Tiny heartbreak

I was walking past Weiner World today as a man burst out of the door shouting, “Did you want some flowers?” to some guys behind me. They were stooping by his corner where he sells his bunches of flowers from his white buckets. You know, it’s cold out today, and I’m pretty sure the guys where just loiterers, but the look on the flowersalesman’s face kind of killed me. The I’m-gonna-take-a-break-and-pay-for-this-hot-dog-but-oh-shit-I-turn-my-back-for-one-second-and-these-guys-need-to-buy-some flowers! look which was sure to be followed by a disappointed let-me-go-back-in-and-get-that-hot-dog face that I fortunately didn’t see. If I could turn back time, I might have bought a bouquet.

Please don’t change, please don’t break: A retrospective of the first four songs of Yourself or Someone Like You

Today, let me take you back to a simpler time in this Patrick Bateman-esque exercise: 1996. This all came to me while I was sitting in the airport on Wednesday. I felt this overwhelming sadness, some sort of terminal illness. Wishing to be left alone and subsequently not being able to hear my name called by the airline representative, I slipped away into Matchbox 20’s Yourself or Someone Like You.

“Real World” gets things going with a toe-tapping escapist anthem (I wish the real world would just stop hassling me).

I wonder what it’s like to be the rainmaker/I wonder what it’s like to know that I make the rain/I’d store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one/And you can come see them when I’m…done…when I’m done

Now why in the world would I want to see boxes of rain, arbitrarily categorized with little yellow tags? Well, OK Rob Thomas. For you, anything. I never had a thing for him, but looking now, he was kind of hot in this video.

Next is the angsty “Long Day.” I remember liking this song when I used to jam to this on my Discman (and now mp3 player) because of the poignant cussing:

I’m sorry ’bout the attitude/I need to give when I’m with you/But no one else would take this shit from me…

Reach down your hand in your pocket/Pull out some hope for me/It’s been a long day, always ain’t that right

Ain’t that right. This song stirs up something in me. It’s because he screams, and his voice is straining…oh wait, that’s the next song!

“3 AM” is about a crazy girl who goes nuts when it’s raining. This was a big hit but doesn’t dazzle me overall.

The next lyrical powerhouse is of course “Push,” the story of a woman who has a history of bad luck with the dudes.

And I don’t know if I’ve ever been really loved/By a hand that’s touched me/Well I feel like something’s gonna give/And I’m a little bit angry, well…

I wanna push you around, well I will, I will/I wanna push you down, well I will, I will/I wanna take you for granted, I wanna take you for granted/Well I will

Mm. Funky guitar. The part that always stood out to me as particularly sad is this:

Well don’t just stand there, say nice things to me/cause I’ve been cheated, I’ve been wronged, and you/You don’t know me, yeah well I can’t change/I won’t do anything at all

I’m thinking, “Rob, are you singing about me? Do I want to push you around?”

So at this point, I don’t know if I just never got past these songs when I was younger, but they’re the only ones I want to listen to. They’re all undeniable hits. “Girl Like That” is just purely annoying where “Back 2 Good” is boring and suffers from an unnecessary numeral in its title. The rest of the album is as unmemorable as the songs’ one word titles: “Damn,” “Argue,” “Kody,” “Busted,” “Shame” and “Hang.” Take this as a lesson not to front-load your album with all of the good songs. In their own words, don’t rush this, baby.

At 11 years old, I could never imagine that 12 years later I would be critiquing the jams of one of the first CDs I ever owned, which I had put on my iPod specifically for this trip.

If you take the time, you’ll realize that Matchbox 20 is still all around us. In the muzak of restaurants, department stores, and most importantly, in our hearts.

The shocking conclusion of A Surprising Visit from Tom

Who the hell was Alfred Temple? Here’s a quick refresher from Sparknotes:

“Alfred Temple -  A well-dressed new boy in town. Like Amy Lawrence, Alfred gets caught in the crossfire of Tom and Becky’s love games, as Becky pretends to like him in order to make Tom jealous.”

Also, here is the real conclusion of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

The first exciting installment of A Surprising Visit from Tom:

Where did Tom go? Who will he see? What were his adventures that he told Huck all about (SPOILER: You never find out)? Why do Huck and Becky live in a huge house if he works at the stables? What will happen tomorrow in the final installment of A Surprising Visit from Tom?

The blue box blues

Last night, I had Orange for dinner (Kraft macaroni and Turner’s orange drink) as I watched half of Chinatown before falling asleep on the couch at like 7 pm. Lazy Sunday, indeed.

On Saturday, however, my friend Emily and I planted trees on Liberty Ave. Don’t say I never did anything for you, planet Earth!

Starting tomorrow, I am going to be posting excerpts from a story I wrote in third or fourth grade, on a goddamn typewriter, “A Surprising Visit from Tom,” an envisioning of the future of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Becky Thatcher.  Nothing I’ve written in my adult life has given me the same level of satisfaction as this piece of work.  You won’t be disappointed.

Wreckin decks & gettin sex

It’s rare that a television show as formulaic as Law & Order: SVU can continue to blow minds episode after episode, but it continues to do so after ten long seasons.

Last night’s new episode not only ripped TWO stories from the headlines (the Gloucester pregnancy pact & the mom who cyberbullied her daughter’s classmate into committing suicide), there was a white guy who was into hip hop (always funny on SVU), DJ Dizzer, and Olivia used the word “slammin” (as in, “A baby isn’t a slammin pair of new jeans!”).

The camera panned over the aforementioned DJ’s shirt twice, because it said: WRECKIN’ DECKS N’ GETTIN’ SEX (N’ GETTIN a teenage girl pregnant). Incredible.

I never intended to chronicle SVU on my Blah & Order blog, but with an episode this good, it’s the only thing I can do.

Last night.

I was sitting in my room watching Six Feet Under, eating frozen chicken parmigiana cooked in a microwave, when I burst into tears only minutes into the episode, nearly choking on my sad little dinner. I thought, “Oh God, this is how it ends.”

And so it begins.  This is the new blog.