January 2004 Archives
January 30, 2004
Teeth
I had a dental appointment yesterday. It wasn’t a big deal, except I apparently have a tooth with two cavities. My dentist said it wasn’t a big deal, because it was a “non-fuctioning tooth.” I didn’t specifically like the sound of that, but he reassured me that the tooth, when I bite down, doesn’t connect with any of the other teeth in my head. It merely exists, partially submerged in gum tissue. He said, “I’m going to treat this as a wisdom tooth and recommend an oral surgeon.”
He paused for a second, then said, “Unless you maybe want to go to an orthodontist and get your teeth fixed right.”
This was a sort of minor vindication for me. See, when I had braces, I went to the Sears Family Dental Center, which was not well known for quality. Still, my parents wanted my teeth fixed, and it was all they could afford, so that’s where we went. And then, as my dentist says, my teeth “relapsed.” And, apparently, one of my teeth sank into a quagmire of gum tissue, so I can’t brush it, and really nothing can be done with it short of removing it. Or, as he said, getting braces and possibly fixing it.
But my mom’s always blamed me for the teeth relapsing. She claims — and we actually got into yet another fight about it when I got home from my appointment — that I didn’t use my retainer enough. Which, okay, that wasn’t necessarily accurate. I was disobeying the medical advice and taking my mother’s advice, so maybe I didn’t use it enough, but it was only because she insisted it wouldn’t be a big deal.
See, he told me to wear it all the time, but it’s kinda difficult to talk with a retainer in your mouth, so my mother said, “When I had braces, my doctor only made me wear it at night,” and she told me I shouldn’t worry about it. So, I only wore it at night. Then, after a year or two (my orthodontist said I needed to wear the retainer for life), my mother said, “My doctor told me I only needed to wear the retainer for a year, so I think you’ll be okay.” So I stopped wearing it, and my teeth began to relapse fairly quickly, and I tried the retainer again, but it kept falling out because it no longer fit.
That was the end of the retainer.
My mother remembers the whole thing differently. She says that I absolutely refused to wear it, even at night, and she’d often sneak into my room at night (do you see why I’m not a big fan of my mom?) and find it sitting on my bed bookshelf. This is partially accurate, but that only happened when I started wearing the retainer for the second time and it didn’t fit; I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have sticky, disgusting retainer parts suctioned to my body, so I’d put it on the shelf.
She also insists that she never told me I could stop wearing it; she just said, at one point, that I only needed to wear it at night. Which, yes, she did, but she did that maybe two weeks after I got the retainer, and then told me I could stop a year or two later.*
Should I have been made to wear a retainer 24 hours a day for the rest of my life? I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not an orthodontist, but it just doesn’t seem right. It seems like the braces were botched, and the only way to solve that problem was to wear a retainer constantly. Then again, I had a pretty bad overbite (worse than my sister’s and my mom’s; I attribute it to the hillbilly DNA inherited from my father, who had no overbite because obviously it skips a generation), so maybe it was just necessary because of the nature of my case.
Still, my dentist kept saying that my orthodontic work was not done correctly, and that he’d recommend an orthodontist who would “do it right.” I’d like to think — although my mother insists this is impossible — that a skilled, trained dentist can look at somebody’s mouth and judge whether or not their orthodontic relapse was caused by not wearing a retainer or by botched work. It’s like a guitar player listening to somebody else play and knowing the guitar is just a hair out of tune, while people who have no idea can’t hear it and think it sounds fine.
I dunno, that seems logical to me. He’s probably looked inside thousands of mouths in his career, and I think he’s able to judge things based on tell-tale signs, such as — he explained to me — a tooth falling downward into gum tissue instead of pushing up and back against it.
But, gosh, what do I know?
At any rate, my mom has been talking quite frequently of late about springing for that Invisalign deal, so that getting braces again won’t be completely humiliating. At the same time, all she does is bitch about how we’re broke. So, obviously, we can’t really afford Invisalign, which is more expensive than normal braces. I feel like I’ll end up like Lisa Simpson, with the rusting headgear (“Dental plan!”).
Plus, the thing is, I don’t really want braces again. Granted, I’m no ladies’ man, but an easily hidden overbite is the least of my concerns. I thought I’d just get the tooth removed and be done with it, even though my mother — the one with the money — still insists that Invisalign is the answer.
So, as I always do when I get stressed out and need to feel worse, I called Lucy, who immediately told me that if I didn’t get braces again, more of my teeth would probably sink and need to be removed until I have none left. She’s no orthodontist, but neither am I, and she may have a solid point. I’d rather do the braces thing again than end up losing all my teeth or worse.
I think, if nothing else, I should go and see an orthodontist and see what he recommends. Or just talk to my dentist and see what he thinks is the best idea, and whether the whole losing-all-your-teeth thing is even a rational concern (knowing me, it’s probably very far-fetched).
*When she was a kid, she only had to wear her retainer for a year and decided, what with her medical doctorate in orthodontic care, that I should only have to wear it for a year, as well.
Posted by Stan on January 30, 2004 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Stories of Hilarity and Humiliation
Call
My boss called me yesterday, but I decided not to answer or call her back until this morning.
Me: Hey, Jenna, it’s Stan.
Jenna: What’s up?
Me: Uh…you called me yesterday.
Jenna: Oh, right. Um…are you ever coming back to work?
Me: …
Jenna: ‘Cause I know you were sick, but I just wasn’t sure what was going on. Are you better?
Me: Yeah, I’m better.
