I am planning on going to a college basketball game today. I am going to the Pete Newell Challenge. It is a tournament that Stanford competes in every year. My company is sponsoring the game. If you watch the game on Fox Sports Net you will see sponsored by TiVo. They were giving the tickets out for free on Thursday.
It has been a long time since I have seen a College Basketball game live. I think that it goes all the way back to when I was in College. The game is at the Arena In Oakland. It is one of the few buildings that have not sold its name to a company. People refer it as the ‘O-rena’ all the time.
I am looking forward to going to this game. If it were not for the game, I would just be sitting around my apartment all day. I did not have any plans or motivation to do anything. It is easy to go to something where I have free tickets.
I could not find anyone to go with me. Part of the problem is that no one is in town. The other problem is that everyone at TiVo already got tickets to go. There will be a lot of people from TiVo there. I am not worried about going to this thing alone. It is a good event for a Saturday Night.
From his web log he links to the best of the 2001 lists at Othermusic.com. I am happy to say Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs is not on any of their lists.
In an entry of Imaginary Year two characters talk about what they see when they look in the mirror. I think this is a great question. I know that people think a lot of things when they look in the mirror.
The ideas of image and self-image are so complex. Most people think things about themselves that no one else ever picks up on. Other ideas that everyone else sees, we miss all together. That is the difference between the mirror and reality.
What do I see when I look in the mirror? I see a million different things. It depends when I am looking in the mirror. It depends if it a mirror or a reflection in a window. It depends if I am expecting to see myself or not. For the most part I think, "What do they not see?" I feel a barrier between me and other people. I wonder if that barrier is cause because there is something in me they do not see.
Today Armando described San Jose as being just like an airport terminal. He said that San Jose is not comfortable or inviting. It is the kind of place that people just walk through. I think this is very insightful.
From time to time I tell people that I have rules I live by. Most of the times the rules are just jokes. Rules like "never mess with guys you think might be connected to the mob." Some times the rules are more concrete. I have decided to compile these rules here on Sad Salvation. It will be a way to keep track of them.
Rich Thomas Personal Rule: I am only allowed to buy gum at airports.
I am someone who loves to chew gum. I would chew it all the time if I let myself. There is a good feeling with having a huge wad of gum in mouth. I can just seem myself with Big League Chew stuffed in my face. It would not be good for my teeth or me. I have to have gum when I fly. It is the only way I can keep my ears from totally freaking out. If I do not chew gum in the air, my ears pop and clog to a degree that wrecks me for days. I know that I could chew sugAr free gum, but my mouth always feels funny when I have artificial sweetener in it. I would rather go without.
It is the time of the year that everyone makes there best of lists for music. I used to be really into these kinds of lists. I would always be disappointed when the bands and records would be passed over. I was hoping that people would see the same things in this music that I saw.
I would make my own top list. Maybe if I made my old top 10 list of that year's records people would see what I saw in those records. I would send the list to my friends and e-mail it to other people. I would not get much response. The people that knew me would say that the list matched what they expected from me.
I still love music. I listen to about two hours of music a day, but I no longer care about new music. I have no interest in following around new music. I cannot keep up with that treadmill. I just look for things that I like and listen to them. Most of the new music I hear does not hold my interest very long. I do not connect with it.
I did not buy many CDs in the past year. I spend most of my time downloading songs from Napster, listening to all those songs once Napster closed down, and making CDs of those songs. I bought a couple of CDs, but it was mostly old stuff that had been popping around my head. I bought stuff like old R.E.M. and Smiths albums that I crave hearing every once in a while or stuff I missed the first time around like Belle and Sebastian or Neutral Milk Hotel.
There was one new CD that I bought this year. It is a CD that has been spinning around my CD player since I got it. I do not think I have gone a week without listening to it.
I would like to declare Ben Folds Rockin' The Suburbs the album of the year. It is hard for me to express how good I think this album is. It is one of the best things that I have heard in years. It is an album that should be admired for both its sound and lyrics. It has all of Ben Folds trademark piano playing, but you do not feel like you have heard it all before. It is an album that moves slowly over a landscape of ideas, constructing a coherent world of thoughts and feelings.
What I like about Ben Folds is that I feel that he is a guy about my age write songs about things people my age should care about. I do not feel that I am listening to people who are ten years older or younger then me. His songs make sense to me. I can understand what he is getting at. I think there is both an intent and texture to the songs that fit into my life.
I think that this is a great album, but I have a hard time seeing my friends really embrace it. I do not think they have the kind of patience that this album need. It is full of songs that need to be discovered one my one. I think most of my friends do not like albums that unfold that way.
On Sunday I hung out with Cathy, Chris, and Steve. Cathy described that day pretty well on her Live Journal. We spent a couple of hours doing her radio show. It was surreal on some level.
After the radio show we sung karaoke. Cathy has been telling me about this karaoke night for a long time. She loves going to this place and she wanted to show us why. Cathy knows that I have a history with karaoke. When I was 23, right out of college, I used to hang out at a karaoke bar all the time. She had heard lots of story of bad songs. I once suggested that a karaoke wedding reception would be a good idea. She knows that I would be at that bar every week if I lived in Philadelphia.
She described it in her Live Journal, but I cannot figure out how to link to specific entries. I decided to take this right from her page. Just remember that "I" refers to Cathy. I do not back up dance.
Peter did "Detachable Penis"
Steve did a bunch of old country stuff, like Hank Williams, and "Blue Suede Shoes"
Rich introduced the crowd to his "everything is sung like Tom Waits" stylings, taking on The Carpenters and Paper Lace's "The Night Chicago Died"
I did my best ever effort on "Mr. Roboto" and "My Sharona", rocking out, doing the robot and the Molly Ringwald dance.
Some new songs were done. Trishy debuted her version of Olivia Newton John's "Physical". Elisa took on The Spinners' "I'll Be Around".
I did more backup dancing duty.
Strangely Joe H., the DJ, struck up two conversations with me, and I got a hug at the end of the night. He definitely seemed in the holiday spirit.
The best moment of the night was when a large group of us got up and performed "Do They Know It's Christmas?" ala Band Aid.
Cathy left out that I sang Your Cheatin' Heart. I like that song because anyone can sound like a hillbilly. The group singing "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was great.
We had a great time on Sunday. It was the kind of night that I really look forward to having when I go back home. It had the kind of energy that nothing else mattered but having a good time right then.
My job calls my name today. I have to go into the office to see how much work has piled up over the last couple of days. I am not in the mood for that.
When I got back home I found out the Hatboro Music Shop was closing down. The Hatboro Music Shop was one of the big places for me to buy music when I was growing up. Jeremy and I decided to visit the store for what will be the last time. This is a store that Jeremy and I would walk to when we has nothing else to do in the summer.
When we where in store I told Joe, the guy who had run the store for the last 55 years, that the Hatboro Music Shop was one of the greatest musical influences in my life. When people talk about musical influences they only talk about bands. There are a lot more things that shaped me as a music lover then just bands. Bands and records might be the lowest on this list. I bought a hundred records at a record store, that store is a bigger influence then one of those hundred records. It got me think about what things shaped me as a music listener.
Here is an off the top of my head list of my greatest musical influences. They are in no particular order.
Hatboro Music Shop Repo Records WMMR WIXQ My Family JeremyBushnell My Duel Tape Boom Box/High school tape swapping Car Radios Replacements - Don't Tell A Soul personal headphones (ie the walkman)
PS. In case you were wondering, Everclear - World Of Noisewas the CD I bought on my last visit to the Hatboro Music Shop.
Before I left for vacation I felt that I was only going to be home for a couple of days. I felt like I was not going to get time to do much. I knew that I would not get the chance to hang out with all my friends. I felt bad for not being able to take more days off. I am hoarding vacation to use it next year. I could have taken more days, but I want to save all that time for a big trip.
Now that I am back in San Jose, it feels like it was a long vacation. I look back on my flight to Philadelphia and it seems like more then a weeks time has past. Between seeing my family and hanging out with friends, it seems like a lot more then one week has past. I think that I got a lot of what I wanted out of this vacation. A big chunk of that was catching up with people. I wanted to make sure I renewed friendships with people I do not see all the time.
Before I left I wrote about how I felt that this trip would either cure my homesickness or make me what to go back even more. I can say today that my trip has cured my homesickness. I feel that I am good for some time longer in San Jose. Like my last trip back to Philadelphia, I realized that I am not ready to move back yet. I do not think I am done in San Jose either. I feel that I have to spend more time in San Jose before I decide to move on.
There is a list of things that I learned.
1. Home is always a more complicated idea then expected. Before going back to Philadelphia I was not thinking about all the complicated issues that I faced there. It is like those issues are out of sight, out of mind. There are issues with family and friends that I do not face being on the other side of the country. If I moved back there I would have to deal with these issues more often.
2. I think I could live in Philadelphia in the future. I drove around the city with an eye on what I like in Cities. I think that I could live in a city like that. There are currently a lot of nice areas in the city. There are lots of parts of the city where I can live a very urban life. I can see why Cathy likes living there. Philadelphia has a lot of different identities for the people there. I think it has more personalty then San Jose.
3. There are still things I need to learn about myself. I moved out west for a lot of different reasons. One of them was to learn more about myself. I think there are still some things that I need to learn about myself. I think that I want to learn these things before I move. I think I have to understand more about how I feel about relationships, work, and living before I move back to Philadelphia. If I do not learn these things I could make mistakes.
4. Don't let turning 30 freak me out. I am turning 30 next year. I think it has been freaking me out a little. I think that I have been putting pressure on myself because of turning 30. I was upset that my life is undefined in places. I think that worrying about it is not making my life any better defined. I have to let these things develop at there own speed. I should not worry about the time that is taken. It is only time.
I apologize if some of these things are vague. There are things that happened that I cannot really write about in such an open place. These things are effecting my outlook. I am not sure I can give more detail without airing dirty laundry.
I will be writing more about this trip. There are a lot of specific things that I can write about. I just do not have the time to write about them right now. I know the next couple of days will be spend writing about things that happened when I was visiting home. I hope I do not forget about any before I get the chance to write about them.
I have spent most of today with a travel hangover. It is like a regular hangover, except I did not have fun getting it. I am not in the mood to go over all the details of my flight back, but lets just say I am going to think twice before flying America West again. I got back to my apartment at 2 AM this morning. That was almost three hours after I expected to get back. This was after having to fly into the San Francisco Airport rather then San Jose like I was ticketed.
I spent most of my time today sleeping and laying around my apartment. I really did not have the drive to try to do anything else. I am so happy that I took today off. It would have been a mess if I had to go into the office. I know for next time, If I fly into town late it is best to take the next day off.
Now I have to go into the office tomorrow. I wish I could take another day off, but I have to go into the office sometime. The good thing is that I am looking at a two day week. I only have to survive tomorrow and Friday. I will be able to relax a bit more after that. I know that I was just on vacation, but it was not all that relaxing.
Right now I am sitting at Cathy's Radio show. She is doing a Christmas show. We have been doing little skits for the songs that are not Christmas Songs. We played Pacman Fever, Ain't Nothing Going to Break My Stride, and The Dream Police to name a few songs. This is something that I would not have done if I was in San Jose right now.
