Fall, Glimmer, Sparkle and Fade

:: Monday, May 27, 2002 ::

It's been a while since my last post, mainly because I haven't had anything interesting to say (not that anything on here is all that interesting). Don't get excited, I still don't have anything too interesting, but I was pretty excited to see the first, of what hopes to be many, person discover this page via Yahoo. This person was searching for "Vandome of Hartford" and my page was the sixth page result to come up. In my May Weekend post I mentioned the words VanDome and Hartford separately, thus why it showed up. This may not seem like a big deal, but I think it's cool that if someone searches for something and I have mentioned it here, then my page will show up. For example, if I were to talk about PORN, or better yet FREE PORN, I'm pretty sure my counter would go through the roof. Maybe I should have more posts about NAKED BRITNEY SPEARS PHOTOS and STAR WARS.

Speaking of Star Wars... Who has seen it? Or should I ask, who hasn't seen it? Just like every other American, I've seen the first three Star Wars movies (no angry comments from hardcore SW fans please, I know that the ones being released now are the 'FIRST' ones, but I don't care enough to name them by episode number) and I thought Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and those little furry fuckers were pretty cool. But I haven't seen the Phantom Menace and I probably won't see Attack of the Clones. I usually try not to buy into hyped up movies. I was doing so well at staying away from the movies that are all HYPE, but just like everyone else, I gave into Spider-Man and I ended up regretting that move. So my question to those of you that aren't huge Star Wars fans is: Will I be wasting $9.00 if I, as a passing fan at best, go to see the most recent installment of the Star Wars franchise?

Another movie that has been getting alot of attention (not $114 million worth though) is Insomnia. The reason the acclaim for this one didn't scare me off was A) It was directed by Christopher Nolan, who directed one of last years best pictures in "Memento", B) Al Pacino doesn't make bad movies and C) Robin Williams doesn't make bad movies. I would have seen this even if it was directed by Nolan but didn't have the two big stars, starred just Pacino or just Williams. Even with the hype surrounding this flick, I wasn't disappointed at all. It wasn't as good as Memento, but it's hard for any remake to be as solid as Memento, which was as original as it gets. Like Memento though, you leave the theater with more questions then answers, which might rub some people the wrong way. However, unlike Memento, the movie doesn't jump around and thus is easier to follow. All in all, it was the best thing I've seen in the theater since "In The Bedroom". I'm looking forward to renting the original now.

I told you I didn't have anything interesting...

:: Ryan 4:08 AM [+] ::
...

Summer is coming and with it comes a whole slew of new songs to blast with the windows down. But before you start singing along to the new albums from Weezer, the Goo Goo Dolls, KoRn and Third Eye Blind, take a listen to some of the records that made 2001 the best year for music in recent memory. Did I leave anything out? Should any of these be taken off the list? Let me know. That's what the comments option is for kids...

Top 20 Records of 2001
1) Pete Yorn 'musicforthemorningafter' : The best record of the year and nothing even comes close, which is saying alot in a year that really had a ton of great albums. If you aren't familiar with him then do yourself a favor and hit up his site so you can check him out. Listen to any song on this record and I promise you won't be able to get it out of your head.
Standout Track: Murray, but this is the only CD that I could make an arguement for every single song to be the best.

2) Travis 'The Invisible Band': No question that everyone should own this record, but it still finishes a distant second to Pete Yorn. These boys from the UK take you on a crazy roller coaster from start to finish. Overall this is a very mellow record, but the songwriting is so good that it's not a mellow album that will put you to sleep, instead you'll be hanging on every word. Most Travis fans argue with me that their last record, 'The Man Who', is better but 'TIB' blows it out of the water.
Standout Track: Side

3) Better Than Ezra 'Closer': Just like a fine wine, this band gets better with age. With each album I think it's not possible for them to top themselves, but each time I'm amazed by how much better they get. One of the few bands out there that can write a ballad that doesn't sound like one.
Standout Track: A Lifetime

