The Playlist - WTITYB (Whatever, Tell It To Your Blog)

Well, moved in at least some form. I suppose i could use this for my own stupid personal life or the next time my little brother gets a tattoo emblazoned on his chest.

But the Playlist, or at least that’s what I’m calling it for now, has moved and has become a movie soundtracks and film scores blog (with some related topics).

http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/
Give it a whirl and leave some comments.

Oh, and if you gave even the smallest flying fuck about my soundtrack series (the Coppola one is posted below), more editions (Jarmusch, Crowe, Gondry, July, Tarantino, Gordon Green and Miranda July) are posted on the blog.

Since i spend a lot of my free time daydreaming of film scores to imaginary films, I thought I’d try and put this useless hobby to good use and  pretend to be a music soundtrack supervisor.

So, The Playlist (the name of my ipod; myself) have decided to make scores/soundtracks to imaginary films from existing filmmakers.
In honor of the upcoming "Marie Antoinette" film, i decided to choose Sofia Coppola’s as my first subject..

The premise of the series is this: Choose a filmmaker known for their soundtracks and pick songs that i subjectively think might appear/would be perfect in one of their films. The selection process sometimes consists of a) artists already used in previous soundtracks/artists the filmmaker is historically fond of, b) songs i think that fit the vein of the tone and mood of their previous films.

I had a lot of fun working on this pet project so i figured people might want to hear it. I’m sure some music aficionados would argue or have their own opinions and in such cases i encourage them to create their own soundtrack mix.

Each month (or sooner depending on how busy/lazy i get). A new filmmaker will be chosen and a new series mailed out to you all (unless of course you don’t want to be on this email, fair enough). Feel free to suggest any filmmakers, but the usual suspects are already in the works.

Anyhow, here it is. The 2-disc collection.

The Playlist Soundtrack Series: If I Was Sofia Coppola - Disc 1
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8ui20d
01 - Rhubarb (edit) - Aphex Twin
02 - Strange News From Another Star - Blur
03 - Lose My Breath - My Bloody Valentine
04 - Another Day (edit) - Air
05 - Consolation Prizes - Phoenix
06 - Iambic (edit) - Squarepusher
07 - Same Old Scene - Roxy Music
08 - The Worst Taste In Music - The Radio Dept.
09 - She’s Leaving - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
10 - Slow Lynch - Sebastien Tellier
11 - Memorize The City - The Organ
12 - Flying - Neulander
13 - Higher - Soft
14 - Thursday - Asobi Seksu
15 - Sons and Fascination - Simple Minds
16 - Regret - New Order
17 - When In Heaven - Kitchens of Distinction
18 - White Lips Kissed - Mew
19 - The Chauffeur - Duran Duran
20 - Daydream (edit) - Smashing Pumpkins
21 - Cheree (Remix) - Suicide
22 - An Ending (Ascent) - [edit] - Brian Eno

The Playlist Soundtrack Series: If I Was Sofia Coppola - Disc 2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r01gzv
01 - Gnossienne No. 1 (1890): Lent - Erik Satie
02 - Olson - Boards Of Canada
03 - It’s Never Been Like That (Sebastian Tellier Mix) - Phoenix
04 - Michael A Grammar - Broadcast
05 - Yann Tierson’s La Dispute  (edit) - Third Eye Foundation
06 - Kiss Them For Me - Siouxsie & The Banshees
07 - She’s In Parties - Bauhaus
08 - Anyone - Moving Units
09 - Carnivalse - Gonzales
10 - Bi-Pet - Lali Puna
11 - Biological - Air
12 - Return True - The Grace Period
13 - Never Click (edit) - Medicine
14 - All I Need - My Bloody Valentine
15 - Flim (The Playlist remix) - Aphex Twin
16 - Cradle - Four Tet
17 - Pearl - Chapterhouse
18 - Classic - Sebastien Tellier
19 - Consequence - The Notwist
20 - Corsair - Boards Of Canada

I recommend listening on the Ipod while you’re walking around the city and imagining how these songs would be used in one of her movies.

I hope you enjoy.

