Way To Normal

I got my copy of Ben Folds' Way To Normal in the mail today. I think Amazon needs to adjust their shipping so I get the album on the day it comes out, not the day after. Anyway, I bought it on beautiful vinyl, which has become my preferred format, but only if it comes with free mp3 downloads, or if it's old and cheap. The former applied to this album.





I've been texting back and forth with Trevor for a good part of the day about our feelings on the album (it's OK for guys to discuss their feelings -- after all, it's the 00s). Trev said that he saw it as Ben Folds' Pinkerton (if you don't know what Pinkerton is, please leave). It's not a conclusion I would've come to myself but in some ways I agree with Trev; the album is full of rowdy sing-along songs, fuzzy 90s bass distortion, and introspective and/or intensely personal lyrics -- a side of Ben we've seen before, just not in this way.

One of my favorite tracks -- the "Butterfly" of this album, if you will -- is "Cologne". I'm pretty sure this song is about leaving his wife. Actually, pretty much the entire second half of this album -- namely "B**** Went Nuts" and "Brainwascht" -- seems to deal with divorce. This got me wondering about Ben's personal life and what relationship it might have to his songs. I did a little research. According to Wikipedia, he was divorced in April 2007 and married again in November of the same year, which explains much of this album.

I've always thought of Ben as a pretty shameless guy. This is evident in the fact that he doesn't mind involving others in his songs. Sometimes for the better ("Gracie", "Still Fighting It") and sometimes for the worse ("Trusted", "Give Judy My Notice"). And he's been dropping names (from "Kate" to Lisa to Fred Jones) since his Ben Folds Five days. Probably most are fictional, but I can't help but think they're based on real people and true events. While Ben goes easy on the name dropping this time around, the subject matter comes across as very real and extremely autobiographical. Which, incidentally, makes me wonder what his ex-wife and kids feel about his songs. What does she feel about how she "went nuts"? How does she feel that thousands of people will hear about it? I'm probably reading way too much into this, I'm just a little curios, that's all.

It's hard not to like Ben Folds, and Way To Normal is hardly an exception. It's a little more profane than Songs For Silverman and Rockin' The Suburbs, but it's still quite accessible and easy to get into. "Hiroshima", "Cologne", and "Brainwacht" are my favorite tracks.

turn and face the strange

I saw a moose today. I'd say it was my first but my first moose was a small calf (?) (when I say small I mean the size of an elk) while in transit between Sherbrooke and Drummondville, two city-sized towns in the Eastern Townships in the fine province of Quebec, Canada. Anyway, Billy and I (Billy's my roommate) saw the moose at the start of tonight's impromptu fishing expedition, right as we were pulling up to our fishing spot. The moose hurried into the brush before I could whip out my phone for a pic. Oh, and we didn't catch anything.

Besides running into awesome wildlife, my first week back at school has been marked by a few other milestones:

*I don't eat sugar. I've tried for years and years and years to cut back. It's never worked. I'm the kind guy that can't eat just one cookie; I have to eat them till they're gone. Limiting myself has always been easier said than done. So instead of limiting, I'm eliminating. I had two bouts of no sugar over the summer, each lasting two weeks or more, and it was surprisingly easy. What I like about it most is how amazing fruit tastes; grapes, apples, peaches, and pineapple never tasted so good.

*I changed my name. My roommate Dan, er, I mean Alan, and I decided to go by our middle names (mine's Lewis). We're in a brand new apartment complex and, therefore, in a brand new ward, so why not? It's something I pulled every now and then in high school and lately I've been wanting to give it a try. On Sunday, Alan and I went out to meet some of the girls in our ward . . . it's was pretty funny because we kept forgetting we had changed our names . . . but it's no big deal because most of them probably forgot them anyway.

*I can make bread. When I was home in AZ for a bit during the summer I had my madre show me how to make bread. I've always enjoyed baking, but I had never tried bread. It's pretty fun, if you're into that sort of thing. Nowadays I guess people have their fancy mixers (we have one at home) that knead the dough, but it's actually quite enjoyable and therapeutic to do it yourself by hand. Plus, homemade bread is at least a million times better than anything store-bought and probably healthier (no preservatives).

*I study. OK, so it might be a little early to claim this one but I'm off to a good start, or at least a better start than most semesters. Today I stayed in the library for about three hours to work on tax homework. I rarely do that for routine homework. To study for a test or work on a project, maybe, but rarely for the day-in, day-out stuff.

*I'm running again. This isn't that big of a deal because running is always something I come back to. I ran periodically when I was home in the summer because it's just too hot to do it consistently, especially when it would have been the only thing getting me up in the morning. My goal now is to not take a break--I won't have to "come back" to it because I won't have stopped doing it.

a habit, a nostalgia, a dream

This is Monterey, California:

Pretty awesome, huh?

