...however, was not like trying to thread a needle while sitting on a moving roller coaster without drawing blood. It was in fact, a lot more like just throwing caution to the wind and drawing blood – a lot of it.
So my mom flew out here on the day after her birthday, and for the first time in years I actually got to hand her a birthday present in person (instead of having to drop a card into a fucking post office mail box). She cried a lot and was mostly just happy to see me. I stayed at my sister’s place for almost two weeks and just spent time with family. It was nice to get away for a while...but I’m starting to feel that there is an increasing awkwardness every time I visit.
My sister has devoted her life to Christianity now – and my niece, who I love more than anything, has reached a very inquisitive age. She’s three years old now (going on four - what the fuck does that phrase even mean?), and has entered the stage of asking the question “why?” in response to every single answer she is given (including answers like, “I don’t know”). I can’t help but think about the following clip every time this vicious cycle begins:
Anyway...she is a very observant, active little person. All I’m waiting for is the day when she can start reading shit. This will, in turn, limit what I can wear when I go to visit my sister. Although I cannot let her become familiar with The Poacher Diaries album artwork, she will definitely be able to recognize the Integrity skull by the time she’s five. Any day now I’ll be subject to a conversation about Christianity just for being in the room and she will ask me if I believe in God. She isn’t my kid, and my sister and I have a very long history together...I feel like I’ll just fuck everything up if I have to be the one who introduces my own niece to the concept of Atheism and Agnosticism. Oh well...I wish I could tell my sister that she can’t protect her from everything forever.
My friend who attends UCLA invited me to watch his band play a punk show in Long Beach. It had been several years since I had been to a punk show...so I knew this would be interesting. I drove up to an old, dilapidated house in a slightly sketchy neighborhood. The Hickey Underworld, they called it. It kind of reminded me of a commune, but with more Circle Jerks patches. I walked up to the “front”, which was in the back, and paid my three dollars. THREE DOLLARS for five bands. A kid sitting by the door noticed my Starsixtynine hoodie and made an under-the-breath Lifetime appreesh comment. I smiled and later he would walk up to me and invite me to go with him to the liquor store across the street.
We walked and he told me about his life in Anaheim. He was a sweet dude. He bought a six pack of New Castle and we took it back to the house, where he offered me a free drink and then put the rest in the refrigerator.
“Do you live here or something?”
“Nah, man,” he said...and just walked outside.
Down the hatch in a few minutes, and I grabbed a second bottle. When I had to take a piss, I discovered a framed picture of a Thriller-era Michael Jackson, a Dr. Octavius action figure and an aluminum New Castle can, among other amazing things. GOD DAMN. Then an incredibly cute punk girl appeared with burritos. From that point on I was smitten for the rest of the night. Oh well...
My friend from UCLA showed up with the rest of his band, Until Your Heart Stops, and we all hung out. He introduced me to the other kids in the band and I began to feel like shit because for every five new people I meet, I forget the names of three other people I met in the same night. One of the bands played “Big Mouth” by Gorilla Biscuits and I moshed so hard I accidentally hit someone in the face with the back of my head.
Until Your Heart Stops played while kids from the bay area went off and an incredibly awkward picture of me was taken during their set. Later on the band Touche Amore played and The Hickey Underworld just about collapsed. Way to go, Long Beach.
Eventually we left and I followed my friend back to his place, where a typical UCLA college party was winding down. Gorgeous, yet air-headed college girls ran around drunk/stoned and played beer pong while a couple of random fights broke out in the street. Although it has dawned on me before, it suddenly occurred to me that I went to college for four years, and pretty much experienced the OPPOSITE of what everyone else does.
I drove back to my apartment and slept it off.
For those of you who don’t know, the San Diego-based hardcore band, Unbroken (’91 to ’95), reunited for three final shows in the month of May. One of them was in Chicago, IL during the Burning Fight (a retrospective look at the evolution of hardcore during the 90s) book release show. The other two were in Southern California - one at the Ché Cafe in San Diego, and the other at the Glasshouse in Pomona. I was lucky enough to attend the show at the Glasshouse.
The air was thick with tension all night long...wondering what songs they’d play...wondering how violent the crowd would be. When Unbroken finally took the stage, they opened their set with “Blanket.” After that, I went into another completely different state of mind. They ended their set with “Absentee Debate” and everything in between was just a blur of all things heavy. I remember seeing Nate Newton from Converge standing on the stage just before their set...and it just felt good to know that I was a part of something that important...even if I was only a very, very tiny part of it.
I drove back to my sister’s house and did not sleep it off.
As my sister delves deeper into Christianity, the invitations to Sunday services seem to be increasing at a geometric rate. This time, it was Mother’s Day. I woke up at the crack of dawn, feeling like I had gotten the shit kicked out of me the night before, and got ready for church. When you read it, it just...doesn’t sound right, does it?
I really don’t belong in church. The things going on in my head when I’m sitting there are too fucked up and UN-holy for me to be spending any of my time there. However, I knew it would make my mom and my sister happy – especially because it was Mother’s Day...so I stayed on my best behavior.
My mom stayed for a few more days and flew back to El Paso on awkward notes. Unfortunately, my mom is incapable of staying out here and seeing my sister, her grand-daughter and I for a certain amount of time without going off-balance. The main thing that triggers this is the fact that she has to leave, and the only way she can deal with it is by avoiding everyone during the last few days. She becomes incredibly difficult to deal with and if she’s rubbed the wrong way she can slip into a “mini episode”. These “mini episodes” are potentially traumatizing for anyone who isn’t used to her illness. For me, it’s just something I kind of anticipate.
I returned to the apartment and sunk back into this long, drawn-out, horrific fail that I have been calling a “job search.” Apparently, statistics have shown that people with my degree find jobs where their starting salaries are as much as 60k to 70k a year. These statistics say nothing about how long it takes for them to find these jobs. The mere fact that I actually need a job like this still bothers me.
A 5.0 earthquake in Hawthorne and a visit to The Apple Pan later, my roommate and I walked around in the Westside Pavilion Mall and wondered why the fuck it took us so long to finally hang out there. Upon walking inside for a few minutes, I immediately realized it was my first time being there in roughly ten years.
The following weekend was Memorial Day weekend. With my incredibly active, event-filled life, you might be surprised that I had fucking nothing to do...so when my roommate hit me up and asked if I’d want to drive down to Orange County for Son of Man/Onlooker practice, I couldn’t resist. We jammed to some new material that I’ve been working on for a “third” Onlooker album, and worked on a new Son of Man intro that will hopefully rise to a level of heaviness strong enough to collapse an Egyptian temple.
After laying down some improvised mosh-ables, we picked up my roommate’s girlfriend from work and decided to play a long-overdue game of miniature golf. Although a terrific idea in principle, this ended up ruining my shit for a good week or so.
It was the first time I had been in game-mode in almost eight months. My roommate and I were neck and neck up until we finished the third hole. This is when a unanimous decision was suddenly made to wait for my roommate to run back to his car and get the digital camera. While his girlfriend and I stood there waiting to play the fourth hole...a girl appeared behind us, and I was completely floored.
She wore a pink hair band and her hair was – well...think Alley Sheedy in the last fifteen minutes of The Breakfast Club – but with her hair a tiny bit shorter, and a face way the fuck cuter. She wore a white, button-up cardigan and a pair of jeans that showed off what I have decided is the greatest ass I’ve ever seen...ever. A pair of chucks and I was smitten all over again. My roommate returned with the digital camera, but by then I was completely shitting myself.
The girl was with some douche bag, of course. No, really – he was a douche bag. My roommate and his girlfriend both concurred on this issue. They followed us around – hole after hole – for a good thirty minutes. All I know is that I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl for a week. I am such a piece of shit.
I finally came to after several days and my best friend asked me if I’d be down to get drunk if he drove all the way up to LA from Carlsbad. Once again, although it may be hard to believe, I didn’t have anything else going on, so I said, “fuck it,” and found directions to the nearest Benitos.
What can I say? We had an agenda.
By 12am I was eating some of LA’s finest rolled tacos and downing shots of Early Times. We decided to leave the rest of the night to chance once we made the decision to finish what was left of the bottle (based on the logic that there were “only two shots left, man”). My best friend took the time to bring his PlayStation 3 along with his entire Rock Band set up, all with the intention of throwing together a much anticipated online tour with another one of my inebriated best friends who currently resides in Amarillo, TX. However, once we discovered that we were incapable of executing the simple task of pressing three buttons to navigate our way through Joust, it was clear that the tour would have to be canceled on a rain check.
Then I walked into my bathroom and purposely un-ate some of LA’s finest rolled tacos, along with half a bag of my roommate’s salt n’ vinegar kettle chips.
This emotional roller coaster that I’ve been on seems to be approaching a point where there is no track...I can only hope the engineering interns who designed the theme park took enough physics courses to know what they were doing when they built the track I’m supposed to land on after I go airborne.
In the meantime, I’ll be trying to keep blood from the needle from getting on my new clothes. Maybe I’ll just swallow it.
“You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.”
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
April (road trip content)...
...was kind of like trying to thread a needle while sitting on a moving roller coaster without drawing blood. It's not impossible -- it's just a stupid fucking idea.
My last few days in New Mexico were mostly bound in quarantine. I'm pretty sure I went through an entire package of toilet paper JUST from blowing my nose. Everyone in the house got sick...including my niece and my sister, who began feeling shitty on the day of her birthday.
Early in the month of March my friends from Albuquerque informed me that Shook Ones would be playing a few dates in Southern California with Have Heart during the first weekend of April. My friends were in the process of making plans to go on a road trip to attend all three dates...and apparently they were planning on driving to Las Cruces first in order to pick someone up. How could I resist the opportunity to return home crammed into a van with seven other people on what could be the greatest road trip of the entire year? I have no idea. That's why I decided to do it.
The Albuquerque kids showed up at my parents' house on Thursday morning, right after my parents left to take my sister and my niece to the airport in El Paso. We crammed all of my shit into the back of the mini-van and then drove to the university to pick up my best friend's cousin Vinnie. That's right...his cousin Vinnie.
Oh world, you're so ironic.
It was the greatest feeling ever once we got on the road. Interstate 10, apples and oranges, an epic Straight Edge Revenge sing-along every hour on the twenty-fourth minute, and a few hundred miles of desert. We jammed to so much pop rock between Las Cruces and Tucson, it felt like we were in a Panic at the Disco music video.
A few hours and at least a dozen stolen items later, we hit Tucson and dropped off my best friend so he could get a Burt Bacharach tattoo. Sickest idea ever. We stayed at a friend's house and I got to meet some awesome new people. I met a dog named Jack, which freaked me out, and a girl I have agreed to name a cat after. I told stories of my wonderful neighborhood and how I refuse to have packages delivered to my apartment ever again.
The night was young and several of us were still hungry, so we decided to grab a bite to eat at Del Taco. When we got back to the house, some creepy, homeless dude walked up to the van and tried to ask us politely where the nearest hospital was (or at least later on that's what I started saying he probably would have asked us). Vinnie happened to be behind the wheel when this happened and just before the man could say anything everyone started panicking. I really don't know why but I just started telling Vinnie to floor it, not thinking that he would actually do it. All of a sudden Vinnie pealed out and we took off with everyone screaming.
The following morning I woke up to rolled oats and good company. A cat named Sparrow suddenly appeared, and someone had to put it together for me that the cat's name was not an accident. Sue me for occasionally being slow on the blatant pop culture references. Anyway, we all crammed ourselves into the van plus one new member, and left with me missing a bit of Tucson...especially the part where my friends leaned out the window and started yelling, "FAGGOT" at people on the side of the road.
Several hours, a stop in Yuma, and at least a dozen stolen items later we were in the state of California listening to Under the Boards. We hit the San Diego freeways by late afternoon and mild rush hour traffic began to shit on us. At first we had trouble finding the Che Cafe, but luckily we found a student on campus who was probably trying to get to his car so that he could drive to a hospital and see his dying grandmother one last time. This dude was actually nice enough to stop and wait for us to pass him, do a sketchy u-turn and then drive back so that he could give us directions to the venue. To this day my best friend will probably claim that he could not hear us, but after the dude helped us out my best friend started rolling up his window as we pulled away and said, "thanks,...faggot."
All the while I was still sick, hoping I wouldn't end up spreading the plague to everyone else in the van. We got to the venue and piled out after several hours of sitting on ass. It was my first visit to the Che Cafe. I met a nice girl inside who was working behind the counter and yet failed to acquire digits or even a name! Sometimes I like to think I'm getting better at this, but I am probably not. My best friend from Albuquerque introduced me to a new friend -- a student at UCLA who coincidentally lives five minutes away from my roommate and I.
Oh world, how small you are.
Shook Ones opened up with a new intro and then pummeled us with Pheasant, a new song, and a few old classics. The room was so small and there were so many people. The rafters hanging from the ceiling were so low...how could I resist the full Che Cafe experience and NOT hang from them? I have no idea. That's why I decided to do it.
When I left the room I was half dead and came within an inch of just vomiting into a trash can. I sat out the rest of the show.
Later that night we got lost somewhere in the San Diego metropolitan area trying to find our hotel (which was paid for courtesy of one of my best friend's relatives). I'm not sure if I've met this lady but what she got us was fucking awesome. She set us up with a two-bed suite, a shower with a seat in it (all creepster), and the best view I've seen from a hotel room in at least ten years. If the fact that we snuck seven extra people into the room for free wasn't sketchy enough, one my friends nutted onto his own name in a bible that was left in the nightstand drawer. Way to up the punx.
The next day we parted ways with the student from UCLA and another friend (who went to the Bamboozle fest in Irvine) and made a trip to Pokez, a vegan friendly restaurant in downtown San Diego. If you're vegan and you haven't been there yet, then you are failing. We all decided to kill some time by checking out the coast in the San Diego area, so we drove up North to La Jolla. Oh, how I missed the beach...oh, how I missed the ocean...so, so much. It felt so good to finally be home. Fuck.
A few hours, an awkward baptism gathering, and several stolen items later we were parked across the street from the Pharaoh's Den in Riverside. Even though I had already been to the venue I had never bothered checking out the cafe right next to it, but fuck...sickest smoothies ever. I got my hipster status on and sat with my friends in a circle around a coffee table whilst all of us drank smoothies and Facebooked on our laptops. Ugh, I am such an asshole for explaining that.
