My story shall be a “Three’s Company” parody. I have to give props to the writers of that series. I now have some inkling for how dirty they must have felt in their every day lives, looking for that double entendre in everything everyone says. I’ve even come up with a triple entendre, though haven’t found a proper way to implement it yet. Rest assured though, it will turn up in the middle of the story for seemingly no reason, because I am simply unable to throw away a good joke.

And so, a recap of this past week this shall be.

Last Saturday was the poker run. It went pretty well from what I could tell. I personally enjoyed it, though I know other family members who were quite tired when all was said and done, and even before. But I had an easy job, I was the ride videographer/photographer.

We had to wake up early, which sucked. It was also very cold out all day (and even rained a little later), which sucked even more. If not for the crap weather, it would’ve been a completely awesome day. My mom and brother and I were in charge of the pre-registered booth, though I often ran off and let them do it themselves. It was all incredibly confusing in the beginning, but they and the other volunteers managed, somehow.

I found out I get jealous easy. Around lunch time, this guy with a big camera comes in and starts poking around and taking pictures and video. I glare at him silently. I feel so inadequate when I only have the little camera, while here’s this guy strutting around with his huge thing. But then I think, “hey, I’m the official ride videographer, even if my camera does suck”.

Shortly thereafter, my dad and I drove out to the final stop to prepare for the riders’ arrival. There wasn’t much for me to do there. I mean, I can’t carry stuff, and the prize table people seemed to know what they were doing. I asked my dad what to do, and he said “just take pictures”. Of what? “Of anything”.

The final stop took place on a closed off street with a few other events going on for the charity. They had vintage cars, so I took pictures of those. There were some kids doing martial arts, so I took pictures of them. But I was, of course, most comfortable and relieved when I found the little flowers at the end of the street. Macro photography has always been my comfort zone.

Riders started arriving, so I took their pictures and pictures of the motorcycles. A police officer suggested parking all the bikes on the street where it was empty, and that turned out to be an awesome idea. Three hundred or so bikes all together looked pretty cool. I even chair-napped an abandoned chair to get a picture from a different perspective. I felt so clever.

As I found myself at the end of the road and was about to turn around, I heard sirens. I looked over to the next row of motorcycles and saw that the local news anchor dude/master of ceremonies was on his motorcycle with the police escort, taking off for the main stage. They showed a clip of this on the news, and I’m sure I could be seen somewhere in the background saying “ohhh shit!” and scrambling to switch between the still camera and the video camera while running after them.

This motorcycle parade of course meant that the ceremony was about to begin, so I made my mad dash past the motorcycles, careful not to dash too madly, lest I create a domino effect that would be hardly amusing except for the millions watching on YouTube.

But all was well. Proceeded to videotape the proceedings. Began to rain, took refuge under a tree. Looked around frantically for my brother so he could bring me my tripod, but alas, no luck. Stood against the tree for an hour, trying to keep steady and film.

After the prizes were given out, I made my way back to the end of the street with the intent of getting some sweet footage of the motorcycles leaving, and that I most certainly did. Still, no one to fetch the tripod, so still quite shaky. Tripods are great, but not all that practical when you’re on the move, you know?

So that was that. It’s been a great ride — a ha ha ha! But seriously. Working on the website for the ride was super fun at times, when learning about MySQL and stuff and debugging the admin centre, but also incredibly frustrating when trying to work with others’ inefficient code. It’s been a year or so of poker run this and poker run that, but when it came right down to it, ride day was fun. I would gladly do it again next year, but we’ll see what happens. It’s all kind of up in the air now.

Next we come to my various yearbook activities of the week.

Monday night I decided it was time to go out in search for my ads. I was dreading it. Talking to people? People I don’t know? Asking them for money? Not exactly something I want to do. But I looked at the clock. The fish and chips place was closing in half an hour. I need to get these ads soon, and seeing as no one is around to drive me, I guess I’ve gotta walk.

The fish and chips place went nicely. Walked on down, asked to see the manager, showed her the yearbook, she asked for some more information (awesome!), I gave her the letter, asked her to give me a call. Sure, I forgot to ask her name. Sure, I forgot to ask for the phone number. But give me a break, it was my first time!

First one went well, so I thought, hey, let’s walk down to Shopper’s! So I did. No manager there, but got the number to call and names to ask for. Didn’t actually call yet, since I need to call during the day, and well, I’m at school during the day. Also, I don’t like phones.

Walked a little further down the street, looking for other little businesses. Found none, so turned around and walked to the end of the street in the other direction. Not much luck. It was a Monday night, so not too many stores were open. The nail salon I’d previously noted to ask at somehow disappeared on my way back. Maybe I was distracted by the lady with the thick accent asking for money for shoes.

