medley

who doesn't like a good medley every once and a while.

death cab and the beatles!!!



sometime next week i'll jam up "iwillfollowyouintothedark" and"yesterday"
it will be awesome.

kylelowe

ps.

i think i'm going to start posting videos on vimeo. the bit rates are just so much higher and they host hd video! i just need an hdv cam...

busy

i've been really busy, it's strange.

i've been asked to dj another wedding at the end of the month, i've been asked to take some vacation footage/photos shot in vietnam and edit it up to look fairly informational, i'm playing guitar for a local production of joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat, and i seem to be "on call guy" for a few people.

this past three day weekend, i was called up to shoot some b-roll for my friends' leadership class helping out at a hospital. not bad, nothing says community service like renovating a garden for terminally ill people. as i was about to pack it up at the hospital, another friend calls me up because his guitar isn't working at his winter percussion rehearsal. i do some over the phone troubleshooting with him and determine that the issue needs soldering to be resolved. i grab my dad's iron and head out to the high school campus. the repair takes about twenty minutes and i finally head home.

i like being busy and useful to other people. it's just that i have homework that needs to be done. i'd much rather shoot and edit video and repair and play guitar than type essays all day, but favors don't pay (well, neither does homework, i actually have to pay tuition to do homework...).

story of my life.

on purpose?

so lindsey lohan has posed nude for new york magazine, on purpose. recreating the ever strange "last sitting" photo shoot of marilyn monroe.

the only question that is tearing in my mind is; monroe died six weeks after her photo shoot, does this also mean lohan will die die in the upcoming six weeks. only time will tell.

unlike monroe, lohan will not be leaving much of a legacy. mean girls was funny, but drunken raving and herbie; fully loaded is totally forgettable.

women's studies

i take a women's studies course at my school. an intro to women's studies. i needed a social science ge. i thought this would be easy. it isn't.

this class is just a lot of studying. there are only three tests and the teacher goes off on tangents when lecturing and i'm not sure what will be on the tests; either the lecture tangents or the assigned book work. i won't know until i see the first test. very nerve racking.

we were assigned the first paper in the class recently and to research for the paper i needed to collect images of women in sports. i assumed that this would be an easy task. unfortunately when i went to a store today (during elementary school hours to avoid interesting conversations with people i might know) to buy some sports magazines to research, i ran into quite a few road bumps (the things i attempted to avoid).

when i arrived to the magazine aisle, there was a woman and her baby reading up on why different celebrities are in rehab. i guess that she was thinking to herself, "gosh, i wish i could live a fabulous life like these stars, but i'm here in target with a baby..."

i picked up a sports illustrated to flip through it, but because of the recent super bowl, there wasn't a single article about any female sports. so i pick up a women's health, and just to my luck a big man in a business suit and on his cell phone walks down the aisle, picks up a car and driver and flips through it while on the phone.

as i flip through the women's fitness, i can feel the woman and her child that's not yet old enough to attend school looking at me with judging looks. i found that in the magazine there are two advertisements that i can use. as i reached out for a women's fitness magazine, the man finished his phone call and begins to assess his surroundings (since average people don't follow what's going on around them while on the phone, the conversation ends and the person then begins to realize where they are). the man eyeballs me picking up the women's fitness magazine and also notices that i have a women's health in the other hand. his judging glances are like treacherous gamma rays tearing me apart on a cellular level. i try to flip through the fitness magazine ignoring the judging from the small child and the stereotypical white/hetro/business man.

eventually i decide that these two magazines will fill my paper with enough analytical research to choke a developing nation and head to the check out area. i aimed for the express lane, because it's express and i assumed it would get me out of the store quicker, and with less scrutiny.

i patiently waited for my turn to check out holding the magazines folded so as not to show their contents. i felt like a dirty old man purchasing porn. with the people ahead of me done with their transactions i swiftly placed my items on the desk-y thing and the woman scans them without looking up. she was in the zone, she knew what it meant to be in the express lane; get people in and out, in an express manner. i thought i was home free, she looked at the computer to tell me my total then looked at me for payment, but something didn't click in her head. she looked down at the magazines again to confirm her thoughts then attempted to look back at me casually. i pretended not to notice as i was getting money out of my wallet. there was nothing i could have purchased in junction with these magazines to take the sting off, plus i didn't have enough money on hand to make such a purchase.

