Five Down.

Fifth and last goodbye:
NAME: Adri Mehra
ASPIRATION: Move to Uptown where da ladies at. To have a change of scenery. To continue performing in music related endeavors with Patch, Sharp Teeth, Nikki Schultz, yet call Uptown homebase. Northeast seems to be a little off the beaten path when it comes to the "scene". I feel it. It's more of a neighborhood feel, a place to settle down. Adri's doing what I should be doing. Getting in the middle of the hustle and bustle before the bustle moves on without him.
BEST MEMORY: Adri was my gateway into the Brotherhood. It all started through him. He and I met while at the University. I had seen him around, talked with him here and there. It wasn't until we were in a play together, "The Laramie Project", when it all came together. We talked music, clothes, girls. He was my other, my brotha from anotha motha, to the point where we were inseparable. He and I would show up to parties together all the time, people thought we were gay lovers.

The entire run of "Laramie" would have to take the cake, though, for the overall best experience with Adri. The play is somewhat of a downer, considering it's all about a homosexual boy who's beaten and tied to a fence and left for dead. Despite this, Adri and I could never stop laughing. Not at the subject matter, mind you. But backstage we'd constantly be doing things we weren't supposed to do. Whispering and laughing hysterically to the point where we could be heard out in the audience.

One night we had to be off book, meaning we had to know our lines through and through without calling "LINE?!" to the directors. The entire cast was competent in this. We knew our shit. We started to have a run-through, everything was going tip top. Adri's first cue came about. The spotlight was on him. Everyone was silent. Drama was at the extreme. He stood there. Strong, competent. He cleared his throat.

And in total character: "LINE?!"

I fucking lost it. The entire cast did. We were rolling around on the floor laughing.

Adri was scolded, he learned his lines. Through and through. At the dress rehearsal, he was on fire. He was getting laughs galore from the faculty audience. The hardest monologues were seared into place. Then came his easiest role (in "Laramie" each cast member plays about five or six characters).

The Bailiff.

His only line: "All rise."

He gets out onstage. Again, the dramatic pause. We're all choking ourselves up for the big courtroom scene. Tears in our eyes.

In front of an actual audience:

"LINE?!"

I fell off my bench I was laughing so hard.

From then on, Adri and I always shared a private joke. If you screwed up, tripped, made a dufus of yourself, you pulled a "bailiff".

Queen -- "Dragon Attack"

A Man's Call of Duty

Ye olde debate: the toilet seat. Up or down?

The heat is on at work as new men gain employment at the Southeast school. The one adult bathroom has now been impeded by heartless souls who leave the seat up, leaving pee driplets for all to see on the rim.

Nevermind the fact that it's the RIM OF A TOILET. You ever going to sit on that? No? Just . . . you just don't want to look at it, right? Three drops of yellow? O-okay, just clarifying, crossing t's and dotting i's, is all.

What's the cleanest part of the toilet? Sure as hell ain't the rim, amirite? The seat. Yeah, the seat's the cleanest. Ass cheeks don't really pick up too much in terms of germs, I could be wrong, though. So, we're all making a fit about reaching down and bringing a basically germless piece of porcelain onto the rim of the toilet.

Here's the thing. I have it ingrained within my skull to put the toilet seat down at all times. Growing up, I had a dog who had an obsessive pension to drink toilet water in obscene amounts to the point of pukage. So yeah, we always put the seat down to save ourselves a cleanup. Now I persist on putting the seat down by habit, only slightly aware of my honorable duty to help my fellow females out.

Here's the thing: it's not that we leave the seat up on purpose. It's because we forget. We couldn't give a shit either way. We reach down and put the seat up all the time. We look at the pubic hair ridden rim as we let 'er rip. We put the seat down . . . usually, as we flush.

There's always that one time, though. You forget. Whoops.

It's not our fault the rim is usually our making. It's not our fault we have to put the seat up and down. We're trying to get by with what we have. We look at the rim every day, doesn't bother us. Most of us have the courtesy to put the seat down for y'all.

There is the man who constantly persists on leaving the seat up. Personally, I hope to sometimes go into the bathroom right after and find that GASP! I don't have to reach down and put the seat up! I win! A little stress off my day! Even when I go in on these post-forgetful sessions to take a full out dump, I don't mind if I have to put the seat down.

For women, you don't need to concern yourselves with the seat. As far as you're concerned, the pubic hair rim doesn't exist. Bathroom ignorance. Alright. Don't you think a visual reminder is always healthy? Like taking a shower before you go swimming, it prepares you for when you have to clean the rim at your house. It exists, you can't hide from it forever.

Think of it as a service to you. Our petty forgetfulness and unfortunate tuneout of chivalry could be your pre-pool shower for when cleaning day is right around the corner, and it's your turn to clean the commode.

In other words: lighten up.

Florence and the Machine -- "Dog Days Are Over"

A Starting Point Glimpse

By candlelight I sit. Operatic drama does not blast out of my Victrola. My own music does. That, or moody acoustic music made to put me in a somber mood. A state of moody decision making. Relationship woes. Song ideas. Strange anecdotes to share. Stories for the purpose of prose or songs.

The place I visit . . .

. . . a culmination of four different projects, seeming at first to have no connection, but inevitably my brain ties it all together into one vast story and world. This is not a happy place, per say. It's a responsibility. It's a nuisance. It's exciting. Pleasurable. Nauseating.

The artist's landscape is one akin to love. Love is a feeling where you want to cry but can't exactly bring tears to stream out of your eyes. My art taps into that same feeling. It's hokey to say Art is Love. It's not. Art is Shit. It means nothing to you. You don't feel my love.

You just hear me say I love you. And you make up the rest for yourself.

