The Beatles, Album by Album--With the Beatles

The Beatles' second album, With the Beatles, was also their second LP released in '63. It came out at the height of Beatlemania in England, as their third single, "She Loves You," which basically is Beatlemania in concise song form, pushed them to unprecedented heights of popularity in their home country. They had not, however, broken into the American shores yet. Their fourth single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and their subsequent appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and stadium tour in the States, would break down the Atlantic wall in '64, but this time had not yet come to pass when With the Beatles was released at the end of 1963. This seems almost like a time of purity for the Beatles--they were bestsellers and beloved musical figures, but not yet the Christ-like icons that they would become in the coming years. Things were still about the music, the girls, and the fun back then.

Following a practice which they would sometimes use on later albums, the Beatles released no singles from this album. This was rather unusual, and displays a band full of confidence, not only that their current singles would sell, but that their LP could stand up on the strength of its songs. And it is indeed a songs album. Though it lacks the boundless energy and zest of the first album, it has a more consistent lineup than its predecessor. Though I've heard claims that this has a darker, more bitter feel than Please Please Me (mostly here), I can't say I really agree. Perhaps these claims are influenced by that iconic cover of the four lads half-covered in dark. I can see why someone would make this statement, though, because With the Beatles is much more R&B/soul-influenced than Please Please Me. We see a lot more John Lennon on this album, and less of the quirky covers that made the first album unique. This isn't a bad thing, though, because the Beatles, with songs like "You Really Got a Hold on Me" and "All I've Got to Do," proved they were an adept and soulful R&B band. One of the most underrated aspects of the Beatles for me is their strength as a straightforward, rocking ensemble back when they started. Although their songwriting was not always up to the standards they would set for all of rock music later on in their careers, they had a unique and thrilling power and energy especially in their rhythm section early on that set them apart from their peers.

Note the awesome rhythm guitar in "All My Loving." This is the most Beatlesmania-esque song on the album, but that guitar really takes it to another level. Paul didn't do as much of the writing on this album as John, but he delivered a classic with this. Their album opener is another killer, slamming itself out of those speakers even harder than "I Saw Her Standing There." "It Won't Be Long" rides itself to victory on the call-and-response chorus and Ringo's clashing cymbals. However, the second song, "All I've Got to Do," really sets the tone of the album for me. It's slightly stuttering rhythm and John's passionate vocal tells us that this will be a John-dominated R&B album.

John displays his love for American Motown proudly on here. "Please Mr. Postman" somehow comes near to toppling the great original by the Marvelletes (one could say I'm perhaps a bit biased towards girl groups, and even more biased that the original was used in Mean Streets in the best fight scene ever involving Harvey Keitel and a young, spry Bob DeNiro) through John's incredibly passionate, sometimes hilarious vocal performance ("Deliva da lettah, da soona da betta!"). Smokey Robinson (America's greatest living poet, according to Bob Dylan [!!]) also gets similar treatment from John with the awesome cover of "You Really Got a Hold on Me," featuring great harmony vocals from George and Paul. The only cover that I feel doesn't really stand up is their version of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven." George's opening is a pretty weak version of the classic Chuck Berry double-stop opening (how many songs exactly did he write that have this intro?), and the whole thing just sounds like a purile version of a classic Berry song. But John's love for Berry is noble, considering just how much of an influence he had on rock and roll (I would say he is the #2 influence on early rock after Elvis). This is what John had to say on the subject: ""If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry.'"

George puts out his first song on this album, called appropriately "Don't Bother Me," which might as well be his motto. It's not a great song, but I like it, partly because I love that whole fuck-you vibe of George around this time period. At a later date, it could get somewhat tiresome and annoying as he got more and more preachy, but at this point he just seemed like an angry young man. This is made even more interesting by the fact that he was in the biggest rock and roll band in the history of the world, so it's nice to think about someone who liked privacy and yet probably had absolutely none at this point. Lord knows he was getting laid a lot, though. From my memory, he won't have another song on an album for a good while, which is a shame, because even at this stage I think he showed some promise (others could probably debate that this isn't a great song, but oh well). I love the minor chords in here that go along with the lyrics.

