget who started the conversation) were implying that. needless to say it was absolutley hilarious and we laughed about it for so long that by the time we were done i was probably down another hundred bucks. maybe i’ll post the whole list of quotes later but most of it is the kind of thing you think is really funny until you tell someone else and they don’t find it so funny. then you get embarassed and say “you kinda had to be there.” :/ so i dunno. maybe if you’re lucky. watched a good movie last night called let the right one in. foreign vampire flick, really well done. beautifully creepy characters and scenery. very snowy, very dark. not sure which language the movie but i think that it was better off being in a foreign language, for some reason it can make the whole concept of a vampire seem more believable when it’s taking place in a country or part of the world that you’re not familiar with. i don’t know why that is. the whole concept of ambiguity helps you lock into the story and throw away any kind of “pshhh that could never happen” thoughts you might normally have. check it out. anyway i didn’t really intend to even write this much before i started and i kinda kept going so i’m gonna end it here. i bid you adieu with some music!

playlist right now is

cymbals eat guitars
phoenix
whitest boy alive
wilco
harlem shakes
modest mouse
silversun pickups
blink-182
new found glory

It’s not a miracle we needed, and no I wouldn’t let you think so

it takes a lot to get me excited about a CD these days. i’ve been following music religiously for the past 10 years (at least) now so it i’ve learned to withhold any excitement for a record until you actually have it in your hands, because if you let something get too hyped up into your mind nothing the album delivers will ever match up to what you were expecting. so i tend to ease in to things these days. this notwithstanding, it’s always the best when you’re just looking around and you stumble upon (oh no, trademark infringement! maybe someone will google that and my page will show up, and someone will actually read this) something so amazingly awesome. case in point being phoenix’s latest entitled “wolfgang amadeus phoenix.” phoenix is a indie-rock/pop band from france and they will rule the planet with their finely crafted catchy-as-fuck jams soon enough. i really can’t get enough of it, it’s the kind of record that you find yourself humming the guitar lines in your head and scribbling the lyrics on the margins of your notebooks. i’m predicting they will become this year’s MGMT – the band from overseas that everyone likes even if they don’t want to admit it. check out the song “girlfriend” – the opening synth line that runs through the whole song sounds like it would fit perfectly on the last MGMT record doesn’t it? the muted/delayed out and echo-ey guitars crunch along and build into a nice chorus while the synth breaks down. it’s great. so great. check them out, as well as the rest at the bottom of this post.

besides being baffled by boss beats (6 words that start with b in a row. beat that) i’ve been gettin buck wizzy with school lately. got two research papers due in a couple weeks, one on ancient medicine and the other on american culture. i’m almost done with the medicine one, and i should be able to mob through the american culture one pretty quick. i have to give a speech on the american culture one so i’m kinda nervous about that, but i’ll get over it. it’s just a speech. (stop being such a pussy turtis) i’ll keep that in mind guy in parenthesis. in between massive amounts of reading the office has taken over my TV. why hadn’t i started watching that until recently? it’s so hilarious, i love it. dwight is a fucking riot, and michael is so awkward it hurts. pretty great.

padres have been doing much better than i thought, 6-3 is a good start even though they looked horrible in the 7th inning tonight. that was some borderline little league bullshit with the 4 runs on 1 hit (a BUNT!) but whatever. it’s april. hopefully the team from the first week will show up the rest of the way. chargers schedule is out and if they play to their potential i’m seeing a 12-4 season, maybe better. but i think 11-5 could win the division this year. i dunno it’s funny to me how the nfl can release a SCHEDULE in the middle of april and take over ESPN. i was watching yesterday and they had a 1 hour special on ESPN when it was released, then another hour special over on ESPN2, then back to ESPN for 2 more hours. just to talk about the fucking schedule. our society hurts for football so bad that they fill up 4 hours of primetime TV just to discuss who is going to play who. come to think of it i should probably talk about that in my american culture paper. it would be perfect. anyway, hope you enjoyed my rambles it’s time to get LOST. check out these albums and let me know what you think.

