Julian Casablancas Concert Review 4/5/10

Last night I journeyed back to Detroit to catch the Julian Casablancas concert at St. Andrews Hall. Casablancas was/is the lead singer for The Strokes, the group most responsible for the garage rock revival in the early 2000's. There are certain things that I feel a special connection with because I identify them with certain milestone events in my life. One of those events is my freshman year of college at Michigan State which occurred in the fall of 2001. Like most people going away to college felt like the beginning of some transformative experience. I was going to make new friends for life, try new experiences, go to parties, learn about interesting cultures and philosophies, come out of my shell and become a better more interesting person because of it. Of course I squandered that opportunity as my shyness kept me from taking advantage of my new environs. Instead I sat in my dorm, listened to music, watched sports and played entire seasons of Tecmo Super Bowl with my friend since kindergarten and college roommate Mike. So when I think of freshman year of college I don't think of wild dorm parties, making out with random girls and making new friends, instead I think of listening to Radiohead, watching Charlie Rogers and getting into a near fist fight with my roommate because he thought I was excessively celebrating a last second Al Toon touchdown in Tecmo. It was during this time that the Strokes were making their quick rise to fame. There had been a considerable amount of buzz surrounding them and their debut album "Is This It" which came out in October of 2001 and the first two singles from that album were in regular rotation on the college radio station that broadcast out of my dorm. I was instantly hooked and ran out and bought the album as soon as it came out, and songs like "Hard to Explain" and "Last Nite" quickly became part of the soundtrack to my freshman year, joining such timeless classics as "Bootylicious", "Lady Marmalade" and 'N Sync's "Girlfriend". After the success of their first album, the Strokes started putting out new material at approximately the same pace that I update this site. Their follow-up "Room on Fire" came out in 2003 and their third and last album "First Impressions of Earth" came out in 2006. After the stress of creating nearly two hours of music over a six year period, the Strokes went on an indefinite hiatus, much like how when I write a post I take a one month break to unwind from the stress and hard work of typing a few thousand words. Even though The Strokes as a band went on hiatus the members of the group stayed busy with side projects, with the exception of lead singer Casablancas who was mostly silent except for popping up on a few guest appearances singing on some singles. However in October of last year Casablancas released a solo album, "Phrazes for the Young", of Strokes-esque garage rock combined with some 80's style synths, which was surprisingly good and had me anxious to see him live when his tour supporting the album came through Detroit.

The opening act was Funeral Party a five piece group of kids, who made me feel extremely old and uncool as no member of the group, at least from my position in the crowd, appeared to be over the age of 17. They made me feel doubly old, when towards the end of their set they did a short cover of "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis. I remember when that song was popular originally, I was a 12 year old in seventh grade at the time and my sister, who is three years older than me was obsessed with Oasis and most of the Britpop scene in general. My sister was in high school when I was in middle school and had this annoying habit of playing her stereo extremely loud in the morning while she was getting ready for school, so my last hour of sleep before having to get up and get ready for school was constantly interrupted by whatever songs my sister was blasting on her stereo, (I'm not a morning person but I'm also very non-confrontational, so as my sister was blasting her Counting Crows or Oasis album at 6:45 in the morning I was silently stewing in rage underneath my covers and since I didn't want to blow up and start screaming at my sister I would instead imagine all the terrible things I would do to Adam Duritz or Liam Gallagher if I ever had the chance to meet either of them, seeing as how Adam Duritz is probably working at a gas station these days my dreams of finally confronting him for ruining so many mornings is probably close to reality. Seriously though is "Round Here" ever inexplicably became a radio hit again I would probably have some Manchurian Candidate reaction and go on a multi-state murder spree without even realizing what I was doing.) Back to Funeral Party though, I was thinking these kids are so young and were probably rocking out to Sesame Street in 1996 that a song like "Champagne Supernova" is probably some rock classic that they were too young to appreciate when it was new and are now revisiting it, and the same could be said for probably half the crowd in attendance last night. At 26 I don't appreciate being made to feel old so there was some underlying resentment towards Funeral Party on my part. Overall I found their brand of rock music generic, just a collection of indistinguishable songs that sounded like it came straight from "So You Want to be an Indie Rock Band" starter kit. Even the bands actions on-stage were uninspired. The lead singer did the spastic dancing, leg kicking, arm waving, foot stamping routine, followed by the squatting on the speaker, collapse writhing on the floor move that tends to be a favorite of front men who want to project themselves as a brooding and troubled soul. To end the set they through down their instruments in mock hissy-fit disdain. The guitarist led the way by dropping his guitar on the ground to a loud crunching sound, the lead singer dropped the mic and gave a half hearted kick to the guitar on his way off, the drummer flipped a cymbal and even the dorky keyboardist, who fulfilled every stereotype of dorky keyboardists with his comically oversized black button up, making him look like somebody more likely to be working in the IT department than playing in a rock band, even getting in on the act and flipping his keyboard. Oh wow, what badasses, I hope I don't run into them after the concert, they might beat me up and emasculate me in front of my girlfriend, so out of fear I threw my wallet on the stage as a peace offering from being beaten by four tough guy rockers. I have a problem with this too. I feel like in order to leave the stage in a matter that is so abrupt and without thanking or acknowledging the audience you have to earn it. These guys aren't rock stars yet, and 99% of the audience wasn't there to see them, so for them to act like they were to fucking cool to be there was off-putting. If I wanted to watch a young, bland indie rock band with no charisma, I would go check out a high school talent show. Jesus Christ that last paragraph, could be summed up as Get Off My Lawn!!! I am getting old.