Near the end of my internship in the Bay Area last spring I took a trip with my roommates to Monterey. When we got there I was immediately disappointed that there wouldn't time for a second trip before I left California. The reason for our voyage was a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which could've been more enjoyable had we not gone on a crowded Saturday. The aquarium is located at the north end of Cannery Row, a waterfront street named for the sardine canneries that occupied the avenue until the 1950s. Last week I finally got around to reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, which, as you can guess, is set in and inspired by the street I just mentioned.

The book is a quick read -- only 118 pages -- more of a novella than a novel. But even in a small amount of pages Steinbeck manages to develop characters that are consistent, deep, and memorable. The plot is simple: Mack and the boys, a handful of Cannery Row's resident bums, decide to do something nice for their friend Doc, a marine biologist who owns Western Biological Laboratory. Cannery Row has quite a dynamic feel, from humorous to somber, from cynical to upbeat.

The chaptering of the book is somewhat unique: odd chapters move the story along while the even chapters are short contextual vignettes that describe Cannery Row and Monterey in general.

The theme of the book revolves around Mack and the boys and the ease with which they find contentment in their simple lives as bums. While referring to Mack and the boys, Doc notes:

|| Doc said, "Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think," he went on, "that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else." ||

Earlier in the book Steinbeck mentions:

|| In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals, Mack and the boys dine delicately with tigers, fondle the frantic heifers, and wrap up the crumbs to feed the sea gulls of Cannery Row. What profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals? Mack and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned, and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots-on-the-town, thieves, rascals, bums. Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for the no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. ||

And finally, back to Doc:

|| "It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second." ||

I quit

About two months ago my sister was reading a book that caught my attention. The cover was distinctly reminiscent of the artwork of the Twilight series. Which makes sense because she was reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer, author of said Twilight series. For some time now, I've been toying with idea of reading Twilight. Not because it's so popular (although mostly among teenage girls) but because two of my friends whose literary opinions I trust (Afton and Fat Cat) have read Twilight and enjoyed doing so. So, I asked my sister what she thought of The Host (she also being a Twilight fan). She said that it was different but also awesome. Afton gave a similar opinion as did my mother. "Alright, I'm gonna do this," I told myself. "If I enjoy The Host, I'll read Twilight."

I returned to AZ from school three and a half weeks ago with nothing to read. I wandered into my sister's bedroom and happened upon The Host. I remembered my decision to read it, and I was desperate for a new book, so I started that night.

Fast forward three weeks. I'm only three hundred pages into The Host. Now, I'm by no means a fast reader. But c'mon, I can do much better than a hundred pages a week. I start to wonder. Have I lost my love for reading? What's happened to me in the recent weeks or months that has killed the joy of a good book? I decide to try an experiment. I stop reading The Host and pick up Cannery Row by John Steinbeck instead (loved it -- a blogging forthcoming). I finished that in mere days (granted it's only 118 pages, but I was traveling at the same time, and I don't read much on the road). Last night I started Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card and I got that "can't put it down" feeling in the first chapter. These books brought me to a great realization: I hadn't lost my love for reading, I had simply been reading a bad book!

OK, let's be fair, The Host isn't a bad book; I certainly have no right to say so since I have yet to finish it. But if we're gonna be fair, let's be honest too: I really didn't enjoy reading it. The Host is very character based, and I never ended up really caring for any of the characters. In fact, some of them bugged the crap out of me. First, let's take Melanie (the one doing the hosting). "Oh my gosh, it's Jared, Jared's here, Jared, Jared's alive, Jared! JARED! Barf!" Just lame and annoying. Then there's Jared himself. I can't say why he bugged me. You know how sometimes people just rub you the wrong way and you can't say why? That's what Jared does to me. I didn't like Jamie either. He just wasn't convincing. At times, Wanda would be pretty cool, but most of the time I could care less what happened to her.

And I never really cared about the story. I was rarely excited to find out "what happens next" and was sometimes disappointed when I did. I'm honestly not one to quit a book, especially one as superficial as The Host, but I just didn't feel like going on. Yeah, I'll probably finish the book at a later date, if only to say that I gave it a chance and not so much because I care.

Maybe Stephanie Meyer just isn't for me. She's not a bad author, her characters and stories just aren't that appealing. In the meantime, the rest of my summer reading will be in the hands of Orson Scott Card, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway, authors who have never let me down, who I doubt ever will.

"These are the songs I keep singin'"

I haven't been this excited about Weezer since the Green Album; however, I don't think I've had as big of let down since the Green Album. During the last 7 years, Weezer has failed to release an album that rivals ol' Blue or Pinkerton in greatness. That is, until the Red Album.

Here's what Rivers himself had to say about the production of the Red Album:

"Our approach was to get into the studio and try to blow our minds with whatever we wanted to do. To just have fun, so that when we pressed play and listened back to what we did, our minds were just blown. That was the goal."





While I've never considered Weezer to be "mind blowing", nor do I consider their latest release "mind blowing". But, whatever it is they did to blow their own minds seems to have worked. The Red Album was the record Weezer fans (like myself) were waiting for back in 2001. Instead they got less than 30 minutes of effortless, impersonal song writing -- all ten songs follow the verse-chorus-bridge structure with only slight deviations, punctuated with incredibly weak guitar solos that repeat exactly the preceding chorus or verse. A casual listen to either the Blue Album or Pinkerton reveals that the band is capable of much more in regards to every aspect of song writing and delivery.

