30 Day Song Challenge Day 2 - Your Least Favorite Song

As noted in the last post, my big brother started making me aware of music in the mid-90s. While No Rain was and has remained my favorite track of that era, Weezer's debut "blue album" was a revelation to me. Like so many other late-20 somethings in America, Blue was a gateway drug into the rest of the "alternative" universe. I fell in love with that music without the aid of videos like Buddy Holly immediately accessible.
A few years later, Pinkerton came out and while it initially seemed like too much of a departure, it grew on me and became one of my all-time favorites. For several years, both CDs stayed in my regular rotation while Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp bickered the band into silence.
In the aftermath of Y2K, it was announced that weezer (sans Sharp - good for him) would play a comeback tour with Dynamite Hack. As soon as they were posted, Russ got tickets to the show at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit. It was my first concert.
We were able to exploit our friend, Ben's wheelchair to push our way up to the front row for what is still my favorite concert experience ever. The band was on. The fans in the balcony were jumping up and down so much that the structure started to literally bounce to the cusp of collapse. It was incredible. I had such a blind, youthful faith in music and life at that moment.

Six months later, this turd of a song came out, crushing my faith in the record industry and humanity in general. Since then I have wanted nothing more than for them to stop making records so I can go back in time and Eternal Sunshine them starting in the year 2000.



Lyrics from Island In the Sun as translated filtered through Translation Party
http://translationparty.com/#9200334
"We have more memory, you may not need your money, call the sea, I love the floating zone."

Reboot

Hmm. Been a little while, hasn't it?

I'm about halfway through the 30 Day Song Challenge on facebook and thought I could use a little more space for the background stories. This'll take several posts to catch up.

So here it goes:
Day 01 - Your Favorite Song



This song has an extremely basic message, but it's one that I can identify with. That and the ridiculously pleasant arrangement have made it so enduring with me throughout the years.
The thing that really makes this song special to me, though, is the place it held in my childhood.
I was about ten years old when we moved from Toledo to a small, culturally remote town placed an hour away from the (notoriously sub-par) Dayton radio stations. There was also only one cable provider and they didn't offer MTV. My brother and I clung like mad to any bit of pop culture that reminded us of city life for at least the first few years. While music was accessible to a degree, it was impossible to filter out the desired stuff from the crap in those pre-internet days. I struggled to get a signal for the top 40 station with my little tape recorder clock radio, hoping to hear something off of Dookie between endless plays of The Train.
My brother, though, started amassing a CD collection as he started high school, feeding me little nuggets and inviting me into his room to listen to music with him on his prized stereo/boombox. One of the CDs I often demanded was MTV Buzzbin, volume I. While it had one or two other songs I would later grow into as my tastes developed (It's quite a jump from Weird Al to Radiohead for a ten-year-old), the one that stuck out to me was No Rain. To put it very simply, it made me happy.

Lyrics from No Rain as translated filtered through Translation Party
http://translationparty.com/#9200079
If I make a partial Ttena first layer of potatoes in the pits, you can light it is normal to take care of your daily life may cause drying of the surface of the second store You

ああ、そう多くのハイパーリンクは本日！(Oh, so many hyperlinks today!)

A new feature (as though it isn't all new) I'm going to try on this little slice of internet I've staked out will be an entry from translationparty.com, which takes any phrase you type in English, translates it to Japanese, the back to English, then Japanese again, and so on and so forth until the same phrase pops up and equilibruim is achieved. For example, we will start with one of my favorite sayings and one I strive to live my life by: 'If you wanna feel funky, feel free, but please don't spread that funk on me!"
This phrase translates 19 times before stopping at "Case, funky, please contact us for free. Funk has not spread to me."

So at the end of each entry, you will be treated to the Japanese version of one of that day's odd news headlines from yahoo.com to carry with you the rest of the day. Clicking on the translation will take you to the article.
Today's headline: One, two questions: one LED, White House

Dropping Some Knowledge

Dad has been out of the hospital since Monday and is doing well.
In fact, he may be operating at maximum happinessIt's like he's got his personal friggin' Halloween: get-well cookies, candies, and other treats have been dropped off at Mom and Dad's in a steady stream and he even has a built-in costume to boot! Mom took the week off of work to tend to him and he's openly milking it for all it's worth, an area in which I've had a great deal of practice. He's learned from the best

Dad's Glasses following the wipeout. I think this picture sends a message.

