RIDESHARE: Phish - 12.29.98

awesome new feature!

to "celebrate" my new job/teaching gig in richland (i refuse to call it tri-cities because you can't be in three places at once), i've decided to institute a new feature on the blog.  all summer, i've been carrying out the slow, agonizing, but largely work-un-intensive task of converting all my CDs to digital files, for easier sorting, storing, and backup.  just to give you an idea of the enormity of this task: so far i've ripped over 18,000 tracks, and i'm not even close to 1/3rd of the way through all the CDs.  it's insane.  part of the insanity is my realizing that i have at least 100 live shows on CD that i've never listened to before.  this dovetails nicely with the fact that i'm now spending about 10 hours a week in a car by myself.

so...i'll be listening to tons of phish, wilco, and RA shows (big surprise!) over the next few months and i figured i'd do short write-ups on each show as i listen, so that later when i have everything stored digitally, i can remind myself what's worth listening to again and what's not.

let's start with the only full show i got through last thursday: part of Phish's '98 NYE run, a soundboard tape from 12/29.

here's the setlist and link from etree:

Set I
Rock and Roll, Funky Bitch, Punch You In the Eye, Horn, Ginseng Sullivan, Split Open and Melt, Brian & Robert, Guyute, My Soul, Freebird*

Set II
Free, Limb by Limb, Also Sprach Zarathustra**, Boogie on Reggae Woman, You Enjoy Myself E: The Divided Sky

full show rating: ****
***** - that puddle looks a lot like my face...
**** - i'd rather listen to this than do most things.
*** - good.
** - most shows are better, but there are probably some high points.
* - i'm now actually dead from having killed myself from having listened to this.

the show starts with "rock and roll", which i have to admit that i'm partial to lately because it's a song that's been rocked out to the extreme at 2 of the 3 phish shows i've been to.  plus, it's just a great opener.  this version starts by following the original song quite closely for the first few minutes, and then explodes into a lot of blistering soloing...it's a lot shorter and less exploratory than the versions of the song phish has been playing lately, but it's a great start.  it segues into a solid "funky bitch" and then "punch you in the eye", and doesn't really let up until "horn", which is a great song, but hey, it's still "horn" and there's nothing new here.  i don't normally like "ginseng sullivan" that much, but maybe it was the driving-through-farmlands i was doing and maybe not...this particular version is really jumpy and yet the playing is really clean, and it's just a damn fun tune at this point in the set.  the middle part of the first set is also all solid, but just solid.  the set closes with a stellar "my soul" and the always-hilarious a capella version of "freebird"  there's not much in this set beyond the first three songs in this set that jumps out, but i really really liked the whole thing...i think part of the greatness comes from the entirely wacky selection of songs, and part comes from the fact that though this show comes from the funk "era" of phish, it's packed with a lot of great blues and rock jams in the first set.  it's a truly unique sounding show if you put the tape on expecting it to be a typical '97-'98 show.

the main draw (for most) of the second set will be the YEM set-closer and the following "divided sky" encore, comprising about 45 minutes of music between the two of them.  each is (again) a solid version of the song, and i remember how at one point in my phish fandom the idea of these two songs back-to-back would have, by itself, made this show a must-download.  however, the real draw for me here was the "also sprach zarathustra", which is the only real moment of space-funk in the entire show, but it's a doozy.  things start off very atmospheric and out-there and only get...umm...spacier as time goes on.  this performance, combined with the straight-out rock of "free", which is a song that rarely gets jammed out like it does here, makes this second set worth listening to.

all in all, this is a great show for the variety in the setlist, the fact that there aren't any real duds at any point (though i don't like "boogie on reggae woman" myself, the song is performed well here), and for a few very high points.  if you're looking for a truly transcendent show, keep looking, but you could do much worse than this one.

summer of the memes

so i had to explain the "double rainbow song" to a (disgustingly uncultured) friend of mine today, and it reminded me that i'd wanted to write this entry awhile back and then it slipped my mind when i got caught up in fistfighting bears and writing poetry.

this summer was memorable for a lot of reasons (many of which i will someday hopefully get around to writing about before i totally forget about any of them), and somehow the soundtrack to much of the adventure and action was (for some reason) based on three ridiculously addictive/bizarre internet memes.

