The Sentinel, our school paper of which I am the Chief Designer, is completely broke. In fact, we're $1000 in the hole. Plus, we're hitting a rough patch in finding advertisements.
This is a bit of a problem.
Tomorrow we're doing an advertising blitz, and we'll probably do something similar next Saturday as well. It's a ridiculous process trying to get ads.
A lot of the time you get shut down, a lot of the time you try and try with no luck. It gets disheartening, for sure. But we can't put out our first issue if we don't have the funds to produce it, because we obviously can't stack up any more debt. It just astounds me how local businesses don't jump on the idea of getting ads right where students are looking!
Hopefully it all works out. I'll send an e-mail to the local library to see if they're interested right after I finish this blog.
Also, college stuff is really getting to me. I'm freaking out a bit. But I don't feel like writing about it in hopes that I can get my mind off of it for just a second.
On that note, They Might Be Giants are going to play at a TBD venue in Denver! I've never seen any of my most favorite bands live...this is my chance! I've missed a Primus show in Denver, but this I will not miss. A "Rock Show" even (As apposed to their children's shows)! Hopefully they'll somehow conform to the dream setlist I have in my head.
With ink, music, and love,
AJKazlouski
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Now that the summer is over...
I'm driven so much by music. When summer vacation rolls around, one of the things I really look forward to is being able to listen and discover more music than I can during school. It always seems that certain bands or albums get to me each year...last summer was full of Weezer's blue album and Catch-22's Keasbey Nights (both fantastic efforts if you're unfamiliar). This year has been a bit more expansive, however. I wasn't listening to anything in particular. I was listening to everything I could.
Here's something of a summer mix tape.
They Might Be Giants: Don't Let's Start
For a really long time, They Might Be Giants was little more than the guys who played "Constantinople" and the Malcolm in the Middle theme song. It kills me knowing that I thought of them that way for so long. Songs like Don't Let's Start are intoxicating to me. The start-stop beginning is an immediate catch. Then John Linnell's nerdy (for lack of a better word) voice comes along. It's so different compared to the average alt-rock croon. It's beautifully odd. Then, the words he's singing are incredibly clever and different from anything else.
"When you are alone, you are the cat, you are the phone, you are an animal...the words I'm singin' now mean nothing more than meow to an animal..."
John Flansburgh's guitar playing fits around the other elements perfectly. His guitar, Linnell's voice, a little synth, and a drum machine. So little creates so much.
It would be easy to say that They Might Be Giants were immediately great for me. For a little while after I got some of their albums, they were just a band that had an occasional great song (I was obsessed with a tune called Doctor Worm for a spell). Then I paid attention to Don't Let's Start. This song was a gateway into all of TMBG's music, in that it helped me really realize how amazing they are.
They're now my absolute favorite band.
Dance Hall Crashers- Othello
This may seem familiar, but it took me a really long time to find out about the Dance Hall Crashers. I knew they had a cool name, and a shout-out in a blink-182 song. Something compelled me one day, and I checked out The Old Record, and this song was the one that greeted me with open arms.
"Sooner or later I'll wake up and wipe the sleep out of my eyes, later that day when you wake up you'll be in for a big surprise..."
I can't imagine why people think music on the radio is fun. THIS is fun music. I listened to this song so many times I can't even imagine how I still love it. After realizing DHC's greatness, I went and looked up their history. It makes me feel horrible that I didn't know that this band was a project started by members of Operation Ivy after they broke up. Then those members from Op Ivy left to make Rancid, and DHC moved on and thrived with a pair of fantastic female vocalists (Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers). More females need to be involved in Ska (or Ska-Punk, whatever), honestly. The horn section is tight, and the song's guitar solo oozes with...well, fun. There's no better word.
The Ergs!- Introducing Morrissey
I always thought Morrissey had a cool voice, but I never understood how people rabidly loved his music. I liked it, but I'm much more impressed by a very pretty song by a very special band (a little) about him.
"The last album I loved the whole way through was by a band that had formed in 1982. I was barely alive, I had some thinking to do, but once I figured it out I was in love and I knew that I...would be in love forever."
Punk rock has always been a primarily simple genre. Three chords, two and a half minutes, and some "singing". I love it when a really band does that and manages to give you the same feeling you had the first time you heard The Ramones or The Clash. Mikey Erg is a great drummer. He's an even better lead singer. How he manages to do both, I have no idea. The Ergs! simply are an amazing band. It kills me that I found them just after they broke up.
I was not expecting to write so much about those...but I guess that's what a really good song makes you do.
With fortissimo,
AJKazlouski
Here's something of a summer mix tape.
They Might Be Giants: Don't Let's Start
For a really long time, They Might Be Giants was little more than the guys who played "Constantinople" and the Malcolm in the Middle theme song. It kills me knowing that I thought of them that way for so long. Songs like Don't Let's Start are intoxicating to me. The start-stop beginning is an immediate catch. Then John Linnell's nerdy (for lack of a better word) voice comes along. It's so different compared to the average alt-rock croon. It's beautifully odd. Then, the words he's singing are incredibly clever and different from anything else.