I’d say it was the first time someone asked me for money on the street, but that wouldn’t be true. I mean, how can you leave a concert at the ACC without someone stopping you? But it was the first time I was on my own and was asked. Then again, it was probably the first time I’ve been walking around on my own. I told the truth, said I had nothing on me, and moved on.

But then as I approached the end of the business area, I saw a van pull up beside me and honk. Didn’t recognize it as Jennifer’s van, so kept walking, but they kept honking. Maybe they were honking for someone inside one of the buildings. Turned the corner, but the van followed. Hmm.

Like I said, this was basically the first time I’ve been walking around outside alone in the evening. I can get a little paranoid sometimes. I automatically assume the worst case scenario. They’ve got guns, they’re going to kill me, that sort of stuff. But of course they didn’t, they drove by without a drive by, har har har. But the rest of the walk home was not as cheerful as it was when I left the fish and chips shop.

I do feel like an idiot. It wasn’t all that scary. But I’ve always assumed this is a safe neighbourhood, and it’s not, really. I’ve heard about a few bad things that’ve happened on this particular street not too long ago, and of course I was able to recall quite a few while walking there on Monday. I’ve always been pretty naive about things like that. It’s not as safe a town as I might think.

On a happier note, Wednesday was photo day. That means I didn’t have any classes since the Yearbook class runs photo day. When the lady was trying to explain to us what we had to do, it was pretty confusing, but once you got into it, it wasn’t that bad.

We had two tables at the entrance to the auditorium, four or five people at each table. Our collective job was basically to give the student a card, check their photo package, and check their name off the list. Five people are not needed for this job, especially when I and Mark were assigned to crossing off the names on the list. How one list, one hi-lighter, and two people were supposed to work together was beyond me. Mark handed the job to me after the first few letters of the alphabet, and I happily crossed off names the rest of the day.

At first, the girls at one end of the table would ask for the student’s name and how to spell it and find their card, then I would have to ask again and so on and so forth. Eventually I had the brilliant idea to implement a system where the card was found, handed to me, the name crossed off the list, and the card handed to the student. Went pretty smoothly after that. I’m so freaking efficient. Had pizza for lunch, finished names S to Z after, and went home for last period since we were excused for the whole day.

Thursday was Grade 9 Day in the afternoon. Since I’m on the marketing team for this month, we decided we would bring old yearbooks and a camera and hang out the rest station. We’d talk to the kids about the yearbook and try to convince them to buy it. The camera would also help to sell the book seeing as, hey, we can take your picture for the yearbook!

Turned out not exactly as planned. The first group came ’round to the rest station, had drinks, which I’m told tasted like piss or something not so pleasant, and were asked trivia questions. Hmm… didn’t account for that. I thought they’d just be sitting around. They also had to work on their “cheer” for a contest at the end of the day.

Second group came around, much of the same. Well, we can’t just stand around! I asked the guy in charge of the station if I could use his table, so I stood on the table and yelled that I wanted everyone together to take a picture for the yearbook. And yes, they listened! Hurrah! Hearty chants of “buy a yearbook” followed, and soon enough, it was time to change stations yet again.

Repeat for the rest of the afternoon. Some groups were more co-operative than others, but I did get pictures of them all, except of course the first group. Every once in awhile, someone would smile upon seeing the camera, and I would ask, “do you want a picture for the yearbook?”. Maybe this act of kindness would inspire a sale? I can only hope.

I was quite worried that the pictures were all awful. It was a terribly sunny day, so the screen was hard to see. I could tell however that the sky was overexposed in nearly all of them, but there isn’t much I could do without underexposing the people. But still, I’d say I got at least my 10-15% quota of good shots.

At one point when I was getting up onto the table, there were cups and stuff in my way, so I kind of stood around stupidly waiting for someone to move them until I realized that I would need to do it. One of the team leaders held out his hand and asked if I needed help getting up, which was sweet, but I of course politely declined and thought to myself, “pfft, this isn’t the fifties, dude”.

Anyway, all these chances this past week for photographing actual people was pretty cool. I learned that I’m actually capable of portrait photography, and the aperture setting does indeed work, and not just for macro photos, either! But these two events, where I was able to go wherever I wanted, take shots from crazy angles, and poke my nose around wherever I wanted didn’t prepare me for last night, where my photographic freedom was very limited.