Jenna: Are you coming back?
Me: Uh…yeah.
Jenna: When?
Me: Monday?
Jenna: Okay.
Me: Was I supposed to be working through the break?
Jenna: …
Me: …
Jenna: Yeah.
Me: Oh.
Jenna: So…Monday, then?
Me: Yeah.
Jenna: Good. Bye.
Me: Bye.
So, okay. That was weird.
Posted by Stan on January 30, 2004 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace
Five Albums of the Week (4)
Once again, I’ve stolen the concept from Remy, but I’ve tailored it to my obsessive-compulsive tendencies by expanding it to full albums instead of just songs.
Symphony of Enchanted Lands by Rhapsody (1999, LMP Records)
I watch WGN News in the morning before I go to work and/or school. On Friday, they had this unbelievably bad parody of German glam metal. It could have been funny, but the problem was that they were comedians who thought, “Look at how hilarious these German metal guys are. Let’s make fun of them.” Consequently, it stops being funny and turns sad.
The reason why, for example, This is Spinal Tap works so well is that the band, made up of comedians, find the humor in the pretension of these acts. Certain heavy metal bands take themselves so seriously, while being so completely ridiculous, that they end up becoming self-parody in their own right. And that’s what Rhapsody is.
I was told to download this album from somebody awhile back, and I just got around to listening to it a few weeks ago. It’s this weird mix of speed-metal, bad medieval minstrel music, and Dungeons and Dragons. I am not joking about this. The album is unbelievably funny, especially the brief spoken-word segments spoken by somebody with both a cold and a lisp, but it’s really a shame. The musicianship is surprisingly, almost disturbingly, good. It’s just the musical content, the lyrical content, and the whole overall concept that is laughably bad.
I played a couple tracks of Sissy Bar (specifically, their cover of “Gin and Juice” that makes the song good, and their ode to Jackie Collins) for my parents, and they were unimpressed. Then, I played this, and they were like, “Holy shit, this is the best album you’ve brought home in months.” I guess they don’t like the Cooler Kids that much. Also, they’re old fogies; of course they love stuff like that. It’s their world.
Liz Phair by Liz Phair (2003, Capitol Records)
When I started listening to terrible indie rock, The Ex (not at the time) told me that I wasn’t really a man if I hadn’t heard Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville. Then again, she calls My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless the most influential album of all time, so maybe she’s just crazy*.
At any rate, I was not particularly impressed with the album. I liked some of it, but I didn’t get excited about it like I did, for some reason, with Juvenalia, the EP everybody else on the planet hated. So I don’t really follow around Liz Phair like I do with certain other female vocalists out there.
I started reading reviews of her new album, though, that piqued my interest. She teamed up with the frightening people who turned Michelle Branch’s demos into a weird hybrid of fem-pop and indie-rock and sold out thoroughly and completely. I got it in my head that I would love this new Liz Phair album because I like Michelle Branch quite a bit, but her lyrics are unbelievably stupid and painfully juvenile. So, since Liz Phair is about 17 years older and generally writes better songs anyway, I thought this would be a good pick.
And I was right, pretty much. I like Liz Phair, all glossed up and basically denying her indie roots, much more than I liked the unnecessary, squeaky aggression of Exile in Guyville.
But maybe that’s just me.
The Execution of All Things by Rilo Kiley (2002, Saddle Creek Records)
This is probably my favorite album of all time. Even better than the Blake Babies’ Sunburn. Although, funnily enough, I think Rilo Kiley is a lot better live than they are in the studio. I’ve heard Blake Sennett take a bit of flak because he’s not much of a singer (especially compared to Jenny Lewis), but I thought the recording doesn’t do him justice. He sounded great live. Of course, I thought Jenny sounded better live, too, so who knows?
One Day Under the Sun, One Night Beneath the Moonlight by johnl (2003, independent)
My good pal johnl uploaded his album to the server, and I liked it quite a bit, so he sent me an actual physical copy of the CD. I was sort of dubious at first, thinking maybe he was wasting his time (and money; it seems like it’d be expensive to ship a CD from Ireland to Chicago) since I already had the uploaded copy, but I’m glad he did. For anybody who believes that MP3s will ever capture the breadth of a CD (or, even better, an LP), allow me to point to this as an example. I almost dare to call it “faboo,” but I’d like to maintain some hetero street cred.
Disc One by Barenaked Ladies (2001, Warner Brothers Records)
Oddly, I wrote much of this several weeks ago, but never got around to finish it up and posting it until now (although, because I’m too lazy to find something new, I’m still listening to the same CDs, except for this one). So, I was listening to this quite a bit with Lucy after she got her wisdom teeth out. It sort of blew my mind at first, because some of their more terrible work was mingling with some of their best songs, and I thought she just had some poorly concocted mix CD of tracks she’d gotten off of gnutella.
Turns out, it’s an actual greatest hits CD. And, yes, I suppose all of the songs on it are their greatest hits; it just happens that a lot of their greatest hits are actually pretty bad songs, when compared to the rest of the BNL catalog. At least, that’s the way I felt about it.
*Not saying it’s a bad album; I like it quite a bit and always listen to it when I’m depressed and feel like my life is going nowhere, so I have it on quite often. I just don’t see how it was particularly influential. I’ve heard a lot of people outright rip it off, but I haven’t heard much MBV influence in indie rock in general.
