the unsung hero of Boston
just rung up your change
while you were lost in
thought: "isn't it strange
that no one here ever smiles?"
you ponder and frown;
your creases dig deeper down.

the unsung hero of Boston
just opened the door
to the gasp of the frost in
the air: "is it just the poor
who have to ride the bus?"
you think, and you frown,
and you leave it behind a while
after you step down.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

computer guy

The other day, I was asked what I do, and I responded "I work in computers." I neglected to mention that I'm a guitarist, or a musician, or that I build guitars, or record music. I completely left out the music element of things entirely. I'm worried because this may be the first step toward full-fledged "computer-guy"-dom, and it may be the last. I may already be a computer guy.
Let's take a look at the facts: I own several routers (for internet), but none for woodwork. I have very strong opinions on powerpoint presentations. I haven't gotten a gig playing music in many months. I get excited about databases. I haven't practiced guitar regularly in many months. My eyeballs hurt.
It's not looking good, folks. So I need you to do me a favor: if you're a friend of mine, and you think I should be pursuing music more actively than I appear to be, let me know. Force me to make new albums. Force me to write a song about you. Get gigs for me and then force me to go play them. And so on.
In related news, the guitar that I started building about a year and a half ago is nearing completion. I'll post some photos... maybe. Maybe I won't. It's got a body and a neck, and the shapes are all there. It just needs some hardware, some finish, some frets, and the baby's good to go. More on that later.

Latiflearned.com - For when you're feeling a little too chipper

Back on MySpace

Seeing as how MySpace changed their policy from one of pure evil to one of basic evil, with an option for pure available for professional musicians, I've added myself back to Myspace. The link on the side of this blog will work again. And the links in my previous posts will work as well. Sweet. Sort of.
However! One can still go to Latiflearned.comn and get the latest news and show dates! The MySpace page is a necessary, basic evil.
Et voila!

hate dogs

Seriously, folks,
What's up with you all hating hot dogs? Why all the lack of love? What's not to like about tubular meat? Now, granted, the pig lips and rat tails that you get from an Oscar Meyer weiner (which, I think we can all agree, nobody wants to be) aren't what I'm talking about. Nobody in their right mind can get behind junk food. I'm talking about all beef, I'm talking about relish, I'm talking about gourmet, sesame-coated buns. Why can't we all get behind sesame-coated buns? Why all of this hate? Why can't you let go of your vegetarian, mildly homophobic neuroticisms and appreciate one of the greatest inventions of Person?
Speaking of hate, I've found out that I know people who have it! One person I know has hate for people who listen to reggae music. If you listen to reggae, this friend of mine automatically hates you! While I think this a little bit harsh, I can see the path one could go down to get to reggae-hating.
I also found out that I know somebody who is a spirituality-hater. You like crystals? Don't talk about them around this person: you will be hated! It must be something about Boston (cities?) that makes people want to enact that hating. Some sort of self-preservation mechanism that lets you transfer your rage at the driver who almost ran your bike over, the surly waiter, the drunken crazy person who accosted you, transfer all of that rage to reggae, or hippies.
The moral of the story is: don't let the city get the better of you! Tame that hate! Take Shaolin White Crane Long Fist Kung-Fu and feel better by punching! Punch-therapy, or as I prefer to call it: acupunchure.
Aaaaaaaaaand, I'm spent.

Latiflearned.com - Go Transfer your Rage

there i was
watching movies at my feet with my neck craned
while i should have been biking
jerking, the road bumps underneath
evading cars, but instead
there i was playing pool
when i should have been thinking
of a better way to describe
the way you make a tiny noise
when i accost you unexpectedly
and lift you off your feet, then another
noise, but
there i was trying to coax a rhyme
out of a vacuous phrase,
looking for a pattern or a meaning
when i should have been sleeping

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

yesterday i spent a while choosing
the right shirt color
to go with the cranberry shade
of my stretchy pants

it's important, truly important
VERY important to choose the right color
because not a lot of colors
go with the cranberry shade
of my stretchy pants

not to mention the texture
which, given the corduroy nature
of the pants, should be lesser,
softer

i just woke up.
i can't move my head.
some malady possesses me,
and the cranberry shade
of my stretchy pants
seems less important
(i think i'll stay in bed)

Latiflearned.com has lyrics, not poetry.

machines?

Computers are like crops. In both, the rules of natural selection apply. For crops, you have predators such as insects, beetles and worms who contribute to the ecosystem by eating one specific variety of corn, of which you've planted 89 hectares worth. Damn! So, coat that corn in pesticide, kill the beetles, and call it a day! With computers, you've got viruses and adware/malware, which target specific operating systems and programs (which constitute "species" of computers for the sake of this argument). So, slap on some antivirus software and forget about the problem. Forget... It'll go away... Forget...
So the point I'm getting at is that we have a computing monoculture, which is bad for exactly the same reason that food monoculture is bad: it only takes one variety of beetle that wants to eat it for all 89 hectares to go to ruin. You don't have to learn anything new here, just universally apply my metaphor, and encourage computing diversity! You'll be more robust! Use alternative browsers! Try out some Linux! Try your best to stay away from commercial office software solutions!
This makes me think about living systems, and how they're different from human mechanical systems. The ideal ecosystem, for example, has many parts, often interchangeable or overlapping, held together by diversity. An ideal system in the "natural" world is the one with the greatest co-existing diversity of parts. An ideal system (in terms of robustness/longevity) in the human-designed world, however, is the most generic an heterogeneous one.
Take cars, for example. Is it easier to maintain a Bugatti or a Toyota Camry? Arguably, the Bugatti is theoretically higher performance in many ways. But a Toyota Camry can take the most abuse - there are a plethora of available spare parts should it break, and most mechanics know or can figure out how to fix one... Try getting Joe at JP Auto to fix your mint-condition 1963 Aston-Martin, and you may run into difficulties.
So human systems seem to be, in this respect, in direct antipathy to natural systems. The most robust human-designed system is the one most representing a monoculture, which in the natural world is the worst system. This implies to me that we sould possibly shift our way of thinking to be more like the natural world, and thus more robust in the face of calamity. Encourage diversity! Customization! Make everything you do unique, and when the proverbial shit hits the proverbial pan, you'll stand a greater likelihood of being able to tough it out.
At least, that was what I thought this morning.

Latiflearned.com is far less pesudo-intellectual than this page.

Song of the Day/Week/Month?

Since Latif Learned is me and I'm Latif Learned, I'm going to be posting his songs here. I often make songs for people to send them in the email when I'm thinking about them, but why not post them here, too?

for sara - 09242006

Latiflearned.com has more

My "So-Called" Friendsters

... asked me "why not just delete your account?", if I have such a problem with Friendster's message. Well, I thought of that, but it doesn't really send any message back. In fact, it's exactly what I did with my MySpace account, and immediately regretted it. I want to be able to send a message to the world at large about the way I feel about Friendster, and there's no way you can convince somebody of the way you feel by being absent from a place where presence is voluntary. Once I deleted my profile from MySpace, the fact that I had a problem with MySpace was lost, because I just became, from the eyes of the internet, another person without a MySpace account.
And so on. Have a nice weekend.

Latiflearned.com is far less preachy than this site. Well, a little less preachy.

Friendster, Friendster, Why Are You So Wack?

I've talked about this before, so I won't belabor the point, but I'm accumulating problems with the social networking sites (friendster/myspace/blah blah blah) at an alarming rate. First, I was just worried that advertisers would see my friendster profile, and use my favorite bands against me by putting them in a Volkswagen commercial. This has been done, granted, but it doesn't stop there. Now we can all safely assume that if you're applying for a job, you're going to get Google searched, which means that anything posted online about you (with your real name attached to it) is going to be found. So your MySpace profile that professes your love for 311 and has naked ladies in a y-repeat pattern in the background? That's going to keep things from happening for you.
So I've deleted all pertinent information from my friendster profile, and left in its stead a message to the future... I reccomend that you all do the same.

Latiflearned.com is less paranoid.

Catch 22

I'm a big fan of public transit. I think that we should all use it. We should have rail! More trains! More buses! Fewer cars! More personal interaction. I think that the car/highway system is arguably one of the worst things to happen to American culture. That combined with our culture of rugged individualism turned us into the bunch of fuck-you cowboys that we are today.

Boston is trying to kill my love for public transit. The MBTA hates people. Take, for example, when I tried to go to work on Friday. To get on a bus at Forest Hills, you need one of two things: cash, or a weekly pass. Lacking cash due to an oversight, I simply figured that I'd get some cash out of the ATM, break it up by buying a bottle of water or something, then get on my bus with time to spare.
Unfortunately, the ATM at Forest Hills doesn't work. Bummer. I'm staring at my bus, which is going to leave in about two minutes, a bus that if missed will mean that I get to work half an hour late, and I can't find any way to get cash. So I go to the "Charlie Card" terminals, thinking that there *must* be some option there to allow me to get a pass so that I can ride the bus. I even go so far as to consider purchasing a weekly pass, just so that I can ride the bus on Friday. Unfortunately, the machine doesn't let you buy this week's pass, you can only buy next week's.
There is literally no way that I could get on that bus legitimately.
To rub some salt in the wound, I have a Charlie Card that'll work fine on the subway. So I tried to feign innocence and get on the bus with that. The driver says "those don't work on this bus." So I'll have to get cash? Yep. But the ATM doesn't work, how am I supposed to get cash? I dunno, what do you want me to do? All I'm saying is that I would love to pay you to get on this bus, but I have no way of doing that.
So she let me ride the bus for free, after I swore that I'd try to remember to bring cash from now on.
I'm just going to ride my bike from here on out. Seriously, folks. You can't even pay the MBTA to ride their buses.

