One kind of Math I'd rather not Mute

November 12, 2009


For three seemingly endless years, Cosmo (that's me) and Wanda have tried many a time (and failed many a time) to see a little band called MuteMath, a.k.a. only the most brilliant band ever, in concert. If you know me, you know I've been trained as a writer (and especially as a journalist) to avoid absolutes. But here are three reasons MuteMath really is the most brilliant band ever.

3. The drummer, Darren King, has to duct tape his headphones to his head during shows or he'll lose them. His talent is simply... illuminating.
2. They filmed the music video for Typical backwards. Singing. Drumming. Everything.
1. They more or less invented an instrument, called the Atari, out of an old game system by the same name.

So now we agree that this band is indeed the most brilliant ever, yes? Good. Moving on.

It was a Thursday night at the House of Blues....


The opening band was As Tall As Lions. That's all I have to say about that. Well, and that the singer didn't wear any shoes onstage, which in my experience is the mark of a great musician (but I was too excited for MuteMath to pay the Lions much attention; sorry to any Lions fans out there).


Singer Paul Meany has an unusual sort of voice. It sounded different enough live to have that authentic in-the-room-with-him feel while still having the quality of the recording. Vocal quality, that is; it may have been missing an effect or two. But it was good! Definitely not one of those shows you leave wondering how the band ever got a record deal with a vocalist like that.


Meany's so cool he makes the keytar look cool. Did you know that thing got voted the lamest instrument of all time in some poll or other? Neither did Vicky T. I dunno, the only bands I know with keytars in them are awesome. Someone should revise that poll with MuteMath and Cobra Starship in mind.


I like to refer to Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas as "That Hippie Guy" - in the fondest way possible, of course! Hippie isn't an insult in my book, since I more or less am one. But I mean, look at those shades, and the hair, and the fuzzy glowy lights behind him. That man is triptastic before he even touches the bass, and once he does... just whoa.


Not only does That Hippie Guy play a mean regular bass; he plays a six-foot-tall upright bass, too! I can't remember all the songs he used it for, but he sure rocked that thing during "Reset." Rocked it like a nice chunk of granite. No, harder than that. Rocked it like a diamond, he did.


And then there's Darren King. Gosh. What can one even say about Darren King? I am in awe every time I see this man pick up a pair of drumsticks on YouTube. To finally see that live was phenomenal. During "The Odds," there was a vertical drum set positioned at the back of the stage beneath the huge arch and King went over and played this vertical drum set. Pretty lights shot out from the drum pads every time he struck them for a kaleidoscopic musical experience.


Later in the song, King returned to his regular old horizontal set, which was hooked up to a bunch of light bulbs. A different one lit up for each drum in his set. So instead of just hearing the rhythm, you could see it, too!


They closed with "Reset," and Meany finally broke out the obligatory gymnastics. The guy was dancing on his keyboard and on the drums. He walked around banging a mandolin with a drumstick for a while. Meanwhile That Hippie Guy was rocking the upright bass harder than your average diamond and King was over there hammering away at the drums...


...and then Meany brought out the Atari. Which he not only rocked, but also allowed those in the first few rows to rock. That included me and Wanda. That's right, yours truly got to play the atari! See the little red knob next to the funny green semi-orb? I played that. Yeah!!

And that, being the encore, was the end of the show.

Of all the concerts I've been to, this was definitely one of the most memorable, and definitely one I'd go to again! If you're not already a fan of MuteMath, please take a minute to check these guys out (start with the Typical video, linked above). If you are a fan and haven't seen them, please make every effort to do so (your life will be better). If you're a fan and you've seen them, you know what I mean! See you at the next show, my friend.

Here's the night, and it shines

I set out from school with a car full of bread. I mean FULL of bread. Having used all the space in the trunk, I loaded more boxes of Panera-donated baked goods into the back seat. It was for the Mae Community Outreach project me and a few other local Mae fans had been planning since August. We found out two days before that the band wasn't going to help us hand out the food, which left three of us to deal with a Beetle full of bread. Then the only guy on our team had to deal with something dumb that happened to his apartment and couldn't be there. Thankfully Renee brought a friend! But still, three girls carrying 60 pounds of bread equals not so successful. I managed to get lost on my way into Cambridge and drove around so much that my car fucked up again, and meanwhile (as Renee told me over the phone as I apologized profusely for my lateness) the band was trying to get out of Pennsylvania, where their van and trailer had been stolen the night before. So there might not even be a show.

I would've gone home, except I had this car full of bread. So I found the place, parked, and we set out. It was very lucky for our frail upper bodies that we ran into a college-age guy who was intrigued by our quest and agreed to help us out. The food was a tough sell, surprisingly. We walked around for a bit and when Noah had to leave, the rest of us took the food to the Commons via train. My friend Wanda met us there to help, but unfortunately there was no one to feed at the Commons either. We ended up taking the food to a church across the street, where there was apparently a service about to start. They were thrilled to have something to eat during fellowship and asked us to stay for the service. Everyone else was skeptical, but I hadn't been to church in a while so I thought it seemed like a good idea to stay, especially since we still weren't sure there would be a concert later. Wanda stayed with me.

It was an experience unlike any I'd had before. We began the service with a chant. Then we were invited to join in a spiritual dance... that is, the Electric Slide. I kid you not; we expressed our love for God by doing the Electric Slide in church. Then a black woman, the pastor, spoke about the events that brought her to the church and what a great impact dancing had had on her spiritual life. Even still, she said, dance is one of the most meaningful ways she worships God. After the sermon we took communion, passing the sacraments around a huge circle so that each person could offer the body and blood to the next person in line. I declined to sip the wine since about 40 people had sipped from the cup before me (at the beginning of the service they asked us not to greet one another with hugs because of swine flu o_o).

After the service I booked it back to the Middle East club in Cambridge, where Renee and her friend were holding a spot in line for me. The doors hadn't even opened yet. We were an hour behind schedule. But the band was on their way.

There was more standing and waiting to be done inside (luckily I had the stage to sit on). The opener, a local band, played three extra songs to kill time and we stood and waited some more.