Posted by Stan on January 30, 2004 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Friday Five/Albums of the Week
January 24, 2004
South Side, or: The Culture of Fear, or: I’m a Big Wuss
Longtime readers of this blog have, I’m sure, drawn many strange and accurate conclusions about me. Chief among them: I’m sort of paranoid. I like to think of myself as “cautious,” but I’m apparently not a very good judge of character. So, when I learned two weeks ago that my fiction writing professor was having a going-away party today (she’s moving to Maine) at a house on 77th Street, I decided to cautiously not go.
Then, my friend Anne said, “I think I’m going to go to that party.”
I said, “Yeah, me too.”
I didn’t do this because I’m trying to impress her with my faux world weariness, even though I am. I did it because sometimes my sense of machismo gets in the way of common sense. If this had been anyone else, I would’ve said, “Are you fucking crazy?” But I, as sworn protector of any female polite enough to not openly disdain my physical appearance, decided I had a duty to her. I wasn’t going to allow her to go to an unfamiliar neighborhood on the south side by herself.
So I trudged downtown in the snow, met her at the Van Buren Street Metra station, and we took a train down to the stop at and 75th Street and Exchange Avenue, approximately 62 blocks away from the farthest south I’ve ever gone in the city of Chicago. As a result of many years being bred to fear everything by both my parents and the news media, I was terrified.
The train station, according to a very misleading map, was about three blocks away from where we needed to be. According to reality, it’s more like six. This may not seem like a lot, but it is when you’re terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought (™ Egon).
The platform and station house looked abandoned, which fit well with the overall aesthetic of the neighborhood. In the station house itself, I swear to God there was a large, rusting sign that said “Attention: Purse Snatchers,” with a little blurb and a large picture of a purse with a big red circle and slash. A positive sign, I’m sure.
I led Anne west onto 75th, as I had spent many long hours consulting the misleading map, and I knew Marquette Avenue was a block away.
I was wrong. As a matter of fact, there was no street a block away. Just one run-down, closed-up-and-barred-shut business after another. And the few businesses that were — gasp! — open after noon on a Saturday were similarly barred or at least had steel shutters blocking the windows and doors. Not really a good sign. Plus, the addresses were in the 2500’s and going down as we headed west.
“I think we went the wrong way,” I said quietly. The street was empty, almost to the point of being desolate (there was one guy standing on the corner who looked like he was waiting for a ride, but he was balanced out by the cop car parked right in front of him), but I still figured I should be as quiet as possible. In case some random person was hiding in the shadows somewhere, it seemed like a bad idea to let slip that I was lost.
I just turned around, and we walked back to Exchange Avenue and started going southwest. I knew that, at some point, Exchange intersected with 77th, and all would be well.
A little sidestreet called Saginaw diagonaled off of Exchange a little ways south, and in the little triangle of land between the two was a blandly nondescript restaurant (like the businesses lining 75th, it was all steel shutters and very little visible glass), out of which an old black man literally stumbled out onto the snow-littered sidewalk. He held a paper bag in his right hand, out of which the neck of a green bottle protruded. Subtle.
So, he was an old drunk. I’m not afraid of old drunks; hell, we have old drunks in the suburbs. They ride bicycles to Walgreens and ramble incoherently, just the same as city drunks. Okay, except I’m afraid of old suburban drunks, too, so this was not good.
He shambled slowly ahead of us, toward 76th Street, and I slowed down a little bit, so we wouldn’t catch up to him very quickly (if at all). I had mixed feelings about this decision, because as much as I wanted to avoid a strange encounter with an old drunk, I thought it best to get to where we’re going as soon as humanly fucking possible, and fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice us trailing him about a quarter of a block away.
At this point, Anne piped up, “See, this place is a lot different from the suburbs.”
“Aw, Jesus,” I thought, but the old drunk still didn’t seem to notice us. And he was slowing down even more. I decided that, fine, if he was either going to not notice or pretend to not notice us, I may as well follow my initial plan of going extremely fast. So, I sped up and wedged my fat ass past him, grabbing Anne’s hand and pulling her as close to me as possible. This was half an attempt to make sure she was safe, half a conscious effort to cop a feel. I succeeded in both respects.
We passed a small apartment on the corner of 76th and Exchange, which, I swear to God, had many, many busted-out windows and a door that was being propped open by what looked like a long abandoned stroller.
As we kept moving past 76th, we passed two enormous but not particularly intimidating black men walking in the opposite direction. Still, I was on my guard. When I was in high school, we had this weird seminar with a retired CPD detective, and one of the nuggets of advice he gave us was to carry a decoy wallet at all times. Fill it with slips of paper to create the impression of bulk, even put in outdated (or outright fake) IDs for an air of realism. If you get mugged, throw it into the street. They want the money; they don’t want you. When they run for the money, you high-tail it in the opposite direction.
A good concept, but when you’re in the middle of the south side of Chicago, and your only access to transportation is a train that won’t be arriving for half an hour, it’s troublesome. Of course, I didn’t think of that beforehand. I did make a decoy wallet from my old, worn-out wallet, and I decided while I was at it to make it into a sort of practical joke, for my own amusement. Instead of money, I put in old Wendy’s coupons, good for a free Biggie Frosty. They were expired, which I thought was hilarious. Not only does the guy get nothing but Frosty coupons — they’re expired. Mugger comedy gold.
At any rate, we passed these guys without incident. Like I said, they didn’t look particularly intimidating, but better safe than sorry. Or better paranoid than oblivious.
Okay, so we passed 76th. The next street would be 77th, and we’d be home free, right?