Shook Ones rocked the house down yet again, and Trash Talk made snake blood pour from the ceiling. Have Heart managed to raise the temperature inside the venue to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. During the second half of their set a few of my friends and I hung out in the cafe next door and at some point, I somehow grew the huevos to actually sit down and talk to a girl who I normally wouldn't have tried talking to in a million years. This ended up being sort of a highlight for me, seeing as how she didn't just get up and run away...even though she did make it clear that she was taken.
Oh world, how you fail to surprise me.
It was a long, exhausting drive to Redondo Beach (where I needed to pick up my car that was left at my sister's house before flying out to New Mexico) that lay ahead of us. We picked up my car and drove to Westwood to pick up our friend, who was still hanging out with the student from UCLA. He showed us around town at one in the morning and we ordered a pizza the size of a stop sign. Everyone was so tired at this point -- we drove back to my apartment and pretty much crashed instantly.
The next day everyone just hung out in the apartment. After a few hours all eight of us finally got ready and decided to hit up Masa in Echo Park, another vegan joint with really good pizza. Echo Park proved to be an incredibly confusing neighborhood, as I got completely lost for ten minutes trying to find the place. All frustration aside, I was pleasantly surprised once we actually got to Masa. The next place we visited was Amoeba in Hollywood. Feeling a little low on funds, I actually managed to keep my spending under eighty dollars this time. It was a good run on DVDs though, and the guy at the counter gave me kudos on picking out some decent classics.
But alas, it was time for my friends to return home...
We all parted ways in front of the Jack in the Box across the street from Amoeba. It was tough seeing everyone go, but I made sure to get some good hugs in there. The rest of April, surprisingly, was just a blur.
It felt so good to finally be home, especially after a month of living in New Mexico...but the lingering excitement from the road trip was far too much. I sat down and began writing again...which led to three new Onlooker songs in just a few days.
A week later one of my best friends from the Inland Empire came to visit my roommate and I in LA with his girlfriend. We caught up on things after having not seen each other for about two months. We laughed and laughed...we talked about how wonderful the job market has become in this failing economy. Kylesa was playing that night at the Echoplex in Echo Park, a venue located remarkably close to Masa, the vegan pizza joint I had eaten at a week prior. And so we got lost again...for about ten minutes.
Oh world, how history repeats itself.
The following weekend 108 played the Pharaoh's Den with Xibalba. Needless to say it was an awesome show...a show followed by a long overdue trip to Baker's. It felt good to be home again.
Over the next two and a half weeks I cranked out six new Onlooker songs and recorded them, completing a new album that I've been working on since June 2008. And if I stop for a minute and look at what I'm doing...I do occasionally wonder why I'm still doing it.
I've been writing and recording music for a band that I've wanted to start since the beginning of 2006. It's been so long now that the sound of the "band" is already changing and evolving into something almost completely different from what it was when I first began.
But I can't stop. And maybe I've failed to gain interest from the right people in this scene...or maybe I just haven't made a mark that I'm supposed to make in a giant world where I'm still tiny...a mark that I'm supposed to make before I can start turning heads and get some people to take a risk with me. I'm the only person making the sacrifices now...an investment in something that I still think could be amazing, but will potentially end up being a waste of my time. All the while I hit one dead end after another in my search for employment...an activity that has almost become more of a hobby in comparison to what I really wish I could do right now, which is create something that takes time, patience and dedication. Hence, the reference to a roller coaster seamstress...
I write music for two bands that belong out there on the road...not in this apartment.
That is the way I see it. But everyone appears to be so jaded here -- I don't know what else to do about it. So fuck everyone -- I'm just going to continue writing.
My last few days in New Mexico were mostly bound in quarantine. I'm pretty sure I went through an entire package of toilet paper JUST from blowing my nose. Everyone in the house got sick...including my niece and my sister, who began feeling shitty on the day of her birthday.
Early in the month of March my friends from Albuquerque informed me that Shook Ones would be playing a few dates in Southern California with Have Heart during the first weekend of April. My friends were in the process of making plans to go on a road trip to attend all three dates...and apparently they were planning on driving to Las Cruces first in order to pick someone up. How could I resist the opportunity to return home crammed into a van with seven other people on what could be the greatest road trip of the entire year? I have no idea. That's why I decided to do it.
The Albuquerque kids showed up at my parents' house on Thursday morning, right after my parents left to take my sister and my niece to the airport in El Paso. We crammed all of my shit into the back of the mini-van and then drove to the university to pick up my best friend's cousin Vinnie. That's right...his cousin Vinnie.
Oh world, you're so ironic.
It was the greatest feeling ever once we got on the road. Interstate 10, apples and oranges, an epic Straight Edge Revenge sing-along every hour on the twenty-fourth minute, and a few hundred miles of desert. We jammed to so much pop rock between Las Cruces and Tucson, it felt like we were in a Panic at the Disco music video.
A few hours and at least a dozen stolen items later, we hit Tucson and dropped off my best friend so he could get a Burt Bacharach tattoo. Sickest idea ever. We stayed at a friend's house and I got to meet some awesome new people. I met a dog named Jack, which freaked me out, and a girl I have agreed to name a cat after. I told stories of my wonderful neighborhood and how I refuse to have packages delivered to my apartment ever again.
The night was young and several of us were still hungry, so we decided to grab a bite to eat at Del Taco. When we got back to the house, some creepy, homeless dude walked up to the van and tried to ask us politely where the nearest hospital was (or at least later on that's what I started saying he probably would have asked us). Vinnie happened to be behind the wheel when this happened and just before the man could say anything everyone started panicking. I really don't know why but I just started telling Vinnie to floor it, not thinking that he would actually do it. All of a sudden Vinnie pealed out and we took off with everyone screaming.
The following morning I woke up to rolled oats and good company. A cat named Sparrow suddenly appeared, and someone had to put it together for me that the cat's name was not an accident. Sue me for occasionally being slow on the blatant pop culture references. Anyway, we all crammed ourselves into the van plus one new member, and left with me missing a bit of Tucson...especially the part where my friends leaned out the window and started yelling, "FAGGOT" at people on the side of the road.
Several hours, a stop in Yuma, and at least a dozen stolen items later we were in the state of California listening to Under the Boards. We hit the San Diego freeways by late afternoon and mild rush hour traffic began to shit on us. At first we had trouble finding the Che Cafe, but luckily we found a student on campus who was probably trying to get to his car so that he could drive to a hospital and see his dying grandmother one last time. This dude was actually nice enough to stop and wait for us to pass him, do a sketchy u-turn and then drive back so that he could give us directions to the venue. To this day my best friend will probably claim that he could not hear us, but after the dude helped us out my best friend started rolling up his window as we pulled away and said, "thanks,...faggot."
All the while I was still sick, hoping I wouldn't end up spreading the plague to everyone else in the van. We got to the venue and piled out after several hours of sitting on ass. It was my first visit to the Che Cafe. I met a nice girl inside who was working behind the counter and yet failed to acquire digits or even a name! Sometimes I like to think I'm getting better at this, but I am probably not. My best friend from Albuquerque introduced me to a new friend -- a student at UCLA who coincidentally lives five minutes away from my roommate and I.
Oh world, how small you are.
Shook Ones opened up with a new intro and then pummeled us with Pheasant, a new song, and a few old classics. The room was so small and there were so many people. The rafters hanging from the ceiling were so low...how could I resist the full Che Cafe experience and NOT hang from them? I have no idea. That's why I decided to do it.
When I left the room I was half dead and came within an inch of just vomiting into a trash can. I sat out the rest of the show.
Later that night we got lost somewhere in the San Diego metropolitan area trying to find our hotel (which was paid for courtesy of one of my best friend's relatives). I'm not sure if I've met this lady but what she got us was fucking awesome. She set us up with a two-bed suite, a shower with a seat in it (all creepster), and the best view I've seen from a hotel room in at least ten years. If the fact that we snuck seven extra people into the room for free wasn't sketchy enough, one my friends nutted onto his own name in a bible that was left in the nightstand drawer. Way to up the punx.
The next day we parted ways with the student from UCLA and another friend (who went to the Bamboozle fest in Irvine) and made a trip to Pokez, a vegan friendly restaurant in downtown San Diego. If you're vegan and you haven't been there yet, then you are failing. We all decided to kill some time by checking out the coast in the San Diego area, so we drove up North to La Jolla. Oh, how I missed the beach...oh, how I missed the ocean...so, so much. It felt so good to finally be home. Fuck.
A few hours, an awkward baptism gathering, and several stolen items later we were parked across the street from the Pharaoh's Den in Riverside. Even though I had already been to the venue I had never bothered checking out the cafe right next to it, but fuck...sickest smoothies ever. I got my hipster status on and sat with my friends in a circle around a coffee table whilst all of us drank smoothies and Facebooked on our laptops. Ugh, I am such an asshole for explaining that.
Shook Ones rocked the house down yet again, and Trash Talk made snake blood pour from the ceiling. Have Heart managed to raise the temperature inside the venue to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. During the second half of their set a few of my friends and I hung out in the cafe next door and at some point, I somehow grew the huevos to actually sit down and talk to a girl who I normally wouldn't have tried talking to in a million years. This ended up being sort of a highlight for me, seeing as how she didn't just get up and run away...even though she did make it clear that she was taken.
Oh world, how you fail to surprise me.
It was a long, exhausting drive to Redondo Beach (where I needed to pick up my car that was left at my sister's house before flying out to New Mexico) that lay ahead of us. We picked up my car and drove to Westwood to pick up our friend, who was still hanging out with the student from UCLA. He showed us around town at one in the morning and we ordered a pizza the size of a stop sign. Everyone was so tired at this point -- we drove back to my apartment and pretty much crashed instantly.
The next day everyone just hung out in the apartment. After a few hours all eight of us finally got ready and decided to hit up Masa in Echo Park, another vegan joint with really good pizza. Echo Park proved to be an incredibly confusing neighborhood, as I got completely lost for ten minutes trying to find the place. All frustration aside, I was pleasantly surprised once we actually got to Masa. The next place we visited was Amoeba in Hollywood. Feeling a little low on funds, I actually managed to keep my spending under eighty dollars this time. It was a good run on DVDs though, and the guy at the counter gave me kudos on picking out some decent classics.
But alas, it was time for my friends to return home...
We all parted ways in front of the Jack in the Box across the street from Amoeba. It was tough seeing everyone go, but I made sure to get some good hugs in there. The rest of April, surprisingly, was just a blur.
It felt so good to finally be home, especially after a month of living in New Mexico...but the lingering excitement from the road trip was far too much. I sat down and began writing again...which led to three new Onlooker songs in just a few days.
A week later one of my best friends from the Inland Empire came to visit my roommate and I in LA with his girlfriend. We caught up on things after having not seen each other for about two months. We laughed and laughed...we talked about how wonderful the job market has become in this failing economy. Kylesa was playing that night at the Echoplex in Echo Park, a venue located remarkably close to Masa, the vegan pizza joint I had eaten at a week prior. And so we got lost again...for about ten minutes.
Oh world, how history repeats itself.
The following weekend 108 played the Pharaoh's Den with Xibalba. Needless to say it was an awesome show...a show followed by a long overdue trip to Baker's. It felt good to be home again.
Over the next two and a half weeks I cranked out six new Onlooker songs and recorded them, completing a new album that I've been working on since June 2008. And if I stop for a minute and look at what I'm doing...I do occasionally wonder why I'm still doing it.
I've been writing and recording music for a band that I've wanted to start since the beginning of 2006. It's been so long now that the sound of the "band" is already changing and evolving into something almost completely different from what it was when I first began.
But I can't stop. And maybe I've failed to gain interest from the right people in this scene...or maybe I just haven't made a mark that I'm supposed to make in a giant world where I'm still tiny...a mark that I'm supposed to make before I can start turning heads and get some people to take a risk with me. I'm the only person making the sacrifices now...an investment in something that I still think could be amazing, but will potentially end up being a waste of my time. All the while I hit one dead end after another in my search for employment...an activity that has almost become more of a hobby in comparison to what I really wish I could do right now, which is create something that takes time, patience and dedication. Hence, the reference to a roller coaster seamstress...
I write music for two bands that belong out there on the road...not in this apartment.
That is the way I see it. But everyone appears to be so jaded here -- I don't know what else to do about it. So fuck everyone -- I'm just going to continue writing.
March...
...is usually the first month out of the year where I start having midterms...and sometimes, depending on how many classes I might be taking, all of these midterms will stack up in one week like a wonderful, all-you-can-eat shit package.
This phenomenon usually results in a breakdown of my immune system.
For whatever reason, March also happens to be a time of year when all kinds of interesting things start permeating through the air. My sinuses react to them violently, and I become incredibly ill. This has happened to me every single year...for the past twenty-four years.
This year, I didn't have any midterms. No classes. Nothing...but I still got sick.
In the beginning of March my dad asked me if I'd be willing to fly home for a while if he paid for the plane ticket. At the time I wasn't really doing anything very interesting anyway, so it seemed only fair to accept his offer.
So I flew back to New Mexico...for an entire month.
The trip was on such short notice that I had very little time to inform everyone what was going on...so things kind of just unfolded haphazardly. Once the word got out that I was within 300 miles of all my best friends in New Mexico and El Paso, all hell pretty much broke loose. I was kind of supposed to be there for counseling to help initiate a more organized, proactive job search...which I did accomplish for the most part -- but ultimately, what resulted from this visit was a series of some of the greatest hang-out sessions of the year so far.
It would be unfair to say that March wasn't a very productive month though.
The first weekend back in town my best friend invited me to a poker game with a ten dollar buy-in and an option for a second buy-in...a poker game with a bunch of engineering nerds from New Mexico State University...a poker game...with alcohol involved...and at least ten people.
I saw this as an opportunity to be an asshole.
And so I showed up with ten dollars...and absolutely no interest in drinking alcohol. Sixteen people ended up showing up for this poker party (a few of which bought into the game twice), which broke down into two separate tables. You do the math.
Taking things very seriously, I knocked out a player from the first table. When the opportunity arose to knock out a second player who was low chips, I called his all-in on pocket aces. I LOST TO HIS HAND BECAUSE OF THE RIVER CARD. Then a new person showed up to the table because HE WAS LATE. He was not interested in drinking alcohol either. This made me angry.
The game went on for many hours until both tables were small enough for the remaining players to consolidate at one table. I helped knock out two of the new players from the other table and lasted until fourth place out of sixteen. Why? Because I went all-in with face cards and lost to a low flush on the river AGAIN. The pot was 180 dollars. I hate everything.