::rodrigo::

* the tracks are mp3s downloadable from sendspace in winrar file (same thing as a zip program) and should be pc/mac compatible. Let me know if you have a problem, but download a free winrar program at winrar.com if you don’t already have one. It’s easy peazy. I may try and send a winzip/YouSendit version if it demand is great enough.

Death From Above 1979 broke up. Oh, oh. Ummm, Eric, gonna feel rather foolish now aren’t you? (Not to mention feel that much more embarrassed)

I posted this on Myspace and it got a really good response, so I figured I’d post it here for posterity. It’s very nerdy.

Break Out Your Ipod or Itunes:

What’s a great late night song?
Almost anything by Tom Waits. It’s music for 3 am when the bar is almost empty, the night is winding down and you might just be staring at your whiskey glass contemplating the world. (Heart Attack And Vine, Closing Time, Small Change etc.)

Name 5-10 wistful/bittersweet songs that come to mind:
The Snowman - Stars
I Am Waiting - Rolling Stones
Take It With Me - Tom Waits
Most of the Time - Bob Dylan
The Last Days of Disco - Yo La Tengo
All My Little Words - The Magnetic Fields.
Suddenly Everything Has Changed - Postal Service cover of the Flaming Lips
Regret - New Order
A Day - Inara George
I Go To The Barn Cause I Like The - Band of Horses
Pitseleh - Elliott Smith
The Trial - French Kicks

The 4 Best Songs Ever Written:
Be My Baby - The Ronettes
Don’t Worry Baby - The Beach Boys
And Then He Kissed Me - The Crystals
Earth Angel - Buddy Holly

3 Current Favorites Songs:
Consolation Prize - Phoenix
Black Roses - Yo La Tengo
Peak Out - Girl Talk

Classic Early Evening Drinking Music:
Anything By Django Reinhardt
Gershwin
The Ink Spots
The Flamingos

3 All Time Faves That Never Get Old To You:
Ashes To Ashes - David Bowie
Love is the Drug - Roxy Music
Age of Consent - New Order

Song You Want To Play At Your Wedding:
Xmas Steps - Mogwai instrumental

Song You Want to Play At Your Funeral:
An Ascent - Brian Eno instrumental

4 Records You Really Dug from 2005:
Let Us Never Speak of It Again - Outhud
Arular - MIA
Apologies To the Queen Mary - Wolf Parade
Various Artists — One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost & Found

4 Favorite Records From This Year So Far:
Bring It Back - Mates of State
It’s Never Been Like That - Phoenix
Fishscale - Ghostface Killah
New Sparklehorse

5 Good Angry Songs:
Reign In Blood - Slayer
Scentless Apprentice - Nirvana
Search & Destroy - Iggy & the Stooges
Fight the Power - Public Enemy
Jizzlobber - Faith No More

4 Clever Song Titles Or Album Titles:
Dress Sexy At My Funeral - Smog
She Will Only Bring You Happiness - McClusky
The Difference Between Me and You Is I’m Not On Fire - McClusky
My Pain And Sadness Is Worse Than Your Pain and Sadness - McClusky

One of Your Favorite Lyrics:
It only figures
That I’d ride my bike
Into wet cement

And as I’m sinkin’
The last thing that I think
Is did I pay my rent?

- Ghost Ship In A Storm - Jim O’Rourke

5 Cover Songs Arguably Better Than the Original:
When U Were Mine - Crooked Fingers (Prince)
Ocean Breathes Salty - Sun Kil Moon (Modest Mouse)
Walking the Cow - Firehose (Daniel Johnston)
Go - Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips (Daniel Johnston)
Spit on A Stranger - Kathryn Williams (Pavement)

Ironic Song to Brutally Murder Someone to in a movie:
Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.

Great Dance Song You Maybe Never Realized Was a Great Dance song Back in the Day:
Radio Free Europe - R.E.M.