"Till There Was You" is pure schmaltz, but no one in the entire world could pull off schmaltz like Paul, and he does so perfectly on it. Listen to that crisp guitar solo! There are some lesser songs on here ("Little Child," "Hold Me Tight"), but there is nothing that really stands out as terrible (I guess that is the Beatles for you). All of these early albums get better as you listen to them more. I would suspect that they are not nearly as tolerable to modern ears as the later Beatles albums, which sound incredibly modern (not surprising given how influential these albums were), but you have to realize that an album like Abbey Road was just not possible at this early date. The Beatles changed popular music itself as they advanced. They were at the top of their--and therefore everyone else's--game as each album came out. You have to try to keep that in mind listening to the early Beatles albums. But I personally love all of their early stuff. It's refreshing, when you are so used to hearing "Come Together" or "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" on the radio or on TV every day of your entire life. This is yet another reason to dig into their albums, because they have so many great songs that you never, ever hear on the radio (for unknown reasons).

--Edward

Desert Lives

There's not a whole lot to say about breaking into the post-college, post-school world of what is, the rest of your life. It's kind of like what I would imagine trying to describe a desert would be like (having not ever been to a desert); it's simply to vast to limit your perception well enough to take something away from the site. There's no longer anything that contains your life, nicely boxed up in five years of Elementary, three years of Middle, four years of High, or four years of Undergrad (variations on all apply). No, this is like a liquid set free on a surface, only to discover you kind of liked being held from spreading so thin. This is all not to say that this sort of outlandish new world I find myself in is somehow reportedly negative, but it is to address the true wild potential of the new world fearfully from a cubicle in a desert. (Sort of unrelated - I heard that British guy quote something I liked about deserts in a Planet Earth DVD, that the sands never stop shifting and being blown around on the surface, but the actual bases for the greater mountains of sand in the desert haven't moved in thousands of years.)

Now, you feel like you need to find something to build up from the ground to do something, because otherwise you might end up building yourself up from underground; like if we don't do something soon we'll have latched onto some sort of greater problem with life-girl, health, career, family, etc. and there will be no room to see anything else. I mean I guess that may be the big sort of hallucination of this desert, the big dreams of youth that appear hazy in the distance and when you get to them you're no longer providing for yourself, it's all for the next generation's chance to chase their undulating fantasies on the horizon. That may sound kind of sad, but in all honesty, I feel like at the rate I've been going over this year and a half into the desert I will probably be just fine with slowing it down. Don't get me wrong, I wanna live it up and see things and do things and all that, but I feel like I already have and already am. Not that I've led a glamorous life, but I tend to chronicle things with writings, pictures, and memories in me kopf, and each part of those, every little place/person/thing was like a little universe in itself. I feel like a life is a rather deceptive concept in that it pretends to be something that it's not: one entity that is complete and whole. School makes sense in a lot more ways than the after-school world because of those ~4 year intervals. Four years is about the length of time that my memory holds up, if that. Four years feels much more like a life than an entire life does. Childhood even feels like I lived three or four lives because of this, all of which were millenia ago, and I'm not even that old compared to a good chunk of the population. And the fact that I don't even have a distinct beginning of it all, no start of all memories that led to now, but rather a strange mythical past meshed between actual memories and fabricated memories from pictures and others' tales, that makes it all the stranger.

I guess I'm in the middle of something like my 6th life already based on those terms, and maybe in that sense of things I've got a couple years left of doing whatever I'm doing now before I'll just blank it all out and start over again with something else. People worry too much about the ultimate direction of things. People worry too much in general. I like that things can and do change, it puts things in perspective, as weird of a perspective that may be over time. I guess I've just spent so long trying to carve out something so defined in school that it ends up being a lot easier now to carve out much smaller things instead some grand, oppressive Career/voyage/journey that in reality is impossible to steer, control, or even hold onto. Unless you have the capacity for it, the education system we spent our lives (many at that) in was built to ship us out at a velocity and trajectory for the sun (when extrapolated). "It. just. don't. make. sense." It's a lot better to catch those fucking sand winds in some kinda sand-sailing type vessel and just ride those suckers out until you can ride them no more.