I had seen the Strokes live twice before and the best way to describe their energy was somewhere between moribund and lifeless. But they had earned this type of aloofness or arrogance by putting out some of the most defining rock music in nearly a decade. It was all part of their persona as a group of New Yorkers who were to cool to care about their success. They knew the crowd was there to see them, to awe at them, to squeal in delight when they played the crowds favorite songs and they didn't care or need that kind of support. So I didn't know what to expect last night when Casablancas took the stage without his fellow Stroke-mates, Strokers…ehh there really is no way to write that sentence without it sounding like some kind of masturbatory gay porno…I give up. I was half expecting him to sing from a hammock, with somebody holding a microphone to his mouth, another person feeding him grapes, while he mumbled the words to each of his songs while also smoking a cigarette between each song and refusing to engage the crowd. The thirty minute delay between sets was disturbing as I pictured some roadie frantically urging Casablancas to wake up from his nap and take the stage. So it was much to my delight when Casablancas came bounding out from the side stage thanked the audience for coming out and launched full force into his opening number "Ludlow St." His high energy was apparent from the beginning and was surprisingly infectious. He jokingly apologized after opening with the slow-paced Ludlow Street that he had just played the most undanceable song on the album and taken the excitement out of the crowd. He followed this banter by launching into a series of his most catchy and danceable solo stuff, pacing around the stage, touching hands with crowd members and noticeably enjoying himself. This was light years ahead of the type of performer he was during the two times I saw him performing with The Strokes, this time he seemed like a natural entertainer, someone who was comfortable in his own skin, confident with being the center of attention and not so concerned with hiding behind long hair and sunglasses on a darkened stage. Casablancas is a chameleon of cool, some people, not unlike myself…wait I mean very unlike myself, have the ability to be effortlessly cool. With Casablancas he was cool when he was the moody, temperamental sort of morose lead singer, who wore leather jackets, black skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors and kept his hair long, stringy and covering his face while refusing to be engaging in anyway. However, he was effortlessly cool last night too even though he was a embodying a different persona. He came out wearing a brownish track suit, bright red skinny jeans, 80's style Converse high tops and even though he still had long unkempt hair it was pushed back from his face, with a couple of feathers braided into it (a look I unconvincingly tried to get my girlfriend on board with but she didn't like it and she thought it would be a little unprofessional for a lawyer to be in court with two bright pink feathers dangling from his hair, she's probably right…probably) allowing him to engage the crowd. He gave an inspired performance of his first two singles from his solo album, the insanely catchy "11^th Dimension" and the more spacey and dark "Out of the Blue", letting the songs hang in the crowd and simmer giving the audience a chance to enjoy them, he went a little bigger with them, singing with slightly more emphasis without over-selling them. There was the obligatory Strokes songs, "Hard to Explain" and a more low-key version of "You Only Live Once", for his encore he sang I Wish it was Christmas Today", which seemed a little out of place and inappropriate in the beginning of April on a day that had reached the mid-70's. Overall it was a short set, clocking in at just under an hour, but it was lively enough to leave me anticipating The Strokes fourth album due out this September and first tour in four years supporting it. All in all it was a pretty great show and if there was a gun to my head and I had to put a grade on it I would give Casablancas a solid B+, with my only complaint being the short length of the set and lack of Strokes songs.

The Return

I've been away for months and unlike my previous absences where I explained away my lack of posting by personally showing up at the doorsteps of my twelve faithful readers hat in hand and bindle over the shoulder and admitting to letting them down with my laziness. However if they were willing to just give this lonely vagrant blogger a place to stay, a laptop to write with, a little encouragement and some vittles I wouldn't disappoint them again. Of course this led to people asking who I was and what I was doing on their doorstep and the polite few who let me in to their homes were paid back by having their couch defiled, their appliances stolen and empty cans of beans littered about the kitchen. I had an opportunity to win back my readers trust and I blew it. This time though I have a legitimate excuse for neglecting my website for an obscene amount of time. It started off innocently enough when I travelled to the United Nations General Assembly to clear up a simple case of mistaken identity. Next thing I know the diplomat I'm talking to gets a knife thrown into his back, I'm accused of murdering him and I'm stowing away on a train bound for Chicago where I spend the night making love to a flirtatious young blond. Things just got crazier from there. I got shot at by a crop duster while traveling through rural northern Indiana (which, come to think of it really isnt that odd) and got into a fistfight at an auction for expensive artwork in Chicago before everything culminated in a wrestling match between a surprisingly strong and agile 77 year old Martin Landau and I on the side of Lincoln's face atop Mt. Rushmore. Aside from a few scrapes and bruises everything is fine now, my name has been cleared and as a bonus I'm proud to announce my recent engagement to the stunning Eva Marie Saint.
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O.k. I must admit something. None of what I wrote in that first paragraph, aside from soiling my friends couch, is true. Yes, yes I know that's probably shocking to most of you that read this site and come to hear me regale my exciting adventures and epic journeys, such as my 2,000 word story about buying baseball cards from a homeless man at a Burger King drive-thru in Detroit. It's like I'm a modern day Sir Francis Drake or something. Anyways I just inserted myself into the role of Cary Grant in the famous and very entertaining North by Northwest, which was one of the many movies I watched during the months long depression that followed after I found out I failed the bar exam in November. Once again I know what you're thinking, partly because of the new mind reading device I've been tinkering with the past few weeks but mostly because you're so damn predictable (right now you're thinking about how delicious toast is and you're regretting skipping out on breakfast in lieu of the 9 more minutes of sleep you got for hitting the snooze button, you're that easy). You're probably thinking or rather standing up and shouting, "But Andrew you're the smartest man I know and if the Board of Examiners tested on the subjects that were actually important to the practice of law such as looks, personality, wit, taste in food and clothes and how to properly cut an onion you would be aces." Unfortunately they didn't test those subjects last summer, nor did they hit on any of my other areas of expertise like old Tigers statistics, Raul Julia's filmography and how to make cocaine. I spent hours listening to Clipse CD's and spent several hundred dollars enrolling in that bar review course run by a group of violent gang members who used to hang out in front of my building for absolutely nothing. Instead they asked about things called "Trusts" and "Secured Transactions" which surprisingly has nothing to do with confident transsexuals. Who knew.

