Brian's World

Green Day’s ode to Hamlet: Wake me up

February 16th, 2006 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Today in English class, I came to the startling realization that Hamlet, debatably the best know piece of literature in the world, is the subject of a Green Day song “Wake Me Up When September Ends”. This song reflects on some of the issues presented in this play and shows how Hamlet is still upset at the loss of his father, his mothers re-marriage, and his resentment towards his uncle.

In the opening stanza of the song, Green Day, representing Hamlet, quickly sets the stage. “Summer has come and passed” creates the feeling that summer fun is over, that it’s time to start settling down for winter. This quickly becomes a depressing feeling when the next line adds “The innocence can never last.” The mood is quickly changed, or rather redirected, from the calming down from spring to the calming down with depressionary forces. Ophelia, Hamlet’s girlfriend, was the innocent character in this situation. As the song dictates, innocence can never last, and Ophelia does not last, she commit suicide in an act of depression and madness.

Opening with a line “Like my fathers come to pass” the next stanza introduces the death of King Hamlet, Hamlets father. Hamlet is still mourning the recent loss of his father. The following line “seven years has gone to pass” has two potential meanings. Hamlet has been at school for seven years and not had a chance to be with his father, or some other significant even with his father and him occurred seven years ago.

The third stanza brings in Claudius, Hamlets enemy, into the song. Dealing entirely with the poison, Hamlet feels the attack came from nowhere and seemed completely unwarranted. Using rain to symbolize poison, Green Day says “here comes the rain again / falling from the stars / drenched in my pain again.” His memory of the murder and poison is coming back. The poison came from his uncle, someone who he looked up to or was of high position in the state. Memories of the poison bring back painful thoughts, just as the poison brought pain on his father.

Green Day introduces their last topic in the sixth stanza, bringing up the topic of marriage through the imagery of bells. He touches on the fact that there is another marriage occurring, but doesn’t clearly state his opinion on the matter.

If one ignores the specifics about “September” and does not jump to the obvious subject matter that Billie Joe is writing about the death of his father in September there are clear connections between the song and Hamlet. Or maybe what can be inferred, is that Hamlet was feeling similar things to that of Billie Joe (or visa versa).

Works Cited:

Green Day. “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” By Billie Joe Armstrong. American Idiot.

Lyrics can be found here:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/greenday/wakemeupwhenseptemberends.html

Mp3:

Wake Me Up When September Ends

Another steep hill… threw me into the valley

February 13th, 2006 Posted in Problems, Studio, Stupid People | 1 Comment »

Today was a day, not a great day.. but a day. Sure, we got 3 bookish things to “read” over vacation, and a stat test came back… but that really wasn’t what was bothering me a whole lot. Ok, I’ll stop dancing around the issue and jump right into it, because its a fire burning inside of me… and if I keep dancing any longer, well… this metaphor isn’t going to work… sorry.

There are two issues at hand, interconnect in the same sense that I’m loosing/lost and I hope I don’t loose you.

The first, and slightly simplier one is that tomorrow night, I’ve been recruited to work. Usually, this would not be a big deal; Tuesday night, I got nothing else going on… but tomorrow happens to be Valentines Day. One of those days you’re suppose to go overboard showing the person you love how much you actually do.. well, I can’t go overboard because I love her that much but yeah. I’ll be stuck in the High School filming the very romantic School Commitee Budget meetings, I can’t think of a better place to spend my night. Well, I know that I couldn’t take you out on a date or anything great like that because of JOL but I’ve got like 2 weeks left. I dunno, it would have been nice to at least be able to chat with you or something… maybe I’ll steal wifi.. yeah, I like that idea. But come one, how much of a pushover am I to be working on Valentines day; chances are my boss is going out to dinner with his wife or something and that’s why I’m filming. It’s definately not that I enjoy work, money, or anything like that more than you… I’m just too nice for my own good sometimes 🙁

Now the next issue is going to be one of those “beat around the bush” topics when I never really come straight out and say it but I’ll try and convey my thoughts as effectively as I can.

This weekend, I spent some time thinking about something and got rather confident I could do it; well, not do it… but at least try. So I went into today being slightly optimistic that I could pull it off. I musta been on drugs or something because I noticed the realistic chance of being able to pull it off is well, below a 5%. And that seems a little high. It’s just a few things. I know people view me differently because I’m “in charge” and stuff, but I don’t comment when they do stuff and I expect they won’t comment when I do things, significantly less disturbing then they do. Another issue, I know if something were to happen, people would make it some big deal and stuff; which probably wouldn’t help my already low confidence at all. I don’t want any special treatment, but I just want to be treated fair… is that too much to ask?

Well, since I’ve pretty much given up on that idea, it can only happen in a dream or miracle; and that makes me kinda sad… I’m back to the low similiar to “ugh, this summer is gonna repeat last”…

But on a lighter note…. wait, I don’t have any lighter notes..

Hey Ya Oe Oe Oe Ahh Oe Oe Oe Ahh

January 31st, 2006 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Not a theme song from a tv showif you read that in a chanting kind of voice you get the Survivor theme song so you guessed it.. Survivor time!

Dan “Survivor is a very interesting model, for long duration space flight. It’s exactly what long duration crews are going to have to deal with and that is, how you get along with this diverse group of people in a stressful situation. Being able to tolerate how other people do stuff is a really important skill to have”

Jeff: “He’s a former astronaut. ASTRONAUT. He’s been up. Playing this game, I think he’s very well suited”

Dan definitely has his finger on the pulse on how to play this game and there is no question that his former career is an asset with respect to close quarter relating, remaining calm and in control. Older men typically do okay in this show PROVIDED they do not go overboard in a leadership role where the other tribe members feel patronized. Dan’s appearance and his brief words do not strike me as an intrusive figure. Jeff is positive about him as well but not too in depth about Dan so I’m of the impression for right now that Dan is not a “wave maker” but a steady player.

http://community.realitytvworld.com/boards/DCForumID2/6259.shtml
Well, there you have it. It seems my neighbor has a chance of winning! (And an inside source said he was not the one that got voted off the first week.) But that inside source was guessing, but I trust him because he can read the internet.

I’m going to pre-apologize for any politically incorrect statements I make in this category, anything that offends anyone, or anything that makes you laugh to hard or get to confused. Just remember, save you’re real thinking for Chemistry and Calculus… because you can’t spell college without a c