lately i've gone from listening to deep forest repeatedly as i commute to work to listening to all of my mix tape of dance music. (well, really not out of choice so much as because my walkman doesn't seem to like rewinding or fast forwarding any more.) originally the deep forest was stuck on the end as an afterthought... but i think i like it better than a sizable amount of the rest of the tape. in any case, i was listening to it again today and i realized that despite the simplicity of nitzer ebb's "join in the chant," i still don't actually know all the lyrics. so i decided i should look them up. and i even remembered. go me. i'm not pleased, though. i liked my version better.

actual version:

Lies, lies, lies, lies
Gold, gold, gold, gold
Guns, guns, guns, guns
Fire, fire, fire, fire!

Gold, gold, gold, gold
Judge, judge, judge, judge
Guns, guns, guns, guns
Fire, fire, fire, fire!

MUSCLE AND HATE!
MUSCLE!
MUSCLE!
Lies, lies, lies, lies
Books, books, books, books
Burn, burn, burn, burn
Fire, fire, fire, fire!

MUSCLE AND HATE!
MUSCLE AND HATE!
JOIN IN THE CHANT!
JOIN IN THE CHANT!
etc.

now what i thought was pretty close to the same... exceptions--not "muscle and hate," which strikes me as somewhat nonsensical, but "foster that hate!" which i thought was fitting and sort of nice. well, not nice. um. yeah. then i though that "judge" was actually "church," making that stanza into a commentary on the relationships between religion, greed and hatred. would have been profound. well, no, it's still bad, insanely repetitive techno, but would have been marginally more interesting bad techno.

i suppose it has a point. in the same way that front 242's "welcome to paradise" has a point, i'd think... although front 242 claims not to be making any value judgments in that song... which is an interesting assertion. hmm...lyrics:

Hey poor, you don't have to be poor anymore
Jesus is here!
In the name of Jesus (Alleluiah!)
Feel like your life is going nowhere?
Ten seconds... Standby
Jesus is the Son of God
Come in Jesus (Alleluiah!)
Oh God I'm a sinner!
I deserve to go to hell (Alleluiah!)
NO SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE!
Oh God I'm a sinner, I deserve to go to hell
The bible said you keep him out in the lie
In the name of Jesus
Jesus is the Son of God
In the name of Jesus (Alleluiah!)
Hey poor, you don't have to be poor anymore
Jesus is here! (Don't tell the devil)
Hey poor, you don't have to be Jesus!

now theoretically this could be value free.... maybe. i doubt it already. but these lyrics aren't sung or spoken. they're sampled from televangelists. it seems awfully mocking to me. all this stuff.... hmm. i appreciate it. especially the front 242. nitzer ebb is so repetitive that one can't take terribly much of it. unless i'm really damned angsty. and "lightning man" is so much better anyhow.

was thinking about this sort of thing a lot again today. i amaze myself with what i can actually enjoy when i know how awful it is. case in point. armand van helden's "you don't know me." this song has no music. ostinato ad infinitum to the point of death. and the main melodic point is "la ti do" repeated over and over. (well... actually "la ti do... la do so fa," i think, with the ti and do being syncopated and the last four notes being straight eighths, but i'm the only one who cares about that anyhow) makes me want to hit things when i think about it. and i manage to ignore that entirely and actually listen to it regardless. i like the lyrics.

I don't ask for nothing
I'm always holding my own
Every time I turn around it's something
People talking about what they don't know
And when I try to move on up
They're always pulling me down
I'm tired and I've had enough
It's my life and I'm living it now

Chorus:
You don't even know me
You say that I'm not living right
You don't understand me
So why do you judge my life?

I always wonder why
People try to hurt me
No happiness in their own lives
So they act out all their jealousies
Who are you to say that I'm living wrong?
Always telling me what to do
I've decided I gotta be strong
What makes you think that I needed you?
(chorus rather too many times then fade out with seemingly improvised lyrics...)
(you don't know me. you don't understand the way that i feel. you don't even know what i've been going through. tell me who can stand there and judge my life? who are you to say i'm not living right? everything i try to do.... you haven't walked in my shoes. i'm going to move on. it's my life.)

(everything i try to do... all you do is talk about it... and i had my problems.... i needed a friend....)

the last parts in parentheses aren't listed anywhere i've seen, but i think i've got what he's saying. on all levels, really.

i think i have the tendency to excuse a lot of things if the lyrics are good and if the singer's voice is ok. and if it's in my vocal range and i can sing over the top of the singer then it's got a nice big plus in its favour. although i have a two and a half to three octave range, so generally i can work most anything into my range unless i've been drinking milk. cara's corrupted me into the ways of the vocalist. well, i do still drink milk and sing outside and all those other things i'm not supposed to do courtesy of vocal ped, but i feel guilty if i do them now, or i know why they don't work well. :)

i wonder what new oddities i can pick up in the coming year from living with morde'an? should be fun, i think, though. i had a dream with her in it last night... no idea what it was about, though. i just remember the uncommon solidity of her image in the midst of other unfixed things. she was very defined and very definite. her hair was, too, but then i guess that would be her main identifying feature. most people only recognize her because of it. which is odd, because i think she looks rather distinctive. and yet...

