Study like a Rockstar

or at least studying while hopped on Rockstar. It is 5:49 AM. I have not gone to sleep. An essay is due tomorrow (or should I say today?) and I just got through Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant for the second time. Before I reread it, I didn't have any answers. Now that I have, I have too many answers, and I'm searching for the right one, the thesis that will give me the best grade.

I also have a German exam I haven't had time to study. Scheiße.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a really good book. It's not a style I particularly enjoy, but it has a theme of adaptation, people finding their own joy, their own happiness, their own little place where they belong. It's the kind of book you'd really want to read if it were about you. You start to notice little habits and tics you do, things you always noticed, but never really realized.

I like to think of myself as someone who is able to adapt when it's necessary. Like right now, where hectic days and hectic weeks are becoming more and more typical. I'm a lifelong procrastinator, but it seems I work best at the last minute. I'm adapting with Rockstars and reading. My head feels heavy and my arms are tired, but my brain is awake and buzzing. Now that I've made it through the night, I'm wondering how I'm going to make it through the day without falling asleep.

My Demo

My demo is now at Sub Pop Records, probably in a bin with a thousand other demos.

Exhaustion

I'm exhausted. I don't get enough sleep. Maybe I should drink more coffee, because I don't have time to sleep.

Sometimes I need that time alone to chill with my computer. I feel like a zombie if I don't get it.

Maybe I should get used to that zombie feeling of efficiency.

I try to meditate and get rid of those stupid thoughts that clog up my brain. It's really hard to just stop thinking. At least for me it is.

I was losing weight nicely, but then BAM, Chinese put me back where I started. Time to start ordering less...

I can't time manage. I've tried. I just don't have time to manage my time, it seems. Either that or I just never get around to it. Like cleaning my room. My room is a total wreck right now, but I never feel like cleaning it. And it's not like I don't like having a clean room, it's just that the results of having a clean room never seem to be worth the work it takes to keep it there. Damn.

New steps forward towards stardom

yesterday, I sent a demo with "My Own Little Sun", "Smile, Feral Child" and "Faces of Death" to Sub Pop Records in Seattle. I just wanna see what happens.

Today is Tuesday, and my meeting with Alejandro is tomorrow, so I have to work on my comp stuff. It's so tedious. I'm really not a fan of Finale or, to be honest, music editors in general. They tend to fuck your music up while it's sitting in its file. I call it the "Finale Monster" and it's just one of the things I hate about my life right now.

I'm trying to keep my weight down. I've been eating less and stuff. The hardest part is keeping it off for a long period and not backing down.

This blog will be music only

I will make a separate sports blog in a little bit.

SHIT!

Fuck!

Jeremy Shockey's out for 3-6 with a sports hernia.  Just when he and Drew Brees were starting to build chemistry.  Fuck!

We can still beat the 49ers, though.  I hope.

The good news is, Reggie Bust is now Reggie Beast.  Hooray for improvement!

NFL- who's living up to the hype now?

Expected breakout stars that are living up to the hype:

WR Calvin Johnson- Lions

Johnson had two consecutive 100-yard games to begin the season, and he's arguably the best player on Detroit's pathetic offense.

RB Reggie Bush- Saints

Has Reggie finally arrived?  Reggie has over 400 yards of total offense in his first three games, and that doesn't include yards from punt returns.  For the first time in his career, he has scored a touchdown in three consecutive games, including 2 touchdowns against the Broncos.  Last year, Reggie only managed 6 total touchdowns.  In only three games so far, he already has 4.

QB Jay Cutler- Broncos

The "Next Great Superstar QB" has been, um, the next great superstar QB.  Cutler trails only Drew Brees in total passing yards, and he also has 8 touchdowns and just 2 interceptions.  Vince Young and Matt Leinart?  Suck it.  Great QB's come from Vanderbilt.

Disappointments

QB Peyton Manning- Colts

Peyton looks rusty rusty rusty, and the Colts are 0-1.  So far, Eli has been the better Manning.

WR Chad Johnson/ Ocho Cinco- Bengals

He has been a ghost on the field.  If you do a gimmick like that, you better have a wicked season, and so far, Chad hasn't been there.

QB Derek Anderson- Browns

The fans' chants for Brady Quinn now seem warranted.

QB David Garrard- Jaguars

He has not lived up to his huge contract.

QB Carson Palmer- Bengals

The Bungles are 0-3, and Carson Palmer's been way off the mark.  His performance yesterday against the Giants was much better, but he has a ways to go to right the sinking ship.

What a huge win!

Jarrett Lee,

Thank you.  You are the man.  You stepped up your game when it mattered.

At halftime, it was Auburn 14 LSU 3.  And then it was LSU 26 Auburn 21.  This is also the first time LSU has won at Auburn since 1998.  The trend of the home team winning in the LSU-Auburn series which started in 2000 is broken.  And LSU snapped it first.

Brandon LaFell is one of college football's best receivers.  Last year, LaFell had bizarre turnover against Auburn that had him benched.  This time, LaFell has the game-winning touchdown.  He's also a complete football player.  When the play didn't call for him to catch, LaFell made plays by blocking.

LSU's biggest question mark, quarterback, has been answered.  If Jarrett can play like he did in the second half, LSU is a title contender.  He is not as mobile as Hatch, but he gets the ball to the wide receivers and he stretches the defense, which in turn makes room for Charles Scott.

