The style and sound of reunion

Let's talk about summer jams! In May of '96, When I went to blind date prom senior year of high school -- where I met AMR and Kevin for pretty much the first time -- we had a pre-meet and greet at someone's house. When I walked in, all the guys were gathered around the speakers with "Crossroads" on repeat. They sang along to every line.

This was before I was into hip hop and I had no idea what was going on. My friends sang along to stuff too but it was with Laserdisc and microphones. The songs that got a lot of run on our parents' karaoke machines were Disney hits and oldies like "Que Sera, Sera." Ace of Base was considered current. So, reciting Bone Thugs was a pretty foreign experience.

Back then I probably thought these kids were the height of cool. Now that I think about it, they were! Bone...bone...bone. Now tell me whatcha gonna do. When I try to explain to people that I wasn't into "regular music" until college, they scoff. But seriously, my CD six changer while studying for finals featured Meatloaf, 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged, Eric Clapton Unplugged, Jewel, and Yanni. Ad (your) nauseam.

Somewhere in the world there also exists a VHS copy of AMR and Mike doing a home video version of K-Ci & JoJo. I don't even know how they cut it but they had different scenes, costume changes, and "All My Life" tracked over the video. They were so ahead of their time.

I'm in the process of making some playlists for next weekend's houseboat trip. The most integral part of any outing is music. AMR and I understand this. (Games is second, food is third.) I'm trying a new thing by creating multiple playlists but with fewer tracks each. Apparently The Magician -- whom we saw last weekend -- uses just ten tracks in his mixes. I will aspire to do the same.

The muse for each playlist has so far been my friend's email subject headings from this morning. This could either be super great or go terribly. So far she's given me:

• "There is Hope for You"
• "Apartment Options"
• "A Different Perspective"
• "Awful Scripts, Dirty Dancing and New Swimsuits"

My other goal is to have a mini-set for each task, such as "chopping vegetables" or "leaping off the roof and flipping into the water." (Last summer's dock playlist served me very well.) If only we could bring huge ass speakers for this houseboat. Luckily we will be prepared with all manner of cables and maybe batteries to power our stuff. Nobody better park their boats near us because I'd like to be blasting music at all times. I like my outdoors accompanied by a soundtrack.

And if you wanna hear a podcast episode about summer jams, it's right here via Grantland, Hollywood Prospectus Podcast: Summer Jam. I barely know any of the songs they're talking about -- it skews heavily toward current rap songs -- but they make some interesting points about what qualifies as a "summer jam."

As an extra, here is NPR's The Mix: The Songs Of The Summer, 1962-2012. They even offer it via Spotify so you really don't have any excuses for not listening. Personally, I think it's too early to call Icona Pop's track one of this year's summer jams. It's not everywhere enough. There was also a clear oversight for 2011 because they left out "Pumped Up Kicks" and threw in "Rolling In The Deep." We all love Adele but that shit is not a summer jam. Then again, "MMMBop" is holding down 1997 so really this is super compromised already.

No Hootie?

What Makes the World Go Round?

Hurray, I am in San Francisco. Insert exclamation mark. Caps lock, caps lock. Somehow I hadn't realized that I'd not been here in about nine months. And if you take out the quickie stop in last September pre-road trip, it's been over a year I believe. Shocking no? I can't even comprehend it actually. Usually I'm reliably up here every few months.

Allow me to make a quick plug for maintaining a moblog. By having a record of what you did and where you were, moblogs allow you to quickly and accurately answer the question "What was I doing last ____?" A simple search in the archives for the month or city tag reveals all. This is where Facebook's Timeline is taking us but it's not doing it very well. Moblog, moblog! Okay, I'm off the soapbox.

Originally I was going to come up to watch the Celtics in the Finals with George. Clearly that plan was torpedoed. Or Bosh-ed I guess. Still, I had a ticket and a window of time to get out of San Diego. So here I am, no return date and nothing pressing at home except that there's nobody to pick up the mail and take out the trash. And to make a big mess. Likely I'll have to go handle that in two or three weeks, and then I should prepare for my summer-ish East Coast swing if that's actually going to happen.

I've been waiting for summer and now that it's right here, I need to get moving.

In the first three days here I did more than I do in a month back home. Going from zero to sixty was exhausting but semi-exhilirating. Going out to dance and hear music two nights in a row? With more than one friend person accompanying me? Amazing! Having more than one thing to do every day? Geez that seems awfully busy, could we slow down? I think it's taking me awhile to get out of hibernation. I want to see everybody, and also I want to see nobody. If that makes sense.

Somehow I forgot how cold it was and brought mostly shorts. AMR loves to quote Mark Twain's "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." Apparently it's false. I mean, if you believe Snopes. The sentiment is exactly true though.

