Week In Review

Monday - 

Guitar Center - I hate guitar center. Let me start by saying this. I hate dealing with musicians who think they are better than you (and they are better than me, but then again I don't play a genre of music referred to as "Cock Rock"). I went to Guitar Center 3 times in the last 2 weeks and here is how they went:

Time 1: I went to Guitar Center to buy a small amp so that I could start to pretend to play in a band. I had already tested the amp I wanted during a previous excursion, and so I went in head up and bright eyed, hoping to look like someone who had had no idea what a "guitar" was and desperately needed help being stripped of his cash. This did not work, as I waited for a solid 10 minutes as Guitar Center employees (you can tell because they probably have a pony tail, some sort of facial hair, and a plethora of tattoos,) walked by, completely disregarding me. I should've tried my normal tactic when faced with this situation at retail outlets, raise both my hands real high and hope someone helps (I decided against this, because the image of someone putting both hands in the air might inspire a flame out loser to start playing "Freebird") 

Eventually, I went up to the counter to ask the fine young man if he could help me get a guitar. He then muttered "maybe" and gave me an extended talk on a warranty. After taking 5 minutes to find someone to cover the front, then 5 minutes to get the amp, he came back and rung me up. Well, if you don't count the 10 more minutes it took for a manager to respond to the constant page of "need customer service at the front desk." (Apparently washed up musicians still trying to "make it" aren't reliable or speedy in anyway. Who knew?) Finally, I check out, warranty in hand, which coincidentally leads to time 2. 

Time 2: The same day I bought the amp it broke. A knob fell off as I was carrying it in and amazingly, all the knobs on an amp are important. So I went back a few days later to return it, thanks to my nifty warranty. Before you can enter the store with an item, you have to check it in, to make sure you aren't stealing it and pretending to bring it back. So I walk into the store and wait. And then another guy with a return comes. We wait. A third cowboy joins the party and we all wait. The store had just opened so it wasn't busy (there was maybe 2 other customers in the store.) As I stood there, I noticed 1 customer being helped by 2 employees and these employees would occasionally stare in my direction, not make direct eye contact and go back to helping this guy figure out which axe will make his cock seem longest.

Eventually a guy said he would help me, but he had to help the customer that was already being helped by someone else first. Eventually the manager waddled over and called everyone to the front. They exchanged the amp with no problem from there. They didn't even check the box and so I wished that I had poured cement in there instead of an amp. 

Time 3: I went to ask the fine fellows if they had a guitar pedal that I needed. 

Me: "Hey, do you have this guitar pedal?"

DBag: "No."

Me: " ...Can I order it?"

DBag: "We don't have it."

Didn't even check inventory. Just looked at me, and then my said shirt and said he knew someone who worked at my company, and gave me a name that I didn't know and asked if I knew him. I wish I could've said "Hey, do you know Mark at Guitar Center in Freehold, NJ?"

Thursday: 

I ordered a guitar pedal on eBay. I won it for dirt cheap, well below what others were going for, which in turn left me with this message in my inbox:

"Yo, you got this dirt cheep. IM PISSED. Whatever."

So I had high hopes that the package would contain said pedal and perhaps some feces. So I was anxious to get it, of course. I tracked it and knew it would be coming on Thursday and so I got to my apartment complex at 5:58, the office closes at 6. As I pull up, I see the sign on the door that says "see you at 9 tomorrow." I am pissed, but I get out and see one of the ladies inside. I knock on the door and make the international symbol for "package" (which is basically holding your hands 6 inches away from each other like you are about to eat a loaf of bread like a child from a Dickens' novel). She said no (even though the package was within 4 steps of her current position. I said, "It's not 6 yet." She looked at me and did the most stereotypical thing a middle aged black woman could have done "YES IT IS," with some fierce head movement for emphasis. I got back in my car, slammed the door and then proceeded to lay on the horn all the way back to my apartment. That'll show her. 

Saturday:

I always knew I lived in the bad part of town. Whenever I tell anyone what road I live off, they cringe slightly, and for some reason never want to make the trek over. Today, I officially found out why. I was googling my apartment complex and found a review page with the first review headline "DO NOT LIVE HERE UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET STABBED OR DO HEROIN."

