Your Heart’s A Muscle And That’s All

Today was Valentine’s day and I decided to show my heart some appreciation. I thought about the Clem Snide song “Exercise” and didn’t ask it to perform anything beyond it’s usual scope like taking out the trash or falling in love, you know anything I wouldn’t ask my ankle to do either. It’s just a muscle and therefore can’t do any of those other things alone since they would require more interaction with the brain. I just asked my trusty old ticker to keep beating like it normally does on any other day of the year, though I did give it an extra hard workout at the gym that made me want to rest for awhile.

The songs that caught my attention the most throughout the day weren’t love songs, but I did love them. I thought about how entertaining 3rd Bass’s “Pop Goes The Weasel” is and how I’ll always have a fondness for Eef Barzelay’s lyrical wordplay as I listened to “The Water Song”…but I wasn’t filled with some desperate longing for chocolate or affection.

My heart was metaphorically set on going to see Step Up 2 The Streets tonight for a bad movie night with Jess S and Anna M. I wanted to write a review thatt read “Step down 2 tha sewerz and dance around in pee and crap for an hour and a half” for my To Be Blunt site, because it appealed to my funny bone. However, an unfortunate event occurred to one of my film companions that sent a feeling of sorrow to my brain, alerted my state of consciousness accordingly, and also led to the cancellation of our plans. Regardless, my heart continued to beat on through the evening as I met up with Arby, Jenny, Connie, and Robert to see Matt’s band Monocle dispense aural pleasure and reverse the “broken-hearted” feeling that had temporarily been clouding my conscious thought.

I allowed 24 ounces of alcohol to ease my nerves and maybe even contribute to the health of that throbbing muscle I call a heart…which thanks to my reluctance to put any stress on it on a day normally reserved for cardiac straing, had a pretty easy go of things.

Natalie Portman, Tween Temptress

Before I discuss my weekend I just want to gloss over a certain weird observation I had today. I know this is jarring given the usually linear format of this blog but I guess you can take a shock to the system if I can. So this afternoon I was watching the movie Beautful Girls on one of my 19 new HBO channels. I’m not even sure which HBO it was. Anyway, so Natalie Portman plays Timothy Hutton’s ideal girl if you haven’t seen the movie. The only problem is that she’s 12, which I would say is a huge problem. If you watch the movie straight through and had never seen it before (which fortunately I had) you’d probably suspect that these two are about to run off together given the seriousness with which they discuss their relationship. If this were any other movie it might creep you out but for some reason you find yourself rooting for them and thinking “she is the perfect girl, even at 12.” In the end everyone finds happiness and 30- year old Timothy Hutton doesn’t run off with Natalie Portman and you find yourself simultaneously disappointed and relieved that it doesn’t work out. That’s part where I said to myself, “what is wrong with me?” It’s hard not to fall in love with Natalie Portman in that movie even as a 12 year old. This was only her 3rd movie I believe and already she was treading on familiar territory as an actress. In her first movie Leon: The Professional, she develops another relationship of sorts with an older man who helps her kill the people that kill her family. This whole little rant has no point I was just realizing when I was watching Beautiful Girls that Natalie Portman has a bizarre almost Lolita-esque with older men in the movies she was at the age the marketing people refer to as tweens. I also thought that if I was an older guy at that point I still would’ve thought she was gorgeous. I’ve just disturbed myself. I’m not going to start NAMGLA or anything, so don’t report me. My point is that I didn’t need to see Natalie Portman in a thong in Closer to realize that she was hot. On that note I also didn’t need to see any of those chick flicks with Ashley Judd and Susan Sarandon she made either. And let’s face it, the Star Wars Movies aren’t doing anything for her image.

Natalie Charming a Much Older Man in Tim Hutton

Professional Tween

Okay, now that I’m done disturbing myself and mostly everyone, let’s move on to this weekend’s happenings. First up we’ve got Friday. What happened Friday? NOTHING. Let’s move on to Saturday, shall we? Saturday I went to get a haircut but the person I like to go to didn’t have any time available; so I scheduled an appointment for next week. On my way back home I ran into my friend from Syracuse, Matt Singer. Matt and I chatted for a minute or two which was cool since I hadn’t seen him in at least 6 months. He headed to work at Kim’s on St. Marks and I headed home. I got home and watched Syracuse get blown out by UCONN in basketball and prepared for my evening.