1) the '60s-era IHOP theme song
this one was introduced on, i think, the first day that john was in pullman.  he innocently mentioned that there was some batshit insane video on youtube of an old IHOP commercial, and so, being the connoisseur of batshit insanity that i am, i had to check it out.  this is what i saw:

WHAT.  IS.  HAPPENING.
why the voice?  i mean, i understand that going to IHOP is an excuse for dressing up in your sunday best and fucking skipping across a field with a huge cloud of balloons clutched in your trembling fist because IHOP is awesome and if you are NOT caught up in a paroxysm of joy at the prospect of panqueques, there's something wrong with you.
however.  this is horrifying.  the singing seems to be slightly off-rhythm from the music, and both are insane.  also, nobody in this commercial GETS PANCAKES.  two people get vaguely italian dishes, one person gets a salad, and the fourth person gets what is obviously a now-extinct giant mollusk pulled from the depths of the sea off the shore of whatever dark, lovecraftian hamlet this IHOP is located in.  thanks, IHOP.  i not only never want to go to IHOP again now, i never want to go ANYWHERE again.

2) nanerpuss
this was introduced to me by lindsey, on the same day as the above commercial.  here's the original:

now that's crazy, but it also has this bizarre, catchy quality to it.  the kind of quality that makes you wake up in the middle of the night sweating, screaming that you are the nanerpuss, and - guess what?! - you like pancakes.  it gets worse:

are you dead yet?  here's my favorite:

this is the one that cracked my world in half.  for weeks afterwards i would literally halt in the middle of a busy word day, and unaware if what i myself was doing would shout "I'M WHAT'S KNOWN AS THE NANERPUSS!  I AM A BANANANANANANA!!!!"  for serious.  it was bad.

3) the double rainbow song
i'm not going to explain this one to you if you don't already know it.  the first video is the necessary context.  the second video is the song.  this song was my ringtone all summer because it is awesome, and surprisingly catchy and song-like and good and i like it.  you should listen.

  

all roads lead to fucking

no, seriously.  look at the picture.  not photoshopped.

foo, you just got nailed!

last night, i heroically dealt with squads of armacham soldiers the only way i know how...with a nailgun.

i'm looking at you, valhalla

if you're in a "dance club" and you ask the DJ to play some new order and they say "who?", it's not actually a dance club.

when it rains, it pours lemonade (that you made from the lemons life gave you)

so, in my 10619 days of life on earth, i've now locked my keys in my car twice.  that means, on any given day, i'm .0188% likely to lock my keys in the car (and 99.98% likely to not).  those are pretty good odds.  unless, of course, you consider the fact that the last time i locked my keys in the car was almost a year ago today.  that means that within the last year, i've actually been .55% likely to lock my keys in the car, up drastically from 0% in the previous 28 years.  at the rate i'm currently going, assuming i live to be 70 years old, i will lock my keys in the car 82 more times before my death (the movement of technology away from metal keys towards biometrics notwithstanding).

all this math shit leads to a more important question: is grad school making me lose my mind?

i'm almost certain that i'm stupider than i was five years ago, though i'm not sure exactly if grad school is to blame.  all the hookers and blow might have something to do with it, i suppose.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!

ode to bryan tower (today at 5pm you played "somewhere over the rainbow")

o great cyclopean eye
you shiver the hot night air with your
burning red glare that throws

rust-colored shadows across the edges of my books like
spilled paint

even on kamiak butte you arrest my slumber
as your unblinking gaze penetrates dreams free of
literary aspirations

now that you are fixed, i once again have will
now that you are fixed, i once again have purpose
now that you are fixed, i once again seek to kindle the fire
of mordor in the hearts of my orc army

the world of men shall fall

OHCRAPITHINKITSTIMETOEATDINNER

why do i even have a twitter account anymore?!

i used to think twitter was stupid, then i thought it was totally awesome, and now i think it's stupid again.  does this mean that i'll eventually again think of it as the proverbial bee's knees (or as today's english students would say, the B's knee's)?  or is it dumb and stupid like a broken toy when you're two years old?  i haven't checked my twitter feed for eleven days and my life hasn't come to an end.  i find i learn a hell of a lot more reading actual articles read through my RSS feed, and if i want to talk to people, i just talk to them in real life.

am i getting old?

why is everything suddenly in sepia tones?

why am i an envelope?!

i'm like your mom's doorbell, everyone gets a turn

something went horribly wrong in that post title.

anyway, as a way to keep a tenuous hold on the sanity i described so incoherently in the previous post, i'm going to try to force myself to write at least one blog a day from now on.  sometimes they might be about things that happened during that specific day, but i'm hoping to actually write some Writey McWriterson things as well.  we'll see.  if i can set aside an hour every two days to exercise my body, i should be able to set aside the same amount of time to exercise my brains (and my fingers, and my brain's fingers), right?

WRONG.

oh god, my toaster's on fire quick someone throw water on it

crash

there will be a time when time won't come fast enough...

