Selfish Music Appreciation

     Sometimes I have this thought about music that I can't defend and I think sounds crazy. I'd actually like your opinion/take on it. I am sure it will come across as preachy, but that's mostly because it is preachy.

If you ever wonder how I get such great pictures, I google things like
"rock and roll" and pretty much take the first thing that pops up.

     When we consume and enjoy music, are we encouraging an individual's destruction? Specifically, the destruction of the individuals creating the music?

     Popular music today is so firmly entrenched in heartache, drugs, sex and debauchery. I am convinced that the music today is worse than it was when I was a kid, because I can still listen to the music from the early 90's when I started riding the bus and getting my first listen to popular music. There is much less overt, glorified talk about sex and drugs in the musical "stylings" of my childhood than there is today. Listening to the radio makes me feel ill if I stop and listen to what they are saying.

     But it's no secret that drugs, heartache and sex are what make good music in a world post-Elvis. Sometimes I find myself wishing that my favorite artists would get their heart broken or would relapse so they'd put out a good album again. It's an entirely selfish thought on my part. It's also what I have been more-or-less conditioned to think.

     Here's an example: The Smashing Pumpkins were creating their first album in like a decade a few years ago. (If you don't know, they are essentially the third best grunge band of the 90's, meaning they get mentioned in every "best band ever" list, but never before Nirvana or Pearl Jam.) I didn't really experience grunge, being born in 1985 (meaning I can't appreciate music until I am like twelve, which was 97, which was boy bands and Britney), but I have come to appreciate the hits of the above mentioned bands.
     When the pumpkins were creating that first album in like a decade, there was a lot of chatter that it could never be as good as their original works. That's not new or surprising. What I found interesting is that the band came out, mid-production, with a statement that those doubts were pissing them off. It went something like this:
     "To hear people say that we can never produce music, or be as creative, as we once were when we were fried out of our minds on drugs is insulting and demeaning." It was both well articulated and profound, in my opinion. I don't know if their subsequent albums were any good (but I also don't really know for myself if their first ones were), but that quote stayed with me. People who loved this band were essentially rooting for more disaster in their lives, so they could suck some pleasure out of it.

     Do I do that? I must. Probably not actively, (at least not often, but I have at least once lamented that I wish Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind would start doing Crystal Meth and screwing Charlize Theron again), but does that matter?

I like their music but don't really care about their well being, I suppose.

     This is the age-old issue with rock and roll. It comes from a place of hate, loss, pain and anger. Those emotions and experiences fuel truly gripping and fantastic music that speaks to generations, but either leads to binges of sex, drugs and alcohol, or the fame and success takes away the situations of hate, loss, pain and anger. Either way, us fans are left thinking either a) it's too bad that Rocker X is killing himself with drugs, but he keeps spitting out fantastic music, or b) it's too bad that Rocker X got wealthy and comfortable, I would have liked to have a few more good albums out of him.

     Of course there are exceptions to this. James Taylor has effectively kicked his cocaine addictions, at least as far as I can tell, and still makes great music. But he was never singing true rock-and-roll, where he fights the man and sings from a place of anger. Maybe this issue only applies to music that is fueled by personal disaster. Bands that sing for causes or in defense of something might last longer (like Incubus, which has consistently turned out quality music for a while now), or that just sing about life and experiences (like, I don't know, Taylor Swift? Maybe all country music?), or bands that just make no sense half the time like The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

     But the top music makers of today are people like Adele, Katy Perry, Kanye West and Lady Gaga. I am sure I am missing some big ones (sure, throw in Jay-Z, and I guess the Biebs and Taylor Swift). Those names fall under two groups: certifiably crazy and talented (Kanye and Gaga), and tons of heartache and/or debauchery (Adele, Perry, Gaga, Kanye). Adele and Kanye are two of the only new musicians I have really enjoyed in the last, I don't know, five years?

     Here's where I really start to talk about stuff that I don't understand. Reality Music Shows and interviews with musicians have taught me that true music comes from within. It comes from either the pain and suffering of loss or the joy of love. Isn't the first of those two options, well, awful? It's one thing if writing and performing music based on loss and pain is therapeutic, but at what point does it become exploitative? At what point am I contributing to someone's poor choices and harmful dependencies, when I buy and appreciate their heartache and then don't enjoy the following, less compelling music.

