It's the last friday of the year and tomorrow is new-years eve. I think tomorrow when I wake up I'll start the internal hype-up process, but for the time being this suits my mood a lot better.

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This and this are good too. 

2011

The year of 2010 was probably the worst year of my life. I’m no different from anyone else because everyone goes through bad parts of their life, some of my friends seem to have have had hard lives all together, but for me 2010 was a pretty bad time. It was around this time last year that I got it into my head that I should write a big long facebook post about how bad of a time it was, I wanted to get everything off my chest and I wanted everyone to know how close they were to never seeing me again (I didn’t plan on killing my slef, I was planning on moving.) Every time I tried to write what was on my mind I could only get about two or three paragraphs in before I found my self trying too hard to reconstruct what things actually were, everything I wrote felt so forced and I never posted anything. I’m not sure if it was because I was so tired, or if I was feining an understanding of things I didn’t really understand, but nothing ever seemed right to me. 

The closest I got to sharing my feelings as a whole was on newyears eve, we were on the rooftop of my friends condo and I said that it was the end of the worst year of my life. One of my friends said that it wasn’t really the worst year of my life, but I don’t think he really understood how I felt. The whole night was very depressing actually, you know that feeling when you get off a train and you go into your pocket to get your phone, realize its not there, feel that deep terrible feeling come over you and then realize that your phone is really in another pocket? That lightswitch like feeling of reliefe that washes over you in an instant was what I was expecting on newyears. I was expecting thats as soon as the clocks struck twelve I’d immediately feel better but that feeling never came. Instead I just resorted to my usual way of feeling better and drank harder. It helps, in a way, but not a very good way. I’ve kicked the habit.

Anyways, I think part of the biggest reason why I never posted any part of how I felt was because I knew the people who would read it wouldn’t be the people that I wanted to read it, and the people who did either wouldn’t care or were already aware of some aspect of what I was going through. I wanted to painstakingly talk about the breakup, something that I don’t think I handled very well, I wanted to talk about how much I hated my extended families religiosity, I wanted to talk about how I felt everyone who was close to me was either physically drifting apart or in various ways. I wanted to move away to the other side of the country and not tell anyone that I was leaving, I wanted to forget about the guy that I saw splattered all over the fucking highway, I wanted to forget about all of my academic shortcomings. When I tried to write about it, nothing ever seemed right.

I don’t plan on writing about any of that now, whats in the past is done and theres very little I can do about it now. Now, looking back on 2011 I think my biggest problem over this year is that I’ve either been too afraid of making the wrong decisions, so much so that I abstained from making any big ones at all, or that I’ve been bust making excuses for my self not to do the things I wanted. Another thing that I haven’t really liked about this year is was my lack of romantic success, all the girls that I’ve liked either lived too far away, met while I was away, are emotionally unavailable, or just seem generally uninterested in me. Thats all ok I guess, I suppose being single does have its benefits. I didn’t really have a plan for what I wanted to write here, so if you’ve made it this far thankyou for reading. I feel like 2012 is going to be a good year for me.

Crappy Day.

Christmas Music.

So, the other day I was perusing Reddit as I normally do in my free time and I saw a good question in one of the music subreddits, it was asking if we were doomed to be stuck with old christmas music for ever. Initially I thought to my self that it was a dumb question, of course we’re not, new christmas music comes out every year, but really, most of it is really just shit like this.

Now, I hate Beiber with deep unyielding passion, restraint Matthew, restraint Don't be a hater! I can’t hate on JB too much, but all of the new christmas music sounds like shit to me. There’s no way someone like Taylor Swift could ever compare to Bing Crosby. Ever. I guess part of the reason why there aren’t any good classics is because part of the appeal for christmas, (at least for me,) is the nostalgia factor. All the new songs that come out, even if they’re actually good songs, have no nostalgic elements in them at all. So if a song doesn't stir up memories of christmas as a child I think my brain automatically dismisses it as non-christmasy. Anyways, going to keep it short again. I would like to share the worst christmas song known to man though. Ashley, if you're reading this I swear I had nothing to do with this CD's disappearance. My only guess is that the universe became self aware and banished all physical copies of this song into a different dimension in a great act of cosmic self correction. 

Just a quick update today.