Scott, who looks like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, ran for 132 yards.  Beastly.

The defense made plays.  Chris Hawkins had two interceptions.  There were sacks a-plenty.

You know, there's a quarterback in Gainesville who still doesn't have a fourth-quarter comeback.

LSU Football

1.  QB inconsistency is a concern.  Neither Hatch nor Lee looked comfortable in the offense.  LSU really could have used that game against Troy, but oh well.  Jordan Jefferson didn't exactly light it up either.

2.  You're a bad man, Charlie Scott.  Charles Scott continues to be awesome.

3.  Auburn's offense has no spark.  Seriously.  What kind of football game ends 3 to 2?  Yuck!

Chad Ocho Cinco

The batshit-crazy Chad Johnson is no more.

The batshit-crazy Chad Ocho Cinco has arrived.  I love the NFL.

Chad Ocho Cinco is what the NFL needs- a talented uber-eccentric.  His interviews are never boring, and the more I learn about him, the more interesting he becomes.  His obsession with "Talladega Nights" and his Lynyrd Skynyrd ringtone.  Oh yeah, and his new last name.

Johnsons are a dime a dozen.  I have Johnson blood in me, but there are so many Johnson's, I probably won't miss him, even though we are no doubt related somehow.

Ocho Cincos are much rarer.  In fact, I think there's only one.

Brian Wilson- That Lucky Old Sun

Brian Wilson has something left in the tank.

25 years ago, Wilson was a crazy fat drug addict nobody thought would ever speak a coherent sentence again.  Call the long-long-long-long-awaited release of Smile the final rehab project.  Brian is making new music again- good new music.  That Lucky Old Sun has moments of Wilsonian brilliance.  It is nowhere near the sustained quality of SMiLE or Pet Sounds, but please excuse Brian Wilson for this album's surprisingly few faults.  Even forgetting what he's been through, Wilson is 66.  Add in all the history, and this album is a miracle.  It's also pretty good.

The album's premise is really corny.  It's a tribute to Wilson's native Southern California.  I could have lived without the narratives that split the music, but aside from the one where Wilson tries to use Spanish, they're not as bad as you would imagine.  The album's worst moments have to be when Wilson and the Wondermints try to rock.  They're just too clean and polished to pull off a 3-chord rocker like "Morning Beat", but even that song has a really cool motive at the beginning of the track.  Wilson is too old to sing something like "Mexican Girl".  That one could have been given to one of the younger singers.  "California Role" sounds like the Beatles' "Honey Pie" in the wrong hands.  "Oxygen to the Brain", Brian's admission to his past drug use, sounds too much like a bad SMiLE outtake.

But then there are some real gems.  "Good Kind Of Love" is the kind of whimsical pop-tune that reminds me that there is something left in the tank.  "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl" is clearly self-referential, but it's good enough to work.  "Live Let Live" is 70's Beach Boys done right.  I absolutely loved hearing the opening of the brilliant outtake "Can't Wait Too Long" rerecorded.  It sounds exactly like the original, but better.  I wish they did the whole thing.  "Midnight's Another Day" is a beautiful ballad.  It's a little bit overdone, but it is very effective, and it fits Wilson's range.  "Going Home" sounds like a lost corn-rocker from Love You, but it works.  Love that harmonica.  The closing ballad "Southern California" is really effective, and it ends the album on a good note.  So yeah, good album.

At first, after I switched to BA Music from Music Comp, I was excited that I only had to take one more year of comp.

Now I'm thinking "oh dear God.  Not another year of comp."

Quite literally, I'm only doing it for the scholarship money.

Mom says "James, you can be the guy that makes Classical music popular again."  My response: "why in the hell would I want to do that?"

You know, I don't think "Gee willikers, I love Mozart!"  I think he was a cool guy, but I have never felt compelled to listen to him.  There will never be another Mozart.

I actually like Beethoven's music, but he's dead too.  There will never be another Beethoven.

Nobody's listening to modern classical music, and why should they?  Most of it sucks ass.  There are film composers, but nowadays, with music production getting cheaper and cheaper, it's becoming easier to score films and video games, and there's less demand and less money.

Zappa once said "Jazz is not dead.  It just smells funny" and I have to say the same thing about Classical music.  Beethoven will always be fresh, but all there is now is revivalism and tuneless academic/scientific noisemaking.

I am not saying that classical music should be ignored, but in the academic world, it is everything you study.  You follow their rules, and that's what you do.  There's now jazz studies here at LSU, but there they put the same sort of rules in there too.  I'm not really sure if music-writing is something that can be taught, and it certainly isn't something that can be governed either.  Besides, almost all music-comp guys eventually become either a. unemployed at 35, b.  stuck at college, working on their doctorals, or c.  becoming music students themselves.

One thing I have learned is I've got to please myself with my music.  You can't aim to please the crowd, because the crowd always changes, and eventually, you'll get abandoned and you never made anything you really wanted to make.

Here are a few reasons why I don't want to do comp anymore:

1.  I'm not interested in classical music.

2.  I don't want to be known as a composer.  It's such a disgusting term.  People should only be referred to as composers if they're dead.

3.  I don't want to make anything good, because if I make something good, then everyone will want more.  I don't want to be good at something I don't want to.

Seriously, if I was the world's best toilet cleaner, everyone would want me to be a janitor.