Odds and Ends.

-"The Rain Song" is playing by Led Zeppelin, which was always one of my favorite L.Z. songs. I used to play it whenever it rained, which happened more in PA, VA, and NY. Not so much here, though we did get an excellent storm last Friday. I opened windows, saw the lighting and enjoyed the monsoon wind. I think it's from Houses of the Holy which I bought in tape form in my senior year of high school and is still in PA. I listened to a lot of Jane's Addiction, Led Zeppelin and Cocteau Twins that year. We played in it the lit. mag room. Houses of the Holy was a minor fav. of mine. I still crack up whenever I get to the song, whose name I've forgotten, that has Robert Plant say annoyedly, "Where's that confounded bridge?" It was the one that ended the first side of the tape, I think, though am not positive about that.
-Am peeved because in all of my errands that I did yesterday, I returned my non-working gate card keys to the parking people. The whole story is too complex to get into but the short version is: I was informed by someone who's usually right on these things that I could get 25 bucks after I returned them. I was viewing this as mainly 'found money' and was looking forward to maybe going to a movie or do something goofy with it. Unfortunately,the guy told me that while the parking people wouldn't charge me the 25 bucks for the gate cards, they wouldn't reimburse for the money. He seemed surprised that I even asked this. It's nice that I'm not being charged, but it's not quite the same thing. So, either I was told wrongly, they don't do this anymore, or the guy was clueless. As there's a very strong possibility of the last, I'll probably call somebody else and check. Or, they used to and they don't anymore. The fascists. Okay, a bit strong. But what a shock, being shafted by the parking people as they've raised the permits muchly. I wasn't feeling that warm and fuzzy about the university anyway.
-I've been having parts of Beck's "Loser" running through my mind recently, particularly the line "There's a change coming, I can feel it." I was considering using it for a sig. line, but then checked the lyrics online and decided that the song itself is depressing which it's supposed to be. However, using it as a sig. line seemed a bit too something I feel.
-All the walking around in boots I did yesterday and moving from a.c. to a.c. have caused my shins to hurt. They are comfortable boots, but I guess so much tromping about can take its toll. So I've been icing them tonight and feel annoyed that they don't hurt because I went to the gym or anything 'logical.' Oh hell. I feel like an ancient dowager or something. Though an ancient dowager would probably have nicer ice packs than my ice cubes in plastic baggies with towels wrapped in them. It's also killed my 'desire' to do laundry which isn't hard.
-I wouldn't call myself a 'Dead Head' in any specific way. I like the Dead, but I don't have a cd or tape of them. I did want to see them in concert, for the experience. However, alas, Jerry died before that happened. I think one of my roommates had the cd that had most of the hits in it, whose name I have also forgotten. It has a red cover. So I was pretty impressed with myself when I was able to identify that Great Expectations, the remake with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow used "Uncle John Band's" in one of the scenes. And okay, admittedly, that's a fairly common Dead song, and we're not talking that I identified a really obscure song.
-Speaking of the Dead and Jerry, a true story about his death. My old roommate MRL and her then boyfriend were walking around our college campus shortly after Jerry's death. They ran into two hippiesh people on campus (which wasn't surprising as the campus had a good chunk of hippie type students there). The girl was clearly upset and said to them, "I don't know what I'm going to do now that Jerry's dead." I have been so tempted to use that quote as a sig. line as it's funny, a bit sad and just so random.
-We're back to Led Zeppelin. Now we've got "Ramble On." I don't really have an opinion of that one. I didn't realize until really recently that L.Z. did a song called "Dazed and Confused" which is why Linklater (Was it Linklater, the guy who did Slacker and Waking Life) named his 70s ensemble movie after that song. I hated Dazed and Confused as noone was likable in it, and I wasn't too keen on the 70s when they were happening. The clothes, the hair suck. There wasn't enough distance yet from it. I think that might be why it's more popular with people just a bit younger than the children born in the 70s. The whole 20 year gap of decades, which is why so many 80s movies were about the 60s which in high school I thought was cooler. It had its own share of problems, no doubt, but this was clearly not a logical like here. Family Guy not surprisingly had a moment that evokes Dazed and Confused; it's in the one where Chris is being hazed and he's being hit while Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" is playing. In the original, Ben Affleck is doing the hazing; how he ever got another movie role after that one I'll never know, but strangely, it didn't bring a death knell to his career as it should have done. Daredevil and Gigli helped, but he still seems to be employed. He's such a teflon actor.
