Grand larceny and the Man in Black

Gavin is my BFF. It's a real indication of love when someone's willing to steal electronics for you, even if that person is a kleptomaniac and a sociopath. And works in technical support. He's got awesome curly hair, everyone should see it.

Josh said:
it doesn't want to stay connected and it's only getting a very low signal all the damn time
Josh said:
I might have to rearrange my room
Josh said:
damnit
Gavin said:
probably because of the low signal it keeps dropping
Gavin said:
does your attena screw on to your computer/
Josh said:
yep, out the back
Josh said:
anything I can do about it?
Gavin said:
hold on a sec

Five minutes pass.

Gavin says:
i got you a big antena from work
Gavin says:
i gotta run to class now though, so i will ttyl tonight
Josh says:
hot diggity damn!

After years of apathetic resistance, I've listened to my first Johnny Cash album. American V was put out posthumously, as I understand it, and I really wish I didn't know that little fact because the album sounds like Johnny's reaching out from the other side to scare whomever dares listen to him. Previously, when I sat down to listen to the Man in Black, I could never get past the blaring lights and klaxons that went off in my head every time I heard Johnny's voice. They all said, "COUNTRY. WARNING." In bold glowing letters and attention shattering whoops.

Long nights spent with Tim Kasher and Jack White have alleviated this particular condition somewhat.

It's good to get past it, the album is wondrous. Johnny's guitar playing is mesmerizing throughout, and the minimal, but very polished, additional instrumentation is uniformly perfect. There's rarely more than one instrument accompanying the guitar and vocals on a track, be they subdued string flourishes or snapping drum beats. They're most always low in the mix and leave plenty of room for Johnny's guitar tinklings and signature world weary wheeze. It's a perfect arrangement, particularly with the lyrics being overwhelmingly on the topic "I am so old I am going to die soon but damn that shit was good". You know, the blues.

It's not going to supplant Streetcore or Bone Machine in my "Best OMG I'm OLD" album category any time soon, I think. Joe Strummer was a veritable god, and his final piece of work was not so much a gorgeous lament for youth-now-lost as it was his Triumphant Ascension to Heaven. And Tom Waits? I have too big a crush on him. I don't think he expected to live as long as he did when he penned BM.

Come to think of it, Nick Cave is getting old. Soon he'll write a "BOMGIO" album and I won't know what the fuck to think.

Anyway.

Having only previously heard the famous "Hurt" cover, and snippets of the recent biopic I watched solely for Joaquin Phoenix's handsome face, I feel horridly out of place saying more than this. Who am I to comment on Johnny fucking Cash's legacy? I'm a... a city slicker. I can't go and tell Johnny whether he's got his shit together or not. Plus, he's dead.

I will mention that I didn't expect God's Gonna Cut You Down to turn out to be Run On. Or that If You Could Read My Mind would be, well, If You Could Read My Mind. Turns out both are actually folk stand-by's and were respectable long before Moby and that awful 90's outfit got a hold of them. Thank you Mister Cash, you learned me something good.

Both tracks do disturb the shit out of me.

I need to read somewhere in the vicinity of 100 pages of Plato, 14 pages of Larkin, and twice the sum of those in some bloated Cognitive Psychology textbook by the end of the night or I will fall down, die, and quit school. I will, however, wait until after Canadian Thanksgiving to do so. I'm headed to London to spend it with my Dad, and that man can cook. I'm so deeply pleased I am essentially his genetic copy. You know, being a laboratory clone.

It's Liisa Donaldson's birthday today: Happy Birthday Liisa!