From now on:

All posting and bloggin' will take place on my Tumblr.

Alissa and Adam's Wedding and All Our Friends

Alissa and Adam made it official on Saturday in Chicago and it was quite a party. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun.


The first dance was "I'll Be Your Mirror" by Clem Snide. I'm sure Alissa and Adam got the idea from the "Indie Wedding" mix on iTunes.

There was a lot of crazy-hat wearing:




There were some very intense moments of staring-and-pointing:


AC showed up, all the way from Japan!



I cut a rug with one of my favorite little ladies:




Mindy made some new friends:


I made the hottest chicks take pictures with me:




Alissa was lovely:


Adam and me: Bros!!!


We all danced to "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem, which was quite appropriate.


John and I were sweaty messes, but I wish we could go back and do it again.

Honesty = Vulnerability

I wrote a piece for This Recording about my dad.

I was kind of hesitant to do it, not because I thought it'd be too hard or anything. I'd been wanting to write something long about him for a long time, and TR is a good venue for long essays. But I get really nervous when it comes to being really open and honest about things really close to me, especially since TR has gotten much more traffic lately with links from Defamer and Gawker, etc. But so far, I've gotten some nice praise from people who have linked to it through Tumblr, so I feel less anxious about it than I did as I was writing it.

I was also nervous about posting about my parents. My mother doesn't know about this and I'm sort of afraid to show it to her, since I expect her reaction to be kind of angry that I used pictures and stories of my parents.

But, in my way, this is how I wanted to pay some sort of tribute to my father, who didn't read a lot but enjoyed the writing of mine that he actually did get a chance to look at. And I think he would be flattered and appreciative. He'd probably cry, too, because he was a big baby.

Anyway, here's the link: In Which This Is How I Know Him: Pictures of My Father.

Back to the Real World

Well, I am back from vacation and officially unemployed, which means that I have to get my ducks in a row and find a job this week. So you'll probably see more frequent posting on this site as I won't have much else to do.

But right now, I have to get an Illinois driver's license, as I have lived here for three years and haven't gotten around to doing that yet. So, in the meantime, here are some pictures that I found while I was home over the weekend.







Isn't it always amazing to imagine that your family had a LIFE before you were born?

So that's what I'm going to do.

I have two more full days of work at my job before I throw away my 37K+ salary, medical benefits, and fairly generous discounted tuition for (hopefully) temporary unemployment.

I'll say that the two weeks since I've made up my mind and given my notice have been pretty great. I haven't felt the need to tip-toe around my boss, I've been generally productive and busy with the administrative tasks I actually enjoy doing, and I've checked-out mentally enough to not feel guilty for coming in every day at nine instead of eight-thirty. (Trust me: the extra half hour of sleep is worth it.)

I actually have a good chunk of money in my account, so I'm not too terrified about being unemployed for a while, since I plan on temping anyway since sitting around in my hot apartment doesn't sound very appealing. Of course, I get to go on a free vacation to the Outer Banks, so I get that week to avoid the real world while reading books and swimming in the ocean.

And you know what? This is the first time in the three years since I moved to Chicago that I wasn't freaking out about what to do with my life. Ever since I graduated I've come up with about ten different plans, all with very detailed goals spanning from weeks to months to years. I'm rather surprised myself that I'm so uncharacteristically optimistic. I came to the decision that my only major goal for the rest of the year is to find a job that I like enough and will let me keep hanging out with the friends I love in Chicago, and maybe allow for trips to visit some friends in other cities, too.

I think there's some nice timing here - I moved to Chicago on August 6, 2005, after all. In the three years since I've spent several months miserable from unemployment, underemployment, being underpaid, and being lonely. I came out and had a shitty relationship and a really good one. I've fallen in love. I've gained some skills. I lost my father and two grandparents. I've made a lot of friends. It's hard to imagine that it's only been three years here because I feel like I've done so much, and it's probably the reason why I don't feel like I'm in a hurry to do anything right now.

When I turned 22, I thought I had to "make it" and be successful by the time I was thirty. It's an arbitrary number and a subjective goal, as I don't even think I knew what "success" meant to me three years ago. Now, on the cusp of turning 25, I realized that I'm a lot smarter than I was then (and still, I am aware of how silly it is to think one is smart at 25). I've learned a lot about myself since I moved here, with every positive and negative experience giving me something to think about. I'm not really in a hurry to do anything; I just kind of want to sit back and enjoy things as they come.

Sorry is the hardest word, etc.