My brother and I went to the Queensryche/Alice Cooper/Heaven and Hell (ie. Black Sabbath minus Ozzy) concert. Originally my dad was going to go, but he realized he had other plans, so I went instead. Seen Alice before, and he was a lot better than I’d expected the first time around, so I didn’t mind seeing him again. Don’t know any Queensryche songs, though I know they play them on that 80s Metal station. Didn’t particularly care for any of their songs, but the sounds wasn’t very good during their set. It had the opening band sound, you know, the lead singer’s mic too low, everything else too loud.

So, Alice, entertaining as before. Though I did miss out on quite a bit of the action as I tried to take pictures zoomed in way too close from our cheap seats. What? A baby carriage? Where’d that come from?

Concert photography is tricky when you’re limited to a small sneakable camera. For low light situations, they say, use a high ISO. Personally, I hate noise, and that’s what high ISO gives you. I set it to a low ISO and the picture was awesome… but completely out of focus, because of the slow shutter speed and my lack of being able to sneak in a tripod.

So therein lies the dilemma. Focus or no noise? I tried to find a balance between the two, and of the staggering four hundred and six photos I took, a very small percentage seemed to have turned out. That’s fifty less than I took at the poker run and fifty more than grade nine day. Crazy.

Another thing I realized was that the lower exposure was better. The spotlights that followed the musicians around made their faces terribly overexposed. When the stage was bathed in red or blue, everything looked especially bad.

So, those are my tips for you rogue concert photographers, you.

Which brings us to a close. The events of a week in my life, summed up in this one entry, but not summed up so well in the sense that a summary should be short and this most certainly is not.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I saw “Chinatown” the other day. All in all, it was entertaining, but I was kind of confused. It wasn’t meant to be a confusing movie, like one with major twists and crazy stuff or you have to watch it two or three times, but I just found it confusing. That hasn’t happened to me for a long time.

When I was little, no movies made sense to me really. I watched “The Little Mermaid” awhile ago, and I never really realized there was an actual plot. I never saw that things connected. I liked it, but I didn’t understand what they were saying.

When I read the summary on Wikipedia afterward, I understood it. I think it was just that I didn’t know everyone’s names, and that bugs me when I don’t know which character is which. Also, anything to do with police or law or politics, anything like that confuses me at least a little, because I don’t know much about it.

Aaand major spoilers in the next paragraph.

Concerning the whole “sister/daughter” thing, well, first off, when Jack says “I said I want the truth!”, I really wanted to tell him that he couldn’t handle the truth. Anyway, there seems to be quite a bit of debate on IMDB about whether she was raped or not. What I initially thought, and what I saw mentioned once on the boards, was that she said “my father and I…” instead of just “my father”, which made me think it wasn’t rape. But then I also think that he may have made her believe that it wasn’t when it really was, and in the end, it probably really was. My mom didn’t like the ending, I suppose because the bad guy won. But when you think about it, that’s most realistic, really.

Also, WHAT is with Jack and taking advantage of women who have just lost their husbands? The year after this movie, he was doing it again with Tommy’s mom! And okay, so she technically didn’t just lose her husband, but I mean, it was within the hour since the movie began.

Tonight I happened upon a movie called “Roadie”. The description tells me it stars Meat Loaf and some groupie who wants to meet Alice Cooper. So I decide to give it a shot, and I learn from the opening credits that Blondie and Roy Orbison are also in it.

Right from the first shot, I knew this was going to be really really bad. And I was right. I’d say it’s absolutely worse than “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. And Alice Cooper was in both! Hmm. Well, I suppose “Wayne’s World” can partly make up for it, Alice.

Anyway, I shall tell you the story, because I doubt it’s being told anywhere else. I realized that I like to do in-depth retellings of bad or rarely seen movies (for example, you can look up “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “The Legacy”, and “Back to the Beach”, among others).

Meat Loaf plays Travis Redfish, a redneck from Texas. He’s driving in his truck with a friend and they see another car broken down with a hot chick in the trailer, so they stop to help them out. Hot chick is actually the groupie and she has really awful teeth and she’s really annoying and WAAAAAY too old to be a groupie, despite her later revealing that she is only sixteen — shyeah! Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? I don’t think so!

Despite Groupie Girl’s flaws, Meat Loaf obviously likes her, but she’s in love with Alice Cooper and she won’t shut up about him. Meat Loaf doesn’t know who Alice Cooper is and thinks he’s one of Charlie’s Angels. Groupie Girl tells Meat Loaf that Alice is “soooo skinny”. Heh heh. Anyway, Meat Loaf fixes their car and he goes with them to a bar.

