Who wants to go to Radiohead on August 3rd? I’ve got an extra pit ticket. It costs $70. And that’s cheap compared to this $300 ticket on eBay right now.
There’s another concert opportunity in two weeks… the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, with Spoon, Animal Collective, !!!, Dinosaur Jr., Fleet Foxes, etc. Oh yeah… and Public Enemy. I’m meeting one of my WashU pals up there.
I found an old tape recorder in my room today. It’s a Olympus Pearlcorder S914. Curious, I popped in a couple AA batteries. Nothing happened. The tape wouldn’t move. I helped it along a little bit by sticking my finger in the mini-cassette’s grooves and turning it. I guess it loosened up the old motors, because it started playing. Nothing but static. By holding down fast forward, I discovered the static to be in fact human voices. I still couldn’t make out what they were saying. I just about gave up trying to figure out why I had this thing when I noticed a switch on the side labeled 1.2 and 2.4. I moved it over to the higher number, and sure enough, the voices finally made sense.
It’s a family eating dinner. My family, I guess. My suspicions are confirmed when my mom addresses me by name. She asks whether something will be in the afternoon or at night. I think it might be a school play, because I say whatever it is will be in the school gym. I complain that Dad is leaving for a North Carolina golf trip on Friday, while I only get to go to Columbus. Mom saw a pool cleaning service around town, but couldn’t remember the name. Something starting with a B (I suggest Bennigens, or maybe Benjamin’s). I surmise that the Christopher Club might use the service, but my brother interjects, saying they probably do it themselves. My mom then tells us we need to invite more boys over to the house this summer to swim in the pool. I remind her that we swam with Crystal a lot last summer (never mind Crystal is a girl and was staying with Judy in the basement). Dad asks if she’s my age. I respond that she’s a year older. 11? After some hesitation I say yes. So I’m 10.
Later I make some comment about not wanting to squash Harriet. We must have just brought her home.
Other topics include Cobras basketball, Andy’s (McCroson) broken eyeball, the fact that my brother and I are starting to get some BO after playing on the playground (a typical comment from Mom). Not as bad as Dad, either I or Alex say. Dad doesn’t say anything, but Mom says that we’re lucky he has such a good sense of humor. Harriet suddenly erupts in barking. Mom says sarcastically it’s a good thing we have such a good guard dog.
The conversation then turns back to the Columbus trip. My brother and I don’t really want to go because Mom just wants to go see Debbie. Some pouting later the table falls silent for a little while. We start cleaning up the dishes, which makes most of the remaining conversation unintelligible.
Who decided to tape this dinner and why? It seems like something I might have done as a kid, but if that’s so I never make any indication that I know I’m being taped. The only thing that precedes dinner is Dad saying “Testing, testing” into the recorder, followed by 5 minutes of silence, so maybe it was left on by accident. It was really weird to listen to an entire dinner conversation from 10 years ago, complete with clanking dishes and barking dogs. Some things really stood out. My mom uses a lot of the same phrases she uses today. Like, “You boy’s are so lucky you have…” I was really talkative back then. A lot different from today for some reason. I don’t really know when I stopped being so talkative. It just seems like today I can’t think of anything worth adding to a conversation. Anyway, the tape ends with us making cookies. Really.
I woke up at around 4:35 last night. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t decide what it was. I hadn’t tossed all my covers onto the floor, no giant thunderstorms outside… It can’t be… well… yeah… it must be. Earthquake. A fucking earthquake in St. Louis. Awesome.
I rode surface waves for the next 20 seconds then drifted back off into dream land.
In other news, I saw The Mars Volta last night in concert. I got a free ticket for being on the school music magazine. I arrived 30 minutes late, 30 minutes into The Mars Volta set. There was no opener. They proceeded to play for the next three hours straight. No kidding. I guess that’s not too hard after Omar adds in his 10 minute solos between each verse. It was pretty masturbatory, actually. I only heard two songs I recognized from De-loused in the Comatorium, but I guess I got my money’s worth. My biggest smile of the night came when Cedric picked up a trash can from the floor beyond stage left, walked over to stage right and chucked it into the crowd. Weird guy.