It's actually Wednesday night.  

  An odd day at work today.  Went to lunch about half an hour after getting there.  Came back, found some of the editorial staff had arrived.  I was supposed to go to lunch with some of them today, but after no one was there around noon, me and the other intern decided to go eat.  So when I got back, one of the assistant editors asked if we wanted to go with them anyway, to at least drink and eat chips.  So we says "sure."  So I went to my second lunch.  Bloated on guacamole, I actually did some work today. Some research on serial killers.  Then I kicked my job search into middle gear. My ideal situation would be to stay on where I'm interning now, but I don't know how likely that is.  So we'll get some other things on the burner while we wait. But I'm hoping to sort these things out within the next, oh, day or so.
    So I was supposed to go to Jed's company's little corporate Christmas party tonight. I told him I'd go, and I really wanted to, just to see all these people he has nothing but contempt for.  I think it would have been a wonderful little field trip.  An excellent study of a world I'll hopefully never ever know except through the vitriol of Jed Hazlett.  But I just wasn't feeling that up for it.  Plus, I had to stay late at the magazine today, and by the time I got out of there around 8 it wouldn't really have been worth it.  So the other plan was to meet Jen later and go see a movie or something.  Well, after I hung up with a pissed-off Jed, my phone rang, and I knew it would be Jen and I knew what she was going to tell me.  "Don't be mad..." she said. "You're going to Jed's party, right?" I asked.  And of course, the answer was yes.  fine by me.  See, it all works out. I'm a dick for telling Jed I'll go and then considering other plans, so I pay the price.  It's the same deal with not being able to go to the Will Oldham shows I think.  I don't think I really deserved to go.  So I got screwed out of my free tickets.  And I was completely at peace with these funny little developments.  I can accept karma, and I'll take what's coming to me if I deserve it. Which i did.

    So... plan #3 for the evening was-  Stand outside the Bowery Ballroom and wait for someone with an extra ticket so I could go in and see Will Oldham and company.  Caryn's friend Rebecca said she was interested in going.  I think I mentioned it was sold out, but Caryn told me today that she was going to try to get a ticket outside the venue anyway.  So it seemed natural that we would wait together. So I met up with her at Caryn's apartment and we headed over to the Bowery Ballroom. I told her she could have the first ticket, in case we only got one, so that at least one of us could see the show.  And since I'd already seen Will Oldham play twice and she's never seen him, it seemed only right. That, and I was telling her that I didn't think I deserved to see the show.  But she humored me and told me that I was taking an out-of-towner through unfamiliar stretches of Manhattan to wait in the cold to see a show she really wanted to see, so that was my good deed for the day that should make me feel deserving.  I suppose I sort of agreed with that. Anyway, once we got there, we were like "Uh... what do we do now?"  Neither of us had ever tried to get tickets to sold out shows before.  I've gotten tickets to baseball games that way, but that's considerably easier.  Anyway, you kind of really have to try and ask around, it turns out.  So take an out-of-towner and a shy asian boy, and you're not going to have a lot of luck.  So after a few random encounters of people asking us "you don't happen to have an extra ticket do you?" "No... sorry. I was hoping you did," some weird looking skinny dude with a shaved head asked if we wanted his one extra ticket.  The problem was, it was a will-call ticket, so we had to go inside with him right then and there. I kept my word and told Rebecca to go in and enjoy the show.  She of course refused at first.  the guy was sort of getting antsy, like "either take my ticket or get lost so I can give it to someone else." He was sort of nice about it actually. he just wanted to make his 12 dollars back.  When he saw that Rebecca wasn't sure about going with him, he offered "You don't have to hang out with me or anything."  To which she replied "Thanks you," with absolutely no sarcasm.  No, she was truly relieved that she wouldn't have to hang out with this guy, and made sure he knew it.  So anyway, after a bit more debating, she went in and hopefully said "I'll see you in a bit," as if I were getting into the show.  By the way, that's probably the first time I've ever used the word "hopefully" in the correct, adverbial manner.

