Music I'm Feeling Right Now

A few months ago, a friend of mine named Mandy introduced me to Pandora, an online music program that allows you to sample full songs from various artists. For example, I’m a big fan of Mars Volta. I just make a Mars Volta station and I will hear that group’s songs along with other artists who have music similar to theirs.

This has allowed me to find about some other bands that I wasn’t familiar with and are now in my music rotation. I wanted to share some of these with you and encourage you to check them out or even mention some lesser-known groups that you like that I and others should check out.

The Rum Diary: These guys are a band that I’ve recently got into. They play some chill music that makes me relax. I just found that they are no longer a group, which makes me sad. They’re described as “dream rock” and “post-rock” which is a great description of them. I recommend their album “We’re Afraid of Heights Tonight.” Here’s some videos from them: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6725544983680535614&q=the+rum+diary&ei=HrkxSNuvN5GErgLlgtiKCg and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6725544983680535614&q=the+rum+diary&ei=HrkxSNuvN5GErgLlgtiKCg

Minus the Bear: I was listening to Bloc Party and the music from this band came on and I was intrigued. I’ve enjoyed every one of their songs, even though they have some odd titles to their songs. I was afraid that I wouldn’t like their stuff because they sounded poppy like some bands such as Death Cab for Cutie, who I’m not a big fan of. However, like Bloc Party, these guys rock out solidly. They’re described as a “math rock” or “experimental rock” group, which is fair I guess. I recommend their album, Planet of Ice. Here are some videos from them: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8541991425406585658&q=minus+the+bear&ei=GLcxSK7AK6X2rAK0nsiACg and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8541991425406585658&q=minus+the+bear&ei=GLcxSK7AK6X2rAK0nsiACg

Yes and Genesis- My old roommate had Yes music blasting at 3 a.m. one night and it was the only time that I wasn’t mad that he was blasting loud music late at night. I love these guys. Its funny that I’m into some progressive music like Mars Volta, yet I find myself coming back to these guys. They were the old school prog band that made it cool to play a song for 20 minutes without any apologies. Also, they would bust out with three and four-part harmonies vocally. Genesis is a different story. They kinda reinvented themselves throughout their career. There were the early years with Peter Gabriel, where they were the kinds of Prog Rock. Gabriel leaves and Phil Collins takes over the vocals and they stay true to their prog roots for a while before progressing into the most popular form of Genesis we know of today. I kinda like the band from 1976-83. This is when they blended all of their stuff. Mama is a good song, Home by the Sea and Second Home by the Sea are solid tracks. Even Supper’s Ready is good. There’s plenty of videos from these guys that you can check out.

Does this make me look like a wuss?

Well, I’m writing this from the bus as our Bruins baseball team heads over to DeLand, Fla. to participate in the Atlantic Sun Tournament. I think our guys have a good shot of making a run here, but I’ll have some posts throughout the week about that.

This post is about things that us guys tend to like but don’t want to admit.

This started with my statement that when I type the posts for this blog, I’m usually sitting on my bed and reflecting on things, similar to Carrie Bradshaw on the show, Sex and the City. I actually enjoyed that show very much and when I would tell people that, I would get looks and mocked for liking a show about four upper-class women in New York City.

The main reason that I like the show was that it was based in my hometown. Second, I was a big fan of Charlotte, if you know what I’m saying. Also, Mr. Big was my boy.

So that got me thinking about what other things do guys like but fail to admit?

Today, I tried a new product from Gillette that is a body and facial wash. I used it for the first time and my face has never felt fresher. It was like a flash of sunshine on my skin and my face feels so nice right now. I plan to use this product more in the future.

It seems like a lot of guys don’t admit to liking creams, facials, spas and other things of that nature because it makes them sound soft. I’ve personally never gotten any treatment at a spa, but my mother used to place these fruit, peel-off wraps on my face when I was a kid and those were OK I guess.

However, the one thing that I’m into that gets the most reaction is my enjoyment of soap operas, particularly General Hospital. I got into soap operas at an early age because my mother is such a fan of them, especially General Hospital.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed the exploits of Sonny Corinthos, Carly, Luke Spencer, Laura, Jason Morgan, Alexis, Lucky, Elizabeth, Nicholas, Robin, Dylan and countless others. I can write a whole new post about my love for the show, which will probably come sooner rather than later.

The reasons that I like these shows is one, there are no repeats. Every episode is new and runs throughout the entire year, including the summer. So there is never a time when you turn on the show and you see something old.

Second, the plot lines are ridiculous. Everyone has sex with each other, everyone becomes a friend one minute than an enemy next, no one is safe from being killed and coming back to life (happens all the time), everyone has a potential twin and my personal favorite, when someone “dies,” yet will come back as a whole new character and its accepted as normal.

