I graduated. And it was bittersweet. And I’m happy. And I’m sad. And it’s summer. And my brother still has a week left of school (not now that I waited a week to post this). And, um… I graduated?
They took a picture of us every year since 6th grade. Kinda crappy photo but I think it’s good enough to see that I somehow grew ten feet? DON’T KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED. clarification: “crappy photo” as in crappy photo of the actual photo. It’s great, Kerry!
I don’t know how big of a deal your junior high / elementary school graduation was (or if you even had one – some schools just go straight into “the land of high school”). I have a liitle bit of a feeling that we make a slightly larger-than-normal fuss about graduation at my school, probably because most of us have (had! aah!) been going to school with each other since we were wee, wee laddies n’ lassies. I mean, it’s definitely no high school or COLLEGE shebang, but… we make a fair commotion out if it, I think.
Anyway (that was another one of those malformed prefaces I tend to write sometimes). Let’s go back like.. one week. It’s our last days of elementary school. Everybody’s cleaning out their lockers, filling up giant trash bags with papers and composition books, half-eaten granola bars* and TechDeck skateboards brought to school earlier in the year. The ~general atmosphere~~ is best described as giddy… with a sprinkle of.. premature sentimentality? Let’s not overanalyze our feelings; it is middle school (still – at this point. also, I have no idea what I mean by that).
Aside from hallway cleanup, we’re also finishing last-minute tests and quizzes. Well, really only one thing, Cultural Literacy, where we have to memorize facts about certain paintings, or the presidents, or world geography, or famous speeches. [One section is] due every trimester and is usually done around this time – the end of the trimester. We’re also doing graduation run-throughs and speech practices.
At home, a particular Spencer Tweedy (WHY did I just refer to myself in 3rd person) is fretting – or his mother is fretting, rather (it’s in 3rd person, now) – over a wardrobe malfunction. You see, all this time, the family had planned on Spencer to wear his Bar Mitzvah suit, which had recently been discovered to be two feet short. Oh no! Although Spencer was quite pleased with his growth, a new problem had obviously arisen – what was the answer? A tailor? A loaner? A wear-it-anyway-and-look-like-an-escaped-mental-patient? Luckily, Mama Tweedy was able to purchase a new one just in time. Thanks Mama Tweedy!
(3rd person stops NOW. also, I don’t know how interested you kind internette-goers are in this minute-by-minute thing here… I guess it’s more for the sake of me remembering and reflecting and feeling like it’s “on paper” than sharing. Feel free to keep on reading, by all means. Or leave the page now and delete it from your bookmarks and unsubscribe from the email list and tell all your friends to do the same and write a letter to me stating that this post is an “excessive waste of time.”)
The day of, I got to school at normal school-getting-to time. We were told to go to this room where there was a parent lady person putting flower lapel thingys on our suits (and flower bracelet thingys on all the girls). After we had those on, we lined up in the back stairway, from which we would EMERGE in a CUTE PROCESSION and walk along the gym floor to the STAGE and TAKE OUR SEATS.
Normally this part is accompanied by the school band, but our gym was slightly renovated this year and the place they always were had been removed, so the guy who makes the music for all our school plays and stuff supplied his own Casio-tune “Pomp & Circumstance.” By this time my mom, as per my prediction, is already (matzah) bawling. Our principal makes a few remarks and my friend’s older brother, an alumnus, shares a speech about how we’re “over-prepared” for society all because of [this school], and “all those times as kids we thought we were just playing a game involving block puzzles and stamps with numbers on them, we were really learning trigonometry” and stuff like that.
Then, after a few more principals’ remarks, it came time for the MEMORY SHARING. I mentioned before that part of our CEREMONIAL TRADITIONS** involves each student making a short homage to certain pre-assigned classmates, respectively. My sharee, a friend of mine and Led Zeppelin-lover (and killer guitarist, might I say), Alex, was the first up. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I know part of it involved “John Bonham, Keith Moon… they don’t hold a candle to Spencer Tweedy,” which is obviously a really super nice compliment (it made a lot of parents laugh, too). Then, it was my turn. I did end up thinking of something to say, even though I had my doubts before, and even though I ended up having to cut out half of my speech due to… a joke in bad taste (it really was in bad taste; alzheimer’s isn’t funny in a room of grandparents, let alone ever, at all). It ended up being mostly about “the emotional roller coast of junior high friendship” (which, luckily, made a lot of parents laugh, too) and of course the kid I was remembering.
