Something About the Night

Tonight is the last real day of summer I have. The minutes shuffle by, waiting for me to do something. Instead, I stare in front of a computer screen, listening to Animal Collective. My phone is beside me, but I don't use it. The only light comes from the overheating office lamp next to the keyboard. Have I grown this summer? Did I do something worthwhile? What will I have to tell my children about the summer before my Senior year? My thoughts turn to reminiscence instead of living in the present, another sign of the end of summer.

Animal Collective still plays in the background.

Much of my summer nights were spent babbling to my brother Scott about music. Modern Vampires this, Yeezus that; Replacements here, Beach Boys there; shot of Bon Iver, and a heavy dose of Animal Collective. Animal Collective is certainly the wildest and funnest of the bands listed, most likely because each AC song is doused in acid and wrapped in Marijuana leaves. When I first looked up the Baltimore band, I typed into YouTube "Animal Coll-" and what came up was "My Girls- Animal Collective". At the end of the song, I was scared, unnerved, and entranced with it.
Then I looked up "Who Could Win a Rabbit" and didn't listen to AC for two weeks.

Each summer day lasts an eternity. every hour blends into one another in the way that you stir chocolate milk. what looks at first like two totally different objects churns into a blissful concoction. I often sat down on the wooden swing in the backyard and listened to the ever present creaking of the metal on timber. My Dad and I got in a fight, I was tired of playing the piano, dinner wasn't ready yet, a thought floated in my head, but no matter what the creaking of metal on timber was there. It seemed that every jarring chord hypnotized me, sent me to a better place. I may have spent twenty minutes on that swing, I may have spent days, but I always gave my time on the swing, listening to the cracking wood, the time needed for it to be worthwhile.

Every Animal Collective song is at least four and a half minutes long and are basically inaudible. Alternative music paradise. The tracks repeat themselves, lay down strange, alien rhythms, and confuse the crap out of me. But they are beautiful to me. To most people, AC songs are torture techniques Terrorists use for Bowe Bergdahl, but not to me. Each track lasts an eternity and frustrates you with slow progression. I've noticed that to appreciate many great music artists, you must A: listen to it at the needed perspective, and B: have patience. So, I've given every Animal Collective the needed amount of time to reveal it's psychedelic genius.

Summer is almost over. The Animal Collective album I'm listening to is on its last track. "Brothersport", it's called. A six minute anthem that has no lyrical meaning to me, but I still grasp on to every word. "Until you're fully grown/ You got the real good shot/ Won't help to hold inside/ give a real give a real shout". These lyrics are spit out for three straight minutes, but it will end. I'll finish the blog post, I'll finish the summer, I'll read a few pages of a few books, and I'll go to bed. That will be my summer. Tomorrow, I start class, but maybe I've already learned something...    

Tolkien and Stevie Nicks: Woah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien

I love the Lord of the Rings. My passion for it originates from watching the movies while I was too young to understand them, and then watching them with my brother Todd when I could understand. The interest grew in middle school, when I first read the six books compiling The Lord of the Rings and the prequel The Hobbit. I loved the books even more than the movies; and that's saying something. However, my love for Tolkien's novels spurned from the marvel of creating a whole new world, one with multiple languages, cultures, heroes, battles, and bad guys- and not from the intricate literary symbolism within the book. Which is just fine, but my unbound love for the book was not quite as understood as it could have.

Today, at work, that all changed. I'm currently rereading LOTR for fun. I brought The Fellowship of the Ring in my lunchbox I take to work. We were collecting bugs 35 minutes Northeast of Pine, Idaho (I'll talk about my work later).  Lunchtime. I pulled out a turkey sandwich and a book and read about Rivendell, and the council of Elrond. The description of Frodo showing Bilbo the one ring in Rivendell hit me like a wrecking ball.
"Slowly Frodo drew out the Ring... To his distress and amazement he found he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands... the music and singing round them faltered. Silence  Bilbo looked quickly at Frodo's face and placed his hands across his eyes. 'I understand now. Put it away! I am sorry. Sorry you have this burden: sorry about everything... It can't be helped.'"
Please tell me you read that. These words reminded me of two things:
1. J.R.R. Tolkien was good friends with C.S. Lewis, and they were both devout Christians
2. A line from Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams", which was in my head all day-

"Thunder only happens when it's raining"