I've been really terrible lately and avoiding my blog here. I have things to write but they're kind of overwhelming (but they are positive things!), and I promise I will come back to this site. I will!

In the meantime I am trying to get through the last five days of work (!!!) and I am looking forward to whatever the hell I am going to do next.

In the meantime, I have two recent posts on This Recording, so please, take a look.

IN WHICH TYLER SLUMS IT AT PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL

IN WHICH ALL OF OUR OPINIONS ARE RIGHT

I just quit my job.

I feel like a giant weight has been lifted, and I am really, really happy. I have two weeks left and then I go to Nags Head for a week so I can avoid responsibility before returning to the Real World.

I've been planning this since Monday and had my letter of resignation ready yesterday. I talked ot my therapist last night about how happy I was, that I have been feeling uncharacteristically optimistic, considering that I don't really have a plan for what I'll do for work other than temping when I come back to Chicago. But, I feel like I've learned a lot about myself in the last seven months, and for the first time since the beginning of the year, I actually feel pretty happy.

It's a really good feeling.

And, um, if you happen to live in Chicago and know of any job leads, do let me know!

Don't read your idols' blogs.

I've been having a big of blogger's ennui lately, which is a sillier sentence to write than it is to read.

I was going to write a post for This Recording that talked about the five bloggers I had blog-crushes on (nearly all platonic). It was going to include Rich from Four Four, Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan from Jezebel, and Emily Gould. I was considering including Alex Balk because no one else on the Internet can make me laugh and then shake my clenched fists at the computer screen with rage, and then there's Julia Allison, just 'cause. I know enough that name-dropping Julia Allison in a blog post (in the same as Emily Gould!) would certainly guarantee an extra five to ten hits.

When the whole Lizz Winstead / Jezebel thing went down two weeks ago, I watched the entire Thinking and Drinking episode featuring Tracie and Moe Tkacik from Jezebel and had a lot of opinions about it; I thought they were unfortunately unaware that the show could turn serious, and, like most of us under thirty, suffer from the curse of the "like and y'know?" generation that makes everything we say sound incredibly dumb despite what brilliant thoughts are buzzing inside our brains. At the same time, however, I was a little disappointed with what they said, but it was representative of a generation of feminists (and really, a generation of people) who forget about the progress of previous generations and how it opened doors for those that followed.

When I thought about writing this, I clicked around Tumblr and saw that everyone was writing the same stuff. People were arguing about how Moe and Tracie represent (like Emily Gould) a generation of women who are too willing to share personal details about their lives for their own gain (whether that is true and a bad thing is debatable, but I'd like to go on record as saying I never want to read the word "overshare" again, ever). And I don't want to go into a gender studies rant about why male bloggers aren't criticized for the same issues, but the idea is exhausting, much like the idea of writing about bloggers who are all related to Gawker.

The thing is this: I used to avidly read Gawker. I still do, on occasion, but with less frequency. Once I made a comparison on this blog to how the old generation of Gawker editors seemed like "the old people in charge of your college radio station." It was a comparison I made because, as a blogger, I sort of emulated those writers because I really enjoyed what they wrote and how they said it. They really were to me a sort of cool clique on the Internet, much like those music snobs who ran the radio station in college. It took me a while back then to realize that, even though I felt like "knowing" those people was a big deal, it didn't make much of a difference a year after graduation.

What's funny to me is that my friends, most of whom read this blog, don't give two shits about Gawker, and they don't recognize those names that used to be on the masthead. Nick Denton doesn't mean anything to them; neither do Julia Allison, Emily Gould, or Slut Machine. Most of them might not know anything about the "scandal" behind the Thinking and Drinking show, because they don't live their lives on the Internet.

I used to write here with the anticipation that one day I would write professionally, and I would turn this blogging hobby into a way to make money and do something that I really enjoyed. To be honest, the idea seems kind of repulsive now, probably because I realized that work is not necessarily something I'll enjoy, even if it's blogging. And I think that I've changed how I feel about writing about myself on the Internet; I've got a lot to say about myself, but that doesn't mean that I should, especially when having my personal shit become public makes feel a little gross.

I talked to my therapist about this (of all things), and she asked me why I don't keep a private journal, wherein I write about myself for myself. I told her I didn't know, that perhaps it's a generational trend: not only does it feel great to type away at these plastic keys (and save time doing so instead of writing everything by hand), but it's also exhilarating to risk putting yourself on the Internet and to let people read what you have to say. After all, as soon as chat rooms became unfashionable when I was seventeen, I joined my first blogging site, and I've been doing this since.

