I know you, you know me

One thing I can tell you is you got to be free!

A bit late for Beatlemania

This would've been so much cooler if I could've done it 40 years ago when the whole world was doing it too. Now I just get ridiculous looks on the MRT because i'm headbanging to 'Drive my Car' instead of oh, Akon or something. At least, I think they're ridiculous looks because I feel silly inside. But the music will not let go!

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

and I say it's alright.

adam

New Guitar

On track with the New Things trend we've been seeing, I finally caved and bought another guitar - partly cos my crappy cheap strat is starting to fall apart, and partly just for the heck of it. I managed to find a red Gibson '61 reissue SG at guitar connection, and immediately fell in love.

I won't gush about it here because only two people probably in my entirely hypothetical readership (i'm not quite convinced any of you exist anymore - my blog is an exercise in solipsism) would understand what I mean by 'the pickups are just the right temperature' and I DON'T mean they were toasted for eight and a half minutes before installation.

So - quite a bit poorer now, have to figure out how to use this thing (it's NOT the same...) and I'm accepting bids for names. Although I'll probably ignore all suggestions anyway. Hypothetical names are okay too.

adam

I'm (mostly) back from my temporary brush with insanity, with the help of a few friends and four englishmen who happened to be called the Beatles. I guess this is a bit (very) late to be realising, but having listened to some(not enough) of the canon of popular music in this century, this must be the most sacred music ever to grace the realms of human creation. It isn't perfect music, but it is hallowed in every sense of the word that means anything to human beings.

adam

Sparrow

Desdemona brought me a dead sparrow this morning - at some level I deeply enjoy being the recipient of these animal sacrifices.

adam

Stupidity

I have become the connoisseur of stupidity. I have seen it in every possible form, and naked in its Platonic manifestation. The stupidity of others has confounded, frustrated, awed and bewildered me. But no stupidity is ever as all-encompassing, as immense, as brilliant and diaphanous and unstained as my own. This particular time I have outdone myself by leagues by the simplicity, the humility, the selflessness... the sheer purity of the act. For a few minutes there I was a man transmogrified like Jesus on the hilltop into the very incarnation of stupidity, made beautiful by surrendering my entire soul to its all-consuming force.

adam

Loneliness

is not a philosophical problem - it's a biological reaction. I feel like my responses have been hijacked by chemicals - but that's an illusion - my responses aren't much more than chemicals. I just wish there was something I could do about it.

adam

Sanctuary

After the week of non-commitments and half-eaten fantasies, it's nice to be back in the real world. I put on 'Sanctuary' from Miles's Bitches Brew album, and realiset that that was what I'd been needing all week.

adam

Hey ho, let's go.

This is going to be one of those intractable posts about my continuing inability to be at peace with the world. Incidentally, I'm at the mess computer in camp and it's been a long week.

My capacity for responsibility has worn thin. I've pretty much stopped caring about anything that happens in the army, for the good reason that it's mind-crushingly pointless. But I used to be able to do my job... and I consider that one of the attributes a non-useless person must have in this world. I am slowly losing my grip on non-uselessness. Don't get me wrong, I love my men, but it's a different sort of relationship with them, mostly based on trading insults and comparing penis sizes - not all in all a fulfilling existence. I miss having a real conversation. I miss talking for hours about pointless (but interesting) philosophical quibbles. I miss not having to walk around in a protective shell made out of belligerence. And I've resorted to more and more outlandish (and often destructive) ways of coping with this.

I mean, this is truly pathetic, that I can't seem to handle a little thing like this without becoming self-destructive. It was alright when I was just content with destroying my body. But that barely seems like enough now - I fear I've started to play games with my mind and my heart that no sane person would attempt. It is worrying.

On the dubious upside, I know I should make it through alive. My family is composed some of the most arrogant, stubborn people on this planet. And I won't give up even if (and especially if) it kills me. I just hope I don't drag too many people down on the way.

So - bring it on, motherfuckers.

adam

Test

Cool... Blog by email, by handphone.

