29March2007
Posted by nate under: fact.
i love klosterman right? but i totally skipped fargo rock city. so i read it. that was more work than i expected. i’ve had to downshift the relationship to ‘just friends’ it’s not me, it’s just that he’s real complicated right now. or he was when he wrote that. or maybe not complicated enough. plus i hate 80’s metal and i have no connection to the 80’s as americans know them. this is where i play my ‘grew up in africa’ card.
oh – and my dad just visited medina, liberia (where i grew up) for the first time since we flew the coop due to coup in 90. it hasn’t really sunk in yet how profoundly cool that is and what it might mean to me to visit my old home. maybe that’s my job for my 30’s. or maybe i should go back to school. again. and still not have a degree. the world is full of possibility.
i bet chuck loves the shins.
29March2007
Posted by nate under: fact.
this is it. my last day as a 29 year old. tommorrow’s my golden birthday. 30 on 30. I thought turning 30 would be more monumental or thought provoking or introspective. I’m guessing once I’m in my 30’s it’ll hit me – i’ll keep you posted. I think I should be entering my first mid life crisis, but since i can’t make heads or tails (although I can make tales) of my vocation I have nothing to be in crisis about. Which is crisis in itself.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to on my birthday: I’m going to have bacon and buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. I’ll pick up high school youth in the afternoon and drive to the cities to the NW MN Synod youth gathering in St. Paul. We’ll have supper at pizza luce on selby at around 5:30 (you’re all invited) I’ll see if they’ll give me something free or maybe all the tattoed pierced punks will sing a cool luce style birthday song to me and the cooks will bang on pans and stuff. We’ll gather with youth in st. paul and sing the same singalongs that i sang when i was a youth and i’ll feel just as dumb doing the hand motions as I did then, but now I can do them with gusto and embarass the high school boys that are standing next to me which is a bonus. I may even lift my hands to the ceiling/God when we sing the quiet songs. Then we’ll stay up till past my birthday watching the food channel or VH1. That’s my birthday. Maybe I should be a little more bummed about spending my 30th with high school kids but really I love youth gatherings (as long as I’m a chaperone and not a performer) so even though a part of me thinks its a bit ‘kick a guy when he’s down’ I’m for the most part happy to spend my day in the company of people that laugh when I fart.
Plus I’m making up for it by partying hard tonight. Me, the 3 year old, and the pregnant lady are livin’ la vida loca. Taco’s for supper, the kid got to drink root beer, and we all had newman-o’s for dessert. Then I took the party on the road for a little BS (that’s bible study to you youngins out there) at church. Now I’m back and shorties going to sleep, prego’s folding laundry and I’m blogging my little fingers out. Par-tay! Oh – and once shorties fast asleep, we’re watching lost so don’t go thinking this parties even close to stopping anytime soon. And the best part – I kicked off the party earlier by putting on the Lemonheads ‘It’s a shame about ray’ and when ‘rockin’ stroll’ came on the 3 year old ran into the kitchen where I was browning the taco meat and started pogo-ing. It was the highlight of my day. She love’s Julianna era Lemonheads and it shows!
And tomorrow when the hormone filled ballroom starts singing yes lord yes lord yes lord etc… I can show off my mad pogo skills I picked up from my daughter and the high school kids will know that you can be 30 and still be cool. And if there’s still any doubt in their desperately wanting to fit in brains, I’ll let one rip. That’s what I call confirmation.
and remember kids, ‘gluek it, or ticket’
28March2007
Posted by nate under: fact.
Perhaps the lack of update alludes to my schedule – or maybe you think i’m lazy. And that’s fine, but you’re wrong.
I normally have to work to like christian artists, but when Justin was up here he gave me a Derek Webb cd called mockingbird that I’ve really been enjoying. If there was anything to not like about it, I’d start with the overuse of the 12 string, and that little bit of whine that he’s had since his caedmon’s call days. But it’s pretty easy to look past that and enjoy his songs and their arrangements. It’s a lot of the liberal left jesus stuff that is refreshing though ominously pendulumic. But at least he doesn’t make up words. I liked it on the first listen and I haven’t stopped listening and that makes me happy.
On the other hand I picked up the most recent Shins album and it’s been work. I’m still not totally convinced I like them, but I really want to. I want to like them because my friends like them and also to convince myself that I don’t automatically dislike bands just because they’re popular. If I can like the Shins I will reduce my curmudgeon factor by at least 2 points which is more than oatmeal can do for me. So I’ve been investing myself and sadly it hasn’t really paid off. I instantly disliked them for their cd insert. It’s a pain to read the lyrics, but they made it very easy to see who played what and just how many whats they played. Either make it all impossible or all explicit, but this mumbo jumbo middle ground of making the art mysterious and the artist obvious is only waxing ego’s. dumb. At their best I’d say they remind me of how much I like Morrissey. So if I listen to them and think, ‘hey these guys like Morrissey just like me!’ than I can enjoy them a bit, and so that’s what I do. And slowly my curmudgeoness self fades away.
Speaking of melancholy, I’m going crazy. I think I’m moving the family south; MN winters are killing me. One more dreary sub-spring day and the next blog will be about my time under the bridge with a brown bag. It’s hard to get worked up about global warming when you live in MN.
I’m going to go pretend that our TV works and stare at fuzz for awhile. Maybe listen to the Shins…