Thursday, June 29, 2006

Founders might be hot, but there is no shit to clean out of a pool.

Okay. I have a great story for you.

You guys know Mikey, right? Opera Mike? Michael Hugh Blocksidge, one of my roommates, from Rocky River, Ohio. He's a music and business major. Every summer, he goes back to Rocky River and works at a day camp for children with special needs, like Marcos and Hoffy did that one summer.

He used to work with the kid Maris who had a big swollen hand and would chase other kids around and shout "It's contagious! It's contagious!!" and I loved Mikey's impression of that.

Well, Maris graduated, but Mikey says there's a kid to take his place. I forget his name, but he has Williams syndrome, which Mikey says is like autism. Mental retardation, all that stuff.

Mikey tells me the kid was in the pool, and decided to poop. Then pick it up and throw it around. Then get all pissed off and splash it around.

So Mikey had to put a stop to that. Lots of handling of poop there. But that's not the best part (BELIEVE IT OR NOT!).

Mikey tells me about this, and sends me the link to the Wikipedia article about Williams syndrome, so I have an idea what he's talking about. And I read "unusually cheerful demeanor" as one of the traits of people with Williams syndrome, so I say, at least he has a cheerful demeanor. And if only I had kept the AIM conversation Mikey and I had, I could put his actual words. But it was something like
goatzilla14:FUCKING LIE
goatzilla14:that is so not true
And I tell him, edit Wikipedia then. And he says, "hang on...i'm going to create an account."
The next thing he sends me is a message that says something like "A Wikipedia bot has flagged your entry for inappropriate language." And he says, hang on, I have another idea.

Then he sends me the whole Williams article again. Read the first line under "Symptoms" in the article now. I just about died laughing.

If you didn't follow, Mikey added "with frequent swings into an unfathomable rage" after "cheerful demeanor." I like to think about Mikey cowering in fear in front of a raging elf-like eight-year-old.

I love to think about it, in fact.

Okay that's all for today.

Love,

Steve

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Life in Dayton: worthwhile?

Yesterday I had my first tutoring session with the STEP English students. It should have been only half the group, eight or nine students, but it was actually all of them, 17. The reason is, they didn't come to the tutorial Monday because of a mistaken e-mail from the professor. So they all came yesterday. Catchai?

And it went pretty well. Beforehand I was paranoid that I wouldn't have enough material to fill 75 minutes, but I wound up doing that easily. In fact, I didn't get to everything I thought I would. Oh well.

We went over MLA style, thrilling as it is, and I gave them one of my papers as an example.

Then I had this idea that I would play them a song and they would correct the grammar in the lyrics. I thought it was a pretty typical Steve Weishampel assignment. So I brought in "Cattle and the Creeping Things" by The Hold Steady. Allow me to present the lyrics to you.


The Hold Steady – “Cattle and the Creeping Things”

They got to the part with the cattle and the creeping things.
They said, “I'm pretty sure we've heard this one before.
Don't it all end up in some revelation with four guys on horses, and violent red visions; famine and death and pestilence and war?
I'm pretty sure I heard this one before.”
You in the corner with a good-looking drifter.
Two cups of coffee and ten packs of sugar.
I heard Gideon saw you in Denver.
He said you're contagious.
Silly rabbit. Tripping is for teenagers. Murder is for murderers. And hard drugs are for bartenders. I think I might have mentioned that before.

He's got the pages in his pockets that he ripped out of the Bible from his bedstand in the motel.
He likes the part where the traders get chased out from the temple.

I guess I heard about original sin.
I heard the dudes blamed the chick.
I heard the chick blamed the snake.
And I heard they were naked when they got busted.
And I heard things ain't been the same since.
You on the streets with a tendency to preach to the choir.
Wired for sound and down with whatever.
I heard Gideon did you in Denver.


She's got a cross around her neck that she ripped off from a schoolgirl in the subway on a visit to the city.
She likes how it looks on her chest with three open buttons.
She likes the part where one brother kills the other.
She has to wonder if the world ever will recover. Because Cain and Abel seem to still be causing trouble.

She said, “I was seeing double for three straight days after I got born again.
It felt strange but it was nice and peaceful and it really pleased me to be around so many people.
Of course, half of them were visions but half of them were friends from going through the program with me.
Later on we did some sexy things. Took a couple photographs and carved them into wood reliefs.
But that's enough about me. Come on, tell me how you got down here into Ybor City.”

He said, “I got to the part about the Exodus. And up to then I only knew it was a movement of the people.
But if small-town cops are like swarms of flies and blackened foil is like boils and hail, I'm pretty sure I’ve been through this before.”

