The hits (and misses) of 2010

Yes, it's time for some generic 2010 recap. This probably won't be as comprehensive as it should be. I'm basically gonna shoot off some albums, movies, etc in 2010 that I saw and that I enjoyed. I'm sure this will differ from other people's, but whatever.

Btw, I made this post primarily pictures so you didn't have to read the whole thing.

MUSIC

I got to experience a lot of really cool live music in 2010. I went to some good Buzz shows. Manchester Orchestra, Coheed and Cambria, and Weezer rocked Buzz Under the Stars. Manchester was great and really should've gone on longer, but their sound was a little ... darker? than the other bands, and so their place in the lineup was hard to justify.



Oh baby

Coheed was amazing, and I've seen them before, so that was a real treat. I exhausted myself in the mosh pit and barely had energy to last through Weezer, but I did.

 

I wish I was older when you were still cool.

 I wasn't "disappointed" in Weezer but they weren't the best band I've ever seen live... Not because they're Weezer, but because of the music they've been putting out lately. If I had been able to see Weezer 10 years ago I'm sure I would've shit my pants from all the awesome.


Another Buzz Under the Stars was The Crash Kings, Against Me!, Devo, Silversun Pickups, and a little bit of Ben Folds. Crash Kings kicked major ass for being an opening band. Definitely should've been on longer. Against Me! was also very good, probably could've been on longer.


LOOK AT THIS MAN

 Devo, though... DAMN. Those guys freaking rocked. Could probably be old enough to be my grandpa up there, but damn.

Woops, too late.

Silversun was amazing. I was skeptical at first because I saw them play live on Jimmi Kimmel or something and I was less than impressed, but they were really cool and super energetic. Last up was Ben. Oh, Ben. I love you to death but your show sucked.

I saw Mae's "Goodbye, Goodnight" tour. It was a little less energetic than the last show I saw them play, but understandably so. It was bittersweet to know I would never get to see them live again. But it was a great show none-the-less.



:( Bye guys..

Honorable mentions go to MGMT and Weird Al Yankovich. MGMT was really fun (despite being by myself) and Weird Al will never cease to impress me. Taking my kid neighbor along was really awesome too. Nothing like passing the torch. Saw some good local/lesser known talent, too, such as The Wheelers, One Blood, Poison Control Center, Unicycle Loves You, The Kinetics, and a bunch others that impressed me. KC has some good stuff.

As far as albums go, this sections gonna be a little biased. I know I didn't experience a lot of really great albums that came out this year, but I did my best to grab some good stuff.

Just picked this album up (literally) and I can tell this is one of the best albums to have come out this year. It rides along on the "Hipster/Indie/Folk" wave, but it's much, much more than that. Catchy, melodic, varying, deep, and rich are elements missing in a lot of this ridiculous Folk craze going on in music right now, and that's what this album captures in a tear-jerking way. The lyrics are wonderfully written, and the singer's voice is passionate and unique. I highly recommend it (which goes without saying seeing as how it's on this list...)

 

Oh baby. The female singer scene is a rich one, but this band really goes into a new world with it. Sleigh Bells - "Treats" is an album I was not expecting to love as much as I did when I started listening to it. I'm warming up to the genre of "noise rock", and anyone else with me needs to get this album in order to start falling in love. Rock - noise - electronic - industrial is a good way to describe it, and if that sounds "sweet" to you, I highly recommend this little "treat". HAH!

With every album the Gorillaz come out with, I fall in love a little more. Their past few albums have been great and getting better, but I'd always manage to only really like about %50-%75 of the album... But this one is really top notch. When I got it, I could do nothing but listen to the whole thing, from start to finish, no stops or skips along the way. That, my friends, is an experience, and the depth of this album will lead you into a whole new world. The Plastic Beach.



Linkin Park's newest shimmering diamond-encrusted masterpiece "A Thousand Suns" is also an experience. This album is best served going from start to finish with no stops or skips along the way. Although the album art kind of looks like a cartoon of a black face in profile screaming (look at it -- look at it -- got it? see it? RIGHT?) it's depth is something not to be ignored. I know I keep using that word "depth", but it's really important. Great art is something that gets digested over time, that's impossible to "understand" at first glance, and this album is a perfect example of something that cannot be ignored. I look forward to seeing them live in late January.

