I don't mean to toot my own horn or anything

When the teacher of a CMU creative writing class needed someone to make a cover for the class portfolio, one man answered the call.
The theme? Social action. The tools? Red Bull and Photoshop.
The man? Artie B.

So, I think it turned out alright.

Toot toot toot.

Hey look, I have a report I should be doing

Apparently I have written a long review of the Radiohead album Hail To The Thief and posted it on Amazon.com. Now I'm putting it up here, presumably to hide it from the sane half of my brain when it comes out of its stupor. Or something. Jesus. Why can't I ever write these when I'm awake? Anyway, the reviews on Amazon.com are pretty much just a bunch of like-minded individuals blowing each other over how much they love the same band, so I guess I sorta defaulted to that mode.

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Looking Back, Stepping Forward. (***** out of *****)
By Arthur Berghoff "AngryGhandi"

Being someone whose musical tastes didn't really awaken until midway through high school(2002), I've had sort of a fractured take on Radiohead. Like anyone alive during the 90s, I heard nothing but glowing reviews of the band wherever I went, but I'd never personally listened to them and neither had my friends(Uncultured I know, so sue me, I live in the middle of Michigan for crying out loud), so I ended up getting defensive toward the whole idea of accepting them. "What do the critics know?" -Lots of the teen rebellion and whatnot.

Anyway, I eventually decided that it was foolish to ignore the advice of experts, and after a somewhat limited Amazon.com research session, picked up OK Computer in the winter of my Freshman year in college. I loved it, finding it in fact to be nothing like anything else I had ever listened to - epic and deep, beautiful and paranoid, comforting and frightening - a spectacular album.

Over time I worked my way through the rest of the Radiohead discography, first back to The Bends (The soulful, angsty, accessible one), and then forward to the tripped-out, apocalyptic adventure of Kid A, which felt like being an alien in a spaceship and watching the Earth itself crumble away.

Now, a year later, I reach Hail To The Thief, the end of the line, and I find myself wondering, what does it have to say?

I'm not going to pretend to be a total expert on Radiohead, after all, I didn't get into them until a year ago, and I still don't own Amnesiac or Pablo Honey. However, in that short year they've become my favorite band, and I've come to admire the creativity and vision that they've seemed to represented peerlessly with every album.

One of the things I've admired the most is the way that each successive album, from The Bends to OK Computer and especially Kid A, has broken new ground and done something musically that no one expected. So, when I learned about Hail To The Thief, I was surprised and a little worried to learn that it seemed to lack a cohesive direction. I (ever pessimistic) was afraid that it was a simple and tragic story of a band stagnating at the end of its creative journey. Maybe it is - I suppose only time will tell.

However, more than anything else, Radiohead's newest album feels like a crossroads. It borrows elements from all their previous work, and puts them in the same context to compare and reflect on. The theme may be the confusion and contradictions arising in the "Post-911" world of today, but individual songs take on the general shapes of things past. There are sweeping, multi-part OK Computer-style pieces like "2+2=5," "Sit Down, Stand Up," and "Sail To The Moon." There are sleek, cold electronic tracks like “Backdrifts,” “The Gloaming,” and “Myxomatosis” that continue the trend set by Kid A and Amnesiac. There are stripped down, hearfelt songs like “There There,” “Scatterbrain,” and “A Wolf At The Door” that call to mind The Bends.

All in all, Hail To The Thief seems to me like a sort of spiritual “greatest hits” collection. A look back, a moment of remembrance, and a gift to all the long-time fans that have been along for the musical journey with Radiohead since the beginning. A moment taken to acknowledge that, whatever past accomplishments they represent, whatever the future may hold, Radiohead are, simply an excellent band, whether they have something to say or not.

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Heyyy, wait a minute. No one here likes Radiohead.
...
...You know what, it doesn't really matter, if you read that whole thing sarcastically it's probably pretty funny. Let's all rip on it. Don't rip on Radiohead though, I like them.

It also occurs to me, now that I think about it, that there might actually be no one left on blogger to do said ripping. It's been, what, 3 months? Everyone's probably got a podcast by now.

