Six years ago I was still in college, living in a 3rd Avenue dorm below 14th street. I had stayed up all night trying to finish my homework, so I had all my blinds shut and wasn’t watching TV. 3rd Avenue is normally a very noisy street anyway and I lived on the 2nd floor, so I didn’t even notice the sounds of fire trucks and emergency vehicles wailing down the street nor did I notice the increased pedestrian noise.
Around 11am I checked my computer (which had been on all night long) and saw some panicked IMs from people asking if I was ok. The night before I had put up this completely ominous away message–lyrics from Coldplay’s “Don’t Panic”–since I had been depressed about all the school work I had to do and unfortunately it still remained up. “Bones sinking like stones/ All that we’ve fought for/ All these places we’ve grown/All of us are done for.” I wrote back, “What are you talking about?” and they just told me to turn on the television. [click to continue…]
My internet at home had been down since Wed night, which totally blew. The first two days Time Warner insisted it was an “area shortage”. Then finally on Friday, they said it was just me and that I could book an appointment for NEXT Tuesday – Saturday. I was piiiiisssssssed. So I kept calling back until something opened up for Saturday, 2-6.
Around rolls Saturday and I’m stuck in my apartment from 2-6, waiting for the cable man to show up, and I have NO INTERNET. I was unsure what I should do for 4 hours with no ‘nets, so I started watching some DVDs I had from Netflix– Jesus Camp, and Evening Harder with Kevin Smith.
Jesus Camp scared the LIVING DAYLIGHTS out of me. That one kid, Levi, with the rat’s tail hair was so intense and FOCUSED on spreading the word of Jesus… I was a bit terrified.
Then it gets past 6pm and still no cable man. I call up Time Warner and they’re all “your appointment has been moved to 6-9pm. WTF?!? How do they go ahead and change your appointment to an even LATER time and not even notify you. BOOO Time Warner and your craptastic customer service.
Finally the guy came around 7:30 and fixed my internets–and thanks to him I’m writing to you right now.
Sunday I decided to re-arrange my entire living room area, moving a bookcase from one side of the room to the other, and the sofa too…and basically moving every other lamp and piece of furniture in the room. Moving around all my furniture helped showcase the beautiful job that the Backseat Blogger had done hanging up my bestest birthday present ever–two giant C prints of two of my concert photos: One of The Sounds and one of Panic! at the Disco:
Aren’t they awesome?
Also on Sunday I checked out carpets downstairs at ABC Carpet and Home’s sale/remnant section. Holy crap! I never realized how expensive floor coverings are! If you have any good tips on floor coverings, send them my way. I was thinking of maybe doing the whole FLOR system thing–you know, the modular carpet squares you mix and match.
Then I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and scored some eeegggggcellent closet helpers in the form of “Freedom Rail“, which basically changed the way I keep my clothing. Brilliant.
Ok sleepytime now. Hope your weekend was just as productive.
I’ve been going through all my first posts, trying to categorize them and re-format them so they don’t look all wonky, and I’ve been reading some of THE MOST HILARIOUS posts ever.
You know, I started this site over five years ago when I was in college, and it’s just so amusing to read the types of things I was writing about and how I reacted to them. It seems as though in 2001 I *REALLY REALLY* liked The Strokes and White Stripes… Hahah. What a shocker.
Here are some of the more interesting posts I’ve come across. Relive “the good old days” with me, will ya?
The White Stripes signed their V2 Record deal in November 2001, taking them off indie label, Sympathy for the Record Industry.
Recently I found someone came to this site on a search for “dress like lily allen”, and that got me thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe someone out there is actually searching for that!” So that got me thinking about Lily and fashion, so I did some searches of my own.
On a search for “Lily Allen fashion” I found a link to a MTV short about Lily talking about clothes. Ok, so I’m still not sure what “MTV Discover and Download” is supposed to be promoting besides confusion (a concert series? URGE?), but that video was part of a series ofshort videos of Lily Allen talking about her fashion style (be comfortable, wear brand new Nikes), her take on body image (she likes chili dogs, so what?), and her biggest promoter, the Internet.
