Far From Refuge

DOG-GONNIT!

I want a dog. Let me rephrase. I REALLY want a dog. I think I am beginning to understand a fraction of what women go through when they go baby crazy. I am beginning to notice little puppies everywhere I go. I even noticed the cute doggy sitting on the couch in the cars.com commercial. The dog was about .000001% of the commercial, which is about as important as a painting hanging on the wall or a magazine sitting on the coffee table, yet somehow it stuck out to me. Sheesh. It really makes me hate living in an apartment. A couple weeks ago I couldn't sleep so I inevitably went out to the living room and hopped on the interwebs. I soon found myself on a Jack Russell terrier adoption website. OMG!!! "Why do I do this to myself?" I thought. I must like to torture myself. Is there anything is this world so cute as this little guy?

Luckily Ash is on board with the dog idea, but we can't seem to agree on breed or age. I want a puppy because who the hell doesn't want a puppy? Ash apparently. Too much work. Too many messes. Blah blah blah. Yes they are a lot of work and you have to train them right, but I think there is more of a bond when you get a dog as a puppy rather than when they are 4 years old. I would be open to getting an adult dog, however, if I got to choose the breed.

Of course Ash wants something lame like a cockapoo, labradoodle, or some other ridiculous cross breed with a stupid name. On the flip side, I of course want something that she would hate like a bulldog, bull terrier, or any other manner of manly dogs. My compromise? The little guy pictured above. Yes, they are super energetic and need to be excercised regularly but they have an awesome personality. Have you ever met a Jack Russell you haven't liked? I haven't. I got the go ahead a few months ago which made me very happy. And by "go-ahead" i mean a conversation not unlike this:

Me: "Hey babe, what about a Jack Russell (picture me with a big dumb smile on my face as I show her a picture on my laptop)?

Her: Sure, ok (absolutely no feeling in her voice as she was checking her facebook or something else that she cared about more than what I was saying).

Me: Sweet! (Even bigger dumb smile on my face)

You all can probably guess how long that agreement lasted. So sad. If we had a house and yard and some real estate the decision would be really easy for us. I think both would want a labrador or retriever of some sort. Probably a black lab like my beloved Chester, God rest his soul, if I had my way. But alas we don't have anything close to a house. Actually, we still live in an apartment complex that doesn't allow dogs. Why the hell am I evening putting so much sweat into this? Because I like to torture myself. GAH!!!

Major/Minor - Thrice

Thrice rarely, if ever, disappoint. I can't honestly say where my expectations were with this album. I loved their last one, Beggars, but I have also loved everything they have put out since Vheissu (for the record I have always been a fan but Vheissu turned me into a super fan). When they announced that the title of the new album would be "Major/Minor" I was a bit confused. "What a random album title?" I thought. One must admit that it doesn't roll off the tongue very easily. Once I gave the album a once over, I completely understood why they gave the album that name and thought that it was very fitting. Apparently the name references the back and forth nature from major chords to minor chords, and back again.

The album starts off with "Yellow Bellow" which sports a riff that is dirtier than a hobo's underwear. I can't say enough about how well this riff sounds against Riley's drum beats. In fact that is the case with practically the entire album. I have always been a fan of Riley's drumming but he has definitely taken it up a notch this time around. It really drives the entire album especially on tracks like "Promises" and "Call it in the air" (the little bridge after the first chorus sports some of my favorite drumming on the album). On "Call it in the air" the major/minor back and forth is really showcased.

There are a number of little gems on this album that make so much fun to listen to. I never in my life thought Thrice would write anything that sounded like a Fugazi song and yet they do here with "Cataracts" and pull it off gracefully without it sounding like a rip off. The opening riff on "Treading Paper" sounds like something off of a Pink Floyd record and yet doesn't sound out of place with the rest of the song. Of course there is also "Blur" which is easily the fastest and most aggressive song on the album. "Blur" is also propelled by Ed's bass lines. The slides he does in the chorus really give the song a bit of heaviness that would have otherwise been missing.