playlist:

phoenix/ wolfgang amadeus phoenix /// click here if you want to have a song stuck in your head for the next week
so many dynamos/ flashlights
cursive/ mama, i’m swollen
cymbals eat guitars/ why there are mountains
jimmy eat world/ clarity live
the life and times/ tragic boogie
silversun pickups/ swoon

trying to clear up some LOST confusion

so i watched lost with some friends last night, needless to say we were kind of drunk from the basketball game (st marys aint got shit) so it was a pretty sloppy viewing session. i watched it again with deter afterwards and got the full effect. watching it the 2nd time through was much better, once you know what happens at the end you can focus more on what makes it develop and it was a really good episode. i see a lot of confusion on the internet on how the time travel works in lost so i’m gonna explain it all to you because i’m a nice guy. if you haven’t watched last nights episode just stop reading because i’m gonna use spoilers from here on out.

okay. i’m seeing a bunch of confusion as a lot of people don’t quite understand how time travel works in lost. people are used to how it works in back to the future and heroes, where the characters can go back in time to change the future. this is NOT the case in lost. everything that has happened has already happened and will always happen. you can’t change anything. the only person that can fuck with the time/space continuum is desmond as “desmond is special” because be turned the failsafe in the hatch. this is why he could see the future to save charlie, why he went back in time and tried to buy a wedding ring for penny but was told he wasn’t supposed to by mrs. hawking, and why he slipped consciousness in the constant. anyway, for everyone else, nothing can be changed.  which brings us to the end of last nights episode. ben gets shot by sayid leading to the whole world going “WHAT THE FUCK.” the thing is – this always happened. sayid always went back to the island in 1977 and he always shot little ben when he was 12. meanwhile, he is growing up in iraq dominating chickens and taking extra special care of his luxurious hair.  so there are 2 sayids. TECHNICALLY, if sayid (or any of the other losties in 1977 for that matter) were to leave the island, they could go and meet their younger self. however this won’t happen because then someone would remember when they were a kid meeting their older selves. this could happen though, we haven’t seen the rest of the show. now, getting back on track here – the losties are living their lives in a linear line and their present is in the 70s. the people they meet in the 70s will remember them when they get older, but the losties don’t remember anything they did in the 70s because to THEM it hasn’t happened yet. the picture that christian showed to sun and lapidus with the 815ers in dharma in 1977 has ALWAYS been there. even if they would have mobbed straight there in the first episode of the show, before all the turning of the wheel and all the time travel shit went down, the picture would still be there because it already happened. which leads us to the fattest mindfuck of all – when ben comes across the losties in the hatch in season 2, he already knew them. and he’s been fucking with sayid so much because he fucking SHOT him when he tried to help him as a child. i think we now know why ben is so crazy. sayid tries to kill the monster but inadvertently creates it. now how much do you wanna bet that juliet is the one who saves his life, leading to him having a crush on her which then leads to him bringing her to the island when he’s older. full. fucking. circle. i love this show.

life update & a crazy lost theory

i was at work and felt like blogging tonight. i haven’t in forever, as usual, so when I heard “i am the walrus” by the beatles (one of the top 5 best songs ever, without a doubt.) come on the radio at work i knew then that this was a spectacular moment in time not to be taken lightly. the time was now. so, what’s new. tomorrow is st patrick’s day and instead of having a grand time with my friends pounding irish car bombs and heinekens (doesn’t need to be irish if the bottle is green bitches!) i will be completing another rough day of school in the AM (11-2, don’t hate – that’s early enough) and working late into the night. but this won’t get me down, i won’t let it. i’ll have many st. patty’s days in the future to get my smash on with. i’ve been more motivated for this semester of school than i have ever been in my entire life. i have straight a’s and i’m going to keep it that way. it’s funny how once your mindset changes from “school sucks.” to “i’m going to fucking kill this.” you can do anything you want. this goes for everything. i’ve stopped smoking, eating shitty food, i actually get up early enough in order to shower before school, (BY FAR the hardest one ) im working out every other day (BEEFCAKE) and i’m reading books when i’m bored (you thought there’d be something clever within these parenthesis didn’t you? not this time suckaaaa). i’m turning into the guy from american psycho minus the murdering, intense morning routine and epic business card. no offense to mr. bateman and his awesome morning routine. my addiction to playing the guitar has also come back with a vengeance. i’m a jamming machine. i found a minus the bear forum with an amazing group of people who have tabbed out mostly all of their songs, and it’s totally given me the inspiration to become an unstoppable tapping machine. i’ll have absinthe party down within a few weeks, count on it. heyyy let’s cross the sea.

