Technicolor: Salvation

So one day after rocking out at church, I was hit with a revelation. Becky came up to me and told me that Chloé looked like she could be my child, like she came from my seed. I took this revelation as a compliment since Chloé is pretty much the epitome of adorable. She's a Korean kid so it'd make sense that their might be similarities between her and I, but that is not where the similarities end. She also has a flare for fashion, or at least I've been able to derive that from her pink shoes. Sure, it might be her "mom" who's dressing her, but I'm sure she has plenty of input on the matter since she seems to be quite the diva, just like me.

I've yet to talk to her "parents" about it because I don't know them very well and it'd just be a very creepy conversation. Saying something like "Becky says that Chloé looks she could be my kid" just screams out "I'm going to a be a prime suspect if your kid gets kidnapped" and makes for a terrible first impression. I'm sure they're nice people and they'd probably find some humor in it, but it's just kind of an unnecessary conversation to have, since they probably don't understand that she's my child that's been sent from the future. I mean, it's the only way this all makes sense.

Obviously there's a lot that I'm still figuring out about all of this, so I've written a letter to my wife in the future to get this all squared away.

Dear Wife in the Future,

How are you? I hope you're doing well. I apologize for not knowing your name, or what pet names we go by. It's possible that I haven't met you yet, though it's also possible that I already know you. I can't be sure since our daughter who you sent to the past (or for me, the present), looks EXACTLY like me. I'm not sure how time travel works, since it hasn't been invented yet, and I also have a very poor knowledge of how the Terminator universe works, so excuse me for not knowing how I should react to all of this.

I'm actually not sure if Chloé knows what she's supposed to do either. From my understanding, she should be sent to the past to save me, her father, right? She seems quite pre-occupied with protecting this baby Cole, who she claims is her "brother". I realize she's a very bright kid so I assume that maybe something got messed up during the time travel or that she was supposed to get sent back farther into the past when I was a baby. I'm not sure. I haven't seen an episode of Quantum Leap in ages. Would it have been too much to ask to have sent Chloé to the past with a note taped to her back or something? Also, while I know I've been broke since getting out of college, I think I'd appreciate taking care of my daughter instead of tricking some couple to take care of her, but perhaps she and I are not supposed to interact or be cognizant of each other. I was pretty in the dark about the whole deal until Becky (I don't know if you know Becky, but I play electric guitar for her in the present) told me about the similarities between us. Don't worry, I haven't told Chloé about that. She's obviously on some sort of mission from the future and I don't want to confuse her.

Of course, I'm very very confused about everything that's going on right now. Is she supposed to stop someone else from the future from assassinating me? How many years away is this event? Isn't she a little young for this? Do they still sell Bathing Ape clothes in the future? I always want to yell at the other kids when they play too rough, but I still keep my distance from her. There's too many movies and shows about time travel so I'm not sure what rules I need to adhere to. I'm just going to assume that we're not abiding by Time Cop's rules, or we might be royally screwed.

Also, when you write me back, can you tell me when we start dating? While I have friends who are "happy to be single", I'm quite miserable. Also, please tell me that I finally found a way to get out of Irvine. Thanks.

Love,

Ryan

A Hairy Situation

My oldest sister (41 years young) asked me why I'm starting to get so many grey hairs already.  I told her it's because I have 4 older sisters.  She then proceeded to tell me how well I've been treated by the aforementioned sisters and how I should be grateful to have grown up with 4 older sisters.  I rest my case.

In all fairness, my sisters have been pretty nice to me (though the constant nagging could be reduced), and I don't mind my grey hairs.  In fact, I believe with every new grey hair that sprouts on my head, I become one step closer to being Ira Glass.  Unlike my parents, who dye their hair (my dad stopped a few years ago after embracing his grandpa status), I will not be ashamed of going grey.  I look pretty young as it is, and I think the grey hairs will bring me a sense of class that you can not buy.

For some reason I've yet to understand, my family is obsessed with hair, specifically my head of hair.  My parents have accepted the fact that I will wear pink polos, rhinestone rings, and hoodies with monkeys on them, and drink scotch with the brother-in-laws, but every time I cut my hair really short, my parents act like I've taken up drug dealing.  Perhaps it's because I never had a vice like smoking that they could come down on, but for some reason how I get my hair cut is a hot topic of discussion on our household.