The Red Album is Weezer doing what they do best: having fun -- an approach the band should've taken on previous albums. (Go listen to "El Scorcho" or "Holiday" and tell me the band wasn't having fun with those songs. I dare you.)

A few highlights from Red include:

"The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)" -- A Bohemian Rhapsody-esque epic.

"Heart Songs" -- Mentions Gordon Lightfoot and Cat Stevens in the first 20 seconds of the song. What more do you need?

"Thought I Knew" -- Sung by Brian, Rivers on drums, Pat on guitar.

"Automatic" -- A sweet jam written and sung by Pat.

"The Angel And The One" -- Weezer hasn't been this emo since Pinkerton and I love it!

Lyrically, the album has a few weak spots. At one point it sounds like Rivers wrote lyrics with a rhyming dictionary, but apparently even that took too much effort so he threw it out ("Troublemaker"). Then Scott must've picked it up to write "Cold Dark World". In addition, there's a severe lack of guitar solos, which is not the norm for Weezer. Luckily, this doesn't detract from the album, though solos would certainly add to it.

Then there's the Deluxe Edition. Of the four extra tracks, "Miss Sweeny" (reminiscent of Blue Album b-sides "Jamie" and "Susanne") and "Pig" are best.

I certainly hope Weezer follows the "mind blowing, having fun" formula to record their future albums. They should work to please themselves and write for the sake of the music, not the industry or even the fans. I look forward to future albums, but in the meantime I'll enjoy, to quote Michael Cera, "the best thing to happen to music since 1996."

halvsies (sp?)

My legs hurt. Probably has something to do with the 13 miles I ran today.

(This would be a good spot for some kind of picture but I foolishly didn't take any before/during/after the race and the picture I found online (not of me) isn't working.)

Anyway, this morning I ran the Teton Dam half marathon, right here in quaint Rexburg, Idaho. I was expecting to finish at the 2:30 mark . . . but I slaughtered that with my time of 2:07:37.9 (a pace of about 9:45 per mile). Not necessarily a fast time, but a time that I feel really good about because I put my all into the race.

I enjoyed the course. Most of it was potato fields, which is prettier than it sounds. And it was the most amazingly sunny, cloudless day. The first four miles were mostly flat followed by a four-mile uphill stretch (which was probably the prettiest part of the race). Then course leveled out for about three more miles as it left the potato fields back into Rexburg. The last two miles -- passing the Rexburg temple, BYU-I, and my neighborhood -- were downhill until the very end, which was a staight-away to the finish line.

They were handing out orange slices at the 7 and 12 mile markers -- the best tasting oranges I've ever eaten.

I placed (I think) 88th overall for the half marathon and 12th in my division (25-29 year olds).

When I got home I slept, showered, slept, ate, and slept.

Anyway, training for and running this race was awesome for me because it really made me get serious about my running, and really improved my eating habits. For the past two and a half weeks I haven't had any candy, cookies, etc., and my red meat intake has been kept to a minimum for an even longer time. I'm gonna keep it up because during the time I went without sweets I lost over five pounds.

I'd like to try the full marathon next year, but if I'm not ready by then, it'd definitely be fun to do the half again.

fives

Chelsea tagged me, so here they are, my fives:

Five regrets
1. Not allowing my brother Matt to come see Return of the Jedi with my friends and me when it was re-released in the theatres 1997.
2. Just about everything I eat.
3. When I make something or someone else more important than a family member or close friend.
4. Not saying "hi" or just giving "the nod" to that person walking down the street.
5. Not putting up a fight when things go against what I feel is right.

Five bands/artists I would love to see in their prime
1. Weezer (1996)
2. Neil Diamond (1972)
3. Cat Stevens (1974)
4. Sunny Day Real Estate (2000)
5. Chicago (1984)

Things I would do if I could live on two hours of sleep a night
1. Read more books.
2. Play guitar . . . my trusty Takamine or my dad’s older-than-me Ibanez sound the best at 2 a.m.
3. More all-nighters with my roommate Dan – not for the sake of homework but for the sake of a great discussion.
4. Sit outside and look at the stars and think about stuff and write about it.
5. Homework. (But seriously, who am I kidding?)

Things I would rather study than accounting
1. Culinary arts. Specifically baking. Who wouldn’t want to spend the day making cookies?
2. English. My roommate Dan is an English major. His homework consists of reading short stories by John Steinbeck, one of my favorite authors.
3. Ceramics. I just don’t have what it takes to be an art major. But what’s comforting is art majors have less of what it takes to be an accounting major.
4. Geography. My teacher who taught this class at MCC was such an awesome guy. I would study geography just so I could be like him.
5. French and other romance languages, Arabic, Chinese, [insert foreign language here]. A great way to learn about another culture is to learn their language.