Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

shopping

by

I am a bit deflated.

For the record, Radio Shack is Satan. Did you get that? RS = SATAN … Without going into exhaustive detail, the short of it is this: last night i want to my local shack of horrors to pick up some audio cables and a quarter inch signal splitter. After talking for a while to the sales person as i picked out my equipment it became obvious that i was buying things to make up for the fact that i don’t have a digital mixer to run mic and amp signals through. It just so happened that (surprise), the shack had just such a mixer on sale for $99, but at a different location. Biting the bullet solely for the quality of my Blogathon entries, i paid in cash and agreed to pick it up this afternoon. Well, i’ve just now returned from the downtown store sans a mixer, because the mixer had very little to do with anything i’m trying to achieve in my “home studio.” I understand that a lot of instruments and turn tables have a whole ton of RCA Stereo outputs, but i’m a musician and have nothing of the kind, so a mixer with 4 stereo RCA ins and 2 stereo RCA outs just means i need 6 RCA to eighth inch adapters. Did you follow that?


So, the very short of it is that, for the time being, the Blogathon songs will not be recorded in full-quality digital audio as supposed in the last post. Furthermore, if you know anything about home 4+ channel mixers for under $200, please contact me ASAP.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/07/85279554/

by

I’ve been very good this year about buying new records – for the most part, i haven’t. Sure, there was a purchase or two a few months ago, but when my music allowance for the first four months of a year is under $100 you know i’m acting with some amount of restraint. Part of what kept my wallet firmly in my pocket is the knowledge that the past two weeks would see the release of over a dozen records that i was definitely eying up for purchase, and on Monday i picked up a few between AKA and South Street. Here are first impressions, in ascending order of quality:

  • Weezer – Maladroit sounds as though it has years of sonic maturity on last years’ disc even though some of its songs were written before the album went gold. This can safely be traced to Weezer self-producing the disc, which seems to be magic for them (they produced Pinkerton as well). However, the lyrics of these thirteen songs are so sparse and inspecific that their sum total of nearly thirty four minutes could easily be condensed down to a five track EP that would feel weightier than this ultimately empty effort.
  • Wilco – Yankee Foxtrot Hotel is the first record i’ve seen hailed as a second Kid A, only this time acoustic and homey instead of electric and expansive. The album has a high catchy-to-crappy contrast, sometime within the same song, but it’s ultimately too dense to tell much from casual listening.
  • Lauryn Hill – Unplugged 2.0 is an odd record, a double disc of Lauryn alone onstage with just a classical guitar talking as much as she is singing. While the set as a whole is overwhelmingly long and repetitive, songs taken in doses of twos and threes will entirely bowl you over; in case you had wondered, Hill is one of the most talented folk singer-songwriters of our generation.
  • Sheryl Crow – C’mon C’mon has been reviewed as everything from weary to worldy, and the record is definitely a little of both. Crow’s solo lyrics sometimes leave something to be desired, but the arrangements on this record are some of her finest (especial with co-writer Jeff Trott). The few weak spots are entirely forgivable in the face of classic rock gems such as the title track and opener “Steve McQueen.”
  • Sarah Shannon was definitely an enigma to me at this time yesterday, but now she very well might have made my favourite album of the year. The self-titled release from the former Velocity Girl member sounds like PJ Harvey fronting an amalgam of half of a big band and an early Sheryl Crow touring crew. The album’s tracking is impeccable, subtly changing from jazzy songs to more rocking fare, and by the time it’s over you just know you want to hear it again.

    https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85090492/

    • by

    (This is my first article for “Finding Your Voice in Journalism.” It’s supposed to be about something i hate. Note that i took liberties with the timeline to compress the article into the assigned length. Commentary is greatly appreciated.)

    I suspect that as a rule most boys must hate shopping with their mothers. For me, shopping with mom always carried the weary, claustrophobic sensation of being trapped in a space much smaller than the boy’s department. I have always been subject to a special kind of terror: I am an only child, and with my mother as a single parent I really had no choice but to browse the racks with her in tow, thrusting patently ugly garments under my nose for examination and publicly questioning whether or not I needed to buy a larger size of underwear.

    This year I found my nightmare playing itself out in two locations over my Christmas Vacation, both with their own special set of embarrassments. The first seemed simple enough; she had to make an exchange, and I wanted a pair of boot-cut jeans.

    Of course, even my best laid plans go awry when shopping with mom; when I met her at the counter with my pants she proceeded to loudly lament that I was looking a wee bit chubby around the middle on Christmas morning, and that I might be wise to upgrade my accustomed waist size by an inch or two to accommodate my ever-expanding girth.

    Though I neglected to refute her point about my weight-gain, as we edged closer to the cashier I reminded my mother that I had taken the same waist size in jeans since I started high school. Every single pair of jeans in my bureau were of the same dimensions as the contentious pair I was holding. They fit fine.