Third, it only takes about two weeks of watching the soap opera everyday to catch up on six months. I haven’t watched General Hospital in months, yet I know that if I dedicate a week to checking it out, I will be caught up.

Finally, have I mentioned the women. The chicks on these shows are game. Even the ones who are supposed to be homely or ugly are beautiful. I’ve had major crushes on some of these women for years and if you ask a male GH fan about Brenda, aka Vanessa Marcil, they’ll acknowledge the hotness she brought to the table.

So those are some of the things that I like that most guys seem to not want to admit too. There are probably some more. Until next time…

No Female Roommate for Me

So I won’t have a female roommate and what I learned from the experience.

A few weeks ago, my former roommate informed me that he was moving out to another place. It was fine and it meant that I had to find a new roommate.

I placed an ad in various listings and I spoke of being a male Belmont grad student looking for a non-smoker, etc. What I failed to list in the ad is if I preferred a male or female roommate.

I started to get inquiries about the place and the split was about 50/50 men and women. I saw some guys come over and even thought I had a solid commitment from one, but he backed out and I was out to search again.

I starting polling some friends about if I should consider a female roommate. It was funny how many guys said I should consider it while every woman I spoke to said to not do it. I decided to keep my options open.

I kept getting inquiries from one woman, who I will call “Lisa” because I don’t want to use her real name and she may end up reading this at some point, to check out the place and I decided to let her see it. When I told people that I was having her over for a visit, the reactions were typical. The guys were excited about the prospect of me having a hot roommate while the ladies were telling me to be careful.

So, I’m waiting in my house at 5:15 watching the Simpsons as usual and I hear a knock on the door. I go over and I hear, “hey, are you Marcel?” in the cutest southern accent. I tell her its me and at that point, I decide that she’s too cute. She is a petite brunette that looks like Kate Beckinsale, who had been in my top-five (if you don’t know what that means, look at one of my previous posts) for a long time but is now a solid player who comes off the bench in crucial moments. Just the type of girl I usually like. She walks past my TV and tells me that she’s a big Simpsons fan. I’m like please don’t be so friendly.

I show her my house and for those of you who haven’t been there, it’s a nice place but could potentially lack privacy. Also, I only have one bathroom. Apparently this is a big deal when sharing a place with a woman, but I think to make that assumption is sexist and I’m not down with that. Anyway, I show her the place and she really digs it.

We head to my back deck and we chat for a good 20 minutes. We get the general questions out of the way like what do you do, billing stuff, pets, all the basics. Then, we start talking about each other. She works in medicine and is staring med school this fall, stuff like that. The whole time I’m saying to myself, don’t flirt with her. I was proud to say that I didn’t flirt with her like I normally would. But she was smart, funny, very attractive, gave me good body language, wore scrubs well (which is hard to pull off) and was just one of the nicest girls that I’ve met in a long time.

When I tell her that I work in sports, she responds that she isn’t a huge fan but likes soccer! Then she talks about how she likes international soccer in Germany and Italy! I’m telling myself that this isn’t real and I really need to not flirt with her because she is coming with some good things.

We finish our conversation and I once again poll people about what I should do. I get the same answers as before.

In the end, Lisa decided to live somewhere else and I found a guy to move in with who is going to be a good fit as well.

So I guess everything worked out well, especially considering that I’ve kept in touch with Lisa and we plan to have a social outing in the near future.

If anything, I found a new female friend to potentially have a good relationship with.

I guess the moral of the story is that you can’t have potential romantic interests in a roommate because that can cause problems in the future. If I did live with Lisa, we wouldn’t date.

I have a rule to not date co-workers, roommates, athletes in the school I work for and close relatives of friends. There are probably exceptions to that rule but I don’t even bother trying to work around that.

I wouldn’t have dated Lisa and I’m not saying that the two of us are going to have a torrid romance and get married or something like that. I do know that we had some chemistry when we were speaking with each other and that could’ve lead to some bad things.

I, or I should say that we since she told me she was finding another place, took the mature route and I’m happy for it. But if you ask my guy friends, they may have a different answer. But the ladies would be proud of me, so I have that going for me.

Cartoons, Still Love Them

Cartoons

I woke up early one Saturday morning and wanted to watch some old school cartoons like the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Smurfs or even some Looney Tunes. Heck, I would have taken some Disney cartoons with Mickey, Goofy and Donald Duck, which I hated as a kid.

Accept, I loved Duck Tales with Uncle Scrooge and the nephews Huey, Duey and Louie. Scrooge was my man because he was always grumpy. On the same note, Darkwing Duck and Tale Spin, I was all over that. Also, Doug, that was my show.

From non-cartoons, Clarissa Explains It All and All That, I know you old-school Nick fans can respect that. Also, Are You Afraid of the Dark? I’m getting flashbacks right now over these shows. That will deserve its own post. I have to stay focused on this one.