"When you are alone, you are the cat, you are the phone, you are an animal...the words I'm singin' now mean nothing more than meow to an animal..."
John Flansburgh's guitar playing fits around the other elements perfectly. His guitar, Linnell's voice, a little synth, and a drum machine. So little creates so much.
It would be easy to say that They Might Be Giants were immediately great for me. For a little while after I got some of their albums, they were just a band that had an occasional great song (I was obsessed with a tune called Doctor Worm for a spell). Then I paid attention to Don't Let's Start. This song was a gateway into all of TMBG's music, in that it helped me really realize how amazing they are.
They're now my absolute favorite band.
Dance Hall Crashers- Othello
This may seem familiar, but it took me a really long time to find out about the Dance Hall Crashers. I knew they had a cool name, and a shout-out in a blink-182 song. Something compelled me one day, and I checked out The Old Record, and this song was the one that greeted me with open arms.
"Sooner or later I'll wake up and wipe the sleep out of my eyes, later that day when you wake up you'll be in for a big surprise..."
I can't imagine why people think music on the radio is fun. THIS is fun music. I listened to this song so many times I can't even imagine how I still love it. After realizing DHC's greatness, I went and looked up their history. It makes me feel horrible that I didn't know that this band was a project started by members of Operation Ivy after they broke up. Then those members from Op Ivy left to make Rancid, and DHC moved on and thrived with a pair of fantastic female vocalists (Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers). More females need to be involved in Ska (or Ska-Punk, whatever), honestly. The horn section is tight, and the song's guitar solo oozes with...well, fun. There's no better word.
The Ergs!- Introducing Morrissey
I always thought Morrissey had a cool voice, but I never understood how people rabidly loved his music. I liked it, but I'm much more impressed by a very pretty song by a very special band (a little) about him.
"The last album I loved the whole way through was by a band that had formed in 1982. I was barely alive, I had some thinking to do, but once I figured it out I was in love and I knew that I...would be in love forever."
Punk rock has always been a primarily simple genre. Three chords, two and a half minutes, and some "singing". I love it when a really band does that and manages to give you the same feeling you had the first time you heard The Ramones or The Clash. Mikey Erg is a great drummer. He's an even better lead singer. How he manages to do both, I have no idea. The Ergs! simply are an amazing band. It kills me that I found them just after they broke up.
I was not expecting to write so much about those...but I guess that's what a really good song makes you do.
With fortissimo,
AJKazlouski
Friday, August 14, 2009
Three At A Time
It always seems like famous people die in threes. One was an amazing person who helped others do amazing things. The other two made incredible art.
We've lost the great Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who made the world a better place through helping those who may have been shunned by those who didn't understand. I'm too young to honestly say I knew much about her before her death. But now I see who she was, a single woman who did so much to help benefit the disabled. From the descriptions of her that her family members offered at her memorial, I wish I could have met her! I only hope that more people come around that do things like what she did.
Then there's John Hughes. I couldn't believe it, he was only sixty. Before I had any idea who he was, he affected me. I loved 101 Dalmatians and Flubber when I was a kid. Before that, his movies were cultural phenomenons, and once I saw them, Ferris Buellar's Day Off and The Breakfast Club became two of my favorite movies. I told my mom about his passing, and I can't imagine how she must have felt, because his movies were not just movies that she loved ("Duckieee!"), but things she passed on from her to me. I wish I could have directly thanked him for what his work brought to me. He was certainly the voice of a generation, a generation I really wish I could have been around for.
Finally, there's Les Paul. While some may dispute the "voice of a generation" for John Hughes, no one can deny the impact Les Paul made on music. He made the electric guitar, for one. And the man knew how to play it, too. As the complete music geek that I am, I myself would be who I am without Les Paul. Nothing would be the same if he never made the guitar or played it. What would Jimi Hendrix do with an acoustic guitar? What would Pete Townshend smash? Would the Beatles be popular without their electrics? What would Kurt Cobain have been if he didn't have a guitar to play? Les Paul's influence was supremely broad, and he helped so many others become influential as well. I'm just glad that he, just like Kennedy Shriver and Hughes, lived a long, respectable, and amazing life. I hope all three of them live on in the hearts of the people who admired them like they'll be living on in mine.
In the simplest terms, and the most convenient definitions,
AJKazlouski
We've lost the great Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who made the world a better place through helping those who may have been shunned by those who didn't understand. I'm too young to honestly say I knew much about her before her death. But now I see who she was, a single woman who did so much to help benefit the disabled. From the descriptions of her that her family members offered at her memorial, I wish I could have met her! I only hope that more people come around that do things like what she did.
