2/25/2006 11:25:00 PM|W|P|Steve Geluso|W|P|Ever woken up early in the morning, feeling completely refreshed and ready to get things done? And then gone back to sleep and wake up later four more times until it's just after 1 in the afternoon and now everything is just pathetic? That happened to me today.
I wanted to get up bright and early and make a poster promoting a "Battle of the Bands" that isn't really happening. Evan, Ben and I came up with the perfect way to do it one day, not working, in class.
Basically, the poster would have picture of all sorts of different instrumentalists using their instruments as weapons. Guitarists would turn into crossbowmen and axemen using their strings for the bow and those sharp-cornered guitars as axes, drummers would freakin' pummel and stab people with their sticks in close combat and throw their cymbals like freakin' ninja death discs at long ranges, bass players would pretty much back up the guitarists, and pianists wouldn't do much of anything but singers would swing mics around on their lines like whips and kill.
When I finally sat down to try and make the poster tonight, it felt like it was going to be awesome. I found lots of picture of people holding guitars like machine guns, a crazy kid using a whip which I was going to add a mic to the end of and someone else playing the guitar on the floor who I was going to totally put in front of the crazy kid with the whip. The more I talk about it, the more I want to get back to work and make it really happen. In fact, I forgot why I stopped.
In fiction, I battled a gigantic dragon and lost.
Playing hacky sack with Robb, Aaron and Brandon at lunch this week made me want to start a hacky sack tournament. But before I do that, I'm going to have to seriously practice my hacky sack skills. Practice my skills and practice spelling h-a-c-k-y. I always try and spell it h-a-c-k-e-y and feel like a loser.
Talking to new-friend Amanda made me want to organize a super-cool church-to-church manhunt. I've got a feeling that it would never really That and start a game called "War" at church too. Either "war" or capture the flag. "War" would be cooler.
Jacob is the coolest guy ever.
Use the comments. Tell me what you think is trendy right now. I need to know. I say Chuck Norris jokes, bomb-threat jokes and being cool are trendy.|W|P|114094448031508338|W|P|Hoopla!|W|P|stevegeluso@gmail.com2/22/2006 10:11:00 PM|W|P|Steve Geluso|W|P|Pretty much, Journalism is the best class ever.
Yesterday, Lyndsee asked for volunteers to go and take picture of Brad, the coolest guy in the world. Kyle and I raised our hands to indicate that we were volunteering because that's what people usually do when they volunteer; raise their hands.
On a side note quickly, have you ever caught yourself writing or saying something so ridiculously obvious that there's no point in saying it at all? Like how I just said that Kyle and I raised our hands.
First of all, no one really cares if we raised our hands or not, they just want to hear the rest of the story.
Second of all, I caught myself noticing that no one would care about that so I stretched it out, describing why we raised our hands, to make it even more ridiculous and hopefully funnier. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm still doing it.
The absolute worst part about dragging something like this out so long to make fun of it is that the writer or speaker is often the only person aware of what is being made fun of. Everyone else may notice what's going on, but they have a different name for it. They don't call it witty or clever; they call it "bad."
Speaking of bad, let me lead the way back into the journalism story from yesterday.
Kyle and I had just gotten a camera and were on our way to take pictures of Brad, the coolest man in the world. It turned out that he was inside a full Spanish class watching a movie with the lights turned off.
We walked to the back of the room where the teacher was and explained that we needed to take a picture of Brad for the newspaper. Kindly enough, the teacher stopped the movie, had someone turn on the lights and let us take some pictures of Brad. On our way out the door we thanked everyone for their patience and flicked the lights back off for them.
Back at the journalism hideout, it turned out Brad's face was hidden in all the pictures we took. Ian told us that it was newspaper policy to not publish photos that don't show people's faces. This time I stuck around in the classroom while Kyle left with Jon to retake the pictures.
I found Tabi and Alex at the teacher's desk using the computer. They called me over to look at some cute pictures of puppies. The puppies were cute. They reminded me of the song "Dead Puppies" so I started singing it.
"Dead puppies. Dead puppies. Dead puppies in the Hall. They've been there since last fall," I sang. (Today, talking to Jason and Googleing, I found out those weren't very close to the real lyrics.)