Here are the clips:
Lily shopping at Wasteland, a LA vintage clothing store:
Body image (“Besides, I could never turn down a good hot dog”):
And her “checking messages” on the ‘Net:
It has been much rumored that Nike is desperate to sign Lily as a spokesperson based on her unabashed love of “trainers”. Said Lily about the brand: “I really like Nike trainers. I’m quite open about the fact that it’s like a guilty pleasure for me, even with the sweatshop aspect.” Err… not exactly what Nike has in mind for their next ad campaign, “A GUILTY PLEASURE…EVEN WITH THE SWEATSHOP ASPECT,” although if they did run that campaign, I’d be pretty impressed.
Now in the past I’ve commented that Lily’s jewelry is nothing that Puerto Rican girls haven’t been doing since the beginning of time (still true), but I haven’t yet commented on the ballgown + sneakers thing.
As a girl, I too understand that high heel shoes = uncomfortable and sneakers = more comfortable, so I’m fully in favor of wearing sneakers over shoes any day. Now where Lily can get away with being “quirky”, I have to agree with Fashion Style and Clothes when they plead with the rest of the world to NOT rock the Lily style. It looks cute on Lily, but dresses and sneakers makes me look like a retard trying to LOOK like Lily Allen.
I think it’s an important message to send to women, and especially young girls that it’s OK to look and feel the way that makes YOU feel good–to emulate fashion and style that reflects YOU, not some preconceived notion of how you think you’re supposed to look–whether it be Lindsay Lohan or even Lily Allen. Fashion and style is all about what speaks to you, and imitation is never the means to discovering who you are.
Now on the whole body image thing…I know we ALL have “Oh No They Didn’t” moments–where we totally have that urge to rip apart what another woman is wearing, or how badly her makeup looks, etc etc… it’s kinda unavoidable based on how many of us grew up saturated by media that is critical to how the female form looks. When I see terms like “thinspiration”–however tongue and cheek they may be, it makes me ANGRY and sad. No one should be starving themselves to be thin or rigorously counting calories every day.
Everyone in America feels fat, ALL THE TIME. Men, women, I’m sure even your dog feels fat because in the last 5 years, that’s all the media has been telling us, WE ARE BIG FAT AMERICANS. It is true that we do have a lot of overweight people in this country, and that’s not a good thing–not because people are “fat” but because it is sometimes unhealthy to be overweight and can lead to disease like heart disease and diabetes that can SHORTEN YOUR LIFE. Being bigger is FINE as long as you are in good health.
Anyway, I just wanted to say to all the ladies out there, keep on truckin’ on. And keep eating all the hamburgers you want.
I’m so frustrated by clothing sizes. You know the drill–one designer’s 3 is another designer’s 0 is another designer’s 8. But what is up with this trend of SUPERTINY sizes? Banana Republic started selling size 00 in dresses and pants this year. THAT’S DOUBLE ZERO! Like how ridiculously small do you have to be to be smaller than “nothing” (literally)?
Rachel is in London right now, and I begged her to get me something from TopShop–aka “The Happiest Place on Earth”–and when she asked me what size I wore, I got all sorts of confused. Is UK 6 a US 2? But H&M sells size 4 which is a US 2 (I think). I looked at their website and saw that they too sold a size 4, which I assumed was the size I needed. But upon looking at my old TopShop stuff, looks like I’m a 6 and the size 4s are a completely new phenomenon–one that is disturbing quite a few people. How small is too small? Are retailers pandering to a thin-obsessed culture?
Granted, there is a huge tween market to be selling to–females stuck somewhere between being a girl and being a woman, their bodies in all sorts of awkward proportions. But I gotta say, walking into a store like Abercrombie (the tween line of Abercrombie & Fitch) and seeing minuscule size 10s with leg pant widths that do not even span the with of a dollar bill kinda disturbs me. Looking at the sales girls, all of 15 or 16 years of age wearing microscopic miniskirts and flimsy tank tops–I just scream in my head “WHY ARE THESE YOUNG GIRLS DRESSING LIKE ADULTS?!”–trying to imitate celebs like Nicole Richie. I dunno, there just seems to be something wrong with gangly bodies squeezed into tiny tiny hookers-in-training gear. But hey, if there’s a market for children’s beauty pagents, I guess there’s a slightly disturbed market for super-young sexy clothes.
Frankly, that is a lot of bull, and Lily has a right to be a bit miffed, given the fact that NME have been making a big to-do about the fact that there are a lot of women topping this year’s list…but apparently they are not cool enough to put on the front of the magazine.
