The morning air is tinged with a silver chill that wasn't there before 2 days ago. September gently seeped into August, but the doors of summer have been abruptly slammed shut. I am not prepared for Fall. I've been dreading September, because it meant that cold weather was coming, and I absolutely hate cold weather. Subconciously I"ve also been dreading september because it means that its been a year since I started my job, which means I'm not allowed to hide behind the "new employee" excuse, and will have to own up to the fact that there is still so much at my work that confuse me. This September is also the first time that I don't have a new semester, a new job, or new beginnings to anticipate. Month rolls off by month, and I keep track of time through the weekend activities I have to look forward to. Is this the start of the rest of my life? I'm turning 24 in a few weeks, one step closer to mid-twenties. Those in their later twenties are clinging to their youth so tightly, I can almost see the tearing in their nails. I see it on their faces, the battle that rages as they race against time, race against the soft, barely percievable wrinkles, the ones that only appear when they laugh or smile or when they analyze their pictures or reflections in the mirror. I don't want to be that person, but it seems so inevitable. Already I'm glaring at my reflection, wondering where that extra crease on my face came from, whether that acne scar will heal regularly now that my healing abilities have been on the decline. I worry that my unexplanable metabolism will suddenly cease ot work in my favor, and I will start to gain weight at rates I can't control, thanks to 23 years of eating whatever I want when I want. I worry that I will look back in my twenties and wonder what the hell I've accomplished, whether I've wasted my life away on dreams that I could never bring myself to fulfill. I look at my mother, and I never ask her what she did in her twenties. She never told me. I have a feeling she doesn't know, and doesn't want to admit it. I have 6 more years to make something out of my twenties, something beyond the grade increases at my work. At this rate, do I have enough time?

There are no words to describe the horror that is the current band I am in. Involving a revolving door of noob musicians continually dragged in and left out by current band members. Its more a "people-who-want-to-play-in-a-band-but-can't-play-with-other-people" collection. And somehow the numbers keep increasing. You play piano? Come on in. Doesn't matter if you don't even know what chords are, and we've never heard you play. Oh, you play guitar too? Why don't you jam with us next practice? What's aggravating is every time a new member is dragged in, which is basically every other practice, I have to teach them all the chords. AGAIN. Doesn't help no one else in the band remembers any of the chords we play. And for some reason, no one else remembers the names of the chords, only what they kind of look like when you play them. And no one else knows how to figure out chords by listening to the music, and since most of our songs are foreign, there are no tabs. Guess who has to do all the work to figure out all the chords? Then teach them to everyone? I will be the first to admit my guitar playing should be loads better than it is now. In fact, outside simple folk rock, my guitar is terrible. My electric guitar skills and soloing skills are terrible. What does that say when I feel like I'm the one holding everyone's head above water when we play? We don't even have a real drum set. We have a friggin set of BONGOS. What self-respecting band has BONGOS? The dude who plays the bongos can't even friggin play bongos.
I guess what aggravates me is that 1. I want to sing but I'm not the one singing. I would rather sing than play guitar, since I'm a much better singer than guitarist. 2. I always have to hold people's head above water in this musical endeavor. 3. The constant influx of new members. One of the band members suggested we bring a celloist into the band, regardless of the fact that she didn't even have her cello in the states. [facepalm]
The group is a great group to hang out with though, and practices are fun if I see it more as a socializing opportunity than actual practice. Maybe that's why I always dread practice but enjoy hanging out.
This is further proof that I need to be involved in a real band, and this can not be my main musical project.

So everyone has heard about the devastation in Taiwan left behind by typhoon Morakot. Rumor has it that President Ma didn't announce national emergency, turned away outside relief [including the US], and offered no resources from the central government because he wanted to get aid from China. Politically, this is a very good move for Ma. More than half of Taiwan's exports go to China, and good ties with China means good economic times for Taiwan. Ma has been kissing China's brocaded butt ever since he got elected, hinting towards unification to milk China for all its worth. China has responded positively, rewarding Taiwan with Pandas named "Uni" & "Fication", opening up direct flights and tourism, hinting at the prosperity the Motherland can offer its renegade son should he renounce his independence.