The Beatles, Album by Album--Please Please Me

The success of the Beatles' second single, "Please Please Me," led to their first LP in 1963, Please Please Me. It has one of the all-time great intros with the "One, two, three, faww" countdown by Paul bursting into the youthful exuberance of "I Saw Her Standing There." This song really sets the tone for the whole album. The Beatles' debut is an album of adolescent love, bursting with excitement at the possibilities to come. While relationships seems to be the theme (and will be for about the first half of Beatles albums), you can just as easily read this to be the excitement of creating and playing music. Lennon and McCartney start dipping their feet into the waters of songwriting here, and from the very get-go all of their singles were self-penned, which was rather unusual at the time. Their producer George Martin (the only true candidate for the Fifth Beatle as far as I'm concerned) initially pushed for them to record covers and release them as singles, but quickly learned that nothing they could cover could match up to the Lennon/McCartney originals. Still, at this point, John and Paul weren't the polished hits-makers that they would become later. As is the tradition of all of their early albums other than A Hard Day's Night, there are 6 covers on here and 8 originals. On a lot of these early albums, I love their covers just as much as the originals (sometimes more). Even though their songwriting wasn't always at its peak on these earlier albums, they brought more energy and enthusiasm than anyone else wallowing around in the post-Fifties wasteland of rock and roll before the British Invasion.

To me, this is not so much of a great songs album as much as it is just a great fucking rock 'n' roll record to put on at a party or when you want to have a good time. The two real classics here are the bookends. As mentioned earlier, "I Saw Her Standing There" explodes out of the gates full-throttle (something the Beatles specialized in). This was already a fairly musically advanced band, since they had been perfecting their chemistry by playing their infamous multi-set live shows in Liverpool and Hamburg. The guitar, bass, and drums were all pretty complex for the time, but of course it's the singing that is always the hook in Beatles songs. Paul uses plenty of his patented "Whoo's!" in this one. "Twist and Shout" is the finest song on the album, and one of John's most famous vocal performances. He absolutely tears the shit out of this one, nailing it in two takes with shredded vocals, since this was the last song recorded in a monster 18-hour session in which they cut the entire LP. As with several of their other covers, they managed to top the Isley Brothers original here. The energy is so damn infectious on here.

Elsewhere on this album, there abounds great gems waiting to be discovered. I have always loved "Misery," because of the way the catchy, upbeat music perfectly reflects the fleeting nature of teenage heartbreak and of course John's final doo-woop "Wah wah wah wah." "Anna (Go to Him)" has a great laid-back rhythm and a patented love-sick vocal from John. I love the transition from the choruses to the verse by John: "What am I, what am I supposed to do? Oh oh oh oh." John brought some of the most soul and fire to his vocals out of any white singer of that (or any) era. In fact, his singing on the early albums is what set the band apart from its peers. He was able to bring a lot of credibility and verve to American rock 'n' roll and R&B covers, and was clearly influenced immensely by Chuck Berry, Elvis, and Motown. Paul brought lots of soul to his later vocal performances with the band, but in my opinion John was the first stand-out vocalist.

The two singles on here--"Love Me Do" and "Please Please Me"--don't do particularly much for me, but maybe that's just because they've been so ingrained in my ears and head for all these years that I don't think about them too much anymore. That is certainly the case with a lot of Beatles hits. Both feature John's harmonica, which was apparently a big selling point for Beatles fans back then? Who knows.

There's plenty of other musical gems on here. This and A Hard Day's Night are probably the two most joyful albums in the Beatles catalogue, and while this doesn't have the songwriting perfection of that album, there is no album more raw and innocent of that or any other era than Please Please Me.

--Edward

Take Away Shows - What do Indie Hipster Musicians Acting Locally Have to Give to the World?

Having a lot of time to find music to blare in my head all day, I go on various journeys across Youtube's landscape, and being a fan of various so-called Indie fare, I often stumble upon these live-in-the-streets, impromptu shows. Sometimes dubbed "Take Away Show" or "They Shoot Music" or "Blogotheque", these videos showcase all the various Indie/Folk/AlternativeRunning-out-of-generic-genre-descriptors-for-20-somethings-with-hand-me-down-clothes-and-old-time-values-and-manners artists of today, in the flesh. They take everything out to the streets, on a bus, in a stairwell, or whatever places that are not in a studio.

