Not sure if you guys heard but the new Smoke or Fire album is coming out on February 20th. I have heard the whole thing and its really great. You can download one of the songs here. It’s called The Patty Hearst Syndrome and there is a video to go along with it which I am impressed with as well. It was made by Justin Staggs who made some other Fat Records videos and the first Smoke or Fire video. If you’re curious at all about who Patty Heart was here is the Wiki article on her. When the video is released I’ll post a link to it here.
Oh, and here’s the tracking listing for the album:
1. What Separates Us All
2. The Patty Hearst Syndrome
3. Melatonin
4. This Sinking Ship
5. Irish Handcuffs
6. Little Bohemia
7. I’ll Be Gone
8. Shine
9. Breadwinner
10. Life Imitating Art
11. Cars
12. Folding the Pages
I realized today when looking for photos of Goddard that he actually left New England in 2002. It’s a lot longer than I thought and it made me realize how much I miss that guy. Well that’s about to change. After work today Brett, Al, Bryan, and I are setting off in our rented Dodge Grand Caravan to New Hope, MN. It’s going to be about a 24 hour drive but we’ve got Playstation 2 (specifically God of War) and tons of other ways to entertain ourselves. We might even have an actually conversation between the 4 of us if there’s time, but I doubt there will be.
Monday night we’ll be at the Patriots-Vikings Game in the Metrodome with plenty of tailgating before hand. So look for us on TV, we’ll be the guys with the Patriots gear.
Adam Morrison has been making us laugh for about 2 years now. Who knew he’d catch on so much that he’s even got his own commercials now. I was a little unsure about people comparing him to Larry Bird, but now we know that won’t happen. Bird was also a country boy and I don’t think he’d ever do a commercial like this.
Thanks to clever marketing by EA games we have great quotes like this:
“In the offseason, my moustache and i will drive around in a muscle car solving mysteries.”
These are to be watched multiple times (thanks Jake!)
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on BlankTV which I had heard of before but never really check out. More importantly, I found out they have Avail videos. I really hope music videos in general get better because they really are cool. For instance, (and you can dislike Bright Eyes for plenty of reason), Bright Eyes videos are usually pretty good because they actually put some effort into them.
And the Avail video for West Wye. The singer of Avail actually hops trains to travel around the country and I’m guessing thats what this song is about.
I had heard that Seperate Ways by Journey was one of the worst videos ever made but I couldn’t find any credible sources or rather I couldn’t find a link on Google. After watching it though, I have to agree, it blows.
In July 2001 I told Kelly on her birthday that I’d come and visit her. I took some time putting off booking the flight and being lazy. I realized later I’d have a week off in early September and that would be a good time to fly to San Francisco. I cannot remember the exact or much more about the sites I saw while I was there, but I remember leaving.
A shuttle picked me up outside Kelly’s apartment at 6:00am and once I hopped in I heard on the radio that someone had accidentally flew a plane into a building in New York City. Not believing what was really going on I wondered what was wrong with a pilot that would do something so dangerous. When the news report came on a second time to report two planes had made the same “mistake” I was just hopping out of the shuttle and heading to the terminal at SFO.
Still unphased by what was going on, I got in line with my boarding pass when my cell phone rang. My sister Jen was informing me what was going on and being the impatient person I am I told her that everything was fine and I knew I was flying home that day. Shortly after I hung up, the San Francisco police showed up to shut down the terminal. Everyone went running for any form of automobile they could. I got on a similar shuttle bus I had arrived in and hoped to find my way back to Kelly’s.
Over the next hours and then days I watched every news report and press conference I could. I was trying to figure out how I could get home. I spoke to my dad that afternoon in fact and he informed me “I’ll get in the car and come get you right now.” Things were frantic. Trains, buses, we couldn’t figure anything out. A day or two later I remember talking to Thom and telling him that I might be able to get to Charlotte to which he said “Just tell me what airport you’re at on the east coast and I’ll come get you.”
It must have been around the 15th when by miracle I was able to get to Pittsburgh, my sister Jen being my personal assistant along the way. She checked every flight and it seemed as though she was working around the clock. When I landed that night and talked to her she let me know there was nothing I could do and that she’d got me the last hotel room in the city. That night in the hotel room I watched some tv and realized I hadn’t eaten in a long time. I walked through the hotel parking lots to a diner and bought an apple pie. I sat on the bed in the hotel room and ate the whole thing.
Miraculously the next day I caught a flight to Manchester and my parents waiting for me at the gate. I’m 28 years old now, and it feels very childlike to admit that I’d never been so happy to seem my mom and dad.
This is a story I’ve been meaning to record somewhere for at least a couple of years. That day was awful, not just for me but for thousands of people. While I sat in Kelly’s apartment that first day and heard the audio clip of the people on that last plane banding together something really came together for me. One of the wives had asked her husband who was going to help him get into the cockpit and he replied, “Just some guys who are with me”. There’s a lot of stuff I’m going to do in my life and there’s a lot of I’m going to wish I had done, but I think to myself a lot that if circumstances were different or if that week off from school was a week later that I could have been right there. It scares me. I’d like to think that my parents raised me to be right there with them.