On Tuesday I was stationed in Fairborn, as per usual, readying myself for the weekly bar trivia competition that has become a routine with my friends. Alex and I had started going about two months ago and have since been working with a rotating cast of friends, trying to find just the right combination to bring home that ever-do-coveted $15.00 discount coupon. We have been finishing around fourth or fifth each week under the team name "los Estudiantes" (though I am not a student), and getting stifled by teams of other regulars.
But not this week. Oh no. This week was our time to shine.
Below is the evidence of our epic win requested by one-time teammate Tony Baltes, a dumpster full of useless knowledge if there ever was one. He simply could not believe that we pulled it off. Oh he of little faith. Here is the email I sent to him following our march to victory:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proof! (that's me third from the right)

We tied for the lead in three of five rounds and won one of three tiebreakers. We never finished a round more than two points from the leader. Final score: Los Estudiantes 74, Magnificent Rat Bastards (2nd place) 71. About 15 teams competed tonight.

We tipped well.



In the photo from left to right:
-Lindsay Thomas, who named every song off of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' album in under 30 seconds for six very big points. While drunk.
-Steve, the host of trivia night, who kept doing double takes at his score sheet throughout the night and was forced to interrogate us as to how we came up with answers. He asked how your trip was going. Says you can come back any time you want.
-Jeff Baltes (holding the $20 in discount coupons.), who took home the final tiebreaker and with it an addition $5.00 off the tab
-Cameron Gubeaux, who came up with a clutch US-to-metric conversion with some fancy long division
-Nicole Wise, who not only nailed the theme song to 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' but guessed it BEFORE IT WAS EVEN PLAYED, the odds of which are almost unfathomable
Alex Elkins, who knew everything else.

An excercise in what-the-fuck-ery

Last evening (Friday. I began writing this on Saturday), I received a call from Mom around 10:30. My dad, on his cross-country bike trip, had been in a bad wreck somewhere in Eastern Ohio and was taken to the hospital. Now, first it should be noted that Dad is okay, save for a concussion, scrapes, bruises and some severe facial damge. More or less the standard for our calamity-prone family. That story will be followed in Dad's admittedly hilarious trip blog here.

A long, freakishly stressful night waiting for phone updates would find me alone with my palm virtually glued to what will inevitably turn to gray hairs for the next six hours. The calls came at long, odd intervals. First it was "Dad was in an accident. He's in the hospital and has a lot of damage to his face." Then it was "He has some short term memory loss. He doesn't even remember being on the bike trip. They're transferring him to Columbus." At about 3 AM I got a call from Russ saying he had seen him, that he had regained his memory of everything but the crash, and that scans showed no structural or brain damage beyond a concussion.

This is nothing compared to the first phone call Mom got. It went a little something like this:
Ring Ring
Mom: Hello?
Caller: Yes, is this the spouse of Anthony Baltes?
Mom: ...Yes, may I ask who's calling?
Caller: Yes, this is Pastor Stevens from Southeastern Hospital. Mr. Baltes has been in an accident and has been brought to our facility.
Mom: wait...what? where? What is your title?
Caller: Southeastern Hospital in Cambridge, Ohio. I am the pastor here.
Mom (tears forming): Why are you calling me? Is he okay?
Caller: I cannot comment on his condition.

At this point mom was put on hold to get a nurse who could comment on his condition. Doubleyou Tee Eff.

My Aunt was visiting Mom for the weekend, so at least she had somebody to talk to/drink with. I, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Going it alone that evening was a little rough on me, to say the least as all of my friends were only available over the phone. Lindsay would show up just after I got the final report that everything was okay. At that point I was so riled up that I wouldn't have been able to sleep for hours. Lindsay came toting a computer full of awesome mp3s, a can of Pepsi, and a hug. Exactly what I needed to calm me down enough to sleep by 5 AM.

Here it goes again

Howdy. It's been a while.

I haven't posted anything on here since the failed experiment that was the Tulsa internship.

That all started with the intention of being a line of communication back to Ohio amid long, exhausting hours in the Sooner state, but kind of fizzled when the hours became too long and exhausting.

Anyway, here I am again ready to write as I embark on life in a new city. I'll be moving to Columbus at some point in the reasonably near future to better suit the needs of my newly-renewed temporal lobe tribulations.

In the meantime, I've got plenty to type about and I'd rather do this than twitter, so away we go!


...for the record, my twitter account is "jeff_baltes" *sigh*

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