The strongest song on the album would have to be "Words in the Water" which is the closest thing that Thrice has ever gotten to a power ballad. If modern radio was what it should be, this song would be a #1 hit and Thrice would selling out the Honda Center instead of playing two shows at HoB Anaheim. The thing about pretty much every Thrice release though, is that even the pedestrian songs ("Blinded" and "Listen Through Me") end up being better than most bands best songs and sometimes end up being my favorite listens on the album and/or live ala "Lost Continent" from The Alchemy Index.

The album closes with "Disarmed" which was an excellent choice. The song closes out Major/Minor in a similar way that "Red Sky" closed out Vheissu, with a very epic and cinematic finish. The lyrics that Dustin has written for this song really mix well with the movement of the song itself. The song is about how death is not the end and that we will see our loved ones again. Teppei's riff on the bridge after the second chorus, which turns into the outro, is one of the most beautiful moments on the entire album. When listening to this song, one can't help but think of the loved ones that have been lost. The song is a tad dark, but ends very hopeful. That being said, I think the difference between a Thrice album, and most other music out there, is that it makes you feel something. Yes, Dustin's lyrics speak to me personally and one can't deny his unmatched delivery, but the voices of the other three band members can be heard through music both as a whole and individually. They are a perfect example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It is not a show of each person's chops, but you can also hear the expertise of each member in parts that compliment the song. The result is not only an album full of great songs, but it is a bunch of great songs that make up a cohesive album that is an enjoyable from start to finish. As stated earlier, if the world was fair this album would start out at #1 on the charts and the band would be rock stars. They will most likely have to settle for critical acclaim and year end top album honors. As for this guy, the question isn't where does this album fit in with other albums this year (its clearing the best album of the year), it is where does it fit in with the rest of their catalog. Vheissu has long been been favorite album by Thrice, but Major/Minor is making its case for being #1.

For the Record

A few days ago I received the new Thrice record Major/Minor in the mail. When a lot of people say record, they actually album or CD. In this instance when I say record I mean an actual record, vinyl, if you will. I pre-ordered this bad boy about 2 or 3 months ago and have been not so patiently awaiting its arrival. I have bought records in the past and have a very very small "collection" of both LP's and 7 inches (what my parents refer to as a 45, only it has the small LP hole rather than the bigger 45 hole). Of the 50 or so records I have, about 10 of them are Thrice records that I cherish very much and have actually become pretty rare/expensive, according to eBay. Now this new record is important, not only continue on the collection(I think I have all their vinyl except a 7 inch single for All That's Left and the LP of their second album that I am waiting to find on yellow vinyl of which their are only 500 made), but also because the vinyl was released 2 weeks before the actual digital and CD versions are released. Furthermore, they shipped the vinyl early so I actually had it in my hands about 3 weeks before the release date on 9.20.11.

This is both awesome and terrible at the same time. On the awesome side of things, I get to listen to my favorite band's new album 3 weeks before pretty much everyone else. Of course I think that is the cat's pajamas. There is, of course, the other way of looking at things which is, this sucks that I CAN ONLY LISTEN TO THIS BEHEMOTH ON A DAMN RECORD PLAYER!! I know what you all are asking yourselves and the answer is yes, I do have one of these ancient devices called a record player. I honestly don't know how people in my parents generation did it back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to appreciate about vinyl. It has superb sound that is unsurpassed by CD's and most, if not all, digital media forms(as far as I know). Not to mention that a record is much "cooler" than a cd and it actually physically exists unlike an mp3(read: it has stuff I can nerd out on like pictures, artwork, lyric sheets, even thank you lists, yes i am huge nerd and read all that crap). One other cool thing about records is that a lot of times nowadays they will include extra songs or features that the CD and digital versions don't. This record, for example, has liner notes on every song from all 4 members of the band talking about how the song was written, in depth discussion on the lyrics, and other fun stuff about the writing and recording of the album. That all being said, you can only listen while you are at home. WTF? Then, to make matters worse, you have to keep flipping the damn thing over. Major/Minor finds a way to worsen the deal by being a double album, meaning that the album is split between two physical records. So now I have to not only flip the record, I have to change it out for a whole new record halfway through? Damnit. How is one to right an enlightened blog posting when he is constantly having to flip and change out a record? I have always kind of known that these drawbacks have existed because like I said I have a few other records that I DO play from time to time. The reason it is becoming more apparent to me now is because this is the first time I have ever been anticipating an album coming out and my first listen has been on vinyl with no other option of format. I so badly want to put this album on my ipod so I can listen to it in my car and all day at work. How does one fully drink in an album when it is chained to a record player? I have had the record for 3 days and I have only listened to it twice all the way through. If I had it on mp3, I would have listened to it 10 times at least in the first day. 9.20.11 can not come soon enough. Maybe it will leak on the internet and I can download it beforehand so as to have it on my ipod as soon as possible. If not, I will continue to devote whatever free time I have to enjoying this materpiece, and it is a masterpiece, on my record player while nerding out with the liner notes.