Finally Mae and the others arrived! Jenny Owen Youngs played first. I wasn't too thrilled with her set, and it didn't help that I was already exhausted from walking around the city with all that bread for so long after hardly sleeping the night before. But Deas Vail - woah! Their set was great fun; I danced almost the entire time. And maybe the singer was kinda cute, too ^_~

Mae finally took the stage around 12:30. They only had an hour to play since the club had to kick us all out at 1:30, but the hour they played was epic! They poured so much heart into the set in spite of all they'd been through that day. You could tell they were tired. But you could also tell that delivering a great show was more important to them. And when it came down to it, without the 3-D videos and scratch-and-sniff CDs, Mae is still a group of great guys making great music. That's at the core of everything else.

After the show, I went to buy Deas Vail's CD and the guys thanked me for being so into their set. I was shocked they had noticed and even more shocked they recognized it was me. Then, as I was walking upstairs, two guys (one of whom played with Jenny) started talking to me. The other guy convinced me he usually plays with Mae when they're live but he didn't have a guitar since their stuff got stolen. I have not yet determined the truth of this statement; however, I couldn't find his name on any of their websites so I highly doubt he was telling the truth.

Shame because he seemed so nice at the time. We hung out for like fifteen minutes, during which he told me he wished he could make himself cry on command. This seemed like a pretty personal thing to share, so I trusted him. I should have realized he was a liar when he tried to convince some other girl Mae would be playing in her hometown in Florida in a couple weeks. I'll be he died laughing the minute I left... asshole.

Adam Ezra Group

The day after Paul and I broke up, I went to a concert. At a folk club. With my dad.

Why would you do such a thing? you ask.

Ah, well, you see, apparently there was a last-minute cancellation at a club called Passim (review at The Amandangle) and Adam Ezra was filling in. I didn't know his music too well, but he played at my school freshman year. I joined the mailing list and I'd been getting announcements about local shows ever since. Adam's from Boston so most of the shows were local. The only problem was that most of them were 21+, and I am not. But this one was all ages!

A night in would have been a bad idea. I did well that first day after the breakup. I went shopping with my mom and sister, I spent time with the whole family.... I forget what else I did but I might have made feeble attempts at writing my informative speech, since I was no longer invited to California and would have to deliver it a week earlier than planned.

Anyway, I felt really good until Paul called to ask how I was doing. How could I tell him I was doing great? I was better than I'd been since the beginning of summer. I was free. And I was going to a concert. But I pretended not to be happy because I figured it would make things worse. I was right. Even my "nonchalance" (his quote) made it worse. I couldn't possibly explain that this was the end of my pain when his was so fresh. After hanging up, we both felt worse than before he'd called.

So as I said, a night in would have been a bad idea. The good news is that my dad's always up for a daddy-Mandii date, especially because he'd been raving about Club Passim ever since he and my uncle saw Shane Hines play there last spring.

I can't thank Adam enough for helping me through what could've been a really awful night. He's an enormously positive presence on stage with his clever, beautiful lyrics and energy, not to mention he collided with the microphone at one point and told us embarrassing stories from his dating life (or attempt at one). Everyone laughed like they knew each other as friends (and I found out later that a lot of them probably did; I guess there's a pretty tight-knit community at Passim). My dad and I about died when he sang this song about a guy named Ray Thomas. My dad is Ray Thompson. Our laughter was utterly inappropriate since it was actually a very sad song about a guy who drank a lot and beat his wife, but you would've laughed too if it was your dad.

After the really depressing Ray Thomas song, Adam invited his mom to come up on stage and sing with him, saying, "Me and mama, we're both Jewish, and we know nothing cheers you up like singing a song about Jesus!" I'd never agreed more. His mama was really good! I would've gotten up and danced if there had been more space, but the tables and chairs were set up like Tetris blocks. Not conducive to dancing.

Afterward Dad and I went out to the entryway to buy Adam's CDs and Adam was there. I wanted to thank him, but without telling the story of the past ten months of my life, I couldn't express the degree of gratitude I felt. So I just said, "you have no idea; your music was exactly what I needed to hear tonight." Then I asked if he remembered the time I bought him coffee at Gordon, and he did! Or at least he pretended to, which made me happy enough. He said I should come back in a couple weeks to see him open for Ellis Paul. I said I would.

And I did! Last Thursday I took the train in to visit Wanda and the two of us went back to Passim. Wanda kept saying she felt like a hipster, which I thought was silly because Passim is way more indie than hip. I mean, indie is kind of hip now, but this place is indie indie.

Adam only got about 30 minutes to play, but he brought his mama back onstage and played my new favorite song, "Desperate Plea from the Heart of a Shithead." That's the one about his failed attempt at dating. Between sets I went out to say hi to him and he remembered me again. I got a hug this time (I only got a handshake when my dad was there. Lol). We talked about him coming back to my school again, which I'm working on now. In fact, I'll be right back; I must go harass the campus events council some more since they have yet to respond to the email I sent last Friday.

OK. Now that that's done.

Ellis Paul is a folk legend. I was not aware of this until Adam said so. He was definitely more folksy than Adam, who's more of a singer/songwriter. Still, even though his style wasn't my favorite, I really enjoyed being there, listening and laughing with the rest of the crowd (some of whom had seen him the first time he played Passim IN NINETEEN EIGHTY NINE. That's the year I was BORN.) I think the coolest thing about the set was that I never realized folk singers were so silly. I never would have expected to have such a good time at a folk club, but there I was. It goes to show you should never write anything off!

When Wanda and I left, Adam gave me another hug and said thanks for coming, and made me promise to talk to the events council at school about a show.

Now Wanda says I should date him. o_o

Sleeping at last

How many bands do you know that can play close to an hour’s worth of music without touching a standard six-string guitar? Sleeping At Last can, and they do it well. Though it was more packed than at 12:30 on a weekday, the dark side of Lane was utterly silent while the three-and-a-half-man ensemble played last Friday night.

Singer Ryan O’Neal began the set with a ukulele in hand. Dan Perdue alternated between keys and bass, while stand-in drummer Aaron Mortenson kept the beat for his first ever live show with Sleeping At Last. In spite of the absence of a guitar, Sleeping At Last achieved a sound reminiscent of the Fray or Coldplay.