As much of a gimmick as this may be to make these musicians look like they really are just shooting the shit and are as laid back as ever, while all the money and fame and major labels of modern music are as far away as the clouds in the distance, these videos, nonetheless, do reach a place that is hidden away from the iTunes library; from the remixed covers of covers; from the music video desensitized and auto-tuned digital world that has held a grip on modern music ever since MTV started falling apart in the late 90s. But most of all, it tries to pull you as far away from the internet as you can be while being on the internet watching these videos. It proposes to viewers that the outside world is still a part of our world, and it tempts people to go out and see it. Most importantly it creates something great out of something small.

By having the impromptu shows, these talented hipster-what-have-yous (to be fair, I'd only consider some of these as hipsters in the pure sense, others more vagabonds, and others still just shyer less glamorous artists than your run-of-the-mill KanyeWeezyTaylorSwift, and others just some random dudes and girls) are pleading in a very relaxed manner for people to forget our phones and our screens and simply go for a walk. If music is to move forward in some way, shape, or form, maybe it's best to stop worrying about the incessant voices that plague sites like Pitchfork and Youtube comments and forums and get out. I enjoy a lot of these artists because you can see that they make music because they love it, and they'll take that where ever it goes. I also think that getting outside to play music on the streets has a very subtle but strong way of embracing the ability music has to bring people together and put many different strangers into the same experience seamlessly. This, again, takes us away from our earbuds listening independently to our own song and own playlist, because while there is a time and place for delving deep into music with only yourself and some high quality headphones, music should also be heard with a lot of people, together, just like seeing an epic film in a theater with a huge crowd when it comes out. Live music means that much more because even though you may have heard the song before, when you hear it live, it is new and different. It is renewed. I'm not sure where exactly the take away shows will go in the future, but I'm happy they've made a place to escape to for now.

Here's a random collection of some of my favorite take aways among other similar performances:

Beirut - "Nantes": this may be the first one I ever saw (thanks to Jim), and at the time I didn't really know it was something done with multiple bands, so I thought it was just a Beirut thing - not that it wouldn't be because it suits their style anyhow. The singer in this is pretty much king. I love the many instruments too, a staple of the folk/indie music these days, just throw as many people and as many instruments up there as possible and have fun (see Arcade Fire and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes).

Phoenix - "1901": they sing in a circle in front of the Eiffel Tower (they're French ya know, how cute! but seriously, it kind of is), and I love that they can get away with that without that many, if any, recognizing them as Phoenix who has taken a pretty big step into radio, at least in the states, and I would think even more so over there. It helps that the camera has a really cool contrast for lighting and movement throughout.

Ben Lee - "Kids" (cover of MGMT): did I bash covers earlier in the post? Nah, I meant to only make fun of the absurdity of new artists covering old "classics" with weird remixed noises and farts here and there. But overall, I generally love covers, because who doesn't want to sing their favorite songs? Apparently, nowadays all of the artist cover each other, which is a nice way of giving it up to your peers. "Ben Lee just covered our song? Marfuggin' sweet."

Grizzly Bear - "Knife": the fact that they're kind of laughing and self-conscious throughout only helps this.

Johnny Flynn - "Brown Trout Blues": sounds of water and traffic and a calming song if there ever was one. Also, here he is in a cab as part of a whole other series - Black Cab Sessions: "Wayne Rooney"

The Morning Benders - "Excuses (Yours Truly Session)": even though it's actually not out on a street, it brings the collective feeling into the studio with three times as many artists than usual, as the singer explains in the beginning. Thanks to Edward on this one and the "some girl" that gave it to him.

Arcade Fire - "Neon Bible" or "Neon Bible live in an elevator!": pretty much all because that title is hilarious and exactly staples the gimmick to your head, setting the hipster roast aflame. But ah, what the hell, might as well have fun with these weirdos. For an actual better performance by them: "Wake Up"

Jason Mraz - "Live High": absurdly silly, I can't really take this guy seriously, but I still like the song, and this is a fine example of the take away show.

Bon Iver - "Skinny Love": because it's fucking great song, but also it's prime small venue gathering with a cross-legged sleepy tipsy audience that the cameraman creepily and steadily but assertively pans over. Also, I love that originally, this guy apparently recorded an entire album about heartbreak alone in a cabin somewhere in a (presumably snowy) forest. And for good measure, "Flume" (don't ask me what happens at the end).