Wrong. As we approached the next street, I squinted to see the sign. “76th,” it said.
“What the fuck?” Anne asked. She noticed it, too.
“I think we slipped into an infinite loop,” I said. Instead of being irritatingly cheerful and utterly without fear, for the first time Anne seemed sort of pissed and — gasp! — a little afraid. It only lasted a second, and in retrospect I think she was more pissed off about my stupid joke than anything else.
As we got closer, I noted it was 76th Place, which, according to the misleading map, starts east of Exchange. I thought maybe we were on the wrong side of the street, but we couldn’t be. We pressed on.
Seriously, for a neighborhood as desolate (very few cars passed by, and there were almost no pedestrians), they sure had their share of people designed solely to creep the hell out of me. The next guy we passed was walking literally in the middle of the street — possibly to avoid the snow that lay unshoveled on the sidewalk, but it’s not like he was next to the curb or anything — and he started randomly shouted incoherent things.
Another drunk? Maybe. A crazy person? Maybe. Somebody I never, ever wanted to communicate with any way? Yes. Oh, God, yes.
“That’s great,” Anne said. “I always wanted to be a person who just randomly screamed things to nobody.”
“Shhh,” I whisper-shouted. I am a wuss.
We passed the drunk-crazy guy without incident, and as we approached the next street, I noticed the buildings — actual houses, as we were entering a genuine residential area — were creeping closer to Exchange. This pleased me, because the wide gulfs of empty, snow-covered parking lots only added to the horrible feeling of desolation. Which is weird, considering it was creating open spaces.
“Why does the next street start with a ‘B’?” Anne asked. I squinted to see the street sign and wondered the same thing.
“Where the fuck are we?” I asked, and my confidence in my ability to read a map waned slightly.
The street was called Burnham, and it isn’t on any map I own (and I own quite a few, because — I swear to God — I used to really want to be a cartographer and have always had an unhealthy fascination with maps). MapQuest lists a “Burnham” Street way far south, and it’s a north-south road, not east-west. What the fuck, dude?
So, were we lost? I was starting to think we were, and I was about to piss my pants when I saw the next street sign. Seventy-fucking-seventh Street.
“Thank God,” I thought, and as we rounded the corner, I heard what sounded like a loud pop, followed by glass breaking and a woman’s scream.
“Ignore it,” I told myself and started eyeballing the addresses on the houses, which looked surprisingly swanky considering the shit apartments and run-down businesses we had seen previously. They were in the 2700’s and going down, which was a happy sign, although I still swear that they should have been gradually going up. What do I know?
As we reached the right house, we walked up the porch. It was beautiful, all wood and stained a really nice dark burnt-sienna color. I rang the doorbell and looked across the street. An enormous, unbelievably beautiful elementary school loomed over a playground near the street. In the playground, a couple of young boys were playing and squealing with joy.
Yes, that’s right. The mysterious sounds of guns, glass, and women were actually small children scraping on slides and jumping up and down. I will officially call myself “paranoid.”
We were invited into the house by one of the faculty members. I vaguely recognized him, but I didn’t know his name. He introduced himself and showed us in.
The house was, quite honestly, the most beautiful home I’ve ever personally been inside. What the fuck?
The whole neighborhood, as I took a second look, seemed mysteriously quaint. Was Exchange Avenue as disturbing as I thought it was, or had I misjudged because I was terrified? Or is it possible that my dad was right when he said that it seemed to have pockets of good neighborhoods mingled equally with bad? Who knows?
We put our coats down and started to mingle. It turned out to be a small affair; Anne and I were the only students in attendance, and there were five faculty members aside from our professor. One of them was my fiction writing I professor, which was fun. She and my fiction II professor compared notes about my writing, and they were far more complimentary of it than anyone in the film department.
And my professor let slip that she actually submitted both mine and Anne’s work to be reviewed for the department’s annual publication. Granted, that doesn’t mean it will be published, but it’s nice that she liked anything I’ve written enough to send it onward.
I loosened up quite a bit as we all talked about random bullshit and I started to ignore the stigma of the south side. Still, I had an itty-bitty ball of fear in the pit of my stomach, but it was becoming less and less of a big deal as time passed. Every time I said something self-deprecating, Anne threw small chunks of strawberry at me. It’s sort of a good system, because I got so annoyed I stopped pretty quickly.
After a few hours, it started to get dark, and my fear increased again. I was scared enough walking down Exchange in broad, blinding post-snow daylight. I assumed I’d have about five heart-attacks walking back up it in the dark, but I was willing to put on a brave face for my newly beloved. It makes me feel like a big man to walk around bad neighborhoods in the dark. Maybe I would pick a fight with some huge guy just to prove how tough I —
“You’re gonna walk to a train in this neighborhood?” one of the faculty members asked as we were getting ready to leave. “Are you fucking nuts? I’ll drive you downtown.”
Oh, thank the fucking Lord. Anne and I wedged into the woman’s two-seater pick-up, and she drove us back up to the north side. She was babysitting or something, so we were actually on the way.
One of the things I noticed as we approached the thankfully familiar North-Damen-Milwaukee intersection was that the north side is approximately two million watts brighter than 79th Street, which we drove for a long while to the expressway. And it was more heavily populated. I never really relax, and I never stop being cauti — er, paranoid, but I at least felt sorta safe, what with the brightly lit signs and the glass and the distinct lack of steel bars covering doors.