4) Ben Folds 'Rockin the Suburbs': Being a huge fan of him with the Five, he was going to have to completely blow me away with this record for me to take notice. Five minutes into this album you will forget all about the Five. I'm convinced that Ben is, and will continue to be, one of the best storytellers of our era(yes, he's THAT good).
Standout Track: Losing Lisa

5) John Mayer 'Room for Squares': If I would have posted this list here when I first made it in January there would have been a lot of dumbfounded looks out there reading this. Fortunately for John and many of you radio and MTV jumped on 'No Such Thing' and this record is now Gold. If you are one of the few that haven't discovered John yet, do it. People like to compare him to Dave Mathews, but besides the every so often vocal similarities I don't hear it. Do yourself a favor and buy this record.
Standout Track: My Stupid Mouth

6) Jude 'King of Yesterday': Singer/songwriters are definately becoming more popular (Yorn, Mayer, Ryan Adams, etc.) and I hope that Jude can get anywhere near the attention that the others have been getting, because he is just as good, if not better, than a majority of them. This record isn't up to par with his last two, but it's still one hell of a listen. Hell, if Madonna likes him then so should you!
Standout Track: King of Yesterday

7) Ryan Adams 'Gold': I was never a fan of his old band, Whiskeytown, but I love this record. Out of all the albums on this list, I think I was surprised the most by this one. The album isn't as radio friendly as the single, 'New York, New York', and in fact most of it has a country feel to it, but the songwriting is just that good.
Standout Track: Firecracker

8) Tenacious D 'Tenacious D': A comedy album that isn't a comedy album. Confused? Good. Jack Black (High Fidelity, Shallow Hal) is the lead singer and co-founder of the self-proclaimed greatest band in the world. They developed a cult following with their short lived HBO show and after a while of pleading by some producers they were convinced to make an actual record. It'll make you laugh, but there's nothing funny about the production work on this record. Anything with Dave Grohl on drums gets my approval.
Standout Track: Tribute

9) Flickerstick 'Welcoming Home the Astronauts': These guys won VH1's 'Bands on the Run' show. I rooted against them all throughout the show and didn't like their music on the show at all, but after listening to the record and seeing them live I've decided that VH1 did a shitty job of representing their sound. Even though they rock much harder than the record, you can still crank this up and sing along.
Standout Track: Hollywood

10) Starsailor 'Love is Here': The UK invasion continues. Technically this record was released in 2002, but I got the UK version that was released in 2001, so it's good enough for the list in my mind. I was hoping that their single 'Good Souls' would take off more than it did, but hopefully the people that did take notice will keep telling their friends about it(sort of like I am now).
Standout Track: Poor Misguided Fool

11) Our Lady Peace 'Spiritual Machines': A concept album based on a book by Ray Kurzweil, this fell short of their past albums but was still better than most records put out last year. I continue to be amazed by Raine Madia's vocal range. Never have I heard anyone hit the notes he hits.
Standout Track: Life

12) Star64 'You May Be Beautiful': They used to be called Angry Salad and this was going to be the next Angry Salad record, but after a messy break from their record label they changed their name, lead guitarist, label and became Star64. If you aren't familiar with Angry Salad, then now's as good a time as any to get familiar with both.
Standout Track: Overnight Drive

13) Cousin Kevin 'Coming Back From Yesterday': The lead singer is the former lead guitarist/co-songwriter for Third Eye Blind, but there are no 'pop' songs on this record. Or at least nothing as 'pop'y as 'Semi-Charmed Life'. Any fans of 3EB will recognize the guitar work right away, but will probably be surprised at the overall sound. Standout Track: Coming Back From Yesterday

14) Remy Zero 'The Golden Hum': Quite possibly the most eclectic record on this list. You get everything from slow ballad to all out rock with everything in between. They've been getting a lot of publicity over the last couple of months thanks to the WB show Smallville because their song 'Save Me' is the theme song.

