Crazy Work Story

This is a blog I posted on myspace the other day. It occurred to me that this is the kind of story Schrowe would have ended up in, so I thought I'd post it here.

So last night I got drunk at work.

Wasted. Crunked.

My last install (where i go be a dork and set up credit card machines... which is actually more complicated than it sounds) of the day was at this total dive, and the kind of dive where everybody at the bar has their own stool and a bartender who's kind of like sam malone except punk rock and with boobs serves up all the booze.

So as soon as i get there, the bartender introduces herself. "hi, i'm sherri. i just broke up w/ my boyfriend, so you're going to do a shot with me."

it was an offer i couldn't refuse, except when i fast forwarded to my boss getting a complaint about me getting drunk on an install.

so i said let's raincheck until i'm done playing with electrical cords and then drink up.

so as soon as i get finished, she puts a shot in my face, and i'm much more receptive.

now, i'm supposed to train her, but she has so much shit going on that i can't really pin her down.

so as i'm waiting she pours some weird vodka drink w/ curdled bailey's that she'd made up. it was actually pretty good.

keep in mind i'm not paying for any of this.

she pours another, and another, and i think at least 2 more, and by that point i'm drunk. wasted. she's telling me about "tits off tuesday" where exhibitionists apparently start showing up around midnight and dropping trow and humping on the pool table. i imagine most of these people are 50 year old alcoholic dudes with liver spots all over their gorilla-esque bodies. i imagine that now, but then imagined a roomful of pornstars, in my drunken haze.

and i've somehow become both her "husband" and her barback AND i'm pouring drinks.

i don't know how this all happened, but there i was flipping drinks like cruise on cocktail. okay, not really like that. i actually had trouble pouring beers that weren't half foam. but anyway.

so after sanitizing the second load of dishes, my glasses totally fogged up in the steam, and it was like i finally wised up... and called my roommate and told him he had to come down immediately for free tits and free beer.

so for some reason i drove home wasted, and then we drove back (him behind the wheel).

we spent the next few hours drinking more free booze and chatting with the bartender who i think was using me to make her ex boyfriend jealous.

after my roommate got sloshed he convinced me to leave, i think concerned that i was going to try to hump sherri.

we went to wendys to grease out the ole plumbing for hangover protection.

it was the second time i ate wendy's yesterday by the way.

awesome.

Tokyo Police Club

I don't know if I intend on turning middleCoast into a music blog or not, but since no one else has posted anything in awhile...

This is Tokyo Police Club and I can't get enough of them. This was the last band that Schrowe turned me on to. Actually, and this is really odd to say, but he turned me on to these guys posthumously (really fucked up to say that about a friend instead of a medal of honor recipient or something). He mentioned them in a comment to Jared on Show Me Music (showmemusic.wordpress.com) as being better than The Killers. Just don't tell Brandon Flowers.

Anyway, the video is great too. Looks like something I would have made in high school. Assuming that in high school I had actually been cool. Or talented. Or not so paralyzed with angst that I'd actually left my bedroom. Enjoy.




-JasonToo

Best Albums of 2006

Well it's about the time of year for middleCoast to share with all its loyal readers our list of the Top 10 Best Albums of 2006. This would have led to a most heated debate between OtherJason and JasonToo, to be sure, but middleCoast is quite certain that an agreement would have been made on the following:


1. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Just a brilliant display of musical talent from the NYC art rockers. Reminiscent of Kid A, from our anti-rock critic's point of view.

2. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Pop music as pop music should be. Here's hoping that DangerMouse's ADD can subside long enough to put together 14 more jams with Cee Lo.

3. My Morning Jacket - Okonokos
We realize that live albums shouldn't technically make album-of-the-year lists, but live MMJ is the best thing ever. Enjoy your rock bubble.

4. The Roots - Game Theory
Rap music is a bland and jaded commercial enterprise. Hip Hop is an art form mastered by The Roots. Game Theory is one of their most creative and enjoyable pieces yet.

5. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
The soul of the New Pornographers gets to the heart of great singer/songwriter albums: that bittersweet ache actually feels good.

6. The Flaming Lips - At War With the Mystics
It's no Soft Bulletin, but who says it has to be? Wayne and the boys still make the best music for dying from a heroin overdose.

7. Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Stealing other bands' sounds has been the root of all rock music, so suspend your disbelief and rock your socks off.

8. The Black Angels - Passover
Texas psych-rockers make The Doors sound like The Beach Boys. Proof that drugs are way better today than they were when your parents were freakin out.

9. Band of Horses - Everything All of the Time
Shoegazers that power-pop with the best of them. Great melodies and great lyrics that can just as easily be great background music.

10. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
From the quiet noise school invoking My Bloody Valentine, Pavement, and Smashing Pumpkins all at once, keeping it interesting upon every listen.


So we at middleCoast are well aware of the fact that we left off some albums that just as easily could've been ranked number one, or at least should all be number eleven: The Decemberists, Tokyo Police Club, The Changes, +/- (Plus/Minus), and Arctic Monkeys are all solid Honorable Mentions.