Good Albums To Workout To:
Give Up - The Postal Service
The Smell of Our Own - Hidden Cameras
We Don’t Need To Whisper - Angels and Airwaves
Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab

Good Album to Clean The House To:
Giant Steps - John Coltrane

Good Dining Music:
Take Five - Dave Brubeck Quartet
Kinda Blue - Miles Davis
(ok, both these picks are OBVIOUS, can i say Django Reinhardt again?
Anything by the Showmen, Doo-Wop and ’50s soul is good too. Oh and Cole Porter, Sarah Vaughn and most jazz vocals)

A Good Album To Have Sex To:
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

A Good Album To Put You In the Mood (that is Not Sade, Marvin Gaye or Barry White):
10,000 Hz Legend - Air

Good Album To Sleep To:
Music For Airports - Brian Eno

5 Good Rock Songs That You Can Dance To:
The Ocean - Led Zeppelin
Crosstown Traffic - Jimi Hendrix
Supernaut - Black Sabbath
20th Century Boy - T-Rex
The Pasenger - Iggy Pop

4 Good Dance Songs (any kind):
Baby Workout - Jackie Wilson
The Oogum Boogum Song - Brenton Wood
Da Doo Ron Ron - The Crystals
Multiply - Jamie Lidell

Songs That Are Too Damn Sad:
Shadows - Red House Painters
Damage - Yo La Tengo
Levitate - Idaho

4 Happy, Life Affirming Songs:
What A Wonderful World This Would Be - Sam Cooke
I’m In Love - Wilson Pickett
I Believe When I Fall in Love - Stevie Wonder
What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong (obv, but sue me)

5 Great Love Songs:
Belle - Al Green
La La Means I love You - The Delfonics
I Love Every Little Thing About You - Stevie Wonder
The Book of Love - The Magnetic Fields
The Idea Of Turning Old - The Features

An Album Full of Tenderness:
And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out - Yo La Tengo
"Hundreds of Sparrows" - Sparklehorse

Song To Cheer Up A Friend:
Hey Joe - Sparklehorse

Song To An Ex That Isn’t Meanspirited:
Have a Good Life Baby - Dusty Springfield

Song To An Ex That Is Kinda Meanspirited:
Let It Die - Feist

Song to Listen to While in The Country Looking at Stars:
Track 4, Untitled - Sigur Ros ()

Song To Swim To:
The Swimming Song - Loudon Waingwright III

Song to lose your Mind to:
You Could Win a Rabbit - Animal Collective

Song To Cry In Your Pillow to:
"I Found a Reason" - Cat Power

Songs That Make You Feel Amped and Inspired:
"Ballad of Human Kindness" - The Dears

Great Semi-Obscure B-side:
Worrywort - Radiohead (Kid A era)

Song That Makes You Miss Your Mom:
"Hey Mama" - Kanye West

That’s Baby Makin’ Music (No, Really):
Collisions - Calla

Tough Break-Up Songs:
That’s No Way To Say Goodbye - Leonard Cohen
No Distance Left To Run - Blur
If You See Her, Say Hello - Bob Dylan
Most of the Time - Bob Dylan

Criminally Underrated Band That Didn’t Get Attention and Then Broke Up:
Carissa’s Wierd

Triumphant:
You Are My Joy - Snow Patrol
Life is Still Sweet - White Hassle
The Comeback - Shout Out Louds
Counting Backwards - The Velvet Teen

So Happy It Makes You Wanna Skip:
Outta Site Outta Mind - Wilco (the sesame street version)

Feel No Shame: Great Current Pop Songs:
New Christina Aguilera Single
When You Were Young - The Killers
New Paris Hilton Single

Album No One Would Expect You To Love:
Justified - Justin Timberlake

Album No One Would Expect You To Dislike:
Radiohead - The Bends (mostly)

Album No One Would Expect You To Really Know:
South of Heaven - Slayer

Emo Album You Actually Like:
Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary

Good, But Overrated Cause Of Indie Revisionism:
Neutral Milk Hotel - Aeroplan Over The Sea
Pavement - Wowee Zoweee
Weezer - Pinkerton

5 Desert Island Discs off the top of your head (30 sec clock):
Beatles - White Album
Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Bowie - Low

3 Contemporary Artist That Were Your Faves 10 Years Ago:
Aphex Twin
Bjork
Stereolab

Music That Makes You Feel Sophisticated:
Francois Hardy, Yves Montange, Bryan Ferry