i think that most people look distinctively individual and different once you know them well, but it takes a while to get there. people blur all together for me for a while before i know them. my last roommate, cara, has a "twin" at school. sarah. unfortunately another vocalist, which makes life even more confusing. until i knew cara i never realized they weren't the same person. now, however, i couldn't mistake the two of them if i was on zero sleep, drugged and half blind. well... i'm sure that's an exaggeration. well. i wouldn't know and i don't care to find out. eh, but still.

so you see pictures of people. and sometimes they look like the person. sometimes they don't. if i know the person well then i can look at the picture and remember more than is there, but without that added information from my mind, the picture tells me nothing. when i look at pictures of myself i don't really have an ability to comprehend them. their truth eludes me. i think maybe it's partially because photographs of me are always weird, but i think somewhat it's just because pictures have no soul. you have to take them as what they are, but that's just not good enough. to look at a picture of someone is pointless. it's flat and devoid of all personality and spark.

i think i've just spotted my issue with people who lust after actors and other famous people: you hardly ever see their real selves. if i saw a video of jenna, then it'd be pretty close to actually being real jenna. actors, however, are never themselves on screen, and even in interviews you know most have to be carefully plotted out like a strategy game. all of it plays out like a game in front of the media. so maybe you can be obsessed with a star... but it isn't them. it's a mask. and as if most of hollywood wasn't hollow enough to begin with!

i wonder where all this is coming from. i wonder why i'm even thinking about it.

my dream also had rollerblades in it. they were on sale at k mart for $19.99 and i felt actually *compelled* to buy them. as though if i didn't there would be catastrophic results. twenty dollars does strike me as a pretty cheap price for skates, actually. just for kicks i stepped over to sporting goods before work started to see how much our rollerblades go for. we have one model for $19.97, i believe, and i was slightly shocked. thankfully they weren't precisely the same price, nor were they on sale. i was still tempted, though. i just don't want to lug them across the country in a week.

i have yet to legitimately discuss with debi how i'm getting to the airport on monday. i misremembered... well, sort of... the time of departure. i told her it was ten or eleven. well, it is. yes, my flight departs at ten fifty.... from *phoenix*. the flight out of salt lake to phoenix is at 7:04. slight difference.

hmm. i don't know if it's feasible for debi to take me unless she leaves work early... or maybe if i can meet her at work? or something. huh. she generally gets back at five thirty and to go to salt lake takes an hour. being a half hour early is not sufficient. blergh. if i can get over to her work and we leave from there at five fifteen... or something to that effect... hmm. still not ideal. i think we'd get there just under an hour early, but i don't like that. argh.

i really don't want to take a taxi service. i want to be able to say goodbye to my sister whom i've lived with for two months, yet hardly seen. man, this whole visit has fairly well sucked at least on the surface of things. i think i've been more than just making the best of it, for the most part... yet still... ugh.

when i left i was certainly glad to be going. my main motive was just to be away from my mother. really that's all i needed, and i've gotten it. i didn't precisely enjoy most of this, i think, but i've been happy for a good bit of the time, and i haven't been stressed out much, which is a sorely needed vacation for my nerves, my brain, my soul...

at this point i keep thinking i want to go back home, and some probably find that to be highly conflicting... it's a simple solution, though. i can deal with my mother for two weeks and be happy because she'll spend the first few days in "i missed you" mode and the last few in "i'm going to miss you" mode, and therefore be a reasonable person for at least one week out of two. also, she has nothing to nag me about now... that i know of. well.... she'll find something, but really what she wanted most was for me to have a job. i had a job. i'm done. she can't bother me about it anymore.

at this point i miss civilization, my father, my computer... heck, i miss my *time zone*. and i'm sick of legend, i'm sick of cleaning everything for my sister, cooking for her, doing stupid little tasks that mean nothing, but for the fact that i continually have to do them. stupid things. will you get me a cup of soda? will you get me a pen? blergh. and **WHY** do i have to be the one to deal with legend even when she's home and i just got off work and i can hardly stand anymore?? damn it. if i'm going to be as lazy as debi seems to be capable of being then i'm bloody well not going to recruit someone else to do this petty crap for me. either i do it or it remains undone! this whole servantry thing is just wrong and silly.

that said, i'd take all this idiocy over two months with my mother any time. if i were home and working so that she couldn't nag me about that, then she'd nag me about something else, and i'd have my nerves worn thin from work, and i've seen the way that goes before. i recall all too well the summer of the endless walk outs. well, not endless, but frequent enough. i step into the house. we argue less than twenty minutes into things. the screaming begins. i step right back out of the house. one memorable time i hardly even had time to take my coat off and we hadn't shut the front door yet. living at borders and the library is fun, but not if you're forced into it.

never again. or i think not. i'm not moving back home again if there's any way of avoiding it. i treasure my independence and freedom more than i can express. without them my life is null and void. this isn't physical freedom, though. it's emotional. freedom from guilt, fear, worry... it's a relatively new thing for me and i need more time to fully appreciate its workings.

well, i'm tired and mentally wandering again. perhaps mentally wondering as well. hmm. why do i do this so late at night? at times i find myself partially incomprehensible retrospectively. there's something about it, though... linked with my desire to be alone when i'm thinking about things. daytime is never alone enough, even if the house is entirely quiet. night has always meant safety and no fear of being caught. another frightening thought for me to encounter, but one that i will put away for later as i need to sleep. g'night.
posted by Unknown at 2:35 AM