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Saturday, May 04, 2002 He Was a Sweet and Tender Hooligan: Actually, he wasn’t. He was a loud, racist, hooligan son-of-a-bitch and I wish someone had smacked him upside the head or had locked him up for ruining our game and making everyone very uncomfortable. I met my brother this afternoon at our regular football bar for the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea. We’d arranged to be there early, but it was already fairly full, when I arrived. I immediately noticed a group of British men by the bar, who were very loud and drunk and some of them wore Chelsea jerseys. But we were seated in front of the screen surrounded by people in Arsenal jerseys, so I didn’t really think about it. And they didn’t bother me until Lauren was harshly tackled by Le Saux and one of them shouted out “Get up you f**kin’ n***er!” (you’d think supporters of a team, which features Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and several other high profile black players would be a bit more open minded about black people, but apparently not). From then on their behaviour just got more and more offensive and it was especially disturbing to see one of them raising his right arm at either the Arsenal fans or the TV and scream out “Si€g H€il” several times. But since it was still 0-0 at halftime they kept it to the yelling. But when Ray Parlour scored a fantastic goal in the middle of the second half it was our turn to yell. We cheered like crazy, but were quieted when we were splashed with beer thrown by the guys at the bar. Now, I’ve been hit with beer, water, and probably a couple of other liquids at concerts and real football games, but this is the first time it’s happened inside a pub, so I was a little annoyed. And at this point I saw the neo-n@zi guy spit at people in Arsenal jerseys, who were buying drinks, so there was definitely some tension in the pub. But that’s nothing compared to what happened when the amazing Freddy Ljungberg scored the second goal. Before we could even jump out of our seats someone threw a beer glass at the projector in the ceiling over our heads, which meant the glass splintered all over the place and the largest bits fell right next to my feet less than a foot from where one of my friends was sitting on the floor. I had glass on my hands, legs, and there were large pieces lying on the back of my chair. So with only ten minutes of the game remaining we decided to pack up our gear and go to the back of the pub, so we could get the hell out, when the game was finished. We stood at the back for less than five minutes, when two guys in Arsenal jerseys came down and joined us. And the second the game ended they bolted out of the pub. We quickly did the same, because the whole thing was beginning to remind me of Awaydays, and I really didn’t want any part of that. So I don’t know if there was any trouble, but I’m thinking of going down there to check next week, because I’m not going down there to see the game against Man United if something like that is likely to happen again. So after the game I went to get Chinese food and went home and watched Smallville. I’d been home less than an hour, when I hear people yelling out in the street and when I look out I see a group of guys, who look like skinheads, being chased by a group of guys of Middle Eastern descent. I don’t know what was going on, but since long hair is peace my guess is the skinheads were up to no good. I guess I’ll have to check the local news tomorrow to see if anything really bad happened. Since the only kind of censorship I believe in is self-censorship I’ve chosen to alter the spelling of certain words. It’s not so much because I don’t want to offend people, because I actually think that sometimes it can be healthy to be exposed to words like that, so you don’t forget what they mean. It’s simply because I’d prefer it if people using a search engine to search for words like that didn’t come visit my site. I hope that makes sense.
- John Fogde 9:17 PM [+]
Friday, May 03, 2002 Life is the Crummiest Book I Ever Read: I just finished reading Derek M. Powazek’s Design for Community and while I found it entertaining and informative it was also a bit disappointing. The reason I bought it was that I had hoped it had an academic approach to the blogging phenomenon, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The book is basically a guide for people trying to build an internet community or improve on the one they’ve already built. And while it is interesting to read about all kinds of communities from email lists to the ones at Amazon or Salon I was looking for information about blogging. After all there is a chapter excerpt called Weblogs as Community at the website dedicated to the book, but unfortunately that chapter doesn’t exist in the book. The featured excerpt is taken from a chapter called What’s Next? and although the chapter is a lot longer in the book than just the excerpt the rest of the chapter doesn’t deal with blogging at all. It deals with a Sony photo sharing community, more about Amazon, and some graphic communities based around different games. So in other words I could’ve gotten Powazek’s insights on blogging by reading his site instead of buying his book. To be fair he also mentions Metafilter, Killoggs and a couple of other blogs that have multiple users submitting entries in the book, but there wasn’t really anything on blogging as journalism, the decentralized blogging community, or blogs working not so much as journals, but information filters. I’ve read a bunch of articles on these subjects, but it would have been nice with a different point of view than the journalistic or technological one you usually get on the web. But then Powazek is a web designer and not a college professor, so I guess it makes sense that his point of view would be from a design stand point. My problem is that I want to write an academic paper on blogging and frankly I could use a little help. I have some stuff lined up and have read enough to know about some of the criticism blogging has received from journalists and professional writers. And I’ve also read a lot of the praise, which is circulating between certain members of the blogging A-list. But it doesn’t seem like anyone has done any work to examine the fascination people have with following these blogs, the benefits of having news filters, the joy of having an outlet for creative writing, and the community bond there seems to be between a large number of people, who in a strange way are connected by their use of a blogging tool and their need for self expression. This is what I’m going to look into, but as I said some help would be nice. I’d been reading Design for Community since Monday and it felt good to finish a book for once. Lately I’ve been reading A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe and while I think it’s a smashing book it has taken me months just to read the first 450 pages, which means I’m only about halfway through it. I read so much stuff online that when I want to read something else it usually ends up being a Rolling Stone magazine. But I’ve decided to take a break from Mr. Wolfe and read Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris this weekend. The book was a Christmas present and I’ve wanted to read it for ages, so I’m going to give it a shot this weekend. I hope I can get a couple of long stretches in and I hope to have read it by early next week, so I don’t have another half-read book lying about.