I liked cartoons that had a little cynicism and darkness to them. I hated being talked down to as a little kid and told that everything was great and nothing bad happened. The Disney cartoons treated me that way and I didn’t like it. Now, Looney Tunes were my favorite because of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Daffy was my man. He was angry, didn’t take stuff from anybody and would fight you till the end. I liked how he would always battle Bugs and even though he would always lose, he brought an energy that I liked.

Kenisha wanted me to bring up the fact that the cartoons would depict violence in an unrealistic way, which is true. Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam would shoot Bugs and Daffy and nothing would happen. In real life, they would be dead. This is a fair point, but the idea of these animals waking on their hind legs and grabbing items is unrealistic also.

I was thinking of this also when I was watching Family Guy and my favorite character on TV, Brian, the talking dog on the show. Not only does Brian walk with two legs, he drinks liquor, drives a car, holds a job and even has a human girlfriend at some point in the show. The writers of the show do a good job of making Brian a real dog by making him do things like chase balls, have fleas and wanting to stick his head out of a moving car, however, he’s treated like a human.

This should scare me but it doesn’t.

Another thing about the old school cartoons is that they were pretty simple to understand and were very predictable. Take the Flintstones for example. You knew that Fred would do something sexist or something stereotypically male, Barney would unfortunately be dragged into the plot and eventually Bettie and Wilma would get the best of the boys and we would learn a valuable lesson.

BTW, Bettie Rubble, CGI. That’s all I’ll say.

Anyway, the Jetsons were the same. The Smurfs confused me then and now. How can you have all of those male smurfs and one woman smurf. Back home in Brooklyn, we call that nasty. Also, why were you forced to do only one job. If I’m a locksmith, why can’t I change my job and become a cook? In Smurf world, I couldn’t do that. I believe that’s called Communism and I’m not down with that.

What I’m trying to say is, these kids today can have their Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon and these other crazy shows, accept for the Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy. That show is the truth if you give it a chance. Also, to make Kenisha and others happy, I do like The Boondocks, but for some reason, I never really watch the show. Its funny when I see it.

So, it’s a sad day when you have to go to a cable network called BAM to catch these old-school cartoons. Networks, bring back old-school cartoons on Saturday mornings and the new-age kids will enjoy them just as much as I did. I’ll even wake up early to catch them.

What's up with children's programming today?

I was preparing for work one day and was flipping channels and happen to come across Sesame Street, the legendary children’s program. Everyone knows about Sesame Street, so no explanation is needed. I was watching an episode where Big Bird was hanging out with Snuffeupagus (yeah, I had to look it up to spell his name properly because he deserves that), the large brown elephant, and Snuffy wanted to fly. So Big Bird and his child friends decide to get some balloons, tie them to Snuffy and let him fly. You can probably figure out what happened next as Snuffy got too high and got lost but eventually found his way back to Sesame Street. In between this story were segments teaching you how to read, count and other stuff.

It reminded me of my childhood, when I was a huge fan of Sesame Street. I liked that show so much, especially Oscar the Grouch and of course, Burt and Ernie. I was on team Ernie because Burt was too uptight. I couldn’t have a roommate like Burt because even though things would be clean, he would be just too anal for me. Ernie would be a little messy but would be a little more laid-back. However, Ernie looked like a partier and would have some loud nights with alcohol, drugs and women at the house all hours of the night. Burt looked like he was in med school and would want to study all the time.

But Oscar was my man because he was so cynical and would tell people off in the most G-rated style possible because it was a kid’s show. People who liked Big Bird were the type of people who were always happy with life and those people are cool to be around but not all the time.

Personally, I think I identified with Snuffy because I was a bigger kid and get picked on and had low-self esteem like Snuffy. I never tied balloons around myself to feel better, but after watching the show as a kid, I would feel better.

As much as I loved Sesame Street, the show that would make me stop what I was doing in a second was Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. I would be a hyper kid at times and the one show that I would just sit and stare at without moving was Mr. Rogers. It’s like stoners who watch a Pink Floyd Laser Show. I would just watch this man take off his shoes and feed his fishes and send his train to Make Believe Land and think that was the best thing ever. I would even take my shoes off like him when I went into my home. The show was also more educational, which I liked because I was a book worm and a major dork even as an elementary school student. I would read all the time and watch the evening news, ABC with Peter Jennings was my choice, even as a first and second grader. So Mr. Rogers was chill for me with a lot less noise than Sesame Street, which I appreciated.

Another show that I recently watched and was mortified by was the Teletubbies. My goodness, the person who made this show must have been high, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand what was going on, none of these creatures talked but made these weird noises to communicate and they worshiped some baby head that was the sun. I was confused and I’m 26. I couldn’t imagine these little kids watching this show and getting any enjoyment out of it.