Things I did this weekend:

1. Watched nine hours of Mad Men.

2. Vlogged:


(That's about it.)

It Ain't All Bad

I feel like I've been slacking immensely when it comes to this site. I blame Tumblr, which I have kind of fallen in love with despite my best intentions. Also, I don't think I've had much to talk about in detail lately, and what I have written about has been rather depressing. On Tumblr I just post links and songs and stupid shit that I enjoy, whereas on this forum I go into great detail about feeling like crap most of the time.

I should fess up, however, and admit that in the last week (well, since Monday), I've been doing pretty well. I had a fantastic weekend, especially a wonderful Fourth of July evening with great friends (even though Adam, who has taken on a role of abusive big brother (karma, perhaps, for being one myself to David), somehow managed to leave a giant bruise on my arm). And outside of work and thinking about Dad, things have been generally great.

John and I are back together, which was the best part of my Gay Pride Weekend (ha). Without rehashing details and stepping into oversharing territory (by the way, "overshare" is turning into the most over-used and annoying blog buzz words of 2008), I'm just going to say that things make perfect sense, and I'm full of positive emotions for a change because I get to spend a lot of time with someone I love and makes me happy.

Now, having said all of that: it is because of John that I can now say that I've heard a Miley Cyrus song. I was doing pretty well up until last weekend and it's all his fault. But, even though nobody's perfect, he comes pretty close.

Sometimes life lays it on really thick, just like a Nicholas Sparks novel.

My dad's birthday was on Monday. I dealt with it pretty well, considering I had other issues that were driving me batshit crazy to focus on at the time. I didn't want to dwell on it; I've tried very hard to keep myself together since he died. I don't know if that's what I should be doing, but that's what I've been attempting to, anyway. I've thought about him a lot, obviously, but I've tried not to be too sad about it because I don't think he'd want me to be.

I was telling John last night that my biggest fear is that I won't be able to get the image I have of him out of my head. When I think about him, I don't remember what he looked like two years ago, or last Christmas; I only see what he looked like a month and a half a good, a few days before he died. I'm trying very hard to think about those good memories and images, instead, and I want to share this story because I think it helps me, at least.

My dad worked for the Coca-Cola bottling plant in town for about thirty years. He drove all over the area - sometimes driving a hundred miles a day - fixing Coke machines and fountain units. That's how he met so many people; he knew every single shop and restaurant owner so well that they wouldn't have a problem calling him at home with a problem (much to his dismay).

He also made signs for businesses, those old-fashioned metal signs with the name in huge white lettering framed by two Coke logos. These were all over the place back home.

My dad returned to work at the end of last year when he went into remission, and he left work shortly after he discovered that the cancer had returned. But one of the last projects he worked on was a new metal sign for Driftwood, which is my parents' favorite restaurant in the area (it's owned by a couple they knew back in high school, of course).

The Coke plant had phased out the signs (like they did the bottling several years ago), but after Pam and Spencer, the owners of Driftwood, practically begged for him to make them a new one, my dad agreed. When he finished the sign, he signed his name at the bottom, which happens to be centered right above the front door of the building. He said he did it so that whenever my mom goes to dinner at Driftwood, she'll know he's with her.



And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a goddamn love story.

Mystery solved.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure out that the early morning visits (in the 5:00 and 6:00 hours of the AM, as well as on weekends) were most likely coming from a Blackberry. Now I can go back to living my life knowing full well that there is nothing mysterious at all about the Internet.

Pat that weave.

I'm not sure what it is about this video (which YouTube will not let me embed here), but last night Christina, Rachel, and I were at Halsted's and this came on and we could not stop watching it.

I think it's B's weave.

There are two things I'd like to share with you.

First, this Craigslist ad that Mindy found:



There are no words.

Secondly, I wrote a post on This Recording about Liz Phair. You should read it.

What It Feels Like For A Girl

I posted the following on Tumblr, but since I don't have much else to talk about today, I figured I'd post it here as well. By the way, I am seeing Liz Phair perform Exile in Guyville tomorrow night and I'm already about to pee my pants with excitement.

I’m surprised the Pitchfork review of the Exile in Guyville reissue wasn’t more offensive; I’m glad they gave it a high rating (a 9.6; I still think it should be a 10, but I guess their biggest problem was the reissue didn’t offer more extras, so fine). But, as always, I have an issue with the way Pitchfork publishes its “reviews.”

