Stood on the edge, tied to a noose // You came along and you cut me loose

I really have to think about this now. So I just got back from the Rilo Kiley/Coldplay show I remember. Then I put my headphones on, then I set them down for a second and buried my head into my pillow, then I woke up just a minute ago. The thing is that everything within and outside of those few facts feels like it was from a dream. I would swear it was a dream if I didn't see the ticket sitting on my dresser, though I totally have that déjà vu feeling about it, like what you feel when you wake up from a dream you really liked and you suddenly reach for a pen and paper because you want to dump every fleeting detail through your fingers in hopes of making sense of it later down the road. So here goes:

Really started off perfectly today: I'd placed the ticket to the show that I was taking my Sister to see for her birthday into the 3rd installment of the Chronicles of Narnia: 'The Boy and His Horse', then took the book to work yesterday and forgot it there, then came back to work today to discover that it was missing. So working for 2 hours not knowing if I'd left it someplace on the sales floor or put it on top of my car and then drove away (don't worry I've done those both before) was just great! I went to the restroom and ducked my head into our break room and smiled at seeing the book peeking out from under a pizza box on the counter. R-E-L-I-E-F.

So I crawled through a long work day and met up with my Sis at home and after negotiations with our Ma about taking her to see it (she's 15 years old and has recently crowdsurfed at the Warped Tour, I figured she'd make it through this) we were off. A light drizzle wabeginningng to fall on us as we spent our obligatory $35 each on t-shirts beforehand (I'm not really all about the "Hey I went to see Coldplay (variable) and here is the official tour t-shirt to prove this!" statement, I just really liked my shirt, as did my Sister and her's. She later helped me to color coordinate, telling me what color pants I could wear with it) and found our seats hidden just under the Pine Knob canopy (henceforth in this entry you will hear this venue under its previous, non-commercialized popular moniker and not 'DTE Music Center' or whatever it is really called. Sort of like calling it Tiger Stadium instead of 'Comerica Park' anyway).

Rilo Kiley was very good. Their singer Jenny Lewis wore a long dress which I thought was very pretty, and they whaled. They have a song called 'More Adventurous' that they played which just sparkled. I tried to explain to my Sister that their guitarist was Pinsky from 'Salute Your Shorts' but she didn't seem to recall it, I think it was before her time. Young whipper snappers.

Then they played loud music over the P.A. as the roadies set up, the last song before the lights went out being The Beatles 'Tomorrow Never Knows' (which perfectly added to the mad anticipation/hysteria) and then there they were! You heard the computer notes starting 'Square One' and then suddenly you saw their silhouettes glowing from a backdrop that was a projected digital watch timer ticking down from like 30 seconds until it got to zero, right as the song explodes basically. It was incredible. They pounded 'Politik' and then suddenly it was 'Yellow' and large yellow balls were dropping from the roof and people were yelling/singing their hearts out and being free. They tackled every song with such gusto and grace! When Chris Martin flubbed a line in 'The Scientist' he said "balls" under his breath and it was hilarious, as when he recounted a story between songs about being around for the VMA's the other day and Paris Hilton walking past them without even batting an eye, to which he then dedicated their song 'Till Kingdom Come' to her (even adding the lyric 'Who's rich Dad owns hotels' in perfect rhyme) More hilarity, they played their song 'Talk' and on the video screen was a bear walking back and forth in what looked like the pen of a Zoo (??), another was when Chris Martin ran into the middle of the crowd during the solo and ending of 'In My Place' and was climbing around like a monkey and singing. And they came out for an encore and launched right into 'Swallowed in the Sea' and I was just giddy and an acoustic 'Don't Panic' and 'Clocks' and this song and just everything! And they closed with 'Fix You' and that was that.

