Wow guys, I wrote tonight. I actually wrote. I also watered the parched trees in the backyard. Last year, I finished the sprinklers in the backyard specifically so I wouldn’t have to hand-water the trees. Problem is, in finishing the pavers I had to break some of them… and I never fixed them. So now I’m back to hand-watering. One tree’s dead, one definitely hurting. The smell the water makes when it hits the sun-baked dirt just reminds me how hot it is here during the day… I don’t know where the weeds get their water…
The other day I caught a story on digg (the new version of which, looks excellent, by the way) about the Flaming Lips releasing a new album in on online-only format. The article was interesting enough, then in the comments someone said, simply, “Best modern band.” To which the next poster replied, “Actually the best band this instant is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.” Which I found hilarious enough in itself – that someone is willing to make a blanket statement that not only acts like you should already know (the “Actually…” bit), but unequivocally tells everyone who the best band is “at this instant.” At that precise moment in time, should every hearing-enabled organism in the universe attend a band-off comprised of every band in the universe, CYHSY would be the hands-down winner. Not to mention the fact that PF had barely finished penning it’s glowing review of the group, no doubt where said enlightened reader had learned of them five minutes before posting (as I did). Some of you may say this is my bitterness at people digging “my” music, hopping on that train. But no, I’m trying to make fun of this guy. Anyway, it got me thinking…
“Right now, the best band in the entire world is a band you will never hear.” That’s what I thought. Indie-elitists would be crippled by intense multiple orgasms if they heard of a brand new band that was not only completely amazing, but was also the definition of underground or little-known. That got me thinking: How could I combine both these qualities and craft the perfect indie band? Then it came to me: Create a great band, an excellent, stupendous, sublime band – that no one, aside from gushing critics, will ever hear. If you get really creative about it, you don’t even have to have a real band – since no one will ever hear them anyway. You just invent a band and start raving about them… their varied influences and emotional lyrics, their powerful musicianship and defiance of convention, and their notoriously elusive import EPs. I can almost hear the indie kids popping hard ons in their corduroys now. Eventually, someone would say they’d heard them, at a friend’s roommate’s place, on a crackly podcast of a French radio show that played the EP one night in a hurricane – something huge and mythic. People all around would know someone who heard they were about to sign, or were playing a secret gig under and assumed name down in Deep Ellum next week. Then you could say, much to the chagrin of rare 7″ seekers everywhere, that: “Right now, the best band in the entire world is a band you will never hear.” It’s genius.
Yesterday, Sharaun was watching some show on the MTV, and there was a plumply young lady running on the beach. She was talking about how she’s going to school and “studying marine biology” so she can “hopefully swim with and train dolphins one day.” I didn’t want to be the one to tell her, but I think there are a lot less dolphin-training jobs out there than there are people who want to train dolphins for a living. My brother wanted to be a dolphin-trainer once… or maybe it was Shamu. Either way, I remember we used to make fun of him for having a new passion each week. For a while, he had a hand-drawn picture on notebook paper, tacked to his bedroom door, that said something like “Shamu Riders Only” on it. The next week, it was Bigfoot flying through the air, complete with a debris trail in classic sfumato, its huge knobby tires inches from coming down on a crudely illustrated burning schoolbus and it read “Monster Truck Drivers Only.” Monster trucks gave way to fireworks-making, which waned right as Civil War Reenactor waxed. Man did we give him a hard time about that. But it’s good though, shows he had interests, shows he had goals – even if they were ever-changing.
Really though, at some point in life, who didn’t think it would be cool to be a professional Shamu rider? There’s a difference though, between that and majoring in marine biology with hopes of riding dolphins. I’m not sure, but I just don’t think there is a big market for dolphin-riders. Just like majoring in hospitality in hopes of scoring one of those Travel Channel gigs where you fly around the world and review posh hotels… I can’t say for sure, but it’s probably not going to happen. And kids, I’m not telling you not to chase your dreams – maybe just make them a bit more attainable, eh? If there’s only one guy in the world who’s job it is to test the satisfaction-index of different condoms with different women – there’s likely a large line of prospective replacement candidates. Just count the Shamus in the world, then count the number of people who ride those Shamus on a weekly basis, and figure in the Shamu-rider turnover. Yeah… not lookin’ as real as it was before right? On the other hand, there must be hundreds of Bigfoots… and I’m pretty sure those guys don’t really need degrees…
Mmmm… finished early tonight, 9pm. Calling it good and putting it on autopilot. ‘Night.
Also written on this day...
- coming back - 2021
- moms & dads are dying - 2011
I will seriously never forgive you if you kill the awesome Japanese Maple we gave you. I hope it’s the one that’s “hurting”, not dead . . . all this time I thought we were placing it in a loving home and instead it was a tree desiccation torture center.
This was such a good entry, I have to comment a second time.
I was also watching that show last night and had almost identical thoughts. “At least you got on Pimp My Ride,” I thought, “because the dolphin training dream is going to hit a brick wall soon, and you’ll be left forever dreaming of what might have been. This is your peak, right here, a tilting truck bed with 3 42″ LCD monitors. The rest of your existance is all downhill, starting with your car getting stripped and left on blocks parked in front of your house, followed by figuring out your not smart enough or connected enough to be a dolphin trainer, and concluding with settling for staffing lemon ice cart near the dolphin tank entrance for the rest of your life.” Depressing.