- John Fogde 11:28 PM [+]
- John Fogde 1:36 AM [+]
Thursday, May 02, 2002 Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want: I like The Get Up Kids a lot and I have since I heard Something To Write Home About for the first time. Four Minute Mile has its moments, but I think the production leaves a lot to be desired, so I don’t listen to it that much. So I was very excited, when I found out that Matthew Pryor had founded a band called The New Amsterdams as an outlet for his quieter, acoustic material. Their album Never You Mind is absolutely brilliant and therefore I’ve decided to buy their follow up, Para Toda Vida, when the new Get Up album is released on the 14th of May. I want to buy them straight from Vagrant Records’ website, because I know they probably won’t be released here and frankly buying them directly from the record company is cheaper than buying them through the online record stores. But here’s my problem: After perusing Vagrant’s website I found out that shipping charge to Europe is $18.25 (which is more than a CD costs), so to get my money's worth I’ll have to buy more than two CDs. And here’s where I need some help. I’m looking for recommendations from the Vagrant back catalogue, because while I'm familiar with a bunch of their bands I haven’t actually heard an entire album with other bands than the ones I mentioned before. I have a Vagrant compilation and I downloaded a bunch of songs from their site, but I must say I think the quality of the material varies not just overall, but also concerning the individual band. Right now I’m leaning towards Dashboard Confessionals (because I like the acoustic sounding Screaming Infidelities), Koufax (because of the upbeat Going to Happen and the singer sounds a bit like the guy from Nada Surf) and Saves the Day, because they sound a bit like Get Up and they seem to be getting good reviews and nice press a lot of places. I also thought about The Anniversary, because D in Detroit and All Things Ordinary remind me of That Dog and The Rentals (but I’m really not too crazy about the rest of the songs I’ve heard by them). But I should probably keep it to only one or two CDs, other than the Get Up and Amsterdams ones, so I would very much appreciate comments or suggestions. So if you know any of the bands mentioned or some I’ve missed please let me know. I was actually listening to Seven More Minutes by The Rentals today, and while it’s by no means a great album there are some good songs on there. Favourites include Man with Two Brains, Barcelona, and Overlee, which brings me to a fun little titbit. I suck at remembering song titles, because I usually don’t look at the cover after I’ve examined it the day I’ve bought the CD. So it wasn’t until today I realized the song wasn’t called Albany but Overlee, which makes the lyrics “I wanna take you to Overlee/Floating around endlessly/No language and no country” make a lot more sense. And speaking of misheard lyrics a friend of mine as a joke tried to convince his friend that Destiny’s Child sing “I don’t think you’re ready… for New Delhi” on Bootylicious. Which, when you think about it, makes a hell of a lot more sense than “… for this jelly”. What does that even mean? They have the dumbest lyrics and they're so annoying that they're not even hot (okay, Beyonce is kinda hot despite being very annoying and having a horrible name). But my all time favourite misheard lyric is “I wanna rock and roll all night/And part of every day”, which Greg sings in an episode of Dharma & Greg. Dharma points out his mistake, but Greg doesn’t get it, because as he puts it “Then when do they have time to sleep?”. When indeed.
- John Fogde 11:36 PM [+]
Wednesday, May 01, 2002 And the Music He Had in Him So Very Few Possess: There was a blog I wanted to link to, but then I forgot which one it was, and now I just remembered, so I thought I'd link to it right away. It's called "laura Holder not com" and the main reason I'm linking to it is that she asked if one could possible need anything else than the 2-disc anthology Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels, which features a wide variety of songs by Gram Parsons. I'm not a big fan of Best Of records, so a couple of albums come to mind, but the one that I wanted to mention is the Gram Parsons tribute album called Return of the Grievous Angel. It's an amazing record with a pretty amazing line up. My favourites are Wilco's version of One Hundred Years From Now and Ooh Las Vegas performed by Cowboy Junkies, but the real treat is the Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield duet on $1.000 Wedding. I've heard that song a hundred times and it still gets to me every time. It's a good song, but their version is just incredible. I think most critics agreed that this is a fantastic album, but at the same time I think it can serve as a great way of getting to know the Parsons songbook for people, who aren’t necessarily into country music. Personally, I think his work both with The Byrds, the other bands, and his solo work is amazing, but a lot of people (especially Europeans) get turned off by the pedal steel, the violins, and the rest of it. So hearing Beck or Chrissie Hynde taking on a Parsons song in a new context might make the songs seem more accessible. And then you just might be ready to pick up the reissue of Sweetheart of the Rodeo or the GP/Grievous Angel CD and get with the real thing. I’ll bet you won’t be sorry that you did.
