Ellie Goulding In-Store 4/5

In one of my psychology classes we talked about the concept of planned happenstance. Basically, it says that you create opportunities for good things to happen to yourself. When people ask me how I get to have so many amazing experiences in my life, I refer them to this concept. I create opportunities and good things happen.

Today, Ellie Goulding, who I adore beyond reason, had an in-store performance at the Mall of America Best Buy. The performance started at 7 so what time did I get there? 1:30. Obviously.

And obviously I was the first one in line.

It may seem like a long time to wait in line but I brought with homework to do to make the time pass. Did I end up getting much done? Of course not! This is me we're talking about. Turns out there were some really cool Ellie fans who came soon after me and we got to talking and telling people who asked what we were waiting for that we were in line for the Playstation 4. I'm an asshole.

While waiting in line, a man came out and asked how long we'd been waiting. He then went on to explain that he was Ellie's handler (basically, the guy who keeps Ellie out of trouble and makes sure that no one asks her to sign their vagina) and that because we were such dedicated fans, he wanted to give us a little something extra. The show already included a meet and greet so I didn't know what that extra could possibly be. Well, he explained that he wanted someone to take pictures and it would be my task to get some good shots for her Facebook page.

After I regained consciousness, I agreed. Obviously.

Skipping ahead to show time, I managed to get front row center. When Ellie came out, I was like 3 feet away from her. I could have probably have tackled her if I wanted to... but I didn't. Because I'm not crazy. Obviously.

Ellie started out the set with "Guns and Horses." She played her acoustic guitar and sweet lord was it amazing. It was like the heavens opened up and sprinkled sweet, sweet love on the eardrums of everyone present. Ellie really has a voice that can't be matched. It's soft and strong. It's heart wrenching and inspiring. It's like nothing else you'll ever experience.

In between songs, Ellie was charming and funny and couldn't stop smiling. She really seemed to be enjoying herself, as did the audience. During her second song, "Your Song," an Elton John cover, one of my friends from the line was even moved to tears. It takes something real special to be able to do that.

I, on the other hand, was swept over with this overwhelming feeling of joy. Everything felt so right. Listening to Ellie's gorgeous voice and seeing her shining face brought out feelings that were so overwhelmingly positive that I haven't experienced in a long time. I have a feeling I looked like an idiot because I couldn't stop smiling.

After, one of the younger audience members had requested that Ellie do "Starry Eyed" so, even though she had only been planning on doing three songs, Ellie decided to do an extra. Normally, the song is an electronic dance type song so I was surprised how well it translated into a stripped down acoustic version. But really, should this have surprised me? No. I mean, this is Ellie Goulding we're talking about. She can do anything. Obviously.

Ellie closed the set with "Lights." And it was rockin'. Everyone was dancing and bopping around. And at the very end, it went into the Bassnectar remix of the song with live vocals from Ellie, to the delight of everyone there.

After the show came the meet and greet where Ellie showed that not only is she a great talent and freaking gorgeous but she's also a genuinely nice person. She said she saw me up front and asked my name and gave me a personalized autograph. I then asked if I could get a hug and she was like, "Of course!" I walked around the table and hugged her and told her that she was wonderful. She was incredibly gracious and super kind. I got a quick picture and then was on my way.

I left the show feeling so overwhelmingly happy. What an amazing experience. Today was a day that I don't think I'll ever forget.

Obviously.



This was my third show of my whirlwind Month of 10 Concerts... These shows keep getting better and better! Next up is First Aid Kit on Saturday. What will that bring? Only time will tell!

This must be it, welcome to the new year

I'm not a fan of making New Year resolutions for two reasons: The first is that I never keep them. Remember that year I resolved to stop swearing? Didn't last a fucking week. The second is related to the first and stems from me being a psychology nerd. Anyone who mentions to me that they're going on one of those d-words that is related to changes in your eating habits in an attempt to loose weight gets a stern lecture about how said d-words don't work and they really should be making lifestyle changes instead. I hate to hit you with the beating stick of reality but you're not going to be able to eat healthy for six months and then go back to eating the processed, sugar pumped, deep fried, greasy shit you did before and be able to keep the weight off. The psychological literature also suggests that people who attempt to diet will ultimately fail when placed in a cognitively taxing situation.