Later on I finally did a clean install of Windows Vista on my brand new HP notebook, which was by far the biggest pain in the ass ever (a very uninteresting postscript to this story is that I had to activate the OS via telephone earlier this month and that might have actually been an even bigger pain in the ass).
My friends from Albuquerque and a friend of theirs from El Paso made a trip down to Las Cruces for a show at an incredibly random venue. I met up with them and we partied instantly. They told me they would be staying a night in El Paso in order to drop off their friend, and that they would be returning to Albuquerque the next day. After less than five minutes they convinced me to go with them. Why? Because the following morning they were all going to Kiki's for "breakfast." Fuck the world...
For those of you who have never been to Kiki's...or just, have never eaten Mexican food in El Paso for that matter...well, that just fucking sucks for you.
I road tripped down to El Paso with four other dudes and we all pretty much crashed as soon as we got there. The next morning we woke up and showered...sketchily...and headed for Kiki's with the intent of eating far too much food and then possibly vomiting at some point. Afterward they would give me a ride back to Las Cruces, which was on the way to Albuquerque.
What happened during the next two hours was very interesting...
--Insert the most punk rock romance story ever told--
After missing our exit for I-25 North, she reached out her window and waved at us as if to say goodbye...not realizing that we needed to take the University exit. Oh how the awkwardness settled in like the stench of a fart on a submarine. It had not occurred to me that she might have actually been going to the school. We ended up driving right next to her on University and she was nice enough to wave at us and blow kisses a few more times.
After that happened I was sure she wouldn't bother to call the number. However, it didn't matter to me because what we had accomplished was amazing.
And then she called the number.
I got a chance to spend a little bit of time with my best friends in El Paso. We shared a couple of pitchers together at Hooters, we watched two series of Wonder Showzen, we played Left 4 Dead for several hours and we watched a bunch of horror movies.
When I returned to Las Cruces, March was already half way over.
I spent some time with my best friends in Las Cruces and finally saw Gran Torino.
I made plans to visit Albuquerque for a few days, and this is when my friends in Dead Hours asked me to learn their songs to play the second guitar for their show on March 22. So...I road tripped up to Albuquerque, borrowed a guitar, and learned five songs in a little over a day.
We played. People raged. It was the first time I have ever played a show. Sickest feeling ever...and I want to do it again...and again...and again......
During my visit to Albuquerque I got to see a lot of friends I really missed. I got a chance to hang out with the girl I met at ladies night and convinced her to go watch me play the show on Sunday in exchange for help with her math homework. Cutest deal ever. I told her I would be able to do her homework in five minutes...and instead took two hours.
But alas, it was time to go back to Las Cruces and spend the rest of my time there with my family.
Then I got sick.
My sister flew into town for her birthday...with my niece. By the time they got to my parents' house I had quarantined myself into a bedroom by the kitchen in an attempt to avoid getting everyone else sick. I literally spent the rest of March laying in a bed, using my laptop to watch episodes of South Park on my Netflix account.
I think one of the nicest things about staying at home with my parents again was the freedom to buy a shit load of healthy food and experiment with it...and yet with all the healthy meals I ate for an entire month my body decided to shit itself again, almost like clockwork, as it always does...EVERY single year. I lost six pounds, and passed the cold on to my mom, my dad, my sister (which manifested itself on her birthday) and my niece...regardless of my efforts to stay away from them.
I suppose it's the thought that counts.
This phenomenon usually results in a breakdown of my immune system.
For whatever reason, March also happens to be a time of year when all kinds of interesting things start permeating through the air. My sinuses react to them violently, and I become incredibly ill. This has happened to me every single year...for the past twenty-four years.
This year, I didn't have any midterms. No classes. Nothing...but I still got sick.
In the beginning of March my dad asked me if I'd be willing to fly home for a while if he paid for the plane ticket. At the time I wasn't really doing anything very interesting anyway, so it seemed only fair to accept his offer.
So I flew back to New Mexico...for an entire month.
The trip was on such short notice that I had very little time to inform everyone what was going on...so things kind of just unfolded haphazardly. Once the word got out that I was within 300 miles of all my best friends in New Mexico and El Paso, all hell pretty much broke loose. I was kind of supposed to be there for counseling to help initiate a more organized, proactive job search...which I did accomplish for the most part -- but ultimately, what resulted from this visit was a series of some of the greatest hang-out sessions of the year so far.
It would be unfair to say that March wasn't a very productive month though.
The first weekend back in town my best friend invited me to a poker game with a ten dollar buy-in and an option for a second buy-in...a poker game with a bunch of engineering nerds from New Mexico State University...a poker game...with alcohol involved...and at least ten people.
I saw this as an opportunity to be an asshole.
And so I showed up with ten dollars...and absolutely no interest in drinking alcohol. Sixteen people ended up showing up for this poker party (a few of which bought into the game twice), which broke down into two separate tables. You do the math.
Taking things very seriously, I knocked out a player from the first table. When the opportunity arose to knock out a second player who was low chips, I called his all-in on pocket aces. I LOST TO HIS HAND BECAUSE OF THE RIVER CARD. Then a new person showed up to the table because HE WAS LATE. He was not interested in drinking alcohol either. This made me angry.
The game went on for many hours until both tables were small enough for the remaining players to consolidate at one table. I helped knock out two of the new players from the other table and lasted until fourth place out of sixteen. Why? Because I went all-in with face cards and lost to a low flush on the river AGAIN. The pot was 180 dollars. I hate everything.
Later on I finally did a clean install of Windows Vista on my brand new HP notebook, which was by far the biggest pain in the ass ever (a very uninteresting postscript to this story is that I had to activate the OS via telephone earlier this month and that might have actually been an even bigger pain in the ass).
My friends from Albuquerque and a friend of theirs from El Paso made a trip down to Las Cruces for a show at an incredibly random venue. I met up with them and we partied instantly. They told me they would be staying a night in El Paso in order to drop off their friend, and that they would be returning to Albuquerque the next day. After less than five minutes they convinced me to go with them. Why? Because the following morning they were all going to Kiki's for "breakfast." Fuck the world...
For those of you who have never been to Kiki's...or just, have never eaten Mexican food in El Paso for that matter...well, that just fucking sucks for you.
I road tripped down to El Paso with four other dudes and we all pretty much crashed as soon as we got there. The next morning we woke up and showered...sketchily...and headed for Kiki's with the intent of eating far too much food and then possibly vomiting at some point. Afterward they would give me a ride back to Las Cruces, which was on the way to Albuquerque.
What happened during the next two hours was very interesting...
--Insert the most punk rock romance story ever told--
After missing our exit for I-25 North, she reached out her window and waved at us as if to say goodbye...not realizing that we needed to take the University exit. Oh how the awkwardness settled in like the stench of a fart on a submarine. It had not occurred to me that she might have actually been going to the school. We ended up driving right next to her on University and she was nice enough to wave at us and blow kisses a few more times.
After that happened I was sure she wouldn't bother to call the number. However, it didn't matter to me because what we had accomplished was amazing.
And then she called the number.
I got a chance to spend a little bit of time with my best friends in El Paso. We shared a couple of pitchers together at Hooters, we watched two series of Wonder Showzen, we played Left 4 Dead for several hours and we watched a bunch of horror movies.
When I returned to Las Cruces, March was already half way over.
I spent some time with my best friends in Las Cruces and finally saw Gran Torino.
I made plans to visit Albuquerque for a few days, and this is when my friends in Dead Hours asked me to learn their songs to play the second guitar for their show on March 22. So...I road tripped up to Albuquerque, borrowed a guitar, and learned five songs in a little over a day.
We played. People raged. It was the first time I have ever played a show. Sickest feeling ever...and I want to do it again...and again...and again......
During my visit to Albuquerque I got to see a lot of friends I really missed. I got a chance to hang out with the girl I met at ladies night and convinced her to go watch me play the show on Sunday in exchange for help with her math homework. Cutest deal ever. I told her I would be able to do her homework in five minutes...and instead took two hours.
But alas, it was time to go back to Las Cruces and spend the rest of my time there with my family.
Then I got sick.
My sister flew into town for her birthday...with my niece. By the time they got to my parents' house I had quarantined myself into a bedroom by the kitchen in an attempt to avoid getting everyone else sick. I literally spent the rest of March laying in a bed, using my laptop to watch episodes of South Park on my Netflix account.
I think one of the nicest things about staying at home with my parents again was the freedom to buy a shit load of healthy food and experiment with it...and yet with all the healthy meals I ate for an entire month my body decided to shit itself again, almost like clockwork, as it always does...EVERY single year. I lost six pounds, and passed the cold on to my mom, my dad, my sister (which manifested itself on her birthday) and my niece...regardless of my efforts to stay away from them.
I suppose it's the thought that counts.
February...
...could have been a lot worse.
I have to be fair.
This was just one month out of a year that started out looking like it was going to be amazing, and I really don't want to let the awfulness of February just shit all over things this early on like I usually do. I'm getting tired of that shit...and apparently so are a few of my "readers."
So rather than complain about being single on Valentine's Day for the fourth time in a row, instead I'll just bitch about how I woke up on the morning of February 14th to take a piss, and became dehydrated from it instantly. I eventually got so dizzy that I just ran back into the bathroom and puked my guts out. For the rest of the day I rolled around in my bed suffering from a fever and an eye-melting headache. After a few more days of this, the congestion and coughing started. The rest, of course, is history...
It was a pretty low point for me after that...because I pretty much lost the will to do anything. I don't even really know why. I think I just became disappointed...in everything -- especially myself. What do you do when you're disappointed in the world, everything around you, and the person you see when you look in the mirror? You start watching The Office.
So I just stalled...for like a whole week. And in my current situation that's really bad. I have too many financial obligations to be sitting around playing solitaire and watching shit on my Netflix account (which is apparently something I'm prone to doing because I am half white...a fact I learned from stuffwhitepeoplelike.com -- a website which, although funny at times, has declared open season on culturally self-deprecating humor toward white people and given yet another free pass for every single non-Caucasian race in existence to openly make unfair, racist generalizations without having to worry about it pissing anyone off...so if it's not part of the solution, might as well be part of the problem, right? And then the Mexican half of me just laughed and laughed...).
Anyway...on a much more positive note, when I was through being physically miserable, my best friend and I drove out to Chain Reaction to see the legendary Madball holdin' it down. It was the closest I've ever been to New York City while still being in Southern California. I'm not sure what was more hard style -- seeing Madball open with Set it Off, or seeing blood smeared all over the floor.
I somehow managed to drag myself through another week of listlessness when I was suddenly invited to the last Internal Affairs show, a show which I declined from attending at the last minute because I had become so depressed and miserable that I decided I was not mentally healthy enough to go anywhere and actually have fun. It's like the movie Big Daddy...when a five year old welfare situation shows up at your doorstep and starts throwing up on the floor, if your natural reaction is to just cover it all up with newspapers, then it means your entire life is just too fucked up for words...and I guess I had reached a point where I was just trying to throw newspapers on top of a debt of $63,000.
So finally, I answered back to this sudden dry spell of emotional death and drove all the way down to Carlsbad to see my best friend. This visit may have been what I needed all along. We started the night by playing rock band and finishing half a bottle of Single Barrel Jack while chasing it with Cranberry Juice. I honestly...don't really feel like explaining why we did this. A couple more shots of Whiskey and we found ourselves walking around downtown Carlsbad...where we stuffed ourselves with carnitas at Senor Grubby's, and eventually wandered into an Irish pub.
The true insanity began after we stopped at the Jack in the Box on the way home and ate outside in front of it at 12:00am. Later on we crawled under the 5 freeway overpass and then just said "fuck it," and climbed onto the actual retaining structure next to it and sat on the railing ten feet away from cars that were passing by at 70mph.
The next day I woke up with a rotten hangover and tried to kill it with a bowl of spicy Albondigas soup. Hooooly fuck. I basically just passed out after we ate, and when I came to, my best friend asked me if I wanted to play Joust on the PS3. Not remembering the classic 80s arcade game at all, I had no idea what we were in for.
Unfortunately, my best friend lives in an apartment complex full of geriatrics and people who are apparently mentally challenged. So, after a good fifteen minutes of intense gameplay the cops showed up and had to ask us to keep it down...and if we were "actually playing Joust," because they couldn't seem to believe it.
My visit to Carlsbad came to an end on the worst possible note. My best friend and I both agreed to try out 6 grain rolled oats together and see if we could make it through a heart healthy serving. For some reason, we left this as the last activity we would do before he had to go to work. Let me just say, that although it is the healthiest possible thing a person can eat, it can only be described as a revolting mass of slimy, non-uniform plant matter...with sunflower seeds in it. Every single bite was like hell on Earth...which is why we eventually started calling them horror oats. I will never eat them again, but I will give mad props to the man who can do it every single day.
Eventually my family picked up on the fact that I was floundering in a pool of my own piss and vomit, and so they started panicking...which was great, because I never really panic about anything, and it was about time someone else started doing it...
I really just need to square my ass away and start shitting Tiffany cuff links...you know...sort my fucking life out, mate...I am on the edge of slipping into that metaphorical "world of shit" that R. Lee Emery is not about to put up with...the only thing I'd be good for right now is getting a group of British people through a zombie apocalypse by dragging them to the Winchester pub...
Speaking of zombies...
After eating the worst tasting shit in the universe, I drove back to my wonderful, safe, racially segregated neighborhood and contemplated some serious shit. The next day my best friend and I drove to a house party in Fullerton...which was nice because I got to see my old neighborhood (the one where people steal your face plates, not your mail). We laughed, we mingled, we sat on the jaded side of the room and looked awkward. Eventually a ginger walked into the room with some dude and she sat on the couch next to my best friend. Somehow she became the first person I really talked to at this party, and she introduced me to the awesomeness of Left 4 Dead. She was surprisingly nice to me, until her boyfriend took her away...they might have actually been the first people to leave the party that night.
I still think Valentine's Day should be moved to February 29th...
I have to be fair.
This was just one month out of a year that started out looking like it was going to be amazing, and I really don't want to let the awfulness of February just shit all over things this early on like I usually do. I'm getting tired of that shit...and apparently so are a few of my "readers."
