|
Peasprout
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Greg
Country: United States
Gender: Male
Interests: absinthe, aquariums, art deco, basketball, beach, bookstores, boxing, Brit Pop, card games, Cary Grant, classic cars, cocktails, comics, cooking, crossword puzzles, DJ, film noir, food, Freitag, going to the zoo, guitar, investing, jazz, jigsaw puzzles, knitting, lounge, Moleskine, monkeys, museums, NPR, opera, peasprouts, phonograph, pie, poetry, reading, record stores, saxophone, Scrabble, shopping, ska, skratching, stargazing, stationery, thrift shops, tiki, turntablism, Victrola, vintage board games
Expertise: Driving heck of far, making two songs mix together real good like, being really well-organized, ignoring ambient noises in my vicinity, wearing pajamas, Scrabble, gin rummy, working crossword puzzles, knowing random facts about fruits and vegetables, prestidigitation
Occupation: Founder of the Super Double Se
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  Peasprout
Member Since:
1/15/2003
 True  Lifetime
|
| Off to the Side |
|---|
Index to Previous Posts
My Ever-Changing Book Blog
Taken Over
It was the best time of my life
Her bee stung lips,
Kisses sweeter than wine
The things she whispered
With breathless sighs
The summer air was soft and warm
Her eyes were making silent demands
As her hair came undone in my hands
Driving her home after midnight
I felt so good everything was alright
Her thoughts seemed lost in the night sky
I remember everything
I don't know why these things ever end
I sometimes wish it was that summer again
I still see her in my sleep
And hear the sighing of the summer wind
Still I don't regret one thing
It felt just like it was the start of forever...
Currently in Rotation in Itunes
The 10 Things I "Just Don't Get"
click one to read my opinion
1. dishonest people
2. stalkers
3. road rage
4. hipsters/ scenesters (I can't tell them apart)
5. boys with the "asian fetish"
6. reggaeton, and fans thereof
7. rude people
8. religious fundamentalists
9. political extremists/ activists
10. Racists
Must I dream and always see your face?
Why can't we overcome this wall?
Baby, maybe it's just because I didn't know you at all. |
|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Me trying to explain my party to an out-of-state friend, via a series of text messages:
the party was out of control, but in a good way
so many people came that by 11:00 PM they wouldn't all fit in my loft and so the party spilled out into the hallways of all 4 floors of the building and into the street
guests were launching flaming pumpkins off the roof
someone tagged graffiti on my bathroom wall
an entire bar full of people migrated to my party at 2 am when the bar closed. around 3 bar staff from various bars started showing up. at 5 am the staff of Blakes showed up.
the guests didn't all leave until 4:30 am Monday (today) over 42 hours after the party started
all day yesterday there were still people here, which was good in a way because they helped clean on Sunday night
we demolished my place and basically the entire building and really an entire city block...
they made us clean up Adeline on Sunday.
my neighbors hate me, all of west oakland loves me
the landlord posted letters all over the building basically yelling at me in bold faced all caps, threatening to evict me if i ever have such a party again
it was my best party ever. | | |
| IT'S THE LITTLE MOMENTS THAT COUNT
I guess I struck a nerve with my last post. I normally get about 50 or 60 hits over the course of a week, but that last entry generated over 150 hits in less than 24 hours. Thanks to everyone who sent me positive feedback; I'm glad to know that I am not alone with such thoughts.
Moving on-- sometimes I wish I could freeze a certain moment and save it to relive it again in the future. I do my best to relish the good stuff while it's happening, but you can only savor something so much, and once it's gone, it's gone.
On Tuesday night, Chris, Teddie, Barrett and I went bar hopping in full force. We eventually rolled into Manny's Tap Room in Berkeley, which is an unusual destination for us, but we were on a shuffleboard kick and they have a table. During the game we heard the bartender ring a bell, and turned to see a guy standing on the bar chugging a glass of beer. Except he couldn't do it. He stopped a few times, before finally finishing. Twice more, the bell went off, and other guys tried, and failed, to pound a pint.
Later, while out front, we were laughing at the fact that the guys couldn't even pound one glass of beer, and I said something to the effect of, "I ought to get up on the bar and show them how to do it." Teddie scoffed, insinuating that I couldn't do it, so I told him I could drink a glass of beer faster than him. He backed down, and instead said "I know you can't drink faster than Chris."
Now Chris drinks a lot. I mean, a LOT. And he's from Michigan, so... I wasn't sure if I could drink faster than him, but I said I thought that I probably could. Now that it wasn't me vs. Teddie, Teddie was of course all about getting us up there. So we approached the bartender. He informed us that if it is someone's birthday they have to stand on the bar and chug, but when we explained there had been a challenge, he agreed to let us try. So up onto the bar we went.
Everyone stared as the two of us climbed onto the bar and picked up our pints of Guinness. The bell rang, we chugged. I finished, turned to see Chris still getting the last sip down, and raised my glass into the air in victory. The entire bar was cheering, and I leapt down from the bar, landing directly in front of *name omitted because she might see this**, the girl on whom I currently have a crush, and who was smiling at having seen my glorious victory. I did not realize she was watching, and silly though it sounds, for that moment I have to say I felt pretty damn awesome. Sure, I was chugging a beer on a bar, not saving the whales or curing cancer, but I felt like Ferris Bueller nonetheless.
I'm telling you, it's those little moments in life that mean so much. | | |
| OUR LITTLE GROUP
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end
Our little group is still around, and growing in number every day. We're still a tiny fraction of society, but we've made the world take notice of us. Are you one of us?
