new pickup line

"Looks like you could use a dose of Vitamin B! ... ... ...
oh by the way my internet name is B."

It's a Holiday for Hanging

This one has a lot of pictures. I adjusted the setting on the 'suede so it only shows the latest five posts on the front page. I'm sensitive to your needs, dear reader, and I know that having a million pictures of glowing lights can slow things down and no one has time for that.

This blog is going to start becoming a lot more music oriented. The fall concert season is upon us and this is going to be a great year. It's almost ridiculous how many (potentially) great shows are coming to the Wasatch Front in the next couple of months. An embarrassment of riches if ever there was one. So far there are four shows (including this one) that I am confirmed for, three that are tentative, and two that I have to skip due to fundage and time issues. For the record I'm skipping Smashing Pumpkins and Muse, even though I'm sure they'll be great shows. I saw Muse in Austin so I'm okay there, and the Pumpkins will just have to reunite again and come back when I'm less busy. I just can't drive to Orem that many times.

Orem! You will seldom find me bagging on the SLC music scene like so many before me, but one big problem is that there's not a decent mid-size venue for the bands that are too big for the clubs and too small for the arenas (and the arenas suck anyway). One option is Saltair, but it stinks and it's creepy and full of spiders and it has burned down three times too many so no one wants to go there. The only other option is the McKay Events Center in Orem (frikkin' Orem!). I really dislike Orem but that's another entry for another day. My dislike of that city aside, it's about an hour long drive from Salt Lake and the events center is on a college campus so parking is tricky and there's only one way in and blah blah blah I don't like it.

Monday night I was compelled to visit Orem. I had no other choice really. Two of my favorite bands on the same ticket. Rilo Kiley and Modest Mouse. I love Rilo Kiley's music and maybe I have a big crush on Jenny Lewis.


I mean, how could I not? And Modest Mouse. Two years ago they played two shows at a club in Salt Lake and I procrastinated getting tickets and they sold out. Never again would I let that happen.

I was thoroughly searched going into the venue. The guy made me show him the contents of my wallet and undo my belt buckle. "Aha! This isn't a belt buckle at all, but a foldable sword!"

Missed the first opening act, Matt Costa. I heard he was really good though so I'll have to check him out. I took a bunch of pictures and at the time I was disappointed that I couldn't get a focused shot. Last fall I took pictures of the Strokes and they turned out great so I was hoping for the same result. When I got home I was really happy with the pictures though. So kinetic! Ah, there's my girl Jenny.



And the other guy, who used to be on the Nickelodeon series Salute Your Shorts, if anyone remembers that.





Unfortunately, I was kinda disappointed with Rilo Kiley. Actually disappointed is too harsh because it makes it sound like their fault. They sounded great, and they put on an excellent show. BUT they only played for about forty minutes, and didn't play anything from the album The Execution of All Things, which isn't just my favorite RK album but one of my favorite albums ever. Also, the crowd wasn't really into them. People were yelling "We want Modest Mouse!" and when they finished the set there was maybe four seconds of polite applause. No encore. Hopefully they'll come by again , headlining a tour of their own.

Modest Mouse. Wow. Those guys can bring it.

I think these pictures adequately capture their performance.


Just... wow. Isaac Brock plays like a man possessed, like the music is exploding from within him and leaving his ravaged body in its wake.

The biggest surprise for me was the song "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes." Really one of my least favorite songs. I can't bear to listen to it. But live it was souped up with an apocalyptic guitar riff from new member (and rock legend) Johnny Marr. Probably my favorite song from the whole night. That Johnny Marr is one cool mofo.




I wish I could say I'm an old school Modest Mouse fan, but I'm not. I only came on board a few years ago when "Float On" became a hit. They mostly stuck with material from the last two albums which was cool by me. Even though I'm not an old school fan, that won't stop me from complaining about the new school fans. The crowd was full of spring break party guys, moshing and crowd surfing to even the mellowest of songs, smoking reefer and jumping around throwing elbows. I tried to tell myself "These are just dumb kids having a good time. No harm in that. But if one of those elbows hits me..."

Funny: some kid said to my friend Scott "Dude, you're like, so old!" He's 28.

After the show we hung around near the loading dock hoping to meet Jenny Lewis. I was looking forward to the chance to break her heart and maybe have her write a song about me. I caught sight of rock legend (tm) Johnny Marr and said to some dude "Hey, there's Johnny Marr." And the guy freaked out. This guy hadn't even gone to the show, he just came to try to meet Johnny.

