This is how I Feed The Animals

Girl Talk put out his newest album Feed The Animals, doing a pay-what-you-want deal, here. I paid $5, because it also came with a single seamless mp3 of the entire album. Which is how it’s supposed to be heard.

Ultimately, it isn’t as fun as Night Ripper, but it’s a lot smarter. It seems more intentional. Less forced. While (everyone talks about this) Biggie’s “Juicy” over Elton’s “Tiny Dancer” is cool, Pimp C’s vocal in “International Player’s Anthem” matches up with Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’” flawlessly. The vocal accents at the end of each line match up with the bass accents on the instrumental. Then “Whoomp! (There It Is)” with “In a Big Country”? Amazing.

But at the same time, it doesn’t pop like Night Ripper. I recognize less of the raps, and I know that a lot of them are more recent (and I’m an old fart who’s out of touch), but it’s more fun when you recognize most of it, and you’re re-hearing it in a new context and not just hearing two songs you’ve never heard in a way that’s obviously already new to you. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t lacking in fun, it just seems like I’m less in on the secret.

Rock and Roll, part one

“Rock and Roll part 2″ is a song that has penetrated the collective consciousness. It’s played at sporting events nationwide, as well as at various pump-up points in movies.

And for a long time I actually doubted the existence of “Rock and Roll part one”, because “part 2″ was so ubiquitous, and I’d never heard “part 1″, and I thought that “Rock and Roll part two” was a cool enough title that a part one wasn’t even necessary. Plus, all they say is “hey” in part two.

But the other day, for the first time, I heard “Rock and Roll part one” at trivia. And I asked the DJ if it was, in fact “part one”. And it was. I was delighted. I actually prefer it to “part 2″.

Observe.

Then I remembered that Gary Glitter has been convicted on child pornography charges.

But it’s still a good song.

She’s lost…

Control.

Here’s the positive:

• That dude really looks like Ian Curtis, which is kinda creepy, but makes me exceedingly pumped.
• The cast, apparently, plays all of the Joy Division songs in the movie. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.
• Anton Corbijn
• It’s the Ian Curtis biopic! Ian Curtis! My favorite song ever is “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (which I vehemently refuse to sing at karaoke). I mean, 24 Hour Party People is awesome, and I love it, but this one’s just about Ian Curtis.

Here’s what worries me:

• It’s a biopic. Biopics tend to suck. I thought that Walk the Line was the best biopic I’ve seen, but I still think it kinda sucked. The problem is the third act, when the subject stops doing cool stuff, and starts to deal with fame or whatever, and the flick really slows down. It happens in every biopic. And it irks me. It irks me.
• It’s Anton Cobijn’s first feature.
• The cast plays all of the songs in the movie. This could ruin the movie if they suck.
• If they picked an actor who looks like the subject, rather than someone who can really fucking play him, that’s ridiculously myopic.

However, since *Spolier Alert* Ian Curtis killed himself at 23 *Spoilers End*, the third act may not slow down. I’m going to see this movie. And I’m pretty sure it’ll be awesome.

I tried my best to put it quickly on viiiiiibraaaaate

I hope you’re all aware of this.

I’m spending today on three projects.

#1 is something I came up with yesterday, and haven’t really stopped thinking about since. I’m not going to talk about it yet, but it’s very exciting, and I hope to talk about it soon.

#2 is the book club. Since putting out several notes to determine interest, I feel like I’ve got enough to start actually planning this thing. I’ve created a page to manage the book club on. It’s sparse for the moment, but I’ll be keeping track of things on there once we get rolling. Actually, this seems like a job for Google Groups. But if it comes to that, I’ll probably keep the page anyway.

#3 is hopefully finishing the mix I’ve been working on. I think there’s only one transition I really think needs work, and a second that could use some tweaking, but I’m pretty satisfied with it as a whole. Then I can start working on the next one. Woo hoo!

20 Questions

New era, new blog, new stuff.

No more video.

So let’s get going.

FAQ

1. So Where You Been?
Minneapolis, mostly.

2. Ok, dick, why haven’t you been blogging?
Well, that’s the interesting part. It started with the last Omega Wolf show, which made me crazy busy, so I only blogged to tell you to come to it. Then, I took a week or so to relax, regain my bearings, gearing up to blog again, when I got fired from my job. So that was a crappy day. It was a crappy weekend, actually. Since then, I’ve been a bit too depressy to blog.

3. Why did you get fired?
Spending too much time on the internet.

4. Seriously?
Well, that’s what they told me. However, I’d say that’s only part of the story. Back in January, I signed a ‘performance improvement plan’ saying that I’d stop going on the internet at work, and I’d fix 3-4 bugs a month. The following month I fixed 7 bugs, but continued to go on the internet, albeit more sparingly. However, since they were tracking my internet usage, any amount greater than 0 was considered a breach, and they canned me. Hm. So this seems a bit unfair. But I hardly fit in at work, and really didn’t like any of my coworkers, and I had an authority problem, by which I mean I called out one of my supervisors whenever he was wrong (which was often, to be fair) tactlessly, which was extremely stupid on my part. But none of that is quantifiable, but internet usage is.

