Kentucky Travels.

2007.03.27 at 23:34

Mom and I arrived in Grand Rivers (St. Louis shown for scale) around 4-ish, and we went straight to Lake Realty to see Brenda and Margaret. We sat and talked for awhile, then went to Patti's Restaurant where they cook bread in flower pots, and they taught me how to!
After that we went on a walk through the town, which took a few minutes, and my uncle Roy let me ride his 400cc scooter. I think he said 400. Anyhoot, he said tomorrow I can try and ride it!
I wish I could live the life they do here, really. It's so beautiful out here, and simple. While we were walking through the town, random people's cats would just come up and I would caqrry them a few blocks, then they'd follow me around. My Aunt Anne owns pet goats, and you know I'm a sucker for farm animals.
I love boating and lakes, and down here the water is about a thousand times cleaner than the Lakes of the Ozarks (Osage Beach water show for reference.)
I just which I could simplify my life and enjoy it here. Maybe instead of a big city, I need to trysomething small-scale for my writing. Something small, but preferably still in California. I need sunshine in my life.

More tomorrow night, Mom is complaining that the glow of my laptop is keping her awake.



2007.03.28 at 20:58

Today was exhausting.
Got up at 8:30 and headed to Grand Rivers. Aunt Margaret, Mom and I went to visit Dycusburg to see Aunt Janie, who after her stroke says everything out loud. Some gems from today included "Megan used to be skinny" and "What's that thing in her nose?"
Then we went down the road, past Grandma's old property and to visit Aunt Anne. But she wasn't there, so I visited the chickens and goats and cats and dogs. Anyhoot, after that, we went to the Land Between the Lakes, where my family settled and my grandma and everyone was raised until the Tennessee Valley Authority abused their rights of eminent domain and forced everyone to relocate in the 1960s. All the houses and stores were bulldozed in the 1980s.
It's heartbreaking to think I will never see these homes that my family came from. Margaret, who was born in one of the log cabins, and her husband Roy have known each other their whole lives. Their past together has been pushed down and grown over. It's where the first settlers in Kentucky went, because the land was so fertile due to the rivers. When the rivers were damed and turned into lakes, the rivers flooded, and it makes sense to relocate the homes on the river banks. But it was abusive to move out everyone so we could have a park. IT wasn't a metropolis. These homes weren't a threat to nature. This was a crime in my eyes.
After that, we went and had dinner at the Iron Kettle with Anne, Janie, Margaret, Sarah and Susan, then went and saw Roy at home.
Tomorrow we're going to see the goats again, so I'll have goat pictures.


2007.03.29 at 23:46

Left Kentucky around noon today, after the second goat-visit. Trip was great, but the closest Taco Bell to Grand Rivers is 20 miles away. I think I'd like to retire there, but I probably won't be able to afford it!

GOATS!



this one in my favourite.


baby and momma goat!




this is mary. she likes how i taste.


this one's name is dipstick!




i almost took it.


mary started chewing my hand while i was holding the camera.


this little white one's mom doesn't have horns, but her brother does.


this is mary's daughter. if you look close on her back, you can see a burn mark from when she fell onto the heater that anne put out for her baby (the next picture.)

and this is mary's grandchild!


i believe little guy's name is Lucky. If not, there is a goat named Lucky, and his twin sister died because they were born in the cold of winter.


cows.



This is all that is left of my grandma's childhood home. The Tennessee Valley Authority started clearing people out of the Land Between the Lakes after they dammed a river and the land started to flood. Then they got a little power-crazed and made everyone move out and bulldozed all the houses. Now it's just woods, where there was once over a 1000 families, and stores, baseball diamonds, a community. All gone now.

why this irish girl hates st. patrick's day.