Latiflearned.com doesn't talk about buses at all.

Represent

You might think that your high school mascot was pretty cool. Well, I've got news for you. The Cougars, Wildcats, Oscelots, etc. of the world have nothing on my high school mascot: the Sandstoners.
Now, being the Sandstoners would be unremarkable, except that that's not what we call ourselves. We call ourselves the Stoners. Parents call us the Stoners. Newspapers call us the Stoners. It's official. Think you can top that?



Latiflearned.com is basically the bomb.

that's right. i've got it and you don't.

Today at lunch, my coworker Dave came in and asked me if I'd be down
for some free indoor skydiving in a wind tunnel. The only catch is
that I have to leave work a couple of hours early to do it. I paused
for about one second and said

"Okay!"

It turns out that a former coworker of mine (or rather, a former
employee of my organization) is a champion skydiver, and his team
gets free shots at the new indoor skydiving center they're building
in Nashua, NH, a mere hour from Boston. The organization is
called SkyVentures, and I'd link their web site if I was writing this
post with internet access. Alas! I'm writing from my new apartment,
and there's no internet here.

So I and a coworker left work early, hopped in the truck, and drove
to Nashua, NH. The people there were all like, "Are you ready to pay
us a ton of money?" and we dropped the name of our coworker, and they
were like, " Oh, go right in for free."

It turns out that a camera crew was coming that day to do some shots,
so our class and subsequent "jump" was me and my coworker, some lady,
and a TV anchorwoman for a local news channel in New Hampshire, with
her cameraman. We did a brief class in the basics, suited up in the
incredibly flattering newby air gear, and headed into the chamber.

The entire building is built around this massive chamber, that can
reach vertical air speeds of up to 190MPH. When it gets that fast,
the whole place starts to shake, and if you're sitting in the benches
inside, you kind of bounce around. When they started the air up, we
bumbled around in the air for a while, with our instructor pointing
out cryptic hand gestures like "relax" and "bend your knees" at us
while we caromed off of the walls for a while. At one point, I gained
enough balance that he let go of me, and I flew about ten feet in the
air. When I got back inside, I realized that I'd been drooling over
my face the entire time. Classy.

There was a fellow there who was a veteran of the Orlando wind
tunnel, up to teach everybody the special wind tunnel tricks. He gave
us a show of the crazy shit you can do in a wind tunnel, and suffice
it to say, the guy is an air ninja. He can walk on walls. He can
levitate. He can disappear. It was the most amazing thing I've ever
seen in real life.

So the point of my story is that if you want to drop $50 on half an
hour, several minutes of which are in a wind tunnel, you should drive
to Nashua, NH. I'd recommend skipping work to do it if you can.

it's best to alienate everybody with too much distance between posts, and then an obtuse, somewhat offensive reference to an unpopular social phenom

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

sometimes everything breaks at once. that's the way it's been at work recently; inevitably, the moment you really want to use everything you've got, it's flaws become apparent. we've never taxed our shit quite like this, and it's always a bit disheartening when it doesn't quite stand up.
all of that work-related heartbreak got me feeling really tense, like i have a knot right in the middle of my chest. now, the knot's a new feeling to me, and new bad feelings are typically scary, so i consulted a couple of friends. "yeah, that'll happen." they all tell me, like this was something to be expected, and as though it were miraculous that i'd never felt this way until now.
which got me thinking: why haven't i felt this way until now? my brother calls it the pain of being human. in what way am i more "human" now than i used to be? what's effecting the transition? the positive side benefit is that these feelings create in me a greater sense of empathy for my fellow people, which is probably useful in a time of such generally low empathy.

when you always make promises or resolutions that you can't keep, does that mean that you're a bad person, a failure? or might it mean that you should just stop making promises? or stop resolving. it's a good thing that new year's is so far off, so we don't have to really think about any of that right now. just keep 'er in the back of your mind.

latiflearned.com is pretty nice.

MySpace

In light of this article, I've decided to pull out entirely from MySpace. The bit about MySpace owning my music rankles. I hope that there's nothing in there about them retroactively owning shit that's been uploaded in the past. I like the songs that I have posted there.

Here's what I said:

"I'm cancelling my MySpace account because i don't want MySpace's essentially evil policy of owning anything i upload to interfere with the openness that I believe the internet should strive to maintain. I don't think that corporate greed should play into my personal/social/musical life. The original idea was good, but since the acquisition, MySpace has really gone politically downhill, and I can't get behind that. Thanks but no thanks; I think I'll stick it out on my own."

I'll probably come back and write a more thorough rant about how I think systems of control shouldn't apply to music and intellectual property in general. I see the need to be able to track who's listening (royalties - artist compensation, etc.), but I don't think that somebody else should be telling you when you can or can't listen to music you purchased. And I don't think that policies like MySpace owning any and everything you upload without telling you as much right on the front page are good for the health of the internet, for people, and for society. It's time to culturally wise up to the fact that information is infinitely reproducible, but human interaction is consistently unique and valuable. We need to start treating people like people, not potential targets. And so on.

Of course, you can always find my music at Latiflearned.com, where at least I am the one who has control.

Truthiness

By now most of you have heard of Stephen Colbert (which is pronounced Col-Bear, as though it were some sort of French cheese) and his insulting the president's horrible job on national tv. That link provides you a way to say thanks to Stephen. Also, there's this:



Awesome. If you want a bigger version, you can find it here.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Ha

It's funny that I titled the previous post "oozing substances," because that related to a bit of the dream journal that I didn't end up posting. Here it is:

10.15.2004
my dream last night involved kevin smith, and a big tree that plunged a hole into the ground through a person, and out of that hole oozed a substance that turned a hatchback sedan into a fancy sports car.

I gotta get me some of that stuff!

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

oozing substances

It turns out that at some point, I kept a dream journal. Here's an excerpt:

01.29.2005
I dreamt that I was in New Haven, at Yale again, only this time the quad that Explo was in (the same quad as before) was much larger, and the buildings were much bigger. It had a much more urban, and less closed-off feel. On one side there was this hall that was for the arts, a big two-story building with spiral staircases on either side that lead up to the second floor.
I started climbing one of the spiral staircases, and discovered that the steps were as high as my chest. On top of this, the part of the step that should be level was at a steep angle, so climbing this staircase was more like climbing a mountain. There were lots of people casually walking down the steps, but nobody going the same direction as me. Difficult climbing.
As I got closer to the top, there was a groove in the stairway that looked like it would offer better leverage for climbing, so I kept trying to get in it, but there were all of these people on bicycles going down the groove at breakneck speed and almost running into me. I narrowly averted being run over by bicycles a few times before giving up the groove and settling for climbing the hard way to the top.
When I got to the top, instead of being on the second floor of the building, I was just outside, on a road, with town to the left of me and the quad from which I came down a level on the right. Like I was on the second floor of the town, or something.
There was a fenced-in lot at the end of the road, and I just jumped over it, floating through the air until I landed softly at the other side. This happens to me a lot in dreams, this jumping extraordinarily high and then just floating to the ground, not flying exactly, just gliding.
The path goes into the woods, and there's a cat inside another fence. Like a mountain lion or something. It talks to me, talking about how it had more food and space to live before we developed the whole forest, then jumps over the fence to attack me. I jump into the air.
So I find myself in the air battling this cat, swatting it whenever it comes too close, only now it's not a cat, it's a stuffed animal on a string, waving around in the air like it was tied to the ceiling, only we're outside in the forest. And instead of a normal stuffed cat doll face, it's got this stuffed doll version of a bloody mess of a clawed-out, shredded-to-pieces face. Like it had been attacked in the face, but a stuffed animal. Like somebody had designed a stuffed cat to look like it had had it's face chewed off. Then the dream ends.

What do you think that means?

I watched that movie Art School Confidential last night. I watched it so you don't have to. Let's just leave it at that. You don't want to watch it. At least, you don't want to watch it if you like artists, or art school, or people, or art. If you don't like any of those things, you'll identify with Terry Zwigoff, who made the whole movie seem like he had a grudge against artists, or maybe just people. I've never seen so many vapid, unmoving characters all on the same screen vying for my attention. I don't normally scoff out loud at movies, but there was some scoffage. Maybe Boston's getting to me. Steve Buscemi was allright, though. I guess.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

interweb friends shout out! plus selling not telling

I'd like to take a moment to give a shout-out to Lindsay for being my one and only friend to link me on her blog, and be both my friendster and my space friend.
Awesome, Lindsay, awesome.

