And they're probably tired of it, too.
Got a light?
I'm writing a screenplay right now. I kinda did it backwards. First I started compiling some songs together on iTunes under a playlist named "Soundtrack for a Film I Should Write." Then I started piecing together a trailer. Then it occurred to me that it was actually a good idea, so I'm working on a synopsis right now. Maybe I should write the screenplay before I do the synopsis, just to keep myself in reverse.
It's going to be about people getting married, which seems to be what everyone is doing lately. Emily and McGee's wedding was fantastic and beautiful and sweet and a lot of fun. And this is coming from a person who tends not to like weddings when he's there, and tends to hate them even more after he's left.
I finally got Neutral Milk Hotel's album "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." So good. So, so good. In fact, the title song is in the soundtrack I was telling you about. It's the last song. That's how good the song is. That's how good the soundtrack is. That's how good this film is going to be.
I voted today. For Kerry. And Wolfe. It felt good. My first general election, and my vote will probably do no good, but damn, it felt good. Also there was some eye candy in line with me, which made waiting an hour to get to the poll a lot easier.
So follow my lead, all ye minions and go VOTE soon!
Love,
Tyler
Got a light?
Just heard a grizzly old black man tell a story about a Chinese man who beat him in chess back in Florida. "Only thing he knew how to say in English was 'Checkmate.'" I liked that story.
I'm listening to Brian Wilson's new album "Smile." It's enough like "Pet Sounds" to make me do just that.
The beautiful thing about being a nerd in this decade is that it is no longer "uncool" to be a nerd. In fact, it's now "cool" to be a nerd, and "uncool" to be anything else. The nerds are now the arbiters of "cool." I put these words in quotations, because it has recently occurred to me that words and phrases seem to wax and wane in relative "coolness"--much like clothes or music--with the word "cool" being a rather constant fallback.
Anyone with at least one functional eye can tell that the indie scene is engaged in an 80s renaissance that makes George Michael seem almost cool (sorry, "rad") again. And its not just the polyester jackets and Brit-pop dance music that is infiltrating our culture of cool.
In the past few years, we have seen a decline in the theft of urban hip-hop phrases into the common tongue. As little as, say, five years ago, to give a guy the moniker "mac daddy" would have been an acceptably hip use of pop-jargon. Nowadays, anyone using this phrase could be tried for inappropriate anachronism by even the dimmest of junior high style jurors.
It seems, however, that instead of inventing (or pilfering) some new coolspeak, Retro reigns in the language world, too. Our recent fascination with the fads of twenty-years-ago has jogged our respective vocabularies, and the change is evident--just listen to a group of high schoolers chatting about "Napoleon Dynamite" (which exploits the early-80's fascination so well, you wonder if it isn't a period film).
It's not uncommon to hear kids mimicking their Reaganaut big brothers and sisters, always with tongue firmly planted in cheek. That seems to be the key to properly executing any sort of Retro phenomenon: keep a sense of humor about it. It's not enough to dust off the outdated lingo of yesteryear; one must do so with a sardonic sense of kitsch that refuses to be taken completely seriously. Someone claims that a movie was "tubular" in all earnestness? Total nerd. Someone strikes a double-thumbs-up and says that show was "rockin' awesome"? Cooler than Emilio Estevez ŕ la 1988.
So the cycle continues, and now kids are sounding a lot more like Zach Morris again than, say, the already outdated icon-of-cool from last season, Andrč 3000. What do I have to say about the reinvention of my birth decade? Well, so long as we can prevent another revival of conservatism in these otherwise Alex P. Keaton-ite youth, I think it's awesome. Awesome to the max.