EleCivil

Thanks, all! Clearly, I don't hang around here enough - I didn't notice this thread until two days AFTER my birthday. Heh.

Hey, thanks, everybody!

My favorite feminist song is "The Realist" by Brenna Sahatjian. You can download it here: http://ia300127.us.archive.org/2/items/Bre...realist_vbr.mp3 Lyrics: Are we still giving in to our own slavery? Are we still working our lives away for the man who will never have to work Beyond his office fax and phone Beyond his big life built on your time and sweat which he thinks he owns? But NO NO NO Could've sworn we told you no. So LONG LONG ago How many riots incited before you are shown that we don't condone this arrangement How many lives left in ruins before we all change it and step up for humanity still reluctantly trudging through indentured slavery We're indentured via time clock We show up for work and we just take our wills off and we just do what we're told we're grateful for any small chunk of the American gold well you can leave that gold in the ground don't move the factories south or overseas but you can still shut them down We'll turn them all into free houses and schools We'll replace paying bills with the tools that we use to run it all ourselves CHORUS: How's that for naive? And how am I for an idealist? trivialize, dismiss, critique But that's just what they want you to think that if you accept their broken world you're just a realist. And the women are still stuck in To working the same to make less than husband father brother boyfriend Some are still quoting the suffragettes They say, “Come on, women died so men could represent us! So vote, vote vote! We fought for the vote! Vote for all the good men who keep this Titanic patriarchy afloat! or you can vote for a woman who might stand a chance if she plays along if she's got enough class they might let her in... to push their phallosupremecist doctrine You have the right to choose your master Poor substitution for revolution but elections happen faster!” I'm f**king over it. I'm done condoning it. I don't want representation, they never express my kind of dissension We gotta know where we stand Not who we;re supposed to write to when we make each other mad How's that for naive? And how am I for an idealist? trivialize dismiss critique But that's just what they want you to think that if you accept their broken world you're just a realist. You're just a realist. You're just a realist. Edit: Ah, jeez. Just remembered that there's a swear in there. Guess you probably can't use it for school, then. But, on the plus side, it does have the word "phallosupremecist", which is a pretty awesome word.

Oh, cool. When I saw your screen name, I wondered if that was a MewithoutYou reference. I haven't listened to them in a long time, but I used to be really into them. What song is that from? I don't have any tattoos myself, but a friend of mine got "I <3 (my name)" tattooed on his arm as a joke. Heh...I'm always giving him a hard time about that.

Happy birthday, James!

Hey, thanks! Guess I'm officially in the "young adult" category now. Feels kind of weird.

Not sure if it counts or not, but on the Plan-It-X Fest 2004 DVD, the Operation: Cliff Clavin performace at the end. After they finish their song and are doing some standard between-songs crowd patter, a bunch of people with masks run out and hit them with pies. They're all covered in whipped cream and custard, spitting and coughing, and the singer/guitarist yells out "Dude...is this stuff vegan!?" I should also mention "Blood Red Summer" and "A Favor House Atlantic" by Coheed and Cambria. Both great videos.

1 - Spiders. 2 - Crowds/open spaces/unfamiliar places. Yep, arachnophobia and agoraphobia. Someone once asked me which one I hated more, spiders or people. I decided that, in the end, I'd rather be locked in a room with a bunch of spiders than in a room with a bunch of people, because you're allowed to kill spiders. If you start killing off people, though...well, society tends to look down on that. And you need more than a newspaper to do it, usually. Plus, the arachnids creep me out intensely, but the humans give me full-blown panic attacks.

"If you are an idealist, it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway." -Robert Penn Warren "I am a child in my romanticism. I am a flipper baby in my idealism. And admittedly, I cannot look an adult in the eye without laughing." -Joey Goebel, "The Anomalies" "We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." -Charles Bukowski

Hmm...I listened to the soundtrack to Les Miserables once, and thought it was kind of cool, but that's about the extent of my experience with musicals. Well, other than being forced to sit through a few middle/high school productions, which didn't really catch my interest. Though to be fair, I spent most of those shows playing cards in the back of the room with the other "uncultured louts"...which I still contend was perfectly appropriate for a showing of "Guys and Dolls".