     So, what about gospel music? Isn't that the only music that can come from a true, sustained well of joy? Why do I hate it?

Seriously the best Christian music not called "Jars of Clay." But seriously go listen to  this song.

     In all fairness, I don't listen to it. Hardly ever. But I have tried it. I grew up with it, and have gone back to test it a few times, and am continually amazed at how bland, boring, and unoriginal it can be. It's as if someone heard a real rock band and said "let's Christianize that," which apparently means "let's copy the sound and hope for the best."
     Christian music can't really have the edge of rock music, because of the lack of sexdrugsalcoholdebaucheryetc. Can playing music that comes from a place of peace, joy and forgiveness be, I don't know, good?
     This leads me to wonder if rock music is fundamentally flawed, from a Christian perspective. Is it in fact the devil's music, like Nat King Cole's dad yelled at him that one time in that one movie I saw on OPB or something when I was young? If that's the case, then, wow, we're screwed up. If it's not the case, then, okay, maybe Christians can make some good stuff?

    (Also, don't come to me with a million links and a hundred band names saying "have you heard my band Tattooed Crusaders" or send me a youtube of you singing "better is one day," because I would rather listen to Outkast.)

The Chronicles of Rehab: Interacting With Nurses

     I dislocated my shoulder while skiing three years ago (almost to the day). I never had surgery on the shoulder because I was cheap and I could live with it. It wasn't impacting my day to day life. This past August I tore my ACL. It immediately impacted my day to day life. I decided to operate on both, in the same insurance year, so that I could "buy one get one free" for surgeries and rehab. These experiences will likely dominate this blog for the foreseeable future.

     Recently, I admitted to the world that I am a fainter who wets himself and then rubs his hands in his urine. It is a good thing I am already married, because a blog post like that (and a picture like the one at the bottom of this page) would never see the light of day otherwise. But it gets better. Apparently I am an embarassing ass when drugged.
     When I am in a right state of mind, I think I am a pretty friendly and entertaining person. I put forth extra effort to be relaxed and of good humor when I'm around people that usually don't interact with a lot of happy people, like cops, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, door-to-door salesmen, and customer service reps who actually try to be helpful. So when my nurse is asking me questions to get to know me and do her job, I try to ask her some too. When my anesthesiologist says "I am going to give you a shot in your groin" I reply "oh gosh, I am very nervous about my groin in general" and he laughs. When the surgeon says "surgery went well" I say "you're welcome."
     All of that sincere, genuine kindness? No good when I'm medicated.
     I don't know if this will make sense unless you have experienced and then reflected on it, but when I was coming out of my induced sleep after surgery, I was awake before I was awake. I was saying and doing things I have no recollection of doing. At some point, next thing I know I am sitting up, actually awake, and people are laughing and talking to me, but in a sort of forced, maybe-not-totally comfortable way. Looking back I see they were laughing at me, of course. But at the time, I don't know it. I was all of a sudden awake and people were having a good time and I was just loose enough to roll with it.
     So I got louder. I tried to get funnier. I playfully told my nurse I was going to give her a bad evaluation. I called another nurse by the wrong name, because that's hilarious too. After a couple of minutes of this, a nurse asks me what my job is and I say "I teach math."
     "Oh, I bet you are one of the cool teachers, huh?"
     "Definitely. The coolest. That's all I care about. I don't care if they are learning math at all, just as long as they think I am cool. In fact, I try to teach them how to be cool. Because coolness, that lasts forever."
     "Oh yeah, how do you teach them to be cool?"
     "Oh it's all about looks. Obviously. I mean as you are taking off my scrubs you can tell that I am super good looking, so I'm cool."
     "Yeah, I need to dress cooler" one nurse says.
     "No no no, you're fine."I turn to another nurse. I honestly can't remember if I complemented her or insulted her, but I think I landed on "you'd be cool if you had a different haircut."


     These are a few of the things I remember saying. Apparently I said other things too. For example, Cara saw someone in the Operating Room she knew, so they stopped and chatted. As she tells it, their conversation went like this:
     -exchange pleasantries-
     Him (pointing to Wyatt): Is that your baby?
     Cara: Yeah, this is Wyatt
     Him (pointing to me in the bed): Is that yours too?
     Cara: Yes, he's mine too.
     Me, to no one in particular: I BELONG TO NO ONE!! <throws fist in the air>


     According to my mom, who was there towards the end: When the nurse was taking off your scrubs and putting you in your clothes, you were very concerned. You kept saying things like "Should you be doing this in front of my wife? This isn't okay, it's very inappropriate." The nurse would say, "no, she's okay with it, she's right there." I would insist "she would not be okay with this, this isn't appropriate."
     Apparently the nurse then made fun of my chest hair? "Chest fuzz" is the term my mom said the nurse used. Point of the story: I'm a catch.