It seemed like a simple place to score.
Then some old lady came to the door and said, “McKenzie Phillips doesn't live here anymore.”


Of course, we listened to the song first. I think they didn't exactly love it. I plan on bringing a more pop rock song next time, I guess. But then one kid asked if he could borrow the CD after the class, so that's nice.

As a side note, I fucking absolutely love when he sings "If small-town cops are like swarms of flies and blackened foil is like boils and hail." It just sounds really awesome, with the keyboard part. I'm sure you don't know what I mean.

Next time I think I'm going to ask them to write a reaction to the song, though. It's easier to find a song to ask people to react to rather than a song to correct grammar. Lots of songs are beyond help.

Anyway it went well. The rest of the week I have one-on-one tutoring, which I'm better at. Then theater people are coming to visit Dayton for a while. Exciting shit.

Which is a nice change. Generally this past week in Dayton can be characterized by lots of sitting around in near-uncomfortable warmth, wondering what to do.

Today I don't have to go to class, so I'm meeting Val for lunch. Then sitting around. Then the one-on-one tutoring. Then maybe meeting Beard for dinner if I can reach him. Then cleaning and going shopping.

WHAT A LIFE.

Love,

Steve

Monday, June 26, 2006

STEP: good students, terrible management.

Man, the first day of STEP could have maybe gone worse. If wolves had eaten several students, or maybe if even bigger, meaner wolves had eaten more than several students.

As it was, though, it didn't go great.

I was pretty nervous about running a tutorial session with eight of the students, which was to take place at 6:30 this evening. I had no idea what I would do for an hour and fifteen minutes, or whether the kids would listen to me, or whether I really felt like talking about English rules for that long.

Fortunately, I didn't have to. The professor accidentally sent my class an email saying the tutorial was at 4:30 rather than 6:30, causing many to miss it. I wound up teaching MLA format to the Puerto Rican student. I got to speak Spanish a little.

So they're all coming tomorrow evening, rather than half the class today and half tomorrow. So that's fine. I just need to make a syllabus and come up with some kind of plan. I guess.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Love,

Steve

Sunday, June 25, 2006

HOLD STEADY!

Tomorrow is the first day of classes for STEP, the "transition" program for students that will probably get into UD but need to pass two classes to prove that they're ready for college. At least, that's a very brief summary of the idea.

They all take English, then either philosophy, religion or history. Eric Eble and I are the English tutors and Zac Stinetorf is the philosophy tutor. Then there's Anna for history and Kat for religious studies. The students seem pretty good, I'd say. Most are ready to work and don't seem too upset about going to school during the summer.

So here's the story today: I got The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, which is the first album from The Hold Steady, about five months ago from Tony. It's pretty ridiculous.

The vocals are definitely the first thing you notice. Craig Finn doesn't bother singing--he just sort of barks out his lyrics, which focus completely on the stories of his friends and his own story. Usually these are riddled with drug use and regret in its various forms. I can't do justice to his lyrics with one example, but I do especially like "Tights and skirts, baby, skirts and tights. We used to shake it up in Shaker Heights," since Shaker Heights is up near Cleveland. The amazing thing is that the lyrics fit together, both within songs and between songs. All of the album fits together to create a sort of picture of his recent history, which he explains in this way: "Some nights we got so high that Michigan looked just like a mitten. Some nights we got fried." Not a message for the young and impressionable, maybe, but very fascinating, I think. Also, this wouldn't be a complete description of the singing of Craig Finn without a mention of his absolute disrespect for rhymes and equal line lengths.

Here's a way to explain the lyrics of The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me:

PERSONS OF THE PLAY
Craig Finn: a deep-voiced drug user, member of the Cityscape Skins (whatever they are)
Halleluiah/"Holly": drug user and apparent prostitute
Ellen Foley: possibly also a prostitute in the harbor bars
Charlemagne: Finn's friend and maybe dealer, probably deceased
Gideon: Finn's friend, member of the Cityscape Skins, now works in Michigan
Others: drug users, indie kids, bar crowds, bartenders, kids on the corner.

LOCATIONS
Ybor City, Florida
St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota
Hostile, Massachusetts
Lowertown
East Coast
West Coast
The Middle West
Bay City, Michigan
Virginia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pensacola, Florida

Somewhere behind Finn's mumbling is the music, which is really very good--a sort of alternative hard-hitting rolling sound. They throw in a saxophone in my favorite, "Hostile, Massachusetts," and an organ or keyboard appears in a few others. Generally, though, the band just rips through four-minute rock songs and provides a sort of backdrop for the drama of Ybor City, the Twin Cities of Minnesota, and mysterious Lowertown.