5. Why were you on the internet so much?
Like I said, I didn’t get along with my coworkers. I ate lunch by myself, at my desk, and I looked stuff up. And these guys were taking hour-long lunch breaks. Then they would play ping-pong once or twice an afternoon. So I would go on breaks, at my desk. But this looks unproductive, whereas being away from your desk doesn’t look as unproductive, because an empty cubicle looks like you’re off doing something important. Plus, work was very tedious and monotonous, and I’d get bored quickly, and then I’d go spend a few minutes looking shit up.

6. So what have you been doing since then?
The first thing I did was go home and watch cartoons for several hours, then I got sloppy drunk. A couple of weeks later, I went and visited my parents for a week, and a couple of weeks after that, I went on a road trip to New York and DC with my friend Jesse. Since then, I’ve been looking for various jobs in coffee shops and restaurants.

7. Wait– why aren’t you looking for a computer job?
I guess I just don’t think it’s for me anymore. I worked in computers, and I kinda hated it. I don’t like corporate culture. I found very few people who I worked with who I enjoyed spending any amount of time with. I mean, I enjoy the work, but not the life. I don’t want to do that anymore.

8. Then what do you want to do?
I want to write.

9. Huh? Where’d that come from?
The most satisfying thing I’ve done since graduating from college has been to start a comedy troupe, turn it into a theater company, and write stuff. So that’s what I want to do.

10. Why weren’t you interested in that in college, and get a degree in English or something other than Math and Computer Science?
I was, but…I don’t know. I was good at math. And I was good at CS. And I liked them. And I got on that path, and I stuck to it. Making a decision to follow a framework while within that framework is so completely natural that looking back I would have wanted to take more classes along those lines, but I didn’t because I was behind in the major that I had practically chosen my senior year of high school, and then I ended up adding on another major, so my schedule was pretty set very early on. And I completely forgot how much I wanted to create, because I was driving and being driven toward a tech degree. And I don’t think I had any encouragement toward doing anything else, but I also don’t think I showed much interest. It’s how the system works, I think.

11. And now you’re all anti-establishment?
Sure.

12. Ok. So why do you want to work a shitty job when you can write while you have a tech job?
Having a tech job is so career-oriented that it makes what you’re doing seem like the most important thing in the world. I was worried about how the project was going two weeks after they fired me. Seriously. It’s something you start doing, and keep doing until you retire. Writing would have been a hobby, with no actual desire behind it– a cute way to pass the time. But if I’m doing something I don’t want to do for the rest of my life, it’s a different story. Then writing is what I do, and I go to work because I have to. It’s about creating a frame of mind to motivate myself. These are things I don’t say in job interviews.

13. So, um, why haven’t you gotten a job yet?
I don’t know. Shit luck. I’m scary and Mexican-looking. I was getting really depressed for a while. I reached a point where if I didn’t get a job soon, I would have to move in with my parents, which is incredibly frightening for a number of reasons. Mostly the fact that they live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and job prospects are slim, at best. And I have no friends there. Luckily, I got a job.

14. Oh, where?
It’s called Panchero’s Mexican Grill. It’s in Bloomington. It’s this chain restaurant, like Chipotle. Counter-service burritos ‘n’ shit.

15. What are you doing?
Everyone who works there does everything. So I’ll be doing prep cooking, serving, cashiering, cleaning toilets, etc.

16. Did they hire you because they thought you were Mexican?
Seriously, stop asking that. Everyone asks me that. My name is Matty Tucker. I’m clearly of some form of Anglo descent. I speak without an accent. I don’t think they hired me because of my skin color. So there.

17. Sorry. Jeez. So, um, what are you writing?
I’ve got a few things. I’ve got a couple of short stories I’m working on. They’re funny sci-fi/fantasy stories. I’m writing a short film. It’s a comedy-horror. My long-term goal is to write a novel. I’ve started researching on a topic I want to write about. It’s a straightforward sci-fi story. Cyberpunk, I guess. But the main thing I’m writing right now is a dark comedy play that I’d eventually like to turn into a feature-length film. It has nothing to do with sci-fi.

18. So can you tell me any more about any of your writing projects?
Not right now.

19. Fair enough. What else have you been up to this summer?
Well, I got into Karaoke after popping my karaoke cherry at a wedding after-party in DC. I’ve been playing on a kickball team. We came in 11th out of 12 in the league. I was on a team that won our division in the Aquatennial Sand Sculpture Competition. I’ve been drinking a lot, wrote two sketches for the upcoming Omega Wolf show (details forthcoming), watching movies. And I’ve got some combo between a mohawk and a mullet that I really like. And I’m clean-shaven for the first time since college. Oh, and I’ve been working on this dance mix in Garageband.

20. Anything else?
I’m glad to be blogging again. That’s handy. Check out the mix I’m working on (it’s an mp3), in the Music Section. I hope to actually update this thing regularly.