Noah and the Whale - "Give a Little Love": for getting the look of a hipster/Timbo Cotter down perfectly. The song's great though.

Jose Gonzalez - "Fold": I love this guy. Apparently he started out in a Metal group and then started doing his own acoustic stuff.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes - "Home": because Letterman makes fun of there being fifty of them and even though this isn't necessarily a "take away show" it still has that feel because of how gypsy these gypsies are. That woman is so happy it's nuts.

The stars are projectors, projecting our lives down to this planet Earth....

Two words, Modest Mouse. If this band could take the form of a single man and he could speak the poetry that is their lyrics and his voice could soothe my soul, yet instill a wondrous rage deep down inside me as they do, I would marry that man today. I started listening to MM about eight years ago but, did not truly fall in love until I shed my adolescence and delved into my passion for music in general. I remember it was Beth Murdock who actually introduced them to me and we went as a group my junior year of high school to see them play in D.C. They had just recently released their album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, which happens to be one of my favorites. Sitting in the stands at Constitution Hall, I felt as if Isaac was speaking directly to my brain whilst tugging on my heart strings. I was obviously a fan before and after that show but, still was uneducated on most of their past albums and their beginnings. When I entered college, their music became my constant companion. Late nights were spent watching YouTube videos in my dorm room whilst trying to block out the sound of chattering sorority girls. I also walked EVERYWHERE in Richmond and always had them singing in my ears via my ipod nano (which was later ruined from an "accidental" beer spill by some asshole at a rugby party freshman year). After leaving college the first time and moving back home in 2007, I started my official Modest Mouse library and collected all of their albums. I would drive around in my car for hours on end with my good friend and companion, "Maryjane", exploring back roads while I was exploring their music.

"I drove around for hours, I drove around for days, I drove around for months and years and never went no place." -From Interstate 8

I personally feel that the sounds and phrases they have created are ground breaking, to say the least. I have yet to find a band I feel so connected to, so familiar yet strange at the same time. Each album they come out with is like a time machine for escaping harsh reality, a portal to some awesome abyss that I can get lost in for days. I often take out blank pieces of paper and just write their lyrics over and over, lyrics that are as beautiful to me as some Shakespearean sonnet to another.

"Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in, great for solving problems after it creates the problem"-From Blame it on the Tetons

To wind down this post, I will just say that their music has been the soundtrack to my life for sometime now and will continue to be until I leave this world. I dream of the day I can see them live again, unfortunately they are on a European tour at this time and haven't announced any more tour dates in the U.S. as of yet. My dedication to them as creators and masters of music is undying. I just recently got some of their lyrics I am especially passionate about tattooed on my arm and I plan to get more of their words forever imprinted on my body in the near future....

"Change my mind so much, I can't even trust it. My mind changed me so much, I can't even trust myself."-From Talking Shit about a Pretty Sunset

I hope this post inspires those of you who aren't fans to take a listen, I promise you won't be disappointed with the absolute art that is their music.

Fin.

The Beatles, Album by Album--Overview

In honor of music month, I'm going to attempt the mighty endeavor of chronicling the brief but impossibly bright career of my favorite rock band of all time, the Beatles. I'm a bit intimidated by this task, given the legendary status of this particular English group and the amount already written about them by every music critic ever, but I feel that it's my duty to spread the gospel of the Beatles. It frustrates me that so many people only know this band through their hits, which although they are unquestionably great and groundbreaking, represent only a small slice of what they have to offer. More than almost any other rock artist, they are an album group, and so shall remain till the end of time, no matter how often they play "Hey Jude" or "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on the radio (to name only a few). Anyways, if my writing isn't up to the task, please do not hold that against the Beatles. My only goal here is to spread some of my love for them to you. Now, sing, O Muse!, and let the spirit of John, Paul, George, and Ringo live in me!