...but until then, i wouldn't mind it if things slowed down a bit.  life is crash-bang-booming through the end of summer and into the beginning of fall, and in pullman that means: 1) 95-degree temperatures every day for the next month and 2) yearly existential dilemma over whether the payoff of my job is really worth the completely insane hours and less-than-minimal pay.

fortunately, #1 is easily mitigated by a few strategically placed $10 box fans.

#2 CAN be easily mitigated by a few strategically placed bottles of wine, but history has shown that that solution is impermanent at best.

author's note: i put slices of kiwi in this giant salad i made a few nights ago and then they rotted the next day, so now i'm eating huge, tasty piles of hearty salad that is really great except the one out of every ten bites that has a brown, rotting chunk of kiwi in it.

every fall, especially now with the advent of facebook, i see a tidal wave of comments, blog posts, and status messages bemoaning the end of summer, discussing one last weekend trip or party before "work" starts, or complaining about how everyone is already "stressing out".  i empathize in a sense.  i had (as you'll find out in forthcoming posts) pretty much the most fun, adventurous, exciting (and, conveniently, healthiest and cheapest) summer of my life this summer.  it was a relief knowing that i can still enjoy life in a really fundamental, kid-with-a-cardboard-box sort of way even though i'm almost 30, and it was also just fun to have so much...fun.  god, i always sound so profound when i talk about good things.

so in a sense, i'm sad to see summer go.  i'm sad to ramp back up to 14-hour workdays, setting my alarm, and not just being able to say "the hell with it all" every few weeks and disappear into the hills with my tent.  there's so much i have left over that i wanted to do this summer that i literally have a Google Doc listing all the places i want to hike to and camp at and climb mountains around next summer.  it's a bummer to realize suddenly how enthusiastic you really are about something (traveling, hiking, playing music, you name it) just when you have to chuck it all and get your nose back to (on?  in?) the grindstone.

but stress?  fear?  this terrifying amount of angst that so many of my fellow teachers seem to have?  i don't get it.  i don't feel stressed at all.  either i'll succeed or i won't.  i'll work to the utmost of my ability at all of the things i have in front of me before december, and if my bosses don't think i did a good enough job...what else could i have done?

i guess i've kind of always thought that way, at least since i started teaching in 2005.  maybe it has something to do with my past working all kinds of crappy jobs while needing to constantly suck up to authority figures in order to keep said crappy jobs.  maybe it's the fact that even though it's been five years now, i'm still really grateful to have the job i have, and while there are days that i'd rather sleep in than teach class or write a seminar paper, i've never once woken up with that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach like i used to on a monday morning before heading off to chipotle or the gas station.  and that's why i don't get the stressing out.  why would you go through the incredibly rigorous process of getting a ph.d if you didn't want to?  i mean, sure it's not the most pleasant process in the world, but it's not like things are going to become suddenly simpler when you finish the degree...more than likely you're going to end up doing the same thing you're doing now, somewhere else, with even more pressure on you and maybe a little more money in your pockets.  and that's the GOOD option.

i'm not picking on anyone in particular here, and honestly i'm not trying to "pick on" anyone at all.  i guess i'm just trying to understand...nobody just stumbles into a job teaching college the way you might stumble into selling cars or managing a chipotle.  there's a long, deliberate process involved in people like myself getting ourselves to the stage that we're at.  if that process is really destroying your life, do something else instead.  challenge is important, but so is being happy.

i'm sad because i'm going to miss all the opportunities i briefly had during the first half of this summer to indulge in some things i don't normally have the luxury of indulging in when working 80 hours a week, but the only thing i'm going to be stressed out about is whether or not my car's going to survive the drive to tri-cities on thursday.  and, hell, i'm not even that good of a teacher or student.  if anybody SHOULD be worried, it should be me...

dim lights keep the hulk at bay

it's true.  i was reading a study the other day (which i can't link because i forgot to bookmark it and now i can't refind it) that basically showed how any light level that's actually brighter than sunlight (i.e. the interior lighting of pretty much any building in the United States at any given time) is so confusing for the brain that that light level is interpreted similarly to how our brains interpret night-light.  the shorter and less shittily-phrased version of that sentence is this: when it's really bright inside, humans' brains think that it's nighttime.  this explains a lot about the last 29 years of my life.  it also explains why i always fall asleep after turning the lights up real high to keep myself from falling asleep.  it ALSO explains why this is my favorite sight to come home to after a long day of work:

i've always liked keeping the lights down rather low, to the point that certain others tend to become exasperated upon entering my office to find that, for the tenth time in a row, it's too dark for them to navigate from one end of the room to the other.  in the middle of the afternoon.

of course maybe i'm just a vampire.  but not one of the sparkly, effeminate, super-hunky ones.  just one of the pale, effeminate, hilariously romantically inept ones.