surviving t-fest

Yo! I fucking made it out alive, the good lord knows how. Friday's edition of Total Fest was slightly obscured by the 'heavy metal parking lot' scene, sparked off by my friends and I. Basically, I only saw three or four bands and was too wasted to make any kidn of sense of what was going on. Saw: Volumen, Oblio Joes, Japanther, some other bands whose names escape me. Totally out of fucking hand.

Saturday was more focused, slightly more sober, but missing that mysterious sensation of spinning out of control. My photos, however, ended up being way fucking better and we hit the afterparty so things were a little more high-end-ish. I finally got to see former Missoulians No-Fi Soul Rebellion, after seeing them never. My friend Lucas used to be the stunt member of the band, so I felt an urge to dislike them from the get-go, but Mark was too fucking hot and could not be hated upon, in spite of our yelling out Lucas' name inbetween pretty much every song. I also saw The Lights (again) and was randomly disappointed (again). Play something from your fucking hot album forchrissakes!!!

I smoked weed with some random insane man who used to distribute the latter-day classic known only as Wild Animus. I met some kids from Idaho who become my Total Fest bros (Totalfestiny!), which was sweet. Brad, if you're reading this, I totally fucking lost your email the second after you gave it to me.

I'm skipping today's edition of culture snack, but people not watching the new fucking season of Six Feet Under should get ON it, because that shit is heartstoppingly brilliant. I've got a date with some cheap sushi, so I must adios.

let's pretend we don't exist...

Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. But I'm getting ahead of myself via jumping directly into the almost invasively catchy lyrics of this edition's Culture Snack, Of Montreal. Are they of Montreal? I haven't really made the effort to solve that mystery.

Things were going great for a while there, kids. I had made a temporary peace with my unemployment, certain that my dream job (pay) at the local shit-sandwich, The Missoulian, would come into my life. Around the solstice, I was staying up til four or five every night. I was making exciting new friends, having adventures and even fixing my gaze on a new lad who, as destiny will surely have it, somehow cannot like me.

But the Missoulian just sent me a rejection, not even giving enough of a crap about my blatant and numerous qualifications to grant me a goddamn interview!!! I mean, this isn't fucking Silicon Valley, how many people can there seriously be in this town with more publication design experience than myself?!

Whatevs. Trying to get past it via furious bonghits.

Luckily, I have an excuse to get wasted tonight: it's name is TOTAL FEST. I'm thinking...case of sparks on ice, beckoning one and all closer and closer towards the teetering brink of liverdeath and sparksburn! Between tonight and tomorrow there will be about 40 fucking crazy bands invading Missoula. YE GODS! I'm pretty fucking excited, and if I lived with a more values-disoriented house, we would surely be working to host some crazyass musicians. But we're not letting that happen, obviously.

Anyway, it will be fucking awesome to see my friend Jigga again and have another verbally Kurt-kiboshable voice in the house (suck it!). Trouble is inevitable.

OK, on with the snacks.

Culture Snack, 6.24.05
Of Montreal, Sunlandic Twins
Okay, what's great about this album, besides fucking everything, is the perfect juxtaposition of ridiculously brilliant lyric writing (a la, 'Let's pretend we don't exist...let's pretend we're in Antarctica, boredome strangles life from the printed page, don't let me be your pretty abject failure, etc.) and an unbelievable psychadelic pop beat that's like a delicious milkshake of Canadian indie-pop influences (like New Pornographers and The Unicorns). Basically, it kicks fucking ass. The album art is gorgeous, and I mananged to pick up a copy of the album with a bonus EP for a mere $10, so it may be priced to sell near you! My friend Travis and I have bridged our semi-idelogical clash in musical taste to gush over this album together. Fucking check it out, but telling 'em I sent you will land you headlong into nowhere. Peace.

lazy bloggers speak out!

I am of course using the 'solidarity plural,' a device used to minimize any kind of responsibility and/or explanation for the excessive not-post-ery up in this piece.

Suffice to say, not having any jobs, moneys or general bringers-of-purpose-to-life is a BITCH. And I'm having this weird pathelogical aversion to climbing out of this hole-of-the-soul. Not that I COULD actually climb into a job. I see what people mean when they say pessimism is dangerous.