Tabi laughed at me singing and I felt great. I thought I was a really funny guy!
Sometime later that period, I said "On a scale of one to bananas, how crazy is my hair?" That was funny too. Say it out loud. "On a scale of one to bananas..."
It works better if you say it with a Harey Karey accent. Like "Hey! On a scale of one to bananas, how does this shirt look on me?"
The best reply to anything starting with "On a scale from one to bananas..." is "BANANAS!" But you have to say that like Harey Karey too.
[I've checked Google for any references of anything along the lines of "on a scale from one to bananas..." and found nothing. Therefore, I declare sole ownership to this catch phrase. It's genuinely mine; not ripped off from anywhere. I'm proud.]
Journalism was great today because everyone was in a fun mood. I totally won in dictionary races against Brad's little sister with Kendra as the judge. The game itself is easy enough to understand. Someone is the judge and calls out words for people to look up and then you race to find the page with that word on it.
Understanding how to play the game is quite different than beating me at it. I'm basically the best dictionary racer ever. Even without that fancy sticky finger stuff that helps you turn the pages, I've always tromped the competition when it comes to looking up different words. I think it's just a gift. Some people are born with gifts that will save the world, others like me are born with gifts to beat people with and gloat about.
Amber said I was the best because she found out I had some Aerosmith on my iPod when I lent it to her and finally formally met Nick, a cool cat who had actually interviewed me twice, earlier in the year, about Chillfest for the paper. We talked for a while and made fun of Chillfest together as only true journalists could do.
Something else great happened too. I may have just been Tabi laughing at me again for singing the Dead Puppies song.
Journalismism rocks!|W|P|114067851088685417|W|P|Journalismism|W|P|stevegeluso@gmail.com2/22/2006 08:16:00 PM|W|P|Steve Geluso|W|P|I'm sorry for the long absence, I've been busy.
I have finally started putting my new sound board to use and recording people besides Chad, Brandon and myself. Early last week, Evan came over and laid down some awesome tracks.
When I first met him, two years ago, he was in a basement playing a guitar. He asked me to request any song for him to play. Having just been introduced to Death Cab for Cutie, I told him to play 405. Instantly, a chorus of angels sprang from his lips as he recited the song along with his guitar.
As if rekindling those buried coals of the foundation of our friendship, 405 was the first song I requested we record. The angels had been practicing; Evan played it even better than before.
He played the White Stripe's "Apple Blossom," Alkaline Trio's "Blue in the Face" and wrote a song for me, "Steve's Song" before heading back home.
Although I'm not sure if he was kidding, Evan said I can't put any of the songs we recorded on the site because they were all covers and not cool enough to be on the internet.
His 405 cover really is the coolest thing ever.
Back to this weekend though, my older sister, Becky, came back from college with her guitar. Pleasantly surprised to see her, I invited her to step into my studio/room and lay down some fresh beats.
I've never seen someone so eager to record before. She probably didn't know how bad she wanted to record, but once the mics were all set up she kept playing and playing. Five songs later, I had to stop her so that I could run out to the church to run sound for a wedding.
If Becky weren't such a horrible singer and guitar player, I'd upload her songs here.
But I kid, I kid. She's great. I'm just in a bit of musical disarray right now. This weekend, I broke the 16,000 song mark. (Including the new Flaming Lip's album! New as in "At War With the Mystics" new. I rock!)
That's right. I am now the proud owner of 16,008 songs. 43.2 days of music. Just under 80 GB for you techies out there. Quite simply, I'm the man. It's no wonder the school's Sadies dance rocked with me as the DJ.
Now, what better way to end a musak post than with a list of 5 Songs I love! No matter who you are, I'll make you listen to these 5 songs if you talk to me long enough.
1. Ben Gibbard - You Remind Me of Home
2. The Flaming Lips - It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big, I Am So Small... Do I Stand A Chance?
3. Some By Sea - There's a Line in the Sand. Are You Afraid to Cross It?
4. Van Gross - Go West
5. Sigur Ros - Saeglopur
5. Ben Gibbard - This is the Dream of Evan and Chan (Acoustic)
Enjoy.|W|P|114067466960959875|W|P|Musak!|W|P|stevegeluso@gmail.com