(if you don't know, and no one will think less of you if you don't, Johnny Marr was in the Smiths, one of the most revered acts of the '80s).

Johnny was so nice. He signed something for me and when I told him how to spell "Bryton" he said "Hey, cool name, man!" He chatted with us for a while, shot down rumors of an impending Smiths reunion, joked around with us. I told him the story of the kid calling Scott old and when Johnny left he said "Take care Bryton. You too Old Timer. Hey wait! You guys want some guitar picks?" and he gave us each a guitar pick. Mine is worn down too so it's one he used during the show. Awesome!


After a lot more waiting, finally saw Jenny Lewis and the gang getting onto the bus. I shouted for her to come over (politely) but she just gave a big smile and waved and blew a kiss. Right now, wherever she is, I'm sure she's full of regret and writing a song called "Blue Sweatshirt."

Seems like only days ago

One of those Autumn nights you dream about in July, when the sweat is dripping and the sky is thick with the sum of the heat and our SUV exhaust. The air is cooler by mere inches and yet a jacket seems appropriate. Its need is all in your head, just like the smell of dead leaves and burning logs in the fireplace. The sun is low in the sky far ahead of schedule, casting horizontal orange rays through the apartment stairwell. Crossing those lines of light feels like crossing a borderline, stepping into a new phase and leaving behind the stagnant summer. Though the sky will soon dim to a cold grey and the surrounding green will return to the earth from whence it came, you feel like you've hit the reset button on your state of being.


That's just some prose I composed while unlocking my front door on Friday night. Then I went inside and fell asleep for hours, likely missing opportunities left and right. The good news is that when I woke up I felt awful.

Saturday fared much better! After some textual debate I saw the movie Shoot 'em Up with 'Em. Lots of shooting in this movie. Lots of it. Seriously, so much shooting. Also a lot of carrot chomping.

I can't support this movie 100%. Ridiculous action movies like The Transporter 2 are so fun because they're earnest, trying hard to be a kick-ass action movie and failing miserably. Shoot 'em Up was over the top but because it was trying to be over the top it was... I dunno.

Don't get me wrong, I liked it. The scene where they have to live in a [SPOILER!] tank is worth it right there. And Paul Giamatti is great, spewing out lines like "You're a wascally wabbit. But not wascally enough!" as if it's Shakespeare. This movie also makes great use of Nirvana's "Breed," reminding me that all the brouhaha surrounding Nirvana can overshadow the fact that they could rock anyone's socks off.

There are also several lovingly lingering shots of neon signs in the movie, and a scene with Monica Bellucci wearing a traditional diner waitress outfit, combining two of my passions: Monica Bellucci and Classic Americana. I bet the director and I could be friends.

We've spent enough time talking about this.

After the movie, dinner at the Greek Souvlaki #1. Typically I dine at the Greek Souvlaki #3. In any event it was wonderful as always and I don't see an end to my current Gyro obsession.

Watched some BYU football. I'm not a football fan per se but I like the way college football brings people together and that sometimes there are Lil Smokies involved.

Drove all over town to track down some book about vampires that all the kids are talking about. Oh, the book wasn't for me. I only read serious literature. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go see what Iron Man is up to these days.

Spent a lot of time talking about Quails. There's a story there, but I'm not going to tell it.

Overall it was a really fun day. The night ended at a restaurant called MacCool's. I like Irish stuff, but I hate faux Irish stuff. I've been guilty of Faux Irishism in the past, like the time I told the waiter at McSorley's that my name was Kenneally. There's a story there, but I'm not going to tell it (yet).

Sunday I had a splitting headache so I mostly just moped about. I did go to the store and ran into a friend there. So that's something. Oh man! I almost forgot. My beloved Salt Lake Bees of baseball lost three games in a row to those damnable Sacramentos, thus ending the season. Adding to the humiliation, Sunday's loss came at the no-doubt skilled hands (get it?) of Jerry "Boner" Blevins, with the final out courtesy of a diving catch by Lou "Error Prone-y" Merloni.

Went to my mom's house to do some laundry and the cat hung out on my shoulder like a parrot.


Right now I have seen fit to watch Barton Fink. This is a mistake as though the film is kind of brilliant, "icky" is really the only word to describe how I feel after watching it. I should just turn this off. It's depressing. It's beyond depressing, it's claustrophobic and horrifying. Maybe I'll pop-in a Futurama dvd instead. The important thing here is that I wrote a really great paper about Barton Fink back when I was a college boy. At least that's how I remember it. Maybe I'm getting it wrong and I just read a really great paper about Barton Fink. We may never know the real truth.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I love baseball and I'm not afraid to admit it. I've been to a smattering of major league games, and since 1994 I've regularly attended games of the hometown squadron, The Salt Lake Bees (formerly the Buzz/Stingers), AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Insert Joke About Southern California Here.