SO. When disaster strikes, villages engulfed by mud and rock and uprooted trees, over 500 people buried alive and more stranded on tree tops and toppling buildings, Ma thinks, what a great opportunity to kill 2 birds with 1 stone: Clearly Taiwan doesn't have the resources to have a fully coordinated rescue attempt. Let's bring in Chinese troops. That way Taiwan saves energy and resources, and China thinks we really want to unify. Unfortunately, Ma doesn't realize that a national emergency is an emergency, and people are dying, starving, stranded, and this is no time to be playing mind games with China. Your people are in need, and time is something you don't have.


All hell broke loose. Not only did Chinese troops not show up, more people died, more people were found missing, and Taiwan didn't have the leadership to get its act together. Instead of apologizing, Ma goes on a blaming spree, from blaming the weather department to sacking high officials. This hasn't eased tensions; in fact, it fueled even greater public outrage. People protest, demanding his resignation. What does Ma do?


He swings to the other extreme. He invites the Da Lai Lama to Taiwan to say prayers for the dead folk. If there is a way of completely pissing off and alienating China, it's to invite the Da Lai Lama. To Taiwan.

So. There you have it. Dear Mr. Ma, had you sent the Central troops to the southern countryside when they needed you the most, maybe you wouldn't have had to invite China's #1 Public Enemy to say prayers for them after they DROWNED.

[note: Rumor has it that it was the opposing political party that invited the Da Lai Lama in to Taiwan to screw up Taiwan's previously-budding relationship with China. But Ma OKed the trip, so I highly doubt its ALL the DDP's fault]

This post was supposed to be about my audition with Iritis.Instead, this will be a post about how much I hate the DC metro.

I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with my attempts at GETTING to Bethesda. 6 o'clock, I am on the yellowline, pulse through to Chinatown, wait for the redline train to Shady Grove for about a minute, Bam, I am on my way to Bethesda, sweet and simple. But wait, The redline train isn't moving. We're still stalled at Chinatown. We wait. And wait. Minutes roll by. Outside the train window, I can see multiple trains going the opposite direction to Glenmont pause at the platform and go whizzing right past us. I stand packed between damp armpits and leather suitcases, grasping on to a sickeningly slick pole.

Over the crackly loudspeaker, the train conductor yammers something about a fire between Dupont and the Medical Center. At that moment, my hopes of getting to the audition on time sank to the matted carpet train floor. After what seemed like ages, we finally started moving again. I breathed a sigh of relief, maybe I would make it on time after all. The train crawls, inches its way to the metro station, then full on stops for another 10 minutes. This goes on for every single stop along the way, and by the time it was 7, I was stuck on the metro at the zoo/Adams Morgan.

The conductor announces that there was a fire on the rail at Bethesda, and the train was going to stay at the current stop indefinitely. I was 5 stops away from Bethesda, and my Bethesda was on fire. I clamored out of the train, stormed up what has to be the longest escalator in existence [The Foggy Bottom stop on the blue line also has an obscenely lengthy escalator. We're talking about a good 5~7 minutes of waiting if you decide to stand instead of walk it] and called the bassist, who was supposed to pick me up from Bethesda at 7. He said he'd come pick me up at the zoo instead. 20 minutes later, he called me back and said the traffic was really bad, and since they were having a 2nd singer audition at 8:30, by the time he came and got me and drove back, the other singer would have showed up and it would be kind of awkward. He suggested I make the commute again this Thursday instead. I grudgingly agreed, and made my way back to the metro. Lo and behold, the escalator going down wasn't working; I had to walk down this quater-mile escalator.


By the time I got down there, the platform for the trains going back to Chinatown was completely overflowing with antsy commuters. The train lumbers around, but wait, it's not my train back home, it's the one to Bethesda! The station manager's voice boomed overhead: All trains are operating on a single track, the fire in Bethesda has been cleared, trains have resumed operation. I hop on the train, figuring if I'm only trying out 2 songs, that would only take around 15 minutes at most, and there was no chance I was going to make this commute again on Thursday if I've already gotten this far on this incredibly frustrating trip.