Ryan explained after the show that his love for Hawaii inspired him to include the uke on the band’s third nationally released album, Storyboards. “It’s the most exciting instrument I’ve picked up since guitar,” he said. The band really branched out with Storyboards, adding new instruments like banjo and mandolin as well as the uke for a more acoustic album than their previous two.

The band was joined by solo artist Jeremy Larson, who filled in the gaps where three musicians couldn’t cover all the instruments they needed. Jeremy also opened the night with his own one-man, five-instrument set, looping tracks and building to a hypnotizing climax on each song. He layered tracks on guitar, drums, vocals, violin and cello. It might have been the best thing I've ever heard. I can hardly explain the way I felt when he was up there; it was like his music was reminding my heart how to beat. The words, the sounds, even the lights - everything about the set had my heart racing the entire time.

“I learned to play [strings] out of necessity,” Jeremy told me after the show, when I went to talk to him and the band for the Tartan. “I wanted strings on my album and didn’t know anyone who played.” He ended up contributing strings to MuteMath’s most recent album, Armistice. I was totally startstruck when he told me that. I was also at a loss for words when I noticed boxer briefs for sale at his merch table.

"Is that... really an effective way to advertise your music?" I asked. "I mean... how many people really... see that?"

He laughed. "You'd be surprised. We actually sell a lot of them. But yeah, I don't think they're a very good way to advertise...."

Maybe if you're Captain Underpants.

In search of Ryan Todd

So there is this boy - we shall call him Ryan Todd - that showed up at the writing center about a week and a half ago while I was working an extra shift to help pay for the trip to California that I was supposed to be taking this weekend. I had been working for three and a half hours and I'd helped eight or nine people with papers already, so I was none too happy when the door opened again.

But, my dear readers, Ryan Todd was a whole new species of gorgeous. I don't remember that much about his paper because I was too busy thinking "you have really pretty eyes.....," but I remember at one point in the middle of our discussion he looked up and said, "I don't believe in fate." Now mind you, the statement was totally relevant to our conversation about the essay, but I still fell in love a little bit when he said it.

When he left, I promptly berated myself for thinking such silly thoughts when, in fact, I was already taken. Still, I couldn't help feeling giddy when I saw him a few days later and he said hello. That's right, Ryan Todd McGorgeous remembered lil old me. I yelled at myself again on the way back to Ferrin. It was not very effective. I couldn't wipe the fatuous smile off my face, try as I might.

Then I became single and Ryan Todd disappeared off the face of the Gordon bubble. I didn't see him once all week. I kept hoping he'd show up at the writing center with another paper... or just for a visit (XD yeah I know). I at least wanted to know how his paper that somehow had something to do with fate turned out. Mais alas, Ryan Todd was nowhere to be found.

And then today. I spotted him from afar during chapel and was all YAAAY until I realized that he realized that I'd been looking at him. Oooops, heh heh.

Welcome back to third grade, y'alls.

Catharsis, or A Breakup Tale

I guess I'm obliged to try and get some of this out in writing, though I hardly know where to begin. If you're looking for something silly and whimsical, I suggest you wait for my Scatterday post tomorrow afternoon. This post is anything but. See title.

These past ten months with Paul have been full of peaks and valleys. I remember going back to school after the first time we kissed, ecstatic to tell Schneckleface* all about it and the *DATE* we were going on soon!

There were so many firsts for both of us, and for the most part they were exciting firsts that brought me great joy. First time I ever slept over a guy's house. First time I went behind my parents' backs (for the record, that one was more exciting than joyful). First time I'd ever thought I could stick with someone forever, and wanted to. First time I ever planned on it. Among other firsts that brought confusion and even guilt for this quasi-conservatively raised Christian young lady - but let's not think about that just yet. First, a tribute to the things that made me smile... that still make me smile, and will no matter what.

Our first month together disappeared in a flurry of snowflakes and Christmas lights, which somehow seemed brighter than they had in years past. He was so worried about my present, worried he'd offend me since I was "very religious" and he, well, wasn't. For all that, he did a fine job. He even made it to church a couple times. He was so worried I would cheat on him that first month, and I was so glad I wasn't that person, so glad I wasn't bringing more pain into his life when he'd been through so much already (but it's none of my business to go into detail here). He always made sure to tell me how beautiful I looked that day, and I melted every time.

January: I dragged him to a ska show. He teased me about it but didn't complain (even when I got a bloody nose before ever jumping into the action).

February: I got a little adventurous in the kitchen, trying to bake the perfect Valentine's day gift (which involved way more red food dye than I ever should have fed him).

March: We took a long walk in the woods with every intention of getting hopelessly lost. The only thing I actually lost was my phone. It happened during a snowball fight, which I confess to instigating. Eventually we found both the phone and our way home.

April: I made it through the semester alive - quite a feat with the amount of pressure I was under - all thanks to him.

May: We took a road trip to New York to see Mae, another band he didn't care about at all, and get their scratch and sniff EP. It became a two-day tour of the city that never sleeps. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had dinner with his godmother, who was one cool chica.

June: Our friends came home and much revelry ensued. All nighters. Rock Band. Mike's hard lemonade. Aaand the landmark 6-month anniversary, at which point I was more in love than I'd ever been.

July: His brother Dave took us on a spontaneous late-night road trip to New Hampshire for fireworks, which we set off on the beach on the fourth. I've never nearly died so many times in one night. By that statement, I meant the night of the fourth, but looking back I think I may have nearly died more times on the road trip.

August: I made and promoted the heck out of that video for that scholarship contest with a little help and a lot of support from him.

September: Not much to report, since I was back at school and he was home. We made plans to go to Sacramento for his music video premiere at the Sacramento Horror Film Festival. I was so proud! Oh, and that high school kid raising money door-to-door caught us hooking up in the hallway. Most embarrassing (but hilarious) moment EVER.

October: Well, here we are. Ten months and a break-up later. There are two things I won't say.

1. I won't say I wish I never met him. These are the things that make us who we are. The things that teach us what we need, what we want, what we can live without.