The Bees made the playoffs this year, and last night was game two of the first round. Without a doubt the most fun I have ever had at a baseball game. I got some discounted seats through work and we were right behind the opposing team's dugout. The stadium never sells out and there isn't a bad seat in the house, but I've never sat that close before and it was really cool. Not only that, but perfect night for a ball game. 75 degrees, clear skies, the smell of fall and hot dogs in the air.

We taunted those hated Sacramento RiverCats mercilessly. By "mercilessly" I mean shouting things like "Ron! Ron! Ron! Hey Ron! RON! Ron? RON RON RON RON!" (one of the RiverCats pitcher's name was Ron, FYI).

There was another RiverCats pitcher who came into the game with a noticeable ... arousal. This lead to:

"You're facing stiff competition now Blevins!"
"Are you just happy to see me Blevins?"

but the best came courtesy of Chris:

"Hey Blevins, why do you have a boner?"

A pitcher named Van Buren was on the receiving end of some biting Presidential-themed heckling as well.

Okay, maybe taunting doesn't translate well into blog form. The point is, we were in those pitchers' heads and though I'd like to give the Bees players some credit, I think we were mostly responsible for the victory.

And what a victory it was! After clawing back from a four run deficit, the Bees found themselves down by one going into the bottom of the 9th. With men on second and third pinch-hitter Adam Pavkovich drilled a ball to the right field wall, game over. Huge celebration on the field, huge celebration in the stands.

Again, most fun I've ever had at a ballgame. Go Bees!

The lowest common denominator...

...is the guy that cheats at laser tag at the office team building exercise. Also he kind of looks like that one melty Nazi guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Here's what you missed by not being me.

So much happened.

You should know, I'm a high-falutin guy that lives a high-falutin lifestyle. I eat at restaurants. In fact, the weekend began -

Thursday

• -at just such a place. Me and a couple of dudes (Scott+Andy) went to a restaurant to watch the University of Utah Runnin' U's lose badly to the Beavers of Oregon.
• Although I'm an alumnus I don't really have that much pride in the school so my level of devestation was minimal.

Friday

• Yet another restaurant. Koyo, which has been mentioned on this blog sooo many times. Also previously mentioned on this blog is-
• -Wayne, a friend from SF, who has actually left that city and will now be known as "a friend from Portland." He was in town so there was a gathering at the home of -
• Damian, a swell and hospitable fellow.
• Damian has the most convenient backyard I've ever seen (sorry for the fuzzy photos, didn't want to use the flash like some sort of picture taking idiot).

• It's also the most kid-unfriendly backyard I've ever seen, what with the exposed power lines

• and the big piles of spikes

• and the open flame

• Bloglebrity The Mediocre Gatsby brought his daughter and had a hard time keeping her out of trouble, but sometimes all a kid needs is two liters of Mountain Dew.

• Speaking of citrusy beverages, look what I drank, fools! The only reason I bring this up is because every day I get two or three hits from people googling "ruby red squirt." So there ya go. Still exists.

• I mentioned I was high falutin. Check out my wristwatch.
• While I was busy taking pictures of soda, Emily tried an experiment in Ultimate Decadence by putting a mini-Reese's into a marshmallow.

Saturday

• Had lunch at The Greek Souvlaki, as is my wont. I've been dining there so much lately that I think it deserves it's own blog entry sometimes soon.
• Movie! The King of Kong: a Fistfull of Quarters, a documentary about a guy trying to beat the world record in Donkey Kong.
• I know what you're thinking. "A documentary about arcade games? Yeah right!" Well I'm here to tell you "Yeah, right." Very riveting and oft-hilarious human story.

• This Billy Mitchell guy. What a jerk. Maybe.

• Declined the opportunity to attend a zombie themed dance party with Chris. Watched Good Eats with Emily. Then Chris came back from the party and since he already had zombie makeup on we decided to go to Freaky Dee's.

• Dee's is an SL Valley institution, and this one on 21st and 7th is known as the Freaky Dee's for its preponderance of gothic youth and the cross-dressing host.
• They serve typical diner fare. Pancakes, omellettes, burgers, gravy-based dishes, filet mignon, toast - waitaminute, filet mignon?