    At this point, I was all ready to go home.  I wouldn't have minded at all.  It was so fucking cold and my ears were falling off. So I stood around for another half hour, as each passing ticket holder made my chances slimmer and slimmer. It got to the point where I didn't even know why I was standing out there.  I clearly wasn't going to approach anyone and ask "extra ticket?"  But I stood there for like 40 minutes.  Then, to my surprise, some English sounding bloke behind me made eye-contact and asked "Do you nade a tickaht fah tonight's show?"  And I says "yeah. why? you got one?" And he said "yeah."  And I said "May I buy it from you?" and he said "Yeah."  When we got around to the actual transaction, it was sort of awkward for some reason, like neither of us had done this before.  I asked him if he had to ticket on him or if it was inside, and he said he had it so I asked to see it.  I felt sort of guilty for being such a suspicious fuck, but I really didn't want to get ripped off with a bogus ticket. But who would do such a thing? Anyway, I asked how much he wanted for it, and he asked how much did I want to pay, so I asked how much do you want me to pay?  Finally, he shrugged, and was like "i dunno, ten bucks?"  Which made me suspicious, since the face value is 12 bucks.  And you don't really volunteer a price that's less than face unless a) the ticket was made on your computer and is total bullshit, or b) you stole the ticket, or c) You desperately need 10 bucks worth of crack and will do ANYTHING to get it.  But it looked good to me, so I said "OK!" and took the ticket.  I was half expecting him to dash off as soon as he handed me the ticket, but he actually got in line behind me, so all was good.  I was a little nervous when i presented the ticket, but it passed the test.  I darted through th downstairs into the showroom, where I found Rebecca calmy and comfortable sipping her cup of whiskey.  I told her now i really felt like I deserved to go to the show.  I sort of likened it to some Buddhist student or something, you know, the having to stand outside the master's gate for days without eating or sleeping, to prove you're willing to learn.  I'd been purefied by cold.  My first reference to this feeling was actually a reference to Fight Club, but she hadn't seen it. It kind of shamed me that the Buddhist angle was my back up reference.  Brad Pitt trumps bodhisattva I guess.  Anywho, the show itself was pretty good. Bonny Bill (aka Will Oldham) played for about 35 minutes.  It was slow for the first minute or so, and I was sort of daydreaming. But as soon as I heard his voice, it was sort of magical for a moment.  I didn't know any of the songs really, having heard the new cd only once, but it was cool to watch. It was really sort of sloppy and all over the place, and he sat there in this chair, often with his feet propped up and leaning back. Anyway, the album is comprised of lyrics taken from a book of bengali poetry, but some Nobel or Pulitzer prize winner.  It's called the Getinjali or something close to that. Bonny Billy and the Marquis de Tren, who wrote most of the music I think, adopted it to "Get On Jolly."  I found it amusing that the tour t-shirts said "Get The Fuck On Jolly."
    The main act of the night was an instrumental band, Godspeed You Black Emperor!  Yes, they include the exclamation point. Anywa, we stayed for one song, just to see what they were like, since I'd heard great things about them.  The only other sort of arty instrumental band (why do instrumental bands have to be "arty"?) I've seen is Mogwai, who rattled my brain into the only music-induced headache I've ever had. But in a good way. Anyway, tonight's band had 3 times as many people on stage (9), but didn't really do anything too complex. I thought they could have done a lot more with 2 drummers, three guitars, and two bases, not to mention a cello and violin.  but there was one beat, one melody.  Maybe they're all about some one-world message. Anyway, we got bored and left.

    I've written a lot the last few days.

    Here're some more bits and bobs

    My roommate Dylan works for Robert Smigel's TV Funhouse.  He's the guy who does the cut-out lips thing on the Conan O'Brien show, and the cartoons on SNL.  Anyway, the TV Funhouse premiered tonight. I didn't see it. I forgot that it was premiering tonight.  Sue me. I was at a rock and roll show. Anyway, Dylan told me a few days ago that he had met and talked to Britta Phillips, the new bassist for Luna, at a party over the weekend.  I informed him of the weird circumstances of this meeting, because at one point Britta and I had exchanged emails because she was looking for an apartment and needed a room.  This was all shortly before Dylan moved in. Anyway, Britta sent me an email saying "I'd love to see the place. When's good for you?" So we got all excited and cleaned up the place and replaced out TV boxes with actual end tables, and then I never heard from her again.  So Dylan saw her tonight and informed her of all this, that she might have lived in his room. I asked "And what was her response to that?" and he said "she said ,'Yeah, I never got to meet those guys.'  That was her response."  Ok then.  Anyway, she's dating one of the writers on the show, so that's how they met.  Boy, you can't count on these musician types for anything, can you? The guy at Palace Records says he's going to get me on the list for tonights show then can't and i have to stand around in the cold. And britta said sure I'd love to see the place and never comes up and I gotta go looking all over the place for someone to pay 750 bucks a month.  Anyway, beddy-bye time.
 

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