For the next part of the ceremony (actually, this happened before the previous paragraph.. but that paragraph is previous), we were all presented with flowers in hand-decorated vases by either our younger siblings or a similar child-figure. The one Sam made for me was all weird and messy, which I liked (it didn’t look like any other one). The younger grades then sung their songs to us (including “Dona Nobis”) and the youngest ones (returning to class) waved goodbye (that part really got my mom/everybody). Finally, we were presented with our “diplomas” – fake ones actually; the real ones would be picked up in the office before we leave – by the old recently-retired principal. It was her thirty-gajillionth (or something) graduation ceremony.
Afterward was the reception-luncheon-thing. Everybody was freaking out… it was nice. An old-as-the-hills tradition is for the newly-graduated kids to ride our school’s elevator (which is adults-only), which we did. Sometime/somehow during this part some gifts managed to collect themselves in my mom’s purse (most of which I still haven’t opened! I should do that!), and finally, after retrieving Charlie from the various people holding him, we went home.
That night was the dance. Of cowse, there was a ridiculous cheezy “PUT CHA HANDS IN THA AIR, AYAR AI-AI AYAR ” DJ, but, hey, what can you expect (that, that’s what)? This year they actually rented one of those new digital photo booths (like the one I had at my bar mitzvah! we got copies of every picture.. potential post? yes?!), whose operator had intense facial bearditidy (eng. he had a cool beard) and he said “Tom Waits” when I asked what his favorite band was. Then I went home again and went to a party next the next day and am going to another party tomorrow and I waited a week to make this post which is now already over like three squillion words. !!
I’m the one in the middle, with the NOT-TRADEMARK-JUSTIN-BIEBER swoosh.
See ya later, middle school. I may not miss junior high, but I’ll definitely miss this school. Peace dawg.
* I had a ridiculous amount of those (not much else, though).
** “traditions” right there really called for an appended ‘z’, but every time somebody/I add/s ‘z’s to words it just looks silly and MySpace blog-era angst-ish. Sorta.
Ohhhhhhhhh Wisconsin Wisconsin Wisconsin. I traveled there this past spring break for a lovely extended weekend with my bandmates, Hayden y Henry. Our activities primarily included: watching old episodes of Arrested Development, making room recordings of Ray LaMontagne songs, and putting together Playmobil knights with parents’ friends’ toddlers. But mostly, we, y’know, SURVIVED (EN ITALICS). In the woods. With animals. (We actually probably saw more deadanimals than alive scary wanting-our-food-supply-of-solely-marshmallows-and-beef-jerky ones. BUT STILL.)
I didn’t bring my big scary “PUNK WEAPON OF DEATH” camera* (obscure reference / inside joke, disregard) but only a tiny Canon Elph. Here are a few pictures.
1Hayden2Foxy3“goldware” sculpture4Henry, Hayden5awesome old barn-shack6awesome old chandelier-sculpture7steel-toed boot on leaves8sawdust.
p.s. in case you didn’t a’notice, Hayden’s house is absolutely awesome and filled with cool sculptures made by his late grandfather. BONUS.
Ah, not many posts! Sorry. I was/am loaded with assignments and whatnot this week. Were the formsprings good? Satisfactory? Hm? I made a sort of neat (in my opinion) video of Joey.
got a little messed up in the $4 mil post production process, but I CAN DEAL.
This happened when Sam and Joey came into my room with the intention of fulfilling their regular schedule of Irritate Spencer, Making Him Even More Irritable Than Usual, but the two were actually calmer than usual and Joey was chewing gum, and I had my camera, and then he started moving, and I took pictures, and he COOPERATED. The background is a song by Atlas Sound from Bradford Cox’s blog, which I just discovered (song) in the “explore your own music library” game.
Probably my favorite “shot” from the movie. A lot of people talk about photos having ‘messages’ and telling a story, and I don’t really ever feel that about a picture I take. This one seems like “reaching out” or something, though. Maybe because uh Joey is reaching his arms out..
ENOUGH ABOUT THIS 24 SECOND FLICK. Other than make a fake business catalogo en español for school using National Geographic snippets*, and watch new episodes of the Holy Thursday Night Shows, I took pictures of this sweet lamp that lives in our household.
*bestseller was manzana de oro. golden apple.