    “That might be true,” she acknowledged, “but I won’t be the one whining when I get home to find that my jeans don’t fit well.” Never mind that I had tried them on. And, anyhow, “that’s what belts are for,” apparently, buying jeans that are too big for me to start with.

    Since I was the one paying for this purchase, my opinion won out — although I found myself unconsciously sucking in my “gut” as I said hello to the girl behind the counter. As I stepped out of the store with my shopping bag in hand I breathed a mental sigh of relief: one down, one to go.

    Our second spectacular shopping extravaganza took place in the discount warehouse of Syms, where I intended to find a suit jacket to wear on Co-op interviews. “I just need a jacket,” I told myself, “we’ll be in and out in a flash.”

    Alas, it was not meant to be. Before I could even get my bearings amongst the overwhelming aisles of short, athletic, and double-breasted styles my mother had picked out two corduroy suit jackets that looked as though they were only making a brief stop in the store before an engagement at the Salvation Army. My solution to this problem was to brush past her to find my size, but she pursued, claiming that buying a jacket was positively wasteful when I could buy an entire suit instead.

    I begrudgingly agreed with her, if only because she was paying for the shopping excursion. However, in my head I knew that she was prolonging our shopping trip by adding our pre-rehearsed waist-size argument to the already complicated decision between a short and a long cut.

    Sure enough, my “in and out” turned into an excruciating three hour dilemma as I was bounced from size to size, offered peculiar suits with plaid-like pinstripes, and accosted by salespersons who did nothing to detract from my mother’s own general hovering and thoughtful fashion consulting.

    All in all the experience was draining. Yes, there was shouting across the store. Yes, there were heads stuck in-between dressing room curtains. Yes, there was a rendition of the aforementioned waist-size drama. By the time we made it to picking out new shoes (“Might as well!”) and having alterations made (“They’ll do it while we have lunch!”) I found my psyche located somewhere between a thundering explosion and a teary resignation.

    Never mind that I came out of both situations with clothing that looks good on me. All that sticks out in my mind is my absolute terror at entering a clothing store, and the childhood urge to either throw my level-best temper tantrum or to find a circular rack of clothing to hide inside. I know that my mother cares about me, and that she’ll always love me, but that doesn’t mean she had to ask me in a stage-whisper if I had worn out my underwear yet while we were in line at Kohls.

    Or maybe it does. I suppose all of that is what mom’s are for.

    (Any thoughts? Remember, this is being turned in sans the context of my blog, and it’s supposed to express hatred of something and a use of a distinctive journalistic voice. Responses of any kind are welcomed.)

    https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8504516/

    by

    I don’t know what i was thinking, really. First i just wanted to give Amy her Christmas present, then we were going shopping, then we were going to IKEA, and then i decided that it was a good idea because i needed a new cd shelf.

    Little did i know i would come back having spent the last of my Christmas money and in possession of three brand new pieces of furniture, a 20-piece dish set, a half dozen wine glasses, four rose-colored cups, and one new skillet. One minute Amy and i were just following the arrows on the floor of the uber-decor store, and the next i was pushing a shopping cart with one hand and pulling a hand-truck with the other. But, oh, no it doesn’t end there… because, other than couches everything IKEA sells comes unassembled.


    How long does it take a single college student to build a double-width shelf, a six-tiered utility unit, and a waist-high bureau? Approximately 24-hours, taking breaks only to sleep, eat, go to the bank, and watch Momento. Which, actually, was quite a few breaks. I could’ve easily worked right through the night last night, except that i had come upon the hammering bit of the shelf just as my two roommates and two houseguests came upon their sleeping bit of the night. Myself, i was wholly oblivious to any noise being made by my hammer because i had the rather large headphones from the last post on and was being soothed by the folk of Gillian Welch down to the very core of my being. So, it came as a great surprise when an especially cranky Erika emerged from my stairwell to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that the time for hammering had come and gone.

    Around there is where the sleeping-break came into the picture.

    https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/8248519/

    by

    My mother just didn’t understand when i asked for headphones. I wasn’t just asking for headphones, i was asking for serious audio-observance equipment that could double as earmuffs on a cold winter’s day. She got me a pair of petite Sony’s that can be easily compacted and placed into one’s pocketbook.

    Right. That’s what i said.

    So, today we headed out to Best Buy, second only to Kohl’s in it’s sick ability to drain my pocket of all available green-backs (and, conveniently, we had just come from Kohl’s).

    The resulting pair of earphones the size of hamsters (and requisite fistful of cd’s) are highly appropriate; when i have them on i can’t hear anything else happening in the room, even if i don’t have any music playing. Now, that’s a serious pair of headphones.

    Honestly, the first person to market ear-muffs that double as headphones will make an absolute fortune.

    https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/8202287/