In other news, it's always a bit sad to find out that the media institutions you love exist not to sell you news, but to sell you to advertisers. Click on a "media kit", such as The Weekly Dig's Media Kit sometime, if you want it proven to you that, no matter how totally independent it may seem, if it's got advertising, it's all about selling, not telling. Yo, gotta make those dollars somehow, and it's not like they can just sell it on the street. Unless they're homeless, in which case, they can try.
I love you, Dig, but I sometimes get the feeling that you don't love me the same way.
Visit The Advertising Age if you want more proof that you're so much catlle to be prodded.
Moo!

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Pinback

UPDATE (05.09.2006) If you were so curious as to want to know what Pinback sounds like live, it looks like Bradley from Bradley's Almanac was at the same show I attended, and even made a recording. Good for you, Bradley.

I went to see Pinback last night at the Paradise Rock Club last night. Pinback is officially the only band that I've seen more than once, and with good reason. Not so many bands rock as solidly as Pinback. They have layers, man. Layers! Their bass player is an entire band unto himself. If you're used to their studio stuff, the live show will come as a bit of a surprise, because they play everything double-time and up an octave from the albums. What that means is harder, faster, louder. It's a great show.
The Boston show was a bit different from the last time I saw them, which was in Minneapolis (which is the city. Minnesota is the state. Minneapolis, MN.). The main difference between last night and the Minneapolis show was that in Minnesota, nobody felt inclined to try to fight their way onto stage, hijack the mic, sing so loudly and poorly that the band has to quit playing, stage-dive into.... nobody... then get carried outside by the bouncer. Somebody did feel like doing that last night, though. I'll say this: don't try to fight a bouncer. They want to hit you. It's their job.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Phone Update

I got a new phone number. If you didn't get the email, then woops! Send me an email, and I'll give you my new number, if you so desire.
There was a gigantic Jamaica Plain party today about five minutes from my house. Three stages. All sorts of sweet bands. Activism. Puppetry. Good food. Jamaica Plain is truly the best part of Boston. Maybe later I'll feel like saying more about it. It's just that I didn't want this post to be entirely about my phone. Lest you think I was obsessed or something.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

The Royal We

As I mentioned before, I've been pretty pissed off with my cell phone plan. It's Cingular, by the way. I don't like them. Let me say that again: I don't like Cingular. They suck. They are not raising any bars. Their rate plans are from the 19th century. Why do we pay to receive text messages? Why do we pay roaming charges? Boo. And by "we," I'm naturally referring to the royal "we." That's me. I'm the royal we.
So I'm shopping around, on the Nextel site, you know, because I see people on the bus with their walkie-talkie phones and I think, "That could be me. Here I am stuck in the last century with a phone that only I can hear, paying through the nose, when I could have a ruggedized bright yellow conversation that let the whole bus hear my weekend plans."
Aaaaaaaanywhoozlebees, I'm shopping around on the Nextel site, and this chat window pops up. "Jessica" asks me if I'd like any assistance. As it turns out, I did need assistance, because the chat window popped up right over the information at which I was trying to look. It's like if you were in a real store, and a sales rep tried to stand between you and the rack. "Would you like some help viewing the MP3 player that I'm blocking with my body?" So I asked her my couple of questions, and she responded pretty quickly. I was, like, all won over. It only took a couple of seconds for me to be totally impressed with Nextel's web site. I mean, there's personal service, right there on top of the page I'm trying to view. Personal service in bed with my browser!
Of course, it wasn't meant to last. Within two minutes of getting me in the chat window (during which time I'd already told her my life story), "she" (by which I mean Jessica) started getting really antsy about me having not purchased anything yet. "Which cell phone plan would you like to purchase today?" Whoa, Jessica, I mean, we're just getting to know each other. Don't you want to chat for a while first, establish some emotional boundaries. No. Jessica wants hot capitalist action, and she wants it now. Not to sound prudish, but that kind of aggressiveness kind of turns me off. So I decided that I'm just going to go to a store and talk to a real human. At least there, I can give subtle visual cues (like snorting in disgust) when salespeople try to get in my wallet before I'm good and ready.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

More Soccer! (from Sam)

Here's some more, from a friend in St. Paul:
All-Twin Cities edition: The Hang Ups vs. The Busy Signals.

No Neck Blues Band vs. The Stranglers
Super Furry Animals vs. Echo and the Bunnymen
Hum vs. The Static (experimental noise rock from the early 80s or so, I've never actually heard them)
Heads and Bodies vs. The Dismemberment Plan
Cypress Hill vs. Julius Hemphill (Cypress Hill might as well be Hemp-hill... they like weed)
X vs. The Ex (winner plays XTC)

Very nice, Sam.

Also, there's a couple of bands that I've run into on MySpace that are fantastic. Kawaii is Norwegian, and they have a nice happy group-oriented sort of sing-along style. Marching Band (formerly known as Second Language) are Swedish. They're nice guys. They're kind of Kings of Convenience meets American Analog Set. Only not so American. Because they're not from America. They're from Sweden.
Annnnd, I'm spent.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

More Soccer

Explosions in the Sky vs. I Am the World Trade Center
Randy Newman vs. Will Oldham
The Channels vs. TV on the Radio
Animal Collective vs. Super Furry Animals
and so on...

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

New Track

I've posted a new track over at latiflearned.com. The alert among you may note that the band name contained in the MP3 is the Undertones, not Latif Learned. That's because this song just isn't so very Latif Learned. But I hope that you like it anyway. It's an awful lot more pop-song-like than my other stuff. New influences and all. I'd like to say that it's Elvis Costello-influenced, so I will. Sort of like how Stephen Merritt says that he writes a song a day. That may or may not be true, but he said it so we believe him.
It's also available at Seasac Records. Also for free. Because that's how we rock it, folks. You can't turn down free music. But you can turn up your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.
Or can you?

On another note, I've discovered that, in addition to the narcissists out there, there are decent people to be found on Friendster. The word is still out on MySpace

frantster

Are web sites like Friendster and MySpace creating a narcissistic society, or just a symptom of it? It seems to me like a lot of interactions on these social networking sites are meant either to up one's own profile so that one looks better for strangers, or to satisfy one's itch for social ego-stroking by fulfilling the need for recognition. Why would you write somebody a testimonial? Because you want to get one back. Why would you send somebody a "smile?" Because it means that they're bound to write you something, even though all that you sent them was a

:-)

These sites are a perfect way to get a constant stream of minor personal validations in the form of brief messages from total strangers. I've gotten some interesting thoughts from strangers about my profile, or whatever. What bothers me is that the interaction never goes beyond one message in either direction. Nobody ever wants to meet in real life, or even email. It's fine to talk to strangers, but risking meeting them in real life is just too much to bear. There's too much potential for it to turn into an interaction that actually takes some effort. And heaven forbid that you're actually interested in the person you meet, because then you'd open yourself up to being potentially vulnerable to them, which is the biggest faux-pas of them all.

In other news, my phone bill is astronomical, so if it seems like I'm avoiding you on the phone, it's not you, it's just that it costs me a ton of money. I'll change it this month, if I can get my shit together. My shit has not been entirely together lately, so it's kind of up in the air whether it'll actually happen. At any rate, I'm not avoiding you, I'm just avoiding bills. Don't take it personally, right?

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

De Facto Dating

Being single is a bit of a wash, if you're not the dating type. Say, for example, you meet somebody at a party who is interesting to you, and seems to be interested in you as well. Naturally, you want to do is get to know them better. You have no idea, from your initial reaction, whether or not they want to get you into bed or whatever, but you'd like to hang out beyond the party. You exchange numbers or emails, because that's the only way you're ever going to get in contact again beyond the confines of this party.
So there you are, person not interested in dating, and you've scored somebody's number. This is the rub: you can't not go on a date with this person. Oh, you'll say that you just want to hang out, have a beer, or some coffee, maybe go to a movie, maybe walk around Jamaica Pond. These are things that people do for fun, you tell yourself. But they're not things people do for fun with strangers. They're things that people do on dates with strangers. You're dating. There's nothing you can do to help it, except never try to contact anybody of your own free will again.
Well, maybe there is a way around it. You could do some seriously mundane things, just to get some chatting done. Like, nobody's going to mistake going and getting groceries for a date. Or, like, doing bike maintenance. Or perhaps shopping for new socks. You know? I think the next time I meet somebody interesting, I'm going to see if they want to go sock shopping with me. That oughta clear up their motives nice and quick.

Latiflearned.com - In case you haven't figured this out, I am Latif Learned. Go listen to my tunes! Purchase my album!

