Newness

It seems like in life, new things always come along that grab your attention. When The Office invaded my life, I lost interest in Scrubs. When Community came into my life, I lost interest in the The Office and so on and so on.

After a plethora of my friends told me I would enjoy Dexter, I gave it a shot on Friday night. It is Tuesday night and I just finished episode 8. I want to keep going but I need some sleep.

I love this show.

I am also enjoying a new song posted by Taking Back Sunday. Definitely came out of nowhere and made me pretty happy.

And I am pretty pumped that both Kanye West AND My Chemical Romance have new cds coming out next week. I've previewed them both and I feel like I won't be disappointed.

sidenote: A friend asked me what I was doing over Thanksgiving break. As this is my first year in the "real world," I told her I no longer had a break :(

And to end this random post, it's hard to call myself a reader when all I read are autobiographies. But is it bad that I am really interested in Jay Z's book and will probably get it for my South Dakota flight in December?

(50) Sundays of Music: #23

#23: Kanye West - College Dropout

Try if you can to suspend your current thoughts on Mr. West. For now, let's go back to 2004.

I've mentioned my story here many times, but as a real quick recap: I was born in California, but moved to Alabama when I was 8 and have stuck it out here ever since. I still have family on the West Coast which grants me frequent visits so I feel like growing up I get the best of two worlds: Sunny California and the Dirty South.

Down here is where there are two major sounds coming from car stereos: Country and/or Southern Rock or Gangsta Rap (Sometimes it's really funny to see the dirtiest, nastiest rap coming out of a truck with deer decals... but I digress). So the first couple years of my high school, my exposure to that genre was The Cash Money Millionaires, consisting of rap heavyweights like Juvenile, Birdman and a very young (and different sounding) Lil Wayne. When the songs I was hearing at the time consisted of "Bling Bling" and "Back That Azz Up" it was easy to see why I didn't really respect rap and/or hip hop.

Then came along Kanye West. Don't get me wrong, people like Jay Z had been around but I didn't really get into them for whatever reason. And I had always been into Eminem, but let's be honest, he is in a genre all his own. But I had no idea West was actually doing some of the beats for some of Jay Z's songs (I think the biggest one he gets credit for is "Encore").

I somehow heard "Through the Wire" and I was like "I don't know why he sounds like that, but this is a really good song." He sounded different because he recorded some of the song after his mouth was sown shut following a car accident. I liked it and became curious.

Then came "Slow Jamz" and I was really hooked. I loved the style, the flow. The integration of Twista and Jamie Foxx. Those two songs made me curious enough to actually go out and buy the cd and I wasn't disappointed.

From "Never Let Me Down" to "Two Words" I was in awe of the music. Finally, some hip hop where somebody was actually saying something, not just bragging about money and cars. I watched the cd grow as I remember three different videos for "Jesus Walks" and laughing, but admiring some of the lyrics like the one in "All Falls Down" that goes" "Couldn't afford a car so she named her daughter Alexus."

My main memory comes from a conversation I had with my friend Shedrick. I was telling him how I thought Kanye was becoming my favorite rapper. He said "someone can't be your favorite after one cd." I felt like though Shedrick didn't see it, he predicted the future. In my opinion, none of Kanye's releases have been as good as his first one. Jeanette even called it one of the top albums of the decade and honestly, that was a great pick.

So right now I am enjoying his latest single "Power" and hope that the cd that comes with it contains the same level of music. Though I bet it won't be anything like The College Dropout.

These words pour out when I open my mouth

I feel like all my posts in recent weeks have either been Wordless Wednesdays or links to songs and all that stuff and I KNOW you guys are going "But Mr O, what's been going on with your life?" Even though I just made that up (I don't know what you guys think) here is an actual "post" that the description of my blog talks about.

The other day, I had all these events and thoughts that I was going to put into this but I have forgotten them. So this post is going to be freestyled. Not even I know how it's going to end.