I don’t quite understand much of the actual story, but Meat Loaf is somehow forced into becoming a roadie. He does a sound check at the bar and it’s perfect in like two seconds. He is somehow able to fix anything and everyone loves him.

At the bar, Groupie Girl — who is now apparently named “Lola” (watch out Meat Loaf, she’s really a man!) — sees someone who she thinks is Roy Orbison. Somehow, Meat Loaf and Groupie Girl accidentally start a fight. Meat Loaf sits back and enjoys the music and Groupie Girl finds out that it really is Roy Orbison, who then goes on stage to sing with the band and the fighting stops. Then this tough guy with a big neck challenges Meat Loaf, who must have had his drink spiked, because he is now acting really weird. Tough guy and Meat Loaf start making tough faces and then they lunge at each other and Meat Loaf headbutts him and the fight is over. Meat Loaf then starts spewing out nonsense phrases.

After a police chase where Meat Loaf continues to speak nonsense and yell “yakka yakka yakka”, they drive the car onto a plane which takes them to L.A. “What are we doing in Louisiana?” Meat Loaf asks. “Not that L.A.! The L.A.!” Groupie Girl proclaims as she stands in front of the Whisky in her ridiculous outfit that reminds me of Riff Randell. Groupie Girl has promised that Meat Loaf will continue be a roadie and fix everything. They’re supposed to get some Tide, so they do so and go to the laundromat (soap… soap… soap…). While in the laundromat, two narcs enter and just as they pull out their guns, Groupie Girl confesses to Meat Loaf that she is a virgin, and both her and Meat Loaf completely ignore the silly cops and continue with their conversation. The cops then get the Tide and one cop decides to check it out by doing a line. He then proceeds to scream and run around and white foam comes from his nose and the cops leave.

As Meat Loaf and Groupie Girl are driving along, Groupie Girl suddenly yells “IT’S JERRY LEE LEWIS!”. Meat Loaf asks where he is, and Groupie Girl says “on the radio!” and then turns it up. She then jumps up and sticks her head out the roof of the car and does a little rhyme about rock n’ roll… something about apple pie and “I’ll eat chili ’til the day I die!”.

They eventually end up in Idaho at a Blondie concert. But they have no power. Meat Loaf calls his family, who, by the way, have had scenes interspersed with the main plot throughout. However, since I have no idea what’s going on with his family and since they are all completely annoying and boring, I haven’t really mentioned them, and I will continue to not mention them unless necessary.

So Meat Loaf is talking to his dad, and everyone is depending on him to “fix it” because he can fix everything. Groupie Girl gets fed up and asks him if he’s going to get something done or just talk B.S., which gives Meat Loaf this crazy idea that involves rounding up a bunch of bulls and burning their shit to generate power. And this somehow works and saves the Blondie concert, which consists of Blondie doing “Ring of Fire”, followed by the owner of the “Rock N’ Roll Circus” going on stage and thanking Meat Loaf for fixing everything. Then Meat Loaf falls on stage and starts spewing nonsense phrases again. This happens a few times through the movie, and I don’t quite get it. I can only assume he is doing a lot of drugs.

Anyway, Groupie Girl is being a slut and hanging out with all the other bands, and Meat Loaf gets fed up with her always talking about Alice Cooper, so he drags her to New York to see him. They go to his sound check, where he sings “Only Women Bleed”, and Meat Loaf makes a joke about “Billion Dollar Babies”, and there are lots of balloons. Alice wants to have dinner with Meat Loaf (but not in the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” way). Apparently Alice has had contact with Groupie Girl before, because he’s made some sort of promise to her that he’s going to kiss her on the top of the Empire State Building or something, and Alice reminds us several times that he “always keeps [his] promises”.

All three go to dinner together and Alice has this weird Alice doll thing, and he needs Meat Loaf to “fix” something for him for the concert. He does, and the concert goes good, and Meat Loaf leaves to go home to Texas. Groupie Girl is all happy and is front row at the concert and decked out in her eye-make up and all, but then she leaves to chase after Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf leaves her because he needs to go to his sister’s wedding. Groupie Girl is sad.

Meat Loaf arrives just in time for the wedding, and it’s really stupid, but everyone is happy. He then gets a phone call from Groupie Girl who I guess has travelled to Texas to find him. He picks her up and they are all happy. They get in his bus and are all lovey dovey and she tells him she’s not going to be a groupie anymore, but she can see the future, and she says something is about to happen. Then, apparently, some aliens land in front of their bus and the need Meat Loaf to “fix” their spaceship for them.

The End.