Rock Star Soccer Matches

A long time ago, back when Oasis and Blur were still competing for who could be the lamest, the two bands had a soccer match. Blur won, of course, but it was Oasis who went on to be the lamest. In fact, after that point, Blur started to release their best material. At any rate, it got me thinking: what other bands would have some awesome matches, based on their names? I got my friend Alex in on it, and here's what we came up with (thus far):

(From Alex)
Cat Power versus Cat Stevens ( she'd get distracted and wander off the field )
Bright eyes v. the Flaming Lips ( bring your sunglasses )
the Microphones v. the Sounds ( a cooperative match )
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs v. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ( loud game, very emphatic fans )
Chavez v. Gonzales ( not to be confused with a family fued )
Postal Service v. the Lettermen ( at halftime, covering that song by the Marvelettes )
Spoon v. Cake ( don't think too hard about this one )
Calexico v. Califone ( mostly because I always mix up their names )
The Gin Blossoms v. the Wallflowers ( for gardening fans stuck in the '90s )
The Faces v. the Shins ( the same league as Bright Eyes, Flaming Lips )
Grandaddy v. the Strokes ( A life-or-death game, ha ha )
The Pixies' Frank Black versus Jack White, while Jack Black referees.
The Cars v. the Streets, and the winner plays Pavement.

(From Donald)
Jurassic 5 vs. Dinosaur Jr. (no contest)
Portishead vs. Radiohead (Helmet does security)
The Sixths vs. The Six Parts Seven
Of Montreal vs. Boards of Canada
The Magnetic Fields vs. Iron Maiden (that's bound to be good)
Arab Strap vs. the Sex Pistols (gross!)
The Jayhawks vs. the Black Crowes
Soul Coughing vs. Soul Asylum
Happy Apple vs. Blind Melon vs. Lemon Jelly (A three-way)
King Crimson vs. Ultra Orange
Modern Skirts vs. My Morning Jacket (I have this problem all the time)
The Super Furry Animals vs. Tortoise
The Black Keys vs. The White Stripes (that's a good match)
Air vs. Earth, Wind and Fire (Hot Hot Heat gets to ref)
...and you know who always wins when it's the Deers vs. The Cars.

Send me yours. I'll post them as/if/when/whatever I get them.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

I went to see Jamie Lidell last night. What they say about him is true. It's all true. It's a beautiful thing to see him play. It brought me joy. Then I walked home from Alston, which was also good, if slightly less joyous than the vocal-gasmic Jamie Lidell. There were pop tarts involved. As Elvis Costello says, talking about music is like dancing about architecture, so I'll just leave it at that. Go see him if he's in your town. Try to stand close enough that he can sweat on you.
I realized recently that when I saw Royksopp back in October, they were wearing identical outfits to what Kraftwerk wears in their 1977 video The Robots. I wished I'd noticed at the time, but it's still pretty fantastic to know. I love electronic things. Also worth noting is that Royksopp's video for Remind Me looks an awful lot like the video for Kraftwerk's video The Robots.

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confluence

I'm eating a peanut butter and jelly burrito, reading a biography of Django Reinhardt, when I have a strange epihpany about the music to which I'm listening. I've got Nelson Cavaquinho's "Mulher Sem Alma" queued up in the iTunes, and I realize that it sounds an awful lot like Blonde Redhead's "Pink Love," off of Misery is a Butterfly. Same chords. Similar melody. The same motion. At the time, it seemed so reasonable, but in retrospect, it was probably a coincidence. But my whole epiphany hinges on the possibility that it wasn't... That would be perfect.

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UPDATE: Heh, I wrote Misery is a Butterful, instead of Butterfly. I don't believe in the spell-checker, and sometimes it bites me in the arse. But in a good way. Good arse biting.

Euripides Eumendides

Also, the crazy guy who died from all the running, his name wasn't Marathon, it was Philippides. They named the city of Philadelphia after him. True story. Except for the Philadelphia part, which I made up.

You can't really plan to drink on a Saturday afternoon. I mean, it is possible to plan it, but you kind of have to question why you'd be making those kinds of degenerate plans in advance. If you're going to be a degenerate, it's best to let the degeneration happen naturally. Like, say your plan was to make gnocchi and watch a baseball game. Then you're like, "Well, I could have some wine, that would spice up this otherwise Zen experience." Because you don't always want Zen on a Saturday afternoon. Then you're like, "well, since I drank half of that bottle of wine, I'd better drink half of another." And all of a sudden, you've become drunk on a Saturday afternoon. It's a magical thing, but like all magical things, it's best to let them find you than to seek them out yourself.
Here's to drunken Saturday afternoons, and sober Saturday nights.

I keep writing songs that prominently feature articles of clothing. Red shirts. Socks. Et-cetera. I made a silent promise to myself (that is being aired here for the first time on the internet! Amazing!) that I wouldn't write any more songs about girls if I could help it. I feel like 25 out of 40-or-so songs being focused on the babes is a bit too high of a ratio. So I'm cutting myself off. My subconscious, in retaliation, makes lyrics about clothing items and crossing streets. All metaphorical and shit. I mean, what is this, poetry or something? I'm trying to write a fuckin' song here! Come on, subconscious, do your stuff! I need vivid imagery! Catchy hooks! Irony (but not too much irony, lest I cross the hipster threshold and end up in Alanis Morrisette-Land.). My several-person fandom requires it!
Here's to my subconscious/song-writing ego: id, the internet salutes you.

And tonight, I go to see Lair of the Minotaur.

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Marathon Died for your Sins

I was biking around Boston yesterday, and I ran into the marathon. Now, the marathon wasn't a big surprise to me, because a friend of my roomate's who is running the marathon was staying at my place this weekend. I crossed over the river of runners a couple of times in my random perusal of Boston, which I'm wont to do on my days off. Peruse Boston. Not cross runners. You shouldn't cross a river of runners if you can avoid it. This is something I learned yesterday.
It occured to me, wading through the sea of sweaty bodies, that people run the marathon in celebration of the guy named Marathon, who ran from one town to the next in Greece like four billion years ago. Twenty-six or so miles he ran to deliver some important message from one Greek to another. Then he died of exhaustion. So we're celebrating the death of Marathon by trying our best to imitate his untimely demise. You kind of have to wonder who came up with that idea...
And then there's Jesus. The only thing I have to say about that is: what would evil robot Jesus do?.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

PS: When I say I ran into the marathon, don't get the impression that I did any running. Because I didn't. Sometimes I run. Monday wasn't one of those times.

PPS: People die often running marathons. The circle of life keeps.. um... being... circular.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. Tim tells me otherwise about the story of the Marathon. Maybe I'm strung out on endorphins. It could be, except that I've never taken any endorphins. But who's to say that matters?

failure to thrive

I recently heard a phrase that's stuck with me: failure to thrive. A friend had a kitten that was new to their house, and she said "it had failure to thrive, so it died. " "What does that mean?" queried I. Apparently sometimes animals in new surroundings just lose the knack of surviving, the will to live, and they just die. They fade away.
Humans can have it, too. The deaths of elderly people who simply pass on for no medical reason are often attributed to "failure to thrive." And human babies, even if they're well-fed, and kept at the perfect temperature, etc., often die if they're not held. Failure to thrive. It's an incredible phrase that keeps circling around my head like a semantic vulture, looking for some vague notion on which to scavenge.
And then I got to thinking: why is it that babies typically die when they're not held? And when is the point where you can stop being touched regularly, and you won't die? And what happens to adults who aren't regularly held/touched? Clearly, it has dire somatic repercussions. Which gets me to thinking about my girl-free 2006. Maybe I'm setting myself up for some actual medical problem with my policy. Lord knows I don't need more medical problems. So cuddling is in. But only platonically. Because Plato was gay, so it was okay for him to cuddle with girls without leading them on.

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blech

I was real excited about getting my last paycheck, until i realized that it's all going to taxes. Damn! I'm torn between my knowledge that taxes, when rightly applied, go to good services that shouldn't be free market-based (like fire departments and police, for instance), and my desire not to give a gigantic hunk of money to the government that I don't particularly support once a year. I mean, what, like a quarter of my taxes are probably going to support a war in which I've never placed any support? But it's not as though you heard it here first, so I'll just drop it. Squarepusher is the only music that gets me through angst like this. I require angular, brainy jazz-house music.
I went to New York City and back on Wednesday, to visit my brother/friend/ex-roomie/whatever. I spent the day helping him move from one apartment to another, which, though mundane-sounding, was actually a real boon in that it was a departure from my regular routine (the one that gives me the money that makes me pay the taxes). The Fung-Wah bus ride home was uneventful, except for when we got to Boston. The bus driver thought it would be a great idea to give us a tour of the entirety of Cambridge and North Boston before going to the bus station. We crossed the bridge between Cambridge and Boston three times, on three different bridges, before he finally committed to taking us to South Station. I have to admit, I wasn't impressed. But it's the Fung-Wah, right? The price is right. They give you a quarter when you get on the bus and say to drop the quarter in a box in the front of the bus if everything was satisfying, and to use it to call them if it wasn't. Well, I did my part and kept the quarter. It brought the ticket price down to $14.75. A bargain! I feel compensated enough that I don't have to call.
I didn't say it was going to be a fascinating post.