All’s well that ends well, as they say. I’m not dead, and I wasn’t even harassed. Was I unnecessarily paranoid in the face of nonexistent danger? I dunno. The other face of the coin is that I was exactly as cautious as I should be going into an unfamiliar neighborhood in what is generally regarded as an unsafe urban area.
SLIGHT UPDATE: Upon further, obsessive map consultation, I found that the north-south Burnham Avenue does snake its way up and, essentially, ends (or begins, depending on how optimistic you are) by jutting south off of Exchange Avenue, which runs northwest-southeast.
Posted by Stan on January 24, 2004 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Classic Issues, Stories of Hilarity and Humiliation
January 21, 2004
Quiet, You
I’m still sick. Stop bugging me to blog more. I don’t have any stories I’m particularly interested in sharing with the Internet right now.
Posted by Stan on January 21, 2004 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Random Musings
January 13, 2004
Sick
Did you ever get so sick you thought you might either have died or have the Bubonic plague?
Yeah, me too.
Posted by Stan on January 13, 2004 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Random Musings
January 10, 2004
Five Albums of the Week (3)
It’s been over a month since the last time I did this, but the rules are still the same, and it’s still stolen from Remy and amended to include albums instead of songs. So, here we go…
Only Everything by Juliana Hatfield (1995, Atlantic Records)
I managed to track down a near-mint copy of the German-pressed European LP release of this album and Hey Babe, and it only cost £15 including shipping. I was pleased with the purchase. I listened to the CD (since my Discman is a little less cumbersome in the car than my turntable) while I warmed up my car and listened to Lucy relate a long and pointless story about her boyfriend that, in the words of a mutual friend of ours, “proved her even more immature than he is.”
Here’s a paraphrased version of that story: her boyfriend is a spaz who apparently overreacted because he, contrary to the popular myths reported in sorority houses, didn’t want her parading around “the bars” dressed like a slut. He also doesn’t want her smoking or drinking (much). He’s just too demanding, and yet she believes she’s in love with him, so she won’t break up with him. And he won’t break up with her; instead, he just ignores her for days and then, when she calls him, hangs up or asks “why the fuck” she’s calling.
So, she decided to get revenge by parading around “the bars” dressed like a slut, smoking and drinking. This tactic was not nearly as effective as she thought it would be. You’ll never believe this, but it actually made him angrier than he was. However, it apparently serves him right for being “the jealous type.” Some other stuff happened, but I don’t recall what because I think I stopped paying attention, and then suddenly she stormed into his apartment and screamed at him for 30 minutes.
I’m not sure why he deserved this — it’s possible something interesting happened when I zoned out, but I doubt it — but she was very proud of her ability to weave an intricate tapestry of profanities rivaled only by the most ornate 16th-century Persian rugs. She wouldn’t really repeat any of these clever strings of obscenities, possibly because she knew that (m)any of the swear-drenched tirades she has witnessed from me over the course of our friendship would make hers looking like a shit-stained ferret in comparison.
He did a few things that actually were pretty rotten. I don’t remember, but not from not paying attention; I’ve just forgotten (this is what I get for not blogging in-the-moment anymore). I kinda wish I did remember them, because I remember thinking at the time, “And you didn’t just dump him because…?” And the mutual friend I quoted above thought basically the same thing.
I guess everything’s sorted out now. Her outburst officially whipped him, and she says he’s pretty submissive now, although she objected to my use of the term “whipped.” “He’s not whipped,” she insisted, “he just understands my perspective now.” I.e., he’s whipped.
Statutory Grape by Sissy Bar (1996, Sugar Fix Recordings)
This album has a great cover of the otherwise unmemorable Snoop Dogg song “Gin and Juice.” It also boasts the funniest song of all time, “Jackie,” a song about the influence of Jackie Collins on American lives.
Songs For Peeps by Sissy Bar (1999, Mootron Records)
This album almost doesn’t even exist, it’s so obscure, but it’s pretty damn good. It’s not Statutory Grape, but it’s quite a fine sophomore effort. I just wish Sissy Bar hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth four years before I learned of their existence. Anybody who can track down copies of either this or Statutory Grape (both appear intermittently on half.com, though I found great deals through Amazon’s Marketplace merchants.
Or you could just talk to me, since I ripped the album and have the MP3s collecting digital dust on my hard drive currently, just waiting to saturate the market of idle losers looking for some pseudo-countrified lo-fi fem-pop that sound like the mangled lovechild of Rilo Kiley and Stereolab. And that’s as close as I’ll allow my blog to be soiled with the tangy smarm of almost-music criticism.
Shudder.
Let Go by Nada Surf (2002, Barsuk Records)
I first heard about Nada Surf a long, long, long, long time ago. Long ago, in fact, that I remember being disappointed that one of my favorite Guitar World columnists was leaving to pursue a music career, instead of just writing about how he wished he had one. So, since I was actively reading Guitar World, I’d put it around seventh or eighth grade.
I bought their first album, but once “Popular” hit the air-waves and became a controversial hit (thanks to its, ahem, unusual video), I sort of dismissed them as a Weezer clone and completely forgot about them.
Then, my pal Adam Green, said, “OMG STAN U MUST LISSEN!#!#@!” at which point I told him he was thrwoing his life away. Still, I downloaded the album and, two months later, I listened to it.
And, holy shit, I was pretty blown away. At first, I couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was. I didn’t recognize the singing, the guitar playing, or any of the music at all, and the ID3 tags were sort of b0rked, to use the technical term, so I had to track it down by Googling random song lyrics until I came up with a hit I recognized.