I've never come home with an outrageous hair cut, like a mohawk, and I've never had words or pictures buzzed into the side of my head.  I've had blue hair before, back in college, but my parents never actually saw that.  So it's not like we're talking about Madonna-esque changes here.  There is no cone-bra era hair style in my life and there hopefully won't be some sort of last ditch Hard Candy attempted renaissance.    Honestly there's been very little evolution in the hairstyle of Ryan.  It's been "okay", "too short" , or "it makes your face look fat".

The main issue with my hair is the difference of opinion on what makes me look good.  As much as my parents appreciate cool things (Nirvana's Unplugged in New York, Jack Black movies, and mp3s), they also think I should wear a suit to church and that I should be wearing my pants to my belly button, so perhaps I have good reason to be skeptical whether my hair should be "their way" or "my way".  Really, this shouldn't be a big deal at all, since my hair grows back and it grows pretty fast, so if it looks bad, in theory, I can just wear a hat for a month and give it another try, but to my parents it's a big deal.  They don't just tell me they don't like my hair, it becomes the focal point of conversation for the weekend.

Not to say there's a huge rift between my parents and me.  We get along great.  This is why I find it so fascinating that my hair can be such a polarizing force, while they've been fine with so many of my perplexing choices in life (film major, wardrobe, spending habits, refusal to move back to San Diego).  This debate about my hair has been on going for the vast majority of my life.  I got in trouble as a child for cutting my own hair (I had gotten paint on my bangs) and my parents and my oldest sister have made attempts to cut my hair at home.  My sister accidentally cut my ear with the razor, which prompted me to snap at her "now you need to cut the other one so they'll match."  This haircut at home experiment must've been an epic failure since it was extremely short lived.

Since moving to Irvine, I've been looking for a good barber/hair stylist/whatever the politically correct name, and my search has been pretty fruitless.  My friend recommended a salon to me the other week and the haircut went pretty well for the most part.  I was pretty happy with the length of hair but then he decided to style my hair and spiked it all up, which is not really the look I was going for.  He himself had his hair spiked up, so perhaps he was going with the only look he knew.  His hair was also bleached so he looked like a Super Saiyan, so I guess I can't really be surprised that he did what he did with my hair.  I'll probably go back there again and just have someone else cut my hair, but I'm not sure if this is going to be my go to place for hair cuts yet.  I also haven't seen my parents yet, not that their opinion truly matters, but it would be nice to finally find a salon that makes both parties happy. 

Rave and Rant

"I imagine that one day I will have children. I also imagine that I'll be a super hip dad who's still on top of the music and art house film scene. My kids will envy my vinyl collection and hate me for going to sold out shows that they couldn't get tickets for or afford. I'm not going to turn into an old crusty parent who doesn't understand "the kids of today". I'm going to age gracefully."

This was my plan for the future and it seemed completely feasible, but then I found out, that at the age of 26, I'm already out of touch. My dreams of being super cool dad went down the toilet at a rave.

Now to clarify, if someone asked me "Do you want to go to a rave?" I wouldn't even need a second to think about my answer, which would be an emphatic "No!" So how did I end up at a rave? Easy. You call this "rave" a festival, and you advertise that The Roots, Reflection Eternal, and Chromeo are all performing. I've seen The Roots live more than any other artist and tend to catch them whenever I can.

So this festival is called Audiotistic, and I did know beforehand that it was considered a rave, but I figured that if we stayed in the hip-hop room (which was actually an outdoor stage, which was a pleasant surprise), we wouldn't really have to deal with the raver kids. Not that I expected any trouble from anyone, I'm just not part of the scene. The could enjoy their techno and glow sticks, and I could enjoy The Roots.

So my friend Beverly and I arrived in San Bernardino and saw a flock of people heading toward the venue. Some of the kids were dressed pretty normally (for going to a concert) and then there were some kids, who were dressed a little more festively, which is a gross understatement. I thought I kind of knew what to expect wardrobe wise from these raver kids. Bright colored clothing, perhaps some colorful jewelry, (you know, things that I wear on an daily basis). To my surprise, ravers these days (guys and girls) prefer to wear as little clothing as possible, except for their boots with the fur (minus the apple bottom jeans).

