Aleatoric: The Best Band that Never Made It Anywhere, Unless You Count the Relay For Life, and You Shouldn't: A Saga

I think I had a really good segue into this story, and I think that the segue probably had to do with the fact that I've been listening to all these CDs I found that I burned in the eighth grade, but I seriously have no idea what that might have been.  I think I thought of it when I woke up from my nap today and thought that I had slept through class, then remembered I didn't?  And then promised myself that I would definitely go to sleep by midnight tonight so I do more in class tomorrow then sit there like an attendance zombie...?  But no.  Here I am at 12:27 AM, and I can't remember my own pre-story story.  So I will just dive straight into it.

So, once upon a time I was in middle school and, as "punky" (hahaha...if you'd known me in middle school you'd know how "punk" I was) preteens are wont to do, I decided it would be the BESTIDEAEVER to form a band.

Now, of course, I didn't really know anyone who played any instruments suited to a girl version of Blink 182....so basically I didn't know a bassist or drummer.  No matter, however, I decided to recruit my friends, who also wanted to be in a band.  If I remember right, Brielle (my best friend at the time) and I had already been writing lyrics together and/or separately in a notebook covered in duct tape (obviously.)  I remember the songs having titles like "Broken" and lyrics like "roses will wither and die away, black and cold, still clinging to their lifeless vine...like we cling to our lifelines." Seriously, that's an actual quote from an actual "song" I wrote in our songbook.  I think I found myself really clever.  Like LOOK everyone, I can tie these things together.  WORDSMITH.

Anyway, Brielle played the cello, and, as Jack Black says in School of Rock, "turn it sideways and CELLO, you have a bass!" Or something.  I can't remember all the School of Rock quotes exactly.

Then there was my friend Taylor. I can't remember if she could already play the guitar when we started this band, but I am thinking no...?  And then she learned almost immediately after and was way better than me, and then I was sad.  But, with my middle school logic and obviously EXCELLENT understanding of how musicians work, I decided that Taylor would be a fantastic drummer, based on the fact that she was "a spaz" and "that's all you really need for drums."  Being the most lovely and accomidating friend ever, she consented.  Lucky for us, my Dad had a drumset in my basement, so we had something to work with.  Luckily, Taylor was not half-bad, not that we ever played any shows with this band.  I can't for the life of me remember what this band was called, but I'm guessing it was something very, very reminiscent of black eyeliner and Hot Topic bondage pants.

Update: To find pictures of us in this band (which performed exactly once, playing All The Small Things at the school talent show) I tried to get on my MYSPACE and found that I had encrypted it pretty heavily, using an alternate email address and the like, because I was not supposed to have a myspace.  Anyway, can't get on there.  Lalala.  I'm pretty sure my email address was something with "marmalade" in the title.  And 182 of course.  For Blink 182.  So you can't see any pictures of us, sadly.  But that's OK because this post, contrary to what you might think, is not about this band.  No no.  It is about the band that sprung forth from this band.

I think what happened was my mom made an inadvertently offensive comment to Brielle's mom, and since we were 13 we decided to get in a HUGE fight over it, and anyways, our band broke up.  I really can't remember any of the details but at the time it was a PROBLEM cause we were headed straight for the top, obviously.

Then I joined the Jazz Band, a somewhat poor decision on my part because there is nothing on this earth that will get me up at 6 AM, except for Jazz Band, apparently, because I was there erryday.  Brielle was also in the Jazz Band, and I wouldn't be surprised if I joined to stick it to her, or maybe our band hadn't broken up yet?  I really don't know.

In any case, I met Katie in Jazz Band.  She played the bass and sat between me and Brielle.  We bonded over a set of Pretty Princess fake nails from the dollar store that reminded us of childhood.  And somewhere along the line after we talked about how much we loved Panic! At the Disco (they weren't even big yet, we'd just heard them on a Fueled by Ramen sampler CD, duh) we decided to start a band.

At this point, I had a friend named Brittany who would sing songs from Wicked and Rent with me in duets regardless of whether they were boy/girl, girl/girl, or originally solos.  She also played the piano a bit.  So we brought her in as keyboards and vocals.  Katie had a friend named Stephany who played the drums, or at least I thought she did because she had a myspace picture where she was playing the drums.  Aleatoric was formed.

Ohhh Aleatoric.  We took ourselves so seriously, had fights that bands that...have fights in hotel rooms...and stuff...could only dream of.