With that being said it should come as no surprise that in early November I received a large first class envelope with a letter inside informing me that I had failed the bar exam but was more than welcome to come back and take it again in February. Now in all honesty there have been many times in my life that I have felt like a failure. When I've gotten bad grades, when I've been dumped by my girlfriend, when my parents call me a failure on my birthday every year, or the other night when I was in my apartment watching Extra at 3 A.M. as Mario Lopez profiled how to get in the best shape of your life with the advice of 20 something year old trainers as I sat on the couch with my obese cat laying on my chest picking out the Krackel's from a bag of Hershey's miniatures. It was exactly like that Garfield comic strip when John Arbuckle hangs himself with his belt in the last panel. However this was the first time my failure had been spelled out in bold caps on a piece of paper and mailed to my house first class. I didnt handle it well and for about two weeks I sat in complete darkness in my apartment, watched a million movies through Netflix and ate Shells and Cheese directly from the pan before finally deciding to re-dedicate myself to studying and passing the bar exam when I retook the damn thing in February.

I also had to move away from my beloved Detroit as the lease on my apartment (which was about a mile away from Comerica) was expiring and the job market in Metro Detroit wasn't exactly the best place for a 25 year old with almost zero work experience to find a job. So I went to the library and researched for vibrant cities with a rising population, a robust job market, a ton of young professionals and many attractive young women. The one city that came up every time was Flint, Michigan. So I rushed due north 80 miles and signed a lease at the first building I saw with a now leasing sign hanging in the window. Much to my dismay I later found out that the book I was researching out of was published in 1957, which I should have realized when it said by 1999 1/2 the worlds population will have relocated to the moon accompanied with a cartoon of Bob Hope and Dwight Eisenhower playing golf in space cadet suits with alien caddies. Oh well it's not like Flint is without its perks. The 25% unemployment rate within the city makes drugs more accessible, dangerous and cheaper than they ever were in Detroit, Halo Burger is the most amazing fast food restaurant in the world and Flint boasts the highest amount of soiled matresses laying on the side of the road per capita than any other city of 100,000+ in the North America (take that Mexico City!!).

This is all just a long way of saying I have nothing to do now. So I thought I would dust off the old blog and get back into chronicling the Tigers season and posting other odds and ends before the fumes from the meth lab above my apartment rot my brain and teeth to the point of not being able to communicate. This should be fun.

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Rothbury Music Festival

This weekend over 50,000 hippies will invade the small town of Rothbury MI, for the beginning of a week-long music festival headlined by big name acts like Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer as well as several other musicians whom feature the "crunchy groove" sound that so greatly appeals to the unwashed masses. Free loving spirits from across the country have hit up their lawyer dads for gas money, charged $250 a ticket to their mom's credit card and loaded up their Jetta's to make the trek to the sleepy western Michigan town for a once in a lifetime chance to spend a weekend camping, dancing in place with their arms swaying wildly, trying to score with girls wearing long skirts, (all of whom feel the need to argue, with no one really, that Jose Ortega y Gasset is the most underrated American philosopher when you really just want to scream "To bad he's from Spain you dumb, pretentious harpy" but you want to see her boobs so bad that you just nod your head in agreement. Yes, I may be talking from personal experience here) and praying their AT&T wi-fi connect cards get service out in the woods because they need to update their blog so all their co-op farmer friends in Boise can read about how "organic" the festival is even though its located on the same land as a resort golf course and a family friendly indoor water park. Local officials estimate the scent of patchouli and pretense will more than likely suffocate the local population and may be smelled at distances as far away as Lansing, Ludington and Grand Rapids. Lucky for those of you, like myself, who are to busy selling your soul to faceless corporations or going to law school to get a degree in fascist pig-ism and don't feel like spending your Fourth of July weekend spending a couple of hundred bucks to lay in a hammock and eat rice the Detroit News has sent their music writer Adam Graham to cover the festivities for you.

