This week

A whole week of studying and not working has flown by. Only 5 more days of studying until my big test! In other news, Danish had a bland week of pacing around the house and not working. Due to his boredom, he would find little things to keep himself occupied - one being fixing the computer from being slow. He's been working on remedying the situation to no avail. I feel bad that the week he has taken off was quite uneventful and unexciting and soon he will return to work and school again. Le sigh.

Tank went to the vet to get his get his shots, teeth cleaned, and have a mole removed from his back. Poor baby.  

Tank groggy from the anesthsia

Tankenstein

Tonight, Danish and I are Denton bound to see Sundress, Ringo Deathstarr, and Sans Soleil at Dan's Silverleaf. It should be a great time...considering our customary trip to Fuzzy's! Ahh, life.

Music

I've realized there is a lot of music out there that is popular amongst different groups, making them not so obscure after all. I wish I knew more people who had similar taste in music as I did. Especially girl friends, so I can go to shows with them and it wouldn't be inappropriate. It's great going to shows with Danish, but you know it can be fun going with other people, too. I love discovering new music, and what's even more pleasant is when I learn someone likes the same song as I do. Music is meant to be shared, I think. It's a common ground people can have. For example, on the day of one of my clinicals where I've mentioned emotions ran high, I was taken aback and humbled by music and life. We're required to talk to and get to know the patients on the psychiatric unit, most of whom have various forms of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and psychosis. During a game of Dominoes, one patient who had been talking to himself during the game and behaving quite irratically suddenly said, "We should turn on the radio." We all agreed and he proceeded to tune to a station. He set it to an 80s rock station and "Come Sail Away" by the Styx came on. To my surprise, he stood there and started belting out the words to the song! His eyes were closed as if he were concentrating intently (I imagine) on how the song flowed through him; he nodded his head to the beat of the rocking chorus: A gathering of angels appeared above my head/They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said/They said come sail away, come sail away/Come sail away with me. Then from next to me, the timid, overweight patient who was admitted for attempted suicide quietly joined in, all the while not taking her eyes off her domino pieces. I couldn't believe it...I felt that although these patients were internally tormented on a daily basis and their minds were not "normal," at one point in their lives that song appealed to their liking and made them feel good inside...as any song could to an individual. This sounds incredibly hippie-ish, I was in awe of how music brings us humans on a similar plane, no matter what we're going through or where we've been in life.

Austin City Limits: Fail

Was it the weather, the company (Danish), or those damn hippies? No one will ever know, but ACL was one big disappointment. On Friday I was able to see Thievery Corporation, a little bit of Them Crooked Vultures, and of course the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I was naturally blown away by Karen O, having seen her for the first time live. They released "eye balls" into the crowd, which exploded with confetti. And Karen is such a spectacular frontman. However, I realized I'm just not really into crowds, long lines, walking, portable shitters, body odor, pushing, hippies, or mud. Maybe I was never into those things and I tricked myself into thinking I did for the sake of being "cool" and "indie."

After the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, we roamed around 6th street looking for J Black's where Danish's cousin was waiting for us, stopped by a stand for a bratwurst with sauerkraut and onions then pizza, and finally arrived at J Black's only to realize it was a "club" with loud "booty" music, folks wearing fancy clothes, and no place to sit. At this point, I was tired and looking/smelling like a gross hippie myself so we politely excused ourselves and left for Brian's apartment. Had a great night sleep.

Saturday it rained. We went to mi Madre's for brunch: coffee and breakfast tacos/burritos. I met up with Molly and her boyfriend Jesse as well as Brian's new girlfriend, Kendra. Had a great time, fun conversation, and the food was so yummy. Danish and I decided to hang out with Brian a while longer before leaving for ACL, so we picked up some Shiner and went to his apartment club house. One crazy thing did happen while we were at the gas station picking up beer - a crazy/homeless woman followed Brian back to the car. She was so aggressive and following so close that when Brian got into the car and tried to close the door, he accidentally closed it on her head leaving her slightly dazed until she finally walked off. It was frightening, comical, and sad at the same time...although we did joke about it afterwards.