Perhaps that is why I got so drunk last night. Apparently, Wednesday night is the new official night to get drunk for no reason in my world. I went over to my b-loved Travis and Minnie's home for the beefy face-fucking I'd been secretly longing for. Obviously, I had to toast the savage beauty of these gouda-bacon-horseradish burgers with a bottle of wine. Obviously. And I ran into my old pal Lesbian Dreamgirl (she is a lesbian and my dreamgirl, though I'm sure the name works to describe how anyone would feel about this girl), who was having drinks at the Depot with some of her local friends. But showing up an hour-plus late and already drunk proved to be a slightly disasterous formula. So I drank a cocktail, talked with a fellow who kind of freaks me out, then checked out semi-dramatically, rocking my new 'leaving without saying anything because I am embarassed and don't want to deal with potentially false sentimentality.'

It works.

Speak of new things, I want to start concluding every entry with something called 'Culture Snack' which is just going to be my wee forum to tell yall about something I think is really awesome in the hope of passing it on to ye. It's my way of saying, 'Hey, skip all that self-obsessed bullshit - here's something that you may actually give a shit about.'

This edition of Culture Snack celebrates...
Tom Spanbauer. Which is cheating, but I just invented this feature. I read his In the City of Shy Hunters, a few months ago and I just finished The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon about two or three weeks ago. Here's why Tom is such an amazing writer:
1.) He is able to characterize people beautifully, accurately, hilariously and with a richness that so many writers - especially modern gay writers - cannot even touch. Whether they are prostitutes, performance artists, cowboys or waiters, he creates a legion of heartbreaking, unforgettable heroes. They make mistakes but they are all the more human for it.
2.) He reinvents the traditional love story - his characters develop strong friendships, which becomes a sort of cross between familial and sexual love - fascinating way to capture the human experience while defying cliche.
3.) He is equally comfortable with rural Idaho and the heart of New York City as settings.
4.) He is the first writer to make me want to get a commemorative tat
5.) Brilliant word-games of lines that make you want to murmur them to yourself while reading - a la, "Looking for who I was was who I was."
6.) The strange little morsels of knowledge and ideas implanted throughout his novels.

Anyway, that concludes our initial foray into the thrilling world of culture snack. Stay tuned. Or don't. Fuck you! I don't need your approval!

report on austin

Summarized as follows:
-Saying anything like: 'Crystals are so stupid!' 'What time is it?' and the despair rattled 'Burrito...FUCK!'
-I am now a /model - I just need something to put in front of the /. Three of my friends and I were in this weird, professional photo shoot thing where we had to get hosed down, etc. Hot shots coming soon...
-getting hot
-getting high
-getting wet
-getting drunk
-The inception of the word 'slampig'
-iced coffee at the same place with the same dreamy baristo every morning...
-The outrage that is Sparks Lite must be suppressed at all cost - sup not on its utter nastiness, I warn you one and all
-perpetual bugs
-at least two people in every bed at the manse of Glassy Heel (my friends' 'band')
-playing pingpong on a fucked up, waterlogged table that sloped ridiculously, leading the 'Thai prison rules' version of ping pong, where you just play off anything and keep on playing and hope that your partner forgets about that gram of tar in your rectum. I mean...
-The Kings of Leon's new album being played constantly and eblematically
-taking on of new pseudonyms - Bellagio and Dario Argento (seemingly indistinguishable from one another)
-watching of the evil that is Bum Fights
-playing with the fake cat (Mr. Boceifus) by creepily posing him in hiding places all over the house, including numerous fake-kitty suicide attempts
-The 'behind the scenes' film I made about our weird photo shoot - hilarious only to me and people who were there, dumb shit to the rest of the world
-anime porn

Basically, yes, I am still planning on moving there. The new goal is to be back in Austin in time for Austin City Limits Festival thingy. The amount of activity and personality and creativity and fun in this town fucking blew me away, so go to it I must. In the mean time, I look forward to experiencing Missoula and trying to get an actual job. I am finally moved into my room and into an actual semblance of being grounded for a few fleeting moments. I think staying busy(ish) and stimulated will be the keys to milking all the richness from this summer. Milk it I will, baby.