Oh yeah, we went to the Magic Castle recently, which I had to recap elsewhere. Basically it was fantastic and I'm ready to go again. I'm going to have to reteach George all of our old magic tricks. Although I suspect she remembers them all and is just taking our act super meta.

While I'm here, George and AMR have got me on this iPhone app called My Fitness Pal. It's basically for counting calories and recording what you eat. They've been doing it for awhile and I'm trying it out to serve as a control. I can't really gain or lose weight so I'm just gonna do what I regularly do and see what the stats look like.

The app has allotted me 1990 calories per day. Already I'm learning some shocking things. For example, eating three Chips Ahoy is 160 calories. Three cookies is barely a warm up session. I can house half a pack easy. My favorite donuts are 300+ calories each. All these sweets I favor really jack up the calorie count. Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, are nature's candy and have a fraction of the calories. They also cost more but that's another conversation.

Another thing, alcohol is like imbibing straight pounds. Beer is a four way disaster. It not only creates empty calories, it also increases your chance of being inappropriate, getting a DUI, and makes you sleepy. It's a wonder anyone drinks. Oh right, it's fun. Or so I'm told.

I now understand the fuss over "lite" beers.

Since I don't exercise -- I barely move really -- and I generally eat one meal a day, I can eat whatever I want. According to George this is genetically unfair but since I voluntarily smoke I figure I'm really balancing things. I asked her if she would swap our metabolisms if she also had to take my shitty teeth and countless trips to the dentist. She said she'd have to think about it.

Somehow George and AMR are surviving on incredibly low calorie counts. For example, if you want to lose a pound a week, the app suggests cutting your calorie intake by like 25% -- calories burned while exercising is calculated into additional room for food though. Still, I've been following the stuff that George is eating and I'm convinced she's starving herself. I've been trying to tell her that she definitely needs to eat more ("I'm going to tell Mom!") and that she so has body dysmorphia. She countered that I have life dysmorphia. Touché.

On the list of conversations that bore me quickly, exercising and people's diets were high on the list but now that numbers and tracking has entered the equation, I'm semi-in. Let us talk about the evils of processed food and study nutrition labels while gorging on ice cream and eclairs. My treat.

Despicable Me

It's always good to see people you know in the New York Times, even if it's about them being fired. Still, it clearly had nothing to do with my friend's talent as she "oversaw the extraordinary breads that Isa baked in the wood-burning oven each day." The sous chef is her longtime boyfriend and if there's anything I've learned from being friends with cooking people, it's that job hopping -- and restaurants closing/changing -- is both constant and unavoidable. There's always another opportunity available though, especially if you're as good as they are.

Pam's the only one of my college friends who really defined her (non-corporate) dream early on, chased after it, and kept churning, even when faced with a multitude of challenges. I don't even recall what she majored in. She used to run the fashion magazine at school, doing all the editing, graphic design, and some of the photography. Somehow after graduation she decided to get into desserts and away she went. Oh wait, I think I've sung her praises before already.

That ubiquitous Gotye song -- which I detest on principle -- is a break up song apparently. I'd never stopped to listen to the lyrics but they're pretty good. The thing with song lyrics is that it's always a little dicey trying to figure out which one you are, or which perspective to take. As Carly Simon pointed out, everyone thinks it's about them. Usually it's more properly sung as a duet, with each person switching off to the parts that resonate with them.

My friend is visiting this week after a tough break up. He called and said that he needed to come out. Boom, three days later he was here. Since then we've been talking through his relationship a lot. The whats, the hows, some of the whys. None of it really makes much sense, and he knows that only time cures these things. Most of our time has been spent trying to make that pass. Movies, television, some writing, more movies. He's counting down the days.

Remember in Swingers when Rob is trying to console Mike? "I mean at first you're going to pretend to forget about her, you'll not call her, I don't know, whatever...but then eventually, you really will forget about her." That's pretty much spot on.

Another friend asked me why in the world someone heartbroken would be heading out to come see me. I explained that my role isn't really one of emotional support, since I suck at that. Instead I'm mainly here to listen and to provide a warm body to keep loneliness at semi-bay. You'd be surprised how often I'm called for this service, considering how useless I am on the emotional support front. But sometimes people just need someone to be around, and there's nothing I'm better at. Just being around.

I am trying to figure out how I can help though, on a more emotional level. It's not something I'm equipped to do I think. Can you learn how to do this? Also, it's not lost on me that while I was so quick to help out my friend in need, I wasn't quite so open a few weeks ago when breaking a heart. That's not really irony or karma or anything, it's just mean. Now you're just somebody that I used to know.