Brian dropped us off at the shuttle stop. We didn't have an umbrella, raincoats, boots, panchos, or even trash bags and goggles. I was so pissed at Danish. So basically we were there for about 2 hours getting soaked, listened to some ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, danced around a bit, drank a beer I snuck in, then rode the bus back to where Brian picked us up. Gah! We cleaned up and went to eat at The County Line BBQ, which was pretty sweet. Packed our little bellies with brisket and ribs, said our good-byes to Brian, and headed back to Dallas. Unfortunately, we switched on and off between sleeping and arguing...the whole ride back.

I like Austin, especially all the fooooood places. And the trees there are nice. But it felt so good to be home. Hopefully I have a better road trip experience in the near future. OH! Actually I will be...come December! Visiting the in-laws in Louisville, Kentucky. Yippee!

Feeling a synthetic kind of love

The Flaming Lips are coming out with Embryonic on October 13, 2009. HOW RAD! Granted they come out with a handful of good songs out of a plethora of bizarre, LSD-influenced ones. Not only that, Karen O contributed on a few songs! She is everywhere. This week better go by really fast.

Bands I'm looking forward to seeing

School of Seven Bells
Dr. Dog
Coheed and Cambria
Andrew Bird
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Raveonettes
Grizzly Bear
Bon Iver
The Decemberists

Those are just the bands I'm familiar with. I'm pretty sure I won't seeing all of them, I may wander off to other stages. I can't believe I'll be seeing Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I can't believe I'll be spending the whole weekend with Danish.

In other news, I did decently on my exam today. I was so anxious this morning that it caused me to vomit! After the math retake, I ate lunch at Pei Wei with Danielle and Julie which was pretty awesome. Then Julie, Danish, and I watched a movie called "Blood Creek" at the dollar theater which was horrible...I felt bad for making Julie watch it. It was gory, cheesy, and ridiculous.

Next, here are some gory, cheesy, ridiculous lyrics which I love from Ludo:

I'm a killer
Cold and wrathful
Silent sleeper
I've been inside your bedroom
I've murdered half the town
Left you love notes on their headstones
I'll fill the graveyards
Until I have you

Moonlight walking
I smell your softness
Carnivorous and lusting
To track you down among the pines
I want you stuffed into my mouth
Hold you down and tear you open
Live inside you
Oh love, I'd never hurt you

But I'll grind against your bones
Until our marrows mix
I will eat you slowly
Ohhhhh
The horror of our love
Never so much blood pulled through my veins
Ohhhhh
The horror of our love
Never so much blood

I wake in terror
Blackbirds screaming
Dark cathedrals spilling
Midnight on their alters
I'm your servant
My immortal
Pale and perfect
Such unholy heaving
The statues close their eyes
The room is changing
Break my skin
And drain me

Ancient language
Speak through fingers
The awful edges
Where you end and I begin
Inside your mouth
I cannot see
There's catastrophe
In everything I'm touching
As I sweat and crush you

And I hold your beating chambers
Until they beat no more
You die like angels sing
Ohhhhh
The horror of our love
Never so much blood pulled through my veins
Ohhhhh
The horror of our love
Never so much blood

You're a ghost, love
Nightgown flowing
Your body blue and walking
Along the continental shelf
You are a dream among the sharks
Beautiful and terrifying
Living restless
We dance in dark suspension

And you bury me
In the ocean floor beneath you
Where they'll never hear us scream
Ohhhhh
The horror of our love
Never so much blood pulled through my veins
Ohhhhh
The horror of our love
Never so much blood

(The Horror Of Our Love)

They're playing at The Door November 13.

I hate banks

I'm looking forward to school starting. I wonder how much I will enjoy/not enjoy Bad Veins seeing as it will be the last show of the summer; the singer sings into a megaphone. I'm glad the summer is coming to an end. It's been so hectic. I'd rather fall into routine once again. Here's a song called "Summer Lovers" by Beats for Beginners. If only I had been smarter in my decisions so that my summer would have been as carefree as this song sounds!