Oh, before I forget, for reference, here are some pictures of us.

This is before the Talent Show when we played "Soul Meets Body"

This is backstage at the concert we played at the Circuit. 

Backstage at the circuit, but not as sad to be there.

Onstage

Probably covering Simple Plan

Might have been covering Death Cab for Cutie

As Aleatoric, we had constant fights over when/where band practice would be.  Sometimes our parents didn't want us out late, sometimes they didn't want us making noise, most of the time we got exactly nothing done at band practice.

However, we got a taste of success and we got it fast. We were going places fo' reals.  First, we got to play the Relay For Life.  My friend Carson's older brother, Larss, was also in a band called Caligo, and out of the goodness of his heart, they asked us if we'd play in the little tent set up in the middle of the football field while people ran and/or speedwalked around us.  So, of course, we did.

If I remember correctly, the Aleatoric setlist went something like this:

1. It Ends Tonight-All American Rejects

2. Soul Meets Body-Death Cab for Cutie

3. Crazy-Simple Plan

4. Broken, and original song that I wrote with Brielle when we were in our old band.  Katie and her bass teacher wrote a bass line and I wrote a couple chords for the piano.  Iiiiiit was a mess.

We learned Helena by My Chemical Romance but we never played it anywhere because we had to switch octaves every other line because it was either too high or too low.  

Anyway, we played Relay for Life, messed up the words to the AAR song, and generally had a lovely time.  

Somehow after our fantastic performance at Relay for Life, Lars got us ANOTHER "show" (I remember talking a lot about "playing shows" like I did it ALL THE TIME when I think we had been together for 3 weeks) at the Circuit, which I think was a comedy club, then a concert venue, now they do plays there or something.  Anyway, it was THE PLACE, in my inexperienced opinion.  We played with 4 other bands and were the only band who 

1. Had a four song set list

2. Played exactly 1 original song

Finally, we played the Talent Show.  The best part of this was Katie's sister worked at Vanity and somehow (I have no idea how this worked) convinced them to let us wear clothes from their store, tags still on, to our performance, with the stipulation that we'd mention everything we were wearing was from Vanity.  There was also talk of doing a show IN THE MALL (Iknowright?!) but that never panned out.

So on the day of the talent show, my Dad, who was pretty much in charge of setting up our equipment, couldn't get work off, but he explained to us how to plug everything in, so we really didn't worry.  We were last, anyway. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't figure out how to make our mics work, so we had to set up for about an hour.  They almost let everyone go home because we were taking so long.  Eventually we went out onstage with one working mic, and you could barely hear us over the music.  But in the meantime, before we went onstage, there were people doing backflips, Katie's sister came up and told everyone we were sponsored by Vanity... I felt like Selena Gomez launching her K-Mart exclusive fashion line, only not really, because she hadn't burst out onto the scene yet, and I wasn't launching a fashion line, and we were playing a Death Cab song in a middle school auditorium.  But whatever.

Eventually we broke up.  I think it was a combination of lack of motivation, inability to write songs together, and being 14.  The world will little know nor long remember how totally awesome and bitchin' Aleatoric was, but they can never forget their great outfits, courtesy of Vanity.

Kahlil Gibran and an analogy comparing reading Dickens to running at a waterfall

I love Kahlil Gibran.

I have loved him since I was in middle school and came to visit my Grandma at the Matheson Courthouse for Career Day (I didn't really want to work at the courthouse, I just wanted to hang out with my Grandma because she loves me the most.)  There was a guy working doing I don't even know what who had the coolest sleeve tattoo, and winding around his arm was this quote.  I wish I could remember which quote it was now, but I remembered he said it was from a guy named Kahlil Gibran.  So of course I went home and looked him up and I've loved him ever since.  Kahlil Gibran is awesome.  He is the third best-selling poet of all time behind SHAKESPEARE and Lao-Tzu.  Suffice it to say, the guy can write.

Today I was trying to read Hard Times on my Kindle (and having a "Hard Time(s)" of it, amiright?) and I decided to take a break and for some reason that break led me to read some of my favorite pieces of Kahlil Gibranese wisdom.

Here are some of my favorite Kahlil Gibran quotes:

"Poetry is a great deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."

Seriously, I don't think there's a better way to describe poetry.


"Love is trembling happiness."

I just think this is a pretty image.