There Needs To Be A Myspace Music Page For:
Low-era David Bowie, Plastic Soul-era too

Fave Electronic Record You Own:
Las Vegas - Burger/Ink

Fave Hip-Hop Record You Own:
Midnite Marauders - Tribe Called Quest

Hip-Hop Song You Know All the Lyrics Too:
Black Steel In the Hour of Chaos - Public Enemy

Random Album You Loved In High School But Are Afraid To Admit It:
Uplift Mofo Party Plan - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Album You May Have Listened To More In Highschool than Any Other Album:
House of the Holy - Led Zeppelin

If You Could Enter A Wrestling Ring to a Song It Would Be:
The Final Countdown - Europe

Album To Clear A Room With:
Anything by Warrant

Satellite photos of downtown New York taken this afternoon illustrate how lovely our city, and essentially all of North America, feels these days.

You think, maybe, just maybe, like someone important in the government is sweating balls right now and thinking to themselves quietly (so of course no one else overhears), "Maybe that Al Gore guy was right?"

what kind of religion asks you to atone for sins (or whatever the F it is) by smearing crap all over your forehead.

Answer: The kind of religion i don’t want anything to do with.

Does God really hate you that much?

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.

2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.

3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.

6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.

7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

9. Do not harm little children.

10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.

11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

http://www.churchofsatan.com/home.html

In general, or as I’ve become more, *cough* sage, I’ve come to find Top 10s very arbitrary and in a way superficial - I mean don’t you think the qualification of art is rather shallow?

This is a bit of a familiar rant to some, but art (movies, music, books, etc.) isn’t made inside the constraints of a 12-month vacuum. Release dates are arbitrary, random and or monetarily pre-meditated all of which have nothing to with ranking them numerically.

That said, and with the knowledge of being aware of my dislike for measuring oranges against apples, here’s a list of things I enjoyed an awful lot (or in some cases didn’t enjoy) in 2005, most of it in no particular order.

Books
The Rock Snob Dictionary – Possibly the best music book ever as it simultaneously celebrates and satirizes music geek elitism. Any self-loathing hipster will appreciate this book (or at least, you should).

My favorite example of the Rock Snob Dictionary:
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Avant-garde German composer and early electronic-music enthusiast whose sound collages and forays into musique concrète have impressed pop disciples ranging from the Beatles (whose “Revolution 9” was a very Stockhausian piece of art gibberish) to Jim O’Rourke. Already given to making extraordinarily pretentious, Sprockets-like pronouncements—being an avant-garde German composer and all—Stockhausen forfeited all civilian goodwill when he publicly declared the 9/11 terrorist attacks to be "the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos."

A Movie Snob Dictionary is forthcoming in 2006 and I for one am tremendously excited. I basically wish I wrote these books.
OK, that’s it for books; I read classics only because I’m a glutton for punishment. Reading Tolstoy in 2005 doesn’t count right? Dickens is fucking killing me, man.

Movies: Films I Enjoyed More Than Most or Distinctive Enough To Leave An Impression
Me, You & Everyone We Know – I think the biggest criticism I’ve heard against this film is that it’s too pretentious and arty and that’s precisely why I like it. People struggle with intimacy, kids get sexual way before they should to amazingly inappropriate yet side-splitting effect (some scatological hilarity), people light their hands on fire for no apparent reason, people fumble through life and it’s basically just a unique, capricious and quirky take on suburban dysfunction and intersecting lives. It also has a superbly bittersweet soundtrack by the guy who wrote the Donnie Darko score that really underscores some of the touching moments.
))<>(( forever.

The Squid and the Whale – It’s about a divorced family living in Brooklyn in the ‘80s. It has a 10-year-old drinking beer, smearing his ejaculate on library books, a dysfunctional marriage with equally self-involved parents, a tennis teacher that says “brother” waaaaay more often than he should and my all-time favorite Lou Reed song (“Waltzing Matlida”) in it, so it really can’t go wrong.

