I was just paging through the "membership rewards" booklet that American Express sent me, where I can use the points on my card to get consumer goods or food or travel discounts. Kind of like a high-end Green Stamps book. After paging through this book, one thing has become clear: I am far too poor to have and American Express card. I really only got it because I like the way the Blue card looked, with its translucent plastic and shiny blue interior. Also, after a friend of mine was telling me once how he was rejected for the card, even though he was making about four times as much as me, I wanted to see if my good credit history alone was good enough to qualify me despite my meager earnings. Anyway, everything in this catalog requires thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of points. After about a year, I've accrued about 2500. Many of the rewards include airline and car discounts, expensive dinners, high-end electronics, and home furnishings. Right now, after spending thousands of dollars on this card, I've earned myself a 25 dollar gift certificate from the Gap or Banana Republic. Basically, the problem here is that I'm too poor to spend enough money on this card to get the points needed for anything cool, and even if I could get enough points to get a $99 companion ticket on Continental Airlines, I still couldn't afford the $400 ticket that's required. At least the Discover card gives me cash back. Or it would in theory, if I ever used it. But that AmEx card just looks so cool...
As I was leaving the house this morning, I was pondering the state of my finances, when I thought that after paying my rent, I will have more RAM in my computer than dollars in my bank account. For some reason I envisioned an alternate-reality/future Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson singing that. Then I thought, "I am a total fucking dork," and I should probably just keep that to myself. The fact that I haven't only confirms it.Speaking of dorkdom, I must admit something now. For the past week, at least two or three times a day, I've made a point of listening to the Stone Temple Pilots' "Interstate Lovesong." I can't help it. It's a catchy tune. I remember during the awkward early days of freshman year in college, being at a party at some guy's apartment, and seeing this song come on MTV. James, who I didn't really talk to at that point, and I, in a moment of mutual disconnect, mentioned how we hated the band, but thought it was a pretty decent song. Thus began our series of inane conversations as an alternative in the face of socially detestable situations.
I went to my bajillionth Luna concert on Friday night, at the Knitting Factory. The opening band was I Am The World Trade Center, who decided to keep their name after the attacks. A number of people in my party wondered if they had chosen the name since then. That would have been in poor taste. As it is, they've received tons of hate mail since then from people who had come to that assumption as well. Anyway, they were generally entertaining, in an electro-pop kind of way. A lot of time was spent debating whether or not the sounds they were making were live or if they were just mimicing them while a sample played. There was one particular piece of equipment that appeared to play high pitched squeels when someone put their hand over it. The pitch changed as the hand got closer or further away from the board. We thought perhaps it was some sort of machine that worked by emitting a light signal or infrared beam or something like that. You know, like those annoying things every Radioshack seems to have that sounds whenever anyone crosses the threshold of the store's entrance. Only more high tech. It's also conceivable that they were just playing along with a recorded track and trying to make it appear that they were creating the sound live. It remains a mystery. anyway, it was pretty entertaining nonetheless.
Luna, for their part, were pretty solid. I've definitely seen them play worse. They did take a stab at a protest song, with ridiculously terrible results. It was a generic tune, with a generic chorus that went "Kill! Kill! Kill for peace!" Kind of embarrassing really. One thing I've always liked about Luna was their total disconnection from the real world. The songs are about real world events and situations, but always on a pretty personal level. This song was an unwelcome slap on the head from reality. It'd be nice to be able to go somewhere and have fun without having to hear anything about the war, one way or another. Some escape is called for, and it was kind of a downer to hear them play this hastily thrown together song.
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