To me, the heart of the Beatles is their sense of personality. I am drawn to the Beatles because I love the uniqueness in each of its members, and the way their personalities shine through so clearly in their music. Coupled with the fact that the two greatest pop songwriters of all time reside in it (Lennon/McCartney). The spirit of this group is in the dueling personalities of John and Paul. Paul, the relentless optimist, full of empathy and a sense of wonderment at the subtle beauty of life. John, the angry and rebellious hipster, full of bitterness at the world, and yet also with a strong idealistic backbone, and capable of tremendous emotional insight. To me, I always felt that I could relate to John more, but Paul was who I wish I was. Many a hipster or jaded youth will tell you that Paul has no soul and that John provided the real gravitas of the band, but this is bullshit. John did indeed dig deeper into negative personal emotions than Paul (goaded on in large part by his love for Bob Dylan), but Paul had an incredibly keen eye for writing songs with incredible insight into the human condition, and not just his own. "Eleanor Rigby" or "For No One" pay testament to this. I couldn't be asked to pick between these two. To me, they represent the two sides of human nature, and yet from time to time can exchange roles.

It somewhat surprises me that George has, in recent years, taken on the image of the kindly saint in the band. Much of his songwriting, especially early on, was just as bitter as Lennon, and even more reclusive. However, I think it is true that he was by far the most spiritual member of the band, and was the one who took everything they learned on their infamous trip to India seriously. He had a passionate love for Indian classical music. But what attracts me to George the most was this sense of reclusiveness and a voyage into the realm of the self. Ringo, God, he just has an amazingly charming personality. I love basically all of the songs he sings. He seemed like the funniest one by far. His voice is so innocent and happy. And he's an incredibly underrated drummer.

The Beatles rightly have an untouchable status in the world of music criticism. It seems impossible to me to call this band overrated. What would be untrue would be to call them the most innovative/original band of all time. The Beatles succeeded most at drawing inspiration from a number of sources and wrapping it into one neat, beautiful package, strongly influencing all of those who came after them because they were able to transform the musical revolutions and the changing sociopolitical current of the 1960s into a cohesive musical statement with some of the catchiest and most beautiful music ever. What matters more than their historical influence and innovation is, of course, their music, and in this area the Beatles are untouchable. Their singles were groundbreaking and always pristine; their albums, oases which you can lose yourself in for weeks and months, finding something new to latch onto every time.

There will never be another rock group like the Beatles. They could transform a mundane pop song into something breathtaking with a wave of their hands, with some magical harmony or a bridge that comes out of nowhere. Their writing was impeccable. They were strong, although not virtuoso musicians, like Cream, the Who, or Led Zeppelin. But I'm in love with their voices. That is a large part of what draws me to their music. I can't get enough of hearing them sing, whether solo or in harmony (as most of their songs end up in). The single best part of the Beatles (other than the songs themselves) is the sense of growth, which paralleled the sense of growth of an entire generation and of the world's culture. They began from their humble Liverpool roots as the brashest, catchiest band in the world. As their confidence grew in the studio, so did their sense of adventure and experimentation. Albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver chronicle not only a band growing into its shoes in the studio, but also the sense of mind expansion and emotional growth that comes along with growing into young adulthood. And the maturity and wisdom of their later albums is astonishing, considering that the band broke up before they were even 30. This was a band that an entire generation not only grew up hearing, but grew up along with. They documented a culture's growth, but also played a large part in shaping that growth.

Again, I hope I can do an adequate job at describing their music and showing why it matters to me. This is the only band I can think of with over ten albums where they are all good and all worth listening to. Their consistency is incredible. Coming up: Please Please Me.

--Edward

DECEMBER--Theme o' the Month: Music

Hallo, friends! The time has come and past for our back-to-back recollection/memory months of childhood and firsts, and lo! we have arrived at December. The topic of this month is music. Does anyone not like music? I do not know it to be so. Please feel free to write absolutely anything you want about music, any style. You can write about your favorite bands or songs. You can write about playing music. You can write about music theory (kudos points for whoever does this first). As always, you don't have to even write about the theme of the month--it's just a suggestion (To Catch a Predator guy: "It's just a question).

Hopefully this will be a big month to bring back some old faces and get some of the newer writers cranking more. I know I plan to write a lot more, since I'm feeling better than I have been in the last few months. Please, anyone, don't be intimidated and feel free to write about anything. Doesn't matter how shitty of a post it is, because we've all been there.

So there we have it--December's theme is music.