Oh. Oh my. Oh my goodness. The Arcade Fire has come out with some doozies in their day, but this one is a knockout. Their predominate theme so far as artists has always kind of been "suburbs", but when they finally titled their album "The Suburbs", they really took it and blew it out of the water. Catchy, timely, layered, varied, indie - a recipe for something exquisite, and it certainly satisfies. In my humble opinion, their best work to date.

I'm not the biggest MGMT fan on the planet, but I certainly enjoy their work. Seeing them live was a pretty rad experience (albeit lonely) and really led me to respect their work further. This little gem is something for the hippie that resides in all of us. The tripped out surfer dude with refinement that we all hold dear in our hearts. If you know that part of you has been ignored, give this lil thing a spin.

Now for some misses... Now, when I say "miss", I don't necessarily mean "total flops." These albums gave it a good shot, certainly had some good tracks, but overall, lacked a little something for me. I won't go into detail because what I just said is basically the case for all of these.



Neon Trees - "Habits"



30 Second to Mars - "This is War"



Coheed & Cambria - "Year of the Black Rainbow"

Broken Social Scene - "Forgiveness Rock Record"

MOVIES

This one's going to be a bit difficult. I see a lot of movies, but not always the year they came out. Before anyone who's a crazy movie buff gets all up in my Kool-Aid about my list, there were LOTS of movies I KNOW I haven't seen yet that I know would make this "list". Let's list a few of those right now:

• Rabbit Hole
• Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• How to Train Your Dragon
• True Grit

Just to name a few. I'm sure I would've loved these movies, and I definitely plan on seeing them eventually.

 Let's give it a shot anyway. (In no particular order..)

If you saw this movie, it needs no explanation. If you didn't.... I dare you. I double dog dare you.

A surprise hit indeed. Don't yell at me just yet. It's funny, it's fast, it's wonderfully and creatively written and filmed, it's a spectacle to watch, and it's funny. It's very, very, fucking funny. Don't hate until you've seen it.



BESIDES the fact that it was directed by David Fincher, BESIDES the fact that the music was done by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, BESIDES the fact that it stars Jessie Eisenberg -- this movie was just a great experience. An emotional rollercoaster of love, hate, sympathy, and disgust, you'll never get on facebook the same way again after seeing this film.



This one's more for posterity's sake. I liked it a lot, don't get me wrong, but it was just really "good", I didn't think it was "fantastic." Nothing will ever top the first movie - from plot to writing to voice acting, it was one of -- if not THE -- most well rounded animated film I've ever seen. But I definitely cried like a baby during Toy Story 3 (twice, same scene both times I saw it) and that's something I can't ignore when making this list.

and... in case you've been living under a rock or haven't talked to me this year... my ... favorite... movie...



It needs no introduction. It needs no explanation. It just needs you to see it if you haven't already.

As far as disappointments go, I don't have too many, because I don't really see movies unless I know they're going to be good. Or at least have a good feeling. The only two that pop into my head at the moment (movies that I thought might be good or at least o.k. but were kind of really not):

 

Tim Burton's slaughter of "Alice in Wonderland"

 

Shyamalan's mediocre debacle



MISC

You know what else rocked this year? And will continue to rock?

THESE GUYS

And ...

THESE --  .. GIRLS

So this post is HELLA long and it's time to wrap it up. Thanks to all the awesomeness of my friends this fun little transition year (graduation into the real world, etc) and I look forward to kickin' it with ya'll for many more years to come.

Sincerely,
Corbin Hernandez

just need to shout

ever had one of those days? you know what i mean. you're not necessarily angry -- or at least not enough to admit -- you just feel like you're walking down the street and everyone's bumping into you -- either on accident or on purpose -- and you're just minding your own business but you keep tripping over stuff on the sidewalk -- stuff you either should've seen anyway so you feel stupid for not seeing it or stuff that magically popped up right where you were walking -- and you're tired and hungry and you've been working all day and you won't stop working until you get home but you have to pack when you get home because you're trying to move out and be independent and start your own life but the universe seems bent on you living in your mom and dad's house for the rest of your life like a loser!

that came out a lot more complainy than it feels in my head.

and besides. most times i type upset things on the internet i stop being upset instantly after. it's a release thing (obviously.) if you see me or talk to me after you read this, don't worry, i'm fine now. i just needed to scream little. and who doesn't every once in a while, huh? i love theatre more than anything else you can do with your time, but not being able to do karate as a consequence has shut off a valve for physical stress relief and i think it's starting to take a toll. no free time at all, really, takes its toll.

and yet i find time to play Halo: Reach, don't i, corbin. and yet i find time to do a lot of stupid things.

sigh. what started out as a release post turned itself into a self-attack post. i should stop this right now, nip it in the bud.

so anyway. there it is. Christmas is over. where the fuck that even go, anyway? it's like i was waiting for 2 weeks and then it flew past me like a bullet. 2 weeks? wasn't advent 4? didn't feel like it.

is this the rest of my life?

