Sentimental Valium

Sitting in my friend Kreg's house in Chicago. We're doing some music stuff out here tonight. We have formed a little band to do some park district concerts. For those who remember an older post of mine where I talked about my all-time favorite band names--well, I've incorporated one of those names into this combo: we are Cafeteria Tray. Tonight we are playing about 90 minutes of music and then the park district is playing a movie "under the stars:" we are opening for Finding Nemo. We thought it would be appropriate to play a lot of Korn and Manson for the kiddies.

And disco--never have enough disco.

The drive here was crummy yesterday. It was the strange temperature where it's too hott to have the windows down (along with driving 80mph...), but a little too cool to have the AC on. I don't miss paying tolls--I hate paying for gas. I don't really like driving a car to be honest. I'd love to live in some way to avoid having a car.

I've not watched TV much the past couple months, since I don't have any kind of antenna for reception. Sitting here, watching VH1, makes me miss it a little bit. Commercials still suck though.

This post sucks too--I'm sorry. I wanted to leave something, even while I was gone, but I probably should have avoided it since I have absolutely NOTHING to contribute. Out.

posted by -tr0y- @ 9:06 AM

Weird occurance this morning. I had a random email, from someone's address I don't recognize, that had a simple link. Evidently someone entered my name into a search engine and decided to pass something along to me.

In 2000, an independent movie was made called "The Perfect Nanny." According to the reviews, it's a poor movie (receiving 4.4 stars out of 10), ripping off a decent movie, "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle." Which, I must admit, freaked me out in a few places! Anyway, as I continue reading the explanation of the movie, I notice a very familiar name listed as a character:

Troy Hatfield

I'm portrayed in a movie--and I didn't even realize it! As I have been able to discover, movieTr0y cheats on his romance-novel-addict wife. tsk tsk movieTr0y!! The frustrating thing for me now is that I cannot seem to find a picture of this actor portraying me. I want to know what he looks like--is he an accurate look-alike? Is he bald? Good-looking? Deformed? Effeminate? Muscular? Is he all the things that I am?

His name is Darren Gray Ward. And not only did he lend his services to this sub-par movie, but he has been apart of a few of my favorite television shows as well: "JAG," "Baywatch" and "Party Of Five."

I am now in pursuit of this movie--my goal is to find it and host a party, inviting as many people as I can to see my film debut!

One more thought: few things annoy me more than public nose-blowing. In the past couple days, I have experienced more than my share. I'm not sure why these men (no women recently--unfortunately!!) show so little discretion. Everyone can hear--do they not realize that? And I've noticed two distinct expressions from people once this has happened: one is absolute digust. You see people wrinkle their noses and grimace in the blower's direction. The other is surprise--they just look, almost without an expression, at the person, as though they can't believe it even happened! This is followed by a significant sigh as they look away. I'm hoping to not run across anymore of that this week--I think I have paid my dues!

More later--gotta work (and find that movie!!)

posted by -tr0y- @ 9:48 AM

Plenty to write about.... Wireless is officially down. Evidently Jake has bitched so consistently to the provider they decided to disconnect the service. So, I'm sitting at "It's A Grind" tapping into their free wireless.

So while I'm sitting here, drinking 4 shots, I'll try and recap a pretty full couple of days. I have noticed the past few times I've been in this place that they have remembered my drink. I'm starting to experience a little of what I hope other people did when I was a barista. I made a list of the things I wanted to write about, but forgot it in the office. So I'll write as I remember, even if it's remarkably out of order.

I spent yesterday afternoon on Lake Michigan. Aaron and I (not Amish Aaron--yet another one!!) had a meeting with another guy out on the boat. It was a crazy nice day. I lathered up in the morning so I wouldn't end up BRIGHT red. Had some good homemade ice cream, too. In the ice cream store, a woman asked one of those questions. You know the kind I'm talking about right? The kind of question that doesn't deserve an answer. The kind that needs the response of an "are-you-kidding-me" look. It's the kind of question that I hear and want to just turn around and pretend it was never asked. She's looking at the types of ice cream and asking what they have in them. I can understand for some of them. Some types of sherbert or the ones with the creative names that don't include an ingredient. But she asked about a particular kind and I looked at one guy and just shook my head slowly. I now present to you her question:

"That Caramel, Caramel, Caramel ice cream. What does it have in it?"

So my friend Jim has found a new hobby--MOCKING ME ON MY VERY OWN BLOG. He's taken up these various new identities once he reads what I have written and decides to leave comments as those new personalities. Of course, this is safe, since he has no blog that I can vandalize. So everyone continue to be entertained by Jim's additions here--and see if you can figure out who Jim is going to be today.

