Yea, i know this post is up early, but whatever, it need to get done. The reason why this is up on a tuesday night and not wednesday AM-ish is a little thing called schoolwork. between the 2 papers i have due next tuesday, and all my usual stuff. i need the couple hours after my class on wednesdays and lunch to do some work. so yea, not that this takes me hours to draft, i just wanted to free up that time form 10-12 when i usually type this and then post.
Anyway, onto the update. So this past week mark the beginning of a very intense period of work for me. Alot of the usual homework stuffs plus beginning to organize stuff for human development's case study project, and papers and 2 tests all before Earlham's mid semester break. I'm confident i'll make it thru, as i've gone through longer hellish periods before. I jsut defintily feel there will be a burn out at some point this semester in everythign but human dev. I was really only burned out on classes one other time here at EC, and i think that was spring of Freshman year oddly enough. Though i guess the good thing abotu having all this stuf is that it keeps me occupied and makes me feel awesome when i hammer out a little over a page of a single spaced short reader response in less than an hour. Yea, i take pride in that, so what?
Ok now to the non academic ramblings.
This month's issue on Gamepro magazine came in the mail today. So now last month's issue, which i didnt get to read of cause of not bothering too look at it when i was free is kinda moot. oh well. thats kinda a useless bit of info.
anyway, I'm excited for Dance alloy this semester i'm learning to Salsa which is a lot of fun. and i'm in another dance that one of my friends is choreographing. yay for fun exercise. speaking of exercise, wow do i need to lose weight. my goal for this year is to lose 2 pounds every month so i'm down to around 170 by my 22nd birthday (holy crap i'm old) and yea, i'm kinda failing at that so far. honestly i think i just need to find a method of geeting enerrgy for my long day on tuesdays and my semi- long one on thursdays that doesnt involve sodas, and i should be fine. the dance the my friend is choreographing is to a song called "lisztomania" by phoenix. no jok, thats band name. theyre like alt rock, and i like them
On a more ranty music note, i want to comment on how loosely defined the term "soul music" has become. Case in point, there was a concert here on campus on saturday night with a great all student funk band. These guys were awesome. a few people i know of were in it which was awesome, they're good musicians/ singers. but after they left, the show went south. the main act for the night was some allegedly nationally known band called "his name is alive" that is "the new sound of detroit soul" (which is wat was actually on the posters for the event.
Now lets get into my issues with this band's set. 1) the guitarist was very good but her relied to much on some effects pedal he had that turned his playing into white noise. 2) the lead female vocalist had the flattest, most bored and uninterested look on her face the entire part of the set i was there for. 3) the set organization, because it was awful. The first song was 6 minutes of glorified nosie rock (basically rock music with no discernible guitar chords, just staticy noise and produced sound effects to add melody) instrumental. This was allright. the next 3-5 song were good heavier alternative rock songs with way less pedal pushing by the guitarist. I danced to these, but let me just say this: alternative/hard indie rock does not equal "soul music" in the slightest!
ok, now thats off my chest, lets proceed to the rest of the set. I'll do this as if you guys were in my head during the set. Here we go: oh wait, the tall skinny guy who was a freaking tamborine/ sound effect box player on all the other songs is getting out a trombone, oh god, he took off his overshirt and he's wearing a fishnet undershirt and you can see his chest hair. That is a fashion no-no and this is coming from a guy who has no fashion sense. Ok so now he's playing the trombone, oh wait he's being very spastic with it, looks like he's having a seizure. Why is he going to the back of the stage? no one can hear him. EPIC FAIL! The lead singer sound uninterested as usual. oh look the guitarist is holding his foot on that static nosie pedal and raising his guitar up and down, i cant hear any difference in sound. Ok now Joey trombone guy has set the trombone down and is playing with the sound effect box again. wait, now he's bent backwards and is pressing it to his forehead, what the frig? That's it this has gone from meh, to interesting to pure stoner rock, i cant believe i saw 3 different people with this band's cd in their hands.
ok. thats done. I wanna point out that after the 3-5 good songs, His name is Alive had a good crowd, but then they did that stoner rock song and lost 2/3rds of thier audience. ISn't the point of performing live shows not to lose people's interest part of the way thru?
Ok rant done. i'll end with a reading recomendation. I'm abotu 30 pages into "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan who is coming here to campus sometime. Its very good, and very interesting to read. its all about food and how it impacts us. that is a bad description, but look it up on amazon or if you're on campus and seeing this, its in the EC bookstore for $16.
Anyway, i'll be back next week either early or on the usual day, wednesday. So thanks for
reading.
--Zack B