     Also according to Cara: She's on one side of the bed and I see her and reach out my hands to touch her face or something, but I am looking at her and grabbing at someplace far off to the left. Then, a moment later, she is on the other side of the bed. I ask "Who are you?" Cara still hasn't made it clear to me if I was being playful or if I was confused. 
     One of the nurses says "That's your wife!"
     I look her up and down and proclaim "I can do better."


     Now, you are fully aware that I am a faint-then-pee-then-stick-my-hand-in-my-pee kinda guy who looks like this and who apparently can't hold his pain meds the way mormons can't hold their liquor. I'd like to make this very clear to everyone: holy crap no I cannot do better. Cara and I got engaged 17 days after we started dating for a reason. I had to lock that down. I needed to get her married before she realized what a loser I am. Whenever someone asks me about my wife, like a coworker or someone who hasn't met her, I explain that she's a beautiful smart pharmacist who definitely married down. They tend to think I am being falsely modest (so they obviously don't know me well, false modesty is not my thing). Then one day they meet her. Later on I say "see, I wasn't kidding when I say she married down" and they politely agree.

Cara and Scout and I at Blue Pool

The Chronicles of Rehab: Accidents

     I dislocated my shoulder while skiing three years ago (almost to the day). I never had surgery on the shoulder because I was cheap and I could live with it. It wasn't impacting my day to day life. This past August I tore my ACL. It immediately impacted my day to day life. I decided to operate on both, in the same insurance year, so that I could "buy one get one free" for surgeries and rehab. These experiences will likely dominate this blog for the foreseeable future.

     Note: This post contains some pretty graphic "toilet humor" that many of you may find offensive. I am going to use blunt and uncomfortable words like "pee," "urine," "apple juice" and "framsham" to describe bodily functions. I apologize for any issue this may cause you in your life.

This is how the adventure started.

     "You see, Grant's a fainter."

     There are few things more old-timey-embarassing than fainting. It's what you see overwhelmed housewives do on black-and-white tv shows when something shocking happens. Today, my dad explained to my wife that I am "a fainter."
     Today was my ACL surgery. We scheduled the surgery the day after I gave finals so that I would have almost two weeks to recover without work. Cara and Wyatt and I drove to the orthopedics center at 6:00am, braving ice and cold. I was admitted promptly, operated on smoothly, and sent home around 10:00 am. I am currently lying on the couch with a TV remote, wireless PS3 controller, laptop, DS and a copy of The Hobbit. I chose to leave the Wii in the bedroom so that when we go to bed I can play there too.
     Moments ago, I was lying on the bathroom floor looking at the ceiling, thinking to myself "Wow I am hungry."
     At about noon I really had to pee. I had to pee so bad it woke me from my nap. I told Cara, she got my crutches ready and helped me to my feet. I crutched to the toilet, centered myself, braced myself against a wall, and urinated. As I was peeing I felt a lot of relief. Then I felt weak. Then I realized I was going to faint and had one thought: "Don't hurt your knee." So I rotated, fell back against the wall, and took a nap.
     I woke up about a minute later. Cara was nervous and asking me questions. She was sure I had concussed. Apparently she saw me just as my eyes were rolling back into my head and I was losing consciousness. I was quickly able to reassure her that I was fine, that I remember my back hitting the wall and not my head, that I was very hungry, that I had drunk some apple juice I think, that I felt fine, and that everything was okay. She called my dad to come help me up, and just be around in general. She was very shook up.
     After she had relaxed a bit she was sitting on the toilet (not using it!!) and talking with me, trying to keep me awake just to be safe. She said "You know you peed your pants, right?" I knew my shirt was wet and assumed it was sweat. I did not know I had peed my pants.
     "Yeah, I know," was my reassuring reply. "Poop!!" I thought while lying on the bathroom floor, lying to my wife. "I haven't wet myself since the last time I was in a pool! And I haven't accidentally wet my self since 2008! I really wanted to make it a whole decade for once." (sorry, I guess I should have warned you that I used the word "poop" too).