- John Fogde 1:57 AM [+]
- John Fogde 12:56 AM [+]
Tuesday, April 30, 2002 Cause Punk Rock Was Too Hard To Sing: I’ve finally gotten around to recount the events of last Thursday. The original plan was to go see The Handsome Family at Voxhall and then head home, but I met a friend who invited me to a party, so I went to that after the concert. I went to the concert along with probably 25 other paying customers. That’s not exactly a lot of people in a venue that usually fits 500. But thankfully they’d set up tables and chairs, so the room didn’t look completely empty. The Handsome Family consists of three members. A husband on guitar and lead vocals, a wife on backing vocals, bass, and miscellaneous instruments, and a brother-in-law on drums. The concert began with the members wandering onstage and shuffling papers around and then eventually starting in on the first song. From then on every song would be introduced by the wife (who’d say stuff like; “This next song is about birds. And death. Birds and death.”), which would lead to a couple of weird comments from the husband, then some bickering between the two of them, and then finally a song. She would occasionally rush him and he’d say stuff like “It’s not like they’re going anywhere” and she’d be like “They could leave any minute” and then be like “This is the slowest sinking ship I’ve ever been on” (Sorry if I sound like a character from Clueless, but it’s the easiest way to retell the conversation). This went on for an hour and a half, but it was actually quite amusing. It is definitely the first concert I’ve seen, where the singer kicks of a sneaker and then runs backstage to get a pair of slippers. He then returned and kicked off the other sneaker, put on the slippers, and did a couple of tap dancing moves to show how comfortable he now was. If you don’t know The Handsome Family I think their music can best be described as slow country music. They use pretty dark humour and even though I didn’t really know any of the songs, the combination of their weird stage presence and entertaining songs meant that I quite enjoyed the show. During the concert they made a couple of reference to the band Lambchop, who had played a concert the night before. Supposedly, the concert had been great, but I unfortunately missed it. But now I know that they took their name from a television show about a puppet called Lambchop, which had to be cancelled, when the woman who supplied the voice of Lambchop died. A friend of mine works at the venue and he had stopped by to check out the band. After the concert he invited me to an art school party, which we went to that straight after the concert. I knew a couple of people at the party, so it wasn’t completely weird for me, but it was still a different scene from what I’m used to. It was most mostly students from the school, who was there, and I don’t think I’m offending anyone when I say they all looked weird. I think they were going for that look and in my opinion they succeeded quite well. A lot of them acted weird as well, so inspired by BradLands I’ve transcribed an example of a conversation. So here’s a scene from the Aarhus bar scene:
That sums up the intelligence level of the conversations I had at that party, so after a couple of beers I took off. But somehow I still managed to have a massive hangover the next day, so I had to cancel on the party I was supposed to go to Friday night. I just came back from seeing Arsenal beating Bolton, so I’m a bit knackered (which should explain spelling errors and so forth). But they’re now definitely on the way to winning The Double and I just got a new apartment and new CDs today, so I’m a happy knackered.
- John Fogde 12:48 AM [+]
Monday, April 29, 2002 You're Gonna Need a Bigger Room: Today is turning out to be an amazing day. I received my order from Amazon today with the new Wilco CD, a The Hives CD (which is kind of a Best Of), and the Design for Community book that I'm looking forward to reading. But the really big news is that I've made plans for moving into a new apartment in June. My friend, who came over from Copenhagen this weekend, had sorted it all out, so today I called his brother, who's in charge of renting it out, and I can move in June 1st. I costs the same as this place, but it's a bit bigger and has a balcony. It's not as downtown as my current apartment, but it's closer to my brother, sister, and some of my friends, and they don't have junkies lying on their doorstep up there. So along with the fact that the weather is amazing and we're going to see the Arsenal - Bolton game tonight this is a pretty great day. And the "reunion" thing this weekend went great, but more on that later along with details from the concert last Thursday.
- John Fogde 2:30 PM [+]
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Pavement: Slanted & Enchanted
Ben Folds: Ben Folds Live
Supergrass: Life on Other Planets
Ryan Adams: Demolition
Beck: Sea Change
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