We're more intelligent than most people, but that doesn't always work in our favor. Sometimes it's impossible to turn our minds off-- we're constantly thinking, exploring, trying to understand the intricacies of our lives and the world around us. This doesn't mean that all intelligent people are a part of our group. Many seem to have settled comfortably into mainstream life. Which is precisely what we want to do, but can't seem to figure out how.
That is the great misunderstanding of our little group. That we somehow want to be different. That we seek outcast status. We don't. The rest of you placed us here, and we can't seem to figure out how to break free.
We even try to adapt to the mainstream. We may watch TV, or shop at malls, or watch sports, or even eat the occasional Big Mac, but we are instantly identifiable by the masses. If not upon sight, then when we attempt to converse. We're weird, eccentric, or worse. We reference books we've read, or movies we've seen. Our jokes aren't funny to them, only to others like us.
So, are you one of us?
Your life may be tinged by sorrow, or you may have suffered devastating losses. Something happened at some point that threw everything off the rails, and it has been a perpetual struggle to get back on track ever since. Some of us my not even know when or where or why, or what they lost, they just know something is missing, or something is just beyond their reach; they may not even know what it is their seeking, only that they need it but can never find it.
Now I know a disease that these doctors can’t treat,
That you contract on the day you accept all you see
Is a mirror and a mirror is all it can be.
A reflection of something we’re missing.
If you're one of us, you probably gravitate towards the old-fashioned and the darker aspects of the world. You sometimes write letters rather than send emails, and wish you did so more often. You are probably always reading something, maybe even taking notes on it while you do so. You have the patience to watch a subtitled film; you can enjoy films made before 1975. Your wardrobe may consist primarily of black clothing, though not exclusively. Or possibly exclusively, that would be okay. You may frequent cemeteries, by day or by night, for the calm and introspection they bring to your mind. You definitely spend time in cafes.
You gravitate towards some or all of the following music: Joy Division, The Smiths, Radiohead, Bright Eyes, Arcade Fire, Suede, Elliott Smith, Pulp, Descendents, Jeff Buckley, Against Me, Death Cab for Cutie, Jawbreaker... music that transcends the literalness of pop, and speaks in vague, melancholy strains that communicate to our souls as well as our minds; music with lyrics that reveal themselves fully only after the 40th or 50th listen.
You seek love and happiness, but the older you get the more you wonder if it is possible for you to attain it. Or, if you have, there is still a piece of your soul firmly rooted in the darkest soil of your past, forever haunting you with a feeling that is just out of reach, and hinted at strains of a song you can never quite catch, but forever yearn to sing.
Somethin' filled up
My heart with nothin',
Someone told me not to cry.
But now that I'm older,
My heart's colder,
And I can see that it's a lie.
You probably drink, and if so, you probably drink absinthe, gin, or whiskey. Maybe rum, but probably not much vodka or tequila. If you use drugs it's almost certainly marijuana or heroin.
Sometimes you find another person who belongs to us, but somehow slipped away. They joined a sorority, or listened too closely to their wealthy parents' advice and got a job in investment banking, or maybe went to med school. However it happened, they are a part of the mainstream, but it's just a mask they're wearing, albeit a mask they don't realize is there. You long to tear the mask away like Mary Philbin did to Lon Chaney in 1925 (and again in the Castro Theater 73 years later), but it's too tightly affixed, and instead you watch them evaporate away into a world you can never find. They aren't long for our lives, those people, though we long them to be.
Do you recognize yourself yet? Are you a part of our little group? | | |
| TWEETIN'
So I have a Twitter. I update it rarely, but there it is. The point of this blog, however, is not to advertise my Twitter. Instead it is to express wonder at someone else's Twitter. Looks kinda' familiar, doesn't it?
What the hell?
That's my name, photograph, and city. But it isn't me. Worse, that person is much better at updating, or "tweeting," than am I. Look at all the interesting things he (she?) has to share! Note also that this peasprout has way more followers than I do.
My impostor is doing a better job of being me than me. :( | | |
| GOODBYE JOHN
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
I don't know if I have ever blogged merely to link to another blog, but that's sort of where today's post is going. I've been trying for six days now to think of what to write about John Hughes' death, but haven't been able to craft anything worth sharing. Then today I read this blog and I realized why John Hughes mattered to me. It wasn't merely that he created so many great films; he was a genuinely great guy.
I tend to ignore celebrity-related news and issues, and certainly don't blog about them. I can't bring myself to care. Michael Jackson's recent death felt like such a non-issue to me, and the resultant hysteria was mystifying and disappointing to me. But last week John Hughes died, and, like I suppose most Americans my age, I took notice. Here's an artist who actually contributed something lasting to our culture.
There is little I can offer that likely hasn't been said before. The Breakfast Club certainly presaged the era of reality television, and the first film I'm aware of that dealt with teen issues in such a starkly real way. It is also a rarity in that it cast actual teens as teens. Weird Science is on some level a starkly realistic insight into the psyche of the teen male, as well as a too-real depiction of life for two uncool guys.
Hughes' true masterpiece, however, as far as I'm concerned, is Ferris Beuller's Day Off. I'll spare you a long-winded exposition on why Generation X made the world a better place, despite the efforts of the Baby Boomers that came before them, and the OMG'ers that came after. Instead I'll offer Ferris as the Gen-X everyman. From his day off you can glean most everything you need to know about the topic. Consider-- he spent his day at a Cubs game, an art museum, (one of my favorite moments in all cinema), watching a parade, and eating lunch. Think about that for a while, then get back to me.
Finally, as a teen, and even still as an adult, I wondered-- did the popular kids, portrayed in such unflattering light in his films, also like John Hughes? How could they? How dare they? Those movies were made for Alison. And me. | | |
|
|