I had to click, before I even read the post, the reviewer gave a link to the Greensboro police report website and said "type in the complex address and watch the reports pile up." I did, I set the date range from Jan 1, 2009 to today. Can you guess the number of incidents in those 45 days? Would you guess over 100? You'd be correct. In fact there were too many to list. I started clicking and found that almost all of them were break ins. I am shocked and awed that my shit hasn't been stolen yet. At more than 2 break ins per day, it's only a matter of time before a "hoodlum" as the review said, collects my things, disperses them throughout the Greensboro area pawn shops and buys himself some shiny rims. 

The review said to count myself lucky if this hand't happened to me yet. So, as of tomorrow I will be looking for a new place to live (this isn't the only reason, as I've found I can live for at least $300/month cheaper in areas that are significantly less shady). Let's hope I don't get robbed in the meantime. 

The Time I Went to The Grammys II (Part 2)

Adele wins the best new artist award and I am shocked. I love Adele's song "Chasing Pavements" even though rumor has it, it's about being a lesbian (granted, I've only heard this rumor for Christan radio stations that refused to play it, but apparently "pavement" is code for vagina.)

So I hope that Adele doesn't die an early death like Mama Cass from eating one too many ham sandwiches. This girl is 20 and probably weighs a metric ton. 

Morgan Freeman comes out to introduce Kenny Chesney and claims they are friends. My mind almost explodes on the spot. 

Next up was probably the 2nd best performance of the night with MIA decked out in a sort of Frog looking bikini/pregnancy outfit (I believe she wore this so that if she popped the baby out the slutty mesh netting would catch the baby and she could just keep on performing). She lip-synched part of her "Paper Planes" song (which I only liked until it was played behind the trailer of Pineapple Express) and then CBS made the feed black and white when Lil Wayne, Kanye, Jay-Z and a mysteriously un-handcuffed TI came out. They rapped a little ditty about having some swagger and pretending to be the rat pack (Black Pack? Has anyone used this yet?) The performance was definitely captivating as some of the greatest rappers "in the game" as Dan would say, all got together and sang off key all at once. Quite a feat. 

They were immediately followed by Paul McCartney playing an old Beatles' song (with Dave Grohl's fatter, older brother on drums). And I was convinced that he would cut off this Beatles' song after 2 minutes and play some terrible song off his new CD (that will most likely win 8 awards next year), but he didn't. He played 3 short mintutes and got off stage. Thank you. 

Jay Mohr introduces somebody but only because he has a show that will get cancelled by CBS in 2 months. He got real fat (he thought this would make CBS like him more and keep his terrible show on for 8 seasons like other overweight comedians - Kevin James, anyone?)

Next up Sugarland performs and I can't help but believe that this is Trudy Weigel from Reno 911 with a blond wig on. She is nervous and awkard and not very attractive and to my knowledge, neither has been in the same room at the same time. 

Sometime later on (the show really started to drag and I was trying to sneak in 4 minute segments of Swingers in between) Gwenyth Paltrow put on some braces and made herself a 13 year old again (luckily she would not have to suppress any breasts to accomplish this feat, as she has none) and some how managed to gargle that Radiohead was playing next. 

And they did. Oh god they did. Or more accurately, Thom Yorke conducted the USC marching band while Johnny Greenwood played guitar. The performance was just awesome, I have only gotten into Radiohead in the last 3 years and I've always wanted to see them, but seeing a show in any Arena or Stadium is the equivalent of watching a 13" TV from a football field away. Not fun. I was speechless though, Thom Yorke is a wiggly one eyed genius. 

Sam Jackson then comes out to introduce TI and Justin Timberlake and says "One of these is my great friend another is a great musician." Would you have offered to eat shit if he said Justin Timberlake was his friend and TI was a great musician? Well Sam Jackson just made you eat a shit sandwich. Their performance just kind of read like one long "please I've learned my lesson don't put me in jail" rant.

Jamie Foxx comes back on stage for some to act as a member of the Temptations. No longer is Jamie Foxx a comedian or actor, he now makes his living ripping off old black motown legends. Good times. Also a surprise, he has grown his hair out so that you can't see his crazy stupid head tattoo. 

The show is nearly at 3 hours and so CBS decides it's time to slow it down (after a very solid first 3 hours, bravo CBS) and take 12 minutes worth of commercial breaks before the last performance. Unfortunately I stuck around to see Lil Wayne do a tribute to New Orleans (I was hoping he would play his awesome new rock song "Prom Queen" - youtube it for fun) but instead a whole bunch of brass instruments came out and he rapped. Boring. 

