In the Mood for Love.

Hi. I hope you had a good Valentine's day. I hung out with my friends today. We did classy shit like having dinner at Chipotle. I gave them candy.

I'm very happy because I have fallen in love again with the one thing that matters most in my life (I'm talking about music, of course). I'm very excited.

PS: I know I was upset for a few seconds about not getting Arcade Fire tickets, but I saw all these people queued up for the show last night and I was happy I didn't have to line up in the cold for the shows.

Crummy Day.

Wow, I sort of started my homework early today, and I'm like halfway done. I don't know whether I should be proud or feel disgusted with myself.

I rewatched Amores Perros today, and I'm glad because after watching it the first time, it HAUNTED me! Now I know that the first time wasn't a fluke and that it really is a fantastic movie. Incredible. And Gael García Bernal was so good in it, I think it's my favorite of his movies.

Man, I was already feeling really anxious and sick when my (hot) professor sat like, one row ahead of me. I just stared at the back of his head like the entire time and felt even worse, but then this kid on my row (the last) started SNORING and my professor just stared at this kid like, "Wow, what a fucking idiot," and I was just glad he wasn't thinking that about me. I don't know why I even think my prof is hot though, I mean, he's sorta really fucking geeky to be honest.

But yeah, after that I just had to come home cos--well, you know.

EDIT: BTW, I listened to that Spring Awakening soundtrack and it's aight, nothing to be raving about (maybe it's different seeing it on stage?). But that one song I really like, the emo one (it's even called "Don't Do Sadness"!) is pretty damn good, like better than 90% (95%?) of emo songs and on par with like 75% of indie pop/rock songs... of course those numbers aren't scientific or nuthin'. Just sayin'.

So Would!

<3

Tragic.

Sigh. My life has reach a new level of pathetic. First, I watched the Grammys and I actually felt bad when JT didn't win for fucking album of the year! What the hell! The Grammys aren't worth getting involved emotionally! Especially when you find out that Black Eyed Peas actually won shit! Disgusting.

Second, I totally downloaded the Spring Awakening soundtrack because I keep seeing their fucking ads on the teevee and the music keeps fucking getting stuck in my fucking head and I sort of liked what I heard in the ads cos it sounded so fucking emo but I'm just mad at myself for being such a sucka and being affected by advertising! True fact though: I probably wouldn't have paid attention to the ads if the costumes hadn't looked so, uh, Amish. Though I found out why they looked Amish, it's cos this is actually set in late 19 c. Germany. LOL.

Last, I kept refreshing my Audioscrobbler page to see my charts and it didn't update until tonight. :(

Ugh.

Anna Nicole Smith. How do you mourn someone of limited merits? It's like, you don't want to be offensive, and it really sounds like she was suffering and everything had been going wrong for her, but seriously, I can't believe the column inches and the minutes that have gone to tell her life story. She was C-list at MOST for crying out loud! Honestly, the most worrying thing about her death is her daughter. What the hell is gonna happen to her??

I watched Access Hollywood and lol'ed at their "ANNA NICOLE + MARILYN MONROE!! AMAZING PARALLEL LIVES!!!1!!1!" Um, okay?

But I do feel like she went through a lot of shit, I hope she's not suffering anymore.

Recent Finds.

I've been lurking around a lot, listening to Soda Stereo, Calle 13, Edan, "Don't Call Us Immigrants", and all that good shit. I've been searching for other stuff, of course, and found some real gems recently and I am starting to feel hope all over again that there's good music for me out there.

Sr. Chinarro

When I was looking at year-end lists for a lot of blogs, I noticed that a lot of Spanish (like, from Spain) blogs were raving about Sr. Chinarro on their lists. I was like, "WTF is with that weird name?" I still haven't figured it out, but the band has been around for a while, and they're on Acuarela, which puts me at ease because that label is fairly respected. You might know the label for releasing Xiu Xiu shit; some of the import stuff finds its way over here sometimes.

Anyway, I've been listening to the most recent Sr. Chinarro album, El mundo según, and it's fabulous. Just a solid indie rock album, catered to marginally socially inept kids who have grown up on the Smiths with just a hint of twee.