Wow, it sounds like I'm writing a research paper.

Obviously this applies to other areas of life besides just the d-word. This is why instead of making a New Year resolution, I'm making a NEW YEAR LIFE STYLE CHANGE.

Gwen is excited about lifestyle changes.

I realize I'm a bit late to the party but I really wanted to think this one over seeing as, unlike a resolution, this is going to be a permanent change, I wanted to make sure it was just right. Finally, while I was supposed to be meditating during yoga tonight (Whoops!) I thought of something absolutely perfect.

I do this thing where I'll meet someone, we'll be friends for a while, and then they'll mysteriously become really busy, not contact me on their own, and generally, you know, be a lousy friend. Instead of just moving on, I'll keep trying to be their friend. Well, no more! I'M FINALLY GROWING A PAIR.

 

When this happens, I'm going to tell them they're an asshole and send them a flaming bag of poop and then delete them from my life.

No, I'm totally kidding. What I am going to do, however, is stop making an effort with people who don't make one with me. So when one of these yayhoos makes an appearance in my life, instead of desperately clawing at them and showering them with baked goods, trying to make plans with them, and searching for amusing videos of little girls being headbutted in the ovaries by a raging sheep, I'm just going to stop contacting them.

That's not to say I'll IGNORE them. You have to REALLY send me into a raging whirlwind for me to ignore you. If we run into each other, I'll still be like, "OH HEY GURL HOW YOU BE?!" But I'm not going to go out of my way to see them. I'm not going to text them and be like, "Let's hang out!!!" And I'm definitely not going to spend my time looking for ovary hating sheep. If they really want me in their life, they'll put forth some effort. Friendships are a two way street and it's not healthy for one person to put in ALL of the effort. No one ends up happy that way. It took me a long time to realize this and I'm not saying the lifestyle change will be easy. But I think in the end, it'll ultimately be worthwhile.

On a lighter note, I'm starting to figure out my busy concert going schedule for the year. I love going to live shows but unfortunately this little thing called "college" sometimes get in the way. Oh, that and money. Boo. Here's a short selection of what I have planned so far:

Jan. 29th- Los Campesinos!

April 2nd- The Ting Tings
April 7th- First Aid Kit (possibly, assuming someone will go with me)
April 16th- Cults

Coachella?!?! (Dependent on funds and line up)

May 4th- Neon Indian

June 23rd-24th- This mystery festival that's supposedly happening in Minneapolis

July 20th-21st- First Avenue's festival

August 3rd-5th- Lollapalooza, dependent on funds and line up

Now, clearly there's a large gap in there and my calendar is not near as full as I'd like it to be. Hopefully I'll be making that change as the year really gets going and more artists start touring.

If you're excited about an upcoming show, let me know in a comment! And let me know how you're going to be changing your life this new year!

You can call me Dr. Phil

 "Only hang out with people you like. I learned this and it changed my life."

-Emily Haines

Most people think of summer as a time to relax and unwind but, I, on the other hand, seem to always have this crazy notion that I should take summer classes. Needless to say, this makes my summer significantly less exciting especially when the class I'm taking this summer is O chem II. I'm gonna keep it real, it's not really going the greatest. It's not that I'm not trying or anything but I just don't get it.  Every time I'm asked, "How would you perform this synthesis?" I feel like, rather than attempting to bullshit my way through a synthesis, I'd be better off just writing, "I would ask someone who actually understands chemistry to do it."

Last night I actually emerged from my study shell (and by emerged from my study shell, I mean last night was one of the three nights a year when someone was like, "Gee, Joey still exists. Maybe we should call him!") for a while. We were in some rando's backyard and somehow the subject of prom came up. One of my friends mentioned that she didn't enjoy her prom because she didn't really want to spend time with her boyfriend and would have rather gone with her friends.

