...nothing today.

I've been busy.

Someday, though.

...a rant (of sorts)

I have a slew of topics I'd like to discuss (the criticism of criticism, the unwarranted hatred of Shakespeare, the evolution of children's films, the paradox of English studies) but since it's Monday I'll try to keep it light.

More overdone than that bad batch of cookies, it's a rant concerning “social networking” sites. I always found humor in giving such a fancy title to sites that are often riddled with glitter graphics and the latest YouTube video of some guy blowing himself with firecrackers. Well, okay, that's more targeted towards Myspace rather than Facebook. Actually, I don't have much of a problem with Facebook.

See, I don't want to say this is “a rant about Myspace” because we've all seen far too many of those, although they're often poorly written and hypocritical. Poorly written because Myspace breeds a sort of disregard for the English language, and hypocritical because nine times out of ten the people complaining about it are guilty of whatever hellfire and brimstone they're preaching.

This is more-so about the “facade” of one's Myspace.

Sure, I'll use myself as an example.

As you can see, I'm a pretty big tool. I'm fairly “in-your-face” about the whole “I'm an English major” thing. I've got all of my fancy quotes from dead (and living) guys, my neat picture of Bret Easton Ellis, my little biography thing. I have Patrick Bateman in my top friends. I've got my English major glasses on. I also have my cleverly placed “Slurms McKenzie” in my heroes to add a bit of zest and humor.

Although I more or less say what I mean and mean what I say on my fancy page, I acknowledge that I could come off as a pretentious dude. That's fine and I can accept that.

But more or less, there's no cryptic bullshit. It's all there in black and white. I don't do much, live with my girlfriend, go to UCF, major in English, write, play instruments. It's all on the table. No attempts to impress you or try to be “personal” or “deep.” All of that mumbo jumbo is saved for the blogs where it's coherent and not in the form of a clever list.

See, that's what I hate (strong word) more than anything about Myspace and the facades that people attempt to create.

Here's am example of the sort of biography I see constantly that boils my blood.:

-Outspoken

-I have the best friends in the world. If you mess with them I'll slit your throat :-)

-I live my life and don't let anyone stand in my way

-Menthols = <3

-Don't push your beliefs on me

-You don't want to meet me

Maybe it shouldn't irritate me as much as it does. I don't know. This is where the whole “lists are the laziest form of writing” thing holds water. This isn't an exaggeration, either. I've seen such things or variations of them many a-time.

I don't understand this facade. What's even more boggling is that people seem to cling to it.

In keeping up with the theme of my own Myspace and blog, I'll do the proper “English” thing and analyze it, line by line.

“Outspoken”

Response: Outspoken, but only on the Internet. Engaging in actual conversation results in a sort of “deer in the headlights” response.

“I have the best friends in the world. If you mess with them I'll slit your throat :-)”

Response: The first sentence, fine. The second? Insecure, sure, although it does coincide with the whole “outspoken” thing.

“I live my life and don't let anyone stand in my way”

Response: I live my life also. I affirm this by checking my pulse every now and then.

“Menthols = <3”>

Response: Congratulations, you're fifteen and you smoke. I'd give you a medal but then I'd have to give one to every underage smoker. I'm afraid, though, making umpteen million medals exceeds our budget.

“Don't push your beliefs on me”

Response: Great. Now what am I going to do with all of these copies of the Bible, Book of Mormon, The Watchtower, Dianetics, and the Qur'an I have lying around the apartment?

“You don't want to meet me”

Response: Congratulations. This affirms everything else I've read. Points for “tying it all together.”

I don't get it.

“People are just stupid, Brent" or "They're just kids and they'll grow up."

Yeah, yeah. I know. I would just love to know where we can find the source and unplug it, destroy it, whatever.

Finally, here's a quote from me, circa the beginning of last semester. It was written as part of a blog project in one of my classes. This particular post had to do with the “modern student” and the adverse effects of the Internet. I just found it relevant:

“Here's the truth: the Internet has fried my attention span.