2. I won't say I wasn't in love. It would be a shameless lie.

I will say that it was time to move on. It had been some while since I'd felt the way I felt in June, when I convinced myself I was ready to give him that last piece of me that I had been saving - my virginity. But by the time I got on birth control, I was starting to notice the things I wanted that weren't there and decided not to give it up. Now I'm glad I held out.

I didn't want the darkness and fear he thrived on - the movies he watched, the movies he made, the heavy metal music and the image that went with it. It is my nature to love light and hope and beauty. I love the details that make this world so special. I love the care that God puts into them. Those weren't things he appreciated.

I wanted romance, poetry and love songs. I wanted him to bring me flowers for no reason. I wanted travels and beach days (which he disliked because of the way sand felt on his skin). I wanted adventures and asymmetry (which he couldn't stand, at least not in architecture).

I wanted to be challenged intellectually, spiritually, physically; instead I was only challenged sexually. He never forced me to do anything, yet I always had the sense that I was keeping from him the one thing that would make him happiest. For that I was, and am, sorry; or at least about the pain it caused.

I wanted him to act right around a lady, even when he was with the guys. I was sick of the rude humor and rude language, sick of the way he talked about other races and religions (even if it was only in jest, for to every joke there is a grain of truth).

I wanted to see him quit buying (or, as I saw it, wasting) time and go somewhere he really wanted to go, knowing good things were waiting to happen.

I told him that - that good things were waiting to happen - and in the end, even I couldn't stay his "good thing" forever.

I look at all that stuff I want and think, that's a lot to ask of one person. No one in the world can offer all that. No, but someone can offer some of it. From the beginning I wondered why I was so in love with someone who didn't fit a single one of my criteria, and you know what? It was a good fit. That's all I can say. I was happy, he was happy, and it worked - until now.

About a month ago I started living excuse to excuse. I was constantly relieved to find reasons to stay at school instead of coming back to be with him, because I hated it when we hooked up and didn't know how to say so. Somehow I knew it would break us and I didn't want that. I knew I was being selfish. I loved him (though maybe not quite as I had before) and needed him, so I clung to what we had, even though I knew what he needed was something I couldn't give. Time and time again I heard him talk about the people who had hurt him in the past and how he was moving past it, leaving them behind.

I didn't want to be left behind.

I hated the idea of hurting him and it seemed to me that the hurt of ending it would be greater than the hurt of staying together without having sex, but in the end only he could decide that. He finally got me to talk about what was bothering me after a month or more of knowing something wasn't right. I said I couldn't keep saying I'd be ready soon, soon, soon, when clearly it was going to be some time before I was ready to share that kind of intimacy with someone. By then I was so far into the valley that I had no desire to try and become ready. I had been trying for months. It just wasn't there. I wasn't in love anymore. I didn't say so, but that's how it was.

I left the ball in his court, and tonight he ended it. Even though I'd seen it coming, it hit me hard. I was crying. He was crying. My God, I made him cry - I didn't think I could. That was what killed me, seeing him like that and knowing I had caused it. I knew I would be okay if he was okay and made him promise he would take care driving home. I was so afraid he'd crash, accidentally or on purpose, or that he would hurt himself some other way. I couldn't live with that.

After he left I more or less dissolved into a sobbing, shaking puddle on the floor. I think part of it was adrenaline. Part of it might have even been relief. But the greatest part of it was sadness. I knew I wouldn't be hearing from Paul for a while (although we're going to have to figure out the Sacramento situation, since I'm officially uninvited). I mopped myself up enough to call his dad and ask him to keep an eye on things tonight. Hanging up, I felt marginally better.

The chapter ends like this. I still love him, just not the way he wants. I want nothing but the best for him and I want to be a part of it if he'll let me. I haven't written him off as a romantic possibility, but he's got changing to do if we're going to try this again, and in the meantime, at twenty, I've got people to meet before I can think about settling down. As for my first love, time will heal him, and when it does I hope that we can be friends.

At least one good thing has come of this: My sister is actually nice to me when I'm miserable. Granted, there's nothing comforting about "well, it was God's will" - it still fucking hurts. But this strange peace I feel says she's right. It was kind of her anyway, and after that she gave me music and said good night. Thanks, sis.

Until the sun wipes the sky from grey to blue,
Miss Rex

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* The many Sara(h)s in my life need nicknames so you (and I) can tell them apart ^_^

Relient K - first and forever <3

There are not too many things I know for certain in this life, but one thing I do know is this:

Never pass up a Relient K show.

I took the train into town and met up with Ducky, my friend from summer camp, and her boyfriend Curly. It would be Ducky's first Relient K concert and I was honored to be there for it. We were hours early because none of us had tickets and the show was almost guaranteed to sell out.

Pretty much the first thing that happened when we got off the train was Matt Thiessen, lead singer/guitarist/keyboardist/lyricist extraordinaire, walked right by us to get on the tour bus, which was inconspicuously parked right in front of the venue. I was like "Hey Matt! What's up" really awkwardly because, I'm sorry, his presence alone renders me speechless. And he was like "hi." And that was it.

Later I found out Ducky had a camera. I wish she'd mentioned that when Matt was there.

Then we amused ourselves by wandering around the Goodwill next door in search of a Cruella De Vil costume. Instead I found a Pokemon VHS. It cost me a dollar. Best dollar ever spent.

Then we sat on the sidewalk and ate "dinner," aka PB&J on a bagel and a naner that I brought from school because I'm cheap. Curly had an energy drink. I wrapped my leftovers in the saran wrap from my bagel and was asked whether I saran wrap my banana. The answer is yes, yes I do.

Two or three hours later we finally got to go inside and buy tickets. Then yet another hour of waiting ensued. We had great spots on the floor, although we'd gotten there so early that frankly I think we should've been front row. But no matter; when the crowd got going we'd be able to push our way up.

The first band came on stage. Right away I knew it was going to be an earplug show and I put them in. I don't remember too much about their set except that the drummer had his mouth open the whole time and the guy singing/playing keys kept looking at me. I could've imagined I imagined it until he winked at me.

Copeland played second. I like their stuff well enough, but they're not the kind of band to get you stoked. It's not that they don't have upbeat songs - "Pin Your Wings" comes to mind, thought I might be biased because my name is in that song ^_^ - they just didn't play any of them.