Everyone knows there’s sexism and stereotypes involving female musicians. Rock chicks are totally outnumbered by dudes, not only onstage, but in newsrooms, and in photo pits. There are great publications like Venus that make it their mission to focus on interesting and creative women in the arts, but the real hurdle to jump is getting people to give the same amount of respect and reverence to female and male rockers–on an even playing field. That means without the women being sexualized and lauded for how pretty they look, but also how well they do their jobs: Being ridiculously talented musicians.
Of course this is a constant battle–that men can be as ugly as sin (and even drug addicts, alcoholics, or worse) and still be successful musicians, but women have to keep up appearances if they want to survive/succeed. Off the top of my head, there are only a few women who I can think of that are allowed to be as crazy as they want, dress however they want, do whatever types of projects they want, but still comand a level of respect that people like Jack White are able to maintain. Those few women include Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Bjork.
I was aproached by them [NME] again , with regards to the “Cool List Issue 2006″ , five women had made it into the top 10 and, subsequently we (the women) were asked to pose for photos to be the main feature for the cover . As I said before , I vowed not to work with them again , but as the context was so important ie; a a strong female presence in music . I thought i might as well put aside my differences and do it .
…
I mean how fucking patronising ” you can still rock a crowd wearing stilletos ”
Is that all we are , stilleto wearing people , is that all he could say ,that we brought a ” new energy” to the music scene . Don’t make me sick, we’ve always been here you arrogant prick, this was your chance to actually show you meant it. And instead you put Muse on the cover. Cause you thought that your readers might not buy a magazine with an overweight lesbian and a not particularly attractive looking me, on the front . Wankers.
Seriously, do we really need another picture of Matt Bellamy’s mug this year? A man who was only the 27th coolest person in music? I think not.
Today is the day where everyone text messages me at 11am while I’m still sleeping. Their texts say “Happy Thanksgiving” but what they really mean is, “Please save me from my family and/or the people I’ve chosen to spend this holiday with”. Or maybe my friends are just enthusiastic about holidays before 12 noon.
In any case, I’m now semi-awake. Looks rainy out, so I’m sure that’s put a damper on the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and there’s a mystery beeping noise in the kitchen of unknown origin.
I saw Casino Royal last night. It wasn’t as A-MAZing as I thought it was going to be, I prefer movies like the Bourne Identity better, but it was pretty good and Daniel Craig is awesome and has crazy eyes.
I still want to know what happens in the 2 episodes of “Dexter” I haven’t seen (episodes 8, 9), but don’t tell me!
This weekend I was in Washington DC/ Maryland for early Thanksgiving festivities with some very specialpeople and riding around, looking at all the monuments and tourists stuff in the car was fun, BUT the most fascinating thing I did all weekend was go to a regular ol’ suburban mall in Maryland.
Since I live in the city, I’m always really excited to have a car and to go to big huge malls. When we went to the Target, I almost had a nervous breakdown because they had almost the ENTIRE Behnaz line with every size available. I’d never SEEN so many specialty items in one spot. They even had the amazing black trenchcoat–and the only size available was an XS!! When does that EVER happen in the city?
Then I found this other store in the mall called Up Against the Wall, which totally BLEW MY MIND because not only did they have Beyonce’s House of Dereon line, but they also had the low-end Gwen Stefani line, Harajuku Lovers, and the low-end Heatherette line, which I think I knew existed somewhere in the back of my head. It was just funny to see them all in one place–I guess I never go to any stores where they carry that stuff, but I was fascinated by the fact that somewhere a Maryland teenager is walking around wearing Heatherette clothing.
NOTE: This is the first part in my much delayed “who knows how long this is going to take” series on my concert-going experience at the Iceland Airwaves festival this year in Reykjavik (yes, I finally learned how to spell it without looking it up), Iceland. Enjoy!
OCTOBER 19, 2006
Yesterday I go into town somewhere between 6 and 7am. I’m not even quite sure. I rode on the plane from JFK literally surrounded by We Are Scientists. The cute one was 2 rows in front of me, I think the other cute one was two rows in back, the funny one was back and to the right, and their tech guy (who’s butt crack I saw about 16 times over the course of the 5 hour flight…seriously) was diagonal from me. I ended up behind them when they made us go through customs upon ARRIVAL at the airport. (It’s really so much fun trying to see if you have any sort of balance to take your shoes off one at a time after a red-eye transcontinental flight.) Ended up losing there somewhere along the line.