Alaska y Dinarama

Fairly recently I stumbled upon this blog that had a song called "Ni tu ni nadie" which I didn't listen to, but I was cleaning up my tags this weekend (sigh, a perpetual endeavor to take on) and I was like, "Um, this song is sorta good". I'd never heard of the artist before and I googled the name, Alaska y Dinarama. I found out it's really gay shit. And I mean it in the sense that I could really see this being played in a gay club with everyone going wild and asking for more.

Even more spectacular was finding out that the one Thalía song I truly liked in the past few years, "A quien le importa", was actually a COVER and that the original was done by Alaska y Dinarama!!! No, seriously, this news has rocked my world, because this song is really brilliant. And guess how I found out?? YouTube, of course! And yes, ladies and gents, the original is absolutely amazing. In a cheesy 80s sort of way, at least.



Watching this video, my jaw dropped by the overflow of awesome, and I also wondered whether the singer was a man, woman, or something in between. I guess I'm not the only one, because in the comments someone makes the point that yes, Alaska is all woman and y'all better show some respeck. Or something like that. Ultimately it doesn't matter because the song is so damn catchy! The video is so cool, too, so much better than the shit Thalía made for this song, which was all like, "Let's go to CBGB's and make believe I'm all alterna-rock and edgy". Yuck.

Make sure to YouTube the vid for "Ni tú ni nadie" too! It's a wonderful pop song!

Lucio Dalla

One of the first few videos I remember seeing as a kid, besides "Thriller" and "Lambada" was this song that went, "Una casita chiquitita así..." And, well, I didn't remember the title, but I googled the entire phrase, and well, it pointed to this Lucio Dalla dude, who I gather was pretty popular in Italy a while back, and pretty respected currently.

I still can't find the song in Spanish, but I found out the song was originally "Attenti al lupo", which can be seen here:



The wonderful thing about finding this is knowing that it was an even better song that I remembered. Good shit, the video is hilarious, too. But even better was finding a wonderful video of Dalla singing "O Sole Mio" with Gianni Morandi AAAAAND Eros Ramazzotti!!! HOLY SHIT! I don't really care about Ramazzotti's music for the most part, but I find his voice to be nasal in a REALLY SEXY WAY (I can't explain any more accurately than that). And of course, I totally have a crush on Gianni Morandi. What a beautiful voice! Siiigh. He just warms my heart.

One thing to note about the "O Sole Mio" vid (below), the studio set up is a bit strange to me, I'm used to seeing the artists on a stage/platform with the audience looking up, not looking down, at the artists. Fantastic rendition, though. Wonderful seeing three very different pop singers getting together like that.



Ghetto Brothers

My best find, was just this morning. So I'm finally actually reading Can't Stop Won't Stop, and I read about this gang, the Ghetto Brothers. Well, they actually had a band with the same name, they would play parties the gang would throw on their turf.

The group sounded interesting, so of course I went on a google-quest. What can I say? I pretty much hit jackpot. Download away; the links still work. And if you haven't stumbled into the Waxidermy blog before, definitely check it out! It was my first time today, too, and there's some really weird, interesting stuff. I'm definitely going back to download more goodies. :)

I guess it's strange to use this adjective, but the Ghetto Brothers shit is real cute. These songs make me want to go back in time and just give these dudes a big hug and listen to the Beatles with them. You can hear the Beatles influence in "You Say You Are My Friend," which is my favorite of the four tracks. To be honest, when I was reading about them, I didn't expect these kids to have such a polished sound, but they really have their shit together! At the same time, they have this really raw teenage feel to the music. Absolutely tremendous, and at the same time a shame because I can't believe they were wasting their times being in gangs instead of just writing songs and trynna make it huge. This shit needs the Soul Jazz treatment or SOMEthing. (Wink, wink, just a suggestion if anyone from the label ever bumped into this blog.) This is seriously the most exciting thing I've heard since Soda Stereo a few months ago. Highly recommended, seriously.

Jamia Simone Nash

Before I forget, I wanna tell youse about this cute little girl. See, one of my favorite pop songs is "Who's Lovin' You" by Smokey Robinson + the Miracles. I cry to that shit, y'know? So I was looking for videos for it, and of course there's a few of the Jackson 5 cos they covered the song with much success (see here), but I also found this video of Jamia Simone Nash just going crazy on this shit.

See the proof:

So Addictive.

