Don't follow the shadows

Unless a really amazing, must-see band is playing, of course. ;) Otherwise, this was by far the worst time I’ve had at any event or festival. When I got down there two Thursdays ago at 7:00 PM, I passed a guy on the sidewalk who was already wasted and leaning over a trash. All the parking spaces were filled up, which was ridiculous because they have multiple parking lots, but not unheard of. The worst part was that they blocked off a ton of roads and lanes that are usually open, so I ended up with nowhere else to go but a $20 lot a few blocks away from the grounds. Not a huge deal, since my ticket was free. As I got closer and closer to the gate, I noticed a lot more people there than usual. The lines went all the way into the street.

Once I finally got in, I decided to do some shopping first. All but a few vendors were selling nothing but junk that drunks and stoners would buy. Glass and guitar pick jewelry, hemp and tie-dyed everything, and the most disgusting of all was an outdoor tattoo station set up by Starship because getting a tattoo while drunk and in extreme heat and humidity outdoors is a great idea. :/ Luckily all the way at the edge of the grounds was a tent with Arabic and Asian vendors. I got a really nice moonstone and sterling silver ring for under $20 and a hand-painted papyrus with Ramesses receiving a blessing from Anubis and offering jars to Hathor. It looks like these and the gold/bronze parts are actually metallic. (Not sure which Ramesses it is, but I’m assuming it’s Ramesses II and I’ll double-check the cartouches to see if I’m right. Just as long it’s not Akhenaton, I really don’t care which pharaoh it is. :p) It was $60, but the guy who worked there knew the Egyptology professor at UWM, so he gave me a 50% discount! :D Elizabeth and I are hoping to go to Arab World Fest next month because her husband is half Arabic. Since Egyptian International Art will also be there, I’m planning on getting a couple of smaller painted papyruses of Anubis, Isis, Hathor, or Ma’at. So begins my Egyptian art collection…

For some reason, I thought Joan Jett was going to be at one of the stages on the opposite end of the festival grounds, but when I got down there, I found out they were performing at the stage right next to where I was just shopping. This would have been fine if the whole place wasn’t such a fucking zoo. Everyone was inching forward in a giant mass, and I was surrounded by slow-moving ghetto people, poseur punk rockers who came to see The Offspring, bros and their sun-baked hos, and tons of drunk white trash.

When I finally got back down there, I still had an hour before the show started, and there was hardly anywhere to sit. After the bad ‘80s cover band ended, most of the people decided to stay. There were several seats in the fourth row, but as I stepped over the bleachers, this overweight middle-aged guy told me they were taken but that he wasn’t. :/ Ugh, this never would have happened at a metal show because saving seats is totally lame and not metal. I can see saving one seat for someone, but a spot big enough for six people to sit? Not cool. Even worse was that three morbidly obese people later came over and took up all the room, of course, with a foot of breathing space between them. Some braver folks sat down after me and ignored the Seat Nazi, but he threatened to call security and they left. I ended up near the end of the sixth row, which wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t have a huge screen in the way and the people in front of me weren’t wearing those stupid sparkly red, white, and blue jester and Uncle Sam hats. They ruined all my photos because the flash focused on their hideous headgear instead of the lighted stage. :( This drunk older woman who had been dancing on the bleachers to the opening band was still standing on them before Joan Jett came on, and a security guard asked her to get down. When she refused, he called for backup and five other security guards hauled her off. Since there were people standing in front of her, she lost her spot and threw a hissy fit. Several more fights broke out over people standing in front of those who were up on the bleachers. During the show, some drunk guy jumped up on the shoulders of one of the massive women in front of me and angered her husband, which led to a screaming match between the two. Another guy a few people down from me who looked just like Willie Nelson started the rest of the arguments with people blocking his view and kept threatening to get security. Everyone involved in these fights were anywhere from 40 to 60-some years old. Teenagers fighting amongst themselves are one thing, but these drunk white trash need to act their age and lay off the beer.