lost is in the middle of the most amazing season of the entire series, which has me giddy as a school girl because i am completely obsessed and also has me surprised because shows aren’t supposed to get better after 5 seasons. usually they get ridiculous and drawn out and run out of cool ideas. not lost. not in the slightest. the introduction to time travel has essentially turned the flashbacks from previous seasons into a live flashback with our beloved losties playing out the past. it’s fucking genius. sawyer was in dharma for 3 years in the 1970s for fucks sake. that is the raddest thing i have ever heard. if you would’ve told that to somebody 3 years ago they would’ve asked you to kindly lay down the crack pipe. i have a theory that’s probably been thrown around online but i’m gonna let you have it. ok, first off. last week sawyer and co saw the gigantic statue that looked like it was from the ancient egyptians, what was interesting about that was that at the same point in time, locke was down in the well talking to christian before he turned the wheel. this means the wheel has been there since the ancient egyptians, effectively meaning it’s been there forever. we know that the exit point of the island is in tunisia, which is where ancient carthage was – right next to egypt. this makes me think that the original inhabitants of the island (richard, and the others) were descendants of egypt and the island is actually the lost land of atlantis. atlantis wasn’t lost under the ocean, it became lost in time – the egyptians couldn’t fathom that so they created the story that it was lost in the ocean. this explains why they made a giant egyptian looking statue, why there were hieroglyphs in the swan in season 2, and why richard wears eyeliner (they did that shit back then). now you’re all saying that i need to lay off the crack pipe huh?

besides lost ive recently gotten into the office. that shit is straight comedy. i’m in the second season right now and have laughed pretty damn hard at each and every episode. i really want jim and pam to hook up, the 3 year engagement to mr. douche is wack. but i really hope they don’t drag that out for too long cuz it would get pretty tedious. dwight is absolutely classic and so is steve carell. some of the things that come out of that guys mouth are just legendary, he makes such an ass out himself and doesn’t even realize it most of the time. i love it. i’m stoked for march madness, i have memphis over pittsburgh in the final right now and i’m pretty sure it’s gonna stay that way. the rest of my picks however will probably be on constant shuffle until tip-off on thursday. i’ve already switched around like 20 games before work today. i’m so indecisive. well that’s all i got for ya tonight, i need to eat something or i wont be around to entertain you all in the future. peace.

everyday the 14th

how was everyone’s valentines day? i spent most of mine on the side of the 5 freeway just north of oceanside because i got a flat tire on the way home from LA. it was late and it was absolutely freezing. it sucked. i was making pretty good time when all of a sudden i heard a really loud sound, it didn’t sound like the tire popped really, it was just a really loud noise. i looked at my brother and we were both like “what the fuck was that? … whatever” until about 30 seconds later when the whole car started rumbling and it suddenly felt like i traded out my car for indiana jones’ jeep and we were mobbing through jungles looking for the lost ark. so i crossed over the whole freeway into the right shoulder so i could put my mr. handyman skills to the test and put the spare on. about a half hour later after getting a bunch of screws off cause my rims are a pain in the ass, i realize that i need a socket wrench to get the main 4 nuts off the wheel. the socket wrench on my jack is too big for these new rims apparently, and when they sold them to me they didn’t tell me that i would need a smaller one, so now im shit out of luck on the side of the freeway waiting 45 minutes for a tow truck guy to get here so i can hand him $45 to basically let me borrow a socket wrench for 20 seconds. awesome. what a shitty experience. main redeeming factor from the whole thing, while i was waiting around for the tow truck guy to come hustle me like a bitch i cleaned the shit out of the back of my car and found my old CD case. i thought i lost it a long time ago but it was just sitting there, underneath the floor of the trunk in between the trunk and where the spare tire compartment starts. i love realizing something you’ve been looking for has been right there with you the entire time but just slightly out of reach and you didn’t even know. not to mention how awesome it is to look at something like an old CD case, or an old notebook? just looking at the CDs you bought and burned, it really puts you back into exactly where you were when those cd’s weren’t just hiding underneath the floor of your car, but rather in the player letting their voice be heard; a time when their lyrics were latching onto your unconscious thoughts and channeling themselves through your wandering mind onto the margins of your psyc notes.

late. again. always late.