I’m a bit sad I didn’t get to see them last night (Wednesday) because Rachel and I decided to book a tour to see the Northern Lights rather than hit the shows last night–the first “official” night of the festival. I say official in quotes because yes, it’s officially the start of the Iceland Airwaves festival, but really the main days are tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday. It’s when the biggest bands play and when most people are finally in town.
It looked a lot less cooler than this in person. I had to leave my shutter open a really long time.
Even though my cell phone seems to be in working order (I’m on some OgVodofone network), it has refused to change time to match my new time zone, so now I have to keep adding 4 hours to the time when I look at my phone. Then in the afternoons I have to add 12 because they use a 24-hour clock here. Believe you me, it gets totally confusing when I try to set my alarm at 5pm to go off at 19:45pm Iceland time to wake up from my nap. “Add 12 to 5pm, then add 2:45, minus 12, minus 4, er…” (This is usually when I start crying.)
Yesterday I basically got all the Reykjavik touristy stuff out of the way–yup, in ONE DAY. This city is so tiny, and there ain’t much to do here but drink, eat, and try to stay warm. I got to see the ridiculously scary-looking church, Hallgrimskirkja (which I will continue to simply call “The Church” as there’s no way in hell I will ever be able to remember its proper 14-letter name).
The imposing Hallgrimskirkja church.
We went up the bell tower and got a great view of the city.
On top of the world, and freezing my butt off. I was also really upset that I forgot to bring my polarizing filter with me to Iceland.
Saw the Sun-Craft sculpture on the north shore, which is a modern-day representation of Iceland’s viking past, and we scared some ducks and swans by Tjorn lake as well as spotted the most bizarre looking clouds.
Up close and personal with the ducks and swans of Tjorn lake.
I swear, this is how these clouds really looked. I’m NOT making this stuff up.
This afternoon we did some more touristy stuff, walking around Austurvollur square on our way to meet Jasper at Hresso. There we saw the Althingi houses of Icelandic parliament and the country’s man cathedrial, Domkirkja. At Hresso I bought two official Iceland Airwaves Naked Ape tshirts, one of the band Reykjavik! for me and one of Jeff Who? for someone totally awesome.
Around 4:30pm we headed to the record store 12 Tonar, because Rachel wanted to check out this band she’d heard of called Hot Club de Paris, from Liverpool, England. We got there maybe 10-15 minutes before the band was supposed to go on. It wasn’t crowded at all so we headed down this steep circular staircase to check out the pop rock cds and vinyl. It was there that we realized that CDs cost around 30 USD. Rachel wanted to buy a Franz Ferdinand painting but I commented that it probably was just for display and not actually for purchase.
As 4:30 creeped closer, the tiny record shop started filling up. By the time the English trio took their places, there was nary room for another body–in fact the crowd started spilling out past the steps leading up to the door, with people staring through the front window to which the bands’ backs were facing. Someone from the record shop started pouring out little plastic cups filled with red wine.
But before they started their set, the Moshi Moshi recording artists asked the crowd if they had any extra water to drink–they didn’t have any because everything is so expensive in Iceland. Someone handed over their bottle of Evian, which Hot Club declared they were not going to give back since guitarist Matthew Smith had a cold–yet for some illogical reason Matthew decided to drink from the bottle first, therfore spreading his germs throughout the entire group as his bandmates swigged from the same bottle.
Hot Club de Paris sing their little hearts out.
Dressed up in sweaters and collared shirts with mussed up hair and day-old stubble (and with bassist Paul Rafferty wearing the dirtiest pair of sneakers known to man), Hot Club looked like a bunch of knacked uni students–which complimented their cheeky brand of harmonized Northern pop perfectly.
Dirty trainers = dirty boy? Hmmm…
Like The Futureheads before them, Hot Club’s strength lies in pretty melodies juxtaposed with diddling guitar lines and make-you-think-twice lyrics. The crowd bopped along as the boys played out songs with giggle-worthy titles like “Your Face Looks All Wrong” and “Sometimesitsbetternottostickbitsofeachotherineachother….” and I found every minute of it to be thoroughly enjoyable. They just dropped an album on October 9th, so I suggest checking them out. They have yet to play the US, but watch out when they do!
Check out the video I made of them performing “Bonded By Blood (A Song For Two Brothers)”:
