The American Life, The American Life, The American Life...
Fuck it.(This title only makes sense if you are familiar with Dean Gray and his cut of Boulevard of Broken Songs, which I get to at the end of the post.)
Oh, y’all. The birthdays, they were fun. They were LOTs of fun, actually. Saturday night we had a party, and it was awesome, and completely and totally taken over by the Game That Has No Actual Name But I Swear I Didn’t Just Make It Up Right Now. See, we were all out on the balcony (in our house, the party doesn’t gather in the kitchen, it gathers on the balcony, where 15 people sit actually on top of each other) and one of our friends brought up playing this movie game, wherein someone named an actor, and then someone else had to name a movie they were in, and then someone else had to name another actor from that movie, etc. etc. One would not think that this would be overly taxing.
Y’all? It was overly taxing. It taxed us right to death. I think we actually broke new ground in the concept of sucking. We… we not only didn’t get all the way around the circle, we never got past one person. We do not so much know movies. Or actors. At all.
So I remembered a game I had once played, that was surprisingly entertaining. This is where you name a movie star, say, “Harrison Ford”, and then the next person has to name one whose first name starts with the first letter of the last name, so, “Frank Sinatra” would work. And it goes around, unless someone pulls a double, say, “Farrah Fawcett”, which flips it back the other way.
The game got off to a rough start, but we changed a few rules, namely:
“Ok, forget movie stars. Any famous person.”
“Ok, famous people includes politicians.”
“Ok, “famous people” includes made up famous people. Bring on Mickey Mouse.”
“Ok, you know what? ANY NAME. ANY NAME AT ALL that SOMEONE else recognizes will count.” (Because we still really, really don’t know movie stars.)
So we started, and the game is honestly more fun than it sounds like it would be, as evidenced by the fact that… it never ended. All night, from like 8-1, we played this game. People arrived, people left, we ate food, went out and bought more wine… the game just kept on going. It was fantastic. People were getting into spirited debates about whether “Puff Daddy”, “P Diddy”, and “Diddy”, were different names. (E’s theory: anything with the P is the same name. The removal of the P however, fundamentally changed it all. E had been drinking.) And seriously, when you’ve been drinking wine for 5 hours, that kind of debate is awesome and completely appropriate.
The other best part of my birthday is the fact that S managed to make Dean Gray’s American Edit album appear on my iPod. (There are a lot of semi-working computers in my life, but somehow S made this work). This album has thrown me into a downward spiral of complete and utter obsession. Y’all? I love this album. LOVE. Love to the extent that it affects my health. Sunday night? I did not sleep. I mean, my insomnia generally kicks up on Sundays, but I mean, I Did. Not. Sleep. I stayed up, all night, and listened to this album, dancing like a complete idiot throughout my apartment. Then I went to work. (as the strands of American Idiot ring in my head…)
Also? Last night, I took it to work out with. Now, I have been working with my trainer, but I am bad at cardio. Bad, bad. I look at the clock and count down the minutes I have to keep doing this and invent insane medical problems to justify not doing it and develop philosophical theories about the universe hating me and actually slowing down time when I am on the elliptical. So… not good. Last night? I ran for 15 minutes after what I normally do and didn’t really want to stop.
This album is magical. It is a magical, wonderful album, and I am bat shit crazy obsessed with it. To the point of titling posts with non-sensical lyrics from it. To the point where, since my office is currently empty, I am going to listen to it Right Now.
posted by Citycat @ 4:30 PM
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