I didn't stick around for album of the year because I knew it would go to Robert Plant for some god awful reason (voters liked Led Zepplin?) I woke up the next morning to see that I was correct and once again, the Grammys end on a sour note! Nothing like ending a solid show with 28 minutes of commercials and 2 minutes worth of giving false praise to an album that no one bought or will listen to and enjoy. 

A belated Super Bowl blog will run later this week. 

The Time I Went to The Grammy's II (Part 1)

So for the second year in a row I got a front row seat at the grammy's in front of my HDTV. Thanks to my recent "everything must go" attitude, I am down to one television channel. Thankfully on this particular Sunday night, that channel is CBS (Never again will I be thankful that my only channel is CBS unless I want to kill myself by watching Everybody Loves Raymond re-runs and The Big Bang Theory first runs). So here we go, there are no time stamps just commentary (I find that refreshingly unoriginal.)

The show starts off with an incredibly old U2 playing a brand new song which has officially bombed at radio. I have yet to hear this song until now and for that I am thankful. I find out the name of this song is "Get on Your Boots" because the lyrics are flashing at me in 50 foot letters, trying to give me epilepsy. The only other aspect that stood out was that Bono was definitely wearing platform shoes, a la Baby Spice in 1996. They are most likely Sketchers. 

Whitney Houston followed up U2's performance with a nice little drugged out number of her own that went something like. "I'm Whitney, please like me again. Remember how Bobby beat me and made me do crack? Feel bad for me. IM BACK." That's what she meant to say it actually came out like "Damn these cue cards are hard to read. I can't believe anyone can do this. Oh, you want to see my thigh? Let me take 15 seconds to compose myself and make sure I don't fall over before sliding my dress up. What's that? My ativan bottle fell out of my purse? Oh my. Oh my. Ohhhh my." She was a mess, she presents Jennifer Hudson with the best R&B album and if I gambled I would've gambled all my money that she would win. It's automatic when 3 family members die. I'm surprised Susan Lucci hasn't discovered this yet. 

The Rock tries to make a Katy Perry "I Kissed A Girl" joke and bombs, followed by the CBS cameras showing Katy opening her eyes real big in faux embarrasment. You will the whites of her eyes at least 12 more times during this broadcast. It's her go to move. 

Justin Timberlake takes the stage and also fails at comedy. He then teams up with Al Green, Keith Urban and the shell of Boys II Men to sing an Al Green song. Other than Boys II Men adding about 400 lbs between them, the only other notable thing is that they dance terribly (most likely because of the weight gain.) I'm also glad to see that Keith Urban was able to put down the bottle long enough to pick up a guitar. 

Coldplay comes out and plays a slow song and then they are mysteriously joined by Jay-Z. It was weird, it was like he was freestyling he was so bad. (I too, could probably rhyme over with over). I had the most fun with this because I was waiting for Joe Satriani to hop up on stage and serve Coldplay with a subpeona because they apparently stole one of his songs and are avoiding him. The tension is just killing me! The highlight here is when singer Chris Martin lifts his arm up to reveal that his shirt is about 4 inches to short for this performance. 

Carrie Underwood is sexy. Until she sings. Her dress is fantastic showing lots of thigh and making Tony Romo weep at the thought of what he used to have. Then she starts singing and it sounds like a fat 45 year old trailer park floozy who aint gonna get cheated on by her man no more. Only 15 more years till this happens!

Al Green is singing again, but this time it's during an award. I do not appreciate this. I believe we are about 30 minutes in and only 2 awards have been handed out. I'm ok with this. Coldplay wins songs of the year and quickly get off stage so they don't get served. 

Kid Rock has had an interesting career. When he came out he rode the coattails of the douche bag rap rock genre. When that dried up he kind of disappeared before realizing those fans were still there they just all went into the military because that's what guys who like Kid Rock do. So now instead of doing rap rock, he plays southern rock that proclaims his love of America. I don't like it, but it's an ingenious move on his part. Good market research kid!

Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus sing a song about being fifteen even though neither of them are and then share an awkward high five after, that sort of screams "I hate you but we have the same fans let's show them that I didn't just call you a bitch 5 minutes ago." Miley says this, she wears the pants. 

Jason Mraz gets dressed up to present an award, wearing jeans and converse all-stars. God, he really keeps it real, you know? I hate Jason Mraz because I read that he started making music because he was tripping on LSD while listening to Dave Matthews and decided that's what he wanted to do with his life. Shows that he has a real passion. Coincidentally I often snort coke and listen to Ricky Martin to get the same inspiration. 