Apparently Wyatt and I look identical after peeing on the floor: comfortable. (Picture NSFW)

     Dad arrived (after having gone to get some food. Seriously.) and nonchalantly told Cara "Grant's a fainter." You see, I have used to get "head rushes" all the time. Do you ever stand up fast - so fast that your vision fades away except a small circle, you feel dizzy and weak, and have a slight headache as everything goes back to normal. That's a head rush. I have had hundreds, most of them in high school (not when I was high).

     In college I went to see the dentist once (like, literally, I think I only went one time). They didn't give me any anesthetic or knock me out or anything, just numbed my mouth. I hadn't eaten all day (which happened quite often back then. Breakfast was a luxury.) When they finished doing whatever they were doing, they said "okay, you're good to go!" and I said "really?" I felt weak and like it was sudden. I got up, walked outside and got one of those head-rushes. This time, as it was happening I thought "Wow, this is a bad one!" Then I thought "Wow! I think I am going to faint!"
     Next thing I knew I heard two people walking up, a little girl and her mom. The daughter was very sweet and talkative. I heard her, without being able to distinguish any words, in the distance, and then thought "I am outside a dentist's office lying on my back, fainted (I still couldn't see at this point). She is going to be so nervous and hate the dentist."
     She said "Mommy he's sleeping!"
     Mommy said "No, um, honey, he's not."
     I started to sit up and look around and said "I'm fine, I'm fine, I think I fainted but I'm fine. The dentist is nice."
     The dentists and hygienists were mortified. They were very helpful and gave me some of their lunch. My mommy picked me up, bought me food and drove my home. I was fine.

     I guess now I am "a fainter." And a, I don't know, a "faint-pee-er."

     Funny conclusion: (at least I think it's funny) You know how I was more concerned about that little girl at the dentist than myself? Well, today while on the bathroom floor, I was also more concerned about Cara's than myself. She was actually in tears at some point. Apparently, when I was unconscious and relieving myself, my hand fell into a pool of urine. When I was conscious, I put my hand up to touch Cara's face or grab or hand and she - having seen the previous dip in the pool I took - was not very receptive.


Number of times I used italics in this post: 5
Number of times I used parentheses in this post: (11)
Number of pictures in this post: 2
Adam Sandler refrences in this post: none

March Drives-Me-Mad-Ness

    Clever title!!

Yet another year where I won't need to follow March Madness. Go Ducks.

     I can't bring myself to do March Madness. There are two vital, essential pieces to enjoying and participating in March Madness: You either have a team you care about in the tournament (nope), or you fill out a bracket and enter some sort of a betting pool. I can't bring myself to do the latter.
     You see, I hate being wrong. What I hate even more than being wrong is being factually, demonstrably wrong. Usually if I am wrong about something I can weasel, lie, manipulate, distort and blame to deflect my wrongness. I can't do that with a busted bracket. So I don't make brackets.
     I've tried. I've looked at them and tried to imagine how they will shake down. But I don't watch college basketball and I don't know anything except for who the powerhouse names are. So I'll have a bracket with teams like Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana (what?!) Arizona (huh?) UConn of course, and a token SEC/Big East team make their elite eights and go from there. Of course I am wrong somewhere. I am more wrong than most other people. I hate it.
     If a team I care about is in the dance (read: Oregon), than it's almost worse. Should I play favorites and put them in the Elite Eight? Should I understand that they are never that good and knock them out in the first round? These decisions stress me out. There's two main options: 1) I put them deep into the tournament. This means I am either rooting for my team to win, knowing that when they lose I will be doubly let down, or knowing that if they go farther than I predicted I will have some amount of disappointment and can't fully enjoy their success. 2) I have them lose in the first or second round, which results in me just rooting for my favorite team to lose and that's annoying.

Ugh. What about this isn't stressful?!