Thumbsucker – not perfect, but underrated. Video director Mike Mills’ debut feature-film and it has some great music by Elliott Smith and the Polyphonic Spree in it. People will notice the debut of the main kid, Lou Pucci in a few years and Vince Vaughn and Keanu Reeve’s small parts are really masterfully written and acted.

Goodnight and Good Luck – a little preachy, sometimes like eating your vegetables and Murrow was kinda the O’Reilly of his day (only for the right team), but still enjoyable.

Head-On (thanks for the recommendation Lora)

Broken Flowers – The Ethiopian jazz played in this movie is fucking excellent. Bill Murray doesn’t play “Bill Murray” for once and an assured director like Jarmusch keeps the film’s outcome wisely ambiguous.
Grizzly Man

Last Days – By no means perfect, and at times frustrating, but its dream-like nature lingers and it resonates after it’s over.

The History of Violence – again, frustrating, but the unique hand of Cronenberg leaves an impression.

Munich – Holy shit, this was fantastic. Emotionally draining and exhausting though. Any few quibbles i have with Spielberg’s peccadillos are easily overlooked by the super strong script. The movie moves like a shark and is riveting. I’m pretty surprised considering he hasn’t made a completely solid film since Schindler’s List or moments of Saving Private Ryan.

Movies I Haven’t Seen Yet, That Could Likely Enter This List
The New World – Terrance Malick
Jarhead – Sam Mendes
Matchpoint – Woody Allen (was ok, no Crimes and Misdemeanors)

Music: Records I Enjoyed More Than Most

Wolf Parade – Apologies To The Queen Mary (Wolf Parade trashed the room they stayed in on the ocean liner the Queen Mary during their All Tomorrow’s Parties appearance hence the name). It’s art-rocky-tastic.

Various Artists - Girl Group Sounds Lost And Found (One Kiss Can Lead To Another)
A four-disc girl group compilation set by rhino. Enough said, who doesn’t like Girl Groups? (though it’s more obscure than your average set)

M.I.A. – Arular
Like all political soundclash’s that came before it (Public Enemy’s Yo Bum Rush the Show, the Clash’s London Calling) or non-polemical ones (Beck’s Odelay, Tricky’s Maxinquaye), it’s an exciting mish-mash (mash-up?) of styles that’s exciting and unique.

Sufjan Stevens – Illinois – Even Newsweek has heard about him. Gee, this must make him uncool and I should probably sell the record.

Records I Enjoyed, But More On An Cerebral/Musically Adventurous Level
Outhud - Let Us Never Speak of It Again – Reminds me of Strafe (“Set it off”) Salt-N-Pepa and dance music of the ’80s.

Broadcast - Tender Buttons – some amazing dirty lo-fi electronic numbers that are incredibly catchy and danceable.
Ada - Blondie
Jamie Lidell - Multiply

Debut Records Not Perfect But Very Auspicious
Mylo- Destroy Rock & Roll
Giant Drag – Hearts & Unicorns

Other Records I Enjoyed
Crooken Fingers  - Dignity And Shame – Really goddamn sad in places (though some of it is up-tempo and driving though autumnal and bittersweet still). A few tracks are like punch you in the stomach and keel over in a puddle of rain, stay there and weep, sad.
Antony & the Johnstons - I Am A Bird – Incredibly vulnerable and haunting piano torch songs sung by a transexual in drag (can you be a transexual in drag or are by being in drag does that make you transexual, i should probably figure that out before i offend Hedwig).
Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger (better than most british dance-punk cause it’s much more than simply that)
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
Various Artists - Squid & the Whale Soundtrack
Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (acoustic covers of Modest Mouse songs done by Mark Kozelek from Red House Painters that really bring out the dirge in some of the misleadingly uptempo MM songs)

Album That Makes Me Want To Punch The British (and or, Just People) In the Face
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll

Growers Not Show-ers
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine (the Elizondo version)

Best Record I Got In 2005 that Actually Came Out Late 2004
The Organ - Grab That Gun (so fucking good, so criminally underrated! The most genuine ‘80s-like band I have heard. Deborah Harry meets the Cure, the Smiths with a smidge of Stereolab? Highly recommended).