O.k. maybe I'm being pretty harsh on these festival goers....maybe. To each their own, right? Sure, it might be fun to get a group of friends together, travel around the country and hit up various festivals, especially if you are really into music, which I'm not (I'm pretty sure buying Grave Dancer's Union by Soul Asylum in fifth grade pretty much disqualified me from ever reaching music aficionado status, but I digress). For example my idea of a dream road trip would be to head out with some friends and hit up as many major league baseball stadiums as we could, which if you don't like sports probably sounds like a colossal waste of money and time. So before I judge these festival goers to harshly and paint all of those in attendence to broadly with the same brush let me read what the first report from Rothbury has to say. Oh no.
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"The first-year factor was also part of the allure for Nathan Straight, who came to Rothbury with four friends from Winchester, Va. "
We're breaking it in for everyone," says Straight, 19, while his friend Chelsea Witte cooked a pot of rice over a portable grill. "We're pioneers, really. Like Thomas Jefferson or something.'"

Fuck. You.

Seriously. Hold on, I have to go walk around the room to calm down about this

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O.k. I'm back but I'm still angry. Maybe I shouldn't be though. Maybe this kid is just joking or he's mentally handicapped or he's just been misquoted or something. However there is probably something like a fifty percent chance he is being dead serious and I, relatively anonymous blogger and defender of Thomas Jefferson's honor, just can't let him get away with that. Why? Because I dealt with too many assholes in my history classes at MSU, namely guys who wore ponchos with sandals, drank coffee from the same moldy ass Beaner's mug everyday, treated completing the State News crossword puzzle as if they had just done the Sunday New York Times Puzzle, described everything as "pragmatic" and took contrarian bullshit stances against the professor just for the sake of being non-conformist to not call this kid on it. Since this is post is getting much longer than I anticipated I'm going to give an abbreviated list of everything Thomas Jefferson accomplished in his 83 years.

-Delegate to Continental Congress
-Drafted Declaration of Independence, which could have led to him being executed for treason.
-State Legislator
-Governor of Virginia
-Founder of the University of Virginia
-Minister to France
-Secretary of State
-Vice President
-2-Term President
-Father to dozens of slave children...o.k. maybe this last item isn't so great but impressive nonetheless.

Noticeably absent from this list. Attending music festivals. I don't know though because Jefferson did take a year off from politics in 1794, which he very well could've spent backpacking across Europe with Ben Franklin and John Jay hitting up music festivals, experimenting with his sexuality and just fucking finding himself....man.

I don't think our friend Nicholas used the word pioneer correctly either. Jefferson was a political pioneer and I don't think the Rothbury Festival is breaking any kind of new political ground. I don't think Widespread Panic are going to introduce a new form of government in between 20 minute long jam sessions and Jefferson was way to cosmopolitan to be one of those soil of the earth American pioneers like Daniel Boone or som.........you know what this is stupid. If I wrote a blog post about every stupid uninformed hippie opinion that gets published in a paper I would be here all fucking day. So if you'll excuse me I'm going to get back to selling out.

Seriously though, this bar exam review shit is killing me. I'll post whenever I have time again.

Law School Advice

This post is a response to Grillicheese's question in the comments section of the previous post so if you are interested in attending Wayne State's Law School you might be interested in this. If you are looking for Tigers content skip this and I'll post something later.

Here is my advice regarding law school. Don't go. Not just to Wayne, don't go anywhere. It's a nightmare. Well, let me amend that by saying don't go unless being a lawyer or a judge or a politician is absolutely, positively, 100% what you really, really, really, really want to do with your career. It's a lot of work and a lot of money and a full time commitment for three years of the prime of your life. On top that the market for lawyers sucks in Michigan, like every other part of the states economy, so unless you know someone who is already a lawyer or you graduate in the top 10-20% of your class job prospects are dismal, and you'll likely be clerking at some firm in Southfield for $20 an hour your first year out of school until they fire you to hire some other first year clerk on the cheap, which is the fate about 50% of the people I'm graduating with are going through.
Maybe I'm being cynical but if I could have met my present self three years ago when I was considering law school I might have changed my mind and tried to do something I really loved instead of falling into law school. (My first mistake was getting a history degree, which was worthless). Anyways I've got no beef with Wayne, even if their Career Services office is more poorly run than the Lions front office. Seriously, there is one person in charge of the whole school's job placement program and if you aren't near the top of your class they have no interest in helping you. I've sent e-mails to them that have gone unanswered and half way through my third and final year they sent me an e-mail to me with the heading "Getting to Know You" and asking what my interests were and that if I found work after graduating to report it to them so their numbers would go up, as if anybody there had any hand in helping me find work.

As for classes you are assigned your classes and teachers based on what section you are in your first year, something you don't have control of. I was assigned to the group that had Mogk, Browne and Findlater as professors and all three of them were excellent (as was Moran but he's leaving this year to teach at Ann Arbor). I liked Browne so much that I took a couple of employment law classes during my second and third year that he taught just because I enjoyed him. If you are into environmental law or administrative law, Prof. Hall is a great teacher. He's young, easy-going and funny and more importantly a fair grader (i.e. lots of A's). If you are into IP law take the classes that Bambauer teaches, he has similar qualities to Hall. Now that I think about it I can't think of anything negative about any of the faculty as they were all knowledgable and relatively friendly. The only class I absolutely hated was Secured Transactions but that was more because of the subject matter than anything else.