Sitting down the counter from me is an exact look-a-like for the guy who is in Tenacious D with Jack Black: KG.

Jack Black--funny guy, but not attractive. Opinions ladies?

I found out today, via AIM, that a girl I once dated and liked for a while is now engaged. Leaves just two more! I've been able to find out about every girl I have ever gone out with on a quasi-serious level--about their marital status. Just two of them now who are declared single, as far as I know. One is currently MIA... Anyway, it's a weird feeling, being told by her that she's moved on past me. What is it inside of us (truly us or just me?!?!) that wants to believe someone can't possibly find someone else who will be as important as we once were? Why do I take that personally? How come, after finding that out, I started to feel very insecure and inadequate and "dooms-day" about my chances to one day ask someone to marry me? Why does that--or do I let that--bother me so much?

So a new musical discovery. I found, via a website I love to visit, a "band" that makes some very interesting and experimental music. They are called "TreeWave" and their site explains that they make "layered pop using primarily an Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Compaq 286 luggable, dot matrix printer, and a female voice." TreeWave has generously offered a couple mp3s for your listening pleasure on their site--it's definitely creative and.... ummm... unique. And no--you aren't suffering from some sort of stigmatism. Their website is meant to look that way. Think old computer/video game graphics!

I've not eaten much the past couple days--not sure what the deal is. It's been the weird experience of just simply not being hungry. I go through this sort of thing every now and then--and it usually coincides with poor sleeping. True once again I'm afraid. I've been waking up the past few nights about every 2 hours. Then I end up feeling pretty tired all day long. I must have yawned over 200 times today! It's not even that I'm lacking energy either. I feel ok generally. I'm just struggling to fall asleep and, once I finally get there, to stay asleep. I woke up an hour earlier than I needed to this morning--and then every 8 minutes after that, until I just gave up. I had a pretty big lunch--a chicken burrito--but just don't feel like eating yet. I'm sure downing some espresso shots is a great idea instead though.

I'll write again in a while about a new song I finished this past weekend. I have a few phone calls to make while I'm thinking about it/motivated to do it.

posted by -tr0y- @ 6:01 PM

Current song: "Little Eyes" by Yo La Tengo.

I've spent a lot of money the past couple days. Well... alot in tr0y-dollars. I did a little shopping with Amish Aaron--but really didn't buy anything. Then I went again Saturday with a couple people and bought a GREAT shirt and a belt buckle. I've also eaten out too much lately, on top of ingesting way too much coffee. Then today I went to purchase a bicycle.


I like this bike--actually like it a lot. And found it for about half-price. The "assistant" I asked for advice has since proven his inadequacy however. I asked him about the height of the bike--it looked too tall, etc etc. He talked about lowering the seat--I was skeptical and should have gone with my gut feeling it turns out. I bought the bike, got it in my car (after removing the front tire--which is criminally easy and a great feature) and got it home. After I lowered the seat I was still unsure. I tried to ride in the driveway, but it's just too tall. So I'm pissed--that guy had no idea what he was talking about. I'll make the phone call in the morning and see what they can do for me.

I had some great mexican food tonight--a place called "Little Mexico Cafe." The food is better than the name. I had some cheese enchiladas, rice and beans and a Corona. Nothing too experimental--but oh so good. I mean, muy bueno.

As we were leaving the restaurant, our ears were accosted by some of the worst singing I have ever heard. Across the street was a little dive bar with KARAOKE streaming out of it. Now, I'm not one to declare "amatures" unfit to enjoy that stuff in public. If they want to go out, get blitzed and sing something by Ricky Martin or Randy Travis, go ahead. That's part of the beauty of living in America--even crappy singers can sing at unbearably loud volumes in tight spaces. But this singing tonight was the worst kind of music--NICKELBACK.

I have an intense hatred for these particular Canadians. I usually actually enjoy Canadians--Liz is one of my favorites actually, along with Gordon Lightfoot. But I seriously hate every single second of every single Nickelback song I have ever heard. Something about that music makes me feel violent and profane and like I want to grab one of the members of the band and let out every feeling of rage and anger I have ever experienced. And here was a crummy singer blasting out some new Nickelback song. And I found myself oddly proud of that guy--I suddenly realized that I was glad he was making this song sound so bad, even worse than the original. We stood and listened to the entire performance.

And does anyone else think the lead singer of Nickelback looks like a bizarre cross between Michael Bolton and Jesus? Or is that just me?

posted by -tr0y- @ 8:33 PM