Quickly, eeeh, okay, I’m sorry if anybody doesn’t like pictures. I’m not saying that because I think you might actually not like pictures (except that’s.. what I just said), but because this is something new to me and I’m pretty sure most of you are music peeps. I am too, the only problem is that aside from weird drum videos / crappy guitar demos + stuff like that, I don’t have as much to share on that front right now. Maybe I should start writing songs or something. In the mean time I’m enjoying sharing these here and still want to do that… I GUESS what I’m saying is I don’t want photography to become a “niche” for this blog, just like I Jewish-ly worried about Formspring taking over everything, too (or everything taking over everything). Anyway, ALWAYS TRIPPIN’ BOUT THE BLAWG.
Here I present you a really really long formspring post that I hope you will enjoy.
Haha, I watched The Hebrew Hammer last night, and today I’m going to see Miracle on 34th Street. Is it weird that I’m a Jew that likes Christmas movies?
No, I don’t think that’s weird at all. I’m in da tribe and still love Christmas, lots of Christmas songs and stuff like that. There’s a huge cultural “American” side to it other than all the baby jee-suhs and stuff (which is also fine, but doesn’t necessarily pertain to me).
This formspring is not (a)asking you if heard/seen something or (b)telling you to hear/see something. Sorry.
Hahah, it’s okay, I’ll forgive you.
I know this may look a little strange, but what host do you use for the blog? I’m interested on starting something similar. :D Thanks! ;)
I use GoDaddy to host my blog and WordPress to run it. I like how fleeexible it is. Sometimes I wish I could fit in with the cool kids and have a Tumblr, though (half-joke). {besides this one}
Some people talked about hearing MGMT in Wendy’s and Liam Finn in Denny’s….I heard Grizzly Bear in Best Buy.
That isn’t as surprising considering Best Buy sells VINYL now, but cool. Wait so now we have MGMT @ Wendy’s, Liam Finn @ Denny’s, and Grizzly Bear @ Best Buy. What else? Is this a good zine idea?
Why?
We have to keep weekly journals for school, in which we write about ‘prompts’ the teachers give us. A few weeks ago “Why?” was the prompt and I wrote a big thing about nature n’ stuff. Maybe I’ll scan it!
remember how wonderfully exciting it felt when Barack Obama became President? If we could only sustain that feeling…
That was such an AWESOME day/night. And over a year ago (?!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!!?).
I think you’re a really cool kid! + poop is my favorite word, so that makes you ridiculously amazing in my book. We should be best friends forever. (I realize that I probably should make this a question, so…) Would you like to be my bff? (I really sound like a creeper, I swear I’m not!) —so basically, all i’m saying is: PR0PZ 2 U, SP3NC3RZ!
Poop is the poopin best word in the poopin dictionpoopery. We can bfpoopf’s.
hoobastank is not music.. YES? name things/groups of people making noise that you cannot tolerate. NAO fr rlz
Ze funny thing is I have never heard any of this Hoobastank, and would prefer to keep it that a’way (I hear though that god kills a llama every time Nickelback is played). List of intolerance: anything produced by Disney in the 21st century / related acts, Jan Terri, Gretchen Wilson, and more.
Why have you started your blog? Love it, by the way!
I originally started this blahg WAY BACK in the 7 + 2000 because I wanted to be some sort of “child entrepreneur” thing that “made money” on the “internet.” Then (in short) I discovered that writing narcissistically is much more fun and so this happened. If you search “writing” or something like that in the find-box to your right there’s some more stuff about it. Also the about page.
Do Jews who love bacon like I do (and I believe you do, too) have a special place in “Jewish Hell” set aside for us? Or is the problem resolved by the fact that Jews don’t believe in hell, either?
I think pt. 2 to this kind of levels it out, haha. But BACON. (I’m a Reform Jew, anyway!)
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, best Wilco album ever??? Y/N? Also, do you enjoy “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”? (The film, not the song.)
One of the best Wilco albums ever!!! Honestly, I haven’t seen I Am Trying To Break Your Heart since probably I was in it.. so I guess I’ve never seen it.
What do you think about squids?
They’re really cool, freakin’ weird aminamals.
Sons are like birds flying upwards over the mountain.
HENRY?? This has got to be you because I googled this and it’s an Iron & Wine lyric. And it is known you quite like Iron & Wine.
Do you only choose the most interesting questions to post or do you answer all of them?
