Stumptown + Overconsumption + I'm Starting The Next Counterculture Movement + The Beatles

As I was driving home from my internship today, I knew I needed to do something with the afternoon. My life has been in dire need of some good thinking lately. I can't function without thinking (and often writing) things out, and I'd been neglecting that lately, which is probably why things have been crappy. I can't just hang out in my room because I can't concentrate for this sort of activity here (although blogging works, as you can see), and I wanted to go outside somewhere, but of course stupid Portland weather.

So I ended up at Stumptown Coffee, an increasingly frequent haunt of mine. I tried out the original Southeast location today, and of course it was excellent. Then the weather had cleared up a little bit, so I stopped at Laurelhurst Park on the way home because I'd wanted to go there for a while. I'd heard it was a nice park and had driven by there all the time, but the main thing that had me wanting to visit is that I found out that it's the park Don Miller references as "the park where the lesbians walk their dogs" in Blue Like Jazz. I didn't see any lesbians walking dogs, but I fell in love with the park. I can definitely imagine Don Miller hanging out there. I have a feeling I will go there a lot this summer.

Speaking of which, I'm also now the owner of a June Trimet pass. Considering I went through nearly 3/4 of a tank of gas in 8 days, I threw the towel in. It's going to take a good deal longer to get to the internship, but it'll be an adventure. And I've been very fed up with our ridiculous culture of consumption lately, so this is one part of my rebellion. Every night the news feels the need to comment on the gas prices, but has there been any sort of movement to change our cultural habits? No. If you haven't noticed, nearly every other nation and definitely any European nation pays a hell of a lot more for gas than we do. They have a ton of added taxes and all to discourage people from driving. Good for them! Coincidentally, they live close to where they work, walk to work, walk to the grocery store, etc. What a novel concept. I'm afraid our culture may be too far gone for this total idea, but we've got to change some.

This so conveniently leads me to my next rant of the day. Apparently they're opening up a museum to commemorate Woodstock. I want to make a pilgrimage there. But in the meantime, this just got me going again about how awesome that experience must have been, then how incredible the 1960s were period. And then there's our generation. We don't even pay attention to what's happening in the world, let alone care enough to make a difference in it. I don't care how idealized the generation in the 1960s was, at least they cared. I can't take it anymore. I want to do something. Sarah's on board with me. We're starting a movement. I feel the strong need to call up Conor Oberst because he would totally be on board with us. Unfortunately he didn't have the respect to meet us when we tried that last year, so I don't have his phone number (and of course he would have given me his phone number if we would have met...). So I guess this one is on me and Sarah as of now.

I may be kidding about the Conor deal, but I'm not kidding about trying to do something. Something has got to freaking change. I can change my personal habits (which I think I already have quite a bit in my shopping habits and transportation habits), but I think I need to try and have more of an impact in other ways too. I cn make a difference, but I need to impact others as well.

Speaking of impacting others (things are flowing so wonderfully tonight), I am so incredibly overly obsessed with the Beatles right now. I'm 600 pages into the 850-page biography I've been reading for the last few months. It is such a fascinating story. Whether or not you're an incredible fan of their music (which how can you not be?), the story is just incredible. If one tiny thing had been different, the world today would be so much different. The story is just miraculous in the way that John and Paul happen to get introduced to each other, Brian Epstein goes off on a total limb in deciding to be their manager, about 50 record labels reject them repeatedly before Brian begs EMI to let them on. And the story goes on.

But I'm now to the point that they're making incredible leaps in the record studio. They wrote great songs early on in their career without a doubt, but it's nothing like the stuff that starts happening from Revolver on. They pioneered so many huge techniques in the studio, and music would be totally different today without them.

I'm sure I'll devote many more posts to this topic, but I should be off to bed. I'm currently listening to, "I"m so tired, I haven't slept a wink. I'm so tired, I don't know what to do...I'm so tired, my mind is set on you."

LB