A little bit of a downer by comparison

I have come upon a rather sour revalation, and that revalation is that I only am really capable of living on the level I desire to live on when I am under the influence of something. I'm not saying that entails a substance, but it does entail an altered state of mind. I must always feel high, or low, or different in some way to end up creating
or desiring
or even posting
anyting of note or value. It's an odd situation, and I must admit it's little sad. I'd like to be able to do what I want to do all the time. Maybe that will come with practice, and the personal challenges that trigger a cutscene for me now I'll be able to beat in the future by the dozens, with just one hit. But the fact right now is, the only time I really feel clear to follow my own dreams is when I'm feeling so different that I'm not even sure that the dreams are my own.
I get a frequent vision of myself in ten years as a solitary novelist by a lake, toiling away on my tortured, perfect, deeply personal vision(With a beautiful girlfriend, who is into that kind of thing for some reason[My brain doesn't deal in causes so well as it does effects, but I mean it's the future so maybe she's a robot]), but the few times I have made an effort to write, or draw, or envision, or create anything meaningful and real, it comes off as halfhearted and trite. This very post, for example, will have to be heavily retrofitted at a later date to add more humor. (A pop culture reference here, a non sequitor there...) [Edit: Michael Jackson likes to molest little boys.]
So I guess the eternal question is, does it ever feel "right"? I can certainly remember my share of writers, philosophers, and assorted semi-mentors (Father John, the private school teacher who isn't afraid to be hip!) who have taught me that the best decision is never the easy one. But when you spend years and years learning logic and statistics that teach you that your dreams aren't worth chasing, is that really right? My posts seem amateurish and self indulgent, but is that just becuase I've spent too much time studying and critiquing and never made anything? My ideas seems cheap and simple, but is that the just the way it always goes?

Pray, everyone. Pray that you never find yourself happy enough to have hopes, but smart enough to know they are nothing but folly, crushing them before they begin. That's where I am, and it sucks.

Like an army without a country
Like a night without moon
Like a fire with no heat,
Here I am.

[Note: Not very funny, I know. Next time, I'll be funny. I'll make one about farts, and the idea of farting. It will be a gut buster. Or maybe not. I can't even tell what's up and what's down at this point so I'm going to bed. Shit.]

Xanga 4-1: The underwater level

One bored night and 3-odd hours of effort later, I emerge, glistening, into a new world.
A world of choices. A world of freedom. A world where even the most basic aesthetic decision becomes a baffling ordeal of unlimited choices. I have only a vague idea of the various cosmic and political forces that bore this great exodus, but I have come along for the ride, dragging a shit ton of my old work behind me that most of you ungrateful SOBs will never even read.
Seriously- I don't have a clue what I'm doing. A similar pain accompanied my original move onto Xanga, but there really is no comparison between it and Blogger, Lord of Undue Complication. I mean, Xanga might have offered a thousand different choices of border colors, but at least it didn't make you program them in yourself.
Do you want to see something? I went to make a color decision in my new blog here, and this is what I found, deep in a long scroll of ancient nerdish script.

color:#8dd

I think that means blue.
That's all I've got. So, I wouldn't expect to see any heroic feats of design for quite a while. But trust me, when I finally do roll out my new look, you will be entertained! I can't say much more about it, but let me just say that if you love animated .gifs and looping music in the background, you'll-
...
-what? You don't like them? Not even if I told you that the music happened to be an 8-bit midi remix of a certain hit song by... the Baja Men?
...
Well, shit.

VIDEOGAMES: WHY YOU FUCK

Friday, September 30, 2005 - 5:40 AM
I am gonna do this. I am gonna break the wall- I can! I can because I belive it like a choo-choo train. I'll just skip and jump and free-associate from one topic to the next until all the pieces fall into place like a puzzle, and the puzzle is "Where's Waldo", and I found Waldo, and Waldo is Coherency.
I blame videogames man, and do you know why? Because they fucked me!!

I mean, I'm not like Hillary Clinton, who's like "Grand Theft Auto, why do you hate America" and shit. In fact, I'm waiting for the day when I can play Tony Hawk's Super World Cup Cucumber Raper TURBO in the privacy of my home without being fuckin judged. I mean, come on, a little cucumber nun rape never hurt anybody except the nun, and she had it comin, right fellas? The guys know what I'm talking about.
uhhh Videogames. I blame them because they fucked me. Fucked me!
yo know that thing in your brain that tells you "keep practicaing and you can acheive anything"? -Mine quit. quiiit. It ran away 6 years ago cause it figured it out that "30 minutes of practice every day for a year and you can gradually become a guitar master never" is pretty shit when youve been raised on levels, stages, strategy guides, and goombas, and mooblins, and maga mens, and cheat codes. the real world just can't compare to that shit! its all fucked up but its too late I can't go back!!! I'm down the fuckin rabbit hole is what it is, and you fuckin know what-- we all are man!!!! WERE IN THE RABBIT HOLE!!!! BACUAS THE MAN SAYS SO WAKE UP PEPLE!!!!!!!!!1 THAT MOTHERFUCKER FUCKINNN;ADJ . DALFL DLKSDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD