Item 1: The Cognitive Dissonance Behind "Facebook Stalking"
You cannot stalk me if we are friends. Seriously. Three people (friends of mine on Facebook) in the last 24 hours have shyly claimed to have "discovered" information about me via "Facebook-stalking". While I understand that's kind of a sweet and humble way of saying that they were reading stuff on my profile, I hate the word "stalking", even as a joke. The whole point of putting all that junk up on my profile is to inform my friends, i.e. YOU GUYS, of what's going on with my life without the arrogance of those "update e-mails" we all used to send out to people prior to these networking sites.
Plus, I am beyond flattered when people read my profile. I can't imagine why anyone gives two beans about what I'm up to, but if you are interested for some reason, then you're awesome and I appreciate it. And you are certainly not a Facebook-stalker. I read my friends' profiles shamelessly because, well, you guys are my friends. I don't find the "Minifeed" creepy. I find it a little sad that I found out a friend of mine was engaged via Facebook before I got the e-mail, but beyond that, I guess I feel like if you don't want to let people know what's up with you you can either 1) not put sensitive information about yourself up or 2) stop accepting every freaking friend request you've ever gotten. Just because your friend's cousin's dentist's pallbearer met you at a party one time seven years ago doesn't mean that he needs to know that "Babe: Pig in the City" is your favorite movie. Okay, sorry for that lame rant.
Anyway, here's a lame rave. Rock Band. Oh my God.
Item 2: Rock Band is simultaneously lame and glorious.
So, I got back to DC yesterday. We all know how I feel about DC. Luckily I was going straight from the airport to dinner with friends, so that gave me a bit of a buffer between me and the city undiluted. It was great to see my old friends, some of whom I don't think I've seen since I moved back to Chicago more than a year again. Luckily, these are types that are easy to pick back up with, probably because we tend to have a ridiculous amount in common, including goofy pasttimes.
After unsuccessfully trying to find a late night hangout after dinner (late night meaning 10pm, which is pathetic), we ended up going back to a friend's house. Our host, a quiet but effective gentleman, allowed us to blather on briefly while he unassumingly put together his console (I think it was an Xbox but I'm probably way off) to play Rock Band. I saw two weird plastic guitars and a headset being attached to the console and soon, on the massive tv in front of us was a list of songs--some I'd never heard of but many were wonderfully memorable and I was riveted immediately.
The five of us at the apartment descended on this game with an earnestness seen only among kindergarteners being handed the class bunny to play with: what is this? Can I touch it? I don't want to hurt it. We're a pretty dignified bunch when solo, but the combination of the five of us turned into, as it was described yesterday, a kind of Captain Planet amalgamation of dorkiness (by the way, I was deemed "Heart" which I found a little insulting since "Heart" is the most useless of all Captain Planet's sidekicks).
If you have not yet been acquainted with Rock Band, a brief introduction may be necessary. Rock Band is a four player game that requires each player pick one of four musical options: singer, lead guitar, bass, or drums. Our host did not have a drum set attachment, which was probably for the best because we did enough damage with three options as it was. Anyway, the game judges your performance on each instrument--for singing, it judges your pitch and phrasing/timing. For guitar and bass, it judges how well you "play" your instrument. Guitar and Bass is played on the same instrument option, a plastic guitar with 5 colored buttons each mimicking a chord placement, and a switch where the strings would be that you "strum". There's also a weird lever thing that I didn't use and can't explain except that it's easy to get it caught on people's clothing.
The game gives you the option of choosing from a number of very awesome songs, though some of them were pretty foreign to me (who is "Tribe"? Or, no one could figure this out, "Vagiant"? We kept thinking they meant to say "Vagrant", but we all saw "Vagiant" which is pretty inexplicable). But they did have Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun", some song by Garbage, Hole's "Celebrity Skin" (which I don't like, but I can sing pretty accurately, especially after I've smoked a bit), and some stuff by the Killers, Jet, the Smashing Pumpkins, and some other fun stuff. It would have been nice if they had more songs sung by females (where was Patti Smith?) but it wasn't a huge deal. Even though, to this moment, I wish so badly that they had some Amy Winehouse on there, even if she doesn't really have guitars in her repertoire. What about another version like "Retro Band" or "Experimental Jazz Band"?
Anyway, we were soon up and playing and, unfortunately for my host, his neighbors, and my friends, I ended up singing. A lot. I say "ended up" as though I didn't actively campaign to sing. Of course I did, not so much because I sing well (Note: I don't) but because I just love to sing. I ended up bellowing out Radiohead's "Creep" and when we got to the "She's...runnin' out the dooooooooooor....she's running out...run...run...run...ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun" part, I had practically lost my mind with the pure joy of belting out a line I normally only get to sing in the shower. Why was I so intent on punishing my fellow man? Why bring my odious voice from the shower into a semi-public arena? 1) Because I could and 2) because even being in a fake Rock Band feels badass. Plus, singing in the shower gets tiresome because every time you want to make a sweeping gesture, you end up knocking out the curtain or hitting the showerhead. The logistical issues behind shower singing are astounding.
I did end up playing (heh, "playing") guitar a few times and managed to get up to the level of medium without sucking too badly. I think my favorite song to play was probably Nirvana's "In Bloom" just because I've heard it so many times that I've practically internalized the chord progressions, despite not knowing how to play guitar (I do play the piano and once the violin, but until this company comes out with "Rock Piano", or "Motha' Truckin' Violin" I have to admit my limitations) and playing, or fiddling with or whatever I was doing to that poor plastic guitar-thingie felt practically natural. Unfortunately, as I understand it, real guitars don't come with colorful buttons and a strumming switch.
My fellow band frauds were far better than me. Our host has an amazing singing voice, which isn't all that surprising considering his pleasant speaking voice, but I guess it was the facility and emotion with which he sang that was pretty cool. Plus he was always on key--that fact alone made him the best singer out of the rest of us, hands down. Also, and I'd like to think it's because it's his game, he kicks ass on every song even at the expert level. Chord progressions would hurtle down the screen like flying monkeys, and our host calmly dispatched them all like a pro. Others in our group showed a natural talent for fake guitar playing and I comforted myself that I am probably the loudest singer in our group, and that should count for something.
Despite the fact that the five of us were not, and should never ever become, a real band we actually took the experience somewhat seriously. For one thing, the game actually grades your performance and will fail you, FAIL YOU, if you suck too much. For a bunch of overachievers, this is tantamount to waterboarding. I did fail a few times, but was saved by fellow fake band members and then returned the favor later--a feat that I think bonded us as a group even further. And, some of us got very attached to some of the songs to the point where we got a little bit repetitive. We played "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs approximately 700 times because, really, who doesn't want to be Karen O for 4 minutes? We bared our souls by admitting that we were afraid of taking on "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, and yet went through it anyway.
We admitted our failings, shared in success, remembered our favorite songs, jammed and rocked out with little plastic guitars and headphones straight from a Hyderabad call center, and it was wonderful. I thought playing Wii with a bunch of older people was a riot, but Rock Band can save lives, heal wounds, repair international rifts, and even teach a person to love. Or maybe not. But it can teach you that the Bass player is just as valuable as anyone else in the band. Especially if you're playing something by Jet.
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