My big issue is the first three paragraphs:

You break all kinds of unwritten rules when you’re a guy who admires a girl. The white suburban kids who idolize gangster rappers are old news, and the rich kids have always loved to rub elbows with the poor. But when a man tries to identify with a woman, he doesn’t just hit the normal problems of “white male gaze” and “exploitation of the other” and “being a jackass”: There’s also the third rail of male sexuality, where identifying too closely with a woman might make you seem, perish the thought, sensitive. So instead, the guys who dig a girl like Liz Phair have to play up the attraction, the lust, the submission to a rock’n’roll goddess— even when, for many of them, the lust ain’t the main draw.

The other tactic is to take credit for what she’s done. And guys can take plenty of credit for Phair’s early career. Rock critics like Bill Wyman brought Phair to Chicago’s attention when they ranted and raved about Guyville weeks before the thing came out. The Rolling Stones recorded Exile on Main Street, the loose template for Guyville’s 18 tracks— and one of the blues-rock genomes that saved this from being just another singer-songwriter set. And a couple other guys, co-producer Brad Wood and engineer Casey Rice, helped nail the minimalist production of Guyville and its follow-up, the underrated Whip-Smart.

It was the guys like her Johnny or her Joe— the titular guys in the indie boy’s club centered in and around Chicago’s Wicker Park— who preened for her, dicked her over, and taught her how to push back, inspiring her and making it necessary for her to write these songs in the first place. And it was guys who took the piss when she started headlining at venues that were too big for an amateur. Playing a New Year’s Eve show at the Metro as your sixth or seventh gig is a lot to bite off. And if I recall correctly, she bit. But stagecraft and starpower weren’t the point: Those of us who were taken in by Phair loved her because she was— sorry to use the word— real.

I’ve bitched before about Pitchfork’s reviews; I generally just look at the rating instead of reading the actual article because, as in the case of Exile, it isn’t so much about the music as it is about the author writing the review. So here we have this guy who, ironically, is one of the targets of Liz Phair’s album. And he spends the first third of the review talking about how hard it is for him to like the album because he’s a guy?

I think that’s silly, and I could write a whole other essay on the subject of this stupid societal construct of masculinity and blah, blah, blah. I think the point I’m trying to make is that the album is good because it is good, not because it makes you know how it feels to be a girl. Hell, I relate to this album and I don’t think it’s solely about dating guys.

Sure, the “woman thing” has certainly been an issue in how Liz Phair has been received as an artist (I truly believe that is why she is such an outsider in the music industry, because no one knew how to manage her music), but I don’t think all of her music has to come down to that black and white issue. Most of the time, Liz Phair writes and sings in character, not as herself, and in several instances those characters have been men

Naturally as a guy, I can’t speak for what women saw in the record back then, or how young women will take it now. But of all the albums written from a woman’s perspective, this is one of the most accessible to men. It’s intriguing to watch her deal with us— not as a mere revolutionary, but as someone who knows that sex will always be tough, so she always has to be tougher. She’s been tested in ways we never will be, and we understand just enough to admire her for it. Men don’t get what it’s like to be a woman. But spinning this record, you swear that you could.

“Men don’t get what it’s like to be a woman.” You know what? If you put forth a little effort (which doesn’t mean just listen to an 18-song album), you could probably figure it out sometime.

A Very Scientific Study.

Proof that homosexuality is genetic:

My pre-adolescent fascination with Mommie Dearest


and Valley of the Dolls.



On the other hand, the reason why the jury is still out on this case:

My general ambivalence toward Grey Gardens.




(PS. It is really difficult to find a video of Mommie Dearest on YouTube that does not feature drag queens.)

A Tumblr Primr

For those of you not on Tumblr (and, really, it's just a matter of time - remember MySpace?), here's a video that does a good job of explaining what it's like.


tumblr. - The Documentary from DaveAOK on Vimeo.

Also, Real David Karp is not as hot as Fake David Karp.

Melancholia

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so predisposed to being angry, sad, and bitter all of the time, since, generally, I'm doing okay for myself. I mean, I can only use my dad's death as viable excuse for so long, you know?

I'm in a general malaise right now. (I hate writing about it on my blog, but bear with me.) I don't think it's one thing that's making me feel like things are such shit, but rather the last four months of hell that have been home life and work life. After I broke up with John I finally made myself go into therapy, thinking that the break-up (and my general failures with dating in general) were a major part of what's bringing me down. I mean, I think that lately, most of my rage and anger comes out of romantic disappointment; why else would I still want to scratch someone's fucking eyes out every time I see them (yes, them, because it's plural)?