Finally my advice for things to do while at school is to move to Detroit. Move close to Comerica and go to a ton of Tigers games, find restaurants in Detroit that you like, go to concerts at the Magic Stick and other music venues. Living in Detroit has been tits to say the least. When you get to law school you will quickly find that 90% or more of your fellow classmates are insufferable douchebags that you would never associate with outside of school. Any girl who is remotely attractive is already married or engaged and will spend every minute in class browsing theknot.com and or talking about their wedding. It's awful. I was fortunate to identify the few really cool people I go to school with early on, namely the aforementioned Matt from the previous post, and have spent most of my time in school hanging out and talking with him. I'm also painfully shy, awkward and possibly paranoid so take my advice about making friends with a grain of salt.

Anyways if you have any more questions just send me an e-mail and I will gladly answer them for you as best as I can.

Toastin'

My original idea for this post was to steal a page from Michael Jordan's book and leave a two word post that simply stated, "I'm back." Then I realized how many levels of ridiculous that statement would be coming from somebody like me.

For example, when Jordan first retired from the NBA he was coming off three consecutive championships, was in the prime of his life physically, had established himself as one of the greatest basketball players of all-time and with nothing left to prove in basketball decided he was such an amazing athlete that he might try his hand at professional baseball because....well, why the hell not? He's Michael Jeffrey Jesus Adonis Jordan! He defies gravity and is the beacon through which all that is graceful, beautiful, athletic and organic about basketball shone and to think for a second that he would not excel at a sport that breaks down to "see ball, hit ball" is preposterous to the point of hilarity. Hahahaha. (He really couldn't play though, he OPS'ed .555 in his one season of AA ball. Even Cesar Izturis is appalled by that number.)

On the other end of the spectrum I am a lonely man who probably doesnt even run the best blog in my apartment complex, (Seriously, there is a 90 year old lady in my building who runs the definitive blog on urban culture, fashion and sneakers. She had photos of BBC/Ice Creams fall collection on-line two full weeks before Hypebeast, that's how tight her game is.) let alone in Detroit, I can't even walk up a flight of stairs without having to catch my breath, I spend most of my time chronically masturbating to "Paramore" videos (The lead singer of that band, Hayley Williams....wow, she may warrant her own post in the near future because she is so unbelievably hot...Jesus Christ! How old is she? Is it even a she because Hayley could double as a really gay boy's name. Hang on.../frantically searching the internet/...She's a she and 18, oh thank god.), microwaving French Bread Pizzas and single-handedly dragging Wayne State's Law School into the dreaded 4th Tier of the rankings with my low GPA. Michael Jordan I am not.

The reason for my absence this time is that I've been trying really, really, REALLY hard in school so I can at least salvage my GPA and not have to take a job at a criminal defense firm that advertises on a spraypainted bedsheet, "Rape? Murder? Robbery? We Defend Everything". The main source of my anxiety this semester was a paper I had to write for my Urban Housing and Community Development Seminar that was due on November 20. Notice I wrote "was" due. That's because during the course of writing my paper tonight I had my first miniature meltdown and as I was panicking at the edge of despair I went to my syllabus in search of some hope that Nov. 20th wasnt the actual due date for my paper. It wasn't. I couldn't believe it, I thought it was some kind of frenzy induced hallucination so I raced to my phone and called my friend Matt who shares that class with me to verify my information. The conversation went something like this.

Me: "Matt I know its like 2 A.M. on a Saturday night and the last thing you want to talk about is school, but I just found in my notes that our seminar paper isnt due next Tuesday but rather any time between now and ten days before grades are due. Is this right or did some dragon just fly through my computer screen and steal my reality."

Matt: "Yeah it's true, he's mentioned that about a million times. What are you stupid?"

Me: "That class is at 10 A.M. I can't be held responsible for remembering anything at that ungodly hour."

So now I have been granted a reprieve. I now understand what a prisoner feels like when he receieves a last minute stay from the governor. I know what it feels like to be given a second chance at life. I also understand how to belabor a point and write repetitive analogies. So how am I going to spend my new found time? By writing my paper so that I don't find myself in this exact same situation 1 month from now? Hahaha. Of course not. Instead I will write my hundredth post promising to update this site and then fail to fulfill that promise, watch Misery on the Sci-fi channel, fall asleep to crappy videos on VH1 and hope to wake up in time for the Lions game tomorrow at 4. See you in 6 weeks, jerks.

No. Seriously I plan on writing again, real soon. Honest.

Las Vegas

Ya'll readers. This Memorial Day weekend I'm heading to Las Vegas for the first time in my life. I figure the best way to honor veterans of foreign wars is to revel in all the things that make America great. Namely gambling, neon lights, Roseanne's stand-up act, and trannies, trannies, trannies. Oh yeah, that whole freedom thing is pretty nice too, if you can call living under this current fascist regime freedom. Heed the call people, read John Stuart Mill, admire Bentham's utilitarianism and vote Libertarian in 2008. Oh Christ, I've said to much. Who are you? Where are you going to stick those? Tell Sheila I love her....YARGHHH!! (Seriously though, I have the utmost respect for veterans. Many of my relatives have served this country, a few of whom have given their lives in doing so. Also I spent two years trying to learn German in college and that shit was impossible [like what the fuck's a past participle.....are you serious], so chest bumps go out to all the WWII vets who helped us all avoid that hornet's nest).