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A comment for a comment

It's worth here noting that Ean Frick, who wrote the Dig article about the gentrification of the Alston area that got the bee in my bonnet a while back, has posted a comment on my post to "set the record straight." Thanks, Ean for discovering my blog in your onanistic googling, and for thinking that my words are worth the reply. I'm sure that when it comes right down to it, we have a lot more in common than not. Except you're in the Dig, and I'm in the fucking blog-o-sphere.
(There are a couple of new words in the modern lexicon that really kick my ass: "metrosexual" and "blogosphere." It's unfortunate that these words made it to the popular press, and appear to be sticking, because they're perverse plays on pre-existing words that have little semantic value to attach to their incredibly weak aesthetic (aural?) qualities. I say we stop using them. How's about "well-dressed" and "the internet"? Hmm? Would that really be worse?
First the "blogosphere" then the big blue/green sphere.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Post-Script: One word that should maybe enter the lexicon, however, is "crustfunders." Once again thank you to Ean Frick.

for the record

For the record, it's totally doable to drive to New York City from Boston, hang out for the day, and then take a bus back. It's not even that stressful or expensive. It's actually kind of pleasant. I went and was somebody else for a day. Older, more experienced, simply outside of my life. New York City has that effect on people.
For the record, nobody on MySpace or Friendster is actually interested in meeting new friends through the internet. I've done some mild research into the matter (in the form of cold messages to interesting-looking strangers), and nobody seems too interested in meeting in real life. Of course, this is loaded, because maybe it's just me that they don't want to meet.
For the record, it's only stalking if you don't leave them alone once they've stopped showing interest in you. Or if you can't tell that they're never going to show interest in you. That should be like written in stone somewhere on livejournal.com
For the record, there's no difference between sleeping in your clothes and sleeping in pajamas. Unless, of course, your clothes are super-fancy/tight and uncomfortable. In which case pajamas are better. But generally, it's just not worth the effort.
For the record, even though she was/is in the New Pornographers, Neko Case is a whole lot more country when she performs on her own.
For the record, it's time to drink the rest of my tea and go to bed.


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Bird's Eye View

A friend posted some pictures of me/my hands over at bird's eye view. Go and see her lovely photos.
In other news, I hope to sleep through the night tonight. It's my major goal for the day.

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Comment comments. The Meta-Comment

I don't know what the etiquette is in the world at large about leaving comments on blog posts, but maybe it's time for me to throw in my two cents. Maybe I've done this in the past? I can't remember.
Rule 1: Leave your name. If you don't know me, and you're going to comment about my writing, let me know who you are. Often I get anonymous comments, and I can guess who sent it, but usually I have no idea. It's hard to take something seriously (or jokingly, or whatever) if it could have been written by a robot for all I know.
Rule 2: Don't flame strangers. Based on my detailed analysis of the comments left on this blog, if you truly are anonymous (and not some friend of mine too lazy to log in with your own name), what you're writing me usually amounts to a flame. It's just not cool to flame strangers. It's not polite.
(not cool to flame? That's a strange phrase.)
I don't take this thing very seriously or personally, even though it's ostensibly all about me, but what are you people, raised in a barn?
Plus you should all write more comments. If I received a zillion more, the pain of the occcasional flame would dissipate.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

I'd Like a Venti Twitching Fetus-Cino with Cinnamon Sprinkles to Go

the lips don't drip
when you're taking a trip.
the thighs don't lie.

ur a dip.



am i?

Lunchtime IM Poetry with Osama

baste baby
oven 350
taste gravy
taste maybe
hehe
so dellishy!
lil'squishy
heh
cook 'till glazy
12:25 PM
makes ya crazy
feelin' hazy
w the taste shiz-azy
shiz-kebob
corn on the cob
eat like a slob
kiss a man named bob
buy a watch fob
bob likes gravy
baby gravy
he served in the navy
was very bravy
with a man-boy lady
thats pretty shady
taste the shady navy man-boy lady gravy
slurp it down
unless its brown
get rid of tha frown
then get outta town

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More Shameless Self-Promotion Than Usual

Okay, so by now, you've noticed that I keep posting links to my music web site at the bottom of every post, but you should really go and visit it now if you haven't recently. I've made it much prettier, added a couple of demo tracks, photos, basically spruced the place up. There's also the permalink to it on the right-hand side of this page, if you lose track of this post. And soon, very soon, you'll be able to buy CDs and possibly (gasp!) merchandise off of that page. But probably not much with the merchandise until I start to play more gigs. By which I mean any gigs.

Here's another reminder that Seasac Records has a bunch of my stuff (b-sides and demos, mostly), in addition to a whole lot of other cool music, all free and downloadable.

I've also joined the unwashed masses over at MySpace with a latiflearned page. But it's cool, because it's color-coordinated with my real web page. Be my friend if you're on MySpace. Lord knows my meager profile could use a few.

Have I said all of this already? Probably. Never hurts to say it again.

Relevant History

It's worth noting that my Boston friend whose name may or may not rhyme with Osama wrote a poem for/about/in response to me a while back. It's such a beautiful thing. I hope that you enjoy it, too.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

I'm on NPR!

Hey guess what? I'm on NPR's Open Mic Podcast starting today, apparently. They told me that they'd be featuring my music, but they didn't tell me when. It's a good thing I checked it out, or I might have missed it entirely.
If you want to download the track, you can subscribe to the NPR "Open Mic" Podcast in iTunes, or go right here to download it. Tell all your friends!

Latiflearned.com - If you're curious for more tracks, info, gigs, etc. you can find that stuff here.

Update: Here's another link to the actual story about me:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5298286

Another Update: You Macalester folks might like to know that Zack Kline, violinist extraordinaire, has also recently been featured on NPR's open mic. Represent!

Awesome

The Pentagon wants to unleash cyber-insects on our enemies. You know, the terrorists. Wherever it is that they are. Never mind how we'd actually go about controlling insects with a remote control. I think this is fantastic. It's just fucking out of control that somebody out there has the hubris to suggest that we remote-control insects to be our spies. Think of the civilian spin-offs: remote-controlled butterflies with webcam mounts to hover outside of your neighbor's bathroom window. Malaria mosquitos to attack your high-school principal. The fun never ends!
I don't even know what I'm talking about.
I watched the 40-Year-Old Virgin last night, and just about peed all over the couch, I laughed so hard. I thought it ironic, me celibate this year, watching the plight of this (fake) person who's been celibate for 40. It just put my whole shit in perspective, you know? Yeah. Plus it's so funny it induces bowel movements.
Tomorrow I'm going to Ottawa, which should be cold and take way way way too long on the bus. It's actually faster to take a bus to Canada from Boston than it is to take a bus to Northern New York. Strange. It's way cheaper, as well. I plan on taking beef jerky and my iPod Nano, which has proven to be as good a conversation starter as a pet toad in your lap. And if the conversation's still dry, I can always show off my missing tooth.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

blast from the past

Did you know that Iran resurrected Abraham Lincoln to be their new president?

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cognitive dissonance

I love those moments when people's autonomic communication tics clash with their socialized responses. I went to this gym near my house the other day, to check it out, and this fellow (we'll call him "Brad") gives me a tour of the place. "Hi. I'm Brad. What's your name?" He says to me. Donald. Nice to meet you. Then we turn a corner to officially start our tour. The very next thing out of his mouth is "What's your name?" Donald. "Mine's Brad. Nice to meet you." Then we commence with our tour. The first stop on our tour was the men's changing room, then on to the freeweights, cardio, etc. We got back to the office, and he said, "Have you seen the changing room?" I couldn't tell which part of this guy was on autopilot and which part was actually trying to talk to me.
You'll hear it if you listen for it. People walk into my office and say "Hi Donald" under their breath and then "Hello Donald" to my face. Like their little mental rehearsal leaked out into meatspace. My roomate occasionally mutters something utterly uncoordinated with our current social context by way of greeting. Like, we'll both be in the apartment for a couple of hours doing our own thing, and then we'll meet up in some room and he'll say "What's going on?" You know what's going on. We've both been here for hours. This isn't annoying, it's fascinating. I never say anything about it, it just goes into the mental catalog. But I'm taking notice!
What's the normal thing to do socially in this situation? Do you pretend you didn't notice? That's usually my tack. But is it also acceptable to say something like, "You realize that you're skipping like a broken record?" If somebody could get back to me on the protocol, my social life would probably benefit.
Then there's the other question. Why are we skipping like CD players without noticing it? I blame electronic music. It's Aphex Twin's fault. We can trace it farther back. Terry Reilly is the progenitor of our unconscious tics. His minimalist music has chipped away at the very foundation of our cognition.
Shit! I'm going off on a tangent again.
Till next time...
Until we meet again...
Hasta la vista...
My name's Brad. What's yours?