* i might update this entry if i’ve omitted something, but i think this is a pretty good overview.

** Like you, I loathe those Friendster "So-And-So Updated Their Blog" notices. And I certainly don’t want people to be as annoyed with them as I am, so if you don’t want to hear from them (or any Friendster updates for that matter), click here.

Ah, my little brother. Not so little really, he’s 6′2 and looks like he’s 19-years-old, or at least a very emo 19-year-old.

So he says eventually he’ll get tattoo "sleeves" on his left arm… awesome. I said I would give an update when i discovered what his new tattoos were, but it’s a little bit anticlimactic – at least for me.

He’s branded himself with the H.I.M. logo which I actually knew of before, but I think since it’s actually the most painful ‘tat’ of them all, I probably blocked out the horror of it, sort of like Vietnam Vets did. For those who don’t know what H.I.M. is, congratulations. For those that do, you better have a good excuse (like you write about stupid pop music and you need to be semi-informed like myself).

For the fortunately ignorant, H.I.M. is a Scandinavian metal band that plays, ahem, "love metal." Don’t ask me what H.I.M. is an acronym for, that I don’t know and frankly I don’t want to know. H.I.M. gained attention in the last few years thanks to professional idiot Bam Margera who featured his music on his MTV show and I guess talked them up at every turn. Apparently they are Margera’s favorite band. Try to contain your excitement.

Emo skate rats are impressionable, i guess. I do know a little about H.I.M. because one night when I had to see Melissa Auf Der Maur for work, H.I.M. was the headlining band and I stuck around because of… hmm, morbid curiosity, the allure of free drinks afterwards, stupidity and punishment gluttony. The band was not surprisingly terrible and they did a hilariously awful metal rendition of Chris Isaac’s "Wicked Game." I guess this is where they love-metal thing comes in.

The H.I.M. heart-a-gram logo, that is so popular with the kids is… oh lord, a heart within a pentagram, hence "heart-a-gram." It’s also kinda of a cross between totally laughable and an aggresively offensive aesthetical abomination.

The next tattoo he has is the fabled and infamous "self-designed" tattoo. Almost everyone I’ve ever known who has a tattoo has once had the courage and heroism to take it upon themselves to design their own tattoo. You know, a meaningful symbol, here, another personal symbol here and boom, instantly you have a garish mark on your body no one else would be foolish enough to ever have on their body, thus validating your own existence as a unique snowflake, because no one else on earth has the "Slippery When Wet" symbol and the middle finger drawn inside a ring of fire. Congratufuckinlations, you’re an individual.

Eric’s self-designed tattoo is seemingly a bunch of interconnected swirls and crop circles that look like they were drawn by a drunk Eskimo.

Lastly, he has the "Circa" skate company logo on his left arm because apparently my little brother likes to give away free promotion for a skate company that doesn’t endorse him, nor is aware of his existence as a skateboarder, let alone a human being. Wonderful.

He also has a new piercing, a thing the kids call a "snakebite," which i guess is not really that uncommon, but i’ve never heard it called by that name. I always thought it was labret, but i guess it’s slightly different. It’s basically two studs that pop out at both sides of your bottom lip. I’m sure it has some sort of practical purpose, but I haven’t quite figured what that may be yet. Possibly the innocent thrill of sticking magnets to ones face.

P.S. My mom is watching a telenova right now and meanwhile the house is on fire.

I have a 14-year-old brother. His name is Eric and he’s the apotheosis of angst-ridden, problem child teenager. I think that’s putting it mildly.

He’s not just an hellion, insolent, appallingly behaved kid that makes my poor parents life a living hell, he’s a veritable shit terrorist.  I can’t really get into everything he’s done lately for legal reasons*, but let’s just say he’s a total spoiled brat, malcontent-monster that I would totally beat the shit out of if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d call the cops on me (he’s done this to my other brother several times).

I’ve even debated paying kids in his neighborhood to kick his ass – cause that’s what he needs most badly in life – but a) it would probably be difficult, I don’t know any of these kids, how would I approach them, would they believe me? And b) one of them would likely rat me out and I’d get in trouble with the fuzz and I don’t need that kind of aggravation.

