Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 10.0 [Focus.]

When I was seventeen, I went to my first real rock and roll show.

Yes, I like to act as if I've been in the scene forever, but your little Jenna, who is at once a professional fan and pretentious, unforgiving music critic, had at one time completely given up on anything remotely resembling contemporary music.

I listened to nothing but the local oldies station all through middle school. This was back when “oldies radio” meant the '50s and early '60s, and not any year remotely approaching the year of my birth in the early '80s. I didn't have any strong affinity for oldies radio, but a person has to listen to something while doing homework or falling asleep, so that is what I kept the clock radio in my bedroom set to.

At the end of eighth grade I was advised (more or less) that everyone my age listened to 99X, which I believe, at the time, was billed as “Alternative Rock”. Whatever that means. I remember the exact conversation sitting in the computer room in the hallway where you took all your electives, next to this girl whose name I will not publish but do remember. For some reason I perceived her to be cooler than me, and when she heard that I listened to Fox 97 (“Good times, great oldies”) she tried to chastise me, and fully succeeded. So I switched.

What followed that was a few festival type concerts, the kind of all day events with too much sun and overpriced food. I thought that's what live music was. I had never been to a club show, and I think I was completely ignorant of their existence. And while I generally had fun playing in the sun all day and into the night, throwing up rock hands and dodging the feet of wayward crowd surfers, I never felt like I had seen a tremendous amount of music. The performers at these shows were often hundreds of feet away and projected onto large screens at either side of the stage. I often wondered to myself why I was paying so much money to basically sit in the hot sun and watch broadcast television.

I distinctly remember, at 15 years old, lying in the sun, in the middle of the stadium at the International Horse Park, catching a nap during the Fuel set. Granted, Fuel isn't the most amazing band, but I was 15 and this was 1998. I should have been nuts for them. It seemed like everyone else was. Read More »

New, souped-up gmail with an inbox at zero (down from at least 200). Today has been a good day.

When you spend your entire work life in your email, this is something worth celebrating.

“We've got to toughen you up.”

“Is that right?”

“Totally. I'll tell you what we'll do. When I get there, we'll go down to the bar, crack some bottles over people's heads, give some noogies.
“You'll be carrying an 12 inch — no 18 inch metal rod, and I'll carry a bucket of oil slick. When the cops come after us, you throw the rod in the front spokes—”

“—this sounds like an excellent way to get arrested.”

“God, grow some testicles, Jenna! I mean, not literal testicles. Not literal.”

“I know. Metaphorical. Cojones.”

“Exactly. I mean, you don't need anything hanging down there. You have a very nice shape as it is.”

“Well thank you.”

“Anyway, you throw the rod in the wheel, they go flying over the handlebars. Meanwhile, I throw the oil slick down and the rest of them slide all over the place.”

“This is like a bad cartoon!”

“Of course it is! What do you think I have access to? There should also be like, anvils dropping from the sky and people walking off of cliffs.”

“And we can paint a tunnel on the side of a building and they'll ride right into it.”

“Brilliant!”

Busking 8/5/2007 from Jenna Tollerson and Vimeo.

Downtown Athens, Georgia, 3 AM Saturday night (or Sunday morning). August 5th, 2007.

These guys had a sign that read:

WE SING ABOUT WHAT WE SEE.
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OUR DRUMMER IS WASTED!!!