At least the concert itself was really good. I hadn’t seen Joan Jett and the Blackhearts for about five years, and then they played a much shorter set, though I was able to get much closer to the stage. This time around, they played a good mix of material from the Blackhearts as well as The Runaways, including all the hits. "Bad Reputation", "Cherry Bomb", "I Love Rock and Roll", "Crimson and Clover", "I Hate Myself for Loving You", "Do You Wanna Touch Me", "A.C.D.C.", they pretty much had it all covered. They ended their set with a cover of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People”, which I really enjoyed. However, I did not enjoy the drunk cougar next to me that was constantly hitting me with her hip and camera that was on her arm as she retardedly danced. Keep it classy for your pre-teen daughter, why don’t you? :/ The trashy hair metal guy on my other side who kept hitting on me wasn’t much better either.

It was also a nightmare trying to leave the festival because the concert ended at the same time that the grounds closed for the night and everyone was trying to exit at once. People were leaning out of their cars to vomit on the street as they were driving home. I’m sorry, but that’s absolutely ridiculous and a reminder as to why I do not drink heavily. Hopefully German Fest won’t be nearly as bad next week!

Sorry this is such a boring entry, but college is a huge part of my life right now, so bear with me. I’m still going to post about what’s been going on since my last personal update, but all my grades are finally in! :D

Art 291: Intro to Print & Narrative Forms: A
Art 342: Intro to Figure Drawing: A-
Art Hist 101: Ancient & Medieval Art & Architecture: A
Bio Sci 104: Plants in Today’s World: B
Celtic 103: First Semester Gaelic: B (Seriously, WTF? More on that later…)

This Semester’s GPA: 3.53 | Cumulative GPA: 3.46

Not bad, but I’d like to eventually bring my overall GPA up to at least 3.5. The best part is I never have to take a science class again! I haven’t been this excited since I was done with math (hopefully) forever. XD I’m definitely going to miss my art history professor I’ve had for the past two semesters, though. He talked just like Ace Ventura, which made even the dullest works of art sound exciting and was so loud that he didn’t use a mic. Most of all, I will miss his Captain Planet, Spinal Tap, and Storylords references, his self depreciating humor and his weird childhood stories. “Yeah, all my friends in grade school had Nitro from American Gladiator posters in their bedrooms, and I had Albrecht Duerer’s Young Hare…” Well, if that doesn’t do it for you, he also referred to Cimabue’s Christ child from Madonna and Child Enthroned as an “awesome Hobbit-Jesus-man-baby”. ...no? Then you'll be glad to know I'm not above admitting that I have a retarded sense of humor.

Anyway, now that first semester is over, here’s what I’m taking next semester so you can get an idea of what kind of art I’ll be posting (and what classes I’ll be bitching about on Twitter):

Art 441: Advanced Drawing Strategies I M & W 12:30 PM – 3:15 PM
Art 221: Intro to Design T & TR 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Art 309: Issues in Contemporary Art Lecture W 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Art 299: Printmaking Workshop: Sequence & Structure 9:00 AM – 2:30 PM
Art Hist 315: Art & Archaeology of Ancient Egypt Online

I’ve never taken an online course, so this will definitely be interesting. I’ve also never had a class before 11:00 AM, so that will also be interesting (and by interesting, I mean brutal). I figure it’s only one day a week and it’s something I want to do, so hopefully I can handle getting up at such an ungodly hour. I also have no idea what we’ll be drawing in that 441 class, but I pray it’s not just still lifes.

Some of you may be surprised to see I’m not taking another Irish class. I think I mentioned before that it was set up in a way that focused on conversationally learning the language and rarely discussing spelling or grammar. I wish I would’ve dropped the class and picked up Swedish instead because I knew at the time it was going to be an issue. We also weren’t graded on anything during the entire semester except our final presentation, which was a memorized mini-biographical speech about ourselves. I missed one word of my poem, but I thought the rest of my presentation was much better than the rest of the class’s and somehow I got a B. I’m also one of a few students in the class that actually bothered to pronounce everything correctly. The instructor was a nice guy, but we did have two small arguments where he thought I wasn’t learning the material when he is just obviously blind. We had to go around and talk about our hair, I said mine was brown and short and he asked if I was paying attention to what we just learned because to him, it’s black and long. :/ There may have been a couple grammatical errors in my presentation as well, but since the grammar is even crazier than German and he never bothered teaching it, how were we supposed to know how to use it? Just for that reason, I decided I’m not going to continue learning the language this way. Half of the curriculum is just listening to a CD and reading along in a book, which I can easily do on my own time. He also made a huge deal of Catholic vs. Protestant stuff, which annoyed the hell out of me. My classmates weren’t a lot of help because most of them were the “my grandma’s third cousin’s sister’s nephew twice removed was Irish so I have this huge triskele tattoo on my back because I’m so Irish ” types who really don’t have any cultural connection. I hate to be so harsh, but how do you claim pride in your heritage when you don’t even know basic folk songs, stories, history, etc.? It was painful watching one of them struggle through the lyrics of “Óró Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile” during his presentation. Besides, to anyone over there, you’re still just a Yank, even if your ancestors are from there and you still have family there. Needless to say, I really don’t want to spend a month over the summer with these people in the middle of nowhere in the Gaeltacht, so I guess that’s that.