-My apologies to the Clash and all the Clash fans out there for the next thought. I had recently seen the Simpsons where Homer and Marge discover that sex where they could caught revitalizes their marriage and one point, Bart asks them if they're going to 'rock the casbah.'The phrase stuck in my head and I used it in an email to describe my friend's apprecation of Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada and all things that she's in. I meant it in the sense of "rock the world." which has sexual connotations as well.But it slightly amused me. Whether or not the asaid friend knew it was from a Clash song is not yet known; he didn't get why I was laughing (and wanting to shake my hands in the air) when Starbucks was playing Clash songs. What is the appropriate punk equivalent of 'clutch the pearls' to suggest the moment when the woman gasps at the awfulness of the situation? You know, a broken glass, a social gaffe, etc. Clutch the safety pins? Anyone?
-Was buying bread crumbs at the store for my recipe for macaroni and cheese which I got from the Southern cookbook I got for filling out some survey for a teaching writing book, I think. They had a bunch of books you could get and none of the fiction or non-fiction seemed compelling, so I went with the cookbook. The recipe called for bread crumbs and I was having one of those thoughts at the store, where I felt like I should 'make my own bread crumbs.' I reminded myself that this was insane as 1) I don't know how and 2) I am not Italian and I am not married or dating an Italian, so I think my ancestors will be okay if I buy pre-made ones. There are cooking and life things that I can't turn off, though. I'm not sure what they are right now. The mac. and cheese was pretty tasty.
-Okay, I've gotten a bunch of new music on my computer, as I've mentioned before. Some of it I'm happy to have; some I'm not sure about, but it's an interesting discovery moment for many of the songs. However, Meatloaf I'm much conflicted about. And "Objects in the Rearview Mirror Look Closer than they Appear" is a really bad example of Meatloaf lyrically. You didn't try, did you?
-When I saw Devil Wears Prada, I was up at one of the malls where I was window shopping and having my yummy sandwich from the Paradise Bakery. I was waiting for the 7:50 showing, I had looked at the bookstore and the funky Anthropoligie shop, and was running out of things to see and do. When I went up to the counter, the ticket person said someone had bought out the movie theater to propose to his girlfriend and they were showing The Notebook. My first thought was how nice of you not to have it up there on the marquee that it was cancelled, my second thought was ewww, how cliched. I like the concept that someone has considered a proposal that is based on the person's likes, but that is a bit too sappy even for me. I liked the Notebook, but I don't think I would want to be proposed that way. I was also annoyed because since it was 7, there wouldn't be any movies until 9 or 10. I ended up at a new theater for the 9:50 showing of Devil Wears Prada. I liked it, though I didn't really care about the triangle. Ooh, what a tough choice, Adrian Grenier (who needed a shave) or Simon Baker (who did nothing for me and I like blondes). And I wanted Stanley Tucci to end up with her queer friend as c'mon, he was so cool. I hate when movies waste perfectly lovely possibilities for cool characters to find equally cool people. I hate even more when actors who deserve better are in nothing films, like Judi Dench in The Chronicles of Riddick, Laura Prepon in Slackers, and others.
-Finished Amy Tan's Opposite of Fate which I liked. They are essays and a good mix of quirky stuff and deeper philosophic stuff. Some of it's hard to read. I also finished Armistead Maupin's Barbary Lane series, but as that will take far too long, will have to save it for another day.
-Yes, far too long, but haven't posted in quite awhile.