So rather than complain about being single on Valentine's Day for the fourth time in a row, instead I'll just bitch about how I woke up on the morning of February 14th to take a piss, and became dehydrated from it instantly. I eventually got so dizzy that I just ran back into the bathroom and puked my guts out. For the rest of the day I rolled around in my bed suffering from a fever and an eye-melting headache. After a few more days of this, the congestion and coughing started. The rest, of course, is history...
It was a pretty low point for me after that...because I pretty much lost the will to do anything. I don't even really know why. I think I just became disappointed...in everything -- especially myself. What do you do when you're disappointed in the world, everything around you, and the person you see when you look in the mirror? You start watching The Office.
So I just stalled...for like a whole week. And in my current situation that's really bad. I have too many financial obligations to be sitting around playing solitaire and watching shit on my Netflix account (which is apparently something I'm prone to doing because I am half white...a fact I learned from stuffwhitepeoplelike.com -- a website which, although funny at times, has declared open season on culturally self-deprecating humor toward white people and given yet another free pass for every single non-Caucasian race in existence to openly make unfair, racist generalizations without having to worry about it pissing anyone off...so if it's not part of the solution, might as well be part of the problem, right? And then the Mexican half of me just laughed and laughed...).
Anyway...on a much more positive note, when I was through being physically miserable, my best friend and I drove out to Chain Reaction to see the legendary Madball holdin' it down. It was the closest I've ever been to New York City while still being in Southern California. I'm not sure what was more hard style -- seeing Madball open with Set it Off, or seeing blood smeared all over the floor.
I somehow managed to drag myself through another week of listlessness when I was suddenly invited to the last Internal Affairs show, a show which I declined from attending at the last minute because I had become so depressed and miserable that I decided I was not mentally healthy enough to go anywhere and actually have fun. It's like the movie Big Daddy...when a five year old welfare situation shows up at your doorstep and starts throwing up on the floor, if your natural reaction is to just cover it all up with newspapers, then it means your entire life is just too fucked up for words...and I guess I had reached a point where I was just trying to throw newspapers on top of a debt of $63,000.
So finally, I answered back to this sudden dry spell of emotional death and drove all the way down to Carlsbad to see my best friend. This visit may have been what I needed all along. We started the night by playing rock band and finishing half a bottle of Single Barrel Jack while chasing it with Cranberry Juice. I honestly...don't really feel like explaining why we did this. A couple more shots of Whiskey and we found ourselves walking around downtown Carlsbad...where we stuffed ourselves with carnitas at Senor Grubby's, and eventually wandered into an Irish pub.
The true insanity began after we stopped at the Jack in the Box on the way home and ate outside in front of it at 12:00am. Later on we crawled under the 5 freeway overpass and then just said "fuck it," and climbed onto the actual retaining structure next to it and sat on the railing ten feet away from cars that were passing by at 70mph.
The next day I woke up with a rotten hangover and tried to kill it with a bowl of spicy Albondigas soup. Hooooly fuck. I basically just passed out after we ate, and when I came to, my best friend asked me if I wanted to play Joust on the PS3. Not remembering the classic 80s arcade game at all, I had no idea what we were in for.
Unfortunately, my best friend lives in an apartment complex full of geriatrics and people who are apparently mentally challenged. So, after a good fifteen minutes of intense gameplay the cops showed up and had to ask us to keep it down...and if we were "actually playing Joust," because they couldn't seem to believe it.
My visit to Carlsbad came to an end on the worst possible note. My best friend and I both agreed to try out 6 grain rolled oats together and see if we could make it through a heart healthy serving. For some reason, we left this as the last activity we would do before he had to go to work. Let me just say, that although it is the healthiest possible thing a person can eat, it can only be described as a revolting mass of slimy, non-uniform plant matter...with sunflower seeds in it. Every single bite was like hell on Earth...which is why we eventually started calling them horror oats. I will never eat them again, but I will give mad props to the man who can do it every single day.
Eventually my family picked up on the fact that I was floundering in a pool of my own piss and vomit, and so they started panicking...which was great, because I never really panic about anything, and it was about time someone else started doing it...
I really just need to square my ass away and start shitting Tiffany cuff links...you know...sort my fucking life out, mate...I am on the edge of slipping into that metaphorical "world of shit" that R. Lee Emery is not about to put up with...the only thing I'd be good for right now is getting a group of British people through a zombie apocalypse by dragging them to the Winchester pub...
Speaking of zombies...
After eating the worst tasting shit in the universe, I drove back to my wonderful, safe, racially segregated neighborhood and contemplated some serious shit. The next day my best friend and I drove to a house party in Fullerton...which was nice because I got to see my old neighborhood (the one where people steal your face plates, not your mail). We laughed, we mingled, we sat on the jaded side of the room and looked awkward. Eventually a ginger walked into the room with some dude and she sat on the couch next to my best friend. Somehow she became the first person I really talked to at this party, and she introduced me to the awesomeness of Left 4 Dead. She was surprisingly nice to me, until her boyfriend took her away...they might have actually been the first people to leave the party that night.
I still think Valentine's Day should be moved to February 29th...
Monday, June 1, 2009
January...
...was all HARD STYLE. All of it. Everything about what happened in the month of January just foreshadows what will ultimately be an incredibly hard year.
I didn't bother wasting any time with getting completely wasted this New Years. For once I actually out-did myself and came extremely close to getting alcohol poisoning. I'm not entirely proud of what I did, but I am glad I didn't puke all over myself (even though I came pretty close). Not to mention, I narrowly avoided mega bitch drama by not accidentally hooking up with some dude's slutty ex girlfriend in the same bathroom I later threw up in many, many times. The next morning I woke up with the taste of hard liquor on my tongue (when all along I thought the only thing I had was beer), and continued to throw up until my best friend just handed me the keys to his car and said, "go." I took his keys and tried not to puke battery acid all over his steering wheel on the way home. I have never wanted menudo so bad in my entire life.
Anyway, just when I thought January couldn't get any HARDER, we went camping up in the snow-capped mountains, where we listened to Weezer, The Shins and The Killers and sang acoustic ballads to each other around the camp fire. That would have been hard enough, but things got even HARDER when we went down into the canyon on the road up to Cloudcroft and fired my best friend's Kalashnikov AK-47. We emptied a few magazines and I totally nailed a Pepsi can from about 100 yards away because I'm hard as fuck.
I flew back to LA and returned to my ghetto neighborhood where my best friend and I started working on some new songs for our band Son of Man. It was the first time I've ever returned home from a Christmas "break" and didn't have a schedule of classes to return to...the first time in about twenty years. No books to buy. No loans to apply for...no more tuition payments. I still hadn't gotten used to it when all of a sudden it seemed like everyone around me had classes to go to. I fuckin' RULE.
Then my best friend went to a strip club and hilarity ensued.
I thought that might have been the hardest thing that would happen all month, but then my other best friend returned from his vacation to Thailand. He returned with stories, hundreds of pictures, and he gave me the HARDEST souvenirs anyone has ever gotten (one of which I accidentally punctured my couch with while listening to Merauder).
As a Christmas present my dad helped me buy a new HP laptop:
- Intel Duo Core Centrino 2 P8400 2.26GHz 64-bit Processor (basically this processor will lap yours up and down the court without breaking a sweat on the battery...unless you buy a new computer in the next month...fuck technology)
- 64-bit Vista Home Premium (only fully utilized by a 4GB memory card)
- 4GB DDR2 RAM (for obvious reasons)
- 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS (in case I feel like gamin' it)
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (for those 14 hour plane rides)
- Built-in Webcam (for awkward AIM and Stickamin' drama)
Technically, I can't afford this thing right now...but fuck it - it has some pretty amazing specs and I really do need a computer that I can take with me everywhere I go...
...and so I was walking around at Vons and finally decided it was time to start learning how to make some HARDSTYLE omelets. Saute some mushrooms and onions with a little bit of garlic salt, throw it in a pan with some beaten eggs, baby spinach and parmesan cheese and you can make a really good fucking omelet. Holy shit. For some reason this whole experiment inspired me to start buying real food. I finally ate an orange for the first time in several years. I remember them being messy as fuck, but God damn...I've really forgotten how hard it is to peel those things without getting an aneurysm.
It wasn't enough to fire an AK-47 or to fuck up my couch with a ninja-star, so my roommate and I decided to collaborate with some evil friends of ours from New Mexico and record a 7'' Son of Man Split with Albuquerque's own Dead Hours later this year, which will be released on Good Times Records. The two new songs we've written for Son of Man are of the HARDEST HARD STYLE caliber. And if you're not already stoked, it's because apparently you didn't realize my band Onlooker is also planning on recording a 7'' called "Life Saver...Animator" on Good Times Records. These are just a few things to look forward to in the year 2000 HARD...
And the note I'd like to end on is this:
I hate sushi. I hate everything about it. I hate the fact that it's trendy. I hate the fact that every girl in Los Angeles seems to love it more than they love dick, and I hate the fact that I've never even had the chance to try it without EVERYONE talking about it like it's the greatest fucking thing since sliced bread. IT'S NOT. In the twenty-four years that I've been alive, I have never eaten ANY kind of food that deserves the hype/worship/cultural praise that sushi has been getting for the past few years. My goal this year is to eat sushi at some point...and when it doesn't make me come all over myself I'm going to smear it in everyone's face how much I think it SUCKS compared to their assessments.
I didn't bother wasting any time with getting completely wasted this New Years. For once I actually out-did myself and came extremely close to getting alcohol poisoning. I'm not entirely proud of what I did, but I am glad I didn't puke all over myself (even though I came pretty close). Not to mention, I narrowly avoided mega bitch drama by not accidentally hooking up with some dude's slutty ex girlfriend in the same bathroom I later threw up in many, many times. The next morning I woke up with the taste of hard liquor on my tongue (when all along I thought the only thing I had was beer), and continued to throw up until my best friend just handed me the keys to his car and said, "go." I took his keys and tried not to puke battery acid all over his steering wheel on the way home. I have never wanted menudo so bad in my entire life.
Anyway, just when I thought January couldn't get any HARDER, we went camping up in the snow-capped mountains, where we listened to Weezer, The Shins and The Killers and sang acoustic ballads to each other around the camp fire. That would have been hard enough, but things got even HARDER when we went down into the canyon on the road up to Cloudcroft and fired my best friend's Kalashnikov AK-47. We emptied a few magazines and I totally nailed a Pepsi can from about 100 yards away because I'm hard as fuck.
I flew back to LA and returned to my ghetto neighborhood where my best friend and I started working on some new songs for our band Son of Man. It was the first time I've ever returned home from a Christmas "break" and didn't have a schedule of classes to return to...the first time in about twenty years. No books to buy. No loans to apply for...no more tuition payments. I still hadn't gotten used to it when all of a sudden it seemed like everyone around me had classes to go to. I fuckin' RULE.
Then my best friend went to a strip club and hilarity ensued.
I thought that might have been the hardest thing that would happen all month, but then my other best friend returned from his vacation to Thailand. He returned with stories, hundreds of pictures, and he gave me the HARDEST souvenirs anyone has ever gotten (one of which I accidentally punctured my couch with while listening to Merauder).
As a Christmas present my dad helped me buy a new HP laptop:
- Intel Duo Core Centrino 2 P8400 2.26GHz 64-bit Processor (basically this processor will lap yours up and down the court without breaking a sweat on the battery...unless you buy a new computer in the next month...fuck technology)
- 64-bit Vista Home Premium (only fully utilized by a 4GB memory card)
- 4GB DDR2 RAM (for obvious reasons)
- 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS (in case I feel like gamin' it)
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (for those 14 hour plane rides)
- Built-in Webcam (for awkward AIM and Stickamin' drama)
Technically, I can't afford this thing right now...but fuck it - it has some pretty amazing specs and I really do need a computer that I can take with me everywhere I go...
...and so I was walking around at Vons and finally decided it was time to start learning how to make some HARDSTYLE omelets. Saute some mushrooms and onions with a little bit of garlic salt, throw it in a pan with some beaten eggs, baby spinach and parmesan cheese and you can make a really good fucking omelet. Holy shit. For some reason this whole experiment inspired me to start buying real food. I finally ate an orange for the first time in several years. I remember them being messy as fuck, but God damn...I've really forgotten how hard it is to peel those things without getting an aneurysm.
It wasn't enough to fire an AK-47 or to fuck up my couch with a ninja-star, so my roommate and I decided to collaborate with some evil friends of ours from New Mexico and record a 7'' Son of Man Split with Albuquerque's own Dead Hours later this year, which will be released on Good Times Records. The two new songs we've written for Son of Man are of the HARDEST HARD STYLE caliber. And if you're not already stoked, it's because apparently you didn't realize my band Onlooker is also planning on recording a 7'' called "Life Saver...Animator" on Good Times Records. These are just a few things to look forward to in the year 2000 HARD...
And the note I'd like to end on is this:
I hate sushi. I hate everything about it. I hate the fact that it's trendy. I hate the fact that every girl in Los Angeles seems to love it more than they love dick, and I hate the fact that I've never even had the chance to try it without EVERYONE talking about it like it's the greatest fucking thing since sliced bread. IT'S NOT. In the twenty-four years that I've been alive, I have never eaten ANY kind of food that deserves the hype/worship/cultural praise that sushi has been getting for the past few years. My goal this year is to eat sushi at some point...and when it doesn't make me come all over myself I'm going to smear it in everyone's face how much I think it SUCKS compared to their assessments.
2008 (a retrospective)...
...was "OVER THE LINE."
That's right, it was without a doubt the absolute most intense, out-of-control year of my entire life. From start to finish, beginning to end, it was the most fast-paced and unrelenting roller coaster ride I've ever been through, and it kept me on the edge of my seat just about every single day. I can't think of a single month out of the entire year where I didn't have to face a difficult financial or life-changing decision or deal with an incredibly fucked up situation that cost me a chunk of my sanity. The year 2008 was not a bad year...it just wasn't a very good one either.
In the year 2008:
- I started things off by ringing in the new year with several of my best friends and a thirty pack of Bud Light, played hours and hours of Rock Band on a PS3, got a hilarious "wake up call" to eat breakfast (a dozen eggs with chorizo) JUST as I was laying down to go to sleep after staying awake until 5am, went on a 12 hour drive back to California with a cooler containing a bag of Hatch green chili and some of the greatest spaghetti sauce ever made (which ended up going to waste due to preservation difficulties), returned to my tiny apartment in Fullerton still not knowing whether or not I had been kicked out of school for being on academic probation for so long, and then found out my mom had gotten very sick due to her bi-polar disorder and had to be hospitalized.