Finally it was Relient K time (I feel like one of those Papa Gino's ads: study time. Party time. Papa time. Relient K time!) I'll admit I was getting kind of tired by then, what with the traveling and waiting and more waiting and forgettable sets, but nothing picks me up like seeing the best band in life. I like to call them my first and forever love. Sorry to whatever lucky guy becomes my husband, but there will always be a small part of me that wants to marry Matty T.

They played a lot of stuff from Two Lefts Don't Make a Right... but Three Do. This made me happy beyond words. Wanda and I played "Falling Out" in a talent show once and I'd wanted to see the band play it ever since. I finally got my wish! They also gave us a taste of the new album, Forget and Not Slow Down, which was coming out the day after. It was too soon for me to pass judgment on the songs... although in a couple of weeks it would be a huge part of me surviving my breakup with Paul. Pretty much best album ever. Definitely the best I've heard from them since 2004's Mmhmm.

My sole complaint about their set is that there was this bitch standing in front of me. Her hair kept getting in my face because it was really puffy and I kept sort of leaning back to keep from inhaling it, but it seemed like she kept getting closer so I put my arms up in front of me, sort of like when you cover your vitals in martial arts. Well she knocked into my arms and apparently interpreted this physical contact as me crowding her and made sure to snap at me for it between songs.

Sweetheart. You're at a show. There are no personal bubbles at shows.

I apologized sweetly for the fact that there was no space behind me to back up, and suggested that if she felt crowded maybe she could move up into the foot and a half in front of her. She was pretty fat but she didn't need as much space as she was taking up. She didn't take my advice; instead she kept randomly backing up just to piss me off, so Ducky and Curly kept launching themselves into me and, by extension, into her. This pissed her off even more. She kept giving me death glares over her shoulder. I actually feared for my life.

But after Miss Bitch's little fit and Ducky and Curly's faux mosh pits, some kids behind us started a real pit. Shame they waited until the encore, though I guess we might've been kicked out if we'd done anything during the show. There was a congo line, too. When it was all over, Curly helped me find Matt Hoopes' guitar pick on the ground. Now I have one from Matty T and one from Hoopes! <3

But I still have no drumsticks, which is my true life goal. If I can get one from Darren King (MuteMath) next month, it may just be the climax of my entire existence....

Everything in Transit

Sometimes I think my life is like The Little Mermaid.

I'm the girl who has everything. I go to a great college, where I study great subjects under great teachers. I have a great family that loves me and is not broken by divorce or sickness. I have a great boyfriend who would do anything for me. I have great friends and roommates capable of fun times and deep caring. Yet some days, and today is one of them, I just feel utterly, hopelessly miserable. I think the fact that I compare my life to a children's movie is somewhat indicative of the problem.

Everything makes sense when you’re little. All that matters is the world inside your head. Save Fantasyland from the bad guys! You’ve got all afternoon to do it, and for someone whose existence has only spanned eight years, that’s a lifetime. You can’t understand what faith is because you can’t imagine anything else. When your mind is so huge and pure and the world knows no bounds, that’s when your imagination can wrap itself around God. You can shrink him down when your mind is like that. You don’t need answers to all these silly questions before you can love him or love other people; you just do because you should, and that’s all you know or need to know.

So maybe my life is more like Peter Pan: I don't want to grow up!

When I'm under pressure, I regress. I try to re-become the child I once was. I can talk myself into seeing the world as if it's the first time I ever looked at the sky or the sea or a little yellow snail that anyone else would pass by or step on. People know and expect that simple things amaze me and bring me joy, but they don't know that I had to practice seeing it that way. My mind is not the place it was when I was small. I can only regress so far.

Not much makes sense anymore. I don't know who I am (even though I spent four years of high school telling everyone I did). I can't understand what faith is because I never needed to know. I can't even wrap my mind around a little piece of God because I know now that shrinking him down the way I did once is a lie, and I wouldn't want to lie about something like that.

I want the happy Disney ending. Sometimes I just forget that heroes and heroines have to fight the bad guys to get there, and in the process, they change. Belle fell in love with the Beast. Pinocchio became a real boy. I don't want to change, but my position in the world is changing and I have no choice but to change with it. I want to love the things I've always loved and do the things I've always done with the people I've always held dear, and I want them to be exactly the way I've always held them dear.

Maybe that's what heaven is like.

Does anyone else feel this way? Or, a more fun question to amuse me on this over-thought and emotional afternoon: Which Disney movie describes your life? What character do you relate to? If you could be any Disney character, who would you choose? Entertain me!

O(k)toberfest

By a show of hands, who knows what Oktoberfest is?

OK, leave your hand up if you said it was a booze-free event.

Right.

Well, that's what my college decided it was. I opted to forgive them the misleading title and went with my roommates (including honorary roomie, Joanna) anyway. Hey, they promised me hot apple cider and cider donuts; how could I resist?

But there was no cider there when we arrived. No cider donuts. There was some kind of... bratwurst cooking over a grill and some root beer. Popular indie music and indie pop was blaring and three kids from the improv team were "dancing," otherwise known as flapping their appendages and writhing. You can imagine my ecstasy....

We grabbed some pumpkins from the pumpkin-coloring table; we intended to carve them and light them in our many windows. Then I bumped into my buddy Jarin and we were chatting when all of a sudden The Addict ran up and said to hurry up; the rest of my roomies were on the hay ride.

The tractor was already driving away. I went "okimcomingbyejarin!!" and chased after The Addict, who took a running leap onto the trailer's sideboard. I couldn't decide what to do with my pumpkin. I hated to lose it....

But the tractor was getting away, so I chucked Mr. Pumpkin into the woods and dove for it. The hayriders cheered and made room for us. Highlight of the night!

The ride ended 48 seconds later. How anticlimactic.

I can't help thinking this whole night would've sucked less if they'd just left the event at face value and passed out booze. At least we wouldn't have had to remember how lame it was. =/

A-maize-ing

"I want to go to a corn maze this year," I told Paul one morning.