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

temperate, with a 35% chance of irony

I received an email just now, and upon perusing the recipients list compulsively (does anybody else do this?), I realized that 90% of the email addresses were gmail-based. Google owns the personal communication of a generation. This blog is google. They know every personal interaction, they have receipts of all of my e-purchases, it goes on and on. What happens if they change their motto to, oh, I don't know... "BE EVIL!" I can see the (slightly modified Onion) headline now:

Google Moves into Sinister "Phase 2" of Operations

Maybe it's time to simply host my own email server and blog. Take the internet back into my own hands. With the Patriot Act coming around again, maybe it's time to escalate the paranoia in both directions. That's what the internet is for. Well, that and porn.
While I'm at it, I should cancel my Friendster and MySpace accounts. I don't know to what degree this would keep the advertisers out, but maybe it could help. On the other hand, I got an advertising call on my cell phone because Latiflearned.com is registered to it, and now the whole world knows. Woops. So maybe having your own web server isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Enough rambling!

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

other, related resolutions

I want to write fewer songs about girls. Like any other resolution, this seems to be easier in theory than practice. Which is funny, because having to exercise self-restraint in the songwriting process is akin to dry-humping. It's not precisely what we're built for. It creates tension. But that can be good tension. I feel that unless I write songs about other things, like, you know, fields of sunflowers or very old buildings, I will be an expert at something nobody wants to hear about.

They say that songs had any power at all, we'd all be in love. I think that's uncharitable. Songs have made a lot of otherwise boring sex pretty entertaining. Don't look for an oracle when what you want is a glass of beer. That's been my family motto for 4/7000ths of a generation.

But it's not like anybody's going to be having sex to my music.

If you do, though, let me know. I'd appreciate it.

The other family motto is "Work like dogs, eat like kings."

(He said, writing a totally unnecessary blog post from work...)

With all of that behind me, it's worth noting that 50% of the songs that I've written in the last month have been about girls. Breakups, even. Which is funny, because I haven't broken up with anybody for half a year. Where's my self-control?

tuned in

I'm so tuned in to the frequency of my cell phone's ring that I hear that frequency everywhere. Sometimes I play guitar, and the string harmonics create the exact same frequency. It's usually when I'm playing hard, so I'm not sure if I'm really hearing the phone ring. So I stop playing. Or when I'm listening to music really loudly. Or sometimes I just imagine it. The phone manages to interrupt my life even when it's not doing anything at all.
I see two solutions:

Solution A: Throw the fucking phone out the window. Those devices irradiate your brain and pollute your soul, making you believe that communication and life down to the minute is somehow superior to a more relaxed pace. Faster life is better life. Throw it away.

Solution B: Can my generic telephone ring tone, and get the new Kanye West polyphonic. Impress my peeps on the subway with my vast library of dope phone beats.

Clearly, it's a choice between the lesser of two weevils. I fear change. I'll leave everything the way it is, and adjust myself.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Crack!

I have one problem tooth. Or should I say had one problem tooth. The only tooth with a cavity (knock on dentin), the only tooth that ever broke. I had a root canal. Didn't take. Had a crown. Broke. Three different times. So today, i had the tooth pulled. For better or worse, that hunk of problem is gone from my life. Hopefully.
They don't tell you very much about what's going to happen when they pull your tooth. This is probably because you're sitting there in the chair, gums numb, thinking things like "This is going to be like pulling teeth! That's exactly what this is! Pulling teeth!." And we all know how hard that is.
But it's really not that bad. You have the option to go under, but I think that's for wussies. All they do is take your tooth in a pair of pliers, and yank it out sideways, using your head as leverage. I thought they'd have something more sophisticated than that, but it's really pretty much the same as the technique I use for pulling nails out of boards.
The bloody tooth stump is pretty cool-looking, too.
I drove to the dentist, which is basically news in itself, because I drive so infrequently these days. Now, I don't know if you've ever driven on a Saturday in suburban Boston, but here's what people do in suburban Boston on a sunny Saturday afternoon: they go and get their car washed.
Now, car wash guys must make a killing, because I only saw two car washes between Jamaica Plain and Norwood, but both of them had lines all the way into the street. I'm thinking: it would take less time and money to go to the store, buy car wash supplies, and do it in your driveway. But clearly I'm missing out on something here. Some essential Boston experience, akin to the joy of going to Fenway park and getting glares from suspicious Red-Sox fans because I'm not wearing anything red. It's like reverse McCarthyism around here. But I digress.
In summation, eat more dried plums, and don't take the gas if you're getting your teeth pulled. It'll be something you can bore your kids about someday. And make sure to check out the Dedham car wash. Dedham. So hot right now.. Dedham.
Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

My Hopes

People like to talk about the change that's coming over the music and video industry. The transition between analog mediums and non-transferability that comes along with it to digital mediums and the ability to make perfect duplicates. It's not a transition anymore. It's happened. Analog, much as I love it, has been relegated to DJs and audio purists; those willing to put forth an awful lot of effort to listen to music and have it sound real. The rest of the world is on digital, for better or worse.
It's my hope that we'll use this in a good way. I see it going in many directions. For instance, we could end up in a world where you have to pay some fee to Sony every time you want to play a song. It's not out of the question; it's what the record companies have always wanted. Now the technology is in place to do that. We're just not quite under the yoke of that technology yet, with CDs and MP3s still being ubiquitous. Ever try to use somebody else's WMA? Have you noticed the spyware/malware embedded in your latest Warner Bros. CD purchase?
Anyway, I digress from my hope. I see us as potentially being a culture glued to our broadband connections, downloading music at our whim, experiencing our art through a vibrating magnet and an LCD. It's so easy to do things this way. It's cheap, you don't have to get up, it's gratifying, it's instant. Records are so much easier to achieve/create, in a lot of ways, than a solid live performance. But it's my hope that we can parlay this technology into real human contact. It's so easy to hear a band's record, to get that advertisement, as it were, that maybe more people will start going to live shows. When recordings become ubiquitous and essentially free, maybe the live show will become (as it once was and remains for many) the venue where the true originality happens and is expected. The records are what gets you there. Live shows are already the place where artists (and TicketMaster) actually make their money. It would be ironic if we went full circle from the invention of the phonograph, where records were considered a cheap imitation of live shows, through the record-as-product, and back. It would be ironic, but it would also be excellent. Because we've reached a point where we need to make an effort to have actual human interaction, and it's my hope that maybe the availability of everything at our desk will push us back out into the real world, seeking reality with which to corroborate.
Seems like a long shot, but it's actually my driving force in seeking out art. Maybe it could work for everybody...

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen. Then see me live (whenever I get my shit together and start performing live. Anyway, it'll be on that page if I am).

Dried Plums

"Dried Plums" are the best thing to happen to prunes since prunes came about in the first place. The word "prune" has all of these negative connotations. We say "wrinkled like a prune" or "prune-y." Prunes mean old people, and they also mean pooping. Nobody wants to think about old people and pooping. So we don't talk about prunes. And nobody would buy a prune, let alone a whole box, because that would mean being associated with old people and/or pooping. Regardless of how well we would be pooping, we just don't care for that association.
Enter "dried plums." You may have noticed in shopping at your nearest food-conglomerate-convenience-utility store that the word "prune" is absent from the box. Advertisers have become savvy to the poop/prune complex, and have diverted a future generation from having to be subjected to the vagaries of old people, poop, and prunes by calling them what they actually are: dried plums.
Try it. It sounds a lot better. Mmm... I love dried plums.
Here's my new catch-phrase for Girl-Free 2006: "Ought Sex." Two months down and I haven't even broken a sweat.

**Update - 03/01/2006** - The local neighborhood store stopped selling dried plums. Boo.

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New Words (or, A Soapbox for a Soapbox)

I learned a new word today. Actually two words, but they're related: "yupster," and "yindie." Can you guess what this means? Let me quote from the article where I read it (The Dig, 2.22.06, p. 9):

"... the new 'yindie' or 'yupster' trend: young and hip, but professional. Too square for the tatoos and tight pants of the scenesters; too uptight for the relaxed fit of the b-boys and bedside DJs."

This in the context of an article about how a neighborhood (Allston!) is going downhill, because the punks that made it so sweet are leaving and the lame-o students and Young Urban Who-Gives-A-Fucks are moving in.
You can see where I'm headed with this. Tight pants aside, they're describing me here: ripe old age of 23, pro computer skillz, young, hip. No tattoos. More-or-less symmetrical hairdo. Fancy coat. No Technics on my desk. The implication is that if you're "professional," you're square, no matter how hip you look and act. No matter who you are, you're getting judged by your job.
Well, I'm sorry, Ean Frick, if mom doesn't pay my rent and finance my "homegrown" lifestyle. Hipsters are the same as the hippies were: hanging around and looking cool, talking big and living off your newfound morals is a lifestyle you can't support unless mommy and daddy are footing the bill. Sorry that I can't find an image that I'd want permanently etched into my forearm. Sorry that getting on my feet and learning how to pick up my beer bottles off the floor and put them into the recycling qualifies me as not fit to live in your down-to-earth rat-infested Allston Beat utopia. And it's a shame that you feel that way about me because I've got a job; we've probably got more in common than you think.
The first thing you get asked when you meet an American is "What do you do?" We should be more careful about defining ourselves by our employment (or identifying with our lack thereof). Real people don't always do what they want, and real people aren't defined by what they look like. They aren't definable at all.
I don't live in Allston, but gentrification is happening all around Boston. The same trend of homogenization and commodification is happening in Back Bay, Jamaica Plain, Cambridge, Brookline, everywhere. The real issue is that the city as a policital entity doesn't care about independent arts, affordable housing (rent control), public services (MBTA, looking at you here), etc., and that the people who live here are all too willing to replace JP O'Drinky's with Club Aqua, or to let somebody else do it for them without putting up a fight. Place the blame where the blame is due, and *do* something about it if it bothers you. For instance, the Brattle in Cambridge has been putting up a good fight to keep it's doors open and independent film happening. Send them a donation; we can turn this town around.