And finally, one of my favorites:

"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. "
How true is this?  Things go sour after a while, and we can't truly mourn that which we've never known, so when we know true sorrow it is because of the loss of something that once gave us joy.  I'm not as articulate as Kahlil, even restating his points, clearly.

Anyway, just thought I would share with you guys.  Are you feeling inspired now?  I hope so.  I, for my part, am not that inspired, or at least, not inspired to do what I SHOULD do, which is either a) read Hard Times or b) go to bed.  Not like I wasn't forewarned.  I took an entire Dickens course from this Professor before, and this semester he told us that reading Dickens is like running at a wall of water.  If you go full speed it will smack you in the face, but if you take you're time you'll be fine.  AND I STILL DIDN'T LISTEN.  Anyway.... adios.

Dramatic Poem written from my Cold Bedroom on an October Evening

Decided to take a five minute break from my Titus Andronicus essay to write a blog...couldn't think of anything to write, wrote this poem real quick.  Hopefully it is not the worst poem ever (clearly I do not think it is the worst EVER or I wouldn't post it.)

I think I am going to call it, "Dramatic Poem written from my Cold Bedroom on an October Evening"


The feeling you get when you realize
Those you thought you knew, you don't:

You see it in the way that dust settles on your dresser
When you swept it away an hour ago,
And you realize your life is covered through and through
In a fine layer of grime no matter what you do.

And you think, how can it be so?
I'm disorganized, distressed, distrustful
But I am water in a shell of skin
Surely I can cleanse myself of this memory of sin...

But you give up because all things considered
At the end of the day
Though your heart is dirty and grey
Some things you don't want washed away.

Keepin' It Positive (Sasha Fierce)

Sometimes, you have a bad day.  I know, readers, you're all, "what?! That happens to people?! Those poor people."

Anyway, there are many, many things I do when I have a bad day.  Sometimes I go to McDonalds with Colton and MayLynn and we eat hot fudge sundaes and Colton makes me sit in a line of sight with a McDonalds worker that he says was checking me out, and we try to eat seductively with our plastic spoons so that if he looks over he will be uncomfortable.

Sometimes, Colton sends me Beyonce songs over facebook and I listen to the same one like, 100 times because it is the best and she is SOOO Sasha Fierce (a term that Tess and I coined when her album, I Am Sasha Fierce came out--it means she is strong and takes no crap from nobody!)

Annnnnd sometimes I think instead of being negative, I will make a blog about all the things I am loving right now.

And so here it is, the blog about things I am loving right now!

* The fact that it's raining right now.
* PUMPKIN EVERYTHING!!

THIS STUFF

Reeses Pumpkins...because the best Reeses are seasonal, shaped Reeses.

Vegan Pumpkin Mac

Pumpkin Hummus

She is the cutest and the best.

* New Girl!  This season is so good!

* And in that vein...Zooey Desch and everything about Zooey Desch!

* Writing!  I am getting some really good writing done and I am loving the drafts I'm turning in.

* Nanowrimo is coming up SOON!  I really want to finish this year.  We'll see how busy I am.

* All the new movies coming out!  Especially Cloud Atlas.  I really want to see that.

* Pitch Perfect... I've seen it not once, not twice, not even three times, but FOUR TIMES.

* Tattoos in these places:

* These songs:

* This

Oh, and this.

* Getting to use my space heater

* Playing D&D every Sunday

* The way Sardine Canyon looks right now when you drive through it

* Taking hot showers when I'm stressed out, or reading a book in the bathtub...which is what I'm going to do now.

Love you all!!

Manifestoconfessional. It's like Dashboard Confessional, only not at all like Dashboard Confessional.

I'm a little bummed out because I was thinking of what to write in this Manifestoconfessional, then I got in the shower and forgot it all.  Iknowright?  Stupid.

So anyway, on Sunday night I had a friend over and we were talking about our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) to my roommate and good friend, MayLynn.  Or I guess I could say he was mostly talking and I was saying affirming things like "me too" and "yes."  But regardless, today when I was in my room, I heard my other roommates talking about how they "wished I wouldn't talk about my beliefs in the living room."

At first, I found this really funny.  Then I was a little bothered by it.  I know I shouldn't have been.  It's just a fact of life that when you have different beliefs from the general population, some people are going to resent them, and by extension, you.  I was bothered because they get to air their beliefs whenever and wherever they want, and they are praised for "spreading the word," whereas when I talk about what I believe, I get shut down, some people don't want to talk to me any more, and there's a general feeling of discomfort even among those who are more accepting.

