I'll Put It in a Place We Can Both Forget

A collection of random thoughts for you on a Friday afternoon.

I cannot tell you why, but today I started thinking a lot about the movie Donnie Darko. Rebecca and I were discussing it recently and we both agreed that it falls into the category of "Movies That People in Your First Year Dorm Like to Prove That They Are 'Deep'". I still stand by that, I guess. I was introduced to the movie by my brother, who fell in love with it while he was in university and it was released, so much so that his email at the time was "mikeydarko". I was only about 12 or 13 at the time and hadn't been exposed to "thriller" or "philosophical", or even "indie", movies yet, so  Donnie Darko seemed like this crazy distinctive thing to me. Upon revisiting it years later, I was a little bummed to find that the movie didn't quite live up the version that I had kept in my mind all those years. But still, while it's not a perfect movie by any means, it will still always live in a nice, little nostalgic corner of my mind for what it meant to me at one time. Plus, the imagery of Donnie with Frank the Rabbit is great and the soundtrack bangs.

Everyone knows the Jules and Andrews version of "Mad World" from the movie. Have you heard the Makeshift Heroes version? It's wonderful.

I am a huge fan of Pete Holmes' podcast You Made It Weird. Pete's empathetic and a gifted conversationalist who's adept at being as silly as possible and asking the most personal and deep questions possible at the same time. It's an interesting mix, but I like it. Holmes has an autobiographical show Crashing on HBO that is currently airing its second season. I'm a fan of the show and heartily recommend it, if only for the subtle Christian jokes.

I haven't run into a 2018 record that's turned my world upside down yet. I did listen to Teenage Fanclub Bandwagonesque for the first time today though, and that was just wonderful.

I'm inching towards starting demos for songs I've been working on. They make a lot of sense in my head, but I haven't translated that into any sort of physical form yet. To tide my legions of devoted fans, I've made a playlist on Spotify that is inspiring my approach to them. I love Spotify now, apparently. Check it.

Another key influence: Gated reverb and the drumfill on "Calling in the Air Tonight".

Editor's note: While titling post, I started listening to the above playlist and ended up writing and re-writing three different lines from "Deeper". What a song!