We zoom at normal speed for 1 stop, then the train stopped again. Apparently the train ahead of us had to stop an indefinite amount of time because a passenger got sick, and they had to get him out of the metro.

I finally get to Bethesda at 8, 2 hours after I first left. The trip was supposed to take, at most, 40 minutes.

Then I had my audition, which I will elaborate on in another post. I need rant to my heart's content about the metro. Because there's more. Oh yes, there is definitely more. Because once I get to Bethesda, I have to get BACK.

What made the trip back complicated was that a friend of a friend was coming to DC all alone and had some issues with booking a hotel, and I offered my pull-out-couch for two nights. I have never met this girl before, and I knew I wasn't going to be home until 10, so I asked Soloman, a high school friend of mine who also didn't know the girl, to help me "baby-sit" her til I got back. At 9 I got a ride back to the metro, and I started my ride home.


Only this time, there was no fire or sick people or anything. It just decided not to come. Like ever. 30 minutes I spent trying to find things to do. Hence the pictures...






The camera on my Prada phone isn't too bad. Too bad everything else about it sucks.

When I finally got on the metro, I was ready to become a billionaire, just so I could buy the metro and demolish it. Rather than run normally, the metro arbitrarily decided to just run on one track, which meant it would start, drag a few hundred feet, then stop for half an hour, waiting for the train ahead of it to move on.


Having no reception on the metro, I had no way of letting Soloman or the girl know I was on my way back, and that I wasn't dumping the girl on Soloman. There were no words to explain the fury and agony I was feeling at that point, and I went through all the games on my Prada phone [only reason I keep specifying that its my Prada phone is because the adjective is the only redeeming quality of the phone], which were all impossible to understand and probably added to my frustrations. At 11 I got out of the metro, determined that if I ever had a pet Godzilla, I would "accidentally" let it loose and allow it to eat all the redline trains and stomp on the redline tunnels. Not that that would make the redline run any smoother, but it would definitely make me feel better. I retrieved the girl from Soloman, who was annoyed but too polite to say anything. The girl was just happy to have a place to stay for the night. Topping it all off, I had skipped dinner and was famished, but too exhausted to cook. An overly salted Campbell's Chicken noodle soup later, I crashed and slept for as long as I could until I had to get up for work.

There really is no point to this post, other than how much the redline sucks. Which is currently a very large factor on the audition situation, and I'll elaborate on another post.

I'm still searching for my sound. I'm searching for like-minded musicians that I can see eye-to-eye, that I can work with on musical projects. I need a group that can combine acoustic with techno with industrial with goth with metal. I need people who can play guitar better than me, who can record and produce my music, who can work with me to realize the best of our potentials.

On the search? No luck so far. Boo. Why not? A large number of musical ventures in DC are awfully vanilla. Friggin progressive rock, 80 covers, feel-good bar music. I mean, bar music is great, if you want to be generic. All the good bands? Prob not looking for a new singer. Or are too far to commute to [boo for no car.] My first metal band, and first band in DC, kinda flopped. I liked the music, kinda [ok, the progressions were a little too random for me, and it was a bitch to write melodies and lyrics to insane progressions] but the two people I was working with were fantastic musicians. The drums were prob the best I've ever heard in person, and the guitar was decent. BUT trying to sing over the blasting of the drums and guitar was taking a toll on my voice, and I just wasn't enjoying practice anymore.

I've found 2 bands on craigslist that were in search for a lead singer that managed to catch my interest: Iritis and The Disconnect.
Iritis is a loungy, ethnic fusion band. I'm not an incredible fan of loungy music, and I think their stuff would be incredible if they revved up the drums and added more heavy guitars, but I don't think that's really their thing. Their ethnic flair is intriguing, and their lyrics are pretty good. DC being such a pretentious city, I could see why they'd be relatively popular here. The whole, I'm-an-educated-and-worldly-yuppie-and-I-go-to-expensive-Asian-fusion-restaurants-and-talk-Voltaire-and-Hemingway audience would totally eat this up. I'm supposed to go next Tuesday to Bethesda to audition.