Enough bullshitting though. The purpose of this post is that I need help from you the reader. Don't worry reader, I won't harm you, I even have pockets full of bird seed for you. (Extends hand with dry corn kernels and seeds) Come here reader, it's ok. (Bends down on one knee) See that wasn't so hard was it. We can be friends. Here let me rub that spot behind your ear. Now that we've established a level of trust, I was hoping that you could give me some advice on what to do on my trip. For example is there anything that's MUST see, a cool place to take in the Pistons playoff game, an amazing place to eat, prostitutes that will do that thing where they......oh nevermind, my dad will be there with me, he'll know where to find them because he has the most amazing sense of direction and.....Oh shit, my mom and sister read this. (Passes hand over family's face) Disregard that last sentence. These are not the droids you are looking for. See, I was going to ask my friends for advice but then I realized I.....uhh.....heh......don't have any. Funny story actually, I used to have a lot but they were so petty and jealous about my good looks, intelligence, sharp wit, modesty and luck with women. Anyways, please leave the suggestions in the comments, and if I don't receive any it will be very, very sad and you wouldn't want to make me cry, would you? I thought you were different. You told me I was the main component of your future, that you wanted to take me places I've always wanted to see, that you even lov......(I run to the bedroom in tears wearing a flowing nightgown and slam the door.......and don't even think about taking a step towards me and then walking away).

O.k. I think I might be losing my mind, just leave the info below. Thanks.

-Andrew

Mike v. Pack of Coyotes

Over the past two weeks or so I've been suffering from writer's block when it comes to sports. Even though it's an exciting time for sports in Detroit, with the Pistons in the playoffs, the Red Wings two wins away from another Stanley Cup Final and the Tigers sitting atop the Central Division with one of the best records in baseball, I've been having a hard time coming up with topics to write about and different angles to approach these topics. Nothing I write seems to make sense theoretically or grammatically and I've digressed from the main theme of this site more times in the past month than I would care to do so over the course of a whole year. For example I have wrote and re-wrote this opening paragraph about six times over the past 45 minutes and I'm still not satisfied with it. Seriously, you could force a chimpanzee to smoke copious amounts of crystal meth while staying awake for five days, chain him to a typewriter in a pitch black room filled with strobe lights and shooting flames while "Seasons in the Abyss" by Slayer was blared at a volume that would makes his ears bleed and the primate would still be able to manufacture more coherent, intelligent and humorous posts than I am capable of producing right now.

Now that I've set the bar impossibly high with that introductory paragraph, I'm going to once again digress from sports and write about a game my old roommate Mike and I used to play, (wait that last sentence sounded kind of gay, the game I'm talking about is strictly a hypothetical game, and not the game involving actual gay se......wait why am I even telling you guys this, you didn't even raise a question, let's just move along) that involved watching Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel until the sun came up and whenever a new animal was shown or discussed, I would ask Mike under what circumstances he could successfully vanquish the animal in a hand to hand battle. We would usually argue about this for an inordinate amount of time until things devolved into a half hour long wrestling match that left the two of us to exhausted to attend any of our classes that day. I truly believe that if Mike and I had spent as much time studying as we did playing Nintendo and arguing about stupid shit like this we would have graduated in three semesters with perfect GPA's, but I digress.

I know I've mentioned Mike a few times on this site before, whether it be for the repeated beatdowns I laid on him in games of Tecmo Super Bowl or his frightening similarity in appearance to Mike Maroth, but I don't think I've given him a great deal of context outside of mentioning a few isolated events and random aesthetic characteristics. I've been friends with Mike ever since he invited me to go see Ghostbusters II in first grade and even though that movie sucked assholes we've remained friends for the past 18 years. Mike has the personality of one of those guys who is ultra-competitive, quietly arrogant, and has a completely unjustified sense of self worth. However, his competiveness can be his downfall as whenever he would begin to annoy my friends or me and we wanted to distract him for 20 minutes or longer, we could just point to some impossibly heavy object, (i.e. a large rock or a refrigerator), and challenge him by saying something like this:

Me: "I was talking to Megan (the girl who lived next store) and we both agreed that you wouldn't be able to lift that stove sitting outside off the ground. Mostly because your arms are so tiny. I mean Megan was just saying about how when we first moved in she thought that you were my six year old little brother or a really ugly prepubescent girl or something."

Mike: (peering out the window) "You mean that stove next to the dumpster that the opossum's and badgers fight over? (Turning to look at me) I could lift that easily. I could probably lift it over my head or juggle them if there were more than one."

Me: "You are crazy, that thing probably weighs about 150 pounds. I bet you couldn't even lift one corner off the pavement."

After this Mike would usually leave the room and I would have 30 undisturbed minutes in the apartment to relax, maybe play a game of All-Star Baseball, or get a little homework done before I would hear him yelling out, "Hey, Andy!!!", and I would walk over to the window and see him next to the dumpster holding the stove off the ground as muddy leaves and voles came pouring out the back.

Enough context though, to research this post I grudgingly called Mike and set up this first hypothetical battle. However before we get to the analysis let's take a look at the combatants.