well well. as usual, long time no blog. i seem to start all my blogs off just like that, as if i’m saying hello to an old friend that’s been lost in the mix somewhere along the line. i’m not sure why that is, i really like doing this but for some reason it’s difficult for me to go to this page and start typing. once i get here it’s all butter tho. so since my last piece i have gone to vegas for the super bowl, started school (notice which one i put first? yea) and have already started finding some possibilities for my best of 09 list with some really good january/february albums. you know, the ones that don’t make it on your first list but then you realize to yourself that yes, january and february are in fact a part of the calendar year and you can include them. and if they can survive the longhaul that is the year then they must be pretty damn good and shouldn’t have been forgotten in the first place. kind of an oxymoron dontchathink (or did i mean paradox? educate me) i also almost killed myself last weekend drinking $8 military special whiskey. you know in blast from the past the dad tells brendan fraiser to run away from the adult bookstore because it’s full of poisonous gas? i wish someone would’ve told me the same thing for the military special. it’s that bad. you’ve been warned.

vegas was insane. i wish i had a bunch of pictures to post but i didn’t have the right kind of SD card for my camera so we had to resort to using pattys camera. which then resulted in him keeping all the pictures (bastard!) and not sending any to me. i could’ve busted a photoblog. how bad ass would that have been? now we will never know. you can direct your complaints to him personally at chrpatterson@gmail.com. we left san diego around 7 and got to vegas at midnight and gambled like crazy for the next 3 days until we left after the super bowl. i was up big and down big, feelin good and feelin not so good, hungry and not so hungry, but thats just how it goes. that’s vegas for you. if you sit down at the tables too long they will eventually take every penny you have. those hotels and casinos wouldn’t be there if they weren’t making any money! the sooner you realize that the faster you will run away with your winnings and your free drinks and the happier you will be. some other things i learned in vegas is that this hallway definitely would NOT be crazy on mushrooms, the rat pack can go fuck itself and the guys on the street with the cards for hookers will give you as many as you want, including up to 300 for someone to make it rain in your hotel room. hooray for inside jokes!

as far as school goes, i’m doing well but it’s only the beginning. i always start off semesters on fire and then start burning out towards the end, but this year i need to make a change and keep it burnin the whole way through. (see what i did there?) i had to write an in class essay today for english class so last night i was stressing on it pretty hard, but once i got to class i just sat down, read the prompt and fucking wrote. i mean i obviously did everything right, 5 paragraphs, follow the prompt, whatever but i would like to think it was more on my own terms. isn’t that what writing should be? just go for it. so that’s what i did, now we’ll see if my teacher thinks i am on my way to becoming the next hemingway. there hasn’t been another hemingway yet right?

music. ohnine is pretty kick ass so far ladies and gents. we already have some really good albums in thursday’s common existence, the appleseed cast’s sagarmatha and the two tounges record is really growing on me. two tounges is chris conley of saves the day and max bemis of say anything’s little sideproject shindig they were working on last year. if you like those two motherfuckers then i would highly suggest you check it out. also discovered some gems from 08 recently in deerhunter and m83. can’t believe i didn’t listen to them when they were fresh out the toaster like a smores pop tart (the absolute best kind, try to prove me wrong and you will fail miserably). check those out. but most importantly 2009 has given us the rebirth of blink-182. we are getting a tour and another record this year and it’s going to be amazing. they’re fucking back. to quote almost famous- it’s all happening.

they call me slim shady, i’m back, i’m back

What up my peoples people. I apologize for my absence in the blog world I have been extremely busy and preoccupied in much more important things than pleasing my followers. Both of the previous statements are extremlely false. I will refrain from lying to you from here on out, you have my word. A lot of time has passed since my last post and I have gone through euphoria (Colts win) and heartbreak, (Steelers loss) as well as some good lay back time for the holidays. I’ve started school and have seen some good movies. We’ll start with Christmas, everyone’s favorite day of the year (except for me, I’m half Jew and I really enjoy Passover. Damnit, I said I wasn’t going to lie again..) I wasn’t expecting much for Christmas this year because it’s been a tough year for my family. The sandwiches are still being slung in high force but my mom’s real estate business is taking a beating in this economy. I only asked for one thing, a M-Audio Fast Track Pro to jam with and I got that. So I’m stoked on that, I also got some fresh new gear and some new air fresheners to make my house not smell of stinky young men.

