Don’t You Want My Cats?

Here’s the thing. I have two awesome cats and I really don’t want to get rid them. You are actually lucky that I am even offering these cats to you, so any emotion less than gratitude is honestly going to be offensive.

Here’s the first Cat, her name is Emma. She was named after Bon Iver’s album “For Emma, Forever Ago” because she arrived unexpectedly in my house in the middle of a horrible winter. Like the album she was the bright spot of an otherwise bleak year:

Emma is the best thing to happen to planet earth since CS Lewis.

BUT WAIT! I hear a strangled cry that there are TWO!? cats in that previous picture!

Indeed. Emma was so awesome that she could not contain her own awesomeness and produced several kittens to share in her glory. Like the NeoPlatonian One who could not but overflow into the Nous, Emma could not but overflow into Teto (pronounced like the end of potato).

Teto is too AMAZING to be contained in photographs, which is why his face is blurry. Teto thought about learning how to talk for a while, but he decided that he would much rather keep all his awesome thoughts to himself and leave the rest of world begging him to share. He was named for the fox squirrel in Haio Miyazaki’s film “Nausica, Valley of the Wind.”

Here he is with local celebrity Samuel R Dickison.

Teto will do this every time you sit down on a couch, so if you like snuggling, THIS IS NOW YOUR FAVORITE CAT.

Not only will he snuggle with you, he will snuggle with Emma and create a terminal velocity of cuteness. I have a picture of it; try not to die:

So there you have it, the two best cats ever in the world. They have both been fixed (spayed/neutered as appropriate), they’ve had rabies vaccinations and worm shots. They’re litterbox trained and can be comfortable either inside or outside. They both love people and I’ve never seen either one even hiss at a person. 

I’m moving to a place where I can’t keep these two, and to be honest, I’m really sad about that; they have been wonderful pets, and you would be remiss not to snatch them up. If you want to meet them, or just want to jump the gun and say “Give them to me now, it would be silly to think about this any longer,” send me an email at stephenjsampson at gmail.com. Or call/text me at (440) 318 4197. 

Don’t Not

I’ve been listening to some relatively new music lately.

How to Dress Well came out with an album that I like: it’s called Love Remains. 

The group is basically one guy from Brooklyn, Tom Krell. He’s managed to make lofi RnB music actually palatable.

Imagine if the guy from Bon Iver decided to make his lyrics even less intelligible and then layered them over some poor recordings of minimalist drums and guitar. 

Sounds terrible right? Don’t give up on it, yet, though. It’s actually fairly enjoyable.

I enjoy this music partially because of the fantastic videos that have been made for a couple tracks.

Here’s one for the song Decisions that features headdresses and a clown. The song features Yüksel Arslan, who if you google him(?) you get either a bunch of links to this song or results for a different language, so don’t get your hopes up like I did.

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HOW TO DRESS WELL - “Decisions” (feat. Yüksel Arslan) from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.

Pretty fun, right? The video is directed by Jamie Harley, who has done a whole bunch of work in the few months making videos with found footage.

Here’s one they (I’m using a neutral article here because I’m not sure) made using footage of a bunch of dudes running including Steve Prefontaine, a runner from Portland, or so I hear.

Fiveng - “Easy” (The Longest video) from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.

I like that neither the video or the music distract from each other, I can focus on either one without getting frustrated. 

This next video is for arguably the best song on Love Remains, it’s called Lover’s Start and I really have no idea of what the words are.

How To Dress Well - “Lover’s start” from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.

So apparently the footage is the final shot from a French film called Franz. It seems unbearably artsy to combine a little known lofi artist from Brooklyn with an even less known French film, but I think it’s so obscure that it actually worked.

The other videos on Jamie’s vimeo channel are fully worth a listen, you should look out for one that features island scenes and waterfalls, it’s pretty great.

Speaking of things that are pretty great, if you are in Chicago this holiday season, don’t not go to this.

seemingly forgotten

Last night I dreamed that we were at the same party.

You must have been invited, but I was simply walking down the road and happened to see the lights and tables full of food. It was clear I did not belong at this fancy party.

Me in my traveler’s clothes.

We found each other and the greeting was as natural as if the rest of our lives had never happened. There was barely any greeting at all, just the continuation of a conversation that had trailed off 6 years ago. This was nice,

Standing under the lights, 

Back in My town, 

Talking with you.

The party was over and everyone was walking home. I lived just down the road, you lived far away, but had no vehicle, so you followed me. All of a sudden, it was me and you.

Me in my traveler’s clothes, you in your fancy blue dress.

We walked towards my house down the road I had been down probably thousands of times, but this time everything was new. You noticed parts of the woods I had never seen before. Old concrete water-works and little pools of water full of fallen leaves. You asked me how I had been and I stammered a little. Before I could say anything, you said “what?”

I never could say much anyway.

We climbed up the embankment you gave a little cry. I saw what you spotted, a body floating in a pool, seemingly forgotten. You must have been worried he was dead, but he called out, “oh, I’m sorry, guys,” sensing that he appeared less than living.Coming down from the embankment, the road was now a river we had to cross.

 You in your blue dress, me in my traveler’s clothes.