Next up the Jonas Brothers take the stage with Stevie "the human blimp with a leather jacket thrown over him/it" Wonder. One of the brothers forgets the lyrics to "Superstitious" and I wonder how many times a rendition of this song has been played on the Grammy's. I'm guessing somewhere between 12 and 50. 

Blink 182 reunites and for some reason I am unfathomably excited for this even though a) I only really loved one album and b) I have not missed them at all. The good news is that I still hate Tom. Let's hope they cut out his vocals chords for the next record and just replace it with a 4 year old whining about shit and piss. 

Katy Perry has a nice fruit themed performance that is hindered by the fact that she has a headset instead of a handheld mic. She has no idea what to do with her hands so she mostly prances around like a 50's pin up girl (shocked?) and CBS is very careful not to do any closeups because her boobs are literally bouncing a good 6 inches in every direction. Damn you Janet Jackson. 

Part 1 raps up with the self-proclaimed greatest rapper of all time, donning a mullet so fierce Tito Jackson would be jealous. He sings a song with Estelle that I've heard before but I never knew who it was. She lets her backing track do most of the singing and I'm just thankful Kayne only raps and doesn't sing his new auto-tuned single. 

Back tomorrow with Part 2. 

25 Random Things (From Facebook)

1. I have fallen asleep listening to TV shows for the better part of this decade. This originally started because I needed something to focus my mind instead of my own terrible thoughts, but now it is built into my nature. This started with Scrubs, Arrested Development, The Office and now 30 Rock. They have to be comedies. 

2. I regret not taking better advantage of the social scene in college. Having an inferiority complex does not make for fun times (most-ul-ly). 

3. I have not drank any alcohol, since my mother used to like to watch the funny look on my face when I tasted Corona at the tender age of 10. It began as a hatred of alcohol but has become principle as everyone I know that has ever been "straight edge", like me, has decided to drink at some point after they are 21. 

4. I am straight edge and in addition to drinking, I do not and will not ever smoke anything. 

5. My parents are on facebook and that is not so secretly embarrassing. I am 100% positive my mother will read this note and, in turn, that makes me not want to write this note. I hate that old people take over young people's mediums. 

6. My mother used to have the AOL screen name "kelsonsmom". This would be embarrassing on it's own, but she would then steal my friends screen names from MY buddy list and then look at their profiles. It gets worse. Remember 8 years ago when everyone had those "who has seen my profile?" trackers in their info? Well let's just say most of my friends profiles would show that "kelsonsmom" had looked at that profile. 

7. I am already running out of random things and sort of feel like a sell out for writing this. I can't believe that 25 random things is sweeping facebook. What possessed one random kid one day to be like "I'm gonna post 25 random things about me and send them to all my friends and within a month 38% of facebook will hop on this." Anyone could've done this. 

8. I have only seriously dated 3 girls in my lifetime. I have been interested in some form or another in approximately 37. There will be a book coming out that documents this amazing inability of mine. 

9. I am addicted to television, but because of my recent poverty, cut off my cable. Thank god for Hulu. 

10. I went to catholic high school and used to be all about God and going on spiritual retreats. Catholic school changed this and I haven't been to church in any form since freshman year of college and that was only because I like a girl (a valid excuse). 

11. I used to do high school theatre. I am not and was not a good singer but I always got a minor role selling apples or cleaning shoes in the background. 

12. After each performance of each play the male cast would go into the changing room and play "Date Rape," by Sublime. You can insert your own joke here....

13. My favorite band is The Appleseed Cast. Out of my 271 friends on facebook I would wager a guess that only 12 of them know who The Appleseed Cast and half of them probably found out because of me. I love when people ask me who my favorite band is and I say "You wouldn't know them." And they say "Try me." This is probably one of the reasons I still list them as my favorite band even though they've only put out one good CD in the last 5 years. 

14. I am in a band called It's Just Vanity. This band has been together for approximately 4 or 5 years and we've put out one CD and played exactly 2 shows (acoustically). This will be rectified in the coming months. 

15. I am uncovered by health insurance. Once I was uncovered, I made the mistake of watching Michael Moore's "Sicko" and proceeded to watch the rest of the film with giant tears in my eye. I do not recommend this. 