As we walked away being serenaded by The Beatles 'Good Night' overhead, we talked about it like young schoolgirls (well she is a young schoolgirl though so); about how amazing the last 2 hours of our lives were together. I could not then or now explain how odd and wonderful a feeling it was/is in remembering your little Sister when she was a newborn baby and now 15 years later talking about how we wished, though of course we were in no position to complain, they would have played 'X&Y' (her favourite song) or how glorious it was to yell out the chorus to 'Yellow' together and have the same sort of feelings connected. We talked some during our brakelight filled hour of travel back home, though mostly we thought to ourselves about the marvelous show (Bentley's aren't usually ones to mince words with one another). We stopped at McDonald's to pick up a midnight snack, blaring 'What If' and 'X&Y' from the open windows and eating chicken nuggets until our driveway. I honestly think the euphoria of the concert itself is slightly overshadowed by this realization of my Sister now totally emerged from the childhood image I'd had fixed over her for so very long. Welcome up here, Kristen.

Please believe me, the river told me // Very softly, want you to hold me

Hey happy 100th entry you blogger you. And wow it has nearly been a year to the date since I started throwing words around like firecrackers. I bet if you tried to sell that to Hollywood they'd never believe it. Hmm... and I am close to taking the bait on moving this into full on 12 month reflective Justin on your monitor. I don't know, I feel like I'm moving forward in a lot of spots, albeit in phases. It really seems like a lot of times within the last year, and year or so before, that just when I figure out the answers they go and change the questions. Sometimes 'two shots of happy, one shot of sad' sometimes the vice versa. Let's keep moving though. The future is scarier and more exciting.

As far as my 'yellow brick road' I call the/my future (hey by the way, in an attempt to construct an entire paragraph in parenthesis/bend the laws of English to the point of fracture, did you ever notice as a younger or older man or woman watching 'Wizard of Oz' the swirling start of the yellow brick road, but more interestingly, at least to only me probably, how following it and taking off in an opposite direction is a 'red brick road' ?? It always caught my eye in the old days, but in a film with so many quirks/urban legends {see "the guy who hangs himself in the background" [aka the ostrich puppet, wink wink]} but a while back I started giving this some thought, my imagination leading me to a handful of fantastical conclusions: The road leads to an exactly parallel 'through the looking glass' dimension, like with evil Lion and evil Scarecrow etc, to Glinda the good Witch's house, or to the back door of Emerald City. I got something in the mail for this Broadway show coming to Detroit called 'Wicked' which I understand is a separate story in Oz with the witches in the focus, I've convinced myself that the answer lies in this production. I really need somebody to come down to the D and help me see this through.) lately it seems.... wow I'm just going to start a new paragraph, even I can't see where I've left off.

Lately, in regards to the future, it seems as if Walgreens Pharmacy has fallen off the wagon. I found my 'babybook' hiding under a film poster and also my other photo album, one I created and never finished, one soley dedicated to the memory of my fair drugstore. I went through it a few nights ago and laughed at the madness that went on there in years past. 'When we were Kings', you know? And I go back to work the next few days and now a lot of the time it seems like really hard work. I don't know if it just me romanticizing the past or if I'm losing focus or what. I keep finding myself going into a work shift fresh and jovial and in the end crawling out and just trying to survive.

I'm thinking its the job itself. I got into it originally 4 years ago because walking past there each day at work I would see all these genius people working in this mysterious place in the corner of the store, happy and helping people as best as could be. I got into it and just loved it; loved greeting people and feeling like I was helping them to feel better, not just with what was in the bottle, but with an honest smile. Giving color books to the kids and laughing with the elderly. I want to blame cell phones for the steady decline, but I'm not sure if that is generalizing or not. It really seems like it started with that somewhere along the way, now how it's almost the norm for people to almost ignore what you are doing/trying to say to them (as if you would do this in a Doctor's office or an ER) and now with GM dropping us from their contract (thus a small drop in business but a large drop in hours, stringing out shifts), more tedious, "fix it 'till it's broken" state laws, questionable new company policies ("I have a great idea! Let's now have scales that count about every 5th Rx one cap/tab short and make them mandatory for ALL scripts!") and the "you have to do better than #1!" pressure politics added to the fact that the job has always been "make a mistake and you could kill somebody".... you ever have one of those nightmares where you can't seem to get ahead with something; like the work and pressure gets slightly heavier as you are trying to run on this conveyor belt that is slightly faster than you can run.... I do.