The Disconnect sounds like every other band that's playing on the radio. This is good because it would probably be very popular, and bad because it would seriously sound like everyone else. To make it not sound like everyone else would be highly dependent on how the singer presented the lyrics and melody. I'm sure I could make it sound good, but do I have what it takes to make it not generic?! After Burning Rome sucked me dry of lyrical and melodic creativity [stupid awkward progressions...] I am having difficulty mustering up the motivation to write songs to pre-determined chord progressions, albeit this time its much easier, since the songs have some recognizable pattern.

The question is, do I settle for bands I'm not ecstatic about, or do I risk dragging on with my stagnant creative attempts, and try to search for a band myself, one member at a time? If I did the one member at a time, the chances are I'll be disappointed [I've tried individual jamming sessions. Sometimes it just doesn't work] AND my Asian band will kill me because I'm cheating on them by creating another band [not that finding another band to sing in is much better, although at least I singing, rather than playing guitar]. The Asian band is a nice side project. I'm realizing that if it were to be my main project, I may have to shoot myself.

If I do find a new band, this will be my 5th band since HS. The journey never ends...

The premise of Repo! The Genetic Opera is fascinating. It's 50 years in the future, and an organ-failure epidemic has pushed humans to the brink of extinction. An organ manufacturing company called Geneco rises, and its founder, Rotti Largo, becomes a savior by mass producing these organs. Not only does Geneco provide organs, they also provide a highly addictive and exceedingly rare anesthesia, Zydrate, to go with it. People become addicted to surgery and swap their organs for "designer parts," which can range from eyeballs to faces to intestines. If you can't afford to pay Geneco back, they send the Repo [pronounced Reap-oh] Man after you to "repossess" your organs, aka slaughtering you alive legally.

The musical is filled with strange and morbid characters that each have a story to tell. Unfortunately, the musical never fleshes out some of the more curious players, and when the curtains fall, you're never really left with any closure. The Repo Man is probably the center of this whole film, and while the actor who plays Repo is an excellent actor, I'm not so sure why he's the center of the story. The stories of the 3 heirs to the Geneco dynasty are barely touched upon, and we know absolutely nothing about the Graverobber, the drug dealer and narrator of the story. While they are ancillary characters, they appear often enough in strange situations that beg for an explanation. Most of the background story is illustrated comic-book style, and scattered across the film. We learn about another interesting character, Blind Mag, mostly through comic book pages, which is very disappointing, since Sarah Brightman was actually really, really good as the enslaved company opera singer.


[would embed it, but its disabled]

My bad habit of reading film summaries before I watch movies basically ruins plot surprises and twists, so I basically knew the whole storyline of the musical before I even watched the trailer. Pouring through Youtube and the Repo! site, I overly sampled the "hit songs," which then left the rest of Repo tediously repetitive and predictable. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the film [despite having my eyes covered about 60% of the film because I can't stand blood, guts, and gore] Besides the need for fleshing out the characters, the lyrics for most of the songs were overtly simple, and tended to repeat itself. Sometimes the songs ran too long, or the scene dragged. There is only so long you can watch Paris Hilton prance around in bondage before you start wondering if there is any acting she can do realistically besides porn. The film was also overly gory, and tried to fit way too many goth, morbid, PVC bondage, nurse/doctor/surgery-blood-splattering, high-tech-industrial apocalyptic, steam punk, necrophiliac, Victorian, and etc themes into 1 film. It's like they tried to take every subculture that resides outside prep, hippie, geek, and hipster, smash it into a gothic mess, and pour copious amounts of blood on it.



I really liked the music though, a very nice mix of industrial and goth instrumentals. Besides the blood splattering, I love the costumes, and have been eying Blind Mag's Chromaggio costume for Halloween ever since I had the finale spoiled for me by youtube. [Yeah, not really goth enough to be wearing that kind of stuff in everyday-public, thank you very much. Don't have the guts to. Plus I'd scare the crap out of everyone I hang out with on a normal basis here. Yay for closet-gothness, without the morbid tendencies.]