Urine. You're out.

Just a quick note. Lately at work I have been getting stuck in the bathroom with an odd, and disgusting fellow. He is an aging "hipster" who is probably in his 50's. His daily look and attire starts with his cul de sac hair line and curly red hair popping out the side and back. The there is some kind of pooka shell necklace followed by some sort of floral patterned shirt with cuff links. Then he usually has some sort of jeans that were popular back in '03 with all the crazy rips and wash. Oh yeah, don't forget about the huge plugs he has in his ears. The guy is basically a walking cliche.

So this is the guy that is always in the bathroom at the same time as me. He walks in and then proceeds to piss. Well.....try to piss. Every time I'm in there with him he has trouble pissing. A few drops here. A few drops there. Its SOOOO awkward. After his attempts at what a normal piss should be, he zips up and heads out. That's it. No hand wash? WTF? Ok, I'll admit that I have been guilty of not washing my hands after a short sesh in my own home, but not at work! And in the presence of another worker no less! He has done it more than a couple times too. Just despicable. Eww...

Gettin' Down in Chi-Town

Ooohh Chicago....get ready for a lot of pictures. Last Friday we embarked on our trip to Chicago for Ash's cousins wedding. I had never been before and so we decided to stay a couple extra days to take in the city and celebrate our first anniversary (albeit 2 months after the actual date). The first couple days there we stayed out in the suburbs where Ash's family live. The wedding was a great time and it was great to see all her family and meet the ones that couldn't make it to our wedding last year. One fun fact about Indian weddings: the parents of the bride give cash out to all the immediate family that attend. Since the father of the bride is my father-in-law's uncle, we all qualified. Ash and I both got $50! Hazzah! (I hope its not in poor taste that I just gave that info out. Still new to all of these foreign but awesome customs.)

The day after the wedding, we got to do something I have been wanting to do for a while now. WRIGLEY FIELD!!! That's right folks. I finally got to go to THE baseball stadium. The only other ball parks that even comes close to Wrigley are Fenway in Boston and the old Yankee Stadium which isn't around anymore. Needless to say I was excited. By the way, thanks Tia for NOT getting the Wrigley sign in this picture.

We sat in the bleachers and sweated it out for 9 innings. Oh man was it hot. I literally felt like I was melting. Even though the Cubs lost 9-8 it was still a fun and exciting game to watch. It was nice to see my boy Blake Dewitt (Dodger prospect traded to the Cubs last year) hit a 2-run home run.

On Monday we headed into downtown and checked into our hotel. We stayed in a Comfort Suites since we get the employee rate and it was pretty impressive. This place was right in the thick of things on Michigan street a block or two away from the river. It was far and away the nicest Choice Hotel we both had ever stayed in. We spent the rest of the day bouncing around the city seeing this and that. First we went to the famous bean. The above picture was taking in the reflection of the bean. It was kind of overcast so we ended up going back on Tuesday to take more pictures.