- I found out (informally) that CSUF was willing to give me one last semester of academic probation to fix my gpa by getting at least one A in my last three classes, talked to my graduate advisor who told me the only way I could finish school and graduate in May was by passing all three comprehensive physics exams before the end of the semester, faced a decision to either move in with my best friend (who I accidentally started an ongoing joke with the year before about how we're gay together) in Los Angeles or my other best friend (who would be working for an internship during the summer) in Las Vegas as soon as school was over, decided to go for the all-time greatest Hail Mary pass of physics by attempting to take three classes and pass all three comp exams in one final semester of academic probation (risking the possibility of being kicked out of school and being left with over $50,000 of loan debt), decided to quit my job (in hopes that what was left of my loan money would be enough to last me until summer), woke up a dozen times to the sound of a jack hammer right outside the door to my studio apartment, saw "she who we do not speak of" driving her annoying Scion while I was trying to hang out with my best friend on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and was forced to spend several days low on food without cash or a debit card because my previous one had been compromised.
- I started taking a "rocket science" class (which I'll never be able to live down), watched my best friend get into stoner metal (which led to me getting into Electric Wizard), started flirting awkwardly with a girl who worked at the local grocery store but FAILED to get any digits regardless of how many times I saw her, played a final game of mini golf with my best friend and shut his ass down for good, started writing and recording new Onlooker songs furiously (which led to a 12 song, 25 minute CD that I often refer to as my first real "demo"), laughed uncontrollably for several days because of the BRD video, spent Valentine's Day with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and my parents at a steakhouse restaurant in Torrance called The San Franciscan (which had the worst service we've ever had to put up with), got a flat tire at my sister's house and ended up having to replace all four tires (which cost me $724), invented "The Game" with my best friend (which we continue to play religiously now), was invited to a dozen hardcore shows (which I couldn't afford nor did I have time to go to) by the most annoying person who has ever existed, started looking on NotPop for people to play in Onlooker (which turned out to be a complete FAIL), accidentally went to see Down to Nothing play at Chain Reaction (which turned out to be an even bigger FAIL), and saw Shook Ones play at the Showcase Theatre.
- I was fucked over powerfully by someone who broke into my car by shattering the driver's side window (only to steal the faceplate of my stereo, which is basically worth nothing), had to pay $165 to get the window replaced and another $20 to fix a broken pulley system in my door (which still doesn't work properly), saw my friend's band Restrained play a house show in Riverside (which turned out to be hilarious because of all the meth addicts who were there), started losing a huge chunk of my sanity after driving around for a week listening to broken glass rattle around inside my door (which is still there and continues to rattle around to this day) instead of my stereo, finally went running again for the first time in a few years (two days in a row) and ran three miles in about 25 minutes, saw Shai Hulud and Earth Crisis play at the Knitting Factory, got a cold that lasted about four weeks and coughed so hard at one point that it induced a migrane headache that lasted about four days, consumed half a bottle of extra strength Tylenol, half a bottle of Mucinex DM, and two full bottles of cough syrup, started doing poorly in my classes and had to miss several lectures due to my cold, and found out much to my dismay that The Showcase Theatre was going to be shut down.
- I drove to Las Vegas for spring break (while I was still sick) to hang out with my best friend and his girlfriend, walked around the strip and ate at expensive restaurants (including Le Provencal, which is probably the best French food restaurant I have ever been to), hung out in the Beatle Revolution Lounge (where my picture was taken by some awkward photographer in a fedora), got shit-faced at the poolside cabana at the Mirage, got drugged up on Mucinex and Tylenol and then shortly afterward was invited by two girls I met the year before to go drinking at some random bar off the strip (even though I needed to wake up early the next morning to take my friend and his girlfriend to the airport), met up with the two girls at a bar called Moon Doggies and proceeded to take shots of things I had never even heard of, saw Converge (who played "My Great Devastator") and The Red Chord at the Glass House, successfully passed the first comp exam (even though I made some of the most retarded mistakes I have ever made on a test), decided to move to Las Vegas instead of Los Angeles, realized the logistics and time frame of the move were going to be extremely fucked up (because I needed to plan everything around my final exams, the last two comp exams, my parents and two of my best friends flying into town for my graduation, renting a U-Haul truck and figuring out how the fuck I was going to load it up before the graduation ceremony, and the need to sell a broken refrigerator that had been thrown down a flight of stairs), and basically came to the conclusion that if I succeeded in my attempt to write two five-page papers, turn in several more homework assignments, pass all three of my classes with at least one A and pass the last two comp exams in the remaining three weeks of school that it would be the most beautiful thing that has ever happened in the universe.
- I watched my best friend break up with a girl he had been dating for about 5 years (which resulted in several weeks of bitter drama), threw a "going away bbq" at my old apartment and got to hang out with my best friends one last time, took the last two comp exams back to back on the same day and only passed one of them (which forced me to retake the other one during finals week), tapped into an infinite well of stupidity by inviting the harbinger of doom (a person who literally wanted to fly out to California in hopes that there would be an earthquake, that he would see a lot of black people, and that he would possibly see me FAIL at getting my master's degree) to my "graduation" ceremony, retook the last comp exam and passed it (even though it was twice as hard as the original one), decided that everything I was going through was so epic that the only way to justify it would be to start writing a screenplay about it (an idea that was kept a secret at first), failed my atomic physics final (and abandoned any hope that I would get an A in the class), failed my statistical mechanics final (but already knew that I was going to get a B anyway), failed my rocket science final (but thought there was still a chance that I could get an A), rented a 14 foot U-Haul truck in Redondo Beach and drove it back to Fullerton, packed my entire life into the truck and sold the broken refrigerator for $25 in less than 2 hours (thanks to my sister, who used Craigslist), drove the U-Haul truck all the way back to Redondo Beach, attended my "graduation" ceremony (which cost me $200 for the regalia and the guest tickets) and found out that I got a B in atomic physics (but still had no clue what my grade was in rocket science), celebrated my "graduation" with dinner at C&Os in Marina Del Ray, walked around the beach holding my niece (which ended up making my arm REALLY fucking sore), and woke up the next morning to move to Las Vegas.
- I tried to stop for food in Baker but came upon a sign at the Del Taco that said, "sorry wer close", drove ten miles uphill (forgetting that the air conditioner was still on) outside of Baker and had to pull over to discover that the water reservoir had completely exploded, found out there was a nearby mechanic who looked like a tall, lanky version of Joe Dirt and lived in a motor home next to an abandoned gas station, stood outside in the Mojave Desert (while it was 104 degrees) wondering if U-Haul was ever going to send us a tow truck, was almost killed by a mini van (driven by a drunk driver) going 60mph (which came within 5 feet of me before it fishtailed and did a barrel roll into the gulley next to the exit), was questioned by a highway patrolman who looked like a Mexican version of Kevin Heffernan with a mustache, had to drive 30 miles backwards past Baker to pick up a new U-Haul truck from a dude named Virgil who looked almost EXACTLY like M. Emmet Walsh, had to drive the new U-Haul truck another 40 miles back to the Halloran
Springs exit (which put us four hours past our 4pm deadline to check in and sign our lease, rendering us completely homeless), had to unload all of my shit from the old U-Haul truck into the new one in the middle of the desert without any food in my stomach, was invited to go out and party that same night by the same girl who got me drunk at Moon Doggies, had to check into a random hotel on the outskirts of town, signed the lease for our new apartment the very next day and finally moved half of the shit from the U-Haul truck into our new, second-story apartment by myself in the middle of the afternoon when it was 110 degrees outside.
- I got to show my best friend the Las Vegas strip for the first time in his life, saw my other best friend and his girlfriend while they were celebrating her birthday, met a girl from the Midwest in the casino at the Tropicana (while my best friends were playing Black Jack) and talked to her for about half an hour until her two friends showed up, was invited to go eat somewhere with all three of them but completely FAILED to get any digits (because I suck...and everyone should know this by now), bought an 8 ounce flask (which I filled with whiskey) and walked around the strip getting completely trashed (until I tried to set my drink on top of a water pipe in a bathroom at the Tropicana and found out the hard way that it was a shitty idea), met up with my best friend and his girlfriend at Dick's Last Resort at the Excalibur and proceeded to get so drunk that we completely forgot everything that happened for the next several hours, apparently watched live music and saw my best friend try to dance with every single woman who was in the room (literally), took a cab to the In-N-Out burger across the 15 freeway from the strip, and finally woke up the next morning to find out that we had all bought In-N-Out hats and that my best friend almost got his wallet stolen.
- I met a girl at a Vans store who asked about my Daggermouth shirt but still FAILED to get her digits, started running again (even though it was an effort that only lasted a few days), started swinging a golf club again for the first time in over seven years and discovered much to my surprise that I can still knock the shit out of the ball, accidentally drove into a sketchy part of town near North Las Vegas while trying to find the Triple 7 at Main Street Station, came across a dude who was "sellin' that chronic" on the bridge between New York New York and the MGM Grand, spent as much time as possible in the apartment (where we had refrigerated air) hiding from the obnoxious heat outside, worried about my cousin who had just moved to Tallahassee, Florida (right around when Hurricane Ike was tearing shit up along the Gulf), found out that I almost got a C in the rocket science class but was lucky enough to squeeze by with a B, decided to contest one of my grades in order to avoid having to go back to school, didn't get to see The Dark Knight, was ditched in the middle of the Las Vegas strip (because I wanted to eat food) while I was shit-faced, and most importantly, discovered the Freakin' Frog - a bar and grill with a catalog of over 700 beers located right across the street from UNLV.
- I flew back to New Mexico for my 24th birthday (where I did pretty much the same thing I've always done for my birthday throughout my entire life: nothing), bought a $500 suit and attended my best friend's wedding (which took place at Cattleman's Steakhouse on the outskirts of El Paso), saw my best friend's parents at the wedding and rekindled a dozen childhood memories, flew back to Las Vegas and got to hang out with my best friends who had just gotten married (and were spending their honeymoon in Las Vegas) and found out they won over $700 their first night, drove my best friend across town to get a new tattoo, saw a doppelganger Tina Turner (who suddenly threw down her purse and decided to dance in front of Fat Tuesdays - forever immortalizing her as the "bitch walking in squares"), went on the New York New York roller coaster ride (which I concluded would be way better if they could figure out a way to make it go over the hotel), drove my best friend to McCarran Airport so he could fly out to Minnesota (but not before we tried to eat at a Chicago style bar and grill where the manager decided to rip apart his driver's license in a foolish attempt to make sure it wasn't fake), drove back to California and spent a whole day with my best friend looking for apartments in Los Angeles (where we came across the next Lenny Kravitz, Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown, and a porn star - all of whom were interested in the same apartment), saw Life or Death and Xibalba play at The Pharaoh's Den, spent my Fourth of July at Redondo Beach for the second annual Seaside Lagoon Independence Day Celebration, started talking to my best friend in great detail about something that we thought would never happen (which eventually did happen, and kind of made us feel bad...even though it was amazing), and still didn't see The Dark Knight (but was now being made fun of for it).
- I went back to Las Vegas and drove out to the Hammer House (a small shack in the middle of a junk yard right next to a women's prison just North of Las Vegas) to see Die Young and was invited to get high again with the same girl who got me drunk at Moon Doggies and her friend from Orange County, was straight up accused of being a stalker, talked for a little while with Stu from Folsom and the dude from Orange County about a bunch of random bands, made an ass of myself in front of Daniel from Die Young (which really sucked because I wanted to have a more serious conversation with him), found out about a new and innovative way to use mIRC, had gasoline siphoned (stolen) out of my car when gas prices were peaking, finally watched The Graduate, missed the Sound and Fury Festival and the opportunity to kill thousands of snakes, tried to mail a check at a nearby post office and found out it was actually a front for drug trafficking, hung out with my other best friend's sister and her husband, ate at the best Greek food restaurant I have ever been to, drove out to see the Hoover Dam and the new bridge project, saw a box of poodle chihuahua things (each of which were apparently worth one fourth of a Harley Davidson), went to a strip club for the first time ever and got a couple of lap dances, a body shot and drank four long island iced teas, invented the RTTPAPLAC scale, hung out with my best friend's aunt, uncle and grandmother (who had all flown into town for a wedding), took my best friend's uncle to the bar at the Tropicana where we all got smashed and watched live music, got in the stupidest fight ever with my best friend over a mystery box, found out in the worst way possible that "she who we do not speak of" is getting married (and has somehow decided that she's more mature now and that everything she has done to get what she wants is justified, which by the way - if she's reading this: you have FAILED at life...that is all), rented a Budget truck and moved all my shit to an apartment in Los Angeles, had the worst moving day of my entire life (which cost my best friend a massive scar on his shin), and had to fly from LAX (where I met a girl who works at a Buffalo Exchange in LA) back to Las Vegas to pick up my car and then drove back to Los Angeles in the same day (all because my fucking car wouldn't fit on the towing dolly without its bumper being completely ripped off).
- I signed up for a Netflix account (which lead to me finally watching Cool Hand Luke, Annie Hall, Irreversible, The Last House on the Left, Spartacus, The Outsiders, Rosemary's Baby, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane), started writing a screenplay (which is currently in the beginning of ACT II right now), tried to get the grade in one of my classes changed from a B to an A (so that I wouldn't have to fucking borrow another $10,000 for school) by confronting the terrorist who held me hostage the year before (but FAILED because he claimed that he couldn't find my final exam), started grading homework assignments for one of the sketchiest physics professors at CSUF, found out that a pair of sunglasses I bought for my best friend was put in a blender, walked around Venice Beach and saw hundreds of sketchy people and reached a new level of scumbag, walked around the Fox Hills Mall and got harassed by a dude who was convinced that he was selling the tastiest French fries in the world, bragged to just about everyone I know about how my cousin got accepted into the screen writing program at FSU AND the American Film Institute, met up with my best friend who flew into Long Beach (literally...like he literally flew the plane) and hung out with him at Ruby's, was invited by my best friend's girlfriend to attend 80s night at the "Cantina Lounge" (formerly known as the OCP) and realized how completely out of touch I am with mainstream society, wore my $500 suit to a career fair (where pretty much everyone STILL told me, "go online and apply at our website"), played my first round of golf in over seven years with my dad, brother-in-law and his friend, drove out to Downey to see my best friends' band (which had just gotten signed to a pretty major label) play a show in a small church, saw a photographic depiction of an outdoor festival up in San Francisco (and really wasn't surprised at all), drove home from school one night to find out that our black neighbors threw a party and a bunch of thugs showed up with 2x4s to stir up some ruckus (which scared the living shit out of a really nice neighbor of ours...a girl who was just trying to walk her damn dogs), concluded that the ultimate YouTube FAIL video of all 2008 is the one where some jack ass drives his motor home into an ATM building, and was greatly disappointed by the surprisingly large population of idiots who thought that turning on the LHC in Switzerland might actually create a black hole that would swallow up the entire world.
