31 May 2009

Perhaps Donkey Pong Next Time?

Athleticism, coordination and even the ability to walk without tripping and smashing and disfiguring one's face into something IHOP wouldn't flinch about serving are not common traits in the gene pool around here.I readily and easily admit this.

I've heard stories, legends really, about relatives from back on the Emerald Isle performing simply magnificent feats of strength. My grandfather was said to have carried 100 kg barrels of turf (fuel) up and down steep, moist hills in the glen, a hill I have climbed myself and couldn't do it without looking like Otis Redding after a night at the Whiskey A-Go-Go.

Uncle John was purported to have worked tirelessly everyday, digging praties and shearing sheep throughout all hours, and still be able to sprint back to town and back for a glass of whiskey.

I believe none of these stories. Because there is no way I couldn't have inherited at least some of that coordination.

Why do I prattle on about all this? Because it is extremely relevant when one is trying to play a game called "beer pong". Befuddlingly popular among folks my age group, you have probably heard of this at the very least.

The rules are simple enough: throw an exercise ball through a basketball hoop, and do it while stumbling, stark-raving drunk and while entering that state.

http://www.chiisland.com/weight_loss/images/exercise_ball/exercise_ball_blue.jpghttp://z.about.com/d/toys/1/0/I/7/Nerf-Showtime-Hoops.jpg

Or at least that's what it felt like to me, the man of the coordination skills of the average blind, mute muskrat, even without the assistance of a Golden Monkey. At some point during a gathering I attended last evening, I was coaxed into partaking in this bizarre, somewhat wasteful ritual. I managed to sink only one "good" shot, and the rest ended up somewhere between 3 feet and 9 dimensions away.

http://www.plw.org/4th_Dimension/4thDimensionC.jpg
The last known sighting of beer pong shot 14.


The results of too much incompetence? The forced consumption of the cheap beer of the day. Oh, and you lose too. My attempts to have the substance of choice replaced with Juicy Juice, or to use slightly larger cups...or pitchers...were looked upon with scorn and dismay. I believe at one point I even noted the remote possibility of a game of backgammon or chinese checkers getting started up.

So, if young people must have a game that involves the consumption of beer, I propose a couple of alternatives.

1. Beerus Exactus

-A game for any number of players. One player, deemed the "Beergen Master" chooses a liquid measurement (metric or standard systems are valid). Let's say, 300 ml. Players must then pour that amount of beer out of the can to the best of their ability. The player who is the closest to the precise measurement chooses someone from the group, who must drink their entire beverage and perform an action chosen by the winner. This continues until players can no longer count high enough to give a valid amount.


2. Elton Bong

-Named, of course, after Sir Elton John, this game requires at least the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album in one's discography. A neutral official plays an Elton John song at a reasonable volume. Players must anticipate when the chorus of that given song is going to arrive and, at the very moment Elton reaches the first word of the chorus, players must put on a pair of brightly-colored sunglasses and shout "I'm Still Standing". The sunglasses will be arranged on the ground in front of the players, ensuring a mad scramble, a la Musical Chairs.

The last player to do this must chug their beverage and dance around like a fool. The game ends when you hit "Rock of the Westies", because nobody freaking likes that album.

http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/e/elton-john/album-rock-of-the-westies.jpg
I will fight anyone who says they like this
sorry excuse for a musical record.

Are these ideas perhaps a bit too eccentric? No, I came up with them, so I obviously think they rock. If you play one of these games at your party, I guarantee that everyone will remember that way better than an aimless, wasteful game of beer pong. They may also disown you as a friend, but at least they'll never forget why.

Plus, they're not any more ridiculous than beer pong.



29 May 2009

Summer Project: Savory Salmon Feast

Right, so I may as well not do that whole "picture of an album" thing, since I recently welcomed myself to Web 2.0 by adding what we call a "widget" that links with my brand new last.fm account. So this time, I wouldn't be able to BS you fine folks about listening to some highfalutin modernist jazz when I'm actually getting my hanky-panky on to ABBA and Orleans.

Wonderful technology and all that, though I fear that a Web 3.0 widgapplitweeterwave that logs where, when and how one scratches oneself cannot be too distant in the future...

"jagallag LIGHTLY SCRATCHED his PELVIS at 03:46:23 AM. He seemed to MODERATELY ENJOY it."

Dangerous.

Anyway, my true purpose this evening is to inform you of what will perhaps become one of my most ambitious summer projects since I made that exploding beluga whale sculpture out of toilet paper rolls, Jello and arsenic back in '86. My brother, Kevin, and I have decided to compose a twelve-part rock opera in commemoration and in honor of the best flavor of Fancy Feast cat food ever, Savory Salmon Feast.



Now you may ask yourself, "How did I get here?" And you may ask yourself...ok, enough of that. Why we decided to compose about cat food is what is on your mind. Well, the culprit is one Catkin, the most infamous (and perhaps slow-witted) of our four feline friends.












Savory Salmon Feast is Catkin's favorite cat food BY FAR. While he'll eat "Cod, Shrimp and Sole Feast" and "Supa Dupa Tuna Special", he does not consume them with the vigor and enthusiasm that he does with SSF.

So, seeing as we like to draw an irresponsible amount of meaning from Catkin's actions, we decided that, indeed, the feast must have some very lyrical, mythical history, properties and that violent, bloody wars must have been fought over it in the years of yore.

Thus, the idea for a space-rock opera was born. Frankly, I'm really not sure how Kevin and I, instrumentalists of just moderate skill (and lyricists of no skill), will be able to fill the 50-minute minumum we have set for this opera. My first guess would be aimless keyboard solos and stream of consciousness poetry reading.