16. I used to hate reading. I now love reading, my favorite author is Chuck Klosterman. I also enjoy David Sedaris and really, any sarcastic essayist.

17. I have exactly 2 solid friends left from high school. All the rest basically hate me for some reason that I will never exactly get. This makes me mildly sad as my senior year in high school hanging out with them was pretty awesome. I hope they read this and will want to hang out again at some point in time.

18. I have taken 6 years of French and at some point would like to try to actually speak the language. Often, I am too scared to speak to the Haitians at work in French. They speak way too fast for me. They also hate me because I'm white. 

19. Most of my best friends live at least 450 miles away, excluding one who goes to school in South Carolina.

20. Even though I am very much into music and can probably classified in the indie or emo genre, I love sports (which is a rarity in that world.) I love the New York Mets, Miami Dolphins and Charlotte Bobcats. 

21. I am a gambling addict. This started on a whim during football season (where I made over $100 and has finished as of yesterday when I was gambling on San Antonio Spurs games. I swear this is it (until next football season.)

22. Out of college, I thought I had my dream job working in the music and movie industry. Within 10 months I was burned out by promoting bands and TV shows (Frank TV) that sucked and working 60 hour weeks for companies that never thought I was doing enough. So now I do manual labor for a tyrant. 

23. I passed my first and second kidney stones at the tender age of 21 and it was incredibly painful. Most people don't get kidney stones until their 30's or 40's. I hope I just traded up in life. 

24. I have been driving for 7 years and I am already on my 5th car. My grandma left my a car in her will (it was crashed before I ever drove it), my second car was totaled in an accident in North Carolina, third car just up and died, the 4th car was a Prius and it was awesome and expensive, so I sold it. I now drive a Nissan Sentra. 24a. I am not a car guy and could not even begin to tell you how cars worked. 

25. I love movies. Movies often make me cry, especially when its an emotional scene where a normally lame band like Snow Patrol or Spiritualized plays in the background. I immediately get the soundtrack and proceed to fall in love with the female characters.

The Time I Got A Parking Ticket Two Years Ago

I came across this on the Elon Pendulum (school newspaper) website, as I was googling myself to try to find a website I had built during my Elon career. This ran in the Letters to the Editor section and in reading it again, I am very proud of it and have posted it here, for you, unedited. Enjoy.

Recently, I became a member of the parking ticket fraternity of Elon University. The one who inducted me was probably the same one who inducted many other students here, for his only job is to assign parking tickets. While I realize that a parking ticket is not a huge deal, there are certain circumstances of this particular incident that alarm me.

First, let me backtrack and give you the situation. I was forced to park on campus for about five minutes as I was driving to the library to pick up audio CDs, since ESTV had none left. I parked in a visitors spot for literally four minutes, with no parking sticker on my car, and received a ticket at the halfway point of my criminal act, two minutes after I entered the library and two minutes before I came out.

I immediately went to Campus Police to argue the ticket. I told them that I had parked in a visitor’s spot with no parking sticker on my car, thus inferring I am a visitor. I was then told I am not a visitor and cannot park on campus, even for four minutes, until after 5 p.m.

Needless to say, I was a little upset, as $50 for a parking ticket is a little . . . expensive. Just a note: New York City parking tickets are $65. The city has 8.1 million residents – Elon has 5,000. It might be harder to find a parking spot there, but that’s just my guess.

Now, I find it only justifiable that I point my anger at the man who gave me this ticket and the company of which he works for. I decided my problem is not that this man’s only job is to hunt down criminals like any police officer – his job is to hunt down minor criminals for parking infractions. There are still real criminals roaming the campus of Elon, as we have witnessed from the increase of reported incidents this year.

Personally, I have had more than $2,500 worth of equipment stolen while at Elon (an iPod, laptop and DVDs).

Yet, instead of hiring an additional officer who could roam the campus on foot to protect students, we have an officer who roams in a car, causing students more grief than anything else.

I find it preposterous that I received a parking ticket in four minutes, yet the police officers who lived less than 20 feet from me when I was robbed still have no clue where my laptop is. As a student who paid $27,291 this year, I shouldn’t have to pay a $50 dollar fine. My money could be better spent protecting myself and other students rather than being used to pay more money to fund a salary that will only give students more parking tickets.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pay my $50 parking fine, so that I can pay my $70 graduation fee, so that I can graduate, so I can move to NYC and never drive again.

-Kelson Fagan, ‘07