- Went to my niece's 3rd birthday party where I saw SIXTEEN toddlers jump around in a bounce house on my sister's front porch, got to see my mom for several days but had a very difficult time getting along with her (which is often the case due to her illness and our strange past), went to see Skarhead play at Chain Reaction (and was startled by the freakiest noise in the entire universe), drove all the way out to Sacramento to see my best friend, got completely smashed and found out about a whole lot of shit I wasn't prepared for, ate at a sushi bar (a girl's idea) for BREAKFAST (not necessarily my first choice for breakfast after a night of drinking but good nonetheless), met some interesting new people and found out the hard way that I hate Jell-O shots, ate at a sports bar for BREAKFAST (on the day that Miami was playing San Diego), went to San Francisco and spent the most awkward day of my entire life there, met a dude at Bubba Gump Shrimp who recognized my Die Young shirt, still didn't see the Dark Knight, returned to Los Angeles and discovered the strangeness of Stickam, went to a Cro-Mags Q&A "jam session" sponsored by Nike Sportswear, and finally drove to West Hollywood for Halloween and saw over 200,000 people walking around in the streets getting completely wasted.
- I watched the United States of America elect the first black president, took the first quantum mechanics II midterm and scored higher than anyone else in the class (except for the Asian), got excited for my best friend who was offered a job at General Dynamics in Phoenix, Arizona, accidentally got food poisoning but couldn't figure out what the fuck I got it from, flew to Austin, Texas for the first time in my entire life and went to the Fun Fun Fun Festival, saw so many gingers there that I decided I wouldn't mind flying back at least once a year from now on, ran into a girl I knew from high school and actually got digits this time (but never got to hang out with her because she totally flaked out on me...NOT SURPRISED), saw the legendary Integrity play and was forced to come out of "mosh retirement", took pictures in front of my home state's capital, saw an upside down dead person in cowboy boots, watched the Cro-Mags and the Bad Brains wrap up one of the best weekends of the entire year, flew back to LA and ordered the Star Sixty-nine Lifetime hoodie (which I never received in the mail) from Merch Now, flew back to New Mexico for Thanksgiving and played a second round of golf with my dad and my best friend (which turned out to be a bad idea because my dad fucked up his back and was unable to hang out for the rest of my trip), spent the night before Thanksgiving at my best friend and his wife's house (where we had a "practice" Thanksgiving dinner, even though I had already eaten a shit-load of food a couple of hours before), got to hold a Russian AK-47 (stamped, not milled), invented a drinking game called "Saves" with my best friend (which no one wants to play because it's too easy to get fucked up from), and finally got pretty drunk and accidentally convinced my best friends to go outside for a night jog (when it was roughly 40 degrees) wearing only our boxers.
- I went out drinking at the Yard House with a bunch of physics majors and was "made fun of" for ordering a Bug Light (even though I had already had a chocolate stout and a New Castle), started wondering WHERE THE FUCK MY LIFETIME HOODIE WENT, spent the last quantum mechanics II lecture drinking beer at the Cantina Lounge (where our professor told us a story about how he accidentally lit his hair on fire at a house party where he already felt singled out and didn't fit in), got pulled over on the way home from school during finals week (OF ALL MOTHERFUCKING WEEKS) and was charged with expired registration (because I have also FAILED at life), had to listen to an LAPD helicopter circle around my neighborhood for an hour before I decided to go outside and see what the fuck was going on, found a road block right outside the front door, saw a teen-aged, black kid (who was actually the son of our neighbors who threw the wonderful party several weeks before) wearing my MOTHERFUCKING HOODIE, confronted him and asked where he got it (which he responded to with pure lies), made him give it back to me (even though he tried to come at me with his annoying thuggish attitude), started hating my neighborhood with a passion for the next few days, took my last final exam, had my car rear-ended AGAIN, flew back to New Mexico, drove to Albuquerque for one of the best days of all 2008, met a girl at "Ladies Night" who talked to me for several hours (and apparently thinks I'm funny - which means she's incredibly smart) even though I was shit-faced, FINALLY got digits, ate rediculous amounts of food with my best friends (who wrote some of the funniest Christmas cards I've ever seen), started a cuddle party with my best friend (and four other people) on his twin-sized bed, drove back to Las Cruces and got to see all four of my best friends who I grew up with, FINALLY watched The Dark Knight, and closed out the year at a New Years party where I finally played beer pong for the first time ever (and lost three times in a row...ouch)...
The rest, of course, is history...and 2008 was without a doubt a year to be remembered...with so many highlights, so many disasters...and yet somehow it went by even faster than 2007. What the fuck is that all about? This year I learned a lot about myself and my friends. I realized that I'm going to turn into my parents whether I like it or not, that the same thing is going to happen to everyone else around me, and that perhaps the first step to understanding who I am is to figure out who my parents are. Growing up is a strange process. It can be very brutal, and if you're the kind of person who isn't ready to accept certain facts about yourself, it will definitely "knock your dick in the dirt". Take it from me...at some point your heart WILL die, and you WILL have to grow up. It's up to you to decide how you meet that death. I think something in me may have died during the year 2008. I'll be spending the next twelve months trying to figure out what it was.
"...how we grow older, how we forget about each other."
That's right, it was without a doubt the absolute most intense, out-of-control year of my entire life. From start to finish, beginning to end, it was the most fast-paced and unrelenting roller coaster ride I've ever been through, and it kept me on the edge of my seat just about every single day. I can't think of a single month out of the entire year where I didn't have to face a difficult financial or life-changing decision or deal with an incredibly fucked up situation that cost me a chunk of my sanity. The year 2008 was not a bad year...it just wasn't a very good one either.
In the year 2008:
- I started things off by ringing in the new year with several of my best friends and a thirty pack of Bud Light, played hours and hours of Rock Band on a PS3, got a hilarious "wake up call" to eat breakfast (a dozen eggs with chorizo) JUST as I was laying down to go to sleep after staying awake until 5am, went on a 12 hour drive back to California with a cooler containing a bag of Hatch green chili and some of the greatest spaghetti sauce ever made (which ended up going to waste due to preservation difficulties), returned to my tiny apartment in Fullerton still not knowing whether or not I had been kicked out of school for being on academic probation for so long, and then found out my mom had gotten very sick due to her bi-polar disorder and had to be hospitalized.
- I found out (informally) that CSUF was willing to give me one last semester of academic probation to fix my gpa by getting at least one A in my last three classes, talked to my graduate advisor who told me the only way I could finish school and graduate in May was by passing all three comprehensive physics exams before the end of the semester, faced a decision to either move in with my best friend (who I accidentally started an ongoing joke with the year before about how we're gay together) in Los Angeles or my other best friend (who would be working for an internship during the summer) in Las Vegas as soon as school was over, decided to go for the all-time greatest Hail Mary pass of physics by attempting to take three classes and pass all three comp exams in one final semester of academic probation (risking the possibility of being kicked out of school and being left with over $50,000 of loan debt), decided to quit my job (in hopes that what was left of my loan money would be enough to last me until summer), woke up a dozen times to the sound of a jack hammer right outside the door to my studio apartment, saw "she who we do not speak of" driving her annoying Scion while I was trying to hang out with my best friend on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and was forced to spend several days low on food without cash or a debit card because my previous one had been compromised.
- I started taking a "rocket science" class (which I'll never be able to live down), watched my best friend get into stoner metal (which led to me getting into Electric Wizard), started flirting awkwardly with a girl who worked at the local grocery store but FAILED to get any digits regardless of how many times I saw her, played a final game of mini golf with my best friend and shut his ass down for good, started writing and recording new Onlooker songs furiously (which led to a 12 song, 25 minute CD that I often refer to as my first real "demo"), laughed uncontrollably for several days because of the BRD video, spent Valentine's Day with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and my parents at a steakhouse restaurant in Torrance called The San Franciscan (which had the worst service we've ever had to put up with), got a flat tire at my sister's house and ended up having to replace all four tires (which cost me $724), invented "The Game" with my best friend (which we continue to play religiously now), was invited to a dozen hardcore shows (which I couldn't afford nor did I have time to go to) by the most annoying person who has ever existed, started looking on NotPop for people to play in Onlooker (which turned out to be a complete FAIL), accidentally went to see Down to Nothing play at Chain Reaction (which turned out to be an even bigger FAIL), and saw Shook Ones play at the Showcase Theatre.
- I was fucked over powerfully by someone who broke into my car by shattering the driver's side window (only to steal the faceplate of my stereo, which is basically worth nothing), had to pay $165 to get the window replaced and another $20 to fix a broken pulley system in my door (which still doesn't work properly), saw my friend's band Restrained play a house show in Riverside (which turned out to be hilarious because of all the meth addicts who were there), started losing a huge chunk of my sanity after driving around for a week listening to broken glass rattle around inside my door (which is still there and continues to rattle around to this day) instead of my stereo, finally went running again for the first time in a few years (two days in a row) and ran three miles in about 25 minutes, saw Shai Hulud and Earth Crisis play at the Knitting Factory, got a cold that lasted about four weeks and coughed so hard at one point that it induced a migrane headache that lasted about four days, consumed half a bottle of extra strength Tylenol, half a bottle of Mucinex DM, and two full bottles of cough syrup, started doing poorly in my classes and had to miss several lectures due to my cold, and found out much to my dismay that The Showcase Theatre was going to be shut down.
- I drove to Las Vegas for spring break (while I was still sick) to hang out with my best friend and his girlfriend, walked around the strip and ate at expensive restaurants (including Le Provencal, which is probably the best French food restaurant I have ever been to), hung out in the Beatle Revolution Lounge (where my picture was taken by some awkward photographer in a fedora), got shit-faced at the poolside cabana at the Mirage, got drugged up on Mucinex and Tylenol and then shortly afterward was invited by two girls I met the year before to go drinking at some random bar off the strip (even though I needed to wake up early the next morning to take my friend and his girlfriend to the airport), met up with the two girls at a bar called Moon Doggies and proceeded to take shots of things I had never even heard of, saw Converge (who played "My Great Devastator") and The Red Chord at the Glass House, successfully passed the first comp exam (even though I made some of the most retarded mistakes I have ever made on a test), decided to move to Las Vegas instead of Los Angeles, realized the logistics and time frame of the move were going to be extremely fucked up (because I needed to plan everything around my final exams, the last two comp exams, my parents and two of my best friends flying into town for my graduation, renting a U-Haul truck and figuring out how the fuck I was going to load it up before the graduation ceremony, and the need to sell a broken refrigerator that had been thrown down a flight of stairs), and basically came to the conclusion that if I succeeded in my attempt to write two five-page papers, turn in several more homework assignments, pass all three of my classes with at least one A and pass the last two comp exams in the remaining three weeks of school that it would be the most beautiful thing that has ever happened in the universe.
- I watched my best friend break up with a girl he had been dating for about 5 years (which resulted in several weeks of bitter drama), threw a "going away bbq" at my old apartment and got to hang out with my best friends one last time, took the last two comp exams back to back on the same day and only passed one of them (which forced me to retake the other one during finals week), tapped into an infinite well of stupidity by inviting the harbinger of doom (a person who literally wanted to fly out to California in hopes that there would be an earthquake, that he would see a lot of black people, and that he would possibly see me FAIL at getting my master's degree) to my "graduation" ceremony, retook the last comp exam and passed it (even though it was twice as hard as the original one), decided that everything I was going through was so epic that the only way to justify it would be to start writing a screenplay about it (an idea that was kept a secret at first), failed my atomic physics final (and abandoned any hope that I would get an A in the class), failed my statistical mechanics final (but already knew that I was going to get a B anyway), failed my rocket science final (but thought there was still a chance that I could get an A), rented a 14 foot U-Haul truck in Redondo Beach and drove it back to Fullerton, packed my entire life into the truck and sold the broken refrigerator for $25 in less than 2 hours (thanks to my sister, who used Craigslist), drove the U-Haul truck all the way back to Redondo Beach, attended my "graduation" ceremony (which cost me $200 for the regalia and the guest tickets) and found out that I got a B in atomic physics (but still had no clue what my grade was in rocket science), celebrated my "graduation" with dinner at C&Os in Marina Del Ray, walked around the beach holding my niece (which ended up making my arm REALLY fucking sore), and woke up the next morning to move to Las Vegas.
- I tried to stop for food in Baker but came upon a sign at the Del Taco that said, "sorry wer close", drove ten miles uphill (forgetting that the air conditioner was still on) outside of Baker and had to pull over to discover that the water reservoir had completely exploded, found out there was a nearby mechanic who looked like a tall, lanky version of Joe Dirt and lived in a motor home next to an abandoned gas station, stood outside in the Mojave Desert (while it was 104 degrees) wondering if U-Haul was ever going to send us a tow truck, was almost killed by a mini van (driven by a drunk driver) going 60mph (which came within 5 feet of me before it fishtailed and did a barrel roll into the gulley next to the exit), was questioned by a highway patrolman who looked like a Mexican version of Kevin Heffernan with a mustache, had to drive 30 miles backwards past Baker to pick up a new U-Haul truck from a dude named Virgil who looked almost EXACTLY like M. Emmet Walsh, had to drive the new U-Haul truck another 40 miles back to the Halloran
Springs exit (which put us four hours past our 4pm deadline to check in and sign our lease, rendering us completely homeless), had to unload all of my shit from the old U-Haul truck into the new one in the middle of the desert without any food in my stomach, was invited to go out and party that same night by the same girl who got me drunk at Moon Doggies, had to check into a random hotel on the outskirts of town, signed the lease for our new apartment the very next day and finally moved half of the shit from the U-Haul truck into our new, second-story apartment by myself in the middle of the afternoon when it was 110 degrees outside.