New Years came and went with a bunch of techno music, good company and lots of fog. Driving home was scary that night, I could hardly see 3 feet in front of me in the fog and had no idea where I was going exactly. I was literally using the curb to the right side as a guide and just kept following that until we got to the main road. Thankfully the gate in the neighborhood was covered in Christmas lights or I would probably still be driving around in circles in that god forsaken place. With January also comes the playoffs and for us Charger fans that usually also means heartbreak. It came in the form of some terrible luck this year, a deflected interception, a punt landing on our head and 1 play in the entire 3rd quarter. Just a really brutal way to end the season. As a Chargers fan I have grown accustomed to this though and realize that there will, in fact, be another year. I don’t even really get upset that we lost and won’t win the Super Bowl, I get upset that we now have to wait until SEPTEMBER(!!) to watch another game that has any meaning. The longest offseason of any sport and the only sport I truly care about but you just gotta roll with it. I was talking last night with some little shithead (noni) and we were talking about how fucked up football (well, all sports in general) is. It’s sole purpose is for 1 (one) city to be ecstatic at the end of it all, leaving 31 other cities crushed and depressed. That’s a pretty fucked up ratio! But without failure, the triumph wouldn’t feel nearly as good. If we didn’t play to be the best we wouldn’t care. That’s why we stay up all night to make mock drafts, and post on message boards, and read the sports page, and listen to talk radio, and talk to family and friends about it day in and day out and send letters to Time Warner because those fucking assholes won’t let me have NFL Network. The thought that one day, we will hoist that Lombardi and flood the streets of the Gaslamp in gold and blue is what keeps us going. It’s why I’ll never give up on my Bolts and why I will wear my jersey proud the day after the season ends in disappointment all the way until Kickoff Sunday in September.

And with my best impersonation of someone highly motivational out of the way, let’s talk movies. I watched Dear Zachary today and I have to say it was probably the worst movie to watch when I wasn’t in the best mood. It was extremely heart wrenching and sad, but also a very good story that I had never even heard about. So tragic though. Have kleenex nearby if you watch it, you will definitely need it. The Fall was really good, some great camera work and amazing shots in that one. Crazy fairy tale kind of story being told to a little girl in a hospital from another patient in the hospital, and you watch it basically as the little girl is imagining it. Bad ass. Zack and Miri Make a Porno was funnier than I expected it would be, not the best movie ever but it had some pretty hysterical moments and the lead actress is adorable. Jason Mewes (Jay from Jay and Silent Bob) and Jeff Anderson (Randal from Clerks) are in it so you know they bring some laughs. Felon was bad ass, but not as bad ass as Taken. If I were to give out a bad ass award to the biggest of all the bad asses Taken would win. That shit was DOPE. What else what else…. I’m pretty sure that’s about it as far as really good flicks go. I think I left you with enough to watch for the next 6 months or so so you should be good. Last thing I can’t recommend enough is Planet Earth. If you see that on Discovery HD one night turn it on and watch it until it’s over. I don’t care if there’s 6 of them on in a row, clear your schedule and watch it for the next 6 hours. That shit is fucking mindblowing. Or should I say, bad ass.

Man On Wire

jaw-dropping.

Last night I watched Man On Wire (8.2 imdb/100% rt), a documentary about Philippe Petit and his lifelong dream of doing the impossible – tightrope walking the Twin Towers. I really urge everyone to find it by any means and watch it, it’s truly an amazing story that I had never even heard about. Even if you’re not a big fan of documentaries you should still seek this out as it doesn’t really feel like a documentary. It jumps around a lot in time and keeps you on your toes that way, all the while building up to the grand finale of him finally getting his shot at the WTC. One of the most epic and beautiful scenes I’ve seen in a really long time when he’s on that rope. The music being played is one of the most beautiful and fucking brilliant pieces of music I have ever heard and fits the mood PERFECTLY (Gymnopedie No.1 by Erik Satie). I think it really succeeds in giving us another way to think about the WTC, after 9/11 whenever I would see a picture of the Towers I was just reminded of tragedy and depression, but now I’ll be reminded of something truly amazing and inspiring as well. It’s just a really amazing story that proves anything is possible if you have the drive and willpower to get it done. I was talking with some friends the other night about the best movie we’ve seen in the last 6 months and it’s a shame I hadn’t seen this yet, because it definitely would’ve been mentioned. WATCH THIS MOVIE! You won’t be disappointed.