2006 is over; it ended with Dick Clark in such poor health, he was unable to keep in time counting down with the atomic clock. Somehow, this felt to me like a prologue to dystopia.

The year ended as I kind of walked away from a job that wasn't really going anywhere to finish a degree I once figured would never take me anywhere. It is dangerous thinking to take any sort of degree for granted. They are what you make of them, even if you should choose to make them a waste.

Dave Matthews - Waste

It's originally by Phish, but I find theirs a touch grandiose, even by their standards. A lot of people hate Dave Matthews, and I understand why, yet still he appeals to my few lingering hippie leanings. I first heard it sitting in the back of a jeep after having taken too many anti-nauseants. We were driving into the clouds of the Himalayas, to see a sacred Buddhist lake, when this song came onto my carelessly loaded iPod. I rode an ox that day. Sound idyllic? It was a life without work.

Which brings me to jobs... specifically, McJobs. Though my recent job could have been defined as a 'career', it was a salary & benefits masking a glorified (fast-casual?) McJob. There is nothing particularly appealing about the McJob, save your co-workers. It's much like high school: dozens whom you never need to see again, but will meet awkwardly in shopping malls forevermore. However, the few who mean anything, who by all means could and maybe should remain with you in life, go AWOL.

It's easy to say you'll keep in touch... but we all know it's hard to actually accomplish. Especially as we all plough through our degrees and our McJobs towards a semblance of real life, those 12k e-mails take too much time to write, and those 30 minute phone calls are time needing to be spent eliminating mildew from your cavern of a bathroom in your cinderblock of an apartment.

Everyone has woken up some morning and prayed (whatever that is to them) for some negative time in which to sleep longer, or actually enjoy your cup of coffee. Everyone has at one time or another, touched the tips of their index fingers together like Evie Garland in Out Of This World, hoping for time to freeze; I gather my memories there, of people (and pets) dead or gone and we all hang out on rooftops shooting rubber bands at zeppelins, drinking absinthe, with a million hit points and maximum charisma.

For me, that will be heaven. Wasting time.

-kam

PS- I know my entries have strayed from, you know, actually talking about the music... this will change back, though I did warn you of self-wankery. To be fair, my songs of the week included titles by: Michael Bolton, Serial Joe, and Take That.

Buy the album that this song is on!

The year has started with me walking towards a job that isn’t really going anywhere before I start a course (whichever course I choose) that might not take me anywhere. You never know….

What I do know I can glean out of this job is a little responsibility and a lot of time to listen to music uninterrupted. I love that about working around so much music. There’s always a CD lying around that I haven’t heard, but will love. Or at least will love for the 3 minutes the only good song on the CD is playing.

I’m not the kind of guy who complains about buying CDs with “only one good song on it” (people who do that irritate me – if anyone in this day and age still complains about that, they’re, frankly, what the Germans call “das sucker”); I do complain about bands having one amazing song that they can’t top.

Not McLusky…no, all of their songs are as good as each other. Same goes for My Bloody Valentine. The Coral have a problem with writing really great songs juxtaposed with extremely boring, uninteresting songs.

Scruffs had one great song on an album of like-minded songs that never really match up.

Scruffs - My Mind

I’d give you a quick background, but there’s always a Allmusic for that. It’s not like I’m writing about music here. Let's just say Big-Star-70's-Teen-Angst-Rock.

I'm just using this as an example of a CD I bought in a 3 minute frenzy that didn’t leave me disappointed, but….sated. It never got any better.

So, I’m looking for more uneven CDs, twenty four more three minute songs to fill up 72 minutes in order for my CD to be full. Then, I’ll have to start over.

-kevin

"Wanna Meet the Scruffs?" is a terrible name for an album but buy it anyway!

See, the problem is I don't want to have to say anything vaguely academic or insightful here anymore (not sure that I ever did). See, when one actually puts effort into school, it's rewarding. It's tiresome. I kind of just want to post a new wave cover of 'Funky Town', and talk about the opening montage of 'Revenge Of The Nerds'.

But no, there's always something more. I found a badly kept secret that I'm sure most of you are already in on.

Elizabeth Fraser & Jeff Buckley - All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun

Not helping that I am currently, once again, buried in between seasons three and four of 'Six Feet Under'... here comes this thing, like going through your attic and finding your deceased grandmother's lifetime of correspondence. Kind of makes you view her in a new light.

Or maybe somewhat like hearing a tape recording of yourself from years passed. Saying things your present self cannot conceive. I sounded like Newhart on Red Bull & vodka. But I digress. Depends who is dead, and how.

I can empathize what it's like... doing a duet with a ghost. But not just a ghost in the hackneyed, Boo Berry sense. More with ghosts of potential, of time fading. Of doors slowly closing, things like that.

But it's not about me. It's a fairly rudimentary song- by far neither of their best vocal pieces. Yet there remains something inexplicably comforting or settling within the cloying guitar line. Images of, like, Casey & Finnegan doing a cameo in the Green Forest.

-kam

Buy Jeff Buckley's 'Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk'

Buy The Cocteau Twins' 'Stars & Topsoil'

This song is on neither. As far as I can tell (ie- allmusic can tell me) it is on nothing. Thank you, internet!