The Adnostic

Another meme, another excuse for random personal content on my site, and another chance for navel gazing. This one came through Erika and seemed like a heck of a lot of fun and just about as accurate as getting your tarot cards read by a storefront psychic or a web site.

Here are the rules - Put your iPod, iTunes, or music player of preference on shuffle and interpret how the songs that play answer the following questions:

How does the world see you?
The Jessica Numbers by The New Pornographers. "This thing is your mission, lone wish and condition." Maybe the world sees me as someone driven and focused. Definitely career wise, possibly even in my personal life as well. Goals are set. Accomplishment is inevitable.

Will I have a happy life?
How It Ends by Devotchka. Oh boy. This is such a sad and beautiful song of survival and hope. "And in your soul, they poked a million holes, but you never let them show. Come on its time to go." Life is hard, that is no secret. You get knocked down and you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and persevere. It's how I've lived my entire life so far and just because I have found some personal and professional success doesn't mean that will change. "You already know how this will end."

I have always liked this quote from Lauren Bacall (my namesake), "I am not a survivor. Anyone can just survive. I prevailed."

What do my friends think of me?
What You Live By by Harvey Danger. "Lay me down in the bed that I made, starved for sleep by the shrill serenade, singing over and over: You die by what you live by." Wow, this is getting depressing. I suppose this means that my friends see me as self-possessed and accountable for my own actions. Something not everyone seems to practice for themselves.

Do people secretly lust after me?
Where Do We Go? by The Kings of Nuthin'. This doesn't sound like that much of a secret. This is a song about a guy who's life sucks and wishes he could get back together with his ex. I have a pretty good idea who that could be. Let him lust.

How can I make myself happy?
Nosy Neighbors by The Ditty Bops. This is all about the sins of being a nosy neighbor, not just by listening to conversations through thin walls, but also by going through other people trash and discarded letters. Um. I don't really do this. Ever. I rarely even read the tabloids. Okay, I guess I'll keep being happy by just continuing to mind my own business. I can do that.

What should I do with my life?
Down Is The New Up by Radio Head. This one is confusing. "Nothing is going to happen without a warning, down is the new up. What is up, buttercup? Down is the new up." I'm going to interpret this as saying that I'm on the right track with tracking social and business trends. This is the new that. That is the new this.

Either that, or I should prepare myself for another career shake-up. (Please, no.)

Will I ever have children?
Gone Daddy Gone by Gnarles Barkley. This could go either way. Maybe I'll have a child and loose it or let it go into adulthood, or by the time I get around to wanting a child the chance will have passed me by. "The love is gone away."

What is some good advice for me?
Aluminum Can by The Ditty Bops. "You are just a semblance of before, following the dust and calling it more, these are the seeds that beseech the leaves for cover, hiking canyons where people have fallen, these are the places where some learn to fly." I guess this is trying to say that there is nothing so radical that I can do with my life that hasn't been done before. If I decide to move to another country, that isn't so bizarre, almost an entire generation of my family did the same thing.

How will I be remembered?
Bye Bye Love by The Ditty Bops. Who knew that The Ditty Bops would be so important to my future? I suppose this means that I will be remembered as someone who lost love, gained love, and ended up the better for it. That's pretty simple and ordinary.

What do I think my current theme song is?
Time Is Gone by The Bellrays. "I don't know why I feel nowhere. Time is gone." I guess a lot of the time I feel like time is running out for me to accomplish my goals. I see a lot of other people my age who are further along in their careers and better off financially and I feel like I need to catch up. I feel like I'm late and time is running out to make my move.

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Ultraviolet (Light My Way) by U2. I'm a fairly decisive person and a lot of people look to me to organize events and make all the choices, and I don't really mind. I'm good at it, but I sometimes wonder how I started to shoulder the weight. It feels pretty natural. "You burry your treasure where it can't be found." I hide myself from people a lot. I'm pretty shy and tend to not extend myself around people I don't know or don't feel safe around. I'm not sure if this is best and I'm trying to be warmer towards people who irritate me, but it’s hard.

What song will play at my funeral?
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Coldplay. Okay, this is odd, but it makes sense. I'll be gone, but I'll be wishing everyone the best in my absence. "From now on our troubles will be out of sight."

What types of men do I like?
Fidelity by Regina Spektor. "I never loved nobody fully, always one foot on the ground, and by protecting myself truly, I got lost in the sound." I suppose this is in reference to all the horribly inappropriate men that came before the Zen Master. As long as a part of me always knew that they didn't really deserve me to begin with, then they could never really hurt me. ZM changed all that by being the wonderful man that he is. I don't know how my pattern changed, but when it happened I was taken aback by how right and natural it felt.