Alright, why not? My name is Chris. I'm nineteen, and a college sophomore. I'm the son of a conservative Southern Baptist preacher and raging liberal poet/writer. I call myself a centrist, mainly so I can argue with both of them . It's fun - I know that if I've ever got time to kill, all I have to do is bring up Reagan and watch the ensuing debates rage for hours. I have what might be the worst sense of direction in the history of the world. I've lived in this city my whole life, but still manage to get lost nearly every time I'm in a car. And sometimes when I'm not in a car. I love juggling, reading, and writing. I listen to punk, indie, folk...anything with cracking, off-key vocals and low production value.

This one: http://www.vilimpoc.org/defianceohio/share...This%20Year.mp3 "This Time, This Year" by Defiance, OH. It's my favorite song because of the memories I've got tied to it. I first heard it when I was seventeen, and just out of high school. I didn't really know where I was going, but I found their audio page and loaded all their songs to an MP3 player, then just walked around. Every day, I'd wander around the city listening to their music, getting lost and finding my way back. Then, when I saw them play it live, it was incredible. It was a small, intimate club setting, but a mosh pit opened up for this song. During the hard, loud parts, everyone would jump into each other, knocking each other around, screaming along as loud as we could. Then the slow parts would kick in, and we'd stop, throw our arms around each other for support and just sway into the crowd, who would push us back upright whenever we came close to falling. Then the loud part would kick in again, and we'd be back to moshing. It was incredible, and I think of it every time I hear that song now.

Combat juggling. When you get two evenly matched people/teams, it's the coolest thing to watch. Not a big fan of traditional sports. I follow the Oakland Raiders, though.

Trinity: Yasser AraCat:

Chris Clavin. He sings/plays guitar for Ghost Mice, The Devil is Electric, Operation: Cliff Clavin, and probably a few more bands that I'm forgetting. He also runs Plan-It-X Records with integrity, refusing to sell any album for more than five dollars postage paid ("If it ain't cheap, it ain't punk"). He's also been known to do cool stuff like drive a school bus full of bands across the country playing cheap shows in bars and bookstores or set out on the road as a drifter for months at a time just to prove that he can. With Ghost Mice, he performs without any microphones or amps, just letting his voice do all the work.

That's because Toledo freakin' rocks . *Nods toward signature* When I'm on busses/walking the streets, I've usually got headphones on, so I don't really start conversations - just give people that slightly upward, eyebrow-raised "Hey, dude" kind of nod. I'll take them off if it's somebody I've talked to before, or if they tap my shoulder/look like they want to talk, though. Eye contact is no problem, but I don't start coversations, just because I was raised with "Don't speak unless spoken to" so heavilly ingrained that I never really bothered to learn how. I spent my time learning and practicing responsive small-talk (the correct responses to things like "What's up?" and "Have a nice day", which I've totally got down now, as long as everybody else stays on-script). I wouldn't be surprised if it takes me a few more years to learn how to open a conversation. Until then, thank God for the "people persons" who know all the opening lines and can start conversations for me .

This one- "This Time, This Year" by Defiance, Ohio.

Putting on a funny hat (see: profile pic) and juggling on a street corner, collecting spare change from passers-by.

Likewise. Er, except for the part about Photoshop. I use one of the freeware knockoffs of photoshop...but you know, same difference.

I followed Underthehoodster when he announced that he'd be hosted here.

Pull on whatever clothes happen to by lying on the floor closest to me, stumble outside, walk two miles to the nearest convenience store, buy a bottle of orange juice, and drink it on the walk back. ...You know, now that I think about it, it'd be a lot easier to just buy more than one bottle of orange juice at a time. Man, I'm inefficient.

Yeah, I like Bright Eyes. If you like that but want more of an edge, try his rock band, Desaparecidos, or the band he was in when he was 14, Commander Venus. Well, according to Jack Chick, all rock music (including Christian rock) is actually recorded by Druids who secretly use drum-beats from Pagan demon-summoning rituals to get the listeners possessed by demons. That preacher was probably just trying to strike back against those sneaky Druids. Anyway, back on topic... I've been listening to a lot of acoustic punk lately. Defiance Ohio, Ghost Mice, Rosa, Against Me!, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, stuff like that. Something about the soft, folk-y acoustic music combined with the loud, gravely punk vocals just clicks with me.