For some reason, this statement jarred me. I'm no relationship expert, largely because I have yet to find someone who's desperate enough to date me, but I feel like my almost complete degree in psychology and the fact that I passed social psych brings me pretty damn close, right? I've always been of the school of thought that you really shouldn't be dating someone that you don't want to spend time with because you can only have sex for so many hours in a day (and even then, sex as a foundation for a relationship generally doesn't lead to anything stable) and you'll be spending plenty of time with each other so shouldn't you actually look forward to that time?

Apparently, not everyone thinks this way because I know WAY too many people aren't dating someone who they genuinely like outside of the bedroom. I've always said that I don't want to rush into a relationship with someone because I want to have the foundation of a genuine friendship but it seems like too many many people are waaaay to eager to get right into a relationship or each others' pants.

Now, I may be biased in this last statement because of the types of guys I tend to attract. For some reason, the stage 5 clingers are really into me. I don't really know why this is because I have a tendency to make my annoyance very clear but they persist. Maybe I have a musk that tells guys that I like being texted, "Hey, what's up? How are you? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?" three times a day or maybe it's what I get for trying to be nice to most people. Either way, I have a low threshold for that and I quickly lose any mild interest I may have had before.

My point is that people need to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN and take time to get to know each other. Studies have shown that couples who are friends tend to last longer and quite honestly, you didn't need to do an empirical study to tell me that. It seems kind of... duh? The reasoning behind this may be because there are two different kinds of love that play a key role in intimate relationships. The first kind is passionate love, and, as the name suggests, this is the "OMG I WANT TO HUMP YOUR BRAINS OUT!!!!" kind of love. I don't remember the exact length of time but it doesn't exactly last a long period. Like your passion, your relationship will probably fizzle unless there's a strong foundation of companionate love. This is the kind of love where you genuinely care about the other person and what they think, feel, etc. This is the kind of love found in deep friendships and generally lasts a lot longer than passionate love (and actually grows over time). Without it, your relationship will not work for an extended period and I've never seen the point of getting into a relationship I knew would fail.

To sum things up, if you find someone that you're interested in dating, take the time to actually get to know them. You'll be glad you did because in the long run your relationship will be stronger. If things don't work out between you and them, hey, that's okay. Some people don't work out together. You'll probably find someone else and if you don't, there's always cats!

The (Facebook) Bystander Effect

It's a Saturday night and so far this evening I ran 8 miles, chased a rabbit around the yard, and learned the medical term for man-boobs. One thing I did not do, however, is have any sort of social contact minus a few texts seeing if some friends were free this evening (Obviously they were not).

I know you're probably thinking, "Oh God, Joey's going to bitch about not having friends again." While most of the time you would be right (Let's be honest: I'm pretty damn good at bitching) bear with me because this is actually going somewhere productive.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, not having a social life. So here I was, sitting by my lonesome when I got the idea to post something on Facebook seeing if anyone wanted to hang out. Despite posting the most witty, insightful, and though provoking status I could, no one responded. Whomp whomp. This isn't the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. I was pondering why the fuck this kept happening when two explanations came into my head:

(Actually, quite a few more came into my head. But these seemed the most likely. I don't think all my friends being abducted by aliens and replaced with illiterate sheep who have hacked into their Facebook accounts is very plausible).

The first explanation is that I'm completely unbearable to be around because I'm annoying as all fuck, smell, am ugly as sin, a real asshole, hated by everyone, or some combination there of. While this is definitely a viable theory because no one wants to to spend time with people with those traits, it's more than likely a product of my paranoia because sometimes I convince myself of some pretty ridiculous things.

I decided to think a little more rationally for an explanation. Suddenly, it hit me as I thought back to my social psychology class and something known as the bystander effect.

Those of you who haven't taken social psychology or even introductory psychology are probably thinking, "What the fuck is the bystander effect?" ...or some variant of that. The bystander effect is an interesting phenomena that occurs when people are confronted with an emergency situation in which someone else needs help. If there's just one person there, they will be significantly more likely to attempt to help than if there is a group of people around. This is believed to occur because when more people are around, people feel less personally obligated to help and the sense of responsibility is diffused throughout the group. Unfortunately, this usually results in no one helping. An example of this from my social psych class was this chick named Feline Genwjwthaiothabgtasjgnasg, or something like that, who was murdered in an alley in New York and, despite crying for help, none of her neighbors called the police.