Yesterday Christopher Hitchens died of cancer, I never read any of his books or followed his career that much but from I did know about him I could tell he was a good guy. I try not to idolize people in the atheist community because I really feel that as soon as we start down that road atheism will start to look like just any another religion from the outside, complete with its own creation stories, idols and angels. When we remember Hitchens we should remember him as a man and not some kind of great atheist figure because in reality thats all he was. In having said that, the next scotch I drink will certainly be raised in his name. 

Whenever someone dies its hard to let them go but I try to view it as a reminder on how I’m still here and that I should make the most out of the time I have. Life is finite, eventually it’s going to end. Take some risks, do the things that scare you, read some good books and listen to some good music. 

I'd like to buy you something.

But I don't have any money.

Lots on my mind tonight, I’ve been trying to go to sleep earlier these days but when I don’t work until 5pm ever day it makes it hard to get out of bed at reasonable hour. Every day it seems I stay up a little later and then sleep in a little more. Normally I watch Cosmos when I’m getting tired but tonight it seems I’m doomed with mopey restlessness. I suppose the least I can do is make a quick playlist of some of my favorite mopey music.

On my Feet - Eels

Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground

Sway - Voxtrot


Porcelain - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It Happens in Florida - Dog is Blue

It Happens in Florida (A Burning Hell Cover) by Dog Is Blue

Sorry for the shoddy HTML, I'll try to get better at this. If you have the time take a look at Dog is Blue's music, all of their music is really great and the two members are really nice people. Of course,  my only real hope is that you're as bummed as I am after listening to all of this :P
Goodnight.

Tacoma Narrows

This falls into more of the "stuff that I think is cool" category rather than the music side of things. My love affair with bite-sized physics facts grows every day.

Heartbeat Cover

A while ago I read Pitchforks review of Donald Glovers newest album Camp and I was surprised how low of a score they gave it. I’m not exactly a hiphop head but overall I thought it was a pretty good album.
Anyways, I just saw this awesome violin cover on Reddit of Heartbeat, give it a listen.

Maybe YOU should blog more.

Melissa said I should blog more, I think she should relax to some good music.

All Songs Considered.

Around this time last year I was listening to an NPR all songs considered podcast about the host’s favorite music of the year. The best song I heard on the podcast came right at the perfect moment, I was in a mellowed mood, I was driving late at night and the air was still really crisp and cool in the car. The song started slow with just a piano and a man singing and it ended with a soul destroying crescendo of reverb and pain. Kettering is a song I’ll never be able to forget.
I love NPR’s yearly roundup of the best music so I though I’d make a list of all the great music I’ve found this year. I’m pretty sure most of this isn’t actually new music, but its new to me and its all really, really good stuff. So, here is my new to me playlist for 2011 in no particular order..


Threnody by Goldmund. When I first heard this it was mixed with a lecture from Alan Watts about nothingness, since then I’ve become a fan of both Watts and Goldmund.

Soak It Up by Houses. This became my unofficial song of the summer, good for night driving with the windows open.

SDP by The Kissaway Trail. I really really like this song, its like the European version of the Arcade Fire. The bells make this feel so dramatic.

Kisses by Kisses. I heard about this band from another podcast I listen to from time to time. The mood doesn’t really match the lyrics but I think thats what I like most about it.

If you want it by TV Girl. I’m not sure where I heard these guys first but they’re definitely one of my favorite bands of all times now. They don’t have a huge amount of music but every song by them is golden.

Before by Washed Out. This is another summer favorite

Montana Youth Lagoon. Have you ever felt like you’re in a movie when you’re listening to a song? If not listen to this and go for a walk in the woods, you’ll know what I’m talking about when you do. (this music video is really cool too.)

Golden Touch by Araabmuzik. If you can get over the spelling this is a pretty cool track, especially great if you like up-beat music on your runs.

Dawn On the Side Nujabes. Jun Seba was killed in 2010 and has a song in my top 5 favorite songs of all times. This week and album of some of his unreleased music came out, the whole album is solid.

At Home by Crystal Fighters. I heard this on our last night out at the end of August, good times with good friends indeed.

Goodbye by Glen Porter. This is the guy who made a lot of the music for Departures.

To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra. This, like Threnody, was a song i heard mixed in with a good speech.
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Ok so you know the old spice guy? Good. Now read this next part in you mind with his voice.

THIS BLOG IS NOW A MUSIC BLOG.
From now on I’m going to try and post more often about music. I’ll probably get lazy and just post videos from time to time, but I promise I”ll try to make sure the music is awesome.