Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Watch This: Tedeschi Trucks Band Promo
Ohmanohmanohmanohmanohman - I can't wait for this album to drop.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
I Know A Funny Person
My very good buddy Chad Goodroad has been out east for two years pulling triple duty as a grad student, high school English teacher and burgeoning improv comedian. His troupe, Hot And Sweaty (a title which is very appropriate for just about anything Chad does) is off to a strong start, and will be performing at The Warehouse Theater in Washington D.C. on Saturday, February 26. If you know people in the area, please spread the word. If you don't, please visit their YouTube channel to get your laughs and "Like" them on Facebook to keep abreast of their goings-on.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Watch This
John Stewart and Stephen Colbert stopped by Conan O'Brien's tour for a dance off.
Things like this make me happier than happy.
Things like this make me happier than happy.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Phish, Fallon, Exile
Phish will be on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon tonight, performing a song off the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street album. Fallon is celebrating the release of the remastered edition by having all of his musical guests pay tribute. Phish was a natural choice, considering they just covered the album in its entirety last Halloween.
David Fricke from Rolling Stone (the magazine, not the band) sat down with Trey Anastasio and chatted with him about the influence of Exile. It's a pretty cool read. Check it out here.
Here's an audience video of Phish doing "Shine A Light" at Festival 8 last Halloween
David Fricke from Rolling Stone (the magazine, not the band) sat down with Trey Anastasio and chatted with him about the influence of Exile. It's a pretty cool read. Check it out here.
Here's an audience video of Phish doing "Shine A Light" at Festival 8 last Halloween
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A Whale Of A Tale From My College Years
My freshman year of college spent at the University of Minnesota Duluth, I was fortunate enough to be placed in the nicer, apartment-style dormitories, with three roommates. The apartment was nice; two bedrooms, a large living room, bathroom and a small kitchenette. These details are relatively unimportant, but I feel like if you're going to invest in reading about my life, you should get the biggest bang for your buck. Although what is important to know is that the furnished couch had a huge stain on it. Psyche! That wasn't important either. Anyway...
On moving-in day when I first arrived, two of my future bunkers had already settled in; one in each room. Neither was present when I got there, so I had to judge who I wanted to sleep next to by whatever random stuff they had already unpacked. Strewn about in one room was a bunch of hockey paraphernalia. Actually, "a bunch" might be too conservative; there were hockey toys (remember those "Starting Lineup" figurines? He had plenty of them), hockey photos, jerseys...it was kinda like what a comic book dork's room looks like (e.g. my basement), only with stuff that shouldn't have looked that dorky. There were also multiple pictures of what I could only assume was he and his girlfriend; a warning that there might be many weekend visits resulting in my sleeping on the couch (the couch that had that stain! Maybe that was important information after all!).
By contrast, the other room (which was slightly bigger, certainly a plus) had nothing sports related, and everything was already organized, placed nicely in its place. Aside from the pastel orange comforter and the zebra rug (Note: not a zebra-print rug, but a small rug that was a zebra picture), the room was pretty neutral. His poor sense of style notwithstanding, there was nothing too alarming, so I decided to take my chances on bunking with the possibly gay, possibly immature (probably both) roommate instead of the jock.
Later that night, we were all introduced and began our lives as college freshmen. Tom was the hockey fan, and John was the pastel zebra guy. Completing the quartet was Pat, an affable pot-head who, despite the copious quantities of cannabis he consumed (how's that for alliteration?) was probably the most in-shape person I've ever met. No joke, he could compete in an Iron Man competition and still school you in basketball afterward (as long as he could take a smoke break in between).
Pat, Tom and I got on real well. Pat and I shared the same musical tastes and we both got bored of school real quick. Many an afternoon was spent debating whether to go to class or watch a Grateful Dead DVD. The debate would end when we realized it was time for lunch. And for all his pot smoking, he never once pushed the stuff on me, which I definitely appreciated. Tom was a friendly and funny guy (who is now pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian) and we bonded several times over discussions of poor, high school girl friend-related decisions we had made (and that he was continuing to make. He was engaged when I met him, and before summer rolled around, the wedding was called off).