It has been getting a bit better though. I'm starting to think that my feelings with this are correlated to my personal life, currently on the rise. The outlook seems a bit brighter, I have been laughing again with our favourite "regulars", being polite to them and also to the "I want this script 5 minutes ago and hold on I'm on my cell phone" customers. Crying about it doesn't change a thing. Just have to smile with my sparkling, 'had-to-wake-up-at-the-ungodly-8:00-in-the-morning-today-for-dentist-appointment' smile and keep on moving. The future is just too exciting to waste with tears.

I remember how you used to say // You'd never change, but that's not true

Life is so special.

Maybe one of the only things more pure and magical than honest, adventurous music are those people we share it with.

Like this delicate ball of string; how we unwind and lend secrets and how we occasionally get caught in our knots but help each other free.

Evolution has taken us down roads of fear, wonder, chaos, joy and loss; I could never have made it through the woods without your care. You may never know how many times my faith in the beauty of woman was threaded to only you. You give me something to believe in every time I think about you. I could never thank you enough for that.

You've always understood my madness. You are the only woman in my entire life that, rather than being repelled, I could actually make happy . You've understood that I give to you only out of unconditional care, as you give me the gift of brightness to my world. You know I'd be the happiest guy on planet Earth to see you meet that man that is somehow your equal & that as long as you have me rolling around, you'll always have someone to catch you if ever you fall.

You have made this my favourite summer. I will never forget our SMiLE tonight. I will never forget our moments in our 3 years past and how we've grown. How we've changed and changed together. I miss you already.

The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne

One more metaphysical question (another small drop in this infinite bucket): Have you felt as if time or destiny or God (depending on which, if any, you believe in) or all of them added together are pulling you into this one fateful moment? Usually when I get this feeling it's when there's some disaster on course for me, like an asteroid or something. I felt something like that leading up to the angry night that is now happily remembered as 'Jurassic Party', I felt the same leading up to the new U2 album and more than a few classes at the collegiate level. But for every few times I can feel the impact before the impact, it seems like there are a few moments that glimmer like a lamp post in the middle of a winter wood (for your information, I'm within a stonesthrow of finishing Chronicles of Narnia book #2). Amélie in Birmingham and 'Happy B-day Camping/Gary P.' are just that and more, & now also this tale that took 14 lines to introduce.

That moment may just be this Sunday when a very close friend and I will attend maybe the most ridiculously built up/anticipated concert that I can ever remember. Which is ironic actually because the artist and the album being performedd carried that exact tag, a weight which added to many others, caused a delay of only 37 years (pulls off headphones, puts on record critic hat).

Have you heard of The Beach Boys' album 'SMiLE'? It's not any problem if you haven't, technically it doesn't exist. Up until last year it was mythically known as "the greatest album that never was". So as to not lose the few people reading to begin with, I'll give you the cliffnotes/whet your appetite version, maybe try to break the record of I believe 4 total links in a single go by tacking a few "for further reading" spots at the end. But it started I would have to say with the fact that The Beach Boys are badd to the bone. You could totally make the argument that they were the most influential/greatest American band, for their music, but also for the one thing that they share with the bands I think are the greatest ever (see The Beatles, Rolling Stones, U2, Radiohead, The Doors): they evolved. When it looked like the 'Summer of Love' was going to leave them behind, their leader Brian Wilson heard The Beatles 'Rubber Soul', had his mind blown, and created 'Pet Sounds', maybe the perfect (and only?) "Our album" AND "Break-up album". And so Paul McCartney heard this (including his then and now favourite song of all times 'God Only Knows'; good choice, Paul) and The Beatles were inspired and went into creating 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. Upon completeing 'Pet Sounds' and the song/"Pocket Symphony" 'Good Vibrations', Brian Wilson took a deep breath and announced their new album 'Dumb Angel', which soon changed to 'SMiLE', which was to be his and their combined "Teenage symphony to God".

