Of Legions and Legends

The silence of the blogosphere (at least our corner of it) saddens me. Of course, it’s as much my fault as anyone else’s. I’ve suddenly found that I’m actually quite busy all week. It’s surreal. In any case, maybe I can jumpstart the blog cycle again. Or maybe you guys don’t care at all. Whatever, we’ve already established that I like the sound of my own typing.
This is really BFTSOB, but I’m so sick of doing sequel-posts (you may have noticed it was an obsession of mine for a time) that I refuse to classify it as the inevitable BFTSOB III.
For those of you wondering about the fate of Galaxy (That being you, Juicy, as all other bloggers who read this were involved. Of course, there’s also my legions [yes, legions] of readers who are obsessed with “Breakfast With Friends” but don’t let their presence be known. I know it’s true, I know it…), there sadly was not enough time to finish it. In fact, we made it through just over half of it. Now, the quest continues with Koops and I (by permission of J_V) in our scarce and cherished free time. Needless to say, the gaming has become too few and far between to constitute any more Galaxy live blogging. Unless of course we’re still going at it come summer, but I hope that’s not the case. It’s time for BWF to kiss Galaxy live-blogging goodbye. Perhaps one day when we all beat it you’ll all finally get “All 360 of Which Are American Dreams.” Don’t hold your breath.
So apparently I’ve been recruited by the school newspaper to write a short story. I’ve received many a fond comment (having not even begun it yet) from editors saying they’re sure I’ll surprise and not dissapoint. Since when am I hyped? The question in my mind right now is how can I possibly unleash one of my signature overly bizarre, burdensomely complex, and yes, zany plots in a short story format (only 2 pages?). This is sure to be chaotic.
On the topic of my artistic outlets (I don’t even want to talk about Rash right now. Updates on that to come), I’ve decided to pursue a goal which combines two of my passions, music and “The Legend of Zelda”.
Damnit, I told myself I would stop blogging about video games! Oh well, this is relevant.
Recruiting my fellow blogger, musician, and gamer Koops, I have decided to attempt to compose a song with him based completely on the songs from “The Legend of Zelda” video games. Uber-cool, I know. I came to this ambition after watching many youtube videos of gamers playing Zelda songs, mostly on guitars. The songs we plan to incorporate are as follows-

Overworld Theme- http://youtube.com/watch?v=sUVsGLES5K8&feature=related
Song of Storms- http://youtube.com/watch?v=N8pI42EIfio
Gerudo Valley- http://youtube.com/watch?v=1rfGbB0zqz8

Yes, I am aware that all of those videos are the same guy. He’s the best I’ve seen. Despite what the videos suggest, the song will not be completely guitar. In fact, I’m hoping barely any of the songs will appear in the composition exactly as they appear in the games. It’ll be more Legend of Zelda Remixed. As far as lyrical content goes, I don’I plan on singing about Zelda. That sort of thing trivializes your music and makes you a stupid parody band for the likes of Youtube. And youtube is a bit too high of an ambition in reality. In the spirit of Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done” (Emo LP lyrics over a ripped keyboard riff from the Halloween movies), I plan on taking Zelda instrumentals and putting totally unrelated lyrics over it. So what to sing about? Well, I dwelled on the idea of a political message for a while. After all, political music is pretty much my favorite kind. But I soon came to realize that I don’t have nearly enough of a radical political conviction to say anything meaningful. Somehow I don’t think an “I Have No Idea Who the Fuck to Vote For If I Could Vote” song would be very good at all. Throwing away that idea, we come back to my recurring theme of isolation. My inspiration in this case is Audioslave. Despite my frequent rants about love songs, I do have some “regurgitated love shit” indulgences. While the likes of Train (and Matchbox, to a degree) have lost their appeal to me, ZOX and Audioslave are mostly love songs, and I love them. In the case of ZOX this is likely due to my nostalgic memories of listening to ZOX, alongside with Spencer Swain’s sick use of the violin on the rock scene. My commitment to Audioslave, however, is a bit different. While their albums are worth buying simply for Tom Morello’s guitar work, I also enjoy what Chis Cornell (vocalst) has to bring. This is because his lyrics often revolve around the idea of isolation. In “Out of Exile” he seems to sing from the point of view of Odyssius, venturing on an island far away and slowly losing his mind. In “Gasoline”, Cornell is a man under house arrest who can’t stand the isolation and ends up killing himself by dumping gas all over and burning the mother down. Isolation driving people to their limits? Sounds like my cup of tea.
So I’ve decided to take a page out of Audioslave’s book and chronicle a journey of isolation. This journey is that of Rowland the gunslinger, main character of Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower”. In the first book of the series, Rowland is chasing a man he has never met across a vast desert, all alone, and he continues on this journey throughout the book. I’ve always wondered how he coped with the isolation like he did, and I’ve decided I should figure it out in lyrics. You may be able to tell by my elaboration that I’m stoked for this project, this project I don’t have enough time to even start for an age.
Speaking of Youtube, it’s users have caused me to have a bit of an identity crisis. When I was looking for a Rage video, I discovered videos posted by more than one user with “Nintendo” in their handle. When searching for those Zelda videos a few minutes ago, I came across a Zelda video posted by a user whose avatar was a shot from monkey island. Once when I was on a Stargate board I discovered that several other users in this small community were runners.
I always thought that the interests of myself and a few friends was strange and rare- That my interests were so vastly disconnected that it was weird that even I liked them all. But after occurrences such as those just mentioned (they are only a few examples), I’ve come to wonder. Are there armies of teenage Star Trek-watching, State Radio-listening, Monkey Island-Playing, running, acting writers out there? Are all of those interests somehow in the same vein? And what is that abstract (or possibly obvious) connection that I fail to see?
I can only suspect that these existing clones of me are one and the same as the legions of shy, hidden readers I have (Chetro?). So to all you hiding, you rock, because you have good taste. Tell me your blog URLs so I can have more to read. And if you don’t have blogs, get blogs. You rock. But you also suck, because I don’t feel unique anymore. You suck. Except for Chetro, you’re the man.

Great, now I’ve got imaginary friends.

-OSK

“Who the fuck am I?”

-Cenron Henderson