After the bean we headed to these face fountain things. These fountains have a video of a face on them (there are 2 fountains) and then the face eventually makes a face the one below and water comes out of the mouth.

Apparently they filmed over 1000 people from Chicago so its next to impossible to see the same face twice. Next on the agenda was the biggest stop on our tour; literally the biggest. THE SEARS TOWER-OWER-OWER-OWer-ower!!! I like to imagine that in a big echoey voice that trails off at the end. Before I continue, can we talk about how its not even called the Sears Tower anymore? Its the "Willis Tower". Poppy cock. One of the most ridiculous things I have heard. Its like renaming Mount Rushmore and calling it the Famous Amos Famous Faces.

Atop the Sears Tower they have a little diddy called The Sky Deck. The Sky Deck is basically just a glass box that sticks out the side of the building 1450 feet in the air. That's right folks. 1450 f#$*ing feet! Holy moly. Its also not comforting when the little girls in front of you are jumping up and down on said glass. It took a little for me to get out on that glass but not too much. I was freaking out though. I made Ash take the shot below because it freaked me out too much. She did, however, make me look down through the glass before I left. So scary.

After we took the above picture, we left and I got to do what you see in the picture below.

Nothing like some Chicago style, deep dish pizza ala Giordano's. Words can't express how good this pizza is so I won't even try. I'll just use one word: cheese.

Our last day in Chicago was a busy one. We a started it off by taking the Architectural Boat Tour. What a great idea. Tickets were only $26 and they give you a 75 minute boat ride up and down the river while educating everyone on the all the major and minor buildings in downtown. To some this might sound boring but I assure you it was a blast. It was Ash's favorite part of the week and it was my second favorite, behind the Cubs game of course. I took the picture above on the tour. I'm pretty surprised at how sweet it came out. Not bad for a phone camera right?

Sears Tower behind me.

Ash and I at the end of the boat tour. The Wrigley Building is the whitish building behind us.

After the boat tour we walked over to Navy Pier and road the ferris wheel.

Me on the ferris wheel.

After our trip to around the wheel, we were inspired by the beautiful sunny day and headed back to the bean to take some better pictures. Benji, Ash's broher, and Chris met us there. See...much better right?

This last picture was at a fountain in Grant Park. Kinda cool. This was the last touristy thing we did for the trip, unless you want to count a last minute stop at Dunkin Donuts and a train ride to O'Hare. "This is the blue line."

Our last night in Chicago was spent having dinner at a classy joint across from Millennium Park called Tavern at the Park. It was the perfect place to celebrate our first year of marriage. I had the Millennium Burger which was a burger with shredded duck meat, bacon, some type fish egg stuff, and a bunch of other delights. There was so much on it that I can't really remember it all, especially since it all had frenchy sounding names. It was awesome though. Ashley went a little more traditional and decided to get the Chicken and Egg Parmesan over the Lobster Mac and Cheese, although I want to return to Chicago just to go back and try that. We finished it off with a fried banana split for dessert. SO GOOD! It was a great way to end our trip.

All in all, Chicago was awesome. I absolutely loved it and it made me realize even more how much LA sucks. It was great to walk the downtown streets with my lady and see yet another new place.

The Rocky Horror Freak Flag Show

Helloooooooo.....so we had a very interesting Saturday night. I planned out a fun date night for Ash and I so we could get out of the house and do something a bit more fun than going to the Olive Garden for dinner. We started out the evening with dinner in LA at a place called Shamshiri. Its a Persian Restaurant that we actually had been to 4 years ago for what I consider our first date. This would be our first return in about 10 attempts. We have been wanting to go back for some time now, but for some reason our attempts were always stifled .

This time we finally made it and it was worth it. I ordered the same lamb shank dish I ordered last time. It came with a giant plate full of rice that had raisins, dates, and some other yum yums in it that I don't remember. It was delicious. Ash ordered a chicken dish that I think trumped mine in deliciousness. If you like ethnic food, I highly recommend this place. After dinner we made a short drive over to Diddy Riese, which is right across from UCLA in Westwood. Diddy Riese makes the World's Best Ice Cream Sandwiches. All their cookies are made in house and you get to pick the kind of cookie and ice cream you want. I had cookies 'n cream with snickerdoodle cookies. Words can't describe the awesomeness.