Then there's John Hughes. I couldn't believe it, he was only sixty. Before I had any idea who he was, he affected me. I loved 101 Dalmatians and Flubber when I was a kid. Before that, his movies were cultural phenomenons, and once I saw them, Ferris Buellar's Day Off and The Breakfast Club became two of my favorite movies. I told my mom about his passing, and I can't imagine how she must have felt, because his movies were not just movies that she loved ("Duckieee!"), but things she passed on from her to me. I wish I could have directly thanked him for what his work brought to me. He was certainly the voice of a generation, a generation I really wish I could have been around for.
Finally, there's Les Paul. While some may dispute the "voice of a generation" for John Hughes, no one can deny the impact Les Paul made on music. He made the electric guitar, for one. And the man knew how to play it, too. As the complete music geek that I am, I myself would be who I am without Les Paul. Nothing would be the same if he never made the guitar or played it. What would Jimi Hendrix do with an acoustic guitar? What would Pete Townshend smash? Would the Beatles be popular without their electrics? What would Kurt Cobain have been if he didn't have a guitar to play? Les Paul's influence was supremely broad, and he helped so many others become influential as well. I'm just glad that he, just like Kennedy Shriver and Hughes, lived a long, respectable, and amazing life. I hope all three of them live on in the hearts of the people who admired them like they'll be living on in mine.
In the simplest terms, and the most convenient definitions,
AJKazlouski
Taking the job.
Meeting both Alex Ross (The New Yorker) and Daphne Brooks (Princeton University, The Nation) has motivated me.
To quote High Fidelity, what really matters is what you like, not what you are like...
Not entirely true, yet these are things that really do help define us. I cry when I hear "Bohemian Rhapsody". I twitch with excitement watching poets slam in "Slam Nation". I've read "The Phantom Tollbooth" more times than I'm willing to remember.
I'll be writing about culture on here.
-AJKazlouski
P.S.- If anything else happens to press my mind outside the realm of culture, I may have to touch upon it. You never know!
To quote High Fidelity, what really matters is what you like, not what you are like...
Not entirely true, yet these are things that really do help define us. I cry when I hear "Bohemian Rhapsody". I twitch with excitement watching poets slam in "Slam Nation". I've read "The Phantom Tollbooth" more times than I'm willing to remember.
I'll be writing about culture on here.
-AJKazlouski
P.S.- If anything else happens to press my mind outside the realm of culture, I may have to touch upon it. You never know!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Princeton: A Retrospective. (My new friends, my old friends, and jet lag.)
When we all went our separate ways home, we were all having a rough time. We all couldn't help but cry a little, or a lot, we all had our problems at the airport (some more than others), and I learned a lot of us still had some over-summer school work to do. I had some to do. I still do, actually. But the one thing that I dealt with that thankfully no one else had to was the first day of school...the very next day.
My flight on the tenth landed around 10. Then from Denver, it took about an hour and a half to get back to Colorado Springs... and after the last ten days, I couldn't just go to sleep! I had to talk about it all! I don't remember when I went to sleep that night, but probably later than I should have!
I woke up this morning, 5:45 am, bright and early! I get to see my girlfriend for a little, and I'm ECSTATIC. But 7:15 rolls around, so I go off to something else I love...The Sierra Sentinel, Journalism II, Period 1. There's not TOO much explanation about Princeton, considering we have newbies to inform, but I show the Princeton Summer Journal off to the editors...who totally dig it! I pretty much blab about Princeton the whole rest of the day whenever I could, though. But the rest of the day went almost boringly smooth! Nothing much to blog home about!
It's now 9:15 pm. I'm exhausted. But as happy as I am to be here with my girlfriend, my newspaper, my mom, my dogs, my friends, and everyone and everything else...It still kills me knowing the friends I made at the SJP are so far away. So, in a long, roundabout way, I just wanted to say I love you all. Students, directors, counselors, the intern, speakers...you're all so incredible. It may be cliché at this point, but I know we'll be together again.
AJKazlouski
Supreme Design Overlord
My flight on the tenth landed around 10. Then from Denver, it took about an hour and a half to get back to Colorado Springs... and after the last ten days, I couldn't just go to sleep! I had to talk about it all! I don't remember when I went to sleep that night, but probably later than I should have!
I woke up this morning, 5:45 am, bright and early! I get to see my girlfriend for a little, and I'm ECSTATIC. But 7:15 rolls around, so I go off to something else I love...The Sierra Sentinel, Journalism II, Period 1. There's not TOO much explanation about Princeton, considering we have newbies to inform, but I show the Princeton Summer Journal off to the editors...who totally dig it! I pretty much blab about Princeton the whole rest of the day whenever I could, though. But the rest of the day went almost boringly smooth! Nothing much to blog home about!
It's now 9:15 pm. I'm exhausted. But as happy as I am to be here with my girlfriend, my newspaper, my mom, my dogs, my friends, and everyone and everything else...It still kills me knowing the friends I made at the SJP are so far away. So, in a long, roundabout way, I just wanted to say I love you all. Students, directors, counselors, the intern, speakers...you're all so incredible. It may be cliché at this point, but I know we'll be together again.
AJKazlouski
Supreme Design Overlord
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