• Yeah, they have filet mignon on the menu which is kind of weird. I always boast that some day, when the time is right, I will get the Dee's Mignon. Well on Saturday, the time was right.

• Surprisingly, it was pretty good. If I had made it myself I'd a been darn proud.

Sunday

• I'm not completely certain that I was awake for Sunday.
• Oh wait, yeah I was. I bought some new shoes. They made me happy.

Monday

• Got a haircut that was totally unnecessary.
• Movie! Deja Vu. Pretty good.
• Chris had a BBQ at Harrison Ave. using my grill. Some other friends were doin' some porch sittin' next door but I didn't get to spend any quality time over there. Hung out inside and watched VH1's latest reality show, The Pick-Up Artist.
• Have you seen this show? The host, the self-proclaimed pick up artist, is a man named Mystery. That's his name. Mystery. Great show. And if you look him up on wikipedia you're going to find all sort of information about the show, about the Mystery Method, about the Seduction Community, AFCs... man, it just goes on and on.
  

okay that's it

I'm sick of spending these lonely nights training myself not to care

The first time I went to New York this was the view from my window.

My life has been downhill ever since.

Not really, but sort of yeah. The other night I was looking through pictures from that trip trying to find a photo of an old printing press, and those digital images conjured a flood of memories. I could practically taste the air, frozen in time from October of 2003. I take a lot of pictures everywhere I go, but it's a rare thing for them to actually take me back to that moment in time.

Part of the reason I liked flipping through those pictures so much is because that trip came right in the middle of a period in my life, say eight months, where everything just came together. Before I was ravaged by the cruel hands of time.

This sounds extra mopey, and I don't mean it to be. I'm doing alright for myself these days. I mean, I've got this blog, I have pair of sunglasses.... pretty sweet.

The title of this post comes from a line in the song "NYC" off this album:

This is my favorite album of the last ten years. It's not the best album, oh heavens no, I could count off a thousand better albums on my right hand alone. It's not like I want to go around listening to it all the time, it's just that like the photos I mentioned above, this album is welded to pleasant memories.

No wait! That's wrong. Memories isn't the right word. It's not that when I put on the album I think "Ah yes, this reminds me of the crisp fall night that we drove down the canyon with the top down, the wind to our backs and our angst yet before us." [previous sentence should be read aloud in a J. Peterman voice]. No, there aren't any specific memories associated with it, just vague notions of good vibrations.

I guess it also reminds me of that one time Haydee tried to wave to me through the phone...

Okay, I can see that I've lost you. Here, I'll try to end this strong.

bells

I complain about the local news a lot, but there's one way in which it never lets me down. When there is any sort of unconventional wedding out there, I am the first to know about it.

"Who cares about the War anyway? What's this? Two theme park enthusiasts got married on a roller coaster? Whaaaaa? No way. No. Way. This I gotta see to belie- oh man there's footage! He's wearing a tux on a roller coaster! Ahahahahaha! Out-rageous!"

I've also seen skydive weddings and underwater scuba weddings and vows exchanged on a golf course. I've even seen a man marry himself (Dennis Rodman). There is nothing left that can possibly impress me.

So in Googling for a picture of some kind of crazy wedding, I observed an trend that I've been coming up against a lot lately. Now, everyone knows that no matter what you're searching for you're gonna end up with porn. It's a fact of life in today's internet. Doesn't matter how innocuous your search is. Look for a picture of "toast" and the results are going to be 17% porn.

But the thing that's been bothering me lately is that when Googling for regular things I'm getting a lot of pictures of horrible injuries. Terrible, grievous injuries. All I want is toast and wacky weddings and the Transporter 2 and maybe I've heard that I have a friend (you don't know him) who doesn't mind when porn comes up, but I don't need to see the results of unsafe driving. I'm starting to have nightmares here. Geez louise. Gotta be someone I can complain to about this. I guess I can turn the safe search on, but that might block something I really urgently need, like a picture of a fat Spiderman.

Incidentally, I was not able to find a good wacky wedding picture. I found some old fashioned wedding pictures where the people looked goofy and outdated, but they were all from those peoples' personal blogs and I didn't feel right mocking people that just want to share their love with the world.

By the way, if you're looking for a picture of a Star Wars Wedding the world is your oyster

Let's see how many new visitors I get now from people searching for Star Wars Weddings. Half of the people that visit this blog found it by looking for ways to clean their microsuede. By typing that out just now I've probably made it worse. Sorry that I can't help you clean your microsuede. You shouldn't have thrown up on it in the first place. I'm looking at you, Calgary.