     Do you see how impossible this is!?
     This is an issue with sports in general. Your team will ultimately lose, unless they win it all, and your team won't win it all. It's a guaranteed disappointment. I guess this is an issue with most of life. Louis CK does a stand-up bit about how marriage, like buying a puppy, is an investment in disappointment. When you bring a puppy home, you are telling your family "Someday soon, maybe in 3 years or 12 years, we are going to be sad!" This is how I feel with March Madness

     It causes me to miss out. I am not drawn to watch the games, because I don't have any vested interest, and the basketball isn't really that good. I didn't get to see Stephan Curry blow up 5 years ago, I generally missed out on the Butler runs, and I just avoid conversations for a couple of weeks. The rest of the world is having fun and excited and has an outlet until we hit spring, and I am just glad that no one will know how little I know about college basketball these days.
     This is honestly part of why I love math. I can do a problem and be right. There's no question as to whether or not I am right, most of the time. Additionally, it has taught me how to argue and use logic to my advantage, so when I am wrong, it is probably due to some gray area of some sort, and I can deflect.
     Also, I am a very healthy, normal person with no social issues.

Matchmaking In Class

     When teaching secondary education, one often spends the entire year with the same classes. An effective teacher is able to cultivate relationships between himself and his students, and between the students themselves. I am not the best at getting people to make new friends in class, although I do try to make a fun and friendly environment. But I sure do try hard to figure out who likes who. In fact I love it. If I have a couple of friends in the room with me during lunch, where they are sitting and working quietly, I will ask them if they have girlfriends or boyfriends, just to be awkward or to make things interesting. I can get some pretty juicy info, so I never ask if it's just one students all alone.

     I've had a few different levels of student relationships in my class. I've had two students that were best friends start dating at some point during the year. They had a lot of fun together, and actually didn't want to start dating for fear of ruining their friendship. Since they would come to my room to do math during lunch, we even talked about it a bit. They've been dating for about a year now and seem to be doing well. That was fun.
     At Lane, the community college where I teach, sometimes a guy is totally crushing and just doesn't know how to go about. He'll start sitting next to the girl and try to crack jokes or impress her. He'll buddy up with her friend in the class. He'll walk out with her. Sometimes he tries to be platonic friend. It all has varying degrees of success, but it is absurdly entertaining for me.
     I've had two students at Lane meet in my class for the first time. Around week two they started sitting next to each other. During week 8 I saw them at the mall getting ice cream together (they didn't see me, but that's because I found a great pair of bushes to hide behind). I don't know if they ever got together or what, but they were a cute couple.
     I will sometimes sit students next to each other when I make a seating chart to see if sparks will fly. This is in no way a smart thing to do to help with their learning, but dang it I need to have some fun too! I don't know if it's ever worked.
     At Lane, the community college where I teach, sometimes a guy is totally crushing and just doesn't know how to go about. He'll start sitting next to the girl and try to crack jokes or impress her. He'll buddy up with her friend in the class. He'll walk out with her. It all has varying degrees of success, but it is absurdly entertaining for me.

     My favorite of them all, however, is a girl and guy that were friends and not dating at all. My first year of teaching, up in Beaverton, Oregon, these two students shared the same desk for almost the whole year. They were seniors who got along great, worked well together and were friends outside of class, but not close friends. Around two-thirds of the way through the year I walked up to them at some point and said "I just want you to know that when you two get married, if you want me to perform the wedding because I made it happen, I can do that. I became an ordained minister online when I was 17." They laughed and told me they'd let me know.
     Something awful happened shortly thereafter. New students joined the class from other classes (this school shuffled students from term to term when necessary for scheduling). Both of them now had a good friend in the class, to whom they sat next. The first day it happened, I looked back, stopped midsentence and said "Nope. Nuh uh, no sir." They knew what I was talking about and laughed and shrugged. That was it. It was over. I was crushed. It was devastating.
   
     I hope someday some students will find each other in my class, fall in love and be together. I also hope it's because of me in some small or very large way. I also hope they acknowledge that it's because of me and thank me at their wedding or something. These are all hopes and dreams of mine.
     Also I hope that one of them grows up to do something with math or something like that too.

The Worthless Generation

     I have come across several comments or statements about my generation (sometimes called "generation y," which probably has some really "meta" meanings. Like the generation after "x," or the generation that asks "y do I have to work?"), and what a waste it will result in. Most of the examples that cross my mind are pretty anecdotal, but I think the best one comes from Louis CK when he was on Conan. Louis is a pretty hysterical, intelligent comedian with a mouth like a septic tank, but he's clean here, give it a quick watch:

     He has been making claims like this for a while now. Of course, he is totally right. My generation (I'm 26) and those younger than me are poised to be a bunch of lazy, entitled, whiny jerks who ruin everything that isn't already ruined.

     So I think that raises one question: who on earth raised these people?