John, on the other hand, I didn't always get along with. He was a nice enough guy, and there are definitely far worse people I could have had as a roommate. But he had dozens of little quirks that eventually wore me down. For one, he craved attention. You know those people who act like they're talking to themselves, but they're really talking to you, just begging for you to notice them? He would never start a normal conversation with me, he would just make little comments to himself until I would respond. But they were comments I had no interest in; I would have nothing to contribute to this imaginary conversation. He would just talk until I talked back but there was never anything to talk about. There was strong lack of self-awareness on his part, and I rarely have the patience for people like that.
However, I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't easy to live with either. When people annoy me I have a tendency to just shut them out; ignore them until they go away. It's pretty immature, very passive aggressive and I know if I had indulged him in his nonsensical quests for attention both our lives would have been easier. However, I do think that I make it blatantly obvious when I'm not interested in talking to someone. And if that someone can't pick up on those hints, for better or worse, I'm going to shift into asshole mode pretty quickly. I ain't saying it's justifiable; but I definitely think it falls into a "fool me once..." category.
By now, if you're still reading, you're probably thinking "Hey Matt, what's the chase and when are you going to cut to it?" Well, we're here, and I'd like to remind you that patience is a virtue.
One day we, along with several friends from our hall, were all sitting at the same table during dinner in the dining center (Side Note: enrolling at UMD is worth every penny for the dining center food alone. I may have gained fifty pounds in two months and began a losing battle with the initial stages of obesity, but I wouldn't change it for a thing. That shit was delicious.) And the night was going good; general conversation, jokes, laughs, etc. And at some point, I ask a funny question, apropos of nothing and probably completely unanswerable:
Do you think anybody has blown up a whale with a torpedo from a submarine?
See to me, it would make sense that somebody has. I have absolutely nothing to base this theory on besides the speculation that if I were stationed in a submarine for a couple months, and I saw a huge whale floating by, I would at least entertain the thought of shooting it with a torpedo. I'm not a hunter by any means, and I certainly wouldn't pull the proverbial trigger on something as majestic as a whale, but I mean...come on. You're telling me you wouldn't think about it? How's your nose feel Pinocchio?
So we all laugh at the notion of a whale exploding underwater. Well, all of us except John. You see, John is a member of the Wisconsin National Guard making him the resident authority on all things military, and according to him, nothing like that could ever happen. Under no circumstance, regardless of what nation/army/person is piloting the submarine, would something like the shooting of a sea creature with a torpedo ever happen. Maybe I was upset because he stole the thunder from my joke, but I pressed him: Not even as an accident? What if they thought it was an enemy submarine? What if they were drunk? How can you know for sure?
The question was a stupid one, and frankly, I didn't give a shit about whether or not it had ever happened. I just hated that he was so matter-of-fact about it all. He wasn't suggesting that it had probably never happened, or that the likeliness of it happening was small...he was sure it had never happened. In the entire history of man kind's ability to fire large weapons under water, a whale, whether intentionally of accidentally, had never been fired upon. And for some (stupid) reason, this infuriated me.
I don't recall how the conversation ended, though I do recall John bringing it up weeks later just to remind me of how wrong I was. Anyway, I found this video online, and while it's not of a whale exploding underwater via torpedo shot, it does show a whale (already dead) being blown up on land with dynamite. And now, having seen this video, I feel like I can officially say I was right. Kind of. I mean, at this point we would just be arguing semantics, right?
Somebody blew up a whale. Matt: 1. John: 0.
Here's the video:
On moving-in day when I first arrived, two of my future bunkers had already settled in; one in each room. Neither was present when I got there, so I had to judge who I wanted to sleep next to by whatever random stuff they had already unpacked. Strewn about in one room was a bunch of hockey paraphernalia. Actually, "a bunch" might be too conservative; there were hockey toys (remember those "Starting Lineup" figurines? He had plenty of them), hockey photos, jerseys...it was kinda like what a comic book dork's room looks like (e.g. my basement), only with stuff that shouldn't have looked that dorky. There were also multiple pictures of what I could only assume was he and his girlfriend; a warning that there might be many weekend visits resulting in my sleeping on the couch (the couch that had that stain! Maybe that was important information after all!).
By contrast, the other room (which was slightly bigger, certainly a plus) had nothing sports related, and everything was already organized, placed nicely in its place. Aside from the pastel orange comforter and the zebra rug (Note: not a zebra-print rug, but a small rug that was a zebra picture), the room was pretty neutral. His poor sense of style notwithstanding, there was nothing too alarming, so I decided to take my chances on bunking with the possibly gay, possibly immature (probably both) roommate instead of the jock.