--Edward

First Time I Got Bananas

From smoking a banana. The era was Beach Week. The day was mid-week. The air was hot. And people wanted to smoke, bananas. So our good friend, we'll call him Cameroon, he was our great spiritual guide into this new world (well at least for me, I know J1 had smoked before, and I think J2 might have (names concealed for various internet privacy/courtesy reasons)). Cam was also there when I first tried bananas but didn't actually get bananas. This time, he said, it was sure to happen.

We found ourselves a space in the bathroom-damn all those who had to pee or worse that night for some hour(s) - and Cam took the helm on the toilet while the rest of us gathered around like disciples of the great herb-- er banana. I think I was standing in the shower, J1 was sitting on the tub, and J2 was sitting on the ground. Matt had also entered himself into the running for a bit in the beginning but he soon lost the will, and he scrambled off into the house for more booze and drunken romancing of the night.

Meanwhile, Cameroon was already lighting up the banana, and passing out the inaugural hits. I remember it taking some time to take effect, maybe years, but I kept at it, because damn it I wanted to get bananas. As per typical in big trips/boozing sessions involving many a people and species of people there tends to be drama and problems and life lessons dished out like hotcakes, and the only reasonable response to such things is to continue to lay ruin to yourselves and perceptions of life. I had various things mess up in the earlier days of the beach week, but those would probably be best left to later posts, the point being, it was time to get bananas.

I had the oft-experienced "I'm not high yet / I don't feel anything yet / it's not working" as many a naive youth does when venturing into contraband only to be struck across the face with its effects ten-fold in an instant, as it catches up to your body. My initial feeling was this, the bathroom was in space as a capsule, and we were in it. There was only space surrounding the small bathroom cube were in, as in cosmic space. It was an intense high for sure. We spent a good while in there, or at least it seemed that way against the warped time-space continuum we now occupied. The main conversation that occurred between the passing was J2 giving us the rundown on his relationship at the time. I'm not sure how we got there, but he was going deep into it, while jumped around on the shower curtain rod, J1 sat smiling I'm sure, and Cam sort of stared out into the depths of space. At a certain point towards the end of one particular anecdote involving this girl, there was a bit of a pause, and Cam suddenly chimes in, "Wait, what are you talking about?"

J1 and I burst out laughing, like humor was suddenly woven into our bones controlling our bodies when it so chose. I also realized that most everything I laughed at was just plain mean, but I couldn't stop it. Everyone was funny, and everyone was dumb, and I was the dumbest of all, but none of it mattered. Before we knew it, we were apparently finishing up and preparing to exit the great bathroom. Cam sat up from his Buddha/Jabba the Hut pose in the middle of the room, and we got up with him. He cleaned up the remains and went to the door, but before he opened it he turned to us with a big delirious smile.

"Today is the first day of the rest of your lives, boys!" He started. "You're never gonna be able to look at your mothers the same way! Nothing will be the same! You're minds will be altered from here on out, and although the man might be staring you down, you'll be laughing in his face! This is where we break free and learn to live! Now, go! Go! Go!"

And he waved us out the door, each of us bolting out with big dumb smiles slapped across our faces as we fell into an abyss of images, scenery, and record-skipping time lapses. J1 and I quickly paced into the living room looking around at the faces then back at each other. We were already starting to crack. We couldn't take trying to pretend to be normal, even if everyone around us was trashed. We kept walking onto the other bathroom on the other side of the house. We were safe, and when we tried to talk about, we just started laughing, and didn't stop for maybe a good twenty minutes.

The rest of the night went less sequentially as it did in portraits, like when we were back in the living room watching what appeared to be Cameroon and Zachariah Bohemian clash drunkenly. These are large, large young men, and they battled wildly as I stared on in disbelief. Another short portrait was on the way back to the other house where we were staying. We took the back way to avoid my crush of the era so I wouldn't have to interact on bananas (we got word she was headed our way). I was a nervous wreck around her most of the time those days, and being rather paranoid it wasn't going to get any better if we went the normal way. We also spent a good hour or five in one of the bedrooms lying around and just listening to shit happening outside like some female cop yelling at kids. I remember seeing J1 looking like he was depressed and I told him that everything was all right, and that he shouldn't be upset with himself over everything, but he didn't respond. Turns out later, as he told me, that he was simply bananas and didn't hear a word I said, and he was actually rather happy.