Neon Nights by Dannii Minogue (2003, Ultra Records)
Yes, not only am I listening to this album — I paid actual money for it. And I know nobody will ever believe this, but it was worth the money. In fact, in conjunction with The Cooler Kids’ epic Punk Débutante, Michelle Branch’s Hotel Paper, and Liz Phair’s recent self-titled record, a disturbing, empowered, sexually aggressive fem-pop revolution has been spurred in my music taste.
And, really, the thing that started it all was Dannii’s “Vibe On.”
Plug it in gimme my vibe on, good vibrations, that’s what gets my ride on, gotta have vibrations,
Jump on top it, sit right on it, plug it in gimme my vibe on, gotta have vibrations.
I’m not kidding — it can’t possibly get any better than that. Well, except for the part where she says “vibraholic.” And the part where she makes reference to putting in “XXX batteries.”
Posted by Stan on January 10, 2004 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Friday Five/Albums of the Week
Exes on a Train
I’m not fatalistic by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes coincidences occur that make me sort of shudder, briefly contemplate the nature reality, and then dismiss it. One such fortuitous incident happened on Thursday night, after I got off work. I walked down to LaSalle Street, as I always do, and waited for a train.
The fun thing about this subway station is that right as you get off the escalator onto the platform, you’re in a prime position to leap into the first car of an O’Hare-bound train. Normally, that’s what I do, because then when I get down to Cumberland, again the train is right next to the escalators, so I can just hop off and then zip along to my car without having to wait for the enormous throng of people to get onto the escalators before me. I’m not a big fan of standing around pointlessly. If I’m going to stand around, it should be for a good reason, such as leering at women.
I’m digressing, though. On Thursday, I didn’t stand near where the first car stops. What I did, which was very unusual and perhaps driven by a subconscious that pays a little more attention to the surrounding world than I consciously do, was go down a little ways. The thought I had, one I’ve been having for weeks but never did anything about, is that the first car is always much more crowded than other cars, so I should get on somewhere in the middle.
As I went a little ways down the platform, I stopped between two women, neither of whom I particularly recognized. The one to my left ignored me, which is not unusual; the one on my right turned around to look at me.
It was The Ex.
Suddenly, events from my horrible life went flashing through my eyes, as I was certain that this was the end for Stan.
She looked different than she used to, which — in conjuction with the thick parka — is why I didn’t recognize her. Gone was the pink dye job I had last seen on her; she was no longer wearing the startling pale-face almost-goth make-up she used to wear when we were dating. She didn’t even dress like she used to when we were dating; she was wearing an almost trendy pair of pre-rolled jeans*, a plain pair of shoes (as opposed to the menacing boots she always enjoyed), and a nondescript black parka. She wore a silly denim hat on top of her head, and her hair — which she dyed black again — was extremely short, almost dykey.
She went conservative on me! Why didn’t she give me a call?! Oh, wait, I remember.
When she saw me, her eyes — I swear to God — lit up and she actually smiled. SHE SMILED AT ME. WHAT IN THE HOLY NAME OF FUCK HAPPENED TO HER?
“Hi,” she said softly.
I nodded stoically, creating the most likely unconvincing illusion of supreme manhood, and said, “Hi.”
And that was it. I didn’t address the changes in fashion, style, and attitude, though I wanted to. She didn’t apologize (although Lucy insists she should, I’m still not convinced that she was entirely in the wrong), and I don’t think either of us wanted to catch up on the events of the past year. I thought about being really mean and actually asking about her band, but I didn’t think it was appropriate.
We stood uncomfortably next to each other for a little while, and then the train showed up. We got on and, although there was plenty of seating (see, the middle-car theory works!), we didn’t sit next to one another.
The train blasted off, and I noticed that before we even got to the next stop, she had gotten up and moved to a different car. I’m not sure if she was uncomfortable or upset or overwhelmed or what, but I think I can safely assume I am responsible for her switching cars.
The reason why this seemed like a creepy sign of horrible fate is because on Wednesday night, I had dinner with a girl that I’ve been attracted to for most of the semester and, for the first time in the history of Stan Has Issues, it went well. And then The Ex, full of arousing changes and all smiley, shows back up in my life and manages to fuck me all up.
Not that I’d ever think of any sort of reconciliation, and I’m sure that’s the furthest thing from her mind, but I can’t help getting all retarded and wondering if she popped up and made me question reality for some grander reason. Like, for example, the Controller of the Universe, sitting in his little cabin in the woods, is trying to say to me, “Hey, remember that girl you went out with? Maybe you should think about what happened with this other girl and just assume she’s crazy.”
Should I do that? No. Why? Because I’m not retarded. Okay, I am, but not beyond the hope of help. But, as instructed by The X-Files, I question everything and trust no one, and consequently I start creating cosmic conspiracies where mere coincidences exist. Then, I dance.
*I don’t know anything about fashion, so this may not make sense. What I’m trying to say is that the cuffs of her jeans were rolled in a stylish way, but this was not done by her; they looked like they were stitched that way.
Posted by Stan on January 10, 2004 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Fumbling Attempts at Relationships
Evaluation
I was sort of bummed Thursday because I got a fairly mediocre performance review from Jenna, who stopped in briefly and gave it to me. Like most evaluations on the planet, it had an assload of categories with a “rate 1 to 5” deal. I got straight 3’s, except for 4’s (above average!) “interpersonal relationships” and “punctuality.” I guess it shouldn’t bug me, even though it means I’m mediocre, because the sheet says “satisfactory,” which means that, even though I ain’t “outstanding,” I don’t “need improvement.”