Corbin

a difficult day.

I know I'm trying to work on my complaining. I'll try not to make this post so much about complaining... Then again, that might be impossible considering the subject matter...

When I was being interviewed for this job, they asked me a difficult question. "How do you feel about telling a customer 'no'?" Well, I thought about it, and I gave a pretty good answer (or so I thought). Look for solutions, don't just stop whenever you hit an obstacle. I thought to myself -- out of ignorance, of course -- that most problems customers will bring up to me will be something that we can work out together and find an alternate solution for. As I work here more and more, I find this is simply not the case.

No, there really isn't any other way to get around you trying to deposit a check which doesn't have a name on it that matches any names of the accounts. No, I can't cash your check when your account's in the red. No, we don't have Susan B. Anthony's, and I don't think anyone else does, either.

The more I work here, the more I realize how much of a minority I am in every day society. It's rare that things really bother me. I mean sure, there is Harry Potter, and Twilight, and the Disney Channel, but other than that, if things don't go my way chances are I wasn't really expecting they would. 9 times out of 10, whatever it is that I'm doing I don't actually expect for it to work out the way I planned.

In this moment of reflection, I wonder: is it that things have been going wrong in my life all the time? That, in fact, 9 times out of 10 things did go wrong? No. Actually, what I can really honestly say to myself is, the reason I'm -- Cautious? Have low expectations? I call it realistic -- is that the times in my life when things have gone wrong, they've gone almost cataclysmically wrong. Yeah, sure, there are the regular hiccups now and again, who doesn't have those, but I swear, those few times early on when I got burned, bad, have taught me to never expect life to go the way I want it to.

Anyway, where I was getting with this whole "minority" thing is that it simply doesn't seem to be the case with 7 out of 10 customers who come in here tyring to do something that just won't fly. "Sorry, sir, this check is made out to your business so I can't deposit it into your personal account." "WHY NOT?!" Whoa, there! You must've known that the name on the account and the name on this check do not match. You know this, because you know the name on your account, and you can see the name on this check does not match that name! You must've known you'd at least be taking a chance, hoping I wouldn't catch it or hoping I would make an exception. But those things haven't happened today, so please let me do my job and except it.

Whew. Well. That's really about it. Lighten up, everybody. Life is awesome, and it's great to be alive, and you should always thank God that you're here because this is the raddest time to ever be alive, but it doesn't always go smoothly. Don't need to be a Debbie Downer, don't need to be a pessimist, but just be cool whenever things go wrong, because just about every time things do go wrong, it's for a damn good reason that you probably don't understand and will most likely never understand.

Cool. Keep rockin'.

Corbin

mental checklists never work

So for years I've been trying to convince myself that I can make "mental checklists," that is to say, I tell myself, "I need to go shopping for a few things. I'm sure if I wander around Wal-Mart for a few minutes I'll remember what I need to get and pick them up as I go..." In reality, of course, I go there, get 2 things, and then as I'm walking into the check out ailse go "I KNOW I needed more than this, but I just can't think of what else I needed...!"

Then I get home, live for 20 minutes, realize all the crap I didn't get, and weep alone in a corner for a while.

So as has been stated, I'm moving out, sooner rather than later. I can't really afford to do such a thing until after Friday, which is when I get paid, because I'm more than a little broke right now. Speaking of, let me check my bank account  ....

gasp.

Moving on. I need to make a checklist of "Things I need to survive." Let's first make a list of things I will have when I move in:

• Fridge
• Microwave
• Stove/oven
• Internet
• TV
• Cooking things (pots, pans)
• Couch (Bed)
• Broom (pretty sure there's already one of those)
• Shower supplies (soap, shampoo, towel, loofa)
• Laundry supplies (basket, detergent)
• Bedding (blankets, pillow)

Now let me think of as many things as I can that I think I still need:

• Iron + ironing board
• wireless internet receiver for my X-Box
• Plates/cups/bowls/utensils (might be able get away with buying plastic for a while)
• GPS (uhg. This won't be cheap. But I don't know the area so it's going to be almost necessary)
• Printer

Uhg. See, this is what I'm talking about. I know this is a decent list but I know there will be other things. For those of you who know of other things I'll need, feel free to shout at me.