You went ahead a little so I could catch you if the current pulled you back. Coming towards the other side, it was shallower here, and there were more bodies floating in the water. “How you doing?” these called out. I replied firmly, “Doing OK.” They were not speaking to me. “You could be doing a lot better if you just came over here,” one of them whistled. I moved to you quickly, and though they meant noreal harm, I did push them firmly down the river, floating as if dead.

The danger gone, we climbed out the other side on hands and knees.

You in your drenched blue dress.

And now a popular Rap artist.

Ever since Lil’ Wayne showed up to a show with an electric guitar strapped to his back, I’ve known that someone was going to get that whole vibe right without it being painfully obvious that all he’s ever done on the guitar is pick it up and think of it as just another piece of jewelry. 

I’m serious about the Wayne thing:

Lil’ Wayne - Lollipop Live @ SNL [HD] from Umar on Vimeo.

Remember when that happened on live tv? Remember when we all realized that Lil’ Wayne was actually delusional and it wasn’t an act at all?

This video is actually unbearable all the way through and he doesn’t even start doing the dorm-room-I-just-found-this-electric-guitar-in-an-alley-so-I’m-going-to-plink-on-it-for-a-while-is-that-cool? thing till 3:37. It’s pretty horrific. I have to wonder what kind of smile that is at 3:59. Is that a, “Oh God, I just did that, I shouldn’t have done that, why did I do that?” smile. Or is it a self-satisfied,”NAILED IT!”

Pause this video right at 1:16. See the faces of the keyboardist and the dj? Let me interpret for you.

The Keyboardist is looking at the audience with a profound sense of pity. He’s probably been on the tour bus for a month now and has gotten past being mad about the whole guitar thing, he just feels sad that this audience actually has no idea what is coming.

The dj is just depressed about this whole situation. His face is yelling “I didn’t sign up for this. I’m an artist, and this guy is about to poop on the guitar that jimi hendrix set on fire.”

Actually, wait a second, I’ve seen that same face before.

Oh right, here we go:

Yup. SAMEFACETIME.

OKOKOK. All that to say that Wayne brought up the topic of rap icons holding electric guitars. I don’t want to talk about Rebirth. I think we’ve all put it behind us, and we’re all better for not ever thinking about it.

Ever since he showed up to SNL with that guitar, I’ve been pretty sure that somebody would come along and mop up Weezy’s big huge dump, tear it up. I can’t express how happy I am that it was Kid Cudi who decided to step up and take care of business.

Here we go.

From the comments: “Dude is all purpose.”

One of the best parts is that Letterman introduces Cudder as “a popular rap artist.”

LETTERMAN IS SO OLD.

He might as well have been introducing Run-D.M.C. HE ACTUALLY QUOTES JIM CARREY’S MOVIE, THE MASK: “Ooh, that’s smoking, did somebody say smoking?”

Anyway, I’m also a big fan of how the bassist is the hardest working guy on that stage. 2:20’s fill, 2:30’s necessary hat adjustment, and the bass run from 3:20 to 3:27 prove that fact. Also, take note of the fact that this song completely holds up live even without Kanye’s verse about bowel movements.

I’ll leave you with this:

PS. C-Town.

If you haven’t noticed yet,

Getting stuck on Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours is an annual occurrence for me. This year I took some time and dug into older versions of some of my favorite tracks.

Check out this clip of the band playing Silver Springs.

I love that the intro to this song is “This is going to show up on our next album.”

Holy Moly, Stevie Nicks voice has only gotten worse since this recording.While I’m a big fan of the (Extended) album version of this song, the combination of her voice and Lindsey rocking out a little more than his usual studio guitar part works for me in a big way.

The album version of Lindsey’s “Never Going Back Again” is a favorite of burgeoning youtube guitar soloists who just learned how to finger-pick. As evidenced…

 here:

and here:

aaand here:

You’re good kid, but you’re like a hot tin roof, you CAN’T HOLD A CANDLE.

Yo, peek this ish:

Do you hear at :40 when John McVie is working so hard on that ACOUSTIC BASS that he almost falls off the whole wagon? Also at 1:44 where Lindsey literally can’t hold it and puts out a little scream before he starts the next line? Come on now. Too good.

What I think is so great about this clip is that there’s no way either of these musicians aren’t completely into what’s going on here. First off, they’re playing in Japan, which I’ve always thought is the sure sign that you’ve 100% made it. Once you play Japan, you can go on to make concept albums and work to please your artistic vision for your sound, but up till then, you’re just working on making it to Japan. Second, McVie whips out his acoustic bass to play along. You know there was a conversation before this show where Lindsey was all like, “So next, I’m going to do an acoustic version of ‘Never Going Back Again,’ so the rest of the band can take a breather. I guess we’ll just need a single chair up there for me to get that done with.” And McVie just holds up two fingers to the roadie and nods at Lindsey. For some reason, I can’t imagine John McVie ever saying words.

I’ll leave you with this:

Fleetwood Mac Silver Springs
Uploaded by rasc1944. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

If you don’t know why Stevie and Lindsey are casting furtive glances,

YOU NEED TO LEARN UP ON YOUR POP CULTURE, BOY.