Testifying in the narrative
So ever since I heard Modest Mouse, I knew their sound reminded me of something I had heard before long ago...
On an entirely different topic, I was in RR last weekend, and while I was there I grabbed this old stereo receiver, because here in SA, one of my friends promised to give these tower speakers that he bought out of the back of a van (ironically).
Well, when I got the receiver, I started snooping around the house for the owner's manual. I knew I would find it, because my dad has never thrown anything away. So I opened this drawer that I had never really looked in before. Yes, the owner's manual was there, annotated by my father in black pen, but that's not all I found. There were two joysticks, a stack of CD-ROMs and this big black CD case.
First I started looking through the CD-Roms. I found "Day of the Tentacle", "Dragon Lore", "OS/2 Warp", "Quake 3 Arena", and then the long-lost granpappy of PC games...
Counter-Strike! As I held it in my hands, my knees started to shake and I got a little dizzy. The world seemed to stop and zoom out for a second. There I stood, a successful Counter-Crack twelve-stepper, three-years clean, holding the biggest bag of rocks I could imagine.
Bitter-Sweet memories of virtual victories and real-life failures swirled through my consciousness. I could feel the cold steel of my super-leet optical mouse, and my full-face covering net-terror mask holding on my ear-goggles, the (class)time flying by without notice, life existing as a signal in a machine, abstract as the clouds of smoke that evanesced into my lungs and brain.
"What'cha got there?" My brother's voice broke through my reverie.
"Check it out man, Half-Life! You know what that means, right?", I said.
"Counter-Strike?", as his eyes lit up.
"You got it. Here you go."
I tossed him the CD nonchalantly, fighting my urge to curl up into myself and never come out.
SO that's how I stayed clean in the grips of a full relapse. Selfish? You are damn right. I sold my own brother down the red-eyed road to ruin, just to keep the little bit of self-respect that I have clawed for three years to get.
I'm through living a Half-Life. Reality is my new fix, and it's the best one I've found yet.
And that cryptical Modest Mouse comment? Well I went back to looking through my found CDs, and what should I find but the self-titled "Presidents of the United States of America". And there it was, the same:
1. Super Reverby guitar lines
2. Mid-Western Accent
3. Yelling, half-rap style
4. Low-Fi recording style
Listen to track 4 if you doubt me on this one. Sure, PotUSA went a little farther down the path towards Weird Al, but, man, the similarity is striking.
Well friends, that's all for me today. If you are in Austin or RR, check up on my brother. Try to get him out of the house, and have a good time. Even better, help him get a job.
One love, one life!
On an entirely different topic, I was in RR last weekend, and while I was there I grabbed this old stereo receiver, because here in SA, one of my friends promised to give these tower speakers that he bought out of the back of a van (ironically).
Well, when I got the receiver, I started snooping around the house for the owner's manual. I knew I would find it, because my dad has never thrown anything away. So I opened this drawer that I had never really looked in before. Yes, the owner's manual was there, annotated by my father in black pen, but that's not all I found. There were two joysticks, a stack of CD-ROMs and this big black CD case.
First I started looking through the CD-Roms. I found "Day of the Tentacle", "Dragon Lore", "OS/2 Warp", "Quake 3 Arena", and then the long-lost granpappy of PC games...
Counter-Strike! As I held it in my hands, my knees started to shake and I got a little dizzy. The world seemed to stop and zoom out for a second. There I stood, a successful Counter-Crack twelve-stepper, three-years clean, holding the biggest bag of rocks I could imagine.
Bitter-Sweet memories of virtual victories and real-life failures swirled through my consciousness. I could feel the cold steel of my super-leet optical mouse, and my full-face covering net-terror mask holding on my ear-goggles, the (class)time flying by without notice, life existing as a signal in a machine, abstract as the clouds of smoke that evanesced into my lungs and brain.
"What'cha got there?" My brother's voice broke through my reverie.
"Check it out man, Half-Life! You know what that means, right?", I said.
"Counter-Strike?", as his eyes lit up.
"You got it. Here you go."
I tossed him the CD nonchalantly, fighting my urge to curl up into myself and never come out.
SO that's how I stayed clean in the grips of a full relapse. Selfish? You are damn right. I sold my own brother down the red-eyed road to ruin, just to keep the little bit of self-respect that I have clawed for three years to get.
I'm through living a Half-Life. Reality is my new fix, and it's the best one I've found yet.
And that cryptical Modest Mouse comment? Well I went back to looking through my found CDs, and what should I find but the self-titled "Presidents of the United States of America". And there it was, the same:
1. Super Reverby guitar lines
2. Mid-Western Accent
3. Yelling, half-rap style
4. Low-Fi recording style
Listen to track 4 if you doubt me on this one. Sure, PotUSA went a little farther down the path towards Weird Al, but, man, the similarity is striking.
Well friends, that's all for me today. If you are in Austin or RR, check up on my brother. Try to get him out of the house, and have a good time. Even better, help him get a job.
One love, one life!