What is my day going to be like?
Who Cares by Gnarles Barkley. Well, I'm writing this at 8:30pm and my day as almost over. So really, who cares what my day is going to be like at this point?

Tag! Who's next?
Dave - because I figure that one day persistence will pay off.
Ms. Jen - because she has a great music collection.
CPJ - to get him back for tagging me last time.
Mike - it's a good way to get him into the SXSW mindset.
Sandra - I'll bet she's got some great music too.

I while back I read a post on Defective Yeti called "Threat Level Bershon" about how the TSA's facial expression screening process would eliminate any teenage girl from ever flying. I laughed and ignored the Bershon reference because I didn't know what it was and the post was funny regardless.

Then I saw a picture on Flickr posted by Dooce about being "so Bershon." That piqued my interest. WTF was Bershon? I clicked on the Bershon pool and just would a bunch of old pictures of bloggers in their awkward teens or their miserable children who really wish she wasn't about to post something totally embarrassing on the Internet again. I knew there was a connection, but I wasn't bright enough to figure it out.

So I did what any good Internet geek would do, I asked Google. The Oracle of Google fed me this link from Que Sera Sera about how she solidified a friendship through the instinctive knowledge of a common phrase - "I am SO BERSHON!" This is her definition of Bershon:

I was unclear at first, but by using contextual clues and in conferring with Erin, we’ve determined that the spirit of bershon is pretty much how you feel when you’re 13 and your parents make you wear a Christmas sweatshirt and then pose for a family picture, and you could not possibly summon one more ounce of disgust, but you’re also way too cool to really even DEAL with it, so you just make this face like you smelled something bad and sort of roll your eyes and seethe in a put-out manner. Kelly Taylor from Beverly Hills, 90210 is the patron saint of bershon, as her face, like most other teenagers’, was permanently frozen in this expression.

Having been an awkward yet stubborn teenager I am painfully aware of this condition. My parents were agonized by this condition in not one, but two of their children. My sister, Leah, always an overachiever, developed a strong case of continuous Bershon by the age of nine and is still undergoing physical therapy to unwrinkle her nose.*

I'm sure my parents have plenty of Bershon pool worthy pictures, but too bad for you and lucky for me she is too inept with the computer to even know what Flickr is let alone have an account.

* Kidding..... sort of.

Most of my friends know that I'm not the most kid-friendly person on the planet. I have friends who love kids, have kids, speak their strange language, find their antics amusing, have their maternal instinct pre-wired and ready to go, but not me. I don't know what do with them besides stare at them as though they are about to explode, ask them how their day is going, and point to the bathroom when they tell me they have to go potty.

Today I found these shots and shared them with the Zen Master....

ZM: Oh wow.

Me: My ovaries are shriveling like raisins.

ZM: No doubt.

Me: I'm officially sterile.

ZM: There's this marvelous invention, maybe you've heard of it, it's called "child-proof cabinets."

Me: They have ways.

ZM: Little bastards.

A lot of Mentos and a lot of 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke can replicate the amazing synchronized fountains at the Belagio Hotel in Vegas.

Watch and fall in love with the internet all over again - Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments

EepyBrid rocks my world!

The other night I went to an acquaintance’s birthday party at a bar in Silverlake. This party was a little special, not because it was a birthday ending in a 0 or some other kind of milestone, but because the party had a theme. I thought this was brave of him. I've never really been tempted to have a theme for my birthdays. I figure if my party had a theme then people would be less likely to show up and if people did show up then they would ignore the theme and I would be left as the only one dressed as a pirate and all my friends would look at me strangely when I kept responding to everything with an affirmative, "Arrrr!"

Okay, so back to the subject at hand. I tried my best to dress appropriately, I wore my best sparkly outfit, but I really only ended up looking like someone's high maintenance mistress from the 50's. I may occasionally look like a hooker, but at least I look like a hooker with a vintage sense of style.

A pack of college kids with no relation to the birthday boy showed up and was immediately confused. One of them approached me for the answers to their burning questions. Let's call her "Buffy." Why? Because it's such a stupid name and I don't give a rat’s ass if she does guard a Hell Mouth.

Buffy: What do the hats mean?
Me: They're fez hats. Those guys are dressed like Shriners.
Buffy: Oh! What's a Shriner?
Me: It was a popular men's club during the 50's.

She still looked confused, but I decided against telling her about the parades and the little cars because then she would have thought they were clowns, and then I would have had to inform her that this is not the case, and then she would have been really confused and her head would have exploded.

Buffy: What about the girls dressed up as cabaret dancers?
Me: They're showgirls. It's a Shriners and Showgirls party.
Buffy: OOOHHHH! [She runs off to tell her friends the information which not a one will really understand]

Now as I'm writing this a thought occurs to me - is she just dumb or am I just old? Please Lord, let her be dumb.

Vincent Gallo, musician, independent film actor/writer/producer, and all around freak, has decided to contribute to all (rich) female kind by selling his sperm for $1 million. Goody.

Mr. Gallo is 5'11" and has blue eyes. There are no known genetic deformities in his ancestry (no cripples) and no history of congenital diseases. If you have seen The Brown Bunny, you know the potential size of the genitals if it's a boy. (8 inches if he's like his father.) I don't know exactly how a well hung father can enhance the physical makeup of a female baby, but it can't hurt.

Wow, 8 inches? Can I get that on layaway? But wait, there's more! Special preference for members of the tribe!

Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion. This would be added incentive for Mr. Gallo to sell his sperm to a Jew mother, his reasoning being with the slim chance that his child moved into the profession of motion picture acting or became a musical performer, this connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance Film Festival or an Oscar.

Would that mean I get the $50,000 discount AND the option of a free "natural insemination?" It's hard for a JAP like me to resist a sweet bargain like that. Now, about that layaway and hell freezing over....

Have I ever expressed my pure and undying love for Jelly? Read this post and understand why.

You love her too now, don't you.

[image courtesy of Flickr]

My pirate name is:

Bloody Mary Vane

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

[pirate name courtesy of Fidius]

I got a call from my roommate, Jen, this morning; which in itself is strange. Jen will text me or e-mail me way before she will call me, because she despises using the phone. She considers it a device of unwanted intrusion on her personal time.

Anyways, the conversation starts off with the following question:

"Lauren, did you notice the dead bird on the floor this morning?"

[Photo courtesy of Jen]

Needless to say, I did not.

Now, I don't stay in the habit of looking down while I'm busy doing things around the house. I didn't notice the Scruffy poo in my closet a couple months back until I stepped in it, and I'm naturally clumsy which is probably a product of the fact that I don't pay much attention to where I put my feet. But a DEAD BIRD!!! How did I not notice a dead bird?

Jen's theory is this - She likes to keep the back screen door open while Scruffy is here so he can do his business as he pleases. She thinks a bird flew in and hid itself away in my closet (animals seem to like my closet for whatever reason), eventually landed in my extra towels, and died. When I changed out my towels this morning it fell out on the way and I just didn't see it.

I don't know about you, but this seems a little too convoluted to me. Here's my theory - Jen and I are about to experience some serious haunting. Everyone knows that a good horror movie always starts with something small, unexplainable, and extraordinarily creepy and THIS qualifies.

Next thing you know we're going to start waking up with cuts and bruises directly relatable to that nightmare we just had and seeing disgruntled hockey fans hanging around our bedroom windows. I should have known the lack of an NHL season would put us all in grave danger. Everyone was talking about the economics while they should have been discussing the inevitable rise in serial murders! What were we thinking?!!

And, if you take into account that the virgin always stays alive for the sequel while the slut gets whacked, then I'm a dead woman.

I'm at a show at the King King, only half listening to who's on stage and nursing my beer.

Kelly: He looks kind of like Neil Young.
Me: Yes, if Neil Young took just a little less care of himself.

Partly because it's never too early to prepare for the next election, and partly because I'm still bitter about the outcome of the last election; I give you..... Red State Colluge Wear!

Imagine the ability to show your political alignment and IQ level at the same time! It's like getting your chocolate and your peanut butter! I'm so happy I could burn a cross!

Is it just me, or does anyone else find these pizza portraits of the royal family just plain creepy?

[lifted off of Shiny Shiny]

I am not a big fan of cover or tribute bands unless they're actually bringing something interesting to the mix. Super Diamond, I couldn't care less; Flock of Goo Goo with Gabby doing the Maniac dance, now that's a fun show.

Then I'm on BoingBoing (they rock my world) and I hear about Max Raabe, a German crooner who covers pop tunes in a 1920's Jazz Baby kind of style. It's hysterical, original, and incredibly creative. I would consider it more of an iconoclastic approach to popular music.

Hear Max invoke his stylings to the music of:
Brittney Spears
I recognize the song, but I can't remeber the artist
Queen

I checked Pollstar and couldn't find any listings for tour dates. Plus, his website is completely in German so I'm not holding my breath for a stateside tour, but I'm wishing for it very hard. (Maybe he could play my birthday?)