So what the hell does this have to do with my Facebook post? Think about the way Facebook works: We each have a couple hundred (or, for those who are particularly insecure, a couple thousand) friends that all of our status updates, links, etc. get sent out to. Each of those friends has a couple hundred/thousand friends (again, depending on their level of insecurity). Each of these friends acts as a bystander of sorts and thus everyone develops a, "Oh, someone else will respond" attitude and no one responds even if they may be bored and looking for something to do. I am coining this "the Facebook bystander effect."

Another example from my life was back in March when I was looking for someone to see Girl Talk with me. I posted repeatedly on Facebook asking if anyone wanted to go with me because the person I was originally going with was no longer able to go. Bear in mind that GT sold out two back to back shows in Minneapolis. How many people do you think responded? ZERO. Thankfully, I ran into my friend Edwina (isn't her name AWESOME?!) and she told me she wanted to go. I asked why she didn't respond on Facebook and she said, "Oh, I thought someone else would want to go so I figured I'd wait and see." Like in the real life bystander effect, there were many virtual bystanders so she had just assumed that someone else would respond because of a sort of diffusion of responsibility (although in this case there's no responsibility, but to keep in the context of the original bystander effect I'll use that term).

Now, I realize this is quite the stretch to go from a real life emergency to something as silly as Facebook but think about it abstractly and you'll see that the general concept, the more people there are the less likely someone will act, carries over. Of course, there are other problems. My thinking is in no way based on any empirical evidence because I don't have fucking time to do experiments for fun. I do think the anecdotal evidence suggests there may be something there. Also, it is based off of a theory that actually has empirical evidence behind it. So if any of you happen to be a researcher and want to test this theory out, let me know! *wink wink nudge nudge*

There are some other applications of the Facebook bystander effect that, assuming it's actually happening, I'd be interested in exploring as well. For example, does this still happen if the person making the post has few friends? Are people more likely to respond if they themselves have few friends? What factors can increase responsiveness to a request on Facebook (humor, invoking a sense of obligation, etc.)? How many people would respond to an actual emergency request on Facebook ("The baby's coming! Someone take me to the hospital!") and would responsiveness be affected by any of the above listed factors? Does having a picture of a sexy bikini model increase the likelihood of a response?

Finally, how can this effect be countered? Research would need to be done to make a reliable judgment of whether variations in wording or tone could result in more responses. The best way to counter the Facebook bystander effect would be to make very specific requests. In the actual bystander effect, instead of shouting, "Somebody help me!" it would be a better idea to pick one person out and point to them and shout, "Hey asswipe in the red scarf, call the police!" Okay, maybe don't call them asswipe. But you catch my drift, right?

To apply this to Facebook, instead of posting a status saying, "I'm bored. Someone want to go fly fishing?!" it would be more effective to write on one person's wall, send them a message, use the chat feature, tag them in a post, text them, use a carrier pigeon, address them specifically via smoke signals, etc. I can't promise that this will get you results, however, because it seems like people are too lazy/big of assholes to respond to texts and what not... But that's a whole different blog =)

Another way to overcome the bystander effect may to just simply be aware of it so you can consciously make an effort to notice if it is happening and hopefully act against it. So the take home message is that if you see someone who's looking for something to do or someone to go see a show with on Facebook, don't just assume someone else is going to respond and do it yourself. Chances are, everyone else is thinking, "Someone else is going to respond so why bother?" This especially applies if it's something I post. I always love comments and responses, which is why I obsessively do it on other peoples' posts all the time.

If anyone actually decides to put my little theory to the test, let me know how it goes. From a personal standpoint, hopefully by taking a more proactive and direct approach I won't be spending too many more weekends like this holed up at home.

... Or maybe I'm just an asshole.