Basically he causes me no end of second-hand frustration (I get a call once a week from my mom on his newest disaster), so I’m going to do what any good older brother would do, I’m going to ineffectually blog about it. That’ll show him. (Someone once asked me, “you’re his older brother, he looks up to you, don’t you try and talk to him?” Uhh, yeah, I’ve tried trust me.)

But hopefully, in the end, this will stand as living and tangible testament to how embarrassing he was as a teenager when he gets to his 20s and looks back completely mortified.

Though, I don’t necessarily need to do this – he’ll have his own physically branded proof of how truly lame he was with him fully on display each day.

Which brings me to his tattoos; he has 6 of them. (How a 14-year-old has 6 tattoos is just another really long story not for today, let’s just say, kid gets away with murder all the time)

I can’t remember them all and 2 of them he just recently acquired so I don’t know what they are, but some of them are priceless and they speak for themselves.

1. Left top shoulder: The Blink-182 logo from their last album. That smiley  face with the eyes crossed out.
2. A checkerboard on his left inside forearm. Ok, this one doesn’t speak for itself. Is he into ska? Really adept checkers player? No clue, and no, for both questions.
3. 3 other tattoos I can’t remember or haven’t yet seen.
4. <a name="stupid">The mother of them all. 1979 tattooed on his knuckles of his left hand. Hmm, both his brothers weren’t born that year, he was born in 1991, so, what exactly is special about the year 1979? Was it Sid Vicious’ death by heroin overdose? The sad defeat of Pierre Trudeau’s liberals to Clark’s PC party? No, sadly, it’s in honor of the band Death From Above 1979. Good god, I know.

I guess I will update this blog entry when I find out what his other tattoos are.
I have suggested two more tattoos though. One that says, “lack of foresight” of his arm or just Chinese symbols that when translated mean, “ask me about my grandchildren.”

I’m about to explain how he got this way.
About a year and a half, maybe two years ago, he called me up and declared, “Guess what? I’m Emo.”

I pretty much shit my pants right on the spot and dropped the phone. “Good lord, keep your voice down, someone’s going to hear you!” So I tried to tell him how utterly stupid that sounded and that he probably meant, “I’m into emo music,” which while still awful and disappointing, would have been infinitely more acceptable than declaring, “I’m Emo.” Man, 14-year-olds, they’re like acid washed jeans they’re such an eye-sore.

My friend KG rather amusingly said I would have rather him call me and state, “Guess what? I’m Gay,”  which is sad, but true.

So, he likes My Chemical Romance, Incubus, Death From Above (are the last 2 emo?) and a bunch of other shitty bands I probably don’t care to know and he has some “emo” band that keeps changing its name and I can’t remember what it is anymore.

He did have a Mars Volta like afro for a minute which was actually pretty cool when you think about it, but then he cut it for a more askewed Fall Out Boy hairdo. And he has one of those big stud ring things in his left ear that makes his earlobe look gigantic –only it’s attached to a long spike and it looks fucking ridiculous.

He also wears womens jeans and has done some male modeling. (Man, you’re gonna really want to punch me in the face in a couple years, huh? )

He’s on myspace (of course), but there’s no way I’m linking to his page. He’s also on the verge of getting kicked out of school and is likely up to no good as we speak. He thinks he’s going to be a professional skateboarder when he grows up. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

In the end, he’s incorrigible. He’s just going to have to go through these teen growing pains and hopefully learn from them, but man, he’s going to be kicking himself in his early 20s when he has to save up a shitload of money to get those embarrassing and laughable tattoos removed. One will hope that will be a huge lesson in itself.

Poor stupid teenager.

I’m also really personally embarrassed to tell this story, as it reflects pretty poorly on me (WTF? Didn’t you try and get him into good music???), but I swear he has a whole bunch of Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division and Stooges Christmas and birthday discs from me, just sitting their collecting dust (ok, he liked them all for a minute and I think he still likes the Cure, but that’s where the emo-ness fits in.)

I’m kind of embarrassed on behalf of humanity actually. Thanks Eric.

*ok, not really, but I thought that was funny.