However, instead of shutting me down, actually experiencing a little piece of this disdain for the first time (or I should say, for the first time with people I don't really know or care about) only spurred me on to say what I want to say and just let the chips fall where they may.  Hopefully those of you who are reading this are open minded enough to realize that religion, like sexuality or whether or not you like green beans, is really, truly, nobody's business but your own.  Whether someone believes in God, many Gods, no God, or doesn't know what they believe it should in no way affect how you treat them, how you perceive their morality, or whether or not you get to know them.  Religion is personal and private, and for some reason we as a society refuse to let it stay that way, to the point that I have to write something like this, though I hardly think I need to justify myself, to explain what I believe just to get it out there in the open and see who can deal with it and who can't.

It's important to know, first of all, that I grew up in an interesting family dynamic.  My mom is a Mormon, but my dad is Atheist.  I actually consider myself very lucky to have grown up this way.  It allowed me to see vastly different sides of the religious spectrum.  Additionally, I already had a very inquisitive personality, and I was never quick to accept that something was true just "because it is."  I was never OK with just hoping for an explanation, I wanted to know.  Having two parents with beliefs that differed in the extremes only made me more curious.  I'm grateful for that.

That's not to say that growing up torn between two "extremes" wasn't difficult.  I wanted to make both of my parents happy, like most children.  However, my mom was the one who got to decide our religious upbringing, and she raised us Mormon.  Of course, I had all of the Mormon guilt that comes along with being human, or as I've often heard people described, "the natural man."  However, I was never quite as guilty as I "should" have been in order to be a "good" Mormon.  Sure, I felt bad when I had thoughts pertaining to anything against the Word of Wisdom, and when I swore, sometimes I felt a little regretful.  But overall, my inclination against being told what to do and a universal, objective morality kept me from really, truly squashing my desires.  I've heard it said that some people just do what they do out of fear of being punished.  I think that I lost that fear at a young age, at least when it came to church.

The older I got, the more I got the feeling that church didn't really hold anything for me.  I remember skipping Seminary in middle school to walk home to eat lunch because I felt so uncomfortable trying to express opinions that I didn't share just because I was expected to by the teacher.  I remember pretending to be sick every Sunday so I wouldn't have to go to church and being so excited when I finally got a job that would require me to be at work during our meeting time.  And I remember being fourteen or fifteen and changing my myspace (I know, right) page to say that I was "agnostic," because at the time I was still afraid to question religion beyond simply the existence of one "correct" religion.  I thought that organized religion takes up too much of people's time and dictates too many of their opinions for them.  The more I saw people get in to organized religion, the less individuality I saw.  That always really bothered me, especially since, though Mormonism claims to be "the one true religion"  there were huge, HUGE parts of Mormon doctrine that I fundamentally disagreed with (particularly their views on women's roles and marriage.)  I wondered what the point was of belonging to a church that I couldn't be behind 100 percent.

Anyway, my mom found my myspace (because this was middle school/early high school, and that was still a thing that happened...moms found your secret myspace pages) and I got in a LOT of trouble for having put "agnostic" as my religious preference.  I understand now that she just wanted what she perceived to be best for me--to be part of a religion that she thought (and thinks) is pure truth from a divine creator.  I also remember her saying "does this mean you don't believe in God?" It was the first time I let myself really form that thought in my head.  I was too scared of what it would mean if I didn't believe in God to let myself pursue the idea further.

During high school, my mom basically gave up on trying to make me go to church.  I was no longer even asked if I wanted to go to girls camp, and no one made me take seminary.  I don't know to this day how I got off scott free, but I managed it.  Throughout all that time I played with the idea of the non-existance of God, I even talked about it with one of my friends.  Any time I brought it up, though, I was shut down.  It was pretty lonely, and I tried to push it back as much as possible.  I genuinely thought that there was no way for me to be happy if I didn't believe in God, and I felt so sorry for my Dad that I often cried because I was sure that he must be so  miserable, knowing there was nothing to look forward to after death.

In college, I lived with my best friend, Tess.  She, like me, had had some issues with the church.  I felt we were really on the same page--that is, we both assumed that we were Mormons at heart that just couldn't accept the full truth of the gospel yet, and obviously we'd go back to being Mormons in the end, but for the moment we wanted to do whatever we wanted to do without regard to religion.  I believed that, to an extent, or at least, it was easier to believe it when she was around.  Secretly, though, I knew I wouldn't ever go back, and I feared that if and when she did it would sever all ties between us.