The night was capped off with a big and stupid argument with a highly inebriated friend of ours (who'd actually pushed for us to get high earlier that night) about which drug was worse, weed or booze. Then we passed out and forgot ourselves.

first time i saw a porn video

hi all,

im new here, ed invited me. hopefully this post is entertaining enough....

so i must have been in 8th grade (obviously i was a late bloomer) and for some reason was in my mom's room snooping around when i found some vhs tapes (remember those?). so i grabbed a couple and popped them into the vcr. i was crazy 80's porn. i remember being so weirded out. the music was awful. i had never actually seen anyone having sex before. while i was completely appalled by what i was seeing, i was so intrigued, became almost obsessed. i would sneak into my moms room all the time and find ones that i hadnt watched yet. i think was only a phase and didnt last very long, but i will never forget the blonde chick and the black dude doing it in the shower to awful music.

My First Crush(es)

I'm going to include two here--my first real, "adult" (I was in seventh grade!) crush and my first, first crush.

Onto the first ever crush. The location was Waterford Elementary, school of the damned. I do not remember what year this crush started, since its origins come from a time and place very primeval. For those trying to keep a timeline, let's just say second grade. The girl was Aubrey. Now I don't think this was unusual, since it seemed to be pretty much accepted that she was the most attractive girl in our grade. This consensus never changed during our stay in the hallowed halls of Waterford, even when in 5th grade the principal changed to Mr. Vickers and our lives changed forever.

So I doubt I was the only person who had a crush on Aubrey (see: Josh Nesbit, the actual winner of her heart). What really sealed this crush in my memory was the fact that she was my cousin. Not a close cousin, mind you. I don't even know how she is related to me. I asked my dad once before, and it didn't even make sense. But that mark of shame was there for all to see. People like Tim Cotter's dad would always give me shit about this. When it first started, though, I seemed pretty shameless. After all, these were the early years of elementary. I remember writing her love notes and giving her (I'm sure very cheap) gemstones, since gems were my passion at one point. Of course she never seemed particularly down with the idea of liking me back, and instead dated the alpha male of Waterford, Josh Nesbit. I believe him and I even had conversations about our attractions to her, but I mostly forget what they were about. Probably just me being like, "You are so lucky, Josh."

One day I should ask Aubrey about these days, but then again, I'm frightened to death of her now. I think I've talked to her about it before, though, but there is always time for more in-depth analysis. Unless of course you are frightened when a person even messages you. But that's another story for another day and poster (cough Colin).

Okay, so onto what I consider my first "real" crush. My Waterford Elementary crush was pretty one-sided and almost chivalric in its sense of courtly love--I gave Aubrey gifts and expected apparently nothing in return. Oh, that innocence.

The time is seventh grade. Math class. Blue Ridge Middle School. I sat next to and almost immediately became buddies with Erin. What differentiates this crush from my previous one is that our relationship was actually pretty mutual. We were friends. We talked all the time and laughed. I had had this in limited doses in sixth grade, but not to this extent. I got the idea that she actually liked me back, too. I liked Erin because she had a sense of humor and because she wasn't (at this point) the typical bombshell that all the other guys liked (see: Jacque Christy, Aubrey, the Everharts, et. al.). I don't know why, I've just always liked a girl that wasn't hounded over by other guys. I don't want the trophy wife. I want someone special to me in a way that others missed. I'm not sure why this is in terms of deeper psychological reasons.

Anyways, we got along well enough, and talked every night online on AIM, which was a humongous communication tool back then (see here)--I think an even more meaningful equivalent to today's Facebook. At this point I made the mistake that will doom me the rest of my life. I guess she already knew my best friend, Daniel. But I was the one who gave both of them each other's screen names, starting a relationship that would lead to actual dating, surely a step I probably would not have gotten to (although if there was any girl I would've felt comfortable enough with back then, it was definitely her). I got relegated to the position of going on double dates with them in the friend position with another girl I was just friends with. Being a bitter fuck, I tried my best to repay them by making fun of them excessively, but we all know you can't really ever crawl back out of that hole. Moral of the story: Never let any girl you like near Daniel.

--Edward