I got the "WTH?" look. It might have been because he'd only had one cup of tea so far. It takes about 3 to extract him from the clutches of slumber. But I interpreted it as, "What the hell is a corn maze? I've never been to one. It sounds gay," and vowed to drag him to one before the month was over. I convinced him it was cool by telling him they'd mowed it in the shape of Stewie and Brian from Family Guy.



So we went. It wasn't a huge maze, but we managed to get lost anyway. I kept stopping to answer the dumb trivia questions posted strategically around the maze. They were supposed to help you decide which way to go. They were all about corn and therefore none of my answers were more than uneducated guesses, but I still insisted on trying. Paul was ready to feed me to a carnivorous scarecrow by the third question. Tee hee!

After walking around in circles a few times, we realized that we could devise a plan of action by solving the maze on the aerial picture they'd given us when we got there. Except our plan backfired, we eventually got sick of wandering, and finally we gave up and crashed through a row of corn that, wouldn't you know it, took us right to the exit.

Win! Shut up, it was totally legit!

A midnight pomegranate party

One sunny September day, my friend Taz and I walked through the woods to a little farm stand I found once when I got lost. She loves going out in the woods since it's one place she doesn't have to worry about The Bitch (her roommate), but it had been really warm due to an Indian summer and she kept finding snakes on her walks. That's a bad thing if you're Taz. I went along to protect her; i.e. I walked in front of her and chased away the snakes before she could see them by yelling and flailing my arms a lot.

Soo moving on. One of my favorite things about fall is going to farm stands and little country stores to buy fresh produce, cheese, and JAMS! Jams are so yummy! Last year I discovered hot pepper jelly with cream cheese on water crackers. Mmmm nom nom nom. So, we went to the farm stand to buy jams. I had a little bag of change; the rest of my money had mysteriously disappeared. I definitely didn't spend it on concerts or anything.

You'll never guess what we found there.

POMEGRANATES!

My roommates and I had been talking for ages and ages about how most of us had never tried a pomegranate. We'd been meaning to have a pomegranate party to celebrate our birthdays, since we're all summer babies, and so I bought one. I got my jam, too - pineapple orange marmalade this year. Taz and I got freeze pops for the walk home. Hers turned her teeth blue.

I paid the cashier over $7 in change. He pretended not to hate me. Nice guy.

That night, me, Razzmatazz, Mnomanoms and The Addict cut open my pomegranate and a couple others they had bought without telling me.

They were very pretty inside. Someone suggested they would make attractive bathroom floor tiles. I was skeptical.

They sure tasted ugly. Frankly I don't understand how the pomegranate survived natural selection. It's got so little meat to it, and its such hard work to get at it. What a useless fruit! It would be better off as someone's tacky, barfy bathroom tile if you ask me!

It was dry and the seeds were hard and chewy. To my knowledge, and Razzmatazz confirmed this since she alone out of all of us had eaten a pomegranate before, the seeds are supposed to get soft and gooey when it's ripe. You shouldn't have to spit them out, ever. I think it would have been a weird experience even if the pomegranate had been properly ripe... but at least then it might have been a good weird. A yummy weird. Like hot pepper jelly and cream cheese.

In the end we resorted to mocking the pomegranates.

Delicious!

Another tale of woe for Derry the punchbuggy

When I drove back to school last week, Derry the punchbuggy made it all the way to the off-ramp without giving me any trouble. Then he started doing that thing that he did a few weeks ago that we supposedly got fixed. When I press on the gas, he makes a gut-wrenching sound as if I'd asked him to go from 0 to 100 in no time flat, but just sort of sits there without accelerating at all... or even continuing to drive at the speed I was driving before his little epileptic fit.

We found our way to one of the few spaces available on campus, but upon getting out of the car, I was promptly assaulted by some super-ninja stingered insect. Didn't see the thing. Didn't do anything to provoke it. I just wanted my laptop out of the trunk. I've never had an allergic reaction to a bee sting until now, and wow; it really sucks. Don't try it at home, okay? I walked around with an ice pack for two days and felt like such a little wuss.

Derry made it home okay this weekend, so we didn't take him to the shop. Big mistake. Coming back, I hadn't even made it as far as the city, which is about halfway between home and school, when he had another seizure. Smack dab in the middle of some of the worst towns in our area. Afraid of pulling over and getting shot, I kept driving until I hit town. My parents had to come retrieve me and take me back to school.

Now I am here without a car, which wouldn't be so bad if A) I hadn't just paid $89 to join a gym off campus, B) I didn't need to go to the store to replace my deodorant, which inexplicably disappeared from my drawer over the weekend, and C) I had something to give Mama Swede for her birthday. As it stands I am presentless, deodorantless, and losing money while gaining weight. I'll bet little Derry never realized how important he was. I sure didn't. I'm sorry, old buddy. Get better quick so we can go puttering around town again. Love, Amandasaurus.

Atlas

Everyone famous is dying, and frankly I don't blame them. I don't want to care, I don't want to fight, I don't want the government taking my money for its delusional purposes. I don't want to have to do anything that doesn't seem right. I want to do what's important to me without being beholden to people, least of all institutions. God I hate institutions.

If everyone famous walked off a cliff, would you follow?

Maybe.

I want to live for something. I want the parameters of my faith to be clear. I want a singular, concrete quest with a singular, concrete goal and I want it to define my actions, my life, myself.

I want the world to be different but I don't know how to change it. There's an ocean of problems and I am paralyzed. Too much is wrong. It's not me and people vs. the world; it's me vs. people vs. the world. I feel like Atlas, breaking under the weight of the universe (or the weight of my own, cancerous little universe growing leaden on my shoulders).

It's nobody's place to solve things - yet it's everybody's place, and so many of us do nothing. Even me. We can put all the band-aids we want on this broken world, but sooner or later someone has to do a heart transplant. We are not surgeons, so we do nothing.

"I am a living, breathing hell; come on and resurrect me."

Magical Musical Road Trip Extravaganza pt. 4

My family used to play a cheesy game at the dinner table, where we'd go around the table and everyone got a chance to say the highlight and lowlight of his or her day. In Rex-family fashion, allow me to share with you the high and low lights of Rev Gen 2009. Let's look on the bright side first.