Mike (I don't have a photo of Mike on my computer so I had to borrow one of Mike Maroth as explained earlier): Age: 23, Height: 5'8", Weight: 150lbs, Top Running Speed: 20mph. Diet: Taco Bell, Sardines, Chunky Bars, Marijuana, Ruby Red Squirt. Favorite Movie: "The Chronicles of Riddick" (ugh). Favorite Musicians: Eminem, Seal. Little Known Fact: Broke his arm in second grade after falling down while trying to balance on a soccer ball, Mike is also the only person I know who has defeated the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game without the aid of Game Genie.

Pack of Coyotes: Total in Pack: 9. Height 2 ft. tall. Weight: 30 lbs. Top Running Speed: 43mph. Diet: rabbits, mice, shrews, fish, fawns. Favorite Movie: Bull Durham. Favorite Musicians: Anything produced by The Neptunes. Little Known Fact: COYOTE is the acronym for an American sex worker activist organization founded in 1973.

Mike's Analysis: "The top running speed is irrelevant because I wouldn't be racing them, that would only incite them to attack me, kind of like they were running down prey. No, I would stand there and let them encircle me, sort of like a ninja going into battle outnumbered. Coyotes are pretty small so I know I could take them one on one and hopefully a single coyote would be feeling brave enough to come at me allowing me to neutralize it and use the carcass as a weapon against the next attacking coyote. After the demise of the second attacking coyote I would imagine the remaining coyotes would huddle up and try to devise a more effective attack. This timeout would allow me to use the two deceased coyotes hides to make a coyote skin and infiltrate the huddle. By the time the coyotes realized what was happening I would have put down 3 more, leaving me with just 4 left to execute. Amid the ensuing confusion the surviving coyotes would scramble in a panic and (while still wearing the coyote skin) I would hunt them methodically until only one was left. I would imagine the final one would beg for his life and I would show mercy, bring him home and raise him as my own."

Andy's Final Prediction: I'm not sure if Mike could kill nine coyotes, that seems like an awfully high number for a carnivorous animal that relies on killing it's prey to survive. However I think I picked a pretty weak animal for Mike's first opponent, (I should have sprinkeld in a few timberwolves) as there has been only one coyote related fatality recorded in recent U.S. history. I don't think Mike would be able to eliminate the coyotes in the fashion he outlined above, but I think he could effectively neutralize them in some way. My final estimate is that Mike would have a 95% chance of surviving the attack outlined above.

I promise this is the last non-sports related post for a while...

Avril Lavigne

This post is long, so you might want to get some snacks........Thousands of Years Ago.....

This post is going to be a departure from the central theme of this site, which, if you are new to these parts is mostly about the joys of scrapbooking. Wait, wait, that's not right, I meant to say sports, I get my two hobbies mixed up sometimes, but who doesn't. Anyways, this post is dedicated to all those guys out there who used to argue in vain with their friends over the merits of Avril Lavigne's pulchritudinous, (thank you, Word of the Day calendar, wow that really is pretentious sounding though.......fuck it, it stays in). I've found myself in this position a few times and it's a very unenviable one (not as bad as being robbed at knife-point in an alley, but I digress), but before I go on any farther I feel as though I should provide a bit of context to the situation I'm talking about.

In the winter of 1998 I was a 15 year old sophomore in high school who essentially did nothing but hang out with my friend Kevin who was a year older than me, had a license to drive and a means of transportation that did not involve my mom and her minivan. You would think this would open up a world of possibilities and adventures, but you would be wrong, and don't you readers ever tire of being wrong. I mean, like every time I write, you guys make the most egregious presumptions and I have to take time out of writing to correct you.......(wait don't insult the readers Andrew, play nice until Operation Putsch is over.....it's all coming together). See, I come from a little town called Clio, where there isn't shit to do, especially for anyone under the age of.......well of any age I guess. I'm being completely honest when I say there hasn't been a worthwhile activity in that town since the donut shop that carried the arcade version of Mortal Kombat II closed about ten years ago.

Regardless, Kevin and I would drive around on most Friday nights for a few hours alternating stopping by:

1: Parties thrown by preppy kids that consisted of drinking their parents Seagram's with 2 liters of flat 7 Up and playing euchre with three guys who were distracted by trying to hit on the only girl at the party that would let them feel her up. This really sounds more like an exciting night at a retirement home than a high school party but our options were limited and it was pretty much equal too.....

2: Bonfires thrown by whitetrash kids in a field or by a barn, with most of the kids wearing ICP or Metallica shirts and getting drunk on MD 20/20 or Natural Light before everything culminated in a fist fight between some even more white trash kid from two towns over who would get wrecked by some fatass football player.

The problem was Kevin and I didn't really fit into either of these groups because we were way to cool for the preppy crowd, (even though Kevin tried to fit in by buying a whole wardrobe from Nautica, which just led to endless and justified ridicule on my behalf) and we were way to fucking handsome to be hanging out with the burnouts by the bonfire, so we would often choose option.....

#3: Which consisted of going over to my friend Josh's house and playing Goldeneye 64 on his big screen for about 5 hours, where I was unstoppable as Jaws packing the automatic shotgun and wasting anyone trying to get the body armor in the Temple level........wow that sounded pathetic.

