Test - Jason

Matthew Ryan - Your Museum

Testing, testing, one, two, one, two...

"Fancy Footwork" by Chromeo

Summer vacation: I can go wild!

So, the one thing about being a crazed teacher that I dislike is that I don't really have any free time to keep up with this phenomenon I hear some people still experience called "reading for pleasure." This school year, I read Romeo and Juliet four times, but all of the Joyce Carol Oates remained untouched on my bookshelves.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't give up the mission entirely; however, books that would normally take me a week to read suddenly took me months as I snuck in a few pages between grading research papers (while drinking wine), planning lessons (while drinking wine), and editing comma splices and faulty parallelism (while drinking massive amounts of wine). I found that reading in rushed intervals made it hard to enjoy the actual material. Or, maybe the books just sucked (sorry Cat's Cradle).

Now I am on summer vacation, and I'm excited to read like a madwoman. That is why I borrowed American Psycho (pun intended) to kick off the string of easy, breezy reads. It's great. Just last night before bed, Patrick Bateman gouged out a homeless man's eyes and beat his dog to death. Today, he beat up a coupla prostitutes. Soon, I anticipate an exciting episode with a chainsaw.

Shakespeare ain't got nothing on Bret Easton Ellis.

WWJTD?

On Friday night, I saw one of my favorite bands, Wilco, for the 4th time live in concert. I got to the venue three hours before the opening band went on in an attempt to score great general admission seats. Which, with a little help from my friends, I did. Balcony, dead center, with a little ledge for my beer and no one standing in front of me.

Except, as luck would have it, I pick the spot directly behind the most obnoxious girls in the place who paid $2 more per ticket to show up after the opener was finished (in this case, a really smart move considering Retribution Gospel Choir sucked pretty hard).

There were three of these girls, and I can only describe them as this weird mix between trashy and hippie dippie. They danced like they were tripping at a Grateful Dead concert. They chain smoked yet held their cigarettes like novice fifteen year olds experimenting with nicotine. They were like horseshit; they were everywhere, moving all over the aisle and changing seats every two seconds. None of that would have been so bad if they weren't right in my damn way.

So, the guys I went to the concert with decided to approach them about their crazy ways. The ringleader of the Trashy Hippies called them assholes right off the bat. So, of course, three or seven beers in, I told her very plainly that she was acting like a bitch. Plus, and this is a fact: she had very weird, coneshaped boobs. That's probably from where the bitchiness stemmed.

Anyhooters, she went on to tell me that Jeff Tweedy wouldn't approve of my behavior. It wasn't very Wilco-like. Have another, moron.

After that, she decided to take the obnoxiousness up to an eleven by deliberately blowing cig smoke in my face and singing at the top of her lungs. It was pretty much an embarrassing sight. You know those people who try way too hard to look like they're having the time of their lives while their ex-boyfriends are across the way with their new girlfriends, looking all schmoopie? It was something like that.

I did, in fact, have an awesome time, and it was a great concert. After it was over, I was talking to acquaintances and the like before we left the show. Turns out that while I had managed to forget about the previous incidents, Rosey tried to earnestly compliment the Trashy Hippie on her back tattoo, but she wasn't having it. She took his perceived mocking out on me by barging up and letting me know she thought I was a horrible person. I told her that she was a horrible person as well.

Then I went to Fitz's and had one more beer and talked shop with Rich from Falling Martins. 'Twas a fantastic night.

Forgive me music lords for I have sinned...

I told Rosey to go ahead and include me in the mass ticket purchase for tonight's Radiohead show at the old Riverport several months ago. I think I wanted a ticket because all of my friends were going. And, it's Radiohead...I'm supposed to be really into them, given what a music snob I am.

As the concert rolled nearer, I was having second thoughts about going. I mean, I just went to see The Swell Season last Tuesday. Wilco is this Friday. I have focus group notes to type and final exams to write and papers to grade and parents to visit and Z's to catch. Am I really that into Radiohead?

Someone e-mailed me a set list, and it turned out that I knew not three, not two, not one, but zero songs. Again, why did I buy a ticket to Radiohead?

Around six o'clock tonight, I made the executive decision: I'm just not that into Radiohead, and by Henry, I'm not going to the show. I am going to sit on my couch and get work done with trashy TV on in the background. And I am going to like it.

So, I guess you can remove the "music elitist" tag off my awesome concert tees now because I have committed the biggest sin of all. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Radiohead rules. The band is awesome live. It's probably my only chance to ever see them.

But, seriously, it was probably my only chance to see the season finale of America's Next Top Model, too.