music must change

01.03.04 @ 11:47 a.m.

I'm finally getting around to reading that Observer interview, which I kind of forgot about until I read Candace's entry this morning. And while it is for the most part things I don't really want to know (keeping my images of Townshend nice and spotless and also not making me sad), it is interesting. And I like how the interviewer defines the Who:

"Unlike the Beatles, who were loveable, and the Stones who were sexual, the Who were simply fucked up and angry."

And I love them for it.

I don't think I can finish reading this right now. Especially because I got suddenly and immediately cheered by listening to "Guitar and Pen." Who Are You is really growing on me. Well, all my new albums are, of course. There's an early version of "Empty Glass" on WAY that's quite a bit different. I think I'm just easily enthused by slightly alternate lyrics in songs I enjoy, and in this one, "killing each other by driving a wedge" is changed to "killing each other, then we jump off the ledge."

It seems I'm not going to be able to get off the subject of Townshend and sad things. Who By Numbers is mostly rather sad lyrics. Yesterday I was very taken by this pair of lines from "In a Hand or a Face":

Ain't it funny how they all fire the pistol
At the wrong end of the race?

Conversely, there are great lines from the Darkness like this from "Friday Night":

God the way she moves moves me
To write bad poetry

Man, I love the Darkness, possibly to an unhealthy degree. Nah. It's just music that, in the misapplied (by me) words of Bob Dylan, you have to "play fuckin' loud."

Oh, one last thing about the Who and WBN (I think, I haven't memorized tracklists for WBN and WAY yet) (Oh my god... my Who By Numbers abbreviation is the same as my abbreviation for Who Boy Nick! I only noticed that just now!): "Trick of the Light." "Was I all right? / Did I take her to the height of ecstacy?" That is not the kind of question I envision a rock star asking himself. But then a quick listen to Psychoderelict makes it pretty obvious that Townshend seems to run soley on insecurity sometimes. (I went to change the CD so as not to listen to "No Road Romance" because... of stupid reasons that I'll ignore for now and "Trick of the Light" is on WAY.)

So on to my life rather than Townshend's, eh? Dad and I drove down to Eugene earlier than anticipated to take advantage of a break in the weather. Apparently it's suppose to snow like hell again between today and tomorrow. I was a little bit worried because my parents consider the pickup to be the more reliable car, but we've only put snow tires on the BMW. So we drove 120 miles without any nods to the weather. And Dad drove a further 120 to get back to Portland, but he made it fine.

Oh! But before that, before we even left the house, the snow collapsed part of our barn! There's a shed of corrugated metal built against one side and my dad and grandfather used to, well, basically dump garbage there. Old couches and used dog vaccination needles and a multitude of horrible things. My parents cleaned it out a year or two ago. They rented a giant dumpster and filled it up. There were like three TVs in there! What the hell! Anyway, the barn is where you put things you want to get totally fucking ruined, either by dripping water or rats. I used to walk through there all the time, but lately it worries me and I'd rather take the long way around. But I guess my dad had just walked under the shed and seconds after he was out from under it, the roof just fell in. No warning, he said. Crazy. I'm a little disappointed that I forgot to look at it when we were leaving, mostly because the only two pairs of shoes I brought from Eugene (and I wasn't going to take any that I leave in Portland with me back to school) were both converse which would not have been so bad if it was just snow, but it was total slush. So I was busy picking my way carefully around to minimize the number of times my foot sank through snow into a concealed puddle. Then somehow the keys got locked in the car and Dad had to go back and get the spare set and sent me to go say goodbye to Grandma (and I finally saw her new glasses, and yeah, they are kind of ugly, so I see why she never wears them.)

Once we did get here and confirm that the house was still intact and no, my TV wasn't stolen (my parents fretted about that all damn month. I knew nothing was going to happen and look! Nothing happened!) and got all my stuff inside, and then my dad took me to the grocery store to restock my house after I threw away everything that could possibly go bad over the break before leaving for Portland. It was insanely crowded there, to the point where we stopped waiting in the regular checkout line and told the 15-items-or-less boy that we were coming through with 20 items, dig? Ugh. I think that everyone is panicked about the snow that's supposed to come and were stocking up. Which I suppose isn't too absurd if you live farther away from the store than me (4 blocks). Actually, one woman was buying firewood, which is rather clever and perhaps something I should have looked into, because I'm screwed heat-wise if the power goes out and we have a fireplace.

Speaking of being screwed heat-wise, I did a remarkably stupid thing: I left the power cord for my electric blanket at home, which means it was just a blanket last night. I was so damn cold. Hopefully Mom'll get it in the mail today and I'll get it on Monday and I will not freeze to death at night. I hate using heaters at night because, without fail, I wake up sweating. Blah.

Last night I had a dream that Uncle Mort (not my uncle, it's his radio name) of the Portland's Rockaholics Anonymous was doing his show from my parent's kitchen and I was helping out. Then he got called away on some kind of emergancy and I decided to keep the show going, but I was totally incompetant and left a lot of dead air. Mostly because I couldn't find any CDs.

You know what song I love? "Sloop John B" by the Beach Boys.

:edit: I'm listening to Pet Sounds and "Hang On To Your Ego" came on, and yet again, I starting thinking "Where the hell do I know this from, a commercial of some sort..." And on a whim, I checked the commercial that did this to me last time with "I See the Rain" by Marmalade, and what do you know, the instrumental version of "Hang On To Your Ego" is the first version of the Gap's old "Two White Shirts" ad. ("I See the Rain" being the second version. Odd coincidence.

[Title track: The Who, Who Are You]

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Previously

fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05