I liked the shows I watched because they were fun, but I also learned something. I learned nothing from Teletubbies.

I’ll expand on this idea with my views of cartoons from back in the day and now.

Do I Really Want To Know My Future?

I was watching a recent episode of the Montel Williams show, btw, one of the most underrated talk shows and general TV programs ever, and he had Sylvia Brown, his psychic on the show. She was predicting to people if they would find love, if they would have a lot of money, things of that nature. The audience members would get a feeling of fulfillment or disappointment based on what she said. After watching this show, I was wondering to myself, do I want to know my future.

That felt like a Carrie Bradshaw moment from Sex and the City. Every episode, she would have something happen in her life and sit at her laptop and ask the question of that episode just like I did here. Don’t hate, I know all of you reading this watched Sex and the City, men and women. I’m proud to admit it and Mr. Big was my boy. Chris Noth represent!

Anyway, back to the psychic, I don’t think I want to know what happens in my life. Part of the excitement of life is not knowing what’s going to happen next. There’s also the fear of the unknown which is understandable. We may die tomorrow or find a lot of money or find our true love tomorrow and we don’t know it.

If I was told that I would have this job, live in this city, be in a relationship with this person, things like that before they happen, that takes away from the perception that I can control what happens in my life. If I’m told that I’m going to be living in Seattle in two years working for the Mariners, married with a kid on the way that would take the element of surprise away from my life, which would be lame.

There’s also the opposite end of the spectrum. If I was told that I would be poor, deadly ill or even dead in two years that would be terrible news. That’s why I respect people with terminal cancer and things of that nature so much because many of them accept their prognosis and live their last days with such vigor and happiness. I don’t know if I could do that and I hopefully won’t have to answer that question. However, if I did receive that fate, the tattoo and skydiving career would begin and that would have the potential to be epic.

The only benefit of possibly knowing your future in a clear way is that you can prepare for it, but why even bother doing that though. If it was meant to be that something good or bad was happening to you, why would you try?

Sunday Reflections

New segment. Every Sunday night, I usually lie on my bed, watch some repeats and reflect on the week that was. I’ll share this with you now.

-Good week for the Belmont baseball team. Defeated Tennessee, which was huge because anytime you can defeat them, it’s a glorious day for me. The Bruins also won two out of three against Campbell to clinch a spot in the A-Sun Tourney. We’re heading to Florida. Very excited about that.

-The trip to Knoxville wasn’t as bad as I thought. The people at UT treated me well and were very friendly, but it’s all about business. I was very professional at the game and didn’t go into my dislike for the school and didn’t mention that I was an alum of Vanderbilt, it just wouldn’t have been right especially after they got swept by my Commies the previous weekend.

-So Vandy lost two out of three games to Georgia at home. Not a good sign but I’m not concerned. They’re probably not going to host a regional now, but whatever.

-Classes are over for me, which is cool. I got some good grades this semester. I got low-balled in a major way in one class and not too happy about it. I’ll address it in a proper manner.

-I caught a glimpse of Belmont’s graduation yesterday and it was cool. It made me think of my graduation from college and I wrote a fun post about it on the blog.

-Another cool part of the graduation was the day before when the graduating student-athlete photo was taken. I arrived at work on Friday and saw all of them getting ready for the picture that will eventually hang in our academic center. I greeted some of them and was happy to see them happy.

-I graduate next year. That’s great.

-Tabouli’s was cool on Wednesday. It was Scott, Robbie and I. One of Scott’s friends came over and she was super chill. She was a good conversationalist, cute, funny and we even shared some fries. She had an awesome personality and it was just nice to vibe with someone. I’ve made her a friend on Facebook and told her that it was cool meeting her and wanted to know if she was down for a coffee. However, I haven’t heard from her, which is totally cool because I’m definitely taking a break from even trying to date women at this stage.

-Now, if someone wanted to hang out and kick it, that’s cool but I’m not going to force anything. My head just isn’t in it right now.

-Talked to my mother today. She was waiting for her mother’s day call which was cool.

-I’ve been trying to bond with a stray cat named Spankey who I give milk to about one every two days. I want to get closer to him/her but have been approaching it all wrong like yelling at it and making sudden movements. However, through the advice of a co-worker, I was able to make some changes to my approach to Spankey when I fed him today. I stuck my hand out and he started to circle me and smell me, which are good things because usually when I approach, he runs away. He still ran away sometimes but less often. Hopefully he’ll let me touch him next time.

-I listened to some amazing music from Genesis and Yes this weekend. I love those old-school jam bands from the 70’s. The music is in layers and I’m feeling that right now.

That’s all I got for this week. See ya’ll around.