By the time we got into our junior year, I knew from enough research (which I had been assured by multiple persons was blasphemous--there's always something wrong written about the church on the internet for you to find, apparently, even if that "something wrong" is scientific fact...) and enough personal feeling that I was no longer willing to accept anything that could not be conclusively proven to me until such a time that it could, in fact, be tested and proven true.  Unhappily, that included the idea of a deity.  Still, with no one I felt like I could talk to, I kept my mouth shut.

I have been so lucky in this last year.  Tess moved out and is going on a mission, and I'm happy she's happy. I miss her all the time and still love her to death.  However, when she moved out we both got to grow and develop into more full versions of ourselves.  With more or less no one left in Logan that I knew from my formative years, I felt more comfortable delving deeper into feelings I had previously left unexplored.

Then, in the last couple of months, I met a person who shares my beliefs, and is free and open and willing to talk to anyone who will listen about those beliefs.  Seeing that kind of "eh, whatever, this is who I am, deal with it" attitude made me feel better about expressing myself.  It's always nice to know you have an ally.

So before now I've only let a couple of people in on my dirty little secret.  Really, I shouldn't have to tell anyone, unless they ask.  But such is the way of the world.  Again, I am so lucky.  No one I've told that really cares about me has shied away from a friendship with me just because we are different.  We can respect one another and focus on all the many thousands of things that make us who we are instead of the one stupid, insignificant detail that everyone seems bound and determined to get stuck in their teeth.

I could really go on and on and elaborate on this post forever, but as I have a midterm tomorrow, I feel like I should probably just call it a night.  To whoever is reading this, don't be afraid to question what you know.  If you don't question and search beyond your comfort zone, how will you ever know for sure what you believe?

Sometimes, it's 7:45 in the morning and you have to write a poem because you haven't slept yet.

Sometimes me and Nate write a poem by flipping a coin and having the heads or tails person write the next line, then flipping it again.  Sometimes I have to write 1000 lines in a row.  But then Nate has to write 200 lines in a row so it's fine.

Sometimes this is the poem we wrote:

Strings

But tight, I am strung through the room so bravely

But soft, my chest is strung up to your rising sun

You are my morning

Do I dare to rise, share the light?

Or cloud over, could I even lock myself up so dark and so tight?

But stop, think of the sky to cover

Your horses are tired and so are mine

And you are not Apollo

Thoroughly labored, pretty and petty

Unable to swallow my treason

Forgetful, unable, revived and unstable

So wretched in thinking my friends are the reason

What is true, what is myth

Who can say for certain?

Honestly, I tried once before

Though my score was settled, I ached for more

Fuck you, Jekyll

I've no reason to Hyde

I'm both monster and man, God and Godless

So brave in my pursuit of you, truth, time

This vague repetition reminds me of rhyme

But why asked the heckler I tried to repress

Why can't I detach these strings from my chest?

Surprise, you won Tic Tac Toe!! : A new game from the makers of the game where you throw the ice into the hole in the soda machine at U6

Today at work, I taught my roommate slash bestie slash work colleague MayLynn how to play Ultimate Tic Tac Toe.

For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Tic Tac Toe involves drawing a tic tac toe...square? Board? Whatever you want to call it....inside each of the squares of a large tic tac toe square/board/whatever you want to call it.

Now, before today I had played Ultimate Tic Tac Toe precisely one time, but for some reason, I thought I was totally awesome at it.  Not the case.  Or I guess yes the case, but MayLynn and I were perfectly evenly matched.  Or perfectly evenly bad?  Whate'er.

Then the most beautiful thing happened.  It just exploded out of my brain and onto paper.  We looked at the ceiling and on the count of three wrote three x's or o's on a paper, then looked down to see who got the most.  Surprise, you won Tic Tac Toe!! was born.

We refined it over several game playing sessions.  First, you must rotate the paper with the tic tac toe on't while looking directly into your opponents eyes.  After the first round where you draw 3 x's or o's, you may only draw one per round.  You must draw your x's and o's at the same time as your opponent.  You may not break eye contact for any reason.

I don't know if I am properly conveying how fantastic this game is.  Anyway, here's a picture of what it looks  like compared to Extreme Tic Tac Toe.  As you can see, we are evenly matched in the Extreme version, but X (me) is clearly better at randomly writing on a piece of paper without looking.