So basically, with the pressure of it being the greatest album ever AND the difficulty of recording the way he did (probably the equalvalent of putting a film real together by setting all the frames stills out on the floor and taping them together in order) AND extreme tension in the band and with his Father AND drug problems, after a year of recording and a week before The Beatles 'Sgt. Pepper's' came out, the album collapsed. Through stories of Brian Wilson fearing that the recordings of a song 'Mrs. O'Leary's Cow' (about the cow that started the great Chicago Fire) were responsible for starting fires all over the city and the filling of his living room with sand and tales of "Inappropriate music", only demos, rough draft songs stuck onto other albums by the rest of the band and this song (Brian recorded for TV alone a few days before Christmas) remained for fans to go through and to piece together their own album of what might have been. Some people put 'Do You Like Worms?' at the begining, 'Cabinessencee' right after and etc., while other songs with names like 'George Fell into his French Horn' and 'What is a Young Girl Made Of' never came. It is different for each person. I put this song at the end when I made my own 'bootleg' a few weeks ago.

But I was a year too late to not know the "official" tracklisting. Last year, out of nowhere Brian Wilson decided to pull together musicians and the original lyricist and just make it. And he took all the snippets and rough draft tunes from the vault. And he did it. And it is unreal. It just goes for all the stars in the sky. American history, childhood and back to Hawaii.... And Suddenly he is touring it, playing the whole album in order, and I get to see this. Listening to the album once through each day as far as I can remember, hearing the Beach Boys all day at work today, even how sunny it was all day and how grey it became the other half of it (get your microcosm of the album on).... I really want to keep going, but I really waved "so long" to 'the point of no return' to where I think only my eyes are seeing any of these words at the end. I couldn't say enough about it anyway.

(Go to these places to see other people try though:)

~ http://www.bradcoweb.com/smile/smile5.htm
~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(album)

~ http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/wilson_brian/smile.shtml
~ http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/watw/02-09/smile.shtml

50's film noir obsessed Indie rock duos covering pop standards that don't relate (on the surface) to a single 22 year old male are glorious

For the longest time I was frustrated by this. If you were to look for my room in the yellow pages, you'd find it at 'organized chaos' most certainly not in 'filth/exposed rotting foodstuffs'. So every movie/film or euchre game (for those of you hip on the northeastern U.S./Australian (?) sensation, I'm just about 3 more outrageous defeats away from going into the chat room and saying enough swears to get 'g0ldendelicious' banned.... I mean God bless it you call it and I take the first trick and we get euchred I mean....!.. [grabs pillow, counts 1...2...3...4...]) I have a special friend or two who are more than happy to share the view or ruin a freshly opened A-zona Ice tea w/ lemon (!!!) And I would reach for a pair of boxers or a sock and try to mash him on the spot, which of course creates more problems whether my aim is true or not. But then the solution presented itself: Inaction.

More specifically, granting a spider pardon from the vacuum in exchange for its small web underneath my bead post by my record player. It's really something to see, not only is it a tangible view into nature's delicate food chain (where was this when the blue ribbon went to the 'electrical conductivity of random objects' project circa 4th grade?), but also it seems to me a cute example of economic theory. How a small entrepreneur can start his or her small business and, with perfect location (...location, location), & that perfect good or service, thrive. Almost inspiring in a scary, 'dog-eat-dog' (more or less literally) way.

Speaking of horribly frightening unethical practices, you should bang this up: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html ...or since you won't, listen to my brief synopsis about how scientists have had success (I guess depending on your walk of life) in bringing dogs back from a 3-hour visit with death by draining their blood, pumping in a freezing saline solution and applying electric shock. "Reanimated Zombie Dogs", get your nightmares on. I'm all for science breaking down the barriers of faulty ideologies and pushing the boundaries of what is considered "possible", but I'm not sure what positive direction this might lead anybody. My 'Niagara Falls in a barrel' wake seems to make more sense to me daily.

