The Mix Tape: Alive and Well

Hmmm. I'm at work three hours late, two bucks short, lightly hungover, and I have an Interview Committee meeting in an hour. If I retrace my steps, this is what happened.

After work I went and bought some shaving lotion by Murad. At thirty bones a pop, I'm referring to it as a shaving treatment and referring to myself as a Metro...you know what? Scratch Metro, I'm calling myself a homo for that purchase. Swear to god, though, it's a nice shave.

After that I actually went to the grocery store and I hadn't eaten all day. This is as close as I ever come to being stoned. I bought a bunch of broccoli and some bread and cheese for grilled cheeses when it rains, but managed to buy some stoner fare: Honey BBQ twists by Frito's, a DiGiorno pizza and some Hot Wings. I didn't remember purchasing them until I put them on the conveyor for the clerk with my twenty Yoplaits. I'm seriously so gay for Yoplait.

I went home and ate dinner and planned on staying in for the night until I found my muse. I remembered a bartender telling me to put up or shut up when I called the jukebox stale. I jumped on my computer and made two of the most elitist indie hipster mix CDs for the jukebox. So, I ran them down to the bar and planned on maybe having a beer and going home. That didn't happen.

I got there a little after 9:30 and the CDs were in the jukebox and playing in their entirety by 9:45. I'm vain and love my music, so it was like hanging out with a beer and my iPod. That's a nice time. So, I had to sit there and listen to the CDs and see how the crowd reacted. Love me daddy issues like that of a stripper. Oh, I also met two girls who have got to be strippers. GOT TO BE.

When you make a mixtape you have these delusions that it can change someone's life. Like someone is going to hear that lyric in "Exodus Damage" by John Vanderslice and their life will change. Mine did a little bit, but I can't expect the same from others. Here is the set of lyrics that I found ultracompelling when I first heard the song. I seriously almost teared up:

"so the second plane hit at 9:02
I saw it live on a hotel tv, talking on my cell with you
you said this would happen, and just like that, it did
wrong about the feeling, wrong about the sound
but right to say we would stand down

an hour went by without a fighter in the sky
you said there’s a reason why
so tell me now, I must confess
I’m not sick enough to guess

dance dance revolution
all we’re gonna get
unless it falls apart
so I say: go go go
let it fall down
I’m ready for the end

so you hope that one person
could solve everything
and for me, that’s you
sometimes that dream
is a sad delusion
but sometimes it’s true"

Seriously. That is good writing. Regardless, Antonio's Nut House has one of my favorite jukeboxes in the Bay Area now. I realize it is super phonicly narcissistic, but it is what it is.

Here's the playlist of one of 'em:

1. Fuck the Valley Fudge - Grandaddy
2. Ram It Home - We Are Scientists (B-side)
3. My Lunatic Friends - Deathray
4. Song to Say Goodbye - Placebo
5. Can You See Anything? - Veto
6. One - Sunny Day Real Estate
7. When the Sun Goes Down - Arctic Monkeys (Live)
8. Don't Go Down - Elliot Smith
9. Sleep on Needles - Sondre Lerche
10. My Ghettoblaster - Brant Bjork
11. The Bends - Radiohead
12. The Slow Descent into Alcoholism - New Pornographers
13. Meds - Placebo
14. Shake the Sheets - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
15. Whatever Happened to Corey Haim - The Thrills
16. Velvet Snow - Kings of Leon
17. Photograph - Jason Falkner
18. Beautiful - Clem Snide (Christina Aguilera cover)
19. Son's Gonna Rise - Citizen Cope
20. You Are a Knife - Veto
21. Cigarette Smoker Fiona - Arctic Monkeys

Okay, here's the second:

1. Use It - New Pornographers
2. La Costa Brava - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
3. Store Bought Bones - The Raconteurs
4. Fortress - Pinback
5. Finer Feelings - Spoon
6. Get Me Naked 2 Electric Boogaloo - Minus the Bear
7. Can't Lose - We Are Scientists
8. Well Thought Out Twinkles - Silversun Pickups
9. Dr. L'Ling - Minus the Bear
10. Reckoner - Radiohead
11. Big Dipper - Built to Spill
12. Sender - Pinback
13. Exodus Damage - John Vanderslice
14. Freeze the Saints - Stephen Malkmus
15. Apology Song - The Decemberists
16. The Pioneers - Tunng
17. A Call to Apathy - The Shins

I did hear good things about it, too. So, I hung out too late. Sent one semi-bitter/ill-advised e-mail at three in the morning. What happened was this. I was dreaming in an English accent again. Seriously, you do not want this to happen to you. It's miserable. I don't know how the English do it. So, I was up at three in the morning and couldn't sleep and a little out of it and I checked my work e-mail. It was 9:00 AM GMT, so I was technically working. When you are sleepy and lucid, your mind fucks with you. It's like living out your subconscious. That is a world that no one wants to be in. Could you imagine a world without emotional fences and boundaries and half-truths and lies for the benefits of others? I'll say it over and over. It is what it is.

So, 19 minutes until this meeting of reviewing 25 resumes and coming up with five imperative questions to ask candidates. I've got one that goes "If Eddie Munster's dad was a Frankenstein and his mom was a vampire; how was he a werewolf?" The second question I have is just to challenge prospective candidates to a footrace. Technically, asking someone to race counts as a question. Third question is "Quien es mas macho? Senor Burt Reynolds o Senor Tom Selleck?" Fourth question is "Do these pants make my ass look fat?" Fifth question is "What do you think was in the case in Pulp Fiction?

Shit. Done and done. Work is so easy. If you are reading this, I hope you are having a wonderful Friday or weekend. I care about you all deeply.

Update: I just went into the break room at work to grab a Diet Hansen's (so good and plastic tasting like a nice scotch) and I think someone at work has figured out how to microwave farts. Swear to god. It's either that or they are microwaving a dirty diaper and muddy, sweaty tube sock.