St. Patrick's Day is the day of recognition for St. Patrick, who brought Catholicism to the island of Ireland. Being Protestant, I do not celebrate Catholic holidays.
Also, I don't know how many of my readers are Cathoic, but every Saint has their own day. Why is it in America we only celebrate St. Patrick's Day? What about All Saint's Day, the Catholic give recognition to all the Saint's, including St. Patrick?
Oh, that's right. Because all Irish are alcoholics. Because no other Saint's Day revolves around a country that does nothnig but drink.
In Ireland, on St. Patrick's Day, the Protestants do nothing and the Catholics go to church.
On Friday, in America, a girl in my sociology class was wearing a green wig, over-sized leprechaun hat, Lucky Charms pajama pants, and green round shades. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to fucking scream. Hunter suggested I speak to her like she had downs syndrome, but she ran away before I could. Catholics don't ever believe in leprechauns, you shithead.
Last night, the streets overflowed with drunk sorority girls, wearing green Mardi Gras beads (which they probably earned doing rather un-Catholic things) with scanty green pieces of fabric. Do you think they went to church this morning?
I am sick of this holiday. I am sick of the disgusting Americaniszed version of it at least. A bar downtown had an "Erin Go Bra" contest last night, theprize going to the girl with the best bra. St. Patrick didn't bring Catholicism to Ireland for this shit.
You want to dress Irish? Well your $70 Britches green tunic is way to much than most can afford. You want to act Irish? A lot of the Irish live in poverty. They aren't alcoholics. They aren't leprechauns.
Choose a new saint's day to ruin. You've humped all the life and virtue out of this one.

Looking back on The Ataris

recent music review I wrote for The Maneater.


Very few people I know enjoy reliving the days when they were bopping along to late ‘90s early 2000s pop punk. Most of the people who were jamming away with me now get their kicks from whatever “cool” black-hair-dye –swoop-bangs band is in the spot light for the next ten minutes, denying the days we wore sweatbands and trucker hats. Turns out our old bands have done that as well.
The Ataris will always be the sound of the summer before my junior year of high school. It is the sound associated with wristbands, local shows and cruising in my ’92 Ford Thunderbird. The Ataris were, for me, a symbol of young love and rebellion.
But, like me, The Ataris had to grow up some time. I grew up and went to college. They grew up and got lame.
I remember sitting in my senior year journalism class and reading about “Welcome the Night” being released in 2005 and my heart thumping away in my chest. I wish they would have released it then, I could have at least gotten excited about the realease instead of not caring and finding out a few days later.
The album starts with a heavy song, and this is no “So Long, Astoria.” The crazy part is, both tracks start with a buzzing, distorted guitar, only this time the chords are sinister, not light-hearted. Kris Roe’s vocals are not that of the Roe of my youth. They are darker, deeper and richer. They sound like the typical alternative rock vocals of today, not the young, bright sounds of the boy in the late ‘90s who sang to me about never having to wait in line at Disneyland. The song is called “Not Capable of Love,” but don’t get it confused with 2001 release End is Forever’s “Giving Up on Love.” No my friend, this is entirely different. In the track, Roe sings “"I'm not capable of love/ That kind of love/ That I felt when I was 21.” Turns out he’s also not capable of making the same music that gained him his fans.
I know what you’re thinking. “But Meg, they have to mature and progress.” Except The Ataris haven’t matured, they have only fit more into the mold of what is popular music now. They are on the verge of recent “hardcore,” you know, the kind that isn’t really hardcore, but instead just angry about nothing sounding and gloomy.
“Cardiff-by-the-Sea” has the sound of a matured version of The Ataris. Roe’s vocals are still that lame Creed-esque level of deep, but the music is more bouncy like the older stuff, along with the background vocal “oooo”-ing. But the echoey effects and Roe’s constant slur from low to high are bothersome. “Act V, Scene IV: And So It Ends Like It Begins” has the most classic sound overall. This final track on the album is true to its name; the album ends almost like the sound of before it began.
“New Year’s Day” is an upset from moment one when you realize the intro is the exact same as that of “Not Capable of Love” but without the distortion.
For the sake of The Ataris, I hoped this album was good. I wanted them to come back and bring my youth and nostalgia with them, but I wasn’t expecting something ground breaking. I received neither. I was gifted with The Ataris fitting into the mold, leaving the sound of a generation behind and an overall boring release.

True to her name.

Sorry I haven't updated this thing like I promised, but frankly I've been too depressed. I know that's no excuse, but I don't think anyone reads this anyway so I'm just letting myself down more by caring.

Anyhoot, here's a little something I wrote about my recent depression:

The small windowless office somehow came to represent freedom. The white walls and stacks of broken technology somehow gave me power. With them, I was the leader of something good, something with purpose. I was an editor, the editor of the arts section of the greatest paper you could ever work for. The Maneater is one of a kind; writers can work for any section, they can design and take photos. They can dictate much of their own work. As an editor, you are seen as the best and that's what I was. The best arts editor at the Athens of journalism, Columbia, Missouri. And like in Athens, the founding place of competition, you have to be the best or get out. So I devoted life to the section, and as a result, had to choose between it or myself. I chose it. The choice cost me my standing with the harsh School of Journalism, which stripped me of my spirit.I had to give it up. Now these walls represent failure, the office a constant reminder of my inability.Everyone inside succeeded when I could not. I am no longer of importance in this room that dictated my life. True to her name, she chewed me up, and spit me out. Touché, Maneater.

growing up is rough, but better than the alternative.