Speaking of shit that breaks hearts. The Celtics' loss in Game 7 on Saturday was a gut shot. We gathered at my friend's new apartment in Los Angeles and then proceeded to suffer for the next six hours. Like in 2010, the Celtics had a lead heading into halftime of a Game 7 and then went ice cold during the last few minutes to drop a winnable game. Well, maybe it wasn't that winnable. Boston played poorly the entire second half and when Chris Bosh goes 3-4 from beyond the arc, what can you do?

We had some anti-Celtic supporters in the house but as the game started to get out of hand and George and I looked increasingly depressed, one of them quickly changed his tune. "Whoa, I didn't know you guys were going to get sad. I don't want you guys to be sad." This was as tears were threatening to drop from George's eyes. "Okay okay, I won't cheer for the Heat anymore!" Too little, too late. Sigh.

Since there would be no partying that night, we ended up watching the Pacquiao travesty. We thought a Manny win would cheer us up -- he's a die-hard Celtics fan! -- but instead it was another loss to cap off a crushing day. Basically if you want someone to lose, just tell us and we'll cheer for them. Mitt Romney, the Yangs are now on your side, start writing your concession speech now.

Later, I was explaining to George how most sports fans take things hard but rarely cry. The sight of her post-game crying literally froze everyone in the room. Our guy friends didn't know what to do. Sometimes the athletes cry -- like Doc almost did when he pulled the Big 3 out of the game -- but most sports fans don't. George said she would have to try not to cry in the future, but I told her that it's that kind of passion that will carry us to another championship. Let's Go Celtics.

Dudes Act Like A Lady

People have so much stuff. Two of my friends are in the midst of moving or cleaning up their spaces and I'm just stunned at how much they've accumulated. Coming off the heels of my mom's mandated garage clean up, where I threw away all the detritus from past lives, I've got nothing.

One friend is simply going from one apartment to another but she's got at least fifteen boxes. I took some of her books for safekeeping but there's still a ton left over. And she didn't have any furniture or big items like a television to transport. I'm mind boggled at how often she has to unpack/pack this stuff. Why not toss it or store it somewhere?

Besides the things that stay here, nestled safely in San Diego, I literally own like two suitcases of clothes, a treasured toaster, and my electronic items. If it wasn't for the occasional winter weather I head into, I'd own even less clothing.

I've forgotten what it's like to have stuff.

I thought I've just been wandering the past few years but now that I stop to think about it, I haven't really had anything since 2001, Jersey City. From overseas to San Diego, to the Bay (a few times), to Los Angeles, to a touch of New York and back. All that time with no pictures, no board games, no utensils, no trinkets or toys. No joy, no passion, no future.

Even my work desks, I assemble them out of spare Ikea parts. You buy four legs for $12, then a headboard or large plank for $7. Power tool them together and voila, a cheap and eventually disposable desk. Some day when I actually own real furniture and have a home base, I'm going to look back upon this decade as one of such freedom. I'll be wistful but then I'll look over at my fancy fridge and be like, "That's so mine."

I don't know why this 2010 article is popping up again, but "Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)" is worth a read. Well, not really. I'm sure there are articles that say the same thing every few months or so. But I'm a sucker for insight into how regular male friendships work. I really enjoy talking to acquaintance guys about their male social circles. I must know!

This past Saturday I had some guy hang out time with someone I'd never hung out with that much before. One on one at least. It was basketball in the morning, followed by a long lunch, then a break to clean up and run errands, then some basketball watching, and finally a take out BBQ dinner with a movie. During that time I learned some of his backstory and it felt both productive and meaningful.

Sometimes I've heard that I talk too much or ask too many questions, but I don't know what other people do when they hang out. Especially with strangers. I mean, what do two guys do except talk about personal lives when they hang out? Oh right, they stay silent. Shoot the shit. But silence kills me... Sometimes I dread going to eat with certain people because I know it's an hour or so of time that conversation will be at a standstill. The urge to read a book or scroll through my iPhone is strong then.

The thing is, it's probably me, not them. It's probably perfectly normal to sit around and not talk to each other. Men apparently don't like high maintenance friendships. That's what the article said. And the Wall Street Journal is never wrong.

Here's a movie I wouldn't watch ever: What to Expect When You're Expecting. A Hangover style flick about new-ish and soon to be parents. Subtitled "things that men do when they have babies." At least that's what the trailer looked like. Actually I better watch this as an educational piece. The sight of all those daddies with their strollers just freaks me out a little.

Last Thursday Henry had his baby. He had an actual baby! My life feels so different. Okay not really, it's his life that is different. I'm just here to help set up a baby blog. Two days prior to that Henry was standing on a street corner in a dress, decked out in L's old Halloween accessories, holding up a sign to get cars to honk at him. Now he is a father. #adulthood