Praying mantis on the court and I can't be beat...

I saw a praying mantis today at work. Aren't they supposed to be good
luck? Or is it that they're a harbinger of ruin? I can't remember. I
suppose we'll find out in the next few days, now won't we.

This as close as he let me get, btw. He was sizing me up and then was
all "yo, any closer and I'm peacing out." Hence the remote picture.
--johnberard

THIS.
--johnberard

You could be mine, but you're way outta line.

I just found out today that Slash from Guns N' Roses/Velvet Revolver will be taking a page from the Axl Rose book and penning his own autobiography. (Whoa bad pun totally not intended). Anyway, I stumbled across an excerpt from it. When I started reading, I was all "okay, this is kinda like the Motley Crue book, which I enjoyed, so I'll keep reading." Here's a very small excerpt:

"I should have been drawing the little demon men that I could never quite see or seem to capture on film - believe me, I tried. As soon as I started to speedball regularly, those little guys were everywhere. They were small, wiry, translucent characters that I saw from afar until eventually they'd crawl up my jacket whenever I got high. I wanted to get to know them in a way; as I lay on the floor, waiting for my heart rate to relax, I'd watch the little Cirque du Soleil show that those guys would put on all over the room. I often thought about waking Megan up so that she could check it out. I even took pictures of them in the mirror when I found them perched on my shoulder and in my hair. I started to talk about them and see them so clearly that I even freaked out my drug dealer. On the rare occasion when I'd leave the house to score my drugs, I'd usually shoot up right away at his place and then start seeing those little guys crawling up my arm.

'Hey, do you see that?' I'd ask, extending my arm. 'You see that little guy, right? He's right there.'

My dealer would just stare at me expressionless. This guy was a drug dealer who was pretty used to strange junkie behaviour. 'You'd better go, man,' he say. 'You're way too out there. You should go home.' Apparently I was bad for business."

Yeah. And it then it gets more interesting.

Read the rest of the excerpt here.

Mah weekend, let me show it to you.

I worked sound for a puppet show.

It was put on by a Canadian puppet troupe.

They also TOTALLY said "eh" after everything. MYTH CONFIRMED.
--johnberard

Keep Your Mouth Shut, Keep Your Guard Up - I Swear I'll Make It Right.

With hesitance, I picked the new Dashboard Confessional record up on Friday afternoon. I say I did so with hesitance because I had flashbacks to loyally buying Dusk And Summer a few years ago, expecting maybe a A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar sequel, and being horribly disappointed. However, at the suggestion of Jessica, who had written a short review of it early last week, I caved and bought it. Well that turned out to be the suggestion of the month.

The first thing that struck me about the album is the noticeable "regression" in to the classic Dashboard sound. All the guitars on the record are acoustic, and about half of the songs are just Chris Carrabba and his guitar. The other half of the songs are peppered tastefully with other instruments, but the band never trespasses in to the territory of electric guitars. The songs are raw and organic, and the production compliments the songs exquisitely.

The thing that made Dashboard huge was the fact that Carrabba had a way of penning lyrics that evoked raw emotion in us. The way he phrased his heartache and anguish made us all go "I've never been able to put words to that emotion when I've felt it, but this - THIS is exactly what I feel, this is how I hurt." It was like he was inside our heads - like he had a pulse on every emotion we had. Or was it that, not only could he understand us and speak for us, but he was one of us. He was just like us.

With Dusk And Summer, Carrabba seemed to lose some of that unpolished emotion. The songs were cookie cutter and the words and music just didn't resonate with us like they used to. Had he lost his hold over us? I thought maybe he had. But then I bought The Shade Of Poison Trees.

While the first three records focused mainly on the catastrophe of heartbreak and the loneliness of unrequited adulation, Shade deals with a broader variety of subjects. However, it still manages to lead us to those sing-until-your-lungs-give-out moments we discovered when we heard the first chorus of "Screaming Infidelities." "Thick As Thieves" and "The Widow's Peak" deal with the imperfections and realities of being in a serious, functioning relationship, while "Watch For The Mines" and "Little Bombs" deal with shadiness and lies of a so-called friend. The content is slightly more adult, as if the lyrics are maturing right along with us while the music remains as stirring as it always has.

All this maturity aside, though, Carrabba doesn't completely stray from his old standbys of languishing for the attention of another person ("The Rush") or the simple, inherent desire to be loved ("These Bones") which first gave him a place in our hearts and on our emo playlists.

Forgive my manner of speaking
I know it's quick, but the clock is still ticking
And I've got a few words left burning holes on my tongue
I've been saving them
So lay with me

I could use the company

You could help me ease
These bones

I've owned this record for roughly 60 hours, and I've listened through it close to 25 times. It's the perfect compliment to the other emo record I've been obsessed with for the past week (Jimmy Eat World's Chase This Light, which will be reviewed here soon, obvsly.) It caused me to break the entire Dashboard catalog out (Man, I can't remember the last time I sang along to "The Good Fight") and have myself a circa-2004 emo-thon last night. But that's why we listen to music. It helps us to express things we cannot express solely by ourselves. It allows us to say the things we're meaning to say and get out what we normally couldn't. And good ol' reliable Dashboard Confessional is once again there to take us by the arm and lead the way.