On random note, people at banks piss me off. I don't even think I'm allowed to talk about it, so I won't. Let's just say if a teller asks you for something, just freaking give it to him. He's doing it for your sake, his sake, and the bank's sake. You probably will not understand, so don't bother and don't ask.

Whew.

Ok.

Bye.

C-Dubs

obligatory update

I was about to make a semi-long facebook status about my day/week, but then I decided I haven't blogged in a while so might as well toss my words around.

Reindeer Monologues is over. Thank God. All blame aside -- both on myself and others -- I'm just glad the show is over. It was tough making it an enjoyable experience after a while. Gonna stop talking about it because it might lead me into a rant. And besides, I have a theater blog for that type of thing.

Last Mass rehearsals going well. We're done blocking. We don't premier in over a month. Just realized how long this rehearsal process is going to be. Not in a bad way (I hope). I mean with every show it's different. Some shows NEED a long rehearsal process, and they still barely get ready in time... Some, simply, don't. I don't think this show is going to need as long a rehearsal process as it has, but I hope this doesn't lead us to "peak" the show too early. That is, to have done the show so many times and "perfected" it, so to speak, so early that by the time the audience comes around the actors are just sick and tired of it. I have faith we'll be fine, though.

I never want to drink ever again. Yet another reason to dislike Reindeer: the cast party. Not that I didn't have fun. Just maybe too much fun.

Decided yesterday I was going to get my shit taken care of today. Woke up at 7. Got my liscence plate (finally). Baller. Went to the lawyer, gave him my ticket so he could take care of it. Baller. Went to work. They were like, "You're here an hour early!"

Damnit. So I didn't clock in for an hour. That's ok, I'm reading 3 plays and a novel. Why, sure, I'll tell you what I'm reading! "Rozencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead" by Tom Stoppard (for my script reading group), "Over the Taven" and "King O' The Moon" by Tom Dudzick (parts 1 and 2 of the Over the Taven series, "Last Mass" being part 3) [...lol, 2 Toms] and, the old favorite, "World War Z" by Max Brooks. Now, mind you, I'm only reading one play at a time while I'm reading "Z". I can keep Shakespeare's boys in Hamlet and the zombie apocalypse separate in my head, but I don't think I'm going to ever try to read more than one play at once... That's just me..

Other than that, just hoping to move into my new place soon... My friend who lives in the theater I work at agreed to let me move into her living room. They're completely separate rooms connected only by the giant space which is the shop itself, so as long as my girl friend and my parents don't see anything wrong with it (which, they don't) then I don't. Should be pretty cheap, too.

So now you know.

Corbin

do i see the clouds, or the sun behind them?

Got a lot to work on at the moment. First is my job. Speaking of, gotta take a drive through customer real quick...

And another one...

Whew. Ok.

Yes, I need to work on my job. It's really, really hard not to complain about it. For a while it wasn't so bad, but I guess during the holidays banks get busier. Gee, who woulda thunk it? It comes with the territory I suppose. Grin and bear it. I'll do my best.

The Reindeer Monologues has been going... well. I worked really hard on this show, and just because not every single person who sees it loves it doesn't mean I can't feel good about my work. I mean, yes, the only thing that really matters at the end of a show is whether or not the audience enjoyed it, but I also can't use their opinions as clout to beat myself up. Trust me, that would be all too easy to do. But beating myself up is something I'm trying to do less, so here's to not feeling like shit.

Then I'm also in another show. Rehearsals start today for me. "The Last Mass at St. Casimir's". It's a good show, I'm pretty excited. It feels weird being in 2 shows at once... I don't know why, I've done it before. I've been in 4 shows at once (techically 5) so I should be used to this. I guess it's because this time I'm doing one show and rehearsing another, whereas that one time in college I was in rehearsal for 5 shows that went up at the same time. That was so much fun. Then again, 3 of them were One Acts, 1 of them was just foley sound for a radio show, and 1 of them was a chorus part in the local high school's production of "High School Musical". Fun times.

So in one respect, my mind wants to say "Look at all the clouds." But in another it wants to say "But look at the sun behind them."

I'm trying. I mean it's not hard to see the sun, that's not the problem. It's acknowledging the stark difference between the two, and realizing what I should be grateful for.

Corbin