I left my apartment at 9:15 pm and walked to the Bowery Ballroom where I was meeting Arby, Maureen Hoban, and Laura Renga for the Clem Snide show. Our crew was complete by about 10:10 and we walked in and checked our coats and got drinks upstairs during one of the openers. Laura and Maureen were quizzing Rich on MTV’s My Super Sweet 16 because Rich worked on it. They were extremely excited to get any inside information. We went back down for more drinks during the second opener and the conversation was extremely fun and funny for that matter. I think we were all having a good time.

We went back upstairs before Clem Snide went on. The band took the stage at around 11:40pm. Eef Barzelay led the show off with an a capella song that I had never heard before breaking into “Fill Me With Your Light” off of their new album the End of Love. It seemed like we’d be in for quite a show. The band ripped through a bevy (I like that word) of songs off the new album as well as some new songs not on the album. They only played 3 songs off of other albums including two from their 1998 debut You Were A Diamond and one off of The Ghost of Fashion. They didn’t play one song off of Your Favorite Music, which coincidentally has some of my favorite music. That being said the new stuff sounded good with the exception of a few rare Bowery Ballroom sound glitches. The band’s first set ended at around 12:35, which was really disappointing. They came out for their encore after about 2 minutes and ended up playing til 1am but the show just seemed too short. I don’t know if there was a Bowery curfew that did them in but I really wish Clem Snide had played longer.

Shortly after the show ended, Maureen and Laura left and Rich and I drank until the bar downstairs closed at around 2 or maybe later. Overall it was good times and I had a great time hanging out with some of my favorite people. Afterwards, I walked home and was feeling slightly dazed this morning. I watched Beautiful Girls, went to the gym, and then went to Angelika to see Million Dollar Baby, which is a fine feature film and deserving of the awards that were bestowed upon it. That’s not to say other films didn’t deserve awards to. Actually I don’t really think awards are necessary, as long as people get enjoyment that should be enough of a reward to the filmmakers. However, we live in this world and not the fairytale world so people want their movies to win awards and make tons of money. Anyway,
I’m going to sleep. Stay tuned in the week ahead and don’t forget to answer the poll and sign my Guestbook.

CLEM SNIDE 03/05/05 Bowery Ballroom NYC Setlist
Ballad of David Icke
Fill Me With Your Light
Collapse
German Hip Hop
Jews for Jesus Blues
Break Something Beautiful
Yip Jump Music
Long Lost Twin
New Song – Crash the Party in Your Mind(?)
End of Love (powerfully performed)
New Song – “The thing you claim to love so much you don’t do very well”
Heaven (Talking Heads cover)
God Answers Back
Nothing is Over

Clem Snide at Prospect Park

I was a zombie all day today thanks to last night’s hijinx. After work I had the option of going to a work birthday party for Vicky Ruggiero or going to the Clem Snide show in Prospect Park. I hate to miss a work party (not sarcastic) but I didn’t really want to so much as look at an alcoholic beverage so I chose going to Prospect Park for Clem Snide where we met up with Maureen’s friend Laura, who I guess is my friend now as well. I guess I’ve gone to enough shows and hung out with her enough at parties, and enjoyed conversation with her so we’re qualified as such. Clem Snide was opening for Pere Ubu who was playing music over a classic horror movie, which sounded cool but we didn’t stay for that. I think Clem Snide only played for 45 minutes or so. It was a good performance though. They were missing one of their guitarists and replaced him with a horn section and a keyboardist. I think the keyboardist is the same girl who I’ve seen play with Ben Lee and Luna. I think she gets around the New York Indie scene.

Afterwards, the show we met up with Maureen and Laura’s friend Andrew at the Park Slope Ale House and got dinner, and that’s about all there is to it. It was a relaxing night with fun people which was much needed after the previous evening’s frantic bar hopping. Time to go to sleep. I’m exhausted.

