Category: Life

In the beginning there were the boxes:

Actually in the beginning there were the boxes deftly packed into a Chevrolet, but that’s not important. Because now, we have this:

And the Lord did grin. And the people did enjoy their entertainment centers, and coffee tables and chairs. But not yet their bedframes.

Interesting reading that Adnan sent me: Ikea’s accounting is apparently as crafty, ingenious and thrifty as their products.

• The Science of Sleep. Now playing at Market Street. I saw it last night, and may try to go again this week if anyone is interested. Please go see it as soon as you can.
• Wikipedia’s list of all Saturday morning cartoon schedules from 1966 – 2001.

• The Allman Brothers are a lot better than I ever thought. Side 3 of Eat a Peach is a revelatory experience. And then there’s “Melissa,” one of the best ballads ever. Magical stuff.
• David Lee Roth will never change. He will always be a vaudevillian egomaniac. Even while playing state fairs. I was playing with Superflux at the fair on Friday and checked out Dave’s set during a break. He leaned on his musicians’ backing vocals a lot, but he’s still a showman, although his age is catching up with him. Less kicks, less high notes, and he started losing his pipes early on. Still, it’s Dave. You either appreciate his complete lack of self-awareness or you don’t.
• Playing guitar in cold weather makes it hard to play, and if you’re bleeding, you may not realize it for some time.
• Biking is fun! I don’t know when the last time was that I rode a bike. I inherited Matt’s mountain bike and have only now gotten around to buying the necessary bolt cutters to remove the lock, and getting the tires aired up. I rode across the Big Damn Bridge yesterday. It’s a beautiful thing. My legs need to get into shape if I’m going to be walking all over NYC next week.
• Marie Antoinette was a beautiful film, but kinda boring. Apparently there was this girl from Austria and a lot of stuff happened to her in France, but I’ll be darned if I really learned anything about what separated her from any other aristocrat of the same period. Maybe she’s supposed to be unknowable. Maybe that’s why she was so appealing to so many. Anyway, I thought that Sofia Coppola was going to break some rules of time and fashion, but if she did, I didn’t notice. Given the 80’s post-punk New Romantic soundtrack, I was expected a more stylized treatment a la Romeo & Juliet. To me it just seemed like a movie about the French artistocracy spoken in modern colloquial English with a soundtrack by Bow Wow Wow.
• A house with no heat really bites. My heater’s motor died last week and Airmasters won’t be able to get the part until Monday or Tuesday. As I am typing this, I am very cold.

So Aaron Sorkin, the creator of my favorite TV show ever[1], starts a new show that rolls together actors from over five of my other favorite TV shows: Matthew Perry from Friends, Nate Corddry from The Daily Show, Steven Weber from Wings, Evan Handler from the short-lived It’s Like…You Know, Christine Lahti from Chicago Hope AND an actor from my one of my all-time favorite movies[2], Carlos Jacott.

I’ve only watched one episode, and so far it seems OK. It will take some time before I start to see these familiar actors as actual characters and not that guy from that show.

One thing I will say is that, between this and 30 Rock, My Name is Earl, and The Office, I’m giving my Comcast digital cable a stay of execution. I had been planning to cut off my cable TV until the new fall season started.

1.) Sports Night
2.) Kicking and Screaming

I did a piece for Localist on The Bear Colony. Yeah, I’m a “writer.”

It’s about 5 inches too short for my mattress. Either I have a freaky mattress or Ikea has unrealistic expectations for mattress lengths. I must now either go buy a new mattress or disassemble my new bedframe. My bedroom only has room for one. I may sleep on the couch tonight. I’m tired. And I have no idea what to do with my box springs. Currently it’s standing on its side with no place to go. Those things are dangerous, by the way.

On the bright side, the entertainment center has been completed. It’s huge and I feel like Bob Vila[1] for putting it all together. The downside is that I want to back it up to the wall and fill it with records and such, but that is a task I only want to perform once. As I have yet to purchase a new TV and receiver, I must now do this soon so that I can bring some closure to the disarray that is my living room.