- I got to show my best friend the Las Vegas strip for the first time in his life, saw my other best friend and his girlfriend while they were celebrating her birthday, met a girl from the Midwest in the casino at the Tropicana (while my best friends were playing Black Jack) and talked to her for about half an hour until her two friends showed up, was invited to go eat somewhere with all three of them but completely FAILED to get any digits (because I suck...and everyone should know this by now), bought an 8 ounce flask (which I filled with whiskey) and walked around the strip getting completely trashed (until I tried to set my drink on top of a water pipe in a bathroom at the Tropicana and found out the hard way that it was a shitty idea), met up with my best friend and his girlfriend at Dick's Last Resort at the Excalibur and proceeded to get so drunk that we completely forgot everything that happened for the next several hours, apparently watched live music and saw my best friend try to dance with every single woman who was in the room (literally), took a cab to the In-N-Out burger across the 15 freeway from the strip, and finally woke up the next morning to find out that we had all bought In-N-Out hats and that my best friend almost got his wallet stolen.
- I met a girl at a Vans store who asked about my Daggermouth shirt but still FAILED to get her digits, started running again (even though it was an effort that only lasted a few days), started swinging a golf club again for the first time in over seven years and discovered much to my surprise that I can still knock the shit out of the ball, accidentally drove into a sketchy part of town near North Las Vegas while trying to find the Triple 7 at Main Street Station, came across a dude who was "sellin' that chronic" on the bridge between New York New York and the MGM Grand, spent as much time as possible in the apartment (where we had refrigerated air) hiding from the obnoxious heat outside, worried about my cousin who had just moved to Tallahassee, Florida (right around when Hurricane Ike was tearing shit up along the Gulf), found out that I almost got a C in the rocket science class but was lucky enough to squeeze by with a B, decided to contest one of my grades in order to avoid having to go back to school, didn't get to see The Dark Knight, was ditched in the middle of the Las Vegas strip (because I wanted to eat food) while I was shit-faced, and most importantly, discovered the Freakin' Frog - a bar and grill with a catalog of over 700 beers located right across the street from UNLV.
- I flew back to New Mexico for my 24th birthday (where I did pretty much the same thing I've always done for my birthday throughout my entire life: nothing), bought a $500 suit and attended my best friend's wedding (which took place at Cattleman's Steakhouse on the outskirts of El Paso), saw my best friend's parents at the wedding and rekindled a dozen childhood memories, flew back to Las Vegas and got to hang out with my best friends who had just gotten married (and were spending their honeymoon in Las Vegas) and found out they won over $700 their first night, drove my best friend across town to get a new tattoo, saw a doppelganger Tina Turner (who suddenly threw down her purse and decided to dance in front of Fat Tuesdays - forever immortalizing her as the "bitch walking in squares"), went on the New York New York roller coaster ride (which I concluded would be way better if they could figure out a way to make it go over the hotel), drove my best friend to McCarran Airport so he could fly out to Minnesota (but not before we tried to eat at a Chicago style bar and grill where the manager decided to rip apart his driver's license in a foolish attempt to make sure it wasn't fake), drove back to California and spent a whole day with my best friend looking for apartments in Los Angeles (where we came across the next Lenny Kravitz, Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown, and a porn star - all of whom were interested in the same apartment), saw Life or Death and Xibalba play at The Pharaoh's Den, spent my Fourth of July at Redondo Beach for the second annual Seaside Lagoon Independence Day Celebration, started talking to my best friend in great detail about something that we thought would never happen (which eventually did happen, and kind of made us feel bad...even though it was amazing), and still didn't see The Dark Knight (but was now being made fun of for it).
- I went back to Las Vegas and drove out to the Hammer House (a small shack in the middle of a junk yard right next to a women's prison just North of Las Vegas) to see Die Young and was invited to get high again with the same girl who got me drunk at Moon Doggies and her friend from Orange County, was straight up accused of being a stalker, talked for a little while with Stu from Folsom and the dude from Orange County about a bunch of random bands, made an ass of myself in front of Daniel from Die Young (which really sucked because I wanted to have a more serious conversation with him), found out about a new and innovative way to use mIRC, had gasoline siphoned (stolen) out of my car when gas prices were peaking, finally watched The Graduate, missed the Sound and Fury Festival and the opportunity to kill thousands of snakes, tried to mail a check at a nearby post office and found out it was actually a front for drug trafficking, hung out with my other best friend's sister and her husband, ate at the best Greek food restaurant I have ever been to, drove out to see the Hoover Dam and the new bridge project, saw a box of poodle chihuahua things (each of which were apparently worth one fourth of a Harley Davidson), went to a strip club for the first time ever and got a couple of lap dances, a body shot and drank four long island iced teas, invented the RTTPAPLAC scale, hung out with my best friend's aunt, uncle and grandmother (who had all flown into town for a wedding), took my best friend's uncle to the bar at the Tropicana where we all got smashed and watched live music, got in the stupidest fight ever with my best friend over a mystery box, found out in the worst way possible that "she who we do not speak of" is getting married (and has somehow decided that she's more mature now and that everything she has done to get what she wants is justified, which by the way - if she's reading this: you have FAILED at life...that is all), rented a Budget truck and moved all my shit to an apartment in Los Angeles, had the worst moving day of my entire life (which cost my best friend a massive scar on his shin), and had to fly from LAX (where I met a girl who works at a Buffalo Exchange in LA) back to Las Vegas to pick up my car and then drove back to Los Angeles in the same day (all because my fucking car wouldn't fit on the towing dolly without its bumper being completely ripped off).
- I signed up for a Netflix account (which lead to me finally watching Cool Hand Luke, Annie Hall, Irreversible, The Last House on the Left, Spartacus, The Outsiders, Rosemary's Baby, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane), started writing a screenplay (which is currently in the beginning of ACT II right now), tried to get the grade in one of my classes changed from a B to an A (so that I wouldn't have to fucking borrow another $10,000 for school) by confronting the terrorist who held me hostage the year before (but FAILED because he claimed that he couldn't find my final exam), started grading homework assignments for one of the sketchiest physics professors at CSUF, found out that a pair of sunglasses I bought for my best friend was put in a blender, walked around Venice Beach and saw hundreds of sketchy people and reached a new level of scumbag, walked around the Fox Hills Mall and got harassed by a dude who was convinced that he was selling the tastiest French fries in the world, bragged to just about everyone I know about how my cousin got accepted into the screen writing program at FSU AND the American Film Institute, met up with my best friend who flew into Long Beach (literally...like he literally flew the plane) and hung out with him at Ruby's, was invited by my best friend's girlfriend to attend 80s night at the "Cantina Lounge" (formerly known as the OCP) and realized how completely out of touch I am with mainstream society, wore my $500 suit to a career fair (where pretty much everyone STILL told me, "go online and apply at our website"), played my first round of golf in over seven years with my dad, brother-in-law and his friend, drove out to Downey to see my best friends' band (which had just gotten signed to a pretty major label) play a show in a small church, saw a photographic depiction of an outdoor festival up in San Francisco (and really wasn't surprised at all), drove home from school one night to find out that our black neighbors threw a party and a bunch of thugs showed up with 2x4s to stir up some ruckus (which scared the living shit out of a really nice neighbor of ours...a girl who was just trying to walk her damn dogs), concluded that the ultimate YouTube FAIL video of all 2008 is the one where some jack ass drives his motor home into an ATM building, and was greatly disappointed by the surprisingly large population of idiots who thought that turning on the LHC in Switzerland might actually create a black hole that would swallow up the entire world.
- Went to my niece's 3rd birthday party where I saw SIXTEEN toddlers jump around in a bounce house on my sister's front porch, got to see my mom for several days but had a very difficult time getting along with her (which is often the case due to her illness and our strange past), went to see Skarhead play at Chain Reaction (and was startled by the freakiest noise in the entire universe), drove all the way out to Sacramento to see my best friend, got completely smashed and found out about a whole lot of shit I wasn't prepared for, ate at a sushi bar (a girl's idea) for BREAKFAST (not necessarily my first choice for breakfast after a night of drinking but good nonetheless), met some interesting new people and found out the hard way that I hate Jell-O shots, ate at a sports bar for BREAKFAST (on the day that Miami was playing San Diego), went to San Francisco and spent the most awkward day of my entire life there, met a dude at Bubba Gump Shrimp who recognized my Die Young shirt, still didn't see the Dark Knight, returned to Los Angeles and discovered the strangeness of Stickam, went to a Cro-Mags Q&A "jam session" sponsored by Nike Sportswear, and finally drove to West Hollywood for Halloween and saw over 200,000 people walking around in the streets getting completely wasted.
- I watched the United States of America elect the first black president, took the first quantum mechanics II midterm and scored higher than anyone else in the class (except for the Asian), got excited for my best friend who was offered a job at General Dynamics in Phoenix, Arizona, accidentally got food poisoning but couldn't figure out what the fuck I got it from, flew to Austin, Texas for the first time in my entire life and went to the Fun Fun Fun Festival, saw so many gingers there that I decided I wouldn't mind flying back at least once a year from now on, ran into a girl I knew from high school and actually got digits this time (but never got to hang out with her because she totally flaked out on me...NOT SURPRISED), saw the legendary Integrity play and was forced to come out of "mosh retirement", took pictures in front of my home state's capital, saw an upside down dead person in cowboy boots, watched the Cro-Mags and the Bad Brains wrap up one of the best weekends of the entire year, flew back to LA and ordered the Star Sixty-nine Lifetime hoodie (which I never received in the mail) from Merch Now, flew back to New Mexico for Thanksgiving and played a second round of golf with my dad and my best friend (which turned out to be a bad idea because my dad fucked up his back and was unable to hang out for the rest of my trip), spent the night before Thanksgiving at my best friend and his wife's house (where we had a "practice" Thanksgiving dinner, even though I had already eaten a shit-load of food a couple of hours before), got to hold a Russian AK-47 (stamped, not milled), invented a drinking game called "Saves" with my best friend (which no one wants to play because it's too easy to get fucked up from), and finally got pretty drunk and accidentally convinced my best friends to go outside for a night jog (when it was roughly 40 degrees) wearing only our boxers.
- I went out drinking at the Yard House with a bunch of physics majors and was "made fun of" for ordering a Bug Light (even though I had already had a chocolate stout and a New Castle), started wondering WHERE THE FUCK MY LIFETIME HOODIE WENT, spent the last quantum mechanics II lecture drinking beer at the Cantina Lounge (where our professor told us a story about how he accidentally lit his hair on fire at a house party where he already felt singled out and didn't fit in), got pulled over on the way home from school during finals week (OF ALL MOTHERFUCKING WEEKS) and was charged with expired registration (because I have also FAILED at life), had to listen to an LAPD helicopter circle around my neighborhood for an hour before I decided to go outside and see what the fuck was going on, found a road block right outside the front door, saw a teen-aged, black kid (who was actually the son of our neighbors who threw the wonderful party several weeks before) wearing my MOTHERFUCKING HOODIE, confronted him and asked where he got it (which he responded to with pure lies), made him give it back to me (even though he tried to come at me with his annoying thuggish attitude), started hating my neighborhood with a passion for the next few days, took my last final exam, had my car rear-ended AGAIN, flew back to New Mexico, drove to Albuquerque for one of the best days of all 2008, met a girl at "Ladies Night" who talked to me for several hours (and apparently thinks I'm funny - which means she's incredibly smart) even though I was shit-faced, FINALLY got digits, ate rediculous amounts of food with my best friends (who wrote some of the funniest Christmas cards I've ever seen), started a cuddle party with my best friend (and four other people) on his twin-sized bed, drove back to Las Cruces and got to see all four of my best friends who I grew up with, FINALLY watched The Dark Knight, and closed out the year at a New Years party where I finally played beer pong for the first time ever (and lost three times in a row...ouch)...
The rest, of course, is history...and 2008 was without a doubt a year to be remembered...with so many highlights, so many disasters...and yet somehow it went by even faster than 2007. What the fuck is that all about? This year I learned a lot about myself and my friends. I realized that I'm going to turn into my parents whether I like it or not, that the same thing is going to happen to everyone else around me, and that perhaps the first step to understanding who I am is to figure out who my parents are. Growing up is a strange process. It can be very brutal, and if you're the kind of person who isn't ready to accept certain facts about yourself, it will definitely "knock your dick in the dirt". Take it from me...at some point your heart WILL die, and you WILL have to grow up. It's up to you to decide how you meet that death. I think something in me may have died during the year 2008. I'll be spending the next twelve months trying to figure out what it was.
"...how we grow older, how we forget about each other."
2007 (a retrospective)...
...was a bad year.
That's right. I said it. The year 2007 was not a good year for me. That is not to say that good things didn't happen, and at the very least it's not meant to demean any of the experiences I had with any of my friends. In fact, it might be fair to say that if it weren't for the year 2007 all together, I might find myself in a much deeper hole of confusion, depression and self doubt than ever before. However, most of my experiences from 2007 were really negative and fucked up.
In the year 2007:
- I attempted to fulfill the stupidest New Year's resolution ever, which resulted in a series of really awkward conversations between myself and a girl at a Dennys, a random girl (who was shit-faced at the time) in front of The Alley during a First Blood show (which was also a show where I almost got in a fight with some douche bag for hitting people in the crowd), a girl in the Virgin Records at the Block and a girl in a T-Mobile store at the Brea Mall.
- I spent several nights a week with my best friend driving around Orange County, walking on random beaches, crushin' on a ginger who worked at a really good yogurt place in Huntington Beach, scumbaggin' around downtown Fullerton and Brea, looking for Black Star Canyon, hating on random people in downtown Disney, smoking imaginary joints in the Disneyland Hotel and eating at just about every Mexican diner and burger joint we could possibly think of.
- I went to see my friend's band play a house show for Dustin's birthday party in Las Vegas (which was also the last time I ever got to see Palehorse), was smitten by a girl I thought I'd never see again, did absolutely nothing for Valentine's Day a second time in a row, got to see Lifetime and quite possibly fractured my elbow (it still hasn't healed completely and I will probably never be able to extend my right arm 180 degrees ever again) from doing a stage dive during "Young, Loud and Scotty", changed the name of my pop punk band about 7 billion times, played my first game of basketball in several years and threw around a football (which made my elbow even worse), inadvertently started an ongoing inside joke that my friend and I are gay together and started liking a girl who habitually farted in my car and called my friend and I her "dads".
