What gives any person, or any group of people, the right to poison air shared by all? I always hear people justify actions such as building the Keystone pipeline, conducting harmful strip mining, and frakking with “It will provide more jobs.” Since when do we place the availability of job opportunities above people’s health and livelihoods? I can’t legally go up to someone and shoot them in the head, but if I had enough money, power, and political influence, I could poison their lungs, their water, and their food. I could give hundreds of people cancer and kill them in a very slow and expensive way. I could destroy the habitats of thousands of animals and inflict irrevocable damage to millions of acres of land. And I would never go to jail. I could be rich beyond my wildest dreams and sleep at night because I “provided more jobs.” But at what cost? How can we say we live in a democracy when a few people can make decisions that negatively affect the rest without fear of retribution? With assurance of profit? The United States of America is an aristocracy, and the richest and most powerful among us decide what goes in our food, what goes in our water, what goes in our air, how we get from place to place, et cetera, with no thought to how we are affected. Where does it stop? HOW does it stop? Who will answer for these crimes?

When last I saw her a year or two ago, my friend Sarah Chasen and I decided to make a band, some might say a ludicrous notion since I went to college in Kentucky and her in Michigan. But the other day we were both in Augusta and had our very first band practice, learning “Moon River” by Henry Mancini and popularized by Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Devon (of climax_climax) acted as our first groupie and filmographer.

Continuing this strange new fad of me posting random covers my friends and I decide to do, here is The Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done”, with myself on violin and lead vocals, my friend Michael back on trombone, my friend Susie’s boyfriend Gage on guitar (we just met him last night!), Alyece (of climax-climax) on keyboard, and my dearest and best friend Frances on drumstick/table and backing vocals. Enjoy!

My dear friend Michael and I filmed a li’l cover we did yesterday of “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”. It came about the night before when we were both drunk and I played this song, one of the only ones I know well, and Michael jammed with me, trombone-performance-major-style. Then I told him there were actually horns in that song and he learned it right quick. We got it down sober the next day and recorded it. Turned out pretty well!

My frustration simmering, I have now turned to the happy and high-energy tension found in the many sounds of tUnE-yArDs. I started listening to them last winter break after my best friends Devon and Frances showed me their newest album, W H O K I L L.

Oh, and also I met the lead singer and instrumentalist this one time.

So, I went to Bonnaroo this past summer (I should actually write all about that sometime) and of course went to see tUnE-yArDs play their amazing set. However, my friends and I got to their show late and were very far back; I had to jump to even see the stage. It was thoroughly amazing nonetheless, especially when they played my favorite song of theirs, My Country, last.

Anyways, I knew that they were playing in the Cinema Tent later that day, performing an original soundtrack to 20s-era Buster Keaton silent films with guitarist and composer, Ava Mendoza (a;lskdfjalk;sdj), but I’d pretty much given up on seeing it because there was so much else to see and my friends were going to St. Vincent’s show. Long story short, I decided there are only so many times in your life you get to see something like that, followed my heart, told my friends I was going and would meet up with them later. They understood.

To summarize (because I have to get back to writing a paper) it was one of the most exciting, creative, fun, musical, happy, genius, and inspirational performances I have ever seen (probably second only to seeing the Blue Man Group at DisneyWorld—no lie). People filtered out over the course of the four short films to go see other shows, but I stayed the whole time and moved closer as they left their seats. Once it was over, there were only about thirty people. As the band started packing up their stuff, the lead singer (and creative force of the band), Merrill Garbus, thanked the audience and said in the friendliest voice that we could come up and ask them any questions. I don’t think she expected every person left in the theater to book it to the stage and line up to speak with only her, but they did. She chatted with every person for as long as they wished, agreed to every picture request, and hugged every fan.

I nervously waited and asked the guy behind me if we could take the picture. When I got to her, she had the brightest, most genuine smile and I told her how much I absolutely loved her music. I asked her if she had been playing an acoustic-electric ukulele during parts of the show, and she picked it up and let me hold it while we spoke. We took that picture and she gave me one of the most memorable hugs in my life.

The end.

So often so true in my romantic history. Trying to change this, though.

Louder Now was in high school and still is my last resort for catharsis and release during my most angry and angsty moments. I don’t find myself in those moods very often; I am more prone to the lethargy of depression. However, I remember seeing the video for this song in the early morning hours of VH1 years ago (the only times they would play videos). I connected to it strongly, which is interesting because I’m more of a Radiohead, Strokes, Coldplay, Death Cab kind of guy—very chill music. I’ve listened to this album twice in the past week. I think it’s okay to be like this, though, because I’m fighting and not giving up in life right now, at least when I can. So I’m thankful for this album, and I pledge to check out Taking Back Sunday’s other work one day soon. Any recommendations?

_{christopher and david’s reactions when asked about the doctor who 50th anniversary.}

Who is excited for the 50th anniversary?!

OR 

Whos are excited for the 50th anniversary!!!

This is the song I always listen to when I’m sick, especially when I am feverish. I am not right now, though I said I was earlier. However, I’ve felt slightly delirious since not sleeping last night and self-medicating myself to stay up. I’ve already listened to of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and am now listening to Skeletal Lamping. God, every time I hear “The Past is a Grotesque Animal”…

It is one of my top ten favorite songs of all time. Every line is poetry. Only a few songwriters can do that. For me, Bob Dylan, Jeff Mangum, Regina Spektor, and Paul Simon also come to mind. Anyways, Kevin Barnes is awesome, and I once put something in the mailbox at a house in Athens where he used to live. 

Time to finish my paper!

(Source: Spotify)