Standout Track: Belong

15) Train 'Drops of Jupiter': Yes, the title track to this record was EVERYWHERE, but that doesn't change the fact that it was one of the strongest singles released last year, no matter how overplayed it was. It also doesn't change the fact that overall this was one of the strongest records released last year. While I refuse to vouch for Pat Monahan's character, his voice and songwriting will never stop amazing me.
Standout Track: Hopeless

16) Something Corporate 'The Audio Boxer EP': Pop/punk bands are a dime a dozen now a days, but this one jumped out to me the moment I heard them. They aren't up there playing the same old shit, their songs hold up and leave you desperately wanting to hear the full length.
Standout Track: The Formal Weather Pattern (Hurricane)

17) American Hi-Fi 'American Hi-Fi': This is another band that never really got any recognition past their first single, 'Flavor of the Week'. I heard this record early last year once and then put it in a pile with the rest of my CDs, but after seeing them live four times I was so blown away I decided to give the record another try and it's been constantly in my stereo since.
Standout Track: Another Perfect Day

18) Matthew Jay 'Draw': He falls under the same category as Jude, "Singer/Songwriters that don't get enough attention". Matthew has written b-sides that are better than most singles on the radio today and he's still learning.
Standout Track: Let Your Shoulder Fall

19) Dashboard Confessional 'Places You Have Come To Fear The Most': Whining never sounded so good. You wanna not only hear a song about being dumped, but do you wanna cry while your listening? I've never heard so much emotion put into such a simple subject matter. Wow.
Standout Track: Again I Go Unnoticed

20) Jimmy Eat World 'Bleed American' and then after 9/11/01 it was renamed 'Jimmy Eat World': This record pissed off A LOT of people, specifically old school Jimmy Eat World fans. This is so different from their other records that it sort of scared their fans, but I was impressed. They took the old Jimmy sound and just tweaked it enough to make this ten times better than any of their old records, even 'Clarity'.
Standout Track: Hear You Me

Honorable Mention: Weezer'Weezer(2001)', REM 'Reveal', System of a Down 'Toxicity', Incubus 'Morning View' and The Mayfield Four 'Second Skin'

:: Ryan 4:03 AM [+] ::
...

Last Goodbye
--Jeff Buckley--

this is our last goodbye
i hate to feel the love between us die
but it's over
just hear this and then i'll go
you gave me more to live for
more than you'll ever know

this is our last embrace
must i dream and always see your face
why can't we overcome this wall
well, maybe it's just because i didn't know you at all

kiss me, please kiss me
but kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation
you know it makes me so angry 'cause i know that in time
i'll only make you cry, this is our last goodbye

did you say "no, this can't happen to me,"
and did you rush to the phone to call
was there a voice unkind in the back of your mind
saying maybe you didn't know him at all
you didn't know him at all, oh, you didn't know

well, the bells out in the church tower chime
burning clues into this heart of mine
thinking so hard on her soft eyes and the memories
offer signs that it's over... it's over


**To my friends who's time at Quinnipiac is over: Don't let this be our last goodbye. Thank you all so much for making my three years here so much fun. Know this: If you don't visit regularly I will hunt you down. Good luck and keep in touch.**

:: Ryan 3:16 AM [+] ::
...

It's very possible that John Franco, the Mets longest-tenured member and captain, has thrown his last pitch. An MRI has revealed an injury to his MCL and flexor tendon in his pitching elbow. He will need what is known as 'Tommy John' ligament replacement surgery which takes at least 12 months to recover from. At the age of 41, recovery will be even more difficult.

John was brought to tears when he was given the news...

"The Mets lose to the Giants 8-2 tonight, but what's much worse is they lose John Franco for the year. Maybe forever." - Mets Announcer Gary Cohen wrapping up the Mets post-game show tonight.

"It's a shame. It's a damn shame. We're gonna miss him."- Mets Manager Bobby Valentine

:: Ryan 1:00 AM [+] ::
...

Ryan
MC 220
Final Paper
5/8/02


To Freeze or Not to Freeze

Every director has certain techniques they use to not only get their point across but to grab and keep the attention of the viewer. When dealing with any picture directed by Martin Scorsese, it’s almost impossible to point out every technique that he uses. Upon first viewing, it is hard to find one aspect that is most powerful among the visual onslaught that is Goodfellas. But when you break the film down, one technique that truly holds the picture together is Scorsese’s use of freeze frames. By freezing the picture, he manages to hook the viewer in to what he wants. The importance of this technique can be seen if you take it away and measure the power of the film.

