The Vampire Club

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Since I only had one album by Voltaire (The Devil’s Bris), I decided to see if the iTMS had any available, as they’ve been doing a rather remarkable job of expanding their underground/goth/industrial/anything non-mainstream collections. It turns out they had two others in addition to The Devil’s Bris: Boo Hoo and Then And Again, both of which I snagged.

Some of the songs I’d heard already, either at the_vogue (Future Ex-Girlfriend, Caught A Light Sneeze) or at his show last year (Goodnight Demonslayer, a beautiful lullaby to his son). Others I hadn’t heard yet, including a new favorite: The Vampire Club.

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Wal-Mart Sics Secret Service on Student

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Need another reason to stay far, far away from Wal-Mart? Or maybe another reason to be disgusted with the culture of fear and repression of political dissent in the country? Be glad you’re not this high school student.

Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.
But that’s what happened on September 20.

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights,” she says. One student “had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb’s-down sign with his own hand next to the President’s picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.”

According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent. But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect.

An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.

Is this really the country we want it to be? Sadly, it’s the country the voters asked for.

(via seagoth)

God’s Total Quality Management Questionairre

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God would like to thank you for your belief and patronage. In order to better serve your needs, He asks that you take a few moments to answer the following questions.

Please keep in mind that your responses will be kept completely confidential, and that you need not disclose your name or address unless you prefer a direct response to comments or suggestions.

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The Rhythm of Life

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Many, many years ago (though not in a galaxy far, far away), I spent ten years as a member of the Alaska Children’s Choir.

Originally founded by Renda Horn and Julie Baxley in 1979 as the Anchorage Girl’s Choir, the Anchorage Boy’s Choir was formed a few years later as a sibling organization, and I was one of the founding members. The two eventually merged into the Anchorage Girl’s and Boy’s Choir, and over the years became first the Anchorage Children’s Choir, and eventually the Alaska Children’s Choir.

The founder and director for many of the years I was in the choir was Renda Horn, a wonderful, energetic woman with more life bottled up inside her than most other people I’ve ever known. She had a great love of both music and children, and was able to use these to corral a bunch of children into an internationally award winning children’s choir — and those of us in the choir were as fond of her as she was of us.

One year, probably around 1986 or ’87, the choir went on tour through England. I don’t remember the full itinerary anymore, but I do have quite a few good memories of the trip; from exiting a station on the London Underground to emerge practically at the base of Big Ben and being able to gaze up at it glowing golden in the sunset on a sunny evening, to one of the other choir members accidentally pulling the handle off of a cathedral door and being momentarily panicked when my father (who was chaperoning the trip) reminded him of the “you break it, you buy it” rule.

My strongest memory of the trip, though, revolves around a single song. Our show-stopper piece that year was a song called “The Rhythm of Life” — fun lyrics, an upbeat tempo, and a gorgeous arrangement that made every part fun to sing had quickly made it a favorite, and we’d all become quite fond of ending our concerts with this number.

We’d been doing quite a few performances over the course of the trip, were nearing the end of our stay in England, and emotions had been running a bit high as looking forward to returning home battled with the excitement of visiting a foreign country. One of our final concerts was in a little church in some town (whose name I have long since forgotten), and somewhat unusually, was a short performance during the church service — it may be that Renda or one of the other choir members had relations in this town and was able to set up this special performance, though I’m not entirely sure.

We sang a short selection of the pieces in our repertoire and, as had become standard, ended with “The Rhythm of Life”. We were all arranged on the steps in front of the altar, and as the song progressed, the clouds that had been obscuring the sky that morning parted, sending warm golden light through the windows of the church. The church building itself seemed to be acoustically perfect, taking our voices and wrapping them around us and the congregation and on up into the rafters and beyond. Renda’s smile grew wider as she watched “her kids” give the performance of a lifetime that day. Her eyes started to glisten, and soon started to overflow with tears of pure joy in the moment — and by the end of the song, most of the choir had joined her (and I’m not at all ashamed to admit that nearly twenty years later, I’m getting a bit misty eyed reliving the memory as I write this down).

We got a standing ovation that day — no small feat, given the stereotypical British reserve combined with our performing in the midst of a C of E service — and while the choir has received many standing ovations over the years, in my mind that has always been, and always will be, the standing ovation.

The Rhythm of LifeOver the years, that song (and that day) has popped into my head from time to time, nearly always guaranteeing a smile, no matter what I’m doing. This morning I came across an incredibly clever ad from Guinness (6Mb QT .mov, linked to the right) that uses an arrangement of “The Rhythm of Life” as its music track. Noticing a few differences in the lyrics from what I’d learned, I went searching to see what I could find out about the song.

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A few general updates on life

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I haven’t really done one of these in a while, so I figured it was about time.

I’m about two weeks into the new job, and it’s going pretty well. I’ve never seen myself as a salesperson, so it’s definitely taking some getting used to, but I think I’m starting to get it down — at least, being able to sell two cameras yesterday helped my confidence a bit. Cameras are probably one of the few things aside from Apple computers that I even could sell without feeling somewhat dirty afterwards, though — trying to sell something I didn’t like or care about just wouldn’t work for me.

Of course, there are pros and cons to mall jobs. For instance, the schedules can be very flexible…which will be nice once school starts and I’m working around classes. Right now, though, while we’re re-adjusting around a new hire who didn’t work out, my expected day off today has instead become a 11am-8:30pm shift. Not a major catastrophe (I’m flexible enough right now to be able to do it, and it’s a few more hours), I just won’t get the cleaning I was planning on doing today done until later on this week.

Also — while Prairie and I were planning on going to Alaska this Christmas, it looks like that won’t be happening after all. Initially I was planning on leaving Kinko’s in late December, spending a week or so in Anchorage over the holidays, and then getting a part-time job to go with school starting in January.

The more-sudden-than-I-expected departure from Kinko’s and subsequent acquisition of a retail mall job just a couple months before the Christmas rush has changed our travel plans. It’s just not realistically possible to expect to be able to get much time off at all over the Christmas shopping season, so we’ll be staying here in Washington after all, and we’re looking at coming up in the summer instead. A bit of a bummer, but that’s just how things have worked out.

Other than that, things pretty much progress as usual. My posting frequency here has certainly slowed down as I re-adjust to not just living with someone, but living with someone I’m dating. When Prairie was still living in Ellensburg we’d chat via iChat each evening, which made it very easy for me to multi-task, browsing the web and tossing posts up here while we were talking. Now that we’re both in the same apartment, I’m spending a lot less time in front of the computer (gee, imagine that!). We’re finding the balance point to make sure that we both get our respective “me time” (which, in my case, generally involves sitting in front of the ‘puter), but for the moment, I’m pretty much perpetually behind in my reading and keeping up with what’s going on in the world. So it goes!

And…that’s it for now. Gotta get going on that whole getting-ready-for-work thing…

The Ten Commandments of Clubbing

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Originally written by sirriamnis:

I. Thou shalt have thy ID.

I don’t care if the staff knows you. I don’t care if you know the owner. I don’t care if you’re fifty. I don’t care if you’re the Pope. ID. You must have your ID on you when you are in a bar in the state of Washington. And if you don’t have it, why not? Didn’t you know you were coming to a bar?

II. Thou shalt get out of the bar staff’s way.

If you see someone coming toward you carrying a bunch of glasses, a bus tub or a mop, do not just stand there in drunken puzzlement and awe. MOVE! Oh, and moving an eighth of an inch in one direction or another is not moving. Get the fuck out of the way.

III. Thou shalt not dance with cigarettes.

It does not make you appear sultry, alluring or continental. At best you look clueless and white trash. At worst you look like an inconsiderate jerk who doesn’t care if they burn someone or ruin someone else’s clothes.

IV. Thou shalt not tip badly or not at all and then hit on the bartender.

Because of what we do for a living, we do judge people on how they tip. If you tip one of us a quarter or not at all, don’t bother hitting on us. If you don’t think enough of us to tip, you obviously don’t think enough of us to date us. We’re just going to humiliate you publicly. This is a special exemption to Commandment IX.