The news hit me like a freight train. I was the first to know; my brother showed me the ring alone when we were visiting our grandparents.
My face said “oh yay,” but my insides were screaming.
My brother I grew up with, that I heard so many times say that girls are dumb and gross, the brother that used to want nothing more than to torture me with rubber snakes?
We played Legos, he taught me to play hockey, he made a guy's nose bleed for making me cry. This brother is starting his own family?
I'm not ready for this. We can't be adults yet. I had a hard enough time when he graduated college and got a full-time job as an elementary school teacher.
Don't get me wrong, his now-fiancée is awesome and perfect for him. It’s just a fear of my brother and I doing adult things. I've been having to do a lot of adult things lately adjusting to living on my own and taking responsibilities, and now he is starting a family. He’s only five years older than me, and she is a senior in college. Will this be a decision I will face in the coming years? Marriage!? Committing my entire self to one person? It seems like a lot at this age, but then again, a few years ago it seemed like I had to pick a career to last me a lifetime.
What really scares me is he’s creating a new idea of home for himself, like Zach Braff said in “Garden State.” It’s a cycle. Soon I will not be what he thinks of when he thinks of “family.” He will think of his wife and children.
My brother and I are very close. He takes me out with his friends, we go to bars and restaurants and concerts together. I know our parents have committed their lives to us, how it seemed like they gave up all their time for us. Now my brother will be giving up time for his new family. He won't have time to have fun with his lil’ sis.
This brother that chugs egg nog and plays card games and calls all my college friends “hot coeds.” This brother that I am closer to than anyone else. This brother will be a different person.
But it is a fact of life that I must accept. We are both growing, and soon I will have to take on the roll of Auntie Meg. And although we may not have as much time for each other, I know that we will still be as close as we are now.
He will always be that boy that tortured me as a child, and grew to become my best friend as an adult. He will always be the crass, joking older sibling. He will always be my definition of home.

Death to The Fall Out Boys

Rarely does a New York Times article have the same effect on my stomach as a month old plate of sushi, but when I read an article by Kelefa Sanneh entitled “The Glamour (Sigh, Whine) of Heartbreak,” I could pretty much feel the chunks rising in my esophagus. The article addresses the issue of emo music becoming the new glam rock. Sanneh compares modern-day fashion--not-so-friendly bands such as From First to Last, My Chemical Romance, and Fall Out Boy (who were once featured as models in the Rolling Stone) to glam-bands of the ‘80s such as Poison and Mötley Crüe. The article also addresses the leak of nudey pics of Fall Out Boy’s bassist Pete Wentz and compares that to the Tommy Lee sex tapes. The article goes as far to compare these emo-glam bands to David Bowie, one of the fathers of glam-rock and a hero to the entire genre of rock and roll!
This article made me realize that emo is going to be the music that our generation will be remembered by. The ‘60s had the Beatles, the ‘70s had disco, the ‘80s had hair metal, the ‘90s got grunge, and we get emo? Has rock really taken this turn for the worse? Are my grandkids going to look back and say “Holy crap grandma what were you thinking?” Just like we now look back and frown upon the mullet and parachute pants, someday our kids are going to look back and see a bunch of whiny boys covered in eyeliner and black hair dye. At least ‘80s glam boys were bad-ass and sang about getting laid instead of getting dumped.
With the early nineties came grunge. Thank the lord for Nirvana. Suddenly people realized it’s not what you look like that counts, and ‘80s glam rock died.
So what happened? Where did music go wrong? When did modest emo lyricists like turn into this? When did emo go from Goodwill sweaters to girl pants? Did Conor Oberst breed some sort of music love child with RATT and suddenly we have From First to Last? Every generation has its rock music where suddenly “the look” is more important than “the sound,” but how did our generation end up getting stuck with this crap!? Why will we be remembered with boys who whine and cry over nameless and countless numbers of women?
I, for one, am not going to stand for this. This poorly written, glammed out whiney excuse for music needs to go down, down in a earlier round. Even if it goes down swinging!

hello all.

This is my for real blog where I will post my weekly writings. This is to prepare myself for the real career of a professional columnist and do get a lot of practice writing.
This isn't what happened in my day, or my whiny little diary. Each column will be about 450 words in length and will be posted weekly-ish.