We’re waiting outside the Avalon Ballroom. The tickets say “MUST BE 19 YEARS OR OLDER”. Hmm… this is reminiscent of my Davy Jones concert. But when we got there, there were little kids all over the place, so we were fine. But now. No. There’s no young kids. There’s all old guys wearing black make up. No. This is a different crowd.

I wonder if anyone else there saw Jerry Lee Lewis…?

I came up with a plan: if they didn’t let us in, my brother and I would start crying and say that we like Alice Cooper so much that we even watched Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band! That was sure to get us in!

Anyway. Dad shows up and we go in without a problem. I wasn’t worried. Of course, I wouldn’t have been too upset if we didn’t get in, since I wasn’t really looking forward to it. But for a little while I wasn’t looking forward to CSNY and they turned out to be really super awesome. My favourite concert, up until The Who, of course. ;)

So we go in. Get to our seats. I’m sitting with mom on the balcony; my dad and my brother are on the floor, eight or so rows back. Pretty good seats, if I do say so myself. Of course, not as close as Jerry, but still really good.

Here he is. Alice Cooper. My first thoughts?

“WE’RE NOT WORTHY!”

Okay. So I didn’t actually say it. I hadn’t even been thinking about it. But as soon as I saw him, there it was. Hah hah. My brother told me someone near them was yelling that. Hah hah. What losers.

I don’t really like concerts where I don’t know the songs. I’d only heard about four of the songs he played, so that kinda sucked. But I still enjoyed it. And I really thought I wasn’t going to.

During the Ringo concert, my mind was on other things, so I couldn’t enjoy it. I was afraid my mind would be on other things today, but I didn’t dwell on it. He put on quite a show, I was captivated. Ooh, big word.

It was very theatrical. He had all kinds of props and stuff. He threw necklaces and dollars and balloons into the audience.

There was one point where some strange vampire type chick was dancing around onstage, and then she got Alice into a corner and made him disappear! Of course, it was pretty obvious where he went, but still a nice touch.

At the beginning of the show, I noticed a trash can and some doll in front of the drums. I realized it was just a doll and not a real person, so it wouldn’t jump out at us. But then… it’s alive! Of course, again obvious what happened, what with the lights going down after every song. But again, entertaining. She started doing a ballet type dance all around the stage, and it was quite confusing. I’m not one for interpretive dance.

Now, one thing that bothered me. I think it was the song “Lost in America”. It goes something like this:

I ain’t got a girl ’cause I ain’t got a car
I ain’t got a car ’cause I ain’t got a job
I ain’t got a job ’cause I ain’t got a car
So I’m looking for a girl and a car and a job
Alice Cooper, “Lost in America”

Whoa… he’s really deep.

Anyway. And then he plays “I’m Eighteen” a little later. I figure he must have written a good chunk of these songs when he was eighteen, because that’s what it sounds like.

It’s kind of like The Who singing “hope I die before I get old”, you know what I mean? But of course, it’s fine when The Who does it, but not Alice Cooper, oh no. But it still bothered me. And again, like Jerry Lee Lewis singing “Sweet Little Sixteen”, but I mean, it’s fine for him to do that, because, well, he’s Jerry Lee Lewis. Come on!

I noticed, I believe during “The Ballad of Dwight Fry” that he was sitting right in front of the crowd in his little strait jacket, and people are like right up in his face with their little camera phones! Man, that would be a cool picture.

“Hey guys, check out my pictures. Here’s me at the zoo, here’s a pylon in a tree…” — “Hey, who’s that?” — “Oh, that’s just my friend…” — “ALICE COOPER?!?” — “Right, that’s his name”

So then these weird mummies or zombies or something come and get him and then the garbage can chick comes out with a big thing under a blanket, and then they’re like “WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO HIM? SHOULD WE BURN HIM? NOOOOOOO! SHOULD WE HANG HIM? NOOOOOO! GUILLOTINE, GUILLOTINE, GUILLOTINE!!!” My brother said everyone was yelling “GUILLOTINE!” except this one guy who’s like in this sad little voice “let him go!”

So they uncover the guillotine and stick his head through and CHOP! YAY!!!

The girl dances around with his head, and then sticks it onto this headless zombie. And then it comes to life! It’s Alice! He’s alive! YAY! BRRRRRRIIIIIIIIING! Schoooooooool’s OUT! FOR! SUMMER!

At the end, he introduced all the band guys, and then the doll dead girl came out dressed as Paris Hilton and was all prancing around the stage with her little dog and stuff and throwing a tantrum. And then he’s like “my daughter – Calico Cooper!” and I was like “HUH?” So yeah. That was strange. I didn’t quite get the Paris Hilton bit.