Later that night, we were all introduced and began our lives as college freshmen. Tom was the hockey fan, and John was the pastel zebra guy. Completing the quartet was Pat, an affable pot-head who, despite the copious quantities of cannabis he consumed (how's that for alliteration?) was probably the most in-shape person I've ever met. No joke, he could compete in an Iron Man competition and still school you in basketball afterward (as long as he could take a smoke break in between).
Pat, Tom and I got on real well. Pat and I shared the same musical tastes and we both got bored of school real quick. Many an afternoon was spent debating whether to go to class or watch a Grateful Dead DVD. The debate would end when we realized it was time for lunch. And for all his pot smoking, he never once pushed the stuff on me, which I definitely appreciated. Tom was a friendly and funny guy (who is now pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian) and we bonded several times over discussions of poor, high school girl friend-related decisions we had made (and that he was continuing to make. He was engaged when I met him, and before summer rolled around, the wedding was called off).
John, on the other hand, I didn't always get along with. He was a nice enough guy, and there are definitely far worse people I could have had as a roommate. But he had dozens of little quirks that eventually wore me down. For one, he craved attention. You know those people who act like they're talking to themselves, but they're really talking to you, just begging for you to notice them? He would never start a normal conversation with me, he would just make little comments to himself until I would respond. But they were comments I had no interest in; I would have nothing to contribute to this imaginary conversation. He would just talk until I talked back but there was never anything to talk about. There was strong lack of self-awareness on his part, and I rarely have the patience for people like that.
However, I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't easy to live with either. When people annoy me I have a tendency to just shut them out; ignore them until they go away. It's pretty immature, very passive aggressive and I know if I had indulged him in his nonsensical quests for attention both our lives would have been easier. However, I do think that I make it blatantly obvious when I'm not interested in talking to someone. And if that someone can't pick up on those hints, for better or worse, I'm going to shift into asshole mode pretty quickly. I ain't saying it's justifiable; but I definitely think it falls into a "fool me once..." category.
By now, if you're still reading, you're probably thinking "Hey Matt, what's the chase and when are you going to cut to it?" Well, we're here, and I'd like to remind you that patience is a virtue.
One day we, along with several friends from our hall, were all sitting at the same table during dinner in the dining center (Side Note: enrolling at UMD is worth every penny for the dining center food alone. I may have gained fifty pounds in two months and began a losing battle with the initial stages of obesity, but I wouldn't change it for a thing. That shit was delicious.) And the night was going good; general conversation, jokes, laughs, etc. And at some point, I ask a funny question, apropos of nothing and probably completely unanswerable:
Do you think anybody has blown up a whale with a torpedo from a submarine?
See to me, it would make sense that somebody has. I have absolutely nothing to base this theory on besides the speculation that if I were stationed in a submarine for a couple months, and I saw a huge whale floating by, I would at least entertain the thought of shooting it with a torpedo. I'm not a hunter by any means, and I certainly wouldn't pull the proverbial trigger on something as majestic as a whale, but I mean...come on. You're telling me you wouldn't think about it? How's your nose feel Pinocchio?
So we all laugh at the notion of a whale exploding underwater. Well, all of us except John. You see, John is a member of the Wisconsin National Guard making him the resident authority on all things military, and according to him, nothing like that could ever happen. Under no circumstance, regardless of what nation/army/person is piloting the submarine, would something like the shooting of a sea creature with a torpedo ever happen. Maybe I was upset because he stole the thunder from my joke, but I pressed him: Not even as an accident? What if they thought it was an enemy submarine? What if they were drunk? How can you know for sure?
The question was a stupid one, and frankly, I didn't give a shit about whether or not it had ever happened. I just hated that he was so matter-of-fact about it all. He wasn't suggesting that it had probably never happened, or that the likeliness of it happening was small...he was sure it had never happened. In the entire history of man kind's ability to fire large weapons under water, a whale, whether intentionally of accidentally, had never been fired upon. And for some (stupid) reason, this infuriated me.
I don't recall how the conversation ended, though I do recall John bringing it up weeks later just to remind me of how wrong I was. Anyway, I found this video online, and while it's not of a whale exploding underwater via torpedo shot, it does show a whale (already dead) being blown up on land with dynamite. And now, having seen this video, I feel like I can officially say I was right. Kind of. I mean, at this point we would just be arguing semantics, right?
Somebody blew up a whale. Matt: 1. John: 0.
Here's the video:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