E.O.S. (Evan On the Street)

I came to the stark realization today that I am not the target audience for any street marketing team or “street team” if we want to use the abbreviated term. I was walking by tower records at around 3:30 pm today when a street team member said to me “Hey Homey, you like hip hop?” Sure I was wearing my headphones and I was probably rocking out to some extent but, “homey”. I don’t have any problem with hip hop, well I do to some extent but not in general with the form of music, but the term homey sort of threw me for a loop. Was this guy attempting to find some common ground by latching on to me by using “homey” as a slang term of endearment? Probably the last time I’ve heard this phrased used was somewhere within the 1989 to 1993 time span when Damon Wayans was whooping it up as Homey the clown on In Living Color. I know, the Wayans’ are still around with the White Chicks posters on the subway as eveidence but “homey”? I haven’t heard that term in years. I’m probably the last person you would look at and think is a homey. I don’t even know if I spelled the term right. Seriously, I’m as un hip hop looking as they come and about as unhomeyable too. I didn’t stop and ask him why he thought I would respond to that approach but it managed to perplex me throughout the course of the day. It’s probably just part of his street team marketing repertoire but I found it somewhat troublesome. Evan Kessler is not your homey or your brother, he’s just a dude or man or Ev, or Evan as far as I’m concerned.

I also realized today that flavoring is not necessary. I was at Marty and Adam’s party in Brooklyn tonight, and Adam had bought potato chips with Steak and Worcestershire Sauce flavoring. This was absolutely unnecessary and absolutely disgusting. I understand the meat and potatoes thought process behind this idea, but the execution was absolutely horrendous. I find it almost as despicable as the lime Tostitos idea, because at least meat and potatoes makes sense. Lime and corn makes no sense to me.

Sidenote for the rest of the day. I saw Clem Snide at the East River Park amphiteatre on Grand and the FDR drive. They were fucking fantastic. I love that band. Eef Barzelay’s lyrics and delivery were as sharp as usual and the rest of the band was extremely tight.. They played a lot of great new songs but mixed them in with a decent amount of old songs, and played one of my favorite songs “Messiah Complex Blues”. The sound at the venue was absolutely flawless. I couldn’t believe such a rarely used venue produced such superior acoustics. Why aren’t there more shows here? There must be more shows at this amphitheatre throughout the rest of the summer. I’ve had three days of live music in a row now, and I’m extremely pleased. I haven’t been going to enough shows lately but I have two coming up next week. Aimee Mann is playing at St. Ann’s Warehouse on Tuesday and Jesse Malin is playing Mercury Lounge on Thursday. With each new day the excitement gets greater and greater. I can’t wait!!

What’s In A Blog?

After much deliberation on how to put together a blog, I realized that all a blog consisted of was just a general journal and that all I really had to do was type up whatever I was thinking on a certain day. It doesn’t necessary call for other people to comment here. This is actually my blog and any commenting could take place on the message board. In fact most people start blogs because they don’t have their own web site. That’s a huge weight off of my shoulders. Now I could commence placing extremely deep thoughts on this section of the website. I know you are all excited for that prospect. In return, all of you can place your deep thoughts on my message board. Good then, it’s settled.

Other than that it hasn’t been a hugely eventful day. The major events consisted of going to Jamba juice for a free smoothie, buying the PJ Harvey album and going to my friend Craig’s graduation party at Acqua Pazza on 52nd between 5th and 6th. The food was wonderful and plentiful. Also, I was made aware, during a medical discussion of the disturbing possibility that there may actually be doctors that are Pediatric Gynecologists.

I wonder how the other doctors react to you when you declare that as your concentration in med school? I would assume they stop talking to you and you become very lonely.

Furthermore, I also discovered through discussion that very few people can distinguish between the John Williams’ scores for Indiana Jones, Superman, and Star Wars. Big points go out to anyone who calls me and hums them to me on the phone. Whenever I start one of them it inevitably always turns into Indiana Jones.

Upon returning home, I watched some TV. I totally forgot the basketball game was on but it didn’t really matter since all professional basketball games aren’t interesting until the final two minutes. I will stand by this theory for as long as I live. I didn’t actually watch game 2 of Pistons-Lakers series until overtime had already started and at this point it had gotten out of hand anyway.

I had planned to make this entry into some deep meditation on a personal issue however, after being bored to death by 3 minutes of overtime I became far too removed from the prior song that I had been listening to that invoked certain feelings of heartbreak and genuine longing for female companionship. I’m a sucker for that stuff if the right song hits. The NBA Playoffs had inspired general malaise instead. Thanks Shaq and Kobe, you’re the best. You should thank them too because I’m probably the last person anyone wants to get sensitive on them. There’ll be plenty of time for that now that I have this bitchin’ website. So I’ll just end this entry with a song lyric even though it’s not from the original song that was on my mind. I just think it’s clever.

“Find a way to brace yourself. Your heart’s a muscle and that’s all. And there’s no way that love can help your twisted ankle when you fall”. -Clem Snide – Exercise