I realized that I was wading the shallow end of a 40 feet deep pool. The One Ring does not only signify evil and that which destroys light, but more specifically the Ring is a literal translation of addiction and selfishness taken to the extreme. Isildur, Sauron, and Gollum, the three non-hobbit Ring bearers, were destroyed because of their twisted obsession with the ring. They lost common sense, and a sense of their own purity, in their duty of carrying the ring. They would all soon give up their own selves, like Bilbo: becoming bony, groping, hungering, and separated from a higher light, to bind themselves to the ring.
The ring is a band. a simple-looking, gold band. but whosoever wields the ring, will be bound to it. Tears them apart from the inside. Like an egregious relationship splintered by abuse, the victim becomes dependent and intertwined upon the perpetrator. It happened to all those that held it, whether innocent hobbit or beastly necromancer. This is proof of addiction, and sickened dependence. The victims throw out their own decisions for that of the ring, like Frodo at Amon Sul.
In every world we live in, there is a band. Simple in nature, lethal in reality. Some people are Gandalfs: much too wise to be encompassed inside the Ring's perimeter, but are called to higher purposes. Some people are Aragorns: they must assist and aid in any way possible those who are in bondage to the ring. And some people are Frodos: however innocent to the world, they are bound to the ring. They must do all in their strength to destroy the One Ring, to free them and those around them from the pestilence, the sickness that afflicted them for so long.
The fantastical piece of LOTR that makes the whole story a mix of heroic, saddening, and even disdainful, is that the dark power that binds all of middle-earth is thrusted upon a halfling. It isn't carried by a great warrior, or a cunning elf, or a nazgul, but someone least appropriate for the job. It's like a hundred elephants balancing on a tennis ball. An incredulous feat of will and power that thrashes the reader into every direction, immersing the reader deep into the book. However, the story of the Lord of the Rings goes deep into that which I still do not fully comprehend, so I will stop here with my shallow symbolism and redundant points. But, what I have learned from the book today has brought much more appreciation to the novels than I ever imagined.
THE LAST AND ONLY REAL IMPORTANT THOUGHT:
Look at the Fleetwood Mac quote again. "Thunder only happens when it's raining." Darkness, sadness, grief only occurs when you put on your One Ring- whatever restricts you from your full potential. Every person chooses whether or not it should rain in their lives. If you have a hardship equivalent to that one ring, you can either choose to become like gollum, or Isildur; give up on your own choices, give in to the ring. Or, you can be Frodo or Bilbo. It is each person's choice whether or not to give in to the One Ring. I've never really connected to the books so closely before, just wanted to share.  

Can't Touch This: The Perfect Game, The American Dream, and Three Ugly Guys

It has been exactly one year since this happened:


three hundred and sixty days ago, Matt Cain joined the ranks of Catfish Hunter, Cy Young, Sandy Koufax, David Wells, and... Philip Humber. The Perfect Game. Watching the 9th inning on the MLB.com archives still makes me pumped, and I'm not even a huge fan of the giants. He now rests on laurels along with Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, and... Dallas Braden. How is it that some no-name who played for Oakland had one solid year, couldn't get a single winning season, and ultimately now has a worse chance of re-entering the MLB than Roger Clemens could have such a timeless achievement? In the words of the Arctic Monkeys, Oakland Athletics pitcher Dallas Braden went from ritz  to rubble in a few years.
Let's look at another Oakland Oddity, but instead of a no-hit wonder, he had a one-hit wonder. However, he had the same long-standing memory: U Can't Touch This. Bay Area baby MC Hammer is a household name and a bad memory of old MTV. He went broke, acted like an idiot, and yet we still laugh at his parachute pants and call him pop genius. At the same time, we deem Michael Jackson immortal music royalty, Run DMC rap pioneers, and revere The Beastie Boys for their daring antics. Try naming three songs by MC Hammer. Impossible. Try naming five songs from any of the other music hall of famers. Easy.
So why do flashes in the pan like MC Hammer and Dallas Braden still so well thought of, even though they didn't have it in them to last for three years in their business? Simple. Good timing and Good Luck. These two Oakland kids reminded that every person has a chance to be as great as Cy Young or the Beastie Boys. MC Hammer and Dallas Braden lived the modernized American Dream: obtaining glory while not really deserving it. Let's all follow these men's example.

Bonus Piece, here's a great song and music video by the Brooklyn Jews

Can You Dig It?

This is hopefully the first of many posts. I would like to start out with the fact that it is summer vacation. Nothing beats hot weather that makes your shorts stick to the back of your legs, tall glasses of lemonade, and a mission statement to lie beneath the shade of a tree at least once a week. While my mother screams at me from the other side of town to go do something with my life, I sit in my bedroom and read aging books and Calvin and Hobbes treasuries. I jump out of my room, annoy my mother to no end about her obsession with her favorite food channel show, and then watch countless hours of ESPN. This, my few followers, is the beginning of Nostalgia. The Calvin and Hobbes collection I'm currently reading is There's Treasure Everywhere, which starts with this strip:

Indeed, my six year old counterpart, there is treasure in all places. my treasure these next few months will hopefully lie in memories. Memories of watching Gilmore Girls with my mother, memories of listening to Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless duke it out on ESPN First Take, memories of running on hot asphalt and working out in parched fields, and memories of reading Steinbeck's Cannery Row while listening to Modest Mouse. Today, the Heat punished the Spurs and I found my Vibrams had hole in them, but tomorrow, a whole new day of vacation awaits.