Scorsese wasted little time in the film before freezing the picture for the first time. Just over two minutes into the picture he freezes a picture of Henry Hill looking down on the trunk of his car. Without this freeze there’s no way the audience would have ever connected with the film or its characters. Henry had just shot a man several times and the man with him, Tommy DeVito, stabbed the same person prior to the gunshots. A man has been killed in cold blood in the first scene of the film and the picture of Hill’s face is frozen while he narrates:

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.”

Near the end of Henry’s narration, upbeat big band music starts to swell. The audience has to make a personal attachment to the characters, but how can you expect anyone to connect with a character that has just committed murder. By freezing the frame and allowing the viewer to concentrate more on what Hill was saying as opposed to the murder, Scorsese created the right environment for a connection to be made. With the narration and music, he conflicts the tone enough to let the viewer convince themselves that it is okay to be interested in this man’s story. Without that freeze a good portion of the audience wouldn’t have wanted to hear Hill’s story, which is Goodfellas.

He used this technique again only a few minutes further into the film. While Hill is telling of his childhood, his father becomes aware that he hasn’t been to school in months and begins to beat him. The scene is much faster paced than anything leading up to it and on the surface it’s just a father beating on his son. In the middle of the scene, a father whipping his son while a frantic wife tries to intervene, the picture is frozen and Hill narrates:

“Everybody has to take a beating sometime.”

All of a sudden another case of domestic violence has become so much more. For the first time we see Hill’s thinking change from a child to a gangster. His father’s rampage represented a form of initiation into the world that he’s admittedly wanted to be a part of his entire life. If you take away the freeze, then you take away yet another chance for the audience to connect with Hill’s character. If he were to narrate over the beating and it wasn’t frozen at any point, his statement about having to take a beating would get lost and any early transformation to a gangster would be lost.

The next time the freeze frame allows the viewer to truly see where Hill’s life is headed is after his first appearance in court. After Hill beats the charge brought against him one of the more powerful members in the family, Jimmy Conway, congratulates him on his ‘graduation’. The scene looks like nothing more than Conway making sure Hill knows not to rat him out. However, once they leave the courtroom, the entire family is waiting at the top of the stairs to congratulate him. As Hill becomes lost in a sea of the family members the scene is frozen:

No voice over.

Scorsese uses the freeze frame to show us what words couldn’t do justice to. It was the first time that Hill was accepted as a part of the family. It was the culmination of everything he had wanted and it made perfect sense to be the very last scene in the story of Hill’s childhood. He was no longer a child. Any innocence he had left had just been taken away by a group of men congratulating him. Without the freeze the viewer is taken straight to 1963 without any form of closure on the first part of the film and you cannot properly see Hill’s acceptance into the family.

The last time Scorsese uses this technique in the film is one of the most effective of them all. The walls of Hill’s life in and out of the family are starting to come in on him when he meets with Conway at a diner to discuss a trip they have in store for him. For most of the scene Hill’s voice over is louder than anything Conway is saying. The viewer isn’t given any specific reason why we aren’t hearing everything that Conway has to say. Is the trip not important to the outcome of the film? Is Hill already convinced he’s a dead man? Then we hear the end of Conway’s description of the trip and we freeze on his face followed by a freeze of Hill’s face:

“I knew if I went I would never return from Florida”

Hill had heard every single word Conway said and all of his fears were confirmed, that the family felt he knew too much and that he was to be killed. Even though he spoke of that very paranoia for some time, it was this final freeze that shows the viewer that the decision had been made. Hill’s time in the family was over and the only way he can survive is if he testifies against them and goes into the Witness Protection Program.

It’s virtually impossible to break down everything Scorsese does in his films, but if you were to take out this one simple technique you would change the entire scope of Goodfellas. The connection between Henry Hill and the audience would surely never be made and without that connection the movie would lack the one constant that is needed. Arguably one of the most powerful pictures in recent times could have been just another mob movie.