Surfin' with a body in the water

Blog

I'm bad at blogging. I went to see Broken Social Scene with some friends on Friday and had a really good time. Unfortunately that whole adventure cost me a whopping $90. I was surprised to see Telegraph Canyon open for them! They were awesome. I totally started an encore for them when they played for the Fort Worth Weekly Music Showcase earlier this summer. Just saying.

Then Saturday, we woke up early to volunteer with the Village Church at an event called Transform where we helped renovate Calhoun Middle School in Denton. They also had a Back to School Supply Drive where they handed out hundreds of backpacks to the children in the community. It was an overwhelmingly meaningful experience for me, and during lunch I sat on the bleachers in the gym and cried tears of joy while eating my hot dog.

Violent Still Life has finally completed their self-titled LP and I was there to partake in the glorious yet painstaking process of uploading the songs onto TuneCore. It's all very exciting and I'll be sure to mention on here whenever they play a show. It will be around September, is what Danish says...some good fall music for everyone, everywhere!

Albums

I meant to do a little review of these albums...but I chose not to. And I'm sure you appreciate that since we all know how many album reviews are already out there. If anything, I'll just say among these 5 albums there is good, decent, and pretty good with the exception of some freaking sweet songs. There you go!

The Fray with Jack's Mannequin

Last night's concert was fun! What with an awesome buzz going on and freaking sweet light shows blowing my mind...the night was...carthartic. Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of the Fray, but they put on a fantastic show. And Andrew McMahon of Jack's Mannequin is cute and emo and kind of a show off...everything I like. Superpages.com Center was a decent venue, I really didn't see anything that was so horrible. Afterwards, I watched Superbad by myself and went to bed, sorely missing Danish.

Everything's electro

But I still like the "indie" music that has become popular these days. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with how much good music is out there. Sometimes I wish I were made of all ears and had all the time in the world. One day, I'll blog about noteworthy music. I mean I was listening to Sally Shapiro, but the music's not really that noteworthy/bloggable whatever...it's easy-listening, decent. I like the music video, though. It's ridiculously cute.



Speaking of music videos, I hope Violent Still Life makes some dreamy-quality, indie music video with some vague message of autumn love/loss to promote their music, which comes out on iTunes in October. I think it will definitely help boost them into popularity. Not that they are doing it for popularity, just a fun project. That's nice to know, you know? They all have real jobs or what not.

I'm taking Eric's mom to the airport tomorrow morning. It's a coincidence I was recently thinking about how much I care for them and wanted to help them because these past two weeks I have been doing just that. It was stressful, but it's finished - I had to book a flight to Seattle for the poor lady to get some legal matters taken care of. It was a huge ordeal since she wanted to go with Eric but the airline tickets were a scam. Not only that, I had booked a flight for her last week but she had to cancel due to some unexpected circumstances. Did you know if you cancel a flight, it costs $180 in fees to reuse that credit? Then she asked if I was willing to drive her there, and I apologetically had to decline since it would have cost her even more in gas, hotel, and food expenditures. Finally my mom talked her into going on the trip by herself, so she's off tomorrow morning. She's so easily distraught, it breaks my heart. I pray God gives her peace and joy, and for her personal matters to smooth over nicely in Seattle.

Caught Counting

I tagged along to Danish's band practice today. The mixing is coming along great! All the equipment in that recording studio at Derek's house is freaking rad. I think it truly takes an ear to single out rogue sounds or adjust the tempo of one tiny vocal or instrument; I couldn't do it. I can't wait till the end of August when they will play an awesome show. Here are the other two phenomenal talents behind Violent Still Life, Zoe and Derek:


I'm blown away at the details involved in producing a song. It's one thing coming up with the song...then playing it...then mixing it to bring out the best quality of sound. I was pleased when I was told Danish contributed a lyric I wrote, which is now part of the song "Caught Counting": Why oh why do the gray skies cry, soaking the grave in which I lie. Pretty depressing, huh? Well the song doesn't sound nearly as depressing as the lyrics - it sounds pretty freaking awesome and shoe-gazey. I have yet to see them play, but next Tuesday I'll see them practice for the first time after mixing these past few weeks. And Zoe is making her well-known vegetarian lasagna for dinner. Totally looking forward to it!

Santigold

It's like Erykah Badu meets Karen O. It's like gold.