too many complaints from people that think i simply do not know how to spell either "you're" or "genius," along with my general distaste for the buzznet blogging platform has me headed in the direction of another blog. look for one soon. i'm considering just standing outside my house with a megaphone and shouting my opinions at the neighbors - if that happens, i'll get a webcam or something.
Call me a sellout or an asshole all you want, but I'm taking this show on the road.
KEVIN'S NEW BLOG
This blog is due for its scheduled comeback (if you read my old website, you know how many times we had "comebacks," "rebirths," "6th man awards," etc.), just as soon as I go to two more doctor's appointments, ace a sales forecasting exam, fix my phone, get my civilian conservation corps tattoo, put gas in my car, watch The Perfect Man from beginning to end and take a shower... in exactly that order.
By the way, if anyone's really just aching for something with my name on it, I've still got that column in AP. I haven't actually looked at an AP in months because they don't give me the magazine for free, but I think I'm around page 40.
Does anyone remember that rap group Quarashi? You know, the Icelandic Beastie Boys or whatever they were billed as (famous for the especially frat party-friendly "Stick 'em Up"). Their guitarist e-mailed me today (he made friends with all of us on Warped in '02).
From: Smári Jósepsson
Sent: Tue 3/20/2007 8:01 AM
To: kwade@usc.edu
Subject: KW
KEEEEEEEEVIN WAAAAAAAAAAAAADE.
there's a track called Kevin Wade on my next album.
Good shit?
How's it goin'?
Smári
I recently (actually, it was today) delivered a speech for my "Professional Development for Leaders" class (read: public speaking). I'm a terrible public speaker. For that matter, I'm a terrible private speaker as well. By some miracle, or possibly a voting box mishap, I received "best in room" votes for my speech today. I probably only received one, but it sufficiently stroked my ego, since there were 14 speakers. I'm still a terrible public speaker. Everyone in the audience had to provide feedback, so.... let's hear from the audience:
Pros
"Very persuiasive"
"Passionate"
"Good stories"
"Good intro"
"Good conclusion"
"Good hook"
"No notes! Good job"
Cons
"There wasn't any structure after your intro, so I was not sure on what your point was, but then I figured it out."
"Tentative"
"Stop playing with your hands"
"Monotone"
"Your purpose wasn't clear"
"Eye contact. More eye contact"
"How long is your intro?"
"Needs structure. What's your point?"
"Disorganized."
"Avoid technical difficulties - though not really your fault"
"You sounded nervous."
"Work on your transitions."
"Seemed all over the place."
Oh yeah, I spoke for five minutes on why music downloading is a pox on our society.
I don't want to give anything away, but foreshadowing can be effective, so interpret this post as you may. You'll be wrong, but it's cool - at least it got you thinking. I'll be back this weekend.
Date: 11-22-2004
n0carri3r: you and i need to do a joint feature of the top 20 breakdowns of all time
kevwad: yes
kevwad: i'm way down
kevwad: a-ha has to make top 5
n0carri3r: and if that's popular we can move on to the more controversial top 20 squeals of all time
n0carri3r: dude!
n0carri3r: a ha!
kevwad: hahaha
n0carri3r: start making a list of any good ones and we'll just keep adding as we think of them
n0carri3r: then we'll refine it down
kevwad: we can, for sentimental purposes, place the san diego breakdown as an honorable mention
n0carri3r: i'm down
n0carri3r: do we have any pictures from that tragedy?
kevwad: unfortunately i don't think so
kevwad: man we slept on the street that night too
n0carri3r: all of the others on the list would have links to mp3s of the breakdown, and the san diego breakdown could just have a link to our journal entry from then
n0carri3r: yeah we did
kevwad: haha, good idea
n0carri3r: woah, deja vu
n0carri3r: and the weird part is i had deja vu of having deja vu of this moment
n0carri3r: weird...
kevwad: hahahaha
n0carri3r: any idea why you have a water droplet next to your name on my buddy list?
* * *
n0carri3r: i'm gonna run to the bathroom
kevwad: mmmk
n0carri3r: hopefully nobody takes computer
kevwad: haha
n0carri3r: if i start talking shit, it's not me
kevwad: haha okay
kevwad: if i start talking shit, it is me
n0carri3r: typical
My blog is officially being neglected. It's finals time. Sorry guys.
rorschachfauxpas: i read your blog, i find it informative and stimulating
That's a comma splice, but I'll overlook it.
Looking back on it, this blog is already packed full of lies. Well, one specifically. Didn't my first post say something about not talking about myself? That promise is really looking like a bust, given the number of sentences on here beginning with "I." I'm sorry that I'm not sorry.