I answer the ones that I think are either interesting, funny, and will be good to put on this here website (that other people might want to read). There are a lot of REALLY really nice ones that just say “you’re really cool” or something like that, but I try not to post too many of those because it could get into ego-related territory and it’s just good to stay somewhat safe from yonder land. I read every single one.
you’re absolutely adorable and i want to be friends in reEEal LiIffFEe
yAh tOtALlY. (<– ew. at the letters.)
What is a good name for a girl baby?
Taquila Finch IV.
you seem to be very well traveled for a 14-year-old. where is your favorite place that you have visited that is not in the United States? and have you ever been recognized by somebody you didn’t know? it’s a crazy feeling!
I’ve never been out of North America besides New Zealand (which is the favorite place). It is a crazy feeling!
my nose squirts blood frequently. if you soak your clothes in lukewarm soapy water (use dish soap), the blood usually comes out. happy birthday.
Aw, that sucks. Thanks.
you are like the coolest guy ever. muppets or sesame street?
BOTH.
so spencer, who is the coolest person you’ve ever met? or more like, dude, what was it like to meet BECK and JAMES GADSON?
They’re so cool. James Gadson is a [drum] tank. Beck is a genius.
Yes, but I don’t think I’ve seen it since I was wee.
Is it weird to think you’re halfway to 28?
Uh shyeah.
Is love really all you need? Sometimes I’m inclined to think that pancakes are pretty important as well.
I love the way this is written. I think love is all you need plus like some food and whatever.
Of all of the states/cities/countries you’ve never visited, what is #1 on your list of places you’d like to see?
Europe (i.e. countries in Europe). I also want to go back to San Francisco.
Happy Holidays to you, your brother, your pops and your mom.
Thanks! To you, en adición.
What is your “smooth move” for talking to the ladies?
I draw my talkin’ points from Aziz Ansari, saying I invented the autofill feature on Google. Works 4527/1 of the time. Or vice versa.
Do people say that you or Sam look more like your dad?
It’s mixed. Sam and I both look like my dad (especially in childhood pics) but Sam also is IDENTICAL to my mom circa kindergarden.
What really happened in NZ last year? Surely with that many people there’s some good gossip to be had. Phil and Glenn trying to stab each other with drum sticks?
No, honestly we were one huge family! Those were some of the greatest times in the history of times had by our family in New Zealand, a category of which it DOMINATES. And others [categories] too.
I SAID. WHAT. ARE YOUR THOUGHTS. ON OF MONTREAL?!?!
Haven’t heard much. THERRRREEE.
You have INCREDIBLE skin.
UUGH THANKS I hope it stays that way. I remember a while ago some peemp-les popped up and I blogged about it, and a gym teacher (who saw this) joked about it.
I ONCE WENT TO SCHOOL WITH A KID NAMED SPENCER AND HE WAS MILDLY ANNOYING. BUT HE SPELLED IT DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU. SPENSER.
GLAD TO KNOW IT WAS “SPENSER” BECAUSE OTHERWISE THERE WOULD BE A SLIGHT POSSIBILITY THAT I WAS INDEED BEING SCHOOLED IN CANADA AND THIS SPENCER WAS INDEED ME. But it wasn’t. ANNA.
I’ve got a match. Spencer Tweedy v Justin Bieber. I bet you could kick his a$$.
BRING ITTTTTTT. Related: I saw a girl writing a love letter to him in Spanish class.
okay, okay, you know the picture in which you are wearing sunglasses? well guess what? you totally look like Harold (from Harold and Maude, duh). But not anyplace else. FUN-KAY!
Hah cool! I’m thinking about changing that picture (along with like, the entire blog design). On the topic of teachers making fun of me, math teacher – picture (just kiddin’, though. both of mentioned teachers are grrrrreat).
I like your hand writing.
Thank you. Some people thinks it’s messay but I like it.
Do you read the comments on each of your posts?
Yep, every single one.
My computer is having trouble playing Beck right now. Death.
Ooh that hurts.
Who is your celebrity crush? Male/Female, Living/Dead?
Selena Gomez. I’m sorry. I know. Disney. Selena Gomez.
If you had to choose, would you rather be nice or smart? I’d rather be smart, because you can choose to be nice but you can’t choose to be smart. -josie
For some reason this reminded me of Of Mice And Men.
SPENCER, YOU LIKE THE MIGHTY BOOSH? Make an assessment. – Old Gregg
YEAH! I’ve only seen a few episodes. Could you ever love Old Gregg?