Tears that Angels cry

Well I just saw 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' just the other day, and I will say (stepping out of my non-polorizing, anti-generalization shell for a sentence or maybe two) that the only way you leave the theatre hating this film is if you have completely driven your inner child into exile. Just another dream/melancholy adventure from Burton + Depp! It's like every one (Burton film) I've seen sprinkles this magic onto things that most times come off as ordinary in other movies. Like when you see Charlie's house way off in the distance of the town or the scenes where shops begin selling the candy with the golden tickets. How he shows machines, but as you remember or would see them as a kid, like the choco factory opening of the film, or in 'Edward Scissorhands' with the cookie machine or 'Big Fish' and the Gigantification machine. And just how he creates "moments": Willy Wonka opening the chocolate factory doors or in 'Edward Scissorhands', the dazzling ice sculpturing with the snowflakes or in 'Big Fish' where he falls in love with her at first sight and time itself freezes for them.

It was the bee's knees. Depp was just unstoppable, which seemed sort of funny also in retrospect since it seemed like it was more of a teamwork affair rather than him always in the spotlight, like a "whole greater than the sum of its parts" thing (hmm... I got that saying right too, totally was bracing myself for a "Justin-knows-what-a-Catch-22-is-but-cannot-use-a-proper-example-but-just-try-and-stop-him-anyway" catastrophe). Christopher Lee came in there unexpectedly, leaving his lightsaber at home, and held it down & Helena Bonham-Carter snuck into the 'Top 5 Justin School Boy Crushes: Actresses' list. But really I thought the kids were the win. They represented the moral beneath the adventure and I thought it was just great how they pulled it off; you got to see how all the children fell victim to or benefit from their character (or lack thereof). And the redemption at the end. And the Squirrel scene (to which no doubt anybody in our neighborhood upon seeing it made the mental joke "Yep... that's the 'Squirrel Lady's' favourite part!", I did and she's my Ma) and the entrance of Willy Wonka! Hahahhha it was classic.

Good old chocolate, everyone's guilty pleasure.


So then I was thinkins of guilty pleasures today as I sat outside on a lovely day listening to 'Architecture in Helsinki' on break. Of most of mine that I can reckon, it seems like most I dabbled into at the Walgreens: the painting of lipstick mustaches on the chic model displays, taking lunch/break in the stockroom, drawing my logo (stage left) on the dry erase board below the serious messages, my "unusual" reading habits, dashing and riding the back of the shopping carts...into infinitium basically. If there truly is a God, he/she is most certainly in the details.

I've sat upon the setting sun

Death is so scary. I mean you can never be ready for it. Even if that someone passing on has lived a long and beloved life, even if their passing is a result of "natural causes", even when you think you can possibly prepare yourself for that one moment in life when life ends for someone that has added such color and brightness to your universe. I mean no matter how you close your eyes and brace yourself for that impact, it always knocks your down. A few days ago someone very special to me experienced such a loss; Melissa's 11 year old dog Bailey passed away suddenly.

Though not of the human race, anyone that has been lucky enough to experience the love and enchantment a family pet brings, there is not a separate category of grief one places their death into when the tragic day comes. A pet that fits into a family and gives just as much unconditional/reliable love as it receives seems to be a sort of silent glue that holds things together in our lives. Gives you a sense of the past without being nostalgic. Gives you magic with every finger running through their hair and smile and stressful moment defused with their simple presence. Gives you something to hang your hat onto each day, that when I walk through the door, there they will be.

I will not attempt to add up all her virtues with my words, I will not try to paint the complete portrait of her; I do not have those firsthand experiences of the wonderful memories she provided her master and family. I was lucky enough to know her in her twilight and I can say a few things in certain: she was a noble dog. She was a dog of grace and charm, evidence that such characteristics do so run in the family. YetI have only this small picture of her in comparison. If you do have a spare minute, you might go here and expand the view of this special relationship. Maybe even lend a kind word of encouragement and understanding to her master and friend. For as we all know, the only things that help us escape the wave of despair a loss brings us are the helping hands of others, the magical and unique memories locked away in our hearts and the hope of reunion in a place where that special someone peeks down upon us and smiles forever.