I guess, overall, that’s not even what bugs me. The specific comments really frustrate me. Under “areas in need of improvement” (which, incidentally, contradicts her marking me satisfactory in the multiple-choice section), Jenna wrote, “needs to work on obtaining a better understanding of the job requirements and attendance.” Yowza, that smarts.
It’s fair, I suppose. I really don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and I do it all pretty half-assed, but I don’t really see it as my fault. I never know what the fuck is going on, because nobody ever tells me anything. I suppose I could take initiative and ask about things, but how do I know what to ask about? The only time I ever know things that need asking about is when somebody comes in and asks me a question I can’t answer. But when I ask Jenna, she sort of groans like I’m completely retarded, even though she never tells me anything so how the fuck am I supposed to know?
It’s sort of circular. Hey, maybe she tells everybody else on the days I’m not there, and that’s where the “attendance” thing comes from. It’s possible, and I do plan to not miss as much work next semester, what with me needing money and all, but the general thought I had (and still have) is that school outranks the job. I generally get my schoolwork done at my job, which is nice, but if I feel myself getting sick, I’ll call in from work and rest. I have that option, but I don’t have it with classes.
Maybe I’m just too sensitive. I don’t think Jenna thinks my mediocrity is really awful. I also don’t think she believes I need a lot of improvement; they are problem areas, and they do need work, but it’s not like I don’t get the job done. Okay, sometimes I don’t, like that time I kept hanging up on some guy because I didn’t know the department he wanted and didn’t feel like helping him.
Still, it makes me weep like a woman. I called Lucy and whined about it, and she made me feel better. “Fuck her!” she shouted. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!” It made me feel better, but I didn’t have the heart to tell Lucy that Jenna is mostly right.
Posted by Stan on January 10, 2004 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace
The Death and Return of Oh Face
I vaguely recall mentioning that the infamous and illustrious Oh Face disappeared from work almost immediately after he began. It’s sort of become a running joke in the office as to whether or not he’s going to come in; he worked for about a week when he first started, and since then Oh Face has come in maybe three times total. Two of those times, he left early; three of those times, he came in late.
So, on Thursday, it was a party in the back office. Gregory, Julie, Eric, and I all sat in the back. I didn’t realize how much fun it is to be in the back, because on Thursday mornings I’m always in the front, and by the time I get to go to the back, everyone has left. Since Jenna wasn’t coming in to work, Sally decided to randomly assert authority by changing the way everything is done and shoving Bianca up front for the morning.
Around eleven, Eric sarcastically asked, “You think Oh Face’ll show up?” Then, we started making fun of him and hypothesizing about his whereabouts and why Jenna still keeps him on the payroll. The back of the office is sort of L-shaped, so Eric and Gregory were hidden on the small side of the L, at the computer desk, and Julie and I sat with a prime view of the big one. After about five minutes of talking shit about him, who comes around the corner, dopey grin on his face, but Oh Face.
“Oh shit,” I said, and turned to Eric and made the international gesture for “shut the fuck up,” all bulging eyes and throat-slashing.
“Hey, guys,” Oh Face said quietly, and suddenly everything got very tense and uncomfortable. He put down his bag, took off his coat, and then disappeared. So, we took the opportunity to whisper shit about him for a few minutes until he came back.
He’s quite a goofball, though. He left early yet again, but even so, he just sat in the back doing homework. Every half hour or so, he’d get a phone call and disappear out of the office for 45 minutes. When he didn’t get a phone call, he’d leave intermittently for cigarette breaks. Now, I’m not exactly thrilled with this job, and I don’t give it my all, but at least when people call me at work, I try to keep it short. Sometimes I don’t even bother answering, since I can hardly get a signal anyway.
But maybe I should. I mean, if he’s rehired and nobody seems to care about his Extreme Slacker™ behavior, maybe I should start doing the stuff I always used to do when I’d get bored with temp jobs and start pushing them as far as I possibly can to see how much I can get away with before they fire me.
Of course, I won’t do that, despite the fairly indifferent mediocre performance evaluation I got (more on that in my next entry; I promise). While this job has really been more comedy fodder than actual worthy employment over the past semester, some crazy shit has gone down here, and I’m almost completely deprived of financial aid. Columbia has ever canceled the long-standing 5% tuition discount initiative they gave to students who paid all their money up-front and immediately, which is money I used to use for books (and, as the tuition has increased, have begun using to pay for the majority of my frivolous expenses during the semester).
Point is, I suddenly find myself needing this job. All the financial aid stuff, coupled with being on the verge of having a girlfriend who may actually stick around for awhile, means that I’m going to actually need money. Consequently, I need this job. Well, maybe not this job, but a job, and since I’ll never get fired, I may as well hang on to it, right?
But Oh Face…Oh Face, man. If he lasts another semester, I’ll be very surprised.
Posted by Stan on January 10, 2004 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace
January 5, 2004
Can I Get a Jump?
No.
We had a bit of a snowstorm here yesterday; consequently, the roads are shitty, the cars are shittier, and the temperature has drop like a sack of donkey testicles in a prison rape. I have no idea what that analogy means.
Like every other day on the planet, I got off the train and trudged my way up to my car, which sat all day on the top level of a parking garage and is now covered in salt that was tossed indiscriminately around the lot. Yay for that.