New Phone

With the plan renewal comes new handset time (it's about time, I say - my k800i is now 3 years old and starting to grey around the temples). I could have opted for the really sexy HTC model, or god forbid an iPhone, but for budget and perhaps camp security reasons I went for the archaic (and indeed, arcane) nokia e71 - a model that, while clunky and quite hideous (I got mine in a manhood-approving shade of red), appeals to me in its sheer, almost medieval brute force approach to design. I like that there is no touch-screen, there are no stylish symbols, just a don't-fuck-around-with-me qwerty keyboard on the front, an i-don't-give-a-fuck tiny LCD display, and a why-am-i-even-bothering 3.2 camera, which used to be huge but now isn't. This is a phone for people who get the job done the messy way. I love the features, too, which it sure doesn't fall short on.

adam

OC SAY ADAM! I WANT BULLET FLY OVER THERE
I SAY HOW MANY?
OC SAY MANY MANY!
I SAY YES SIR.

adam

Odd

I just re-discovered a blog that I started two(!) years ago and promptly left to die. It's RTVOODOO, my music blog - and I've gone and updated it just to keep up with the general spirit of necromancy that seems to be prevalent.

rtvoodoo.blogspot.com

adam

Are and Gee

I'd just like to take a moment to plug a play which I won't before because I'm in the army, but which my friends are producing/acting in, and which I think is a fantastic endeavour. Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' will be on 17th-19th of July. You can contact me, Terence Lee, Ryan D or Chengyi for info.

adam

Further Impressions

Okay, I've not had much time with Closer, but I have spent many ecstatic hours listening to Rising Down, and it is definitely worth the critics' hype. I can't say I know much about hip hop, but I know a little about music - and this album shows a band (and a crew, let's not forget) at its prime, basking in the sheer joy of inventiveness, whether it be ?uestlove's manic drum beats or Black Thought's flow (eat shit, Kanye!). Mos Def opens the lyrics with an apocalyptic tableaux. Dice Raw carries on with the protest song 'Get Busy' before Black Thought commits vocal murder with freestyle @15 and burns his competitors hard on '75 bars (Black's Reconstruction)'.

They break out the gangsta rap for 'Criminal'.

The two closers on the international version ('Birthday Girl' was left out in the American release, sadly) function like the closers on 'London Calling'. 'Rising Up' is nothing short of apocalyptic, with a flaming fusion beat, choir and modulating chords banging on the electric piano. 'Birthday Girl' brings things to a personal level - this is the 'Train in Vain' of rap right here and it closes the album on a slightly sentimental note - but don't mistake this for mush. It's the cleverest song on the album. 'I just let you inside cos the line was so heavy/But i shoulda know better cos now I feel like america's underbelly/R. Kelly, gutter smut peddlers, internet predators, chat room irregulars', Black raps. It's also stunning for making actual musical use of Fallout Boy's singularly talent-less lead singer. I doubt if he wrote this himself, but the final chorus is (and I turn a little teary here) quite stirring, and quite witty

'They can't really seem to look away

so they tried asking her to stay

fake ID you won't get turned away

you look lovely tonight

Now you're old enough to buy a gun

so many better ways of having fun

right now I can only think of one

You look lovely tonight'

Some of the reviews blamed Black Thought for rapping too seriously on this album. It's not funny, says Rolling Stone - they're probably right. But just when you think he's starting to become Jesse Jackson, the band turns a hairpin and reminds you that they sure as fuck are having fun.

adam

Double album buy!

The Roots - Rising Down

Joy Division - Closer

Both of these stem from the arty side of rap and punk rock no doubt. First impressions will have to wait until I've had some alone time, but I do want to take this opportunity to officially forgive Fallout Boy for all their musical mistakes now that Patrick Stump has lent his dubiously necessary voice to that brilliant Roots track, 'Birthday Girl'. The reviews were right about it not fitting in with the album, but it is clever, catchy, clever, and you know what? Who gives a fuck about the world, if we had more songs like this we'd be alright.

adam

16 reasons why God would never get tenure

1. He had only one major publication.
2. And it was in Hebrew.
3. And it had no references.
4. And it was not published in a refereed journal.
5. And some even doubted that He wrote it Himself.
6. It may be true that He created the world, but what has He done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate His results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects did not behave as predicted, He often punished them, or just deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class: He just told students to read the book.
13. He has his son teach the class.
14. He expelled His first two students for learning too much.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed His tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent, and usually held on a mountain top.

-taken from http://komplexify.com/epsilon/

I think selfhood is overrated. When all's said and done we are victims, not champions, of who we are.

I want to be upbeat and aloof and above all the petty little troubles. But I keep feeling this miry misery bringing me down - it is a low, pathetic, animal emotion. There are 3 emotions that are worthy of homo superior - joy, wonder and anger.

adam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9RAbi2xEvo&feature=related

The thing that separates these girls from Simple Plan (cutesy hairstyle and drug-induced kitsch MVs notwithstanding) is nothing more profound than the musical tact to put their accents in the right places. The simple mastery of rhythm turns what would otherwise be a humdrum cover with nothing but four-on-the-floor and ye olde basicke punke beate into a sincere, intelligent and energetic tribute. 

adam