“We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over.”

----That was my final paper for my Media History class. I did it in just over three hours tonight after I procrastinated until almost the very last second. There is a possibility that this paper is the worst I've written in my collegiate career. I won't know for sure until a)I reread it when it isn't 5am and b) I find out my grade. Peace out cub scout.----

:: Ryan 4:39 AM [+] ::
...

Have you heard of Jack Johnson? He has a mild radio hit with his song 'Flake'. You might have heard it on your local 'Alternative' station. Your mission is to go to your preferred music downloading site and get every Jack Johnson song you can find. His album was released a couple years back but Universal just recently picked it up, thus the airplay. The airplay is mild, but this thing is selling like mad. It's almost Gold(500,000 units shipped). Not too shabby for a surfer turned songwriter.

Apparently the entire state of Connecticut converged on North Haven to see Spider-Man. I was going to pass on this movie, just as I had for other over-hyped movies like Episode I, Lord of the Rings and anything starring the Rock. However, the album (If I call it a 'soundtrack' I just might be fired) is the number one priority at work, so I've been staring at Spider-Man posters for the past two weeks. The album, entitled 'Spider-Man Music From and Inspired By', is really good and I'm really interested to see how the most boring actor in Hollywood can play a super hero. Or can't play as it will most likely turn out.
I started planning to see this movie on Thursday. It was going to be three or four of us to start. Then slowly it became seven of us and then it was getting up towards ten. Try getting ten college kids together the weekend before finals at the same time for two minutes, let alone two hours. So come 7:15 tonight I couldn't track down anyone of the ten or so that wanted to see the movie. So I called my friend Dave, another one that had shown interest in seeing the movie but not a QU student, and we decided to watch the Met game and then we'd see the movie at midnight or 12:30. The North Haven cinemas had twenty showings of Spider-Man tonight, so we figured the last two of the twenty wouldn't sell out. Right? WRONG. According to the very intelligent man (?) selling tickets at the theater, virtually all showings had been sold out since mid to late afternoon. Although he did offer to sell me tickets to the next morning's first showing of the movie at 10:30am...Wasn't that nice of him? If you had told me a year ago that a movie starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst would sell out 18 of 20 theaters anywhere, I would have laughed at you. I'll still laugh at you... although you're probably one of the people that actually got to see the movie, so I'll shut up now...

:: Ryan 5:12 AM [+] ::
...

Over a week and not one post. I'd like to say it's because I've been busy, which I have been, but that's not it. There has been a lot going on, so I wanted to leave it all in one post and I was hoping that the three of you that read this on a regular basis would keep checking back and see my last post and maybe, just maybe it would sink in.

Things have been crazy here lately, but everything stopped for a few days starting Thursday night. Every year the campus at Quinnipiac University is allowed to completely explode for one weekend. It just happens that this past weekend was that weekend. The weekend, entitled 'May Weekend', was given the theme 'So good, it's in April.' Hey, don't kill the messenger. If I were allowed to name it, the theme would be "5,000 screaming, drunken idiots', because that's exactly what it is. Thursday night started with me getting lost with half of Likewise on the way to their show at VanDome in New Haven. If any of you know the New Haven area, you know how incredibly hard it is to get lost in New Haven, especially going to a place like VanDome that is literally right off an exit on Interstate 91. Nonetheless, we were lost and got to the venue a half hour after the band was supposed to go on. No harm, no foul though because VanDome is a dance club and I don't think anyone there was counting down the minutes until the dance music was turned off and a rock band went on. Anyways, that's not so much the interesting part (is any of this interesting?) After the set, we all wanted to get out of there pretty quickly, so we start loading their equipment out the back door. Well-- on my way down the steps in back of the stage, while carrying a fairly large speaker, I misjudged just how high the last step was from the ground and... Ouch. You know when sports stars say they 'hear a pop' when they get hurt? Oh you better believe I heard a pop. My first thought: "I broke my ankle". After slowly putting pressure on it, I knew that it wasn't broken, but something definitely seemed wrong. Burning sensations around your joints are never a good thing, right? Some people would have gone to the Emergency Room. Hell, at least 4 or 5 people wanted to drive me there. See the reason I wasn't overly concerned after I realized it wasn't broken is because I did the exact same thing to my ankle in October of Soph. year, except I was sober this time around. See, people don't always do dumb things because they are drunk, they do dumb things because they are dumb. Wait a minute...