I think I just made a mistake. I made a Coldplay B-side playlist to listen to right now and one of the tracks is piano heavy. So I guess I will start with the deep stuff first. Right now, there are two things dominating my mind. One is a family issue that may or may not happen so therefore won't get talked about right now and the other is next month. It's so crazy to me to think that August will be one year since my girlfriend of three years officially, after three or four semi-breakups, ended our relationship. We were actually still complicated for a while and I guess we didn't officially stop whatever the hell it is we were doing until late January early February. But still, a year since the final break up and my craziness that came afterward. I hate that I was “that guy.” Calling her every day and pleading for a chance to make things right. I hate it not only because of how stalkerish it felt but now I just feel embarrassed for myself. I tried to do everything and for what? It got me nowhere and in man terms just made me look (and feel) like a little bitch. Everytime that I pleaded for her to come and she did everything on her own time. Even now. Since last August, after a weak week attempt at trying school, she has been home ever since, missing what could have been her last year in undergraduate school. Next month, she comes back. Did I mention we started dating a few days before high school graduation and were steady the first three years of college? So I feel like this past year that she left me. Not only on a relationship level, but just being there – in my life. And now she is coming back. I don't know how to react because I have recently finally started to have a life without her. A life where I don't see a sappy movie and think of her. I just know my own emotions and I don't know how they are going to handle her living in the same town again. A few months ago she got into a new relationship so that may explain why there has been no contact. As far as I know, they are still together. For my sanity's sake, I hope they stay together so no temptations will creep in. I've warned all my friends that I may need them in the next month or two now more than ever.

Speaking of friends, I am getting to the point where I am starting to consider some of my blogger followers and people I follow “friends” as well. We may never actually see each other, but I have connected with some of you more than some people that call themselves my friend. With that said, I'm warning all you guys as well – I may need to come to you guys in the next month or two, haha. Even if it's just you clicking on a blog title.

And let's try to lighten this up a little. I am really appreciating all the nice comments whenever I do a music post like Under My Covers. Especially the ones who say they are hearing it for the first time, it just makes me smile because that is my mission. But I feel music is like Christmas – it's great to give and receive. I will never walk around like I know all music because that's impossible. So as much as I love to put music out there, I love to receive it even more. In the past week I have listened to cd's that I got by winning jeanette's blog contest and have found a few new gems, youtubed this nice acoustic version of "Let Go" after a couple of comments from the Garden State version of Under My Covers and stayed on Melissa's post for an hour clicking play repeatedly listening to jazz. And that's another thing. I am mostly an alternative rock kind of guy, but I really do listen to everything. “Make Her Say” by Kid Cudi, Kanye West and Common is one of my favorite tracks right now. And just planned – in October I will be going to my second drum and bass show. That combined with the Incubus show in August and a *possible* Blink-182 show in September and these next few months are looking nice.

Speaking of shows, I finally got confirmation and on Tuesday I will be sweating my ass off in Atlanta while attending Warped Tour. Last year, there were two bands I HAD to see – Pierce the Veil and Gym Class Heroes. I saw GCH twice, a regular set and then an acoustic set in the afternoon, and PTV stole the show. This year, I don't have that one single band I want to see but I will definitely be looking out for a few. And since I will probably be stoked coming from the show, I will talk more about the bands in a later post.

Movie wise the past two few days have been interesting. On Friday, I was hanging out with J Beezy when a friend of hers asked her to go see The Ugly Truth. She pretty much told me I was coming along to make the thing better and Hedman ended up coming with us. What was really crazy was that the point of going was to go with the friend of hers, but we didn't even sit with them. Hedman and I were complaining at the beginning (let me stop right there – I don't want to make it seem like I hate romantic comedies. They are actually a guilty pleasure. But this movie just did not look good to me) and we laughed pretty hard at the idea of walking out in the first 30 seconds. But we stayed – and laughed. Jeannette doesn't feel the same way, haha, but it was much better than I expected. I am still waiting for Katherine Heigl to come out and bash the movie now.

But then last night we FINALLY saw Ice Age 3 in 3D and it was pretty much awesome. Those little squirrels – they get me everytime. And I think after this and Up, I am starting to dig these 3D movies. But the best 3D movie of all hasn't even come out yet. But it will be here March 5, 2010. I think I have watched the trailer like five times already. If you haven't yet, it's in my very important date to the upper left of this post.

If you have read this far, you are awesome. But the other small thing that has been stressing me out is taking over and I feel like this is coming to a close because of it. I have class in the morning and we only have a week left. It's a photojournalism class, so it's not that hard but all the assignments finally got dates and they are all due in the next week. In the past few days I have gotten most of them done, but I tried to do one today that didn't come out so well. I am hoping the teacher has got some advice for me or else i'm screwed. But off to sleep to be prepared for that.

Oh, and sorry that no house party happened this weekend. But hopefully your night is free tomorrow. I'm making waffles :)

Random lyric of the day:

Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmm that you only meant well?
well of course you did
Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmmm that it's all for the best?
of course it is
Mmmm whatcha say?
Mmmm that it's just what we need
you decided this
whatcha say?