Oh and my 5-disc CD changer won’t fit anywhere in the entertainment center but alongside the TV where the record player is supposed to go. I guess I’ll have to get a new CD player…dagnabbit. Maybe I can just stack the record player on top of the CD player.

1.) OK Tim Allen.

I went to Dallas last weekend for Natalie‘s art show and to investigate the Ikea in Frisco. Wow. Now I’ve finally experienced the distinctly Swedish combination of utility and design elegance that people on the coasts have known about for over 15 years[1].

I came home with an entertainment center, a bed frame, a coffee table, and a chair all for around $650. And it all fit in my car! At first I thought nothing would fit – I picked up the entertainment center and coffee table on Saturday and went back for the bed frame and chair on Sunday. I love the smell of commerce and wood and cardboard boxes in the morning. My car smells like a new house now.

I was very impressed with Ikea’s conscientiousness and creativity in service of utility. Everything they do seems to be dedicated to efficient storage, attractive design, recyclability and low cost. They even write an ETA of your wait on the floor in front of the checkout lanes. Hopefully their influence will help rewrite the rules for home furnishing stores. I never thought buying furniture would be a revelatory experience. Part of me wonders what the catch is. Like maybe they engage in exploitative business practices or their CEO sends salacious instant messages to his underlings like certain Florida congressmen.

Interesting side note: enough people have linked to Generation X at amazon.com using the phrase “semi-disposable Swedish furniture” that the Amazon listing is #1 in Google without even having the phrase anywhere on the page or in the cache. See “failure, miserable” for a similar effect.

1.) My first Ikea experience was around 1989 just outside Washington, D.C. on a school trip, but I didn’t care about furniture then.

Saturday Katherine and I went sofa shopping. We found some contenders, but even more fun was lunch at Hooters. Neither of us had ever eaten at a Hooters, and we’re both big fans of intrepid dining[1], so we went. The food was horrible of course, but the atmosphere was enhanced by the Razorback game. I got Katherine a balloon that said “I ♥ Hooters.”

Sunday Heather and I drove around aimlessly in her mom’s convertible BMW. Great weather for it.

One year ago today, I landed in Houston to find this:

Hurrican Rita had just blown over and the airport was nearly empty. I had a hard time getting home. Full story from the vacation travelogue.

1.) Eating somewhere you’ve never even before simply for the sake of doing so.

A fine few days. Friday I did the Hendrix Alumni Playwrights’ Theatre. I emailed a few people about it but I made the mistake of saying my parts were small so it might not be worth the drive, and this was dumb. The plays were highly entertaining and I should have forced everyone to come. Plus there was free cheese and snacks. Plus I played one of my roles as Mitch Hedberg, essentially. Everyone seemed to laugh at me a lot. But in a good way.

Saturday Heath and Mary Beth came in from Oklahoma City to visit. We watched the new Kicking and Screaming Criterion DVD with the old gang (Adnan, Kelly, Juan) and other fans (Katherine, Jason) over at Adnan’s swank new digs in The Heights. Apparently I’m now an adult as I envy him his IKEA furniture.

Which reminds me. I have money in the bank now. I’ve arrived at a point in my life in which I’m getting paid more and actually buying less. So it’s probably time to start buying things that normal people buy, i.e. furniture, a new TV, a better stereo system, etc. More on this story as it develops.

Also Saturday Bryan and I played a gig at Whitewater Tavern. It went well. I never really know how it goes, actually. I just stand there and play and no one complains. I wonder what I need to do for people to get excited.

Monday Danya and I went to see Nada Surf at Juanita’s. Great show. And long. I’m more than a little surprised that I’m still conscious right now. Afterward I met this girl Holly Ingebo, because I thought she was someone else. It’s going to continue to bug me, not knowing why she seems familiar. We talked briefly and were unable to figure it out. I mention this only because I want to put her name on the web so that maybe she’ll Google herself and contact me because I didn’t get her phone number.

Bryan just got an offer from the ACAC to play the annual Vino’s Halloween Cover-Up, wherein various local bands choose a musical “costume” by performing cover tunes by a particular group. In this case, Sao Paulo would be Radiohead.

I can’t do it because I’ll be in NYC that week.

Gaaaaa!!