But we have practiced composing already, under the moniker "Three Dimensional Rhombus", the origins of which are probably worth a whole other blog entry. Our first effort, "Jailbreak from St. Petersburg", was derided as "elevator music" and "repetitive schlock". Thanks, mom. Our next effort proved to be somewhat more memorable, as "Deathpin Raveout X" features FIVE layers of drums, Latin piano riffs, and a blues organ playing it out. It lasts all of 48 seconds, so I think it's worth it to debut it to the world.




I swear we'll get better. And that we won't cheat by using Garage Band next time, there will be real synthesizers played, real mellotrons engaged, and space music so otherworldly will be created, even Sun Ra himself will flinch.



Enjoy your weekend, people, and may the feast be with you.

27 May 2009

Jass Iss Guds Fer Yoo

http://files.list.co.uk/images/2007/11/15/porticoquartet-lp.jpg
Currently Hearing: Portico Quartet, Knee-Deep in the North Sea


So I figured that there above would be a nice little thing to do. Cliche, perhaps, but a cliche never incinerated a small village. Trogdor cannot say the same.


http://www.hrwiki.org/images/thumb/4/4a/Trogor.png/104px-Trogor.png
But this particular listening moment for me brings to mind a subject to which I am well acquainted, and that is jazz music. Ninety percent of you are no longer reading, and one hundred percent of you were never reading in the first place, and 1.3337 percent of you should pick that slice of sausage and jelly pizza off the floor.

My point is that, chances are, you find the music either intolerable, impenetrable, or haven't given it a chance to spin through your soul. My fundamental problem with your (yes, your) characterization of "jazz" is this: jazz, as an all-encompassing genre, is a grand misnomer. There is no such thing as "jazz" music other than to suggest that black people playing saxophones, trumpets, percussion and a double bass in some sort of greasy, devil-summoning cacophony or some silver-haired, large-snouted white guy blowing pompous, silky drivel out of a clarinet to the beat of a drum machine is all jazz can be. It's like pointing to a Stromboli and saying, "This is the only Italian food that exists." While Stromboli is characteristic of Italian food (you dunk it in some kind of red sauce, and it averages 900 k-cal x sq inch, it creates a grease that I like to use as a pore-cleanser), it sure as hell doesn't define it.

Instead, I tend to side with what one truly regal musical mind, Duke Ellington said: "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind." Ellington shunned those who attempted to stick a monosyllabic word onto his music. In fact, he probably had this face on while doing it.


He shuuuuns you.


Ok, that's about the meanest picture I could find of the Duke. He's wearing a smile as wide as an overfed hippopotamus in the rest of them. Why? Because he's playing jazz, man. Why would you NOT smile?

So, if you ever decide to end your obnoxiously unreasonable ban on "jazz" music entering your life, please let me know. I will be delighted to show you something under the umbrella that you will wonder how you lived without hearing.



There's No Way I'll Keep This Up

But I try anyway. Greetings to whomever you may be, and welcome to this source of potentially harmful and brain-frying musings by me.

Blogs (colloquial short-hand for "Boring self-aggrandizement...log) have always struck me as somewhat self-indulgent, especially ones that literally and genuinely only present the events in one singular person's lives, as if all of the rest of us care to divert ourselves from twittering about our own follies in upper-middle class Americana.

But you know something? I'm a self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent, boring person, and I'll be golly-gee gadfly-ed if I won't impose that on anyone who brings their contemptuous gaze to this pixelated nightmare.

If you know me, you will not be surprised to learn that I have no particular plans for what I will spew forth on these pages. Just know that you may want to bring a poncho or two, as spewing will be by the hogshead. Until I hear from my local soon-to-be-extinct newspaper, I have no legitimate outlet for writing. This usually results in me trying to compensate by creating spaces to do so, being the sanctimonious bandersnat I am.

It seems as if my pretentious introduction is complete. Now, to sum up my summer thus far:

-So, I guess I graduated from Syracuse University

-Though I expected to do this, it still felt pretty nice.

-Afterwards, I went home, pretended I was NOT an employee of Advanced Cardiac Care for one day before my boss, my dear mother, decided that was unacceptable.

-Regrettably, I returned to my combined EKG Biller/Office Monkey Extraordinaire. I've probably billed you for an EKG.

-Things at home that are exciting: the whole family is engaged in a daily regimen of Wii Fit, which is quite amusing. Never have I met a more judgmental game, however. The program gleefully points out all of your bodily flaws with the help of a capricious, bubbly cast of characters, including a talking balance board, a fitness-freak female trainer and a squeaky voice that always greets me with a disdainful "Oh..." everytime I step on the balance board. Oh, as in, "Oh, it's you, you hideous porcine gastropod."

-Recent times have birthed the highlights of my 15th-to-last summer of living at home. I hosted a chaotic, rambunctious marathon of a graduation party, which featured only 3 (human) casulaties and only one person who needed to be fished out of the pool. My soundtrack of calypso music, Bruce Springsteen, prententious modern jazz and 70's funk was well-received, probably due to the fact that it was mostly inaudible.

-Even cooler, there was this ridiculously violent hail storm during the party, in which the stones were, no lie, the size of strawberries. Baby strawberries, but strawberries. As we were running out of ice, this was a welcome development.

-Kind of a let down after it all ended, though. But good swimming day on Memorial Day, followed by more work, and the impending celebration of my mother's (CENSORED)th birthday tomorrow.

Overall, a swell time. If you made it through all of this, you are a hero. If not, WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?!?!

By the way, find the hidden message in this post. May you live long and prosper.