Fever Ray -- "If I Had a Heart"

The Wind Storm

A foreboding cloud loomed greedily up ahead. Ten miles away from my current position. I drove, watching it carefully. Suddenly, my car swerved violently in the wind, as I was on a bridge. Emitting "Whoa" such as a cowboy would with their bucking horse, I gained control of the wheel ever so slightly.

As I neared my next destination, I recognized another car, much smaller, prevailing against the hard blowing wind. My car was larger, wider, and should have been more stable. Riding behind them, I noticed they were laughing inside. There was no wind.

As we drove along, I noticed that they were going to the same place I was. I parked nearby, catching a glimpse of the knowing aura surrounding the car. I spied two people I knew getting out. They were laughing, walking cutely, braving the weather in coats and leggings. I stepped up to say hi . . .

. . . as I left the store, the clouds had blown past, leaving behind the evidence of a short, yet violent rainfall. I missed it. In a fit of giggles, persisting to cling onto my psyche from the hearty conversation I had had with my friends, I traveled to the top of a nearby hill to take in the new sunshine over the city.

I realized the wind had died down. Inside and outside.

Lou Barlow -- "Gravitate"

Exploring Past the Tip of the Iceberg

Call me blind and stupid . . . but I never knew about this place:

The Tea Garden
http://www.teagardeninc.com/

Might just be my new favorite date spot. From hot tea to tea shakes to tea chillers, it's like Bubba describing all the different kinds of tea in the world whilst cleaning the barracks floor with a toothbrush.

Picture this with tea:


Beck -- "Venus in Furs (Velvet Underground)"

An Affair with Sony Animation

As stated earlier this year, I'm a huge Pixar fan (sadly, my countdown of YouTube videos have been removed due to copyright infringement . . . that took a long time to collect). I tend to shun other animation studios' work. "Shrek" relied on pop culture musings and jokes rehashed from other movies. Pixar stays original in their humor. "Ice Age" was alright, "Madagascar" was the same caliber of "Shrek", pop culture blahdom. Plus, the animation of other studios flat out sucks. It almost seems a tier above video game cutscene animation.

That's why I was surprised to find that Sony Pictures Animation's "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" could come out as one of my favorite computer animated films. It's Pixar caliber. Better than "Cars", and more laugh out loud funny than any Pixar film. There were moments where I had tears in my eyes.

I love the book. I read it a lot to the children. It's clever, the pictures are great, the descriptions are vivid and funny. The movie takes the book and embarks on a mad scientist story. Complete with the awkward failure, to the impending success, the inevitable notoriety of the inventor and their creation, flying too high and burning wings, chaos caused by the machine, the creator needing to bring down their creation . . . it's "Frankenstein" with food. It's a story we've all seen, but you forget that it's a recycled format. The dialogue is extremely witty and the animation is flat out cute.

Four stars! Four fantastic fucking stars!!



Woods -- "Rain On"

Me and My Geek Squad

Life Lesson #7648:

Make friends with computer technicians. They will be your greatest allies through the tribulations of your life.

I'm glad to call three of them my best friends.

Led Zeppelin -- "Friends"

The Missing Beak

An interesting anecdote as told by my coworker today in the nap room:

In Milwaukee, I have a neighbor, a grandma, who told my mom a story a little while ago. Something that happened to her 7 year old granddaughter.

She said that her grandchild went on a field trip to the Shed Aquarium in Chicago. Things were going smoothly. The children behaved, willingly herded to each tank. Staring at each of the exhibits.

All of a sudden the teacher realized that my neighbor's grandchild was missing. They started to panic, looking all over the aquarium. They looked in the Oceanarium room, and found her near the beluga whales, to their relief.

On the bus ride home, the child spoke to her teacher. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did something bad."

The teacher shook her head. "No, it's all right. You know what you did, and we have you safe and sound. It doesn't matter. It's okay."

The girl persisted. "No, I'm sorry. I did a really bad thing."

The teacher also persisted. "It's okay, dear, really. You're on the bus with us. You scared us a little but it's alright."

The girl shook her head. "No, you're going to be mad at me. I did something really bad."

The teacher started. "No you didn't--"

She stopped as the child started to unzip her backback. Inside, quiet and frightened, was a penguin. A live penguin that had crawled into the girl's backpack. And they had traveled halfway to Milwaukee with it on the bus.

The teacher yelled "Oh my god!"

Apparently, as far as I can tell, the girl had snuck behind the scenes into the penguin exhibit and had somehow lured a penguin into her backpack.

They called the aquarium, turned the bus around, and retured the penguin before returning to school.

--------------

I just about shit a brick when I heard this story.

Blue Roses -- "Doubtful Comforts"

The Ultimate Crash

My computer is shot. Like, virtually out of nowhere, a virus, or, more precisely, a shitload of viruses decided to up and bite the living will of my computer to exist in a mere state of reloading, never booting up. After calling Louie, we decided to wipe the hard drive, save for My Documents documents.

I may even have to copy those files onto a portable hard drive and then wipe the rest of the main drive out. Start new. Which means Lizard People's "The Know" will be gone. Recording software will be gone. Original Patch files will be gone.

This is like death. Pure hell.

I would like to make it my purpose in life to find the programmers who made these malicious viruses. They don't reap the benefits of SEEING people suffer. The kind of person who just makes shit to fuck with people and then not even care to SEE their efforts realized by a victim are the true enemies of this world.

Death would not be proper. Cutting off their hands so that they can never type a line of corrupted code will suffice. Do it without anesthesia, and when they pass out, bring them back from unconsciousness. Make them watch you hacksaw your way through their wrists.

She Wants Revenge -- "Tear You Apart"

In Drive

Patch is back.
The Arcade Fire -- "Wake Up"