We sat in on Paul Colman's set purely because we wanted to have good seats for Jon Foreman's set, which was next. But Paul turned out to be one of the most entertaining individuals I've had the good fortune to see. We later talked to him and he said he'd love to come play a show at our school. WIN!



Jon Foreman played us a song about being an outlaw, which he literally wrote in his sleep. He also played a number on some wacky variation of a harp, which a friend had given him earlier that day and which he hadn't even had a chance to tune. Somehow the song was still brilliant. Probably because he's Jon.



No one moshed for Relient K, which I'm sure was as sad for the band as it was for me. Nonetheless, it was as great a set as always, made all the more amusing by the fact that the lead singer (Matt Thiessen)'s hair gets more wild every time I see them.



Switchfoot closed out the day with a set that would've sent the Richter scale scrambling for cover. Jon alternated between climbing the scaffolding and swinging drummer Chad Butler's cymbals around the stage, and pausing to ask everyone to look up at the stars for a minute while words of wisdomatic gold dripped from his lips. "We don't know why the dry times come," he said, "but those are the times that force us to dig deeper below the surface."



If you want all the juicy details (and lots of exciting pictures!), go here and here! Remember to click on "Entries" when you get there!

Now for the lowlight. I think this accusatory letter, which I sent to the people at Rev Gen last night, pretty much sums it up:

"...we purchased Switchfoot Interview Passes at $15 apiece and we did not receive what we paid for. The item was called "Interview Pass" on the website. So, naturally, we walked into Tent 7 expecting to see an interview with Switchfoot. Wouldn't you? Imagine our disappointment, then, when only half the band was present and the frontman, the one responsible for writing the songs, was conspicuously absent. All right, there's a little disclaimer at the bottom of the ticket saying interview times are subject to artist availability, so it would hardly be fair to lodge a complain purely on that basis.

But then the interview was cut off after ten minutes of surface-level questions whose answers could have been found on Wikipedia in under two minutes, so that the man hosting the interview can tell us about his daughter who died in a car accident and how her death taught him to seek hope from God. A wonderful message. I truly am sorry for his loss and I truly am glad that he found hope in spite of it. But this was not the time or place to discuss such matters, as the fans under the tent had paid money to watch an interview with Switchfoot. And then he had the gall to try and convert us to Christianity. At a Christian festival.

His sermonette was out of place and condescending. I have never felt so emotionally manipulated in my life. Moreover, it was dishonest and unjust to take kids' money and not deliver what was promised. This is the least Christian thing anyone has done to me in quite some time...."

Total LAMESAUCE, right?! And worse than the injustice to us, it was disrespectful toward the band (or anyway, the half of them that were there.) I know this because I'm a journalist. You don't ask people questions you could've looked up answers to. It's a waste of the interviewee's time and it makes you look unprepared, uninformed and unprofessional. The poor guys were bored silly. Joanna and I agreed that Drew was definitely texting under the table.



But the rest of the day was so wicked awesome that getting ripped off, driving 16 hours, and sleeping just ten across the entire weekend WAS SO FANTABULOUSLY WORTH IT!

Magical Musical Road Trip Extravaganza pt. 3

Previously on A Dustland Fairytale: The Music. The Road Trip. Now it's time for the MAGIC!

Joanna's friend Steve joined us just in time for Jon Foreman's set.



We booked it out of there as soon as he finished so we could be first in line at the merch table for the Switchfoot signing, which wasn't for at least another hour.



So we were chillin' there, and chillin' there, and finally I got a little bored and took a walk around to photograph all the preposterous Christian products being marketed.





I got back to the Switchfoot table, and Joanna and Steve were still just chillin' there. No one else had showed up for the signing yet. It was a little unnerving.



Then Steve figured out that we were waiting in the wrong spot, so we went out into the hot sun to join the queue already waiting for the signing. Boo.



I wish I had a picture of me with the guys, but cameras weren't allowed. The lyrical genius I've admired for six years, a.k.a. Jon, wasn't even there. I barely had enough time to tell Tim that I think he's one of the greatest bassists mankind has ever seen, not to mention that when you say something in that amount of time it doesn't exactly come across as sincere, but still - 4/5 of the band signed my brand new Switchfoot shirt. Magic!



A little while later I spotted Paul Colman and we went to ask him if he would come play at our school. During his set he'd said just to email him and he would play anywhere. Apparently he does his own booking, which will make getting him here loads easier even if Campus Events Council won't cooperate (which they probs won't since they suck about 94% of the time).

Joanna had gotten a free shirt from a booth that was promoting our school and she tried to give it to Paul so he'd remember us. I think the people who designed the shirt were being facetious, as it features a picture of the crappiest building on our campus, the dining hall, and boasts beneath it, "Home of the Lane Student Center!" But Paul declined on the grounds that he only wears black shirts.



Steve introduced himself and Joanna felt the need to inform Paul that her friend was weird. Paul then gave us a lecture on political correctness and convinced us to call Steve "unique" (at least while Paul was around. I abhor political correctness and continued to call Steve "weird" for the rest of the day.) Anyway, weird or unique, Steve decided his picture with Paul had better live up to his reputation. This was the result. Poor Paul never saw it coming.



Then it was my turn to be in a picture. Paul was upset with me for being too tall, so he made me crouch down a little while he stood on his tip toes. He would've had to be six and a half feet tall to actually look this much taller than me.



But after that he conceded and let me be the tall one.



Thanks for that, Paul.

And that concludes the Magic segment of the Magical Musical Road Trip Extravaganza! But things were not to remain so peachy. Tune in next time to watch a scandal unfold....

Magical Musical Road Trip Extravaganza pt. 2

Cue 6+ hour-long discussion about sex, drugs, and rock and roll (you think I'm kidding but I'm not). Many, many moments of wisdom were shared in our total sixteen hours of driving (which is more than double the number of hours we slept). We decreed that neither hot dogs nor condoms should ever be purchased at a gas station. We discussed the possibility of me being the second virgin mother in recorded history. And we found this, which simply should not exist:



It was past one when we arrived in Joanna's tiny PA hometown. Now it may have been tiny, but it owns my town in two important ways. One, it has a Wal*Mart. The fact that it's a Wal*Mart is not so exciting. The fact that it's open 24 hours a day is. Two, it's got a movie theater. A DRIVE-IN movie theater. And a stop light, which Joanna was very excited to point out. Joanna's house made me giggle because it tried to be compact in silly ways, like having really steep and tiny stairs. There was a pretty fish tank in the living room, where I slept (a grand total of ten hours across the weekend). The sofa was far more comfortable than my bed at school. I wished I could've spent more time on it.