Also key to this list is the fact that, fortunately or unfortunately, mC is not a professional rock critic, and therefore does not receive every album ever released for free. We at mC have to actually purchase our music, so a number of potential Best of 2006 albums have not even been heard. Albums like the latest from Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Yo La Tengo may happen to be much better than the 10 listed above, but alas, we spent the money on beer instead.

That said, any artist or record company is more than welcome to supply middleCoast with free records for review. Most likely, they will immediately jump to the Number 1 album of the year.

-mC

I thought I would try this.....

Here I am, sitting at work, trying to get through another day. It's been 23 days since I received the most devastating, shocking, unbelieveable news of my life. My brother is gone. And here I sit, at work. WHAT? What am I doing here? I know, I know, I keep hearing "you have to go on with your life" and "life goes on" and "Jason wouldn't have wanted you to fall apart" Blah, blah, blah. I hear people around me as I write this laughing, talking, working and I just want to scream "HOW CAN EVERYONE JUST BE SO....NORMAL?!?!?" Who cares about the holiday party and what food to bring? Who cares about the fucking weather? Who cares about any of it?

I miss him so much. That seems so trite to say. I don't know what else to say. No words can ever express how much he means to me. I am so screwed up about a lot of things right now. I don't know what to think. I feel like he is with me, and I feel like I have received signs from him but maybe I'm just reaching and hoping for that. I hope I'm wrong about a lot of things. I hope he knows how much I love him. And I hope with all of my being that I will see him again. I visit Jas almost every day and I talk to him a lot. I hope he can hear me. JasonToo - I know what you mean. I feel very much like you wrote down some of my thoughts.

I feel like he made me a better person. Although I am the older sister, I feel like he taught me so much. I felt more like twins, or even that he was older than me. He's so fucking witty and smart and awesome. ( I know he is totally digging this) I want to read every book he read, watch every movie, go to every website he went to, see every band he loved. He always made me a little bit cooler. He'd be like "Hey Jenn, there's this awesome new band - let's go see them" We would go, or at the very least he would burn me the CD. I would always love the band, and then 6 months later the band would be huge. How did he do that?!?! He was always ahead of his time. I fucking love that about him.

I feel that I have rambled a bit, but I thought I would try this to see if it helped me at all. Maybe it will at some point, maybe I'll feel better as soon as I post this. Who knows?
Long Live the middleCoast
Bye for now.
Schrowe

Some Thoughts & Feelings, Part I

I feel like I need to write this. I don't know why. It's all dramatic and personal and I'm rarely the type to want to let everyone with internet access read this, but for some reason this feels necessary. I've had a few conversations recently that keep me thinking along these lines (a good talk this morning with a new good friend) and I want to put this out there...

Jason's gone. He has passed away. And I have to figure out what that means. To me anyway. He was my friend. He was my business partner. He was the guy that would go to a rock concert with me on a Tuesday night. He was my tour guide in my own city, pointing out what I've come to learn are called Schrowe Facts. He was my IT help. He was my drinking buddy. He was the only person on the planet that shared so many memories of Europe with me. He was my traveling companion. He was a part of my life, and as the routine of each day moves along I realize more and more what a large part of that daily life he was. And what is he now?

Man, this is harder to write than I thought it was going to be...

When a loved one dies, I immediately resort back to the inner Catholic schoolboy in me - 12 years of Catholic school ingrains in you that you go to heaven or you go to hell, right? Not so easy when you start trying to figure it out on your own, though. In the past 10 years I've had plenty of time to determine where I stand on the big issues. Whether or not there is an afterlife is a pretty big issue. I wish I'd had enough time to figure that one out. I have a hard time believing in the sort of standard view of what heaven is - harps and clouds and robes and boring shit that Jason would not have preferred. I will say this: I do believe in an afterlife. I do. I alternate depending on days as to what it is like, but at my most cynical and scientific I believe that when a person dies the human body releases an energy. Whether or not that energy is a soul with a conscience, or just carbon and oxygen and hydrogen atoms, I don't know. But that released energy has to go somewhere, right?

Amazing how trying to write about the afterlife makes me fully realize how little I understand.

At my most optimistic, "heaven" is whatever you believe it is. Whatever you hope it is. I wonder what Jason hoped heaven was. I suppose I have a few ideas...

His presence here in this life is certainly with me. With us all, I'm sure. But even that idea is something that makes me feel like a child when I try and think about what that means. Is he in the room with me? Is he inside me? Does he know what I'm thinking? What I'm seeing and hearing? Or do I need to talk out loud to him? Am I talking loud enough? Is he here right now, or is he hanging out with his sister for awhile? I hope it'll be my turn soon.

Will I get to see Jason again? That's the question that keeps haunting me into delving into this subject more and more. The thought of never seeing him again is almost too much to bear. I've been listening to Radiohead a lot lately (which is rarely healthy when you're already depressed) and the last line from Motion Picture Soundtrack keeps resonating through my ears:

I will see you
In the next life

I hope so...