One Friday following another "Slaughter at the hands of Jaws", Kevin and I returned to my house and turned on MTV just as they started to play a video that would alter the course of our adolescence, "...Baby One More Time". I remember we stood and watched the video in complete silence and wondered if we would ever witness something like this again. Little did we know this was the beginning of a wave of pop stars, (Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, etc) similar to our age and all of whom exposed the girls we went to high school with as complete dogs, (sorry Karrie Brooks).

However I was always kind of indifferent to this first set of pop stars and a few years later during a game of R.B.I. with Kevin I mentioned this belief as an offhand comment. He immediately paused the game and burned a hole in the back of my head with his stare, culminating in this exchange:

Kevin: "Are you serious?"

Me: (turning around), "Well yeah. I mean don't get me wrong I think they are all pretty cute, and I think Mandy Moore is really pretty, but collectively they just don't do anything for me. They remind me too much of all the snobby girls in high school that only date insurance salesmen and think they've made it big time because they are a teller at the credit union, you know..."

Kevin: "That is the stupidest shit I ever heard, and sounds just like something you would say. 'Oh blah blah, personality, blah'. Who cares if they are snobby, it's not like we're talking to them. All I know is as long as they dress like strippers and make hot videos, they could go home and throw bacon at fat girls with image low self esteen and it wouldn't make them any less hot. Jesus, Prof. Gaybody why don't you listen to your Backstreet Boy albums.......i cant believe I hang out with you."

Me: "Hey, asshole I own those Backstreet Boys albums for their artistic merits only o.k."

However, during the summer after my freshmen year at MSU in 2002 I finally found the pop princess to fill the void in my life that had remained empty during the first wave in the form of a bratty, little, faux-punk Canadian named Avril Lavigne. I called Kevin and told him about my celebrity crush and he was less than impressed saying, "Sure, she's cute, but you would like her. It's the safe pick. She's Greg Maddux compared to Jessica Simpson's Pedro, solid but never capable of greatness." (Kevin can be a pretty shortsighted sports fan). I tried to argue back, "She's as pretty as those other girls she just can't embrace the "hotness" because she's got some bullshit punk girl image to portray. Watch it will happen someday." But he wasn't listening. So now it's up to me to prove it to him, even if it is years after the fact and after he's almost certainly forgot about our conversation, with a selected video retrospective of Avril's career.......(Man that was a lot of context, I'm finally getting to the good part and no one stuck around......hello (echo).......hello (crickets)......shit.)

1: Complicated

This is the video that started my whole interest in Avril, even though it's totally lame and cliche as hell. I can see some young record executive sitting around trying to think of a proper way to promote his new talent and saying, "Hmm, what would rebelious teenagers do? (taps pen on desk), Got it! They go to the mall, hang out, and fuck with security guards in a comical manner before skateboarding. Travis you are brilliant!! Nobody's ever thought of this before, even though every teen movie from 1982 on has this exact same scenario in it, but hopefully no one will remember that." before burying his face in a mountain of cocaine and laughing hysterically. By the way my copyright professor would lower my grade a whole step if he saw all the blatant infringement occuring on my blog right now by posting these videos.....Yikes.

2: Sk8ter Boi


This song and video were/are terrible, but I would still watch it when it came on. For some reason I've always had a soft spot for punk rock girls. I've always been attracted to the pink hair, tattoos and bitchy attitude but unfortunately this interest is hardly ever reciprocated and the only girls who find me attractive are, uh, none of them. I'm going to go cry now.

3: Don't Tell Me

Wait.....who the hell is this guy? How long was this going to go on before you told me? Huh, Avril!!! Oh thats right Andrew, you're not really dating her. No need to get all worked up like tat, but that still doesnt explain whose wrists I just grabbed (nervous laughter as I adjust my necktie). This video had potential as it features Avril in her underwear breaking things, but if you listen closely it's a song about not being pressured into sex by your boyfriend. BOOOOOOO!, whoops, I mean what a great message for teenage girls who face this kind of peer pressure from their pushy boyfriends, (boo.)


4: Nobody's Home

This video gave me the false impression that the streets were filled with hot homeless Canadian teenagers. So I went out in search of them on the streets of Detroit and only came across agressive alcoholics with dementia, prostitutes who looked like extras from "The Exorcist" and a raging case of syphi...... cotton candy. Avril gets bonus points for the old-timey, sepia toned bullshit, because anyone who reads this site regularly knows I'm a sucker for 19th century style romance. Oh, Jesus that wasn't manly sounding at all. (Clears throat) "Excuse me, I'm going to go make a sandwich out of nails between barbwire bread, catch you on the flip side, pussies." Now thats manly.


5: Girlfriend

Finally. This video was five years in the making for me (well I had made it previously using Barbie dolls and my imagination but I'm talking about an official video), and I demand you watch it in its entirety or I will never speak to you again. This is my example of the perfect girl and the standard to which I will hold any and all future girlfriends, so if your thinking about dating me here's the template, do with it what you must. One final gripe though, how is it that all these guys I know have 2 or 3 girls chasing after them and trying to get them to break up with their girlfriends and me, Mr. Big Shot lawyer man is up until 3 A.M. updating a blog about Avril Lavigne......Wait I just answered my own question. My next question is to see if this bed sheet can hold 160 pounds. Thank you everyone for indulging me and if you made it this far I'll send you a check for a $100*.

*Offer not valid to anyone. ever.