Our next, and last, stop was the Nuart Theatre in Santa Monica for a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. For all of you that have been to one of these shows, you know the craziness that we witnessed. Everyone else, take heed before you decide to go and read carefully. The first thing you see when you roll up to the theater is a line of people that wraps around the building. These aren't normal people though. Everyone is dressed up as either a character from the movie, a slutty costume that slightly resembles someone from the movie, a slutty costume that doesn't represent anything close to a character from the movie, and people dressed straight up weirdly. It reminded me a slutty, gothic version of the morP dance in high school. The most unfortunate thing about all the sluttyness is that it is mostly people that you don't want to see dress slutty, although Ash and I did get a kick out of the little gay boys dressed in only gold booty shorts, ala Rocky. All together it really reminded me of a gathering of all the weird, sometimes creepy, people I went to high school with, only on a larger scale. Regardless of this craziness, I do have to admit that it is cool that there is a place for these people to let their freak flag fly, so to speak. I commented to Ash about what all these people would do 100 years ago when their wasn't anything like this. Its interesting to think about.

Onward we went into the theater. Oh yeah, did I mention the movie started at midnight? Well it did. We were both winding down at this point. Not for long. Before the movie started there was all sorts of nonsense going on in front of the screen (explaining the rules, friendly banter, etc). They bring all the virgins (people who are there for the first time) up on stage and humiliate them. If you are a virgin they write a big V on your forehead with lipstick so everyone knows. Luckily for us, we had each others backs and entered the experience unscathed by the all the virgin nonsense. "Oh yeah we have been before..." Haha.

The movie starts...FINALLY. It felt like it took forever for it to actually start. Once the movie starts, there are people dressed like the characters from the movie that act out the entire movie on a stage in front of the screen. For the most part it worked really well. 90% or more of the characters looked almost exactly like the ones on the screen. Naturally they had an easier time finding girls to take these parts so a few girls played mens parts but it worked for the most part. Only one of the characters was overly distracting to the both of us.

All throughout the movie the audience yells at the screen and in one way or another makes fun of the characters or movie itself (usually the cheesiness of it all). We both agreed that the most annoying and aggravating part of the whole experience is when 3 or 4 people that work their walk up and down the aisles for the entire show and yell out little quips or quotes that they think are funny but mostly fall flat. Often times they were trying to play off what the character is saying by asking an inappropriate question before the character says yes, or something like that. Something like, "Hey Riff Raff, where do you keep the bodies of all the little boys you raped and killed?!" The character from the movie follows it by saying "Over here..." There were a few times where I laughed but for the most part it was just super obnoxious. Half the time you couldn't even follow what was going on because they were talking over the movie. A couple times I wanted get up and tell the guy he wasn't funny and to shut the f up. I restrained myself though.

The uncomfortable moment of the night came when we saw a couple kids under 10 years old there with their parents. I have no idea what kind of a horrible parent you have to be to subject your child to something like that. Weird.

Overall it was a pretty fun experience. If you can look past the quirkiness of the people that work there and go there, and don't mind a lot of dirty humor, I would highly recommend going. We didn't get home till around 3am. Ugh, so tired. At least we can't complain about a boring weekend, right?

Yellow Belly

My favorite band on Earth, Thrice, released this song this past week on their Soundcloud page. Needless to say, not only am I excited for the rest of the album(coming out 9.20.11), but I have been listening to this song nonstop for the past few days. I love love love it. The guitar riff at the beginning is so dirty. The drumming sounds pretty stellar as well. I believe the song is about child abuse(?), judging by the lyrics. Pretty powerful stuff. Anyways, I hope some of you enjoy this half as much as I am.

Thrice - Yellow Belly by VagrantRecords