Skip to main content

Give me the beat, boys.

I always get anxious when I think about playing music with someone new. I basically grew up playing songs with Spencer and Kit; doing that now, almost eight years later, is second nature. It's a trust thing, I guess. You know what to expect and it's okay to branch out and try weird things. It doesn't matter if you screw up because everybody is a good friend. They don't care.

With new people, you have to worry about making a good impression. About playing as well as you think they can. About living up to the idea that they have of you. About not screwing up. There's a lot of, "Are they going to dig this style?" and "What if they get bored because I suck?" and general insecurity and self-consciousness that goes along with it.

And it's all a bunch of bullshit.

I'm jamming with Thomas tomorrow afternoon and I am anxious. The last time we played together was in high school with Spencer, and I was playing keyboard. I couldn't even sing and play at the same time. It was fun, but I'm pretty sure the experience didn't live up to his expectations.

It didn't live up to mine. But it was fun just getting together and hanging out.

I crashed my bike today. I say 'my bike' only because the bike in question apparently belongs to nobody. So it's mine. I was riding it around my backyard, jumping off of whatever I could manage and trying to do wheelies and manuals. I have never really been inclined to do tricks on bicycles, so I'm not really sure what drove me to do that. The plan was for me to jump off the terrace in my yard and try to land and wheelie all over the place. Instead, the bike went shooting out from under me and I dropped onto my back and watched clouds drift by over me. The bike rattled and clanged out of my line of sight.

It was excellent.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

You ended weak, but you started.

This is something I feel very strongly about. So strong are my emotions about it, in fact, that I have haphazardly drafted this singular post about it on the fly. I hope, for your sake, that you are seated as I deal with this incredibly important social issue and say controversial things--the likes of which give women the vapors. Shorts. I fucking hate shorts. I hate them because you can't look cool in them. Think about it. Have you ever seen an action hero save the world wearing shorts? No. Action heroes wear pants. Men wear pants. People who save the world wear pants. Pants, pants, pants. Nobody wears shorts excepts, like, stoners, lazy guys, and dudes. And bros. Those archetypes do not do adventurous things. Indiana Jones? Pants. Robocop? Pants. Flapjack? Pants. Bear Grylls? Pants. Australian stereotypes? Shorts. Australia really likes to try to censor their internet content. That doesn't sound so awesome and/or manly to me. To prove my conclusion that shorts a

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur

Waiting and such.

A doctor came to speak at our lecture series the other day. Honestly, I don't even remember what kind of doctor he was. I don't remember any of the questions he answered. I don't remember any of the anecdotes he related. I don't remember any of the insight he imparted on us or any of the wisdom he shared. Except for one thing, which really resonated with me at the time. "The biggest challenge facing you as pre-health profession students," he said before the lecture ended. "Is the overwhelming cynicism of our society." He's right. He's right, and it's awful. I'm a pretty cynical guy, but at least I know it's a joke. That everything is a huge joke. But everybody is so jaded these days. We just can't stand to entertain the thought that maybe--just maybe--things aren't as bad as we think they are. As we want them to be. That maybe--just maybe--people aren't always selfish pieces of shit. There have been a lot