For example, I'll have the honest intention of studying for five hours and put aside the time for it and everything. But then I realize four and a half hours later that I've done absolutely nothing and gracing my computer's screen to mock me is a blank Word document and the Wikipedia for "Waffle House" (or something equally pointless). I have no issues paying attention in class, but I believe that there is truth to the Internet having a mind numbing effect that plants itself in our heads during our youth.

It seems that as the years go by the quality of how we spend our time online only gets worse. When we were younger people used chat rooms more often and instant messengers to have at least somewhat intelligent conversations. As years went by we began to use Livejournals, Blurtys, and Xangas as somewhere to rant or vent, whether it was coherent or not. Then slowly it all disintegrated into Myspace, where the blogging aspect slowly became less important, and the bulk of importance was placed in commenting each other's pictures and profiles. It's strange how the trends go, and it seems as if this will have quite an effect on the students entering higher education in years to come. I'm guilty as charged for being part of the sites listed above. I am not holier than thou. “

-a slightly younger Brent Barnhart, August 29^th 2008

...on selling out (but mostly lord of the strings)

When I was a wee eighth grader I had the fairly common dream of growing up to be a musician. I carried this dream with me throughout several musical projects and prospects, including but not limited to The Concept, Dustbunny, Lightspeed Academy (as you can see its Myspace has become a sort of playground), and of course, Lord of the Strings.

Lord of the Strings was great because we were playing in a genre of music that didn't really care if you were good or bad. Therefore we were able to prosper.

However, my experience in LoTS gave me some insight in the subject of this post.

“Selling out.”

For those of you not familiar with Lord of the Strings, I'll be brief. In the midst of the hiatus of our “real” band, a friend and I decided to delve into the world of “Wizard Rock,” which was basically a genre of music dedicated to Harry Potter. We wrote our songs in about 15 minutes, recorded them on a computer microphone, and put them online. Slowly but surely we somehow gained a fanbase and played a number of Open Mic nights in which we were the main attraction. Okay, that sounds a bit self indulgent. But honestly, for a month or two we were a pretty big deal. I mean, I signed my first and only autograph. And for any good ol' fans from the Corner who may or may not be reading this, I thank you.

Ben and I had a pretty decent fanbase going with between the Internet and “real life.” It was quite humbling, especially since we were basically just goofing around. After a while, though, we hit a wall. Our number of fans (this is measured in Myspace friends, lame but that's how it goes) leveled off and it seemed that interest was waning. We attempted to analyze the success of other Wizard Rock bands and then assessed ourselves. Musically, we had a good number of them topped. Our lyrics were clever, our melodies were catchy, and Ben was our teenage heartthrob. Where were we going wrong?

And then the dark side of Wizard Rock reared its ugly head.

When you think about the “dark side” of the music business, you usually think of mountains of cocaine and people spraying their fans' blood on the wall and stuff. This, unfortunately, wasn't the case.

There was quite a bit of politicking within Wizard Rock, and we realized that we weren't playing ball. We didn't spout the whole “we're teaching kids how to read” business or the bleeding heart “fight evil” stuff. We were playing music to an audience and enjoying it. We wanted to expand our audience outside of Open Mic night, but couldn't bring ourselves to lick boot and whore ourselves into the Wizard Rock hierarchy. To do so would exert far too much energy and time, and plus it just wasn't worth it.

Plus, we wrote this:
“Gryffindor Party” (2006) Listen to it here.