she didn't say anything, but i knew that she wanted to ask why i was purchasing these magazines. i was perfectly prepared to tell her that they were for the class, but she didn't ask. she simply handed me my change and wished me a good day. i wished her a good day as well and took my plastic bag of research out the door with me.

it wasn't until i was outside that i noticed that my armpits were damp. being shot at with judging glances does have a physical effect i guess. for me it was very similar to the time i held a drawing for my senior prom date. see embarrassing video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpGH0E7o588

oh well. it's what i do that makes me my unique self.

rant

college as an institutional need is fucked up.

i learned today that my women's studies professor, who has a prestigious phd, makes a measly fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year; while the football coach of the school makes one-point-two million dollars a year. she went to college for at least eight years, he studied to football videos. gah!

now, i'm only in my first year in college and am fairly naive to life in general. but being told i need to go to college just isn't making sense to me right at the moment.

i'm also being told that there will be an increase of tuition within a few semesters, to support the athletics department. the athletic department that gives away scholarships. the athletic department that hasn't sold out a game in quite some time. the athletic department needs to take some business budgeting classes.

college has a bleak out look for me.

one-hundred-fifty jello shots, 20+ drunken people, ten hours of driving and two lesbians later...

my cousin is married.

it has been quite an exciting weekend for me. it started out with playing guitar for grease thursday, then driving in a minivan from fresno to sonoma county friday morning/afternoon for my cousin mel's wedding. the wedding was quaint and tiny with only about 70-80 people.

before and after the ceremony i mingled with many people, some who i hadn't seen in quite some time. one person being my newly married cousin's friend from high school who claimed to remember me when i was "yay (holding hand four feet from the ground) tall". i had only joined into this ongoing conversation because she said she was a women's studies major in college and i wanted to pipe in and say i am currently taking a women's studies class. shortly after, the group of people that were all sharing in this conversation boil down to myself and my cousin's friend and her escort, but then my brother walks up to join in on conversation and my cousin's friend introduces herself, "hello, i went to school with your cousin and this is my partner (insert female name here)" my brother didn't quite register what that meant right off the bat, but quick came to realize that we were having a conversation with two lesbians and exited the conversation quietly.

after dinner i did my best to entertain the people with music (aka dj) but my cousin's friends are very picky with their preference of music. i played 80's hits with some good turn out, 90's ballads with minimal interest, and contemporary top 40 stuff with very little interest at all. the strangest thing is, that the song that got the most people out on the dance floor that night was the violent femmes' "blister in the sun". now, the song is great, but i really didn't expect the turnout that it received and how little the rest of the songs got.

and with the 2:1 ratio of people to jello shots, i thought more people would be letting loose and hitting up the dance floor... i can't win them all i guess.

then saturday my family and i all drive back to fresno, so i can play guitar for grease. the closing night show was great, i got paid, had a small dinner at the 500 club and then crashed the cast party. jared (my amazing piano player buddy) and i know lots of songs. so at the cast party, we whip out our guitars and electric pianos with a handful of cast members and start a little jam session. we did some songs that we could get quite a few people to dance and sing along to and overall stole the party.

then after some downtime, jared and i start playing tunes from other musicals and and handful of hip kids joined us to sing along, while the rest of the party cranked up the booty shaking music in the other room and got their freak on.

so here i am. my crazy weekend slowing down. i have homework to do, but it will need to wait. i'm going to start rehearsing for joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat soon, and i'm really excited, the music rocks. i'm going to bring the thunder to that musical.

grease

so, i'm playing guitar for my old high school's production of grease (they asked me back to play!). the show rocks, no doubt about it. the orchestra/band brings the awesome and the cast belts their heart out.

last night was the opening night of the show, and the house was packed. the school has a reputation for great musicals. this musical is a bit different from past performances because the band isn't in the usual elevating pit. we are stuffed back stage hiding away from everyone because the musical needs all the stage ground they can get for the ginormous cast. at intermission, wilke (the other guitar player) talks to some people he knows and they think the music is prerecorded! i see some people afterward, and they see me carrying my guitar case and ask me why i had it... i tell them i was in the orchestra/band and they tell me they thought it was cd tracks too!

i'm not sure if these statements are compliments or not...

the reason the directors and music directors insist on having a orchestra/band is to teach students that music is organic, but i assumed that it worked the same way for the audience too. how wrong i was. oh well. life goes on.