best of craigslist > s.f. bayarea > Originally Posted: Tue, 26 Feb 17:25 PST Thanks, Mr.Hipster Record Store Clerk. Date: 2008-02-26, 5:25PM PST
Dear Hipster Record Store Clerk,
Thank you for judging me on the CD I bought yesterday. Our passive-aggressive altercation made me realize how conformist I am for buying an old Rage Against The Machine album. Your condescension was just the intellectual wake-up call I needed.
I discovered a new me yesterday, and my eyes were opened in a new way. Thanks to you, I realize now that the key to enlightenment is reading Pitchfork, watching High Fidelity, listening to Velvet Underground, having a tattoo of a star on the inside of my wrist, growing an ironic mustache, living in the Mission, and wearing a too-small sweater, multi-colored 70’s ski-vest, chunky plastic-frame glasses, a high school sports T-shirt, air-tight black jeans, and Nixon-era Chuck Taylors.
I had it all wrong, man. You showed me that a skilled job and a comfortable living is just a lie. I need to go to art school, have my parents pay my rent, join a Joy Division-influenced band, and wait for a record deal, like you. I’m totally missing out in life.
So thanks again for mocking me. I mean, at first I thought you were just a pathetic, frustrated musician trying to feel better about yourself. But now I see you’re an uncompromising visionary.
No one will ever understand you. You’re so different.
Signed,
Everyone Not Like You
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
For everyone who has ever been told, reflexively, that some piece of music they enjoyed was shit...
or been answered with a sneer and a "They're really not that good,"
or told "You get easily excited over crap."
or had someone imply that they are introverted or uncool for liking something
or made to feel stupid for showing enthusiasm about some movie, book, or song that touched them
I raise my mug in salute to you, Everyone-Not-Like-You. I've been dealing with people like the asshole clerks in High Fidelity my whole life. Maybe someday they'll realize that the impenetrable taxonomy of music genres is not the highest achievement of intellectual discourse.
After a long, long gestation period, I am launching my reading podcast. The first recording is "Nyarlathotep," by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. It's world premiere is on Yog Radio, episode 28, which has just gone live. Yog Radio is a Lovecraftiana podcast. Constructive criticism is encouraged; your enjoyment is hoped for.
Yog Radio podcast home - You can use the feed in your podcatcher utility to download, or use the web player halfway down the page. My reading begins 42min30sec into the show.
I have always been a fan of the Junkyard Wars/Robot Wars/Mythbusters type of television. I never tire of watching really rugged, practical people making 1337 devices from scratch. I admit, though, there is an element to my enjoyment that I find... unusual.
Am I the only man who finds an arc welder in the hands of a slender woman a thrill? Watching a petite female oversee the placing of a concrete safety wall gives me a charge.
Building and destroying is a turn-on. I admit it.
As I watch Smash Lab with its extremely high-speed/slow-motion TEN SECOND shots (that's long) of a car smashing into an aerated concrete wall, I close my eyes.
I was walking home one night. It was about 10 pm, and my belly was full of delicious (albeit overpriced) diner food. I had all of one beer-- a weak one at that. And it came as a total surprise. There were about a dozen of them, though only two stepped up. One cold-cocked me in the chin. He didn't say shit, just let 'er rip and waited for me to drop. Fortunately, I don't have the congenital weakness known as a "glass jaw" and I instead took the opportunity to shout: "Fuck you, bitches!" and ran like a bitch.
They chased me about a block before I started really running, at which point I realized running 8 miles a day gave me a certain edge on the little punks. I slowed down and watched them drop off one-by-one behind me. I sped back up, made a right, a left, ran through some yards, ran basic counter-surveillance (doubled-back, stopped for a while to watch for a tail, walked into another bar) before I finally jumped the fence to my own condo complex and wearily climbed the stairs into my unit.
Much to my surprise, my chin was bleeding like a mofo--which explains the looks I got at the bar I stepped into for a few minutes-- so I decided to hoof it to the hospital...
I was delighted to find the same nurse that was there (hanneman university) the last time I walked into the emergency room (of the infamous fucked up hand incident). I was even more delighted to find that she remembered me! Instead of making me sign in and wait an hour for the next available doctor, she took me into an empty room, swabbed my chin clean, and gave me her professional opinion (Jane, pay attention). Really Cute Nurse - "They hit you pretty hard. It'll leave a scar, but there's nothing any stitches can help. Just leave it be, and it'll heal in a few days as best it can. And be more careful next time, you're always getting hurt." (a summary--she wanted me to talk to the po-lice, I refused)
That's about all there is to that story. I'm getting ready to go to Serbia for a week, possibly two, then a weekend in London to visit friends. Keep an eye on the news. If Kosovo or Belgrade starts burning again, then I must have some sort of destabilizing touch (see Kenya if you doubt the overwhelming power of Doc's finger of DOOM!).
I thought I would resurrect this blog a little with a little question:
How excited are you about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles?
I'm only a little excited by it because I think it's going to suck. Before I get into my gripes about it- I'll say this: I'm excited about this because Sarah Connor is the hottest milf in all milf history. Yes, that's right, I said THAT. And ohkay, that's only half the reason I'm excited- the other half is because I love the Terminator series. When I first saw the advertisements on the city buses, my first reaction was that it was going to be awesome! And then I went home and watch Terminator and T2 twice a day for month. (JK!)
How much of a coincidence is it that it premieres tonight, on the day of my birth? Pretty coincidental!
Anyway, if Arnold were involved in this, I'd probably have a little more faith in the project. But honestly, I think it's going to end up pissing me off.
Lena Headey as Sarah Connor doesn't quite convince me that she's a badass like Linda Hamilton did. She at least should be a little bit more buff. She's not nearly angry enough, strong enough, and at one point she seems downright soft when she begs the good robot to "help me help my son."
The guy who plays John Connor (Thomas Dekker) is as usual pretty scrubby. Not much to say about him.
Maybe my biggest misgiving about this show is the "friend from the future." A female cybernetic organism disguised as a high school girl. And she seems to be as annoying as a high school girl. Of course, she was developed as a marketing scheme to pull in the girls as well as the boys. However, she's totally WEAK. Even less badass looking then the show's Sarah Connor. And she actually gets to say "Come with me if you want to live." I guess I'm just super faithful to the T-101. I also have had enough of these tough girl shows (coughANGELcough) featuring pretty faces/hot bodies who can't act. Least convincing character of the whole show.
The one saving grace for the show is the evil robot. I guess you can't really go wrong with that though.
So I guess I'll be back- either eating my words or being even more angry about the show after I watch it tonight.
My name: hk_newbie