One of the fun things about the top level of the garage: there’s no light. Sure, there are lights, but most of them are either broken out or dead. It’s a very dark, desolate place, and I’d probably feel unsafe if not for the fact that I’m usually there in rush hour, when it’s sort of crawling with people.
Tonight, it was pretty dead. I saw one other guy on the top level, and he was already almost to the other end of the lot — in the same aisle as me — when I got up there. No big, right?
I went to my car, unlocked the door, and I saw a guy walking toward me. I figured it was just some guy who decided to park and spend a bleary, forgettable night Downtown™, because he’s very hip and cool.
“Excuse me, sir?” a timid, high-toned voice asked just after I opened my door. Maybe I’m a paranoid person, but I immediately whirled around and dropped my backpack, containing among other things a laptop, into the car and stood in a disturbing linebacker pose in front of the doorway. I almost did a Ralph Furley karate stance, but I managed to compose myself when I realized this guy was about four feet tall and about as threatening as a beached whale.
Still, I was defensive. Partly the paranoia, partly the thought that he had many, many weapons concealed on his person. Which I guess is also paranoia.
“What?!” I snapped.
“Can you help me jump my car, please?” He seemed pretty desperate.
“No,” I said, “I really gotta get home.” This was a lie. It’s cold, and I assumed my car would be all icy (fortunately, it wasn’t), so I figured I’d need at least ten minutes to warm up the car, if not more. Lucy called me while I was at work, so I thought I’d call her back and talk to her while I warmed up my car.
“Ohokaysorry,” the man said, and he seriously said it all as if it was one long word. I found that amusing.
He moved on, and I figured he really was just harmless. Still, I got in my car, started it, and left immediately. My engine weeped with pain, but it understood. I wasn’t really afraid at that point; I mainly just didn’t want him coming back after a few minutes and get roped into helping to jump his car. For one thing, despite the zillions of times I’ve aided in jumping cars, I never really paid attention, so if he didn’t know and I didn’t know, there would probably be some form of thermonuclear blast rocking the midwest by this time. For another, I just didn’t want to help him.
I felt sort of guilty, and I guess I still sort of do. Once, I left my lights on when I got to the lot, so I had to have it jumped when I got back. I called my mom, and she grudgingly came to help but insisted I go and ask other people in cars to help me. Nobody would, and I guess now I know why. It’s really fucking creepy and disturbing, no matter how completely unintimidating a person you are. Especially at night in the dark.
I thought later, on my way home, that I should’ve told him to go back into the station and beg people who were just getting off trains. There’s a strange psychological thing that happens to people at rush hour. When they first get off the train, there’s this excessive relief that the ride is finally over, but usually by the time they reach the escalator down to the parking lot, their relief turns to anticipation of just getting the fuck out of there and going home.
So, when you get up to the parking lot, even if you’re the most trusting, naïve, or helpful person on the planet, you still wouldn’t help the person jump his or her car because you just want to leave. I figured if he caught somebody in the station, they might at least agree to it and then get stuck before they get down to the parking lot. Plus, standing under the hostile fluorescents, he’d look far less intimidating than randomly approaching people from the shadows.
But, obviously, I didn’t think of any of that until later, so here’s my advice to the three people who enjoy this blog and live in a place with harsh winters and poorly maintained outdoor parking garages: stand somewhere brightly lit and public and beg for somebody to jump your car; don’t approach them from behind as they’re getting into their car. If my paranoia had been a little bit more severe, and I had had immediate access to a blunt object, that guy probably would have been unconscious for awhile.
Posted by Stan on January 5, 2004 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Stories of Pain and Humiliation
J’Accuse!
Somebody stole the U-Passes out of our office, supposedly. My general thought is they were just misplaced somewhere around our incredibly disorganized, messy office, but nonetheless, my boss reported it as a theft to security. Apparently they were stolen Tuesday, the 23rd, though I couldn’t recall physically seeing the U-Passes myself any time after the previous Thursday.
I was one of two student workers there on Monday and Tuesday. Neither of us stole them, and literally nobody came in those two days, so neither of us can even remember looking in the drawer to see if they were still there. It’s not like we actually care at all.
Personally, I find it sort of amusing that they disappeared. It sorta serves the office right for being utterly disorganized. We’re always losing shit, but this is the first time we’ve lost anything that’s been considered a big deal.
I’m glad I wasn’t horribly interrogated, as if I were guilty. It’s nice to have a level of trust, even though I haven’t been there very long. Basically, I was asked if I moved them; I said no. Then I was asked if I recalled seeing them before I left on Tuesday; I said no, but I didn’t even look. That was the end of it.
Posted by Stan on January 5, 2004 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace
January 1, 2004
Losing Touch with Reality
I remember several months ago, I was walking down Van Buren Street, staring up at the el tracks like a dope, and thinking to myself, “I wonder if they actually filmed this in Chicago.” Which I often think of while watching movies that take place in Chicago, so it would have been a reasonable thought if not for the fact that, ahem, it was real life.
I had a similar experience this morning. My parents got me the Alien “quadrilogy” (hereafter “tetralogy,” since I only like to use made-up words when they’re not designed for people who are mentally retarded) for Christmas, so I’ve been watching the movies and documentaries in that collection for the past few days. Consequently, I have aliens on the brain. I haven’t had any nightmares, but this morning I kept having strange stomach cramps, and at one point, I thought to myself, “Oh God, this is it — it’s about to hatch.”
And then I thought, “You’re an idiot,” and took some Pepto-Bismol.
Posted by Stan on January 1, 2004 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