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Compensation

It's funny the ways in which we compensate for the world we've created. We know we're built for grass, but we make roads out of asphalt, and then we have to make special shoes for us to be able to run on those roads without hurting our knees. We create cities, big dense stressful polluting non-human-friendly environments, then cram ourselves into them. We drink a gallon of orange juice a week and take yoga classes and drink de-stress tea, we smoke and we drin, we plug our ears into headphones to dull our senses to the overload. It's funny how humans are so proficient at creating environments that we can't tolerate. But because we're so adaptable, we tolerate them anyway. Modern science allows us to survive everything, enjoy little.
The thing about compensation, though, is that it's just as easy to overcompensate as it is to simply compensate. Especially when it comes to self-medication. The point is to be sure that you're still experiencing the life that you're living. We're living in a time when we've got an option to ignore everything, and paying attention is simply a choice we have to make, not an inevitability. So, um, I ask you to please make the choice to pay attention, and experience your life. If we don't do that, collectively, then the hard times ahead will be made that much harder.

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Moved In

Well, I finally got a bookshelf yesterday, a big beautiful thing, six feet high with shelves over a foot deep. It allowed me to finally unpack the remaining five boxes full of books and CDs that comprise the rest of my life. It was cathartic to see my music, the novels I intended to read and forgot about, my old books on origami, my spanish-lanugage flamenco poetry, guitar parts, and to finally have a place to put them and refer to them daily. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel like yourself, but you don't know you're missing it until you get it back. I get that impression a lot lately, like there's a lot I've been missing, and it's just a matter of waiting before it comes back into my life. But after several months, I can take having a bookshelf (and a desk and a dresser) as finally being able consider myself moved-in to this place.
That said, i'm probably not going to stay in this particular apartment for more than this year. It's just not quite right, for the rent I pay. Not like you need to know why it's not right or how much rent I pay, it just sort of bears saying things like that if I'm to keep up any pretense of the "mass-email"-ness of this blog, and not go the way of a friend who just gave up on blogging in general. I'll probably stay in JP, but don't quote me on that. You can quote me on the girl-free 2006 thing, but not on staying in JP. I'm committed to the former but not the latter.
JP (eace on earth)
Donald

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Evolving

I hear that every seven years, your body has completely regenerated itself. That's to say that in seven years, every cell currently in your body will have been replaced with a similar one. This means that you're literally a new person every seven years. Which explains why I also hear that our lives go in seven-year cycles.
But think about this: say you've got a physical ailment, a bum leg, say. Theoretically, in seven years your leg could have healed itself. It's an entirely new leg, after all. What's to say that it can't be a good leg instead of your old beaten up version? A leg upgrade. So if we could just harness some ability to tell our cells to stop reproducing bad legs and start pumping out good ones, we would be on the road to getting better with time. We would be more like fine wines than nice cheeses. Or would we be like leather bags? I dunno, something that only gets better with age. Like, literally gets better with age. I love this idea. Everybody start telling your body to pick up the pace a little, let's see some real healing!

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Jeans

I was shopping for jeans in Boston. This took me to a number of stores. It took me to such a large number that I decided to do as Daryl Zero and stop looking for any pair of jeans in particular. I looked at all jeans, in all stores. Because if, of all the jeans in the world, you're looking for one pair, your chances of finding it are very slim. If you are very slim, your chances further decrease. If, however, you're looking for any jeans at all, suddenly you find what you are looking for everywhere you turn.
My unbiased search led me into Neiman Marcus. Neiman Marcus is near the Back Bay Metro station, and it contains jeans, so it's a likely candidate for my completely non-weighted look at the world of jeans. After some poking around, I see a pair that catches my eye. Banishing any thoughts of "these are probably too expensive for you to pay for" until I took a closer look, I, um, take a closer look.
Now, these jeans are pretty nice, at first glance. Premium jeans. First-rate jeans. A good dark wash, straight legs. The kind of jeans that look like they fit, and haven't already been lived in for a couple of years. Which is what I was going for. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that these jeans had these gigantic brass tetrahedronal rivets. Egyptian pyramid rivets. They played tricks of scale on your eyes, not being accustomed as our eyes are to seeing rivets of this magnitude on a pair of jeans. You don't even notice they're there, they're so big. A closer reading of the little booklet that accompanies the jeans says the following (paraphrased):

"Your new jeans have rivets that are the best thing to happen to rivethood since the metal shop. Your rivets must be treated with the utmost of rivet reverence and care. Do not wash these rivets as you would a pedestrian garment such as a three-piece suit. These rivets demand that a left-handed Elbonian sherpa rub them daily with a chamois. If not rubbed with the proper level of care and rivet respect, your rivets will disengage from your jeans and attach themselves to Michael Jackson.
In addition, your jeans are treated with a special dye that cannot be washed, because it will disappear, being magically treated to bond with all elements and turn into formaldehyde. Also, don't sit on any white couches, because the color of your jeans will dry-bleed onto your white furniture, and you'll be left with a rash.*"

So, let me get this right: these jeans cost $450, and I can't wash them or sit down in them? You would think that for $450 dollars, you'd get a bit more performance out of a pair of jeans. But that's just my completely unbiased opinion. I guess I'll just have to settle for looking worn and baggy. Worn and baggy is so hot right now.

*I made up the rash part.

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Pre-Approved

I have been Pre-Approved an awful lot more in the last few weeks than I ever was up until now. Until I moved to Boston, I had never been Pre-Approved. Nobody was happy to tell me that I qualified for a low interest rate, and a high credit limit. They were content, it seems, to leave me alone before. But now I have been Pre-Approved.
This is fantastic. Approval is imminent. Think of the possibilities once I have gained Approval. Things that had previously been banished to the realm of pure possibility happen when you're Approved. And Pre-Approval is the first step toward sweet Approvability. This is exciting, for while being in a Pre-Approved state is motivating in the extreme, my cultural assimilation will not be complete until I reach complete and utter Approval. Then and only then can I stand in the ranks of the Approved, and in some cases the Twice-and-Thrice-Approved, and laugh deridingly at the unwashed, unApproved masses.


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Kindred Souls

Have you ever met a kindred soul, and you just know it from the moment you meet that you have more than just "something in common." You've got that special connection, that philotic link that connects the two of you at the subconscious level. You're tuned in to the Ethereal Subconscious Vibe Network (ESVN), and they're sitting on the couch right next to you. The feeling you get, the knowledge that things are right in the world because there are people like this in it. I love that feeling.
Then they go into how you should accept Jesus the Saviour into your life, and sharp cheddar and wine are really bad for you, and public transportation is a waste of time, and Tom Waits is just a horrible beat poet with a bad band, and really there's nothing to say for fine art and dance, and they need to make the highways bigger, and the war's really a good thing, because the terrorists in Iraq and New Mexico need to be killed so that once and for all we can emerge as the nation you just don't fuck with, for God's sake, and fuck Johnny Cupcakes because the t-shirts at Urban Outfitters are way cooler. And you think, "How could somebody hate Tom Waits? I was so wrong."
So wrong.

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High Hopes and a Dash of Cumin

I had really big plans for today. i was going to have a physical therapy appointment, visit a museum, reunite with a long lost friend, do some yoga, and some more reuniting with (longer but less lost) friends. Instead, I had the appointment, bought some stuff, went for a run, bought some more stuff (which was a trip originally poorly disguised as a trip to the museum, which inevitably failed when I couldn't find the museum and decided to keep walking forward rather than retrace my steps), and made some really killer enchiladas. Which really ruin your momentum. All you can do after eating really killer enchiladas (RKEs) is coast for the rest of the day. Coast and ponder leftover enchiladas for a week and all that this entails.
I'm a bit concerned about the implications of my physical therapy appointment. They did some ultrasound on my head, which ostensibly relaxes your muscles. That's fine and good, and it did indeed relax the muscles in my head, with the requisite tingling sensation that I've come to expect from all visits to people who re-align my body/energy/aura. But isn't ultrasound the same procedure that they use on babies to make a picture for the pregnant mother, the orderly, and whoever else decides to lean their head into the room? This begs the question: what is that ultrasound doing to those babies? Does it make them feel relaxed? Does it increase their self-esteem? Does it make them more inclined to listen to Aphex Twin and enjoy it?
One of the things I bought today, a purchase of which I'm especially proud, is the CD by Alarm Will Sound called Acoustica, where they play the works of Aphex Twin. This is not to be confused with Apocalyptica, which is a string quartet that plays the works of Metallica. Or Bjorn Again, which is a tribute band to Abba based in Australia. But I digress: Acoustica is a really sweet album; it turns out that you only need 22 classical musicians, at the peak of their power and concentration, to be able to do a decent acoustic facsimile of an Aphex Twin track. "Why would I care about this when I could go and listen to Aphex Twin?" You say. And then you say "And I don't even listen to Aphex Twin." To which I say: you should try ultrasound. It'll loosen you up.