Goodby homework.

Hello greatest game since Tetris? Maybe Tetris is too much. Minesweeper might be more like it.

Shit, the highest I've gotten is 115, and they just give me a "Good!"

Style Peaces.

Well, walking around you see a lot of people have tagged up anything and everything that can be tagged on the street with whatever medium of choice. Sharpies, spray paint, stickers are really big now, too. Recently this tag caught my eye, because the name was so damn goofy. I will refrain from writing this person's tag (you can ask me in person if you really care, though you probably don't) because this person might find this blog and how awkward would that be? Anyway, I'd never noticed the tag before, so I was like, Where did this guy come from? So I googled the name.

This person has a MySpace.

Now, I think it's sorta "dumb" to have a MySpace, I don't know why, but it seems like it's way too public for you if you're a graffiti artist. If I was writing up shit all over the walls I'd lay low. But I guess he deems it safe.

Anyway, days ago I messaged him and was like, "Hey I like yr tags" and I forgot about it, but he messaged back and sounded very grateful! Awww. It warms my heart. Hope to see his name more often.

Speaking of graffiti, a word that I find hard to spell for some reason, there's one tag that I LOVE but I could never ever ever get the picture because it's so damn big and uh, it's sort of in the tunnel between the Fordham & Kingsbridge stations on the uptown D. "Sort of" meaning "definitely". Well, the tag says, "The words of the prophets will be written on the subway walls," which I thought was all OMINOUS and shit, so I googled that too, and found out it was from a Simon & Garfunkel song. Oooookay. How edgy.

Tacky.

Yesterday I got the new copy of Spin (with MCR on the cover and the 4-star Fall Out Boy review, LULZ), and there was one ad in particular that made me go OMGWTF. I just couldn't tell if it was real, but I guess it is! When I looked at it, it seemed like another snakesploitation movie by Samuel L. Jackson, but I guess it's more about Christina Ricci being blonde and not being fat anymore, which I actually hate! If you think about the fact that it has a February release date, it's probably not that great. Sigh.

But I'm glad they're both getting work...

Oh, and this issue of Spin is relatively great compared to some of the shit that came out last year. They even talk about music.

Todo Personal.

So recently I was looking at John Leguizamo stand-up shit on YouTube, right? Like I had a class before where we actually studied his material. I know, totally ridiculous... until you watch his specials and you're like, "Um, this is sort of hilarious?" Well I borrowed out a book from the library, Freak, and I thought it was gonna be a laugh riot. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty funny, but the last bit just makes me wanna cry! It got all poignant and I'm all like, "No, no! Be funny! BE FUNNY!" Way to bum me out. No, it was worse. A lot of times you think people are just full of shit and then suddenly they pull out all this deep stuff out of their asses, and they're brave enough to share it with you, and you're all uncomfortable because you're aware that you don't really get it. Like there's this big thing about Leguizamo's relationship with his dad, and I can't relate at all because my dad is sort of awesome and all you can do is be like, "My bad, it's tragic I got it so good."

It sorta sucked just reading it cos you know so much of it is physical humor and a lot of stuff with accents, too; I wish his specials were widely available on DVD, especially Mambo Mouth, we saw parts of it in class and it was amazing.

In other news, I finally forgot about going to a concert. It's an end of an era for me: I officially don't care enough about concerts. It makes me really sad.

What makes it worse is that it was Deerhoof. I just... It was a crazy week. I spent most of it incredibly angry that I took the time to review the Deerhoof album when all I wanted to do was listen to Soda Stereo. Like I was surprised by how pissed I was and I had to tone down my review, because it's not even a bad album. It's just that I could name way more shit that I'm enjoying right now that ISN'T Friend Opportunity. Whatever, it's my own fault, I don't know why I volunteered to write about it. :/ I'm even mad that Deerhoof are my no. 2 overall on Audioscrobbler. Shit. And it's gonna be my no. 1 for the week, too, which isn't even true because most of the time I was listening to Soda Stereo and Calle 13 on my mp3 player.

WHATEVER. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

Oscar Noms.

I just watched the Oscar nominations. Salma Hayek is so cheesy, I swear. But she looked cute with her hair like that. AND RYAN GOSLING GOT NOMINATED. Can I get an OMGWTF?