So yeah. It was pretty cool. Lights were really good. Very entertaining. Very loud. My ears were ringing when I was trying to sleep and I was afraid I might have gone deaf. Heh.

I’m really tired so I shall write in the morning.

Err… yes.

But this concert has made me CRAZY. I am just thinking about The Who ALL. THE. TIME.

Like, EVEN MORE THAN USUAL!

I mean, it’s not a BAD thing, but I mean… cor, it’s just…

Okay. I was looking at where the guys (and that’s PETE AND ROGER, by the WAY!) are now. Winnipeg.

“They must be on stage now!” I realize.

“Hmm… how far is it to Winni -”

NO!

STOP THAT.

*HEADDESK*

YOU ARE NOT, NOT (!!!) GOING TO WINNIPEG!!!

BLOODY ‘ELL!

Okay.

Also, I’m pissed off, because there was this one time at the concert and there’s was a close up on the screen of Pete singing and it was just a REALLY great shot and I wish I’d taken a picture of it.

I keep doodling little Petes with his little hat and all. Aww.

Uhhhh…

How am I going to find them at the ACC?

Where do I go?

How long do I wait?

WHERE DO I GOOOO?

What am I going to DO?

One month ’til the record comes out. Two months ’til the concert.

I CAN’T WAIT THAT LOOOOONG!

AHHHH!

A burning question on my mind ever since July, my one year anniversary of Whoness… is the Who still my favourite group?

I can now answer that question with a resounding “HELL YEAAAH”!

UHHH. Can I get a picture with them? Or no? How do I even get the camera in? They check at ACC, unlike *cough* some places. Though not totally thoroughly, which is nice.

Pete and Roger are on my desktop. And I mean OLD Pete and Roger! What’s up with that? I’ll tell you what’s up with that… THEY STILL KICK ASS!

I thought for some reason that Pete’s son’s birthday was on the same day as mine, but apparently not, it’s like a month off. Oh well.

I find it amusing when Pete mentions his son on his blog. Because he’s the same age as me, and OBVIOUSLY, whenever ANYBODY reads about someone the same AGE as them, or with the same NAME (and his name starts with the same LETTER as mine) I mean, that OBVIOUSLY means they have some sort of psychic, other worldly, ESPN connection!

There was one time and he’s like “fuck off, I have to help my son study for his exams!”

And I think “HEY! Me TOOOO!”

Well, except, I wasn’t really. I just should have been. Studying for my exams, that is.

Hey, what the hell, *my* dad doesn’t help *me* study for *my* exams!

Okay. I’m like… I feel useless and just non… I don’t know what. I’m just… agh.

I can’t explain.

…YES!

EXACTLY!

Exactly.

That’s it. That’s just it. I can’t explain. Oooh, ooh. Can’t explain. “Write more like that!”

That is just exactly how I feel. On Q107 or something, they have a segment called “damn, I wish I wrote that” or something, and that is one song I wish I wrote. Because it just makes SENSE! But I can’t be a song writer, because I’d just want to rewrite songs that other people have already written perfectly, and that just doesn’t make sense.

Okay, something I’ve realized recently, is that I love sarcastic songs… songs that seem to be really happy and lovely dovey but really AREN’T! I mean, most love songs I don’t love, which is why I don’t love Elvis, because he’s got mushy Love Me Tender type stuff. Like okay, I have to admit, some of his songs like Jailhouse Rock are okay. But not the Loving You type stuff. It’s just uck.

But okay, like, take for instance, Blue Red and Grey. Apparently Pete hates this song, but I mean, he hates every song, so you can’t take his word for that… but apparently he does NOT love every minute of the day, and therefore he was being SARCASTIC! So that was the TONE of the song! Take that, English class! YEAH!

OH! SPEAKING OF PETE! I *LOVE* PETE! But I mean, speaking of Pete, I loved his blog today. It made me very happy. And he mentioned something about The Boy Who Heard Music and putting it on the stage or something and I’m like YAY!!!

But I mean, back to that other thing.

Wonderful Tonight. Another sarcastic love song. I realized how sarcastic it is when I saw Clapton. I just felt the vibe, you know?

Ummm… what else?

Err… Never mind. That seems to be it. I thought there was another one. I Will? No, that was Paul, he’s not sarcastic. I mean, John probably wrote some sarcastic love songs. And I could kind of see Mike writing one. For some reason I want to say Nine Times Blue is, but I don’t know why. I haven’t heard that in a long time, so I don’t even remember if it is or isn’t.

Okay. What else?

Err uhh.

HAVE I MENTIONED I LOVE WIRE AND GLASS AND LISTEN TO IT EVERY SINGLE DAY!?!?!?

We’ve Got a Hit. That’s sarcastic kinda, isn’t it? I love that part. And Endless Wire. And umm… OH YEAH, I read that Sound Round was written during Who’s Next? IN LIKE 1971!?! The camper van stuff fits right in with that, but that is just CRAZY!

Right. Umm. I just love all of Wire and Glass.

I just *love* mini operas.

Okay, so now I have to change my three songs. My three deserted island songs, that you can only listen to for the rest of your life. You know those songs?

A Quick One While He’s Away. Wire and Glass.

That only leaves one. more. spot!

Then I’ve got The End and Stairway to Heaven.

I think I’d say The End. But that might just be because I’m afraid Stairway is too cliche. And anyway, I’ve got Stairway in Wire and Glass… sorta. Well, a mention of it.

Umm. But The End is also a lot longer.

Oh and the whole “In The Ether” part of Wire and Glass and the “I see three children” that part I loved the first time I heard it because I was like “HAHAHA! I GET IT!”

I get Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons mixed up. I used to I mean. I still get Gene Simmons and Richard Simmons mixed up though, sadly. HA HA. When my brother says something about Gene Simmons I have to stop and think and go “wait… there’s Gene… and Richard… and, umm… Gene is the Kiss guy… right…”

Err. Okay. I have a headache. And I don’t feel like writing but I also REALLY DO!

OHHHHHH…

I’m just so…. SO….

UHHHH.

In conclusion, and I will conclude here because I’m starting to think I’m embarrassing myself with so much rambling on… umm, in conclusion…! Right! You can tell Rolling Stone magazine my last words were…

I dig music.

…

I’M ON DRUGS!

DISCLAIMER: OH MY GOD, I’m not really on DRUGS! It’s a QUOTE from a ALMOST FAMOUS. Okay! Just making sure, because I didn’t want anyone to get the WRONG IDEA about me. Because I’m not on drugs. I just found the quote appropriate, because my conclusion was going to be something about how at this moment I am feeling a very deep appreciation and possibly even LOVE for THE WHO!

But then I figured it would be kind of a downer, and the kids would just clap politely instead of go wild and then if I said “I’M ON DRUGS!” they would be more receptive and then the kid would tell me to get down off the roof and then I’d be like “OKAY!” and then I’d jump anyway.

So yeah. I’m done. I’m done.

KEEP ON CLIMBIN’…

Well, a few weeks ago, I boldly went were no sane person has gone before… I bought it on eBay.

Now, after my last movie, That’ll Be The Day, I was feelin’ a little down about buying movies. But, on I went, pressed the Buy Now button.

And let me just say, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is absolutely, positively, definitely one of the absolute greatest movies I’ve seen. I kid you not.

Now, you see, I walk home with Kristen. I wait for her outside the back door at school. Today I smelt some kids doing something they shouldn’t have been doing. And it was STRONG. I may have inhaled a bit too much of this, so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much.

The movie begins in 1918 or something, during the war. And suddenly, you see these marching band dudes walking right through the middle of it! It took me awhile to figure out they were playing Sgt. Pepper’s. A little too long. But at least I figured it out. Then the mayor of Heartland, Mr. Kite, explains to us a bit about their history, and how Sgt. Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club Band played through the roaring twenties, the depression, etc, right up to World War II. Then they had a weather vane made in their honour and then Sgt. Pepper and the band (now old men) begin to play a song for everyone. But then Sgt. Pepper drops dead. Aww.

He wanted his nephew or something, Billy Shears (Peter Frampton), to continue on the band, and his brother Dougie Shears (Paul Nicholas, Cousin Kevin!) was sad. Then Billy got his friends, Mark and Dave and something (the Bee Gees) and they joined in his band.

Dougie Shears isn’t left out though, he’s their like roadie money loving girl picking upping dude that follows them around the whole time. Which is awesome, because I thought he’d only be there in the beginning!

Anyway, they’re playing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, then Billy Shears runs up (wearing this awful pink and white outfit with his name on it!) and starts to sing With A Little Help From My Friends. Then we meet Billy’s girlfriend, Strawberry Fields. Aww. Then they get some telegram from this dude at Big Deal Records and he says he wants (bwhahaha wants… sorry, you won’t get it yet) them to send him a tape. So they do and they start playing Getting Better later somewhere and then they get invited to go to the record place.

Oh, and we meet Mean Mr. Mustard (“such a mean old man!” BWHAHA) and he’s like evil and he steals the original SPLHCB instruments from the mayor’s office. And he’s in this weird van with these two robot girls. Very strange.