We left for Jersey bright and early Saturday. After I told Joanna she wouldn't need to brush her teeth because it's not like we'd be eating any onions before the show, we both got breakfast sandwiches with onions in them. No making out with bands for us. JUST KIDDING, PAUL.

If you haven't laughed with me over the road signs in PA and Jersey, I strongly encourage you to take a detour to A Silvertongued Serenade. It was good times, made even better by the fact that we somehow managed not to hit any traffic until the last 500 yards from the road to the parking lot. Sweet deal.



We caught the tail end of And Then There Were None's set. I wish they'd change their name to something that takes less time to type. Anyway, they were fun and I joined what the singer called an "awesome pit" (because it was far from being a mosh pit; it was more of a ... dance pit). He also kept talking about fried Oreos that were apparently being sold nearby. Ugh. That's almost as repulsive as a gas station hot dog.

We sat in on part of Corey Crowder's set, which I had really wanted to see because I love this song by him. But most of his music had a slightly different flavor to it. Suffice to say that he was scheduled to play the Nashville Stage for a reason.



So we left to browse the merch. We returned for Paul Coleman's set and there were NO good seats left. Paul saw right through all of us who were just trying to claim good seats for Jon Foreman's set, which was coming up next, but he proved himself more than worthy of the large crowd with great music, audience participation (he pulled people up on stage and made them play instruments, even if they didn't know how), and sheer hilariosity. He made fun of everyone present, including himself, which was why we knew it was fake when he acted like a big-headed rock star. Oh, AND he had an Australian accent. I normally get annoyed when artists talk too much on stage, but I could've listened to this guy all day.



After Paul's set, Joanna's friend Steve joined us. He was one of those instantly likable people and I stole his hat to show that I approved of him. The tent filled up even more as fans kept pouring in to watch the lead singer of Switchfoot play his solo set. It was a good set and made up for the fact that he didn't play an acoustic after-show show when I saw them last week.



If anyone ever wrote a love song, it was Jon Foreman. One I had never heard was "Rob Me Instead," which was about outlaws. The chorus said "Honey, keep the gun and rob me instead." Silly, yes; sappy, maybe, but I'm a sucker for that. Then Jon pulled out this crazy harp and said, "my friend just gave me this this morning... I don't even think it's in tune, but I'm gonna play a song on it anyway." Only Jon. And only Jon could tame a brand new, untuned instrument into making beautiful music.



I can't say much more about Relient K than I have before. Oh, my first and forever love! They never get old.



But the crowd that night totally sucked. I was the ONLY one dancing. Steve and I attempted to start a mosh pit, with halfhearted assistance from Joanna since we caught her off guard, and everyone around us just got annoyed. Wtf guys. It's Relient K.



I was really happy they played "The Lining is Silver," which is my favorite off their last EP, but overall I was disappointed. I look forward to seeing them in October AND THERE HAD BETTER BE MOSHING.



Switchfoot played last, and there was more than an hour between sets but we didn't dare move. People around us were sitting on the ground to rest because they were afraid of losing their spots. I kept saying loudly MAN UP AND STAND UP, but nobody cares what I say.

The band finally came out. The show was every bit as genius as the last and more. The lighting was everything it had been indoors, but Jon was far more entertaining since there was scaffolding for him to climb and space to swing Chad's cymbals around the stage without taking out any fans.



Of course Jon had a deep quote for us. He said, "we don't know why the dry times come, but we know those are the times that force us to dig down deeper." In search of the wellspring of hope or inspiration. In search of God, who is the wellspring of those things and everything else that is good.



Then he stopped everything in the middle of "Stars" and asked the crowd to look up for a minute. There were spotlights in all directions so it was hard to see, but the stars were there and the lyrics rang true. When I look at the stars, I feel like myself.



I have some really fabulous pictures from that set, so bear with me while I share a few of my favorites. My album on Facebook is overflowing.








And that concludes the Music segment of the Magical Musical Road Trip Extravaganza! Tune in for episode 3: Magic - next time on A Dustland Fairytale!

Magical Musical Road Trip Extravaganza pt. 1

What a weekend! It's going to take more than one post to chronicle the epicness of our magical musical road trip extravaganza. So I shall begin with the road trip, and after that we'll move on to the magic and the music. Sound good? Good.

While driving through the lovely state of PA, we amused ourselves by trying to pronounce the silly names on the exit signs. Or rather, I amused both of us, as Joanna is a Pennsylvania native and already knew how to say it right. Here are a few that I couldn't resist sharing, absent some of the best because we just weren't quick enough with the camera.



We've got Fogelsville, home of the old fogeys; we've got Kutztown, which is full of puking Germans; we've got Viktorkrumsville, which I'm sure Hermione would be thrilled to visit; we've got Hell and Bethlehem sharing a stoop; we've got the home of the singing cow. Sorry about the lack of photo evidence of such gems as Lackawanna University (I imagine all the students there wake up in the morning, think about going to class, and decide they just don't wanna) and the fruity Mexican town of Avoca(do). Also missing is the utterly unpronounceable "Schuyllkill." Two syllables. Swear to god. But my favorite of all is the creative misspelling of "Wisconsin" in the center of the collage. I thought we were in PA...?

Love, Miss Rex

Detailed accounts of music, magic and madness at A Dustland Fairytale!

Music: "If anyone ever wrote a love song, it was Jon Foreman." Read more
Magic: "I barely had enough time to tell Tim that I think he's one of the greatest bassists mankind has ever seen, not to mention that when you say something in that amount of time it doesn't exactly come across as sincere..." Read more
Madness: Coming soon!

Note: the new Dustland Fairytale is a little quirky. After clicking the link, click on "Entries" and it should go right to the post you want!