[powered by orphans]

I hate my roommate

June 27, 2004 - 12am

The title about sums it up. I fucking hate my roommate, and I can’t wait to get the fuck out of his apartment.

At the moment, I’m living off the lease at his place. He wants–but does not need–a roommate to help with bills before the other guy whose name is on the lease moves in at the end of August. I need a place to live until the beginning of August, so I’m staying here.

Everything about here is temporary for me. I unpacked the bare essentials and nothing more. The walls in my room are bare and virtually all my stuff is packed into boxes. When I want something, I have to find the appropriately labeled box and rummage through it until it turns up.

My roommate, Nick, knows this. Virtually nothing I use–plates, furniture, even my bath towel–is mine. For some reason, he’s gotten extremely possessive of his new apartment, and quietly lords over me the fact that he controls shit around here. If I leave out something of mine, it’s immediately and silently put away where I have to search to find it.

This is compounded by the fact that Nick and I work very different schedules and actively avoid dealing with each other. He’s second shift, and (on the days that I work), my schedule is very random. When he’s home and awake, he barricades himself in his room. I do the same. When we have anything to say to each other, we scrawl messages on the marker board in the kitchen for the other to find.

An example:
Nick: “MARC SUCKS”
Me: “I poisoned your food, fuckhole.”

Yeah. Healthy living arrangements here.

As I was cooking myself some breakfast yesterday morning, I noticed an odd reflection on the marker board, as if someone had written something and then erased it. Looking at it from the right angle and squinting for a while, I was able to read it: “Marc you fucking douche you used all the the propane”. Apparently when I had used Nick’s grill this week, I hadn’t closed off the gas feed properly. He had written this little message for me to find, apparently thought better of it, and later erased it. I bought the bastard another $2.00 propane tank and left it for him to find on the kitchen counter. I was sorely tempted to chuck it at his head (”Here’s your goddamn propane, you asshole”), but there’s another complication to this situation.

You see, Nick is dating my cousin. Although I can’t stand Nick anymore, I love my cousin. She’s probably the closet thing I have to a little sister. It’s obvious they’re in love. From the cooing, giggling, whispering, and other sounds I’ve been unfortunate enough to overhear from Nick’s bedroom, they’re happy as newlyweds. When they’re together, they constantly have the glazed over look of lobotomy patients overdosing on a prozac/xanax cocktail. Beating the shit out of Nick, like I’d dearly love to do, would certainly remove Andrea from my life.

So for the next month, I’m going to be hiding in my room, attempting to avoid any contact with Nick and doing my best to make it seem that I don’t live here.

Top 5

June 6, 2004 - 12am

I realize my last post was quite somber, so I thought I’d try to come up with something less depressing. Not interesting, mind you, but less depressing.

Have you seen High Fidelity? No? What the hell is wrong with you? Here, you can borrow it. Just have it back sometime soon.

My Top Five All-Time Albums (in no particular order):

1. Counting Crows - August and Everything After. This was one of the first tapes I ever bought, circa 1993 or so. Amazingly, it’s still one of my all time favorites. With well written, talented instrumentals and Adam Duritz’s clear (if occasionally whiny) vocals, this is a truly soothing and relaxing album. It mixes well with the end of a long day and a drink. It’s an album that must be listened to all the way through, in order. It’s so well paced and “mooded” that flipping through can only detract from the experience.

Track four, “Perfect Blue Buildings”, could quite possibly be the most depressing song ever written.

2. The Ataris - So Long, Astoria. This is a fairly recent addition to my CD library, and I’m a little surprised that I included it. A truly great album becomes like an old friend: no many how times you’ve heard the same stories, you enjoy hearing them anyway. You’ll probably notice that most of the albums I’ve listed here are 90’s alternative. This isn’t just because I love 90’s alternative and dislike most of the generic rock that’s being churned out today. A really great album needs time to mellow in a CD case for a while. If I can pick it up year after year and enjoy it more than the first time I heard it, it’s got the staying potential to be a true favorite.

Despite this aging period I generally put my CDs through, So Long Astoria seems to have bypassed it and jumped straight into my favorites list. I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to this album since I bought it at the end of last year, but I’d guess somewhere in the twenties. It’s just that good. The lyrics are highly personal, intelligent, and really make me feel as though I have a window into the life of the writer. The backing instrumentals are driving melodic punk burning with energy. I can’t help but crank it every time I pop in this disk.

I do have one problem with this album, though… I’ve bought a couple of The Ataris earlier CDs, and they just don’t stack up to the quality of their latest offering. So Long Astoria ruined the rest of their discography for me.

3. Barenaked Ladies - Stunt. Yes, I like the Barenaked Ladies. I admit it. This album is just fun. With their pseudo-retro style (there’s at least one song that contains “ooh-la-la-la” in the chorus) and funny yet sometimes bitterly angry lyrics, this is an album I can listen to over and over again. For example, in “I’ll Be That Girl”:

If I had a gun, there’d be no tomorrow
If you will not have me as myself
Perhaps as someone else
Perhaps as you
I’ll be worth noticing

That’s right, it’s a song that deals with a guy so desperate to get a girl he wants to become her to get her to notice him. He also hates and wants to kill her.

The tone of the album varies widely from the pure fun of “Alcohol” to the somber song “Call and Answer,” but it’s another “experience” album–one that should be listened to start to finish as recorded.

4. Beck - Odelay. The musical equivalent of Seinfeld. Nothing, and I mean nothing about this album makes sense. Take these lyrics from “Devil’s Haircut:”

Love machines on the sympathy crutches
Discount orgies on the dropout buses
Hitching a ride with the bleeding noses
Coming to town with the brief case blues

Seriously, what the fuck does that mean? Anything? I think Beck has to be the laziest lyricists ever. I seriously doubt that his lyrics even make sense to him. At one point, I had a goal of doing enough drugs that Beck lyrics would actually make sense to me. (I never did it. I think I’d need rehab afterwards, assuming that it’s even possible.) I find there’s something almost hypnotic about this album. I can listen to it over and over again, not having any clue what it is that Beck is talking about, yet singing along at the top of my lungs anyway.

5. Radiohead - OK Computer. This is probably one that critics agree with me. Well, fuck critics. Very few of them actually evaluate works on their own merit, and prefer to instead compare works to obscure indie bands and long-forgotten solo works of other even more obscure artists. (Guess how much I like music critics. Go on, just guess.) I like this album because it’s creative, original, atmospheric, and genuinely interesting to listen to. Every time I hear it I discover some tiny touch that I’d missed on previous listenings.

Honorable mention:
Sugarcult - Start Static. While I love this album, I don’t know that it can stand the test of time. I’ve listened to it over and over, and I’m starting to get sick of it. Overall, though, this is a great album. Maybe if I ignore it for a few months I’ll be able to really enjoy it again.

Green Day - Dookie. This one was narrowly edged out of the top five by Beck, but it’s still a very influential album. My sister got it through the BMG Music Club, and found out she hated it. She gave it to me, and I fucking love it. It was my first punk CD, and more than that, it was the first real breakthrough punk album to become mainstream. If it hadn’t been for Green Day blazing the path for artists like Blink 182, we wouldn’t have the Warped Tour and Good Charlotte touring the country today.
Incidentally, I slashed my right pinky with a knife while attempting to whittle down a too-big-for-the-toaster-slot bagel this morning. I had to put a band-aid on it to stop the bleeding, and it’s making it difficult to type. You can attribute any typos I missed to that.

Stupid question of the day:
What’s more kick ass: robot pirates or space ninjas? Consider your answer carefully.

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