Probably almost everyone I know would benefit from subscribing to the Grammar Girl podcast. The music is cheesy and the host is dull, but having the ability to know the difference between "affect" and "effect" is priceless.
I actually did see Borat. It was funny until I fell asleep. One should not go to a movie when his only consumption of the day is two Strongbows and a few Eclipse mints.
When a rock star (term used loosely for effect) dresses up as you.
(No Chewbacca jokes.)
[screen name withheld] (7:57:08 PM): thanks for starting your blog... it's inspired me to care more about jordanbaker.com -- it actually got a real post tonight
If I can make a difference after just a few weeks, why am I even in grad school?
By the way, for those not "in the know," the Jordan Baker referenced is not the well-known damsel in distress character in The Great Gatsby, although I do hope to one day transcend the boundaries of real life and classic literature.
Leonid Breshnev has returned to my mantel, concluding a brief and mysterious absence. Evidence indicates that he was, in fact, stuffed inside Gorbachev. If that's true, this whole story really just degrades us all.
Can anyone explain to me how an entire nation of people has become mesmerized by a show whose entire premise is that nothing happens? Is this some twisted corollary to the Seinfeld "show about nothing" phenomenon? Because at least that show was self-contained and (according to some) funny.
Exciting Statistic! I've now used the word "phenomenon" twice this week, and it's only Wednesday... and I haven't even thought about the fact that the John Travolta movie by the same name is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Doesn't he gain the ability to levitate from a beam of moonlight or something?
Having stored some of the images seen on this fine example of web design on my old server, I promptly discovered this morning that my hosting account expired sometime during the night. I'll fix this eventually, but I don't intend to make it a priority, because I absolutely do not care.
I believe the so-called "industry" refers to a quietly-publicized website unveiling as a soft launch. With my decision to mention this blog on a few websites, I started to ponder what you'd call the, umm, launch that isn't the soft kind?
"Hard launch" is too sexual and "public launch" sounds like something that goes on in Cape Canaveral or Kitty Hawk. "Debut" isn't really appropriate since I've been posting here for a couple weeks, even if only for experimental purposes. Technically, my "debut" (as far as the internet is concerned) came whenever I started getting in message board wars in high school. You could call it sort of a "reissue," but that's a dirty word for people that have worked in music, particularly given the recent and horrifying trend. Shame on me for even mentioning that one.
You could probably run down a huge list... Re-launch, second wind, proper release, ground-rule double... whatever.
I decided on transubstantiation, which is questionably offensive I guess, but I'm not much of a religious person. At least, I haven't been ever since I got really boring presents for my Catholic confirmation, while all my Jewish friends were raking in thousands of dollars from their various mitzvahs to spend on things like college and nice shoes. I consider this the transformation from a blog known by less than six people to an internet portal frequented by as many as twelve people, and I can't call it simply a transformation, because transformations give me terrible flashbacks to my differential equations textbook.
Anyway. For those who are new here, enjoy. For the people that have been here before, I'm sorry you read this post. For those who really hated all those reviews I wrote about Finch and Strung Out and Copeland and whoever else... get over it. You'll occasionally see similar types of things here, so you might want to pursue other options.
It's a more than a little amusing to think about how many people continue to write to me saying that they check my old website every day hoping for new content, despite a lengthy and crude goodbye message residing on the front page since May. As much as punkrocks ungracefully faded away throughout the last two years, I feel like I may have gotten the last laugh. In the four months since we shut down, I've done a fair amount of writing for Alternative Press, which is fulfilling from the standpoint that they pay me, but one can only attain so much levity from a one-page puff piece on Ernie Ball guitar strings.
I avoided starting a blog for a long time due to a lack of focus; no one wants another livejournal that just happens to be hosted on blogspot, and I feel no obligation to start another website dedicated specifically to music... or more accurately, a website dedicated to a very small and mainly-popular-on-the-internet niche. I still listen to plenty of music, but have found it exhausting to not only keep abreast of what's new, but figure out some way to run a zine that differentiates itself from the other 300 that copied our site to begin with (just kidding, sort of). If you want music news, read coolfer, stereogum, pitchfork, pastepunk, blabbermouth, mammoth press, the org or the brand new idolator... or one of those other ones.
This is the last post with so many sentences having the subject of yours truly. In the future, I'll try to occasionally just write about things that bother me. That generally doesn't extend past unfortunate spelling mistakes these days, but we'll see what happens.
If I may conclude with just a moment of opinion... Everyone is talking about the new Saosin record, including some people whose taste I greatly respect. I think it's an overproduced mess with no good songs. It'll probably go triple platinum. As for music that I enjoy - the new Decemberists record is rather good. They toned down the pretentiousness a little (which could be good or bad depending on how much you care what other people think about your musical tastes) to write a record that is genuinely entertaining from beginning to end.