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Girl Free 2006

I've decided that, notwithstanding some of my previous comments, I do have a New Year's resolution. I've decided that 2006 is going to be girl-free. I'm just not going to date any of 'em this year. I get more done when I'm single. I kind of like the power dynamic that it creates with strangers. I like to feel that control, the smile/smile-back. I need to be productive. You can't be as productive when you've got somebody else around all of the time. it's a fact. So I'm not going to play hard to get, I'm going to be impossible to get. That's the way it is this year. Girl-Free 2006.

Update: In retrospect, this seems to follow pretty naturally from my previous post.

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Poof!

I was writing today to a friend from whom I have not heard in months. To sum up what had happened in the meantime, I said, "I put my head down, and when I looked up again, months had passed." It seems strange that all of this time since I got to Boston would have gone by so quickly; as it was happening it seemed like it would go on forever. There have been some really long days and a lot of experiences that I'd rather not re-live. It passed all the same.
My ex-girlfriend Anna told me once that the thing that's nice about dating somebody is that you have some frame of reference for your experiences. You can say, "I did this!" and experience the validation of somebody else saying, "Yes! It's true! I was there. It truly was grand!" This is a profound insight, I think, into why people couple themselves off in the first place. Surely it's better to have a record. Memories, like photographs (or journal entries), create a better picture of the past if they exist in plentitude. Isn't it a fantastic thing about memory that if you don't take pains to cast a memory somehow, it'll simply disappear.
Well, just the things you did alone will disappear. If you've got friends and loved ones, they will share some of the burden of remembering things that you would otherwise forget. My sister and her boyfriend remember things about France that left my mind long ago. Maybe you don't really need a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe they just condense a process that occurs with every human with whom you come into contact.
if that's the case, you deserve some thanks. Thank you for coming here and reading, for caring enough to want to remember. It means a lot to me, though I say very little about it.

Pets

I think that we should give pets more human-like names. I mean, Fluffy or Zoltan are fine names and all, but I don't think that they accurately represent our pets' status in our lives. It would be like calling your boyfriend "Dopey." I propose that we give our pets the same names that we would give to humans: "This is my dog, Joe." "Say hello to our new kitten, Mary." If they're going to be family members, why not give them appropriate names? It helps to remove the cognitive dissonance.
For some reason I can't sleep tonight. Every time I get pretty close to falling asleep, I'm awoken by this panicked feeling, like I stopped breathing right at that moment where you go unconscious. I thought that I had my anxiety pretty well under control, but I guess I've still got a ways to go. If you're capable of sending calming vibes through ethernet cables (or wifi, if you're fancy), please direct your talents my way: I could use the help. I mean, it's 3:26AM and I've got to work today. But at least it's Friday, so no harm done. Heh.

The Edges of Things

"It was not hard for me to think of nothing, the way I felt at the moment. In order not to think of any one thing, all I had to do was think of many things, a little at a time: just think about something for a moment and fling it into space."
-Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

When I was littler, I used to get these hallucinations when I was trying to fall asleep. In that state before dreams, but after awake would feel like my head was in a vice, like everything about which I thought was infinitely expanding and contracting. It hurt my brain to think about it. I would think about the edges of things, edges so razor-sharp that there was an infinity in their frontier. I couldn't think about it for very long, because it would make me feel like I was going mad. It would make me feel a very real sort of pain and pressure. So I would think about other things. Garfield comics. Doing the dishes. Girls (later on). I was eventually able to make the hallucinations (or whatever they were) go away. But I never felt like I solved the problem. I just felt like I was ignoring it successfully. A minor victory, but I have to wonder if the battle wages on.
Murakami is a good writer; I feel as if the character in this book rationalizes things in a way that I find very comforting. Like, if there are humans out there who think this way, then I'm not alone. It's good to be reminded of that.

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Latif Learned

I made a new album. You know, music? You like music, don't you? Get my album! You can get tracks and lyrics etc. over at latiflearned.com.
I hope that you enjoy it. If you ever forget that link, it's always over in my sidebar off of this blog.
Also, if you go to Seasac Records, you stand a good chance of being able to hear rare demos, b-sides, out-takes, Brazillian electro-remixes and other craziness. Also, you can hear the totally sweet bands Fujimo and Molocai and Ugly By Now, all for free. You're here because you're wasting time. Go and get some free music.

Toiling in the Fields

I've been thinking about the city. Life in the city, you have to admit, is pretty far-removed from what we're biologically constructed to be doing. Typically, people who live in cities spend the majority of their day immobile (sitting in chairs, which is actually a stress on the body), sheltered from the elements, etc. Fantastic. We've been through all of that before.
But if we're biologically constructed to be doing something more like running around in forests trying our best to kill rabbits and find berries or whatever, what is the analogue for a city-dweller? Is there anything that we can do to sort of simulate for our bodies the state of being healthy and normal?
So I think about my city friends who seem well-adjusted to life in the city. One common trait that they seem to share is that they're all really active. Always attending some event, or going to some party/event/benefit. Picnics. Bike rides. Shows. It seems like one way to be normal in a city is just to try to keep as busy as possible. Social hunting and gathering. Because food's easy to find, but it's just not right to sit around all day. A leisurely life in a city is potentially quite detrimental.
Or you could just join a gym, I guess.

listening to: Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus

Somebody Watching

Do you ever do things when you're alone as though somebody were there watching you? Or like, if somebody were to walk in at that precise moment, they'd be sure to see you in top form? When I got my first Beta Band CD way back in college, I thought to myself, "This is the kind of music I want playing when somebody stumbles into my dorm room. They would think I was maximum cool." I guess that since I had that thought, it just sort of bled to the rest of my life. Now I make sure that I'm looking sharp when I'm vacuuming, that the lighting is proper when I'm doing dishes, that I've only got my good side exposed when I'm lying on the couch. I mean, what if somebody were to walk in at that precise moment? What if they had TV cameras? You'd want to be prepared, right?

Blanket

I just watched The Producers (the re-make with Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom and Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock) the other day. It was pretty funny. There's a scene that keeps coming back up in my mind: Leo and Max are in Max's apartment, and Leo pulls this piece of blanket out of his pocket and starts rubbing it around his face. "It's not important, it just makes me feel comfortable," he says. But then Max takes the piece of blanket away and Leo freaks out. "MY BLANKET! YOU'VE GOT MY BLANKET! GIVE ME BACK MY BLANKET!" Up until that point he had maintained his composure, even though Max Bialystock clearly made him nervous. But when he lost his blanket, the thin facade of his composure wore through.
I like the idea, because everybody's got their blanket. Some thing or idea that, when rubbed the wrong way or put out of place, causes you to totally lose your cool. It could be something really small, like putting the tea bag in before the water, or stir-frying beef together with green peppers. It could be some past grudge that never faded, of which we do not speak.
Somebody told me once that our society is four skipped meals away from complete chaos. Best not to consider how thin that blanket that covers us all really is.
The Producers, though. Really funny movie, that.

I only think these things sometimes!

Blog posts and songs are snapshots. I would hate for anybody to get the impression that I constantly feel like I sound when I'm writing. That would be inaccurate. More accurate would be to say that I usually feel that way only for a couple of seconds, and in writing or performing the work in question I can revisit the feelings that it brought me. That way, I don't have to hold on to the more unpleasant things in life.
This could also explain why most of my songs are sad, and this blog isn't exactly the source of all things happy either. It's something I still need to work on, I suppose, letting go of the good things in addition to the bad...

Alchemistry

What is it that allows us to process ideas without thinking actively about them? I feel like much of the time I'm coming up with my ideas as I speak. How does that work? What kind of alchemistry allows us to not think not think not think and then eventually come to a conclusion about the way things were, the way things are? Is it a function of our memory, fading over the things we don't understand until we've only got a picture of the things that we comprehend? Or is it that our reality moves too fast, allowing us to only retroactively process that which, had we greater intelligence or perception, could have been immediately understood in the moment?
How is one to live in the moment when one can't understand the moment?
I've been feeling lately as though I'm sitting in the backseat of my life, watching it through a window. I keep thinking thoughts like, "wow, that was an interesting thing that you said," or "all right! you made it through another half an hour without forgetting to breathe!" Maybe this kind of meta-narrative happens often in other people's lives. If so, shout it out, because I'd hate to feel that I'm the only one.

Here's me and my brother playing tunes at Christmas. Stay tuned for links to Christmas photos.