Anyway, I loved the album, and I soon discovered that The Hold Steady had produced a second, Separation Sunday. On their website only one track was available, so I downloaded it and pronounced it acceptable. A little repetitive, maybe, compared to the chorus-less "Swish" on Almost Killed Me, but definitely good.



Lyrically, Finn is much more focused on Separation Sunday. As far as I can tell, it's the story of Halleluiah/Holly, his friend? girlfriend? acquaintance? lover? sister? whatever. The album opens with Finn meeting Holly ("She said always remember / Never to trust me. She said that the first night that she met me.") and continues through Holly's fall into drugs and eventual rise through religion to a resurrection (the final track is "How a Resurrection Really Feels"). Mixed in are a few other characters and situations, as the lyrics again refer to other songs, both on this album and the previous one.

So:

PERSONS OF THE PLAY
Halleluiah/"Holly": a prostitute in Minnesota who lost her faith, struggled with drug addiction, and eventually left parties for religion
Craig Finn: still deep-voiced, he doesn't seem to love Holly but probably respects her
Charlemagne: definitely a drug dealer, apparently dead from a cocaine overdose
Your Little Hoodrat Friend: possibly Holly; Finn is emphatic that his relationship with this person is platonic
Stevie Nix: the singer of Fleetwood Mac gets a song title all her own, except she is not mentioned in the song
Gideon: apparently had sex with Holly in Denver

LOCATIONS
the banks of the Mississippi River
Penetration Park
Upper Midwest
Ybor City, Florida
St. Paul, Minnesota
confessionals
Denver, Colorado
Chicago, Illinois
New York City

I think I would give the edge to The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me in terms of lyrics, but just by a bit. At times Separation Sunday is a little forced, I think, because he tries to tell a more coherent story. They're still way, way better than anything anyone will ever sing in Top 40 songs. Hahahaha, I just made myself think of someone doing a Hold Steady song on American Idol. "If you don't get born again, at least you'll get high as hell!" on FOX. I would love that person forever.

The music, though, is notably different. This album is more blues-based, with distinctive guitar riffs and a lot, lot more keyboard. Usually "bluesy" would be a death sentence from me, but it works very well, especially in the second track, "Cattle and the Creeping Things." The whole album has a coherence and arc that I think works better than the lyrics. I wish for more bass (as the name of the blog indicates, bass is the most important instrument in rock, followed by drums and guitar. Vocals are optional and thus not included.), but it's still really good. See the strangely addictive "Charlemagne in Sweatpants" for an example of blues-influenced rock with good bass.

I'm trying to keep this one short, so I'll leave you with this:

Advantages: very solid rock songs; good use of organ/keyboard; fascinating lyrics--good enough that I sometimes read them without listening to the music; extremely catchy at times; anyone can sing along, if they get atonal and crazy-sounding enough.

Disadvantages: some people will hate Craig Finn's voice, and it's a big part of The Hold Steady; can very occasionally get repetitive, lyrically and musically; songs are not cheerful and treat some subjects, like religion and drug addiction, rather roughly.

Grade: B+. It could do just a little better sometimes, with its occasional slow out-of-place song ("Don't Let Me Explode," despite its awesome title, comes to mind). Overall, it just rocks.

The Hold Steady website

The Hold Steady lyrics page

Buy Separation Sunday on Amazon.com

That's today's story. Listen to The Hold Steady.

Love,

Steve

Friday, June 23, 2006

Goodbye, Chile. Hello, hot as hell.

I'm not going to try to summarize Santiago. Sorry. I can tell you I improved my Spanish, and it helped convince me that I should maybe live outside the U.S. I think. Who fucking knows. Anyway it was awesome and I wish I could go again.

When I got home Joe surprised me by showing up. Boy's finally got a job in Chicago. It was cool to see him for about one day. Tuesday I came in, Thursday I left. Thanks, world.

Now I'm in Dayton for about six weeks, tutoring for STEP. That's Summer Transition Enrollment Program, the students who can get into UD if they pass two classes during the summer. I don't have a great idea what to expect, but it should be pretty good. Good summer job, especially considering the Santiago trip limited my time to earn money this summer.

What am I obsessed with lately? Good question. Separation Sunday, the second album from The Hold Steady. I'm predicting a review soon. It's just really good, even though he does not once say "Hold steady!"

I think that's all for now. I might have some other things to put up in the near future, but the first thing to do is buy a mouse. I'm not dealing with this touchpad shit.

I'm not sure I can deal with this Founders Hall during the summer shit either, but I don't see any other options.

More, better, posting tomorrow. For now, enjoy the regret index courtesy of Qwantz.com.

Love,

Steve