With my dad's illness and death, one would think that I spend most of my therapy talking about grief, etc. The truth is, I've spent more hours talking about my job that anything else. I'm not going to go into great detail because that's uncouth and such, but something must be said for spending eight hours a day feeling ten times more miserable than you do anywhere else, and on top of that feeling like you're an idiot at the same time. I told John today that I was in the mood to go cry a bathroom stall somewhere, and he replied, "You could work at the New York Times building where they have 'crying cubbies!'" But even before I could respond, he said, "But then it's expected that you would be crying."

I don't even know if therapy (or, as I call it, "my five-hundred-dollar deductible") is doing me any good, but I continue to go because it's worth a shot, right? Of course, here's the shitty thing: I have to work because I need the insurance, since therapy isn't affordable without it (especially since it's just now covering it). So basically, I need to work for the therapy, and I need the therapy to make it to work. Such is the irony of the twenty-something, depressive, professional lifestyle.

I don't think exclusively listening to Exile in Guyville is conducive to a good mood either, but I'm too excited for next week to examine that.

Poor choices.

Drinking eight beers while watching the Tonys alone is probably a new low for me. I don't know; when I think of the other dumb things I've done when I was drunk and around people, I feel like live-blogging the Tony Awards on my Tumblr (live-Tumblin'?) is probably not that bad. Whatever; it was Father's Day and I was depressed. I have an eternal excuse for my stupid behavior. Well, it might at least last me through the rest of the year.

On Weddings.

I love weddings, at least in theory, since I've only been to two as an adult and wasn't of legal drinking age at the time. (Side note: This isn't related, but let me explain. Most people would let a twenty-year-old drink at an open-bar wedding. Unfortunately, I got in trouble at the last wedding because I was just a few months shy of my twenty-first birthday and had a friend get me a beer after I was refused. At the other wedding I was eventually goaded into drinking by the mother of the bride, although it wasn't until I was sure that the county sheriff had already left the reception.)

Anyway, I get jealous of people like Justin and Katy who seem to be going to weddings all the time. But then I realize that they went to a Catholic college, so they are obviously more likely to know people who get married at our age. My friends are all heathens who live in sin, if they even manage to keep a relationship going that long. (Seriously, friends! Get it together! There are ice cream makers and flatware in your future!)

Adam and Alissa are getting married in August, and it will honestly be the first fun wedding I will ever attend, since I'll be of legal age and my family won't be there. I don't have to worry about embarrassing myself in front of my mom - Adam and Alissa will have to hope I don't embarrass them in front of their moms!

Ever since they started planning the wedding, I tried to give them ideas on how to make it totally kick-ass, from a themed wedding (Cowboys and Indians! Pimps and 'hos!) to recreating the opening to the musical in The Muppets Take Manhattan. This is for my own entertainment, because it's not like I'm going to enjoy the food or anything.

I was talking to my friend Laurie today (happy birthday, by the way!), and she was telling me that she and her boyfriend have started thinking about a wedding next year. Immediately I said, "Oh my God, PLEASE HAVE IT IN COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG!!!" Not because either of us like Colonial Williamsburg - in fact, we both kind of despise it. I realized then that maybe because I'm not allowed to get married (and, let's face it, even if I was, who would I fool into entering into a legal contract with me?), I act out my aggressions by trying to imagine my friends' weddings turn into train wrecks for my own amusement.

But friends! Really, I'm sure I'll be totally happy for you or whatever, and I'll support you if you don't want to get married in costume or you allow children to come. If I dislike the person you're marrying, I'll politely keep it to myself (or at least only talk about you behind your back). But please, make sure Christina is also invited, because if she isn't you know she's going to just end up being my date (the idea of ever being at the wedding-date stage with someone I'm dating seems TERRIFYING and UNLIKELY). And can you do me a favor at and have something on the menu I like? Otherwise, I'll get really shitty at the open bar.

Adam once said that the wedding is really more for their friends than for family, which is a pretty good point. As the years go on and people end up hitched and have moved on, think of how often you're going to see them (if you don't immediately cut them all out of your life on the way to your honeymoon destination). You'll see your family every year at holidays, birthdays, and, eventually, other weddings. But your friends are the ones who you'll want to remember at your wedding at having had a great time - they're the ones who will actually be in the wedding, after all. So make sure they're the ones who have a good time. And by "they," I mean specifically me.