Sorry for the rant, but these people are an embarrassment to all Americans with Celtic heritage and continually drive me nuts! Anyway, I plan on starting Swedish next fall, where I can learn how to speak and write it, and we will have normal graded homework assignments throughout the semester. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult, since I took 6 years of German and already know how to pronounce most of it from listening to Swedish music. I’m definitely looking forward to learning another Germanic language, and I hope I can stick with this one long enough to take a second semester of it.

Sunday night was the free Yeah Yeah Yeahs show at The Rave from the contest I won on Twitter. I know it’s nearly been a week, but alas, I’ve been busy working. Just like the last time I saw them in 2006, Catherine decided to come along. We got there about an hour early to get a good spot and I was pleasantly surprised they played a bunch of rockabilly songs while the bands were setting up with Joan Jett’s “Cherry Bomb” thrown in.

I was very confused when I expected Grand Ole Party to go on first and some guy with an acoustic guitar showed up and said he was going to play a few Misfits covers. I totally forgot that he also helps the Yeah Yeah Yeahs out with their live shows. I was pretty excited about this, since I’ve been a Misfits fan since my early teens, but his mike and amp were turned down so low he could barely even be heard over the soft conversations in the crowd. If I’m right in front of him in the third row and couldn’t even recognize which songs he played, the rest of the crowd probably didn’t hear much if anything at all. He had a nice melodic voice and I liked the concept of slowing down some punk rock staples and translating them into acoustic folk rock, but it was in vain.

Grand Ole Party completely blew me away. I’d heard of them but didn’t actually bother listening to them before Sunday. They were like nothing I’ve ever heard. Kristin’s clear, vibrato-filled, sultry jazz vocals as she stood pounding away on the drums coupled with the guitarist and bassist’s psychedelic and surf rock riffs that resonated from their vintage Fender strat and telecaster had me captivated for their entire set. Everyone looked the part, too. Kristin was wearing a large-sequined black dress with red lipstick and the guys had button-down shirts and corduroy pants in various shades of brown and tan with shaggy ‘60s haircuts to top it off. Kristin also handled various other percussion instruments and some songs had a dark, gritty rockabilly feel. No two songs sounded the same, although they were all thoughtfully composed. I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing these guys again.

( Misanthropic ramblings about the crowd...and pictures! )

Although the audience sucked, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs put on a great show. I absolutely adore their new album and the electronic influence they added to their music. I loved the black and blue glittery backdrop with the giant inflated eyeball and Karen O’s outfit. I especially liked the acoustic version they did of “Maps”. Like last time, she was full of energy, constantly moving around stage and dancing. Toward the end, she held the microphone in her mouth as she tilted her head back and screamed, spewed whiskey into the air, and threw a bottle of water on the crowd. She even gave the mike to the crowd a few times during “Cheated Hearts”. I couldn’t see much of their drummer or the Misfits covers guy. Nick was shoegazing most of the time, and I was lusting over all the different kinds of pedals he had to create their new sound live. My favorite part was at the end where all this shiny red y-shaped confetti rained down and I grabbed three for Catherine and myself. All in all, I’d say it was an okay show, even though it wasn’t quite as good as the first time I saw them. They played for about half the time they did three years ago, but the performance was still fresh and exciting.