And then there’s a lovely little scene with Billy and Strawberry and Strawberry sings Here Comes The Sun. And then the band goes off in their hot air balloon, and one of them gets sick ha ha, and then they are suddenly in an airplane? That confused the heck outta me.

Oh, and somewhere before this, Mr. Kite, the old dude, sings Fixing A Hole. It was strange.

Then, cue “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. They get outta the plane an into a car with the record dude an the chick driving the car. And the record dude starts singing I Want You to the guys! Now, if I was them, I would be getting my butt THE HELL OUTTA THERE, and my brother definitely found it disturbing. But I mean, the Bee Gees and Peter seem quite ah, girly, so I guess they were okay with it. :)

Then they go to the dude’s mansion and there’s these chicks there and they start the flirting and making out and stuff, and there’s one part there where they sing to the camera. That was awful. But hilarious.

So then the band gets famous and ruins various Beatles songs and whatnot. Billy’s girlfriend is sad so She Leav[es] Home to find him. She does find him, but he’s singing with Lucy and The Diamonds and then they start makin’ out again. So she’s sad.

AH HA HA. Then they’re recording Oh Darling or something in the studio and then he sees her, so they all start running out, but then the one Bee Gee that’s singing doesn’t realize it, so he’s the only one there still singing, so then they run back and get him. HA HA.

So then they find the evil Mustard dude’s car, and ’cause meanwhile he’s been taking over Heartland and making the old people and Strawberry sad. So the van computer tells them to go see Dr. Maxwell Edison (Steve Martin).

Maxwell’s a surgeon or something with his magical silver hammer and he taps old ugly people with the hammer and they turn into peppy gay tall kids wearing camping outfits. And did I mention THIS IS LIKE ONE OF THE BEST FREAKIN’ SCENES EVER!?!?! It reminded me a bit of Jack Nicholson as the doctor and the cult type thing with Eric Clapton in Tommy. Anyway, so they steal the trumpet thing from him, but Billy is knocked out, but then Strawberry sings Strawberry Fields Forever to him and he wakes up because he loves her and she loves him and they’re all happy.

Then they go to the Sun King (Alice Cooper), who’s brainwashing the camping kids, but he’s not really paying any attention to them, he’s watching boxing and eating pie, and they’re all watching a video of him singing Because. The band and Strawberry arrive and stop the brainwashing thing and steal the tuba and the Sun King gets pie in the face WHICH WAS FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS!

Oh, and Billy finds the drum in the van at some point, because Mr. Mustard just left it there.

Oh, and they go see Earth Wind and Fire sing Got To Get You Into My Life at a concert, but stupid Strawberry is standing away from everyone else and gets kidnapped.

Oh! And Dougie and some chick sing You Never Give Me Your Money and roll around in money and laugh and have fun! Woo hoo!

So now they’ve gotta go to the big bad guys and get the last instrument. The big bad guys are the FVB, Future Villain Band (Aerosmith). And they’ve got Strawberry tied up somewhere. So they start singing Come Together for no particular reason. And then the band comes up and there’s a big fight.

Now, let me ask you this: Who would win in a fight — Peter Frampton or Steven Tyler? Steven Tyler, right? Well YOU’RE DEAD WRONG. Peter Frampton kicked some Aerosmith butt! And then he died. And I was reminded of Tommy, because poor Steven was lying there like in Cousin Kevin when Tommy falls down the stairs. Lots of stuff reminded me of Tommy, actually.

But oh no – suddenly, the thing that Strawberry is tied up to falls as well, and wouldn’t you believe it — SHE DIES TOO!

So now there’s a funeral and Billy’s singin’ Golden Slumbers to her, and his friends tell him to Carry That Weight. So now everyone’s sad and Billy’s about to jump off a roof (and me and my brother start yelling at him to do it!) and then he DOES! And the stupid Bee Gees just look up stupidly and don’t even help him.

But, remember the Sgt. Pepper weather vane? It’s actually Billy Preston! He comes alive and flies down and zaps Billy and tells him to Get Back and he doesn’t die! And then he brings Strawberry back to life! And then they hug! And then they all dance around and are happy!

Then everyone gets together, along with Tina Turner (another Tommy character), Herman (from Herman’s Hermits), and a ton of other famous people. And they all sing Sgt. Pepper’s (Reprise) and are all together like on the album cover. Brilliant!

So yeah. I just adored this movie. Mom didn’t get to see it and she came home just as Billy Preston came on and she thought me and my brother were totally stoned. Heh heh.