V. Thou shalt not interfere with the bouncing staff.

When throwing someone out, the bouncers are doing their job. Do not argue with them because the person they are throwing out is your friend. You are not a lawyer, and they don’t care. And if you are a lawyer, you should be smart enough to know A. when your buddy is being a drunken ass, and B. That Washington State grants businesses the right to refuse service to anyone, as long as their decision is not motivated by race, gender, religion or sexual preference.

VI. Thou shalt not make inappropriate song requests.

Do I go to country and western bars and demand they play the Sex Pistols? No. Do not come to a Goth/Industrial club and request the Dixie Chicks. And especially do not get huffy when the DJ laughs in your face. He probably assumes you’re joking. You’d have to be, right?

VII. Thou shalt not drink on the dance floor.

See Commandment III and think about spills and broken glass on the floor under your feet in those thin-soled shoes. Besides would YOU want to wind up wearing anyone else’s drink? I thought not.
Sub-commandment: Thou shalt also not set thy drinks on the dance floor for the same reasons.

VIII. Thou shalt not touch others without permission.

One would think this to be unnecessary and self-explanatory, however the number of clam heads that have to be thrown out for this says otherwise. Apart from being rude and demonstrating what a completely classless fuck you are, in Washington State groping, pinching and other unwanted sexual contact are considered Sexual Assault and they will put you in the Pokey for that.
Also, do not assume because someone lets other people touch them that this gives you the green light as well. If you don’t know that person, HANDS OFF! And I don’t care what they are wearing.

IX. Thou shalt take no for an answer.

Persistence is annoying in puppies too. When a girl/guy says they’re not interested, pick up your wounded pride, go off to lick your wounds, and try again with someone else.
Also, making a nasty rejoinder to someone who was kind or neutral while brushing you off does not make you appear witty, funny or more desirable. It makes you look like a great, big, steaming pile of shit.
This goes both ways. If someone works up the courage to hit on you and you are not interested, a simple no will suffice. Anything more mean-spirited than that and you have crossed the line into cunt-dom and deserve all the verbal abuse you get.

X. Thou shalt leave at closing time.

The ugly lights of harsh reality are on.
The bar staff are clearing drinks and glasses.
This is not up for debate.
Do not argue.
Do not resist.
Just get your shit and go.

All of it seems pretty obvious to me, but I can’t count the number of times when I’ve wished that more people had these in their head. Bunch o’ savages in this town….

Birthdays Yay!

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Much fun last night!

While Prairie stayed home to sleep (and sleep, and sleep) after finally finishing off a two-week-straight stint of work, I headed out to Captiol Hill for eckstacie‘s birthday party. Got to her apartment around 6:30-ish or so, met up with some people I’d already met (surviving_moth, oblique_ref, sgtjesse, spookygrrrly) and some I’d not met before (art_geek, dyslexia, and others whose names I’ve spaced on and whose LJ accounts I didn’t snag, if they have such), and had a very pleasant evening sitting around, talking, and generally being silly.

As the evening wore on, we moved the party down to the_vogue, losing a few people along the way until it was just myself, Sam, April, Elizabeth, and Ellen — “Four girls and a man in a skirt!” We snagged a spot by the couch near the sound booth, and I bounced over to say hi to gracesine and rainfromheaven. On the way to the club I’d called xementio to let her know that we were on the way, and she showed up a while later, so I got to introduce her around and show her the Vogue for the first time (yay for new Alaska transplants!).

Later on Kris, Suzanne, and Noreen showed up, and then Jillian (who I’d met and flirted with a bit months ago) and her boyfriend (er…Chris?). I actually got to be a social butterfly last night, bouncing around with all the people I knew there! I haven’t really been able to do that since I left Alaska, but my social circles are finally expanding enough to allow me to do so…quite a lot of fun (“You’re such a flirt!” Melissa said at one point).

Eventually, of course, I had to wander on — due both to having to work this morning and promising Prairie that I wouldn’t stay out too late — and so I made my goodbyes, came home, and fell into bed.

All in all…not bad. And one last Happy Birthday to Sam! Yay birthdays!

IN’s Reproduction Bill Yoinked

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Indiana’s “Handmaid’s Tale” bill has been pulled.

A controversial proposed bill to prohibit gays, lesbians and single people from using medical procedures to become pregnant has been dropped by its legislative sponsor.

State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: “The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.”

(via Terrance)