( Set List )

I’ve been keeping up with my friends page, too. I have just spent the past week using my free (and not-so-free) time keeping inventory of all the activities I did each hour as part of a tedious anthropology assignment about time. Now I get to spend the rest of my Spring Break taking field notes for another week, reading roughly 150 pages, and writing a paper on top of all my other classes’ homework. That, and I really haven’t had much to say. (Do I ever?) ;)

I’ve been making the time over break to pick up the flute and guitar again, and I’m glad I haven’t lost my chops after not playing for months. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I played a bunch of traditional Irish tunes on flute and Pogues songs on guitar. Nothing else was really out of the ordinary, since I listen to Celtic music regularly anyway. I’ve also been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather outside with my cat, despite constantly having to chase her out of the dirt. This was also my last sober St. Patrick’s Day at home. Next year, it’ll be me and a pint of Guinness, granted I’m still alive of course. On a side note, is it weird that whenever I consider a future event, I bring up my mortality? I guess I don’t want to jinx anything, since it seems that whenever I’m hopeful about something happening, it doesn’t, and vice versa. I mean, accidents do happen.

I’ve been waiting to see Coraline over break, but it’s no longer playing at the theater in town. For the past several months, I feel like I’ve been missing out on everything that happens, only to experience it well after the fact, after everyone is done caring or wanting to hear about it. Such is life in the Midwest outside of the metropolises, I suppose. However, I did see The Reader with Catherine today. ( Read more... )

I have also been dealing with a few irresponsible people lately, and it’s really starting to get on my nerves. They think because they have very involved social lives and I don’t, it’s expected for me to get back to them in a timely manner, but they don’t bother getting back to me until the last minute or simply not at all. I think it will end up being the latter of the two come Friday, so I’m expecting those half-made plans to completely fall through. (The few previous entries allude to what that’s all about.) I’m just sick of these people putting everything and everyone before me, after I’ve made contact with them repeatedly, trying to arrange things. It’s not just that one person, either. Just because I don’t have a bunch of friends or have a job right now doesn’t mean I don’t have a life too.

My dad also recently announced that he wants to move back in, after leaving us a year and three months ago. Long story short, he’s not going to, since he just wants to do it because he’s sick of paying rent for his apartment and is lonely. He’s never apologized to us, says he still loves us, or makes any kind of an effort to do things or talk. Until he does these things, agrees to go to counseling, and gets on medication for his depression, we’re moving on without him, and it’s really for the best.

ART 118 Digital Arts: Culture, Theory, Practice: A
ART 243 Introduction to Painting: A-
DANCE 103 Introduction to Iyengar Yoga: A

GPA: 3.890
Cumulative GPA: 3.455

This is all fine and dandy, but my brilliant astronomy professor hasn’t posted grades when they were due by last Tuesday and I have no idea whether I passed or failed. None of the professors can access grades until after the first week of January, so naturally, this is driving me nuts. Even then, he has hundreds of students to submit grades for, so who knows how long I’m going to wait. He had over a week after his exam to submit them, and he couldn’t even make the deadline then. His exams weren’t even on the day of the snowstorm, so I’m wondering what the massive delay is.

I am so pissed that I spent more than twice the amount of time and effort I put into any of my other classes on this one, and I will be extremely lucky if he even passes me. Most of the material on the final was in the last four chapters he told us to read two days before the final because we got too far behind with him fanboy-ing about Star Trek and Battlestar Gallactica during class. Because of this, I wasn’t familiar with it, and have a bad feeling I failed. He hasn’t even updated our attendance since the end of October and marked us absent on days we were there because the attendance sheets got lost or students stole them. Hell, I even looked up every question on the homework assignment in the book, and he still marked answers wrong. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. He also told us several facts during lecture that were contradicted in the book and on questions for homework assignments. Then again, I found out he is copying and pasting questions from another professor's assignments at another university when I looked them up on Google. Maybe I'm just not that great at math and should have taken more science classes in high school as electives, but I've been right around the class average or higher throughout the semester, so it doesn't look like it's just me that had issues.

I really need to get credit for this class because I only took 12 credits last semester. I already will probably have to go an extra semester, since I took 12 credits the semester prior and only got credit for 12 before that because a class wasn’t worth any credits yet was mandatory. Even taking care of 3-12 credits when I study abroad in Ireland this or next summer won’t help, since my major demands more credits and hours of class than most of the other programs. I would have to take 18 credits per semester and with most of my classes being three hours long, I don't see how I could do that and be able to stay relatively sane. I also need the credits for astronomy to satisfy my natural science lecture requirement, so if I fail, I'm going to be set back even further than if it were an elective.