Anyways, I spent the remainder of Thursday night icing my ankle, waiting to drive my very drunk friends home, something I am always more than happy to do. This leads us to Friday night. Friday was by far one of the better nights I've had on the campus of Quinnipiac University in a while. While 90% of the people on campus started drinking at 11am Friday morning, I wanted to be able to remember the concert that my $30,000 tuition was going towards. Freshman year the concert was Ben Folds Five/Guster, last year it was Uncle Kracker/Angry Salad, this year it was Wyclef Jean. Yes, the same Wyclef who's 'posse' are the Refugee Allstars. I had my doubts, but it was gonna be Wyclef, Ludacris or Nickelback. Now Ludacris wanted $40,000 for a 40 minute performance... ummm, no Peg. And even though I hate Nickelback, I would have been all for them coming if they were a good live band, but I had a chance to see them perform a year and a half ago or so and they were horrible. So while I didn't expect a great show from Mr. Jean, I figured he would at least be entertaining. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be the understatement of the year. I could have done without the local opening act and while the DJs that performed before Wyclef were definitely talented, their set went 15 minutes too long. I heard rumblings that the DJs were asked to go longer then they anticipated because Wyclef was MIA, but there has been no confirmation of those rumors. Wyclef came out to his version of "Jump Around" and had the place going nuts, which is saying a lot for a Quinnipiac crowd, drunk or not. Normally I hold it against someone if they're a Yankee fan, but I was able to look past all of the Yankee garb that he was wearing and enjoy the performance. This guy was crazy, he seemed to have more and more energy as the show went on. I honestly think he would have played all night long if a) enough people would have stayed around for it and b) the school would have let him. His set was well over an hour and his encore might have been longer if the place didn't clear out. People didn't leave because they weren't enjoying the show, but because they were starting to sober up and that is apparently a big no-no on May Weekend. After the show I bounced around campus from crowd to crowd. Any of you that were there know what I'm taking about and if you don't go here then just imagine a huge sea of about 5,000 students, security guards and cops all having a big party outside the dorms. I don't know if I'll ever get over watching people do waterfalls in the middle of their conversations with Hamden cops. It was a good time and was most certainly worth the after effects.

Which leads us to Saturday. I'm pretty sure I was one of 5 non-RA students to be sober Saturday night. I thought people were out in full force on Friday, but Saturday was a whole new ballgame. Once people got back from the College Prom (otherwise known as the May Weekend Semi-Formal), the place went crazy because now you not only had all of the QU students, but all of the visitors that were on campus for the Prom. The highlight of this night was watching my friend Chris go absolutely fuckin' bonkers. Yes, bonkers. The funniest moment of the whole weekend was him standing outside the Ratt (a cafeteria of sorts), taking a plastic chair and throwing it down the steps out of nowhere. He was sitting down in the chair and then just stands up, screams "It's May Weekend! Woooo" and picks up the chair and hurls it. Priceless Chris, priceless.

The school had planned a big fireworks display for Sunday night, but because of the weather it was pushed back to Monday. The whole thing was really impressive and during it I thought to myself "wow, this is really nice, but it must have sent the school back a few nickels." A few nickels aren't even the start of it. I was talking to a friend of mine on SPB about the fireworks and she mentioned it was really nice for '$1,000 a minute'. $1,000??? For one minute?? Overall they dropped $25,000 on the whole event, which includes the local police and firemen that had to be there. I love fireworks and all, but am I the only one that thinks $25,000 is just a bit extreme? Maybe the best way to end a weekend of excess is with even more excess...

:: Ryan 2:32 PM [+] ::
...