Lady Gaga

I officially love her.

Her music is pop with a dark kinky undertone, and I can listen to it without hating myself for liking it. She is absolutely fabulous, the best thing to happen to pop since Madonna back in the day. Lady Gaga has the most incredible fashion sense - it's like burlesque collided with Thierry Mugler, 20's theater, David Bowie, and a million other influences. It is bizarre and jolting, and I love the way it throws me off-kilter and generally surprises.

Oh yeah, and her music is nifty, catchy, and I will absolutely love listening to it now and in the future.

New York represent! :)

One bacterium at a time...

I have been working from 9 AM till 2 PM nonstop. I've grown some E. coli, made 2 sleeves of plates (like petri dishes; what you grow bacteria on), mixed up 2 kinds of buffers, labeled a bazillion tubes, added buffers and E. coli to the tubes, osmotically shocked them (grown in high-salt environment, you plunge them into low-salt environments) at regularly timed intervals, and plated them. So, now I have to make more plates for tomorrow and label more tubes and make more buffers.

I put a skull and crossbones on my plates so no one uses them. I didn't stop for like 5 hours because I am science MACHINE.

Last night was sea chanty night. This means Danny and I went to this pseudo-Scottish pub with some friends, get some beer and food, and listen to weird older men with creative conformations of facial hair sing sea chanties. They even have a songbook. Actually, there's this one dude who occasionally comes with his violin (is it considered a fiddle in this case?), and at some point during the evening, whips it out and proceeds to passionately play the instrument much to the chagrin of anyone within earshot. He closes his eyes, brandishes his bow, and moves with his music. And by moves with his music I mean jerks and thrashes around like a spastic chicken. He may suck it hardcore, and I may feel like a nasty young'un for being as tickled as I am, but it's very entertaining.

The sea chanty regulars appear to be primarily older men who look like slightly saggy and swelled up versions of their former Dungeons and Dragons playing selves. I doubt any of them really spent any time at sea, although maybe one or two are scientists who possibly study various aspects of the ocean. Or maybe a couple spent some time in the merchant marines. But the truth of it is, I get the feeling they're indulging their RPG pining in a way that's deemed socially acceptable so their teenage children will continue to talk to them. Some of them have chinstraps (full beards without the moustache), some have moustache straps (full beards without the chin part; I don't think that's what they're called, but men's facial hair coiffure has never been a specialty of mine), there are mutton chops, huge full beards sculpted into a point at the chin, and everything in between. They conjure up fake British/Scottish/Irish accent amalgams to sing. One man brings his own tin flagon from which to quaff his beverages of choice.

It was great.  If I sing along but do it sarcastically, does that make me as insane as they are?  

Musicality

So I highly recommend Anthony Hamilton's album "Soulife" for hot and heavy make-out sessions.  It goes really well with wine, dim lights, and evenings.

Lyrics of the moment.

These are currently my favorite lyrics:

"...So crack a bottle, let your body waddle

Don't act like a snobby model

You just hit the lotto..."

From some Eminem song.  No idea what it's called.  

Concert!

OMG!  One of my favorite bands EVER is going to come to the DC area at the end of March!  They got visas!  

Balkan Beat Box!  

I caught them live once completely by accident in the courtyard at the National Geographic building in DC.  It was a swampy humid DC evening, and Danny and I were wandering around.  I was busy biting my tongue as complaint after complaint over the lack of random bars in DC rose to my lips - "I mean, shit!  What do the people in all the stupid office buildings DO when they're done with work, and want to have a drink before dealing with the hell that is rush hour here?  Or what if they hate their spouses but believe in those 'Marriage works' billboards* and need to self-medicate?  This makes NO sense!  What about people like me who are walking around and want a nice, cold, refreshing glass of booze?  Fuck those newfangled flex fuel cars, I run on ethanol!  etc." - and suddenly, we saw the sign.  

And they were handing out free bottles of water.  Thanks, National Geographic!  

We found a space in the courtyard close to the stage, because damn my eardrums, I have to be close to the stage. I love being sweated on by hot sexy musician types.  When a medium sized crowd was assembled, BBB took the stage by way of a small parade through the crowd wearing masks and playing various percussion and reed instruments.  They warmed up the crowd, and then started to really jam.  Imagine Israeli, Palestinian, reggae, Balkan, and hiphop musical styles had an orgy, conceived a child, and emigrated to the lower east side in Manhattan.  Danny and I got down, because woo!  Jews with rhythm!  Music with an incredible beat!  And dirt and sex and soul and melody and grit!  Of course there were all the new-age world-music weirdos on the side who weren't bumping and grinding, but it was all their loss.  

Balkan Beat Box has possibly the WORST transition from live show to recording I have ever heard, but take my word for it; their shows are huge totally awesome dance parties because they have incredibly talented musicians.  It was funny, reading another blog entry today about music; how a reticence for purchasing unknown musical samplings may be symptomatic of something deeper.  For me, it was symptomatic of being broke and fearing retribution from the music industry as a result of illegal downloads, but now there's Ruckus.  Ruckus is only good if you're enrolled in a participating university (and it isn't compatible with macs!  fuck!), but it's something.  (I fully intend to download enough music during my time in grad school to offset my student fees, at the very least.)

But speaking of musical cautiousness, I have no idea how to get people besides Danny to come to the concert with me because I can't describe BBB music in a truncated fashion.  Actually, when I first got to grad school and I didn't know any better, I tried to get some of my contemporaries (colleagues?) to come to a Gogol Bordello concert with me.  They all glanced awkwardly at their feet and mumbled that Gogol Bordello was "too weird."  Whaaaaaaaat.  Tickets were $15 at the time.  I mean, $15 to go on a wild adventure and see something totally new and wacky and make friends and drink???  But then I learned, and the truth of it is I have very few friends period and absolutely none within my department.  And it all started with me happily broadcasting my musical tastes and the fact that I like things that are neither distinctly American mainstream nor American alternative.  Whoops.

Maybe having conservative musical taste means you don't make people uncomfortable...?  Who knows?  Either way, I will be gittin' down on March 31st to some crazyass music, and I will be sweaty, happy, and fulfilled.  :)

*There really are billboards here along some roads, I-95 included, that say "Marriage Works."  It's not as bad as the random bible quotes further south, but dude.  Dude.  I find it odd, hilarious, and sort of sad... why do they have to advertise?