To be more specific, girls would show up in bikinis, with huge pink furry boots, and Hello Kitty backpacks, along with the aforementioned glow sticks and jewelry. Guys, likewise, would show up in nothing but speedos, backpacks, but without boots. Now, I've never been to a rave before, but I've been told this new wardrobe ensemble is a fairly new thing to rave culture. These people looked young, like in the 16-20 year old range, so it wasn't exciting for me to see these scantily clad girls prancing around, it just made me feel creepy and dirty.  Obviously these kids didn't leave the house looking like that, or least I hope not.  No sane parent would be okay with their kid dressing like that and heading out to the boonies for a "concert", right?

The fact that I'm thinking about this has shown me the reality that I've already become the old parent that I thought I'd never become, and I don't even have kids yet.  I thought by going out to this festival that I'd show everyone that I'm still young and hip, but when I returned, I realized that I'm quickly becoming an old man.

Just Like the Real Thing

I haven't had regular access to a turntable since high school, so the vinyl that I collected back in the mail order days have been collecting dust for almost 10 years now. I never intended that to happen but since I move every year or two, I've never been able to convince myself it was the right time to buy one. In those ten years, I've kept my vinyl spending to a minimal (exclusives only), but I'm missing be able to have a turntable at my disposal more and more these days.

I know there's the audiophile argument for vinyl: less compressed, crisper quality, warmer sounds, etc and while I do notice those nuances, I mostly miss the idea of sitting in one room and listening to music. I bump my iPod in the car so when I get a new CD, I have to go home, rip it onto my computer, and then transfer the songs onto the iPod, before I listen to it. Then I put the CD on a shelf, only needing it when a friend wants to borrow it. Vinyl doesn't seem as disposable and cheap, it's something to be cherished. It's almost feels like you have the real thing, opposed to some mass produced CD (obviously vinyl is mass produced as well).

A couple of months ago, I was notified by Josh and Sherlan that they had acquired a turn table for their apartment. I was especially excited since I had just gotten an exclusive Pavement Live LP in the mail a couple of months earlier and I had failed in my attempts to find a friend who had a record player. Unfortunately the needle was in poor condition and needles not in high demand or supply, so I was left back where I started, with an unlistened to Pavement LP.

This past weekend, I showed up to their apartment with the sole intention of hanging out and grabbing dinner with Sherlan. Dinner was good, perhaps too good. "When can food be too good?" you might ask. It's when you get fried sweet potatoes lathered in butter. That is the answer. It's always amazing when you go to one of your favorite places and still find new things to dazzle your taste buds. These are the surprises in life that I wake up for every day. To my surprise, this surprise was just the appetizer to the main course.

Shortly after Sherlan and I returned to the apartment, Josh came home, and for some reason the turntable discussion came up again.  It turns out that Josh had acquired a working turntable and had also brought a box of various records from home.  Though I didn't have any of my vinyl with me, there was plenty of good stuff.  Sherlan had his Talking Heads debut album, which he had picked up on Record Store Day (I picked up a second Pavement Live LP and a Flight of the Conchords 7"), and Josh had everything from John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band to Van Halen's 1984.  After a brief spin of Plastic Ono Band and Talking Heads, 1984's and Queen's Greatest Hits' A-Sides were listened to in their entirety.  Everything sounded clearer, crisper, there was a larger discrepancy between the soft and the loud, the guitar solos had more of an edge.  And then, everything just came together.

First we fired up the Tetris arcade machine they had, thinking Tetris and rock and roll would work.  It was alright, Rush combined with Space Invaders probably would've been a better choice (see Futurama).  Then we decided to do some Wii Bowling while listening to Sports by Huey Lewis and the News.  All of a sudden, their living room had magically been transformed into the coolest virtual bowling alley (I understand the oxy moron here) that could ever be imagined.  Sure Daniel Plainview had a bowling alley built into his mansion in There Will Be Blood, but to me, that didn't feel like a bowling alley.  A bowling alley isn't about solitude and class, it's about League Night, loud music and friends.  Bowling is awesome in the same vein as karaoke.  It's about disregarding tact and the limits that we place on ourselves daily.  This was not a night to quietly listen to Animal Collective while drinking scotch.  It was a night of the Tetris Soundtrack, Van Halen's "Panama", Sports, and a healthy dose of trash talk, just like the real thing.