I just got out of my second class
And I got about an hour or two I gotta pass
Run into the common room, this ain't no joke
I got a couple of pounds of gillyweed to smoke

Cuz my mischief is managed and my homework is done
so I gotsta kick back and have some fun
Harry Potter's in the next room eatin' some candy
Smokin' in the common room sounds just dandy

I pull out my pipe and I pull out my lighter
And everybody's faces get a little bit brighter
Reach my hand down under my bed
And pull out some stuff that I just got from Fred

And Lupin's in here, he's mixin' potions in the back
And I gotta make a deal with Sirius (he's) Black
Gryffindor party, reppin' red and gold
If you're in another house we'll leave you straight up cold

It's a Gryffindor P-P-Party (x a lot)
Cuz we gotta try and stay out of Azkaban

You call her Luna Lovegood I call her Luna Lovegreat
I know she's Ravenclaw so please don't hate
I'll make an exception for girls from Ravenclaw
But you ain't seen what I just saw

But that don't compare to Hermione Granger
In the common room she ain't no stranger
Classy and shy to the naked eye
But she don't mind seein' a naked guy

And poor old Cedric may he rest in peace
It ain't been that long since he been deceased
When them Slytherines don't want to behave
We beat them down infront of his grave

Cuz we gotta keep it real, it's the Gryffindor
Shuttin' wizards out from day to day
So pull out your wand, shoot a spell at me
Dodge, counter-curse, now you're dead (WIZARD PLEASE!)

It's a Gryffindor P-P-Party (x a lot)
Cuz we gotta try and stay out of Azkaban

So no, the cursing and sexual references didn't help our case. Not until typing out the lyrics did I realize how “naughty”/awesome that song was. We actually got to perform it, once. But I'll be damned if our rap wasn't brilliant.

And so when our beloved venue closed we faded into obscurity. It's funny, because no matter how you spin it, the whole “rise and fall” of a band is a pretty accurate archetype. When Ben and I attempted an open-mic night over the summer at a Borders, we could only recall the entire lyrics to one song. We were shadows of our former selves. Granted we never practiced (seriously, NEVER) and hadn't played our songs in something like a year and half, I suppose it was excusable. Although I can picture a similar situation with two guys in their forties with gray mullets, slurring their speech and unable to manage one of their songs before getting booed off the stage. It's funny.

I'll get to my point before turning this post into Uh, I Can't Remember the Words: The Uncensored Autobiography of Lord of the Strings and How We Almost Killed Ourselves, coming to a local bookstore near you, let me get to the point.

Back in the day I wondered how bands like Good Charlotte could attempt to spout that they were inspired by the punk ideals of Rancid and NOFX while they were center stage of the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards. I always thought “Man, if I was a musician I would never sell out like that. Those guys are the biggest hypocrites in the world.”

But then I thought what if (and this is a big fat hypothetical “what if”) I was offered a big fat publishing deal at the hands of the same people who published the Gossip Girl books or something? Everyone wants to be the next Hemingway, sure. But when someone's waving real money at you in order to publish your work, could you honestly say no?

I imagine that comedy actors suffer a similar plight. They start out on the stage and wind up on SNL or something. Some can break the mold, sure. But other get stuck in those roles and just can't break them. They wind up having successful careers, but there's that big “what-if” they didn't take this role or that role? Of course there's the what-if of if not taking such a role meant they never got work in the first place.

It's a sticky situation, indeed. Contemplate that.

Sorry for making this ¾ about my glory days and ¼ about what I actually meant to talk about. I always think the Lord of the Strings story is pretty interesting, though, and one day I hope to write the whole thing out.

...a list

Yes, a list. Arguably the "laziest" form of writing.

Last night I was met with an assignment that talked about how important a title is to a work of fiction or art. We were then asked to name our ten favorite titles (literally the title, not the work itself), whether it be from books, movies, whatever.

This is what I came up with (in no particular order):

A Confederacy of Dunces (novel, Robert Kennedy Toole)

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” (short story, Ernest Hemingway)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (novel, Philip K. Dick)

“A Perfect Day For Bananafish” (short story, J.D. Salinger)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (novel, Ken Kesey)

Pulp Fiction (film, Quentin Tarantino)

God Bless You, Doctor Kevorkian (fiction, Kurt Vonnegut)

The Big Lebowski (film, the Coen Brothers)

American Psycho (novel, Bret Easton Ellis)

The Rum Diary (novel, Hunter S. Thompson)

I tried to do as many as possible that were books. 12 Angry Men qualifies for my runner-up.