Do you like Paul Simon? He’s my second favorite artist ever, after Wilco. I would recommend his album Graceland if you’ve never listened before.
All I know about Paul Simon is that there is a picture of him in my math textbook WHY? ask the firm that made it in the 90s.
you have nice handwriting, judging by your 2010 resolutions
Yay! Thanks.
You are so sarcastic, and I love it!
I hate you. (JOKE! AHAHAHAH.)
Do you know or ever meet JIM O’ROURKE? Isn’t he GREAT?
He’s a cool dude (uuugh what is another adjective besides cool?).
Have you ever gotten recognized on the streets by someone who reads your blog?
A spaceship landed in my yard and an alien being came out and was like “get with the times, look at this fashun blahg I know you aren’t into fashun but you might like this fashun blahg” and so I went to it and became friends with the fashion blogger. (the real story isn’t much different. a Wilco fan emailed me {whoever you are, thank you! thanks a lot!} with a link to Tavi’s blog, and said “here’s a child who is similarly precocious” and then I saw it {the day after Madison Square Garden / my birthday / December 17th – creepy?} and I said “whoa! she’s cool!” and emailed her whiiich led to many correspondences and then mutual b’nai mitzvah attendance. Mhmm.)
how do you feel about Lady Gaga?
I hear a lot of people saying she’s like the “new Madonna” and shtuff like that. I definitely don’t like her music, but there might be something unique about the whole shtick.
cheesyblasters
Yes.
favorite movie?
I really should know the answer to this. I will redirect you to this video found through Tavi called Where The Dirty Hipsters Are.
What do you think of the band Spoon? Do you know if there is a band named Fork? Or, better yet, Spork?
I like ‘em! Spork. Are legitimate sporks sold anywhere?
I can ride a bike with no handlebars. NO HANDLEBARS.
NO. I’m sorry but that song has been played / listened to by me involuntarily too many times.
Can you say “formspring” in Spanish?
Springo de form.
Have you ever met someone that can lick their elbow?
Behold the magical awesomeness of this gem, found in Michigan. Whooooo wants to go, um, hijack it with me? I think it could use some TLC/touring around the country world, don’t you? Okay.
The past week has been a strange last-days-of-summer funtimez smorgasbord. I think I’m in a fog, sorta. I just have this feeling going through my head nonstop that says, “I just don’t know.” I’m not sure, really. If I like a certain song, or what shoes I like, all sorts of things. I just don’t know. I’ve had this feeling before and I know (hah, “I know”) it’s a part of ~growin’ up~ to some degree. And just being a teenager (well, that’s sort of the same thing). But yeah.
Anyhaps, The M’s (one of my favorite bands, even though till now-ish I’ve only had one of their albums) sent me a nice package of their works on vinyl along with some other guys’s on the label – Polyvinyl. So far I’ve only listened to Real Close Ones, and it’s awesome. Maybe not my favorite but still pretty cool – it has a sixties sort of vibe to it, which, if done right, is very interesting. My favorite songs are Days In The Sun and Pigs Fly.
I [we] watched Jaws last night. It was five bucks at Walmart (sorry sorry again sorry we went to Walmart sorry) so we got that and a few others, including a set of 20 Hitchcock films from his early days (20′s and 30′s, a few from the 50′s). It doesn’t have Vertigo or The Birds, unfortunately. There’s five bucks of Walmart crap for ya. Anyway, Jaws was a good movie.. Maybe a wee bit traumatizing (like, we’re never going swimming again traumatizing haa) but good. The sheriff dude is totally awesome. Like that one part, where he blows up the thingy with the thingthing? Yeah he’s awesome.
I’ve gotten super into Flickr lately. I bought a pro account which is a must, if you want to use the service to its full extent~~. I have a bunch of photos up but they need to be organized. Hmpf.
Last night the light was POIFECT when I took this.
My favorite out of the photos I took today.
Flowers are so weird. I love them.
The macro on my point-and-shoot is surprisingly good. I got so close to this bee!
I also made a little stopmotion crap this afternoon.
Songs: Pigs Fly, Days In The Sun, And The Hazy Sea, All Of A Sudden, Strayed, Running Thoughts, Many Ghosts, Tell Me Why
If you can’t read that, I think you may need some RANDY JACKSON EYEWEAR.
kthanks
p.s. maaad props to whoever can guess the person who’s quote is this post title.