- I watched two really close friends of mine go through very turbulent shifts in marital status, worried about impending drama that I had no control over and subsequently witnessed the end of an era, got my hopes up for a job opportunity at Boeing in Anaheim (which inevitably fell through the cracks), watched a friend of mine fall for a girl who has way too much baggage, saw another friend of mine fall for a girl who had way too many ties, tried to help with some car trouble at 1am in Anaheim Hills and discovered that I don't have any jumper cables and should probably get some, laughed my ass off when my best friend broke some dude's leg, lost a lot of my original pop punk recordings because my computer crashed again, finally started wearing contacts again, realized that my cell phone was becoming a useless piece of shit and eventually got a brand new, pre-paid phone while somehow managing to swoop a girl's phone number out of it (even though it was really awkward the way I did it).
- I spent countless hours talking on the phone with a very close friend who was living in Reno for a while, sympathized with almost all of my closest friends as they all endured heartbreak and breakthroughs, infidelity and insincerity, waited in suspense as a best friend dueled in a legal battle with the California DMV, saw my first "secret show" at Chain Reaction, agonized over trying to avoid a girl who might have been crushin' on me, agonized about my academic probation and imminent expulsion, skipped a lot of class and ignored a lot of homework, bought a $740.00 Ibanez for half-off in Oceanside during the 3-year sale, started driving to Colton for Son of Man practices, watched a fight get busted by the cops during a Life or Death show in Riverside (which subsequently led to the venue being shut down) while the girl I gave a ride to walked around drunk talking to random people, drove the same girl to see Set Your Goals in LA for some reason, had to sneak us to the front (because LA venues fucking suck), dipped out on Anti-Flag and drove all the fucking way to Pomona and hung around outside the Glass house during the first night of Facedown Fest wishing I had gone to see 25 ta Life instead, began slipping into a steady state of long over-due teen-aged angst and depression due to the New Year's Resolution, and eventually failed both of my spring semester midterms.
- I spent two weeks at the end of the spring semester being anti-social with the intent of studying for my exams and still ended up getting a B and a C, was visited by my best friend for a week of staying up until 3am almost every night, watching fucked up videos of urban violence on youtube, slightly altering the lyrics to Victim and The Saddest Day as an inside joke (therefore ruining the songs forever), throwing together a completely spontaneous barbeque in front of my apartment while my friends hung out in the jaquzzi, eating at Alberto's, Ruby's, Pepe's, Buca di Beppo, In 'n Out, Farmer Boys, Ocean Thai and a random Mexican food place in LA (which would have been Rosco's Chicken and Waffles if it weren't for the fact that the cops closed off at least a block of Gower due to some awkward drama with helicopters and an ambulance), and jamming out in Dalziel's old garage in order to purposely piss off the neighbors in this really sketchy neighborhood where we were eventually asked to stop playing by a group of black dudes (because their mom was "trying to sleep") and a couple of cops.
- I had to fly back to Las Cruces for a week so that I could get my New Mexico driver's license before my birthday (which is when my original Texas dl was supposed to expire), had to get a library card (which I almost couldn't have done if I hadn't lied about a lot of shit), watched a really shitty old video about defensive driving and filled out a little booklet, drove to Albuquerque and went on a wild goose chase at UNM looking for a super top secret office for defensive driving classes so that I could turn in the booklet, hung out in Albuquerque with some really good friends afterwards, met this girl from Denver who introduced me to the television series "Undeclared", drove to two Sonics in one night for free root beer floats, decided that I might be lactose intolerant (and later discovered to my surprise that it was probably just indigestion), ate waaay too much food at Cici's Pizza, went on a really intense journey into downtown Albuquerque looking for the DMV the day before my birthday so that I could get my dl on time and came really close to not being able to get it (after coming back home I got my California dl a couple months later and they punched holes in the NM one...uuuugggghhhh).
- I turned 23 and didn't get drunk enough to ignore the fact that I felt old, finally saw Hatebreed at the new Club 101 in El Paso and made eye contact with Jamie Jasta during "Empty Promises" while headwalking on a shitload of metal kids, saw Death Before Dishonor and got to see an old friend who now has his own kid, saw Die Young and got to talk to Daniel for a little while before they played, hung out with my best friend in El Paso before flying back to California, played Resistance for about ten hours before leaving town (we didn't get to finish playing it!!), came home and slipped into one of the deepest states of depression I have ever been in, drove out to Las Vegas to see the Tons of Fun Fest, saw a lot of friends from the IE and Arizona and hung out with everyone until the end of the night, walked around Huntington and Laguna Beach on Fourth of July, got sunburnt as fuck, drove way out to Fontana and watched people blow shit up that same night, randomly decided to drive to Las Vegas, got really bummed out because I didn't get to hang out with the friend I really wanted to see, walked the strip in 104 degrees of heat, ran into a group of drunk dudes from Nor Cal several times, stayed in a sketchy ass Motel 6 where the dude at the front desk couldn't do any math, got to visit two really close friends from Albuquerque while they were house-sitting in LA, checked out the Getty Museum for the first time since I was about 12, ate at Los Compadres on Sunset, watched some Mariachis play while my friend requested a grip of awesome songs, went to the Sound and Fury fest, basked in ginger heaven, stayed at another Motel 6, walked around the beach in Ventura with my best friend (no homo), and got kind of sick right after I got home.
- I spent the rest of my summer trying to ignore the impending doom of my last semester of academic probation, had a very serious heart to heart with two really close friends and kind of opened up about a lot of fucked up shit, talked about religion and science until 3am on a work night, called as many friends as I could to ask for advice about what I should do about school, visited my sister and confessed my whole academic situation to her, had another heart to heart with her and her husband, made the decision to continue going to school, and deposited another big check of loan money...
- I put off playing guitar for several months, stopped going to shows (except for when I put up with a great deal of shit with the school just so that I could go see The Unlovables in San Diego), rarely saw any of my friends for a while, rarely got out of my apartment on weekends, watched Southern California burn on the news for a week straight, saw Converge and 108 at Showcase, was held hostage by a terrorist, found out my best friend hit a cop with his truck and put the guy in the hospital (he got away with it Scott free), failed my midterms again (despite rigorous studying as compared to the first two semesters), spent hundreds of dollars to get my car fixed AGAIN, started playing guitar during Thanksgiving break AGAIN, changed the name of my pop punk band AGAIN (for the last time), saw Shook Ones AGAIN (and was amazed...again), started a mini-golf war with my best friend (one which will not last much longer when he realizes he's not the "champion" he thinks he is), completely fried another hard drive AGAIN, had to memorize an entire chapter of the most complicated mathematical theory I have ever encountered, gave a really long and boring presentation about it, got fucked over by a senile Iranian physics professor who hates me because I'm from Texas, found out one of the other grad students is originally from El Paso and spent about twenty minutes reminiscing about the gangs, the awkward shittyness and the violence of having to grow up going to school in a border city in the early to mid 90s, scored two Bs (one of which should have been an A) and an A (which should have been a B), hung out at the OCP on one of its last nights of business, and finally...drove back to New Mexico on one hour of sleep...
The rest, of course, is history...and 2007 was without a doubt a really fucked up year. Yet somewhere in middle of all the drama and all the mayhem of 2007 I met a person who kind of made me look at things a little differently, even though I don't think she was trying to. I think she was just trying to be my friend and somehow I fucked it up or made it too awkward or something by going about everything with the wrong intentions and hopes. I'm just tired of being alone and I get carried away a little too easily these days. She didn't mean to, but she proved to me that I don't have to be miserable like this. The only reason I may be miserable from here on out is because I haven't figured out "where to begin doing for myself". If it's anything I've learned from 2007 it's that my life is going to get a whole lot worse if I don't start living my life.
"Passion and burden are two words I won't use in the same sentence ever again..."
That's right. I said it. The year 2007 was not a good year for me. That is not to say that good things didn't happen, and at the very least it's not meant to demean any of the experiences I had with any of my friends. In fact, it might be fair to say that if it weren't for the year 2007 all together, I might find myself in a much deeper hole of confusion, depression and self doubt than ever before. However, most of my experiences from 2007 were really negative and fucked up.
In the year 2007:
- I attempted to fulfill the stupidest New Year's resolution ever, which resulted in a series of really awkward conversations between myself and a girl at a Dennys, a random girl (who was shit-faced at the time) in front of The Alley during a First Blood show (which was also a show where I almost got in a fight with some douche bag for hitting people in the crowd), a girl in the Virgin Records at the Block and a girl in a T-Mobile store at the Brea Mall.
- I spent several nights a week with my best friend driving around Orange County, walking on random beaches, crushin' on a ginger who worked at a really good yogurt place in Huntington Beach, scumbaggin' around downtown Fullerton and Brea, looking for Black Star Canyon, hating on random people in downtown Disney, smoking imaginary joints in the Disneyland Hotel and eating at just about every Mexican diner and burger joint we could possibly think of.
- I went to see my friend's band play a house show for Dustin's birthday party in Las Vegas (which was also the last time I ever got to see Palehorse), was smitten by a girl I thought I'd never see again, did absolutely nothing for Valentine's Day a second time in a row, got to see Lifetime and quite possibly fractured my elbow (it still hasn't healed completely and I will probably never be able to extend my right arm 180 degrees ever again) from doing a stage dive during "Young, Loud and Scotty", changed the name of my pop punk band about 7 billion times, played my first game of basketball in several years and threw around a football (which made my elbow even worse), inadvertently started an ongoing inside joke that my friend and I are gay together and started liking a girl who habitually farted in my car and called my friend and I her "dads".
- I watched two really close friends of mine go through very turbulent shifts in marital status, worried about impending drama that I had no control over and subsequently witnessed the end of an era, got my hopes up for a job opportunity at Boeing in Anaheim (which inevitably fell through the cracks), watched a friend of mine fall for a girl who has way too much baggage, saw another friend of mine fall for a girl who had way too many ties, tried to help with some car trouble at 1am in Anaheim Hills and discovered that I don't have any jumper cables and should probably get some, laughed my ass off when my best friend broke some dude's leg, lost a lot of my original pop punk recordings because my computer crashed again, finally started wearing contacts again, realized that my cell phone was becoming a useless piece of shit and eventually got a brand new, pre-paid phone while somehow managing to swoop a girl's phone number out of it (even though it was really awkward the way I did it).
- I spent countless hours talking on the phone with a very close friend who was living in Reno for a while, sympathized with almost all of my closest friends as they all endured heartbreak and breakthroughs, infidelity and insincerity, waited in suspense as a best friend dueled in a legal battle with the California DMV, saw my first "secret show" at Chain Reaction, agonized over trying to avoid a girl who might have been crushin' on me, agonized about my academic probation and imminent expulsion, skipped a lot of class and ignored a lot of homework, bought a $740.00 Ibanez for half-off in Oceanside during the 3-year sale, started driving to Colton for Son of Man practices, watched a fight get busted by the cops during a Life or Death show in Riverside (which subsequently led to the venue being shut down) while the girl I gave a ride to walked around drunk talking to random people, drove the same girl to see Set Your Goals in LA for some reason, had to sneak us to the front (because LA venues fucking suck), dipped out on Anti-Flag and drove all the fucking way to Pomona and hung around outside the Glass house during the first night of Facedown Fest wishing I had gone to see 25 ta Life instead, began slipping into a steady state of long over-due teen-aged angst and depression due to the New Year's Resolution, and eventually failed both of my spring semester midterms.
- I spent two weeks at the end of the spring semester being anti-social with the intent of studying for my exams and still ended up getting a B and a C, was visited by my best friend for a week of staying up until 3am almost every night, watching fucked up videos of urban violence on youtube, slightly altering the lyrics to Victim and The Saddest Day as an inside joke (therefore ruining the songs forever), throwing together a completely spontaneous barbeque in front of my apartment while my friends hung out in the jaquzzi, eating at Alberto's, Ruby's, Pepe's, Buca di Beppo, In 'n Out, Farmer Boys, Ocean Thai and a random Mexican food place in LA (which would have been Rosco's Chicken and Waffles if it weren't for the fact that the cops closed off at least a block of Gower due to some awkward drama with helicopters and an ambulance), and jamming out in Dalziel's old garage in order to purposely piss off the neighbors in this really sketchy neighborhood where we were eventually asked to stop playing by a group of black dudes (because their mom was "trying to sleep") and a couple of cops.
- I had to fly back to Las Cruces for a week so that I could get my New Mexico driver's license before my birthday (which is when my original Texas dl was supposed to expire), had to get a library card (which I almost couldn't have done if I hadn't lied about a lot of shit), watched a really shitty old video about defensive driving and filled out a little booklet, drove to Albuquerque and went on a wild goose chase at UNM looking for a super top secret office for defensive driving classes so that I could turn in the booklet, hung out in Albuquerque with some really good friends afterwards, met this girl from Denver who introduced me to the television series "Undeclared", drove to two Sonics in one night for free root beer floats, decided that I might be lactose intolerant (and later discovered to my surprise that it was probably just indigestion), ate waaay too much food at Cici's Pizza, went on a really intense journey into downtown Albuquerque looking for the DMV the day before my birthday so that I could get my dl on time and came really close to not being able to get it (after coming back home I got my California dl a couple months later and they punched holes in the NM one...uuuugggghhhh).
- I turned 23 and didn't get drunk enough to ignore the fact that I felt old, finally saw Hatebreed at the new Club 101 in El Paso and made eye contact with Jamie Jasta during "Empty Promises" while headwalking on a shitload of metal kids, saw Death Before Dishonor and got to see an old friend who now has his own kid, saw Die Young and got to talk to Daniel for a little while before they played, hung out with my best friend in El Paso before flying back to California, played Resistance for about ten hours before leaving town (we didn't get to finish playing it!!), came home and slipped into one of the deepest states of depression I have ever been in, drove out to Las Vegas to see the Tons of Fun Fest, saw a lot of friends from the IE and Arizona and hung out with everyone until the end of the night, walked around Huntington and Laguna Beach on Fourth of July, got sunburnt as fuck, drove way out to Fontana and watched people blow shit up that same night, randomly decided to drive to Las Vegas, got really bummed out because I didn't get to hang out with the friend I really wanted to see, walked the strip in 104 degrees of heat, ran into a group of drunk dudes from Nor Cal several times, stayed in a sketchy ass Motel 6 where the dude at the front desk couldn't do any math, got to visit two really close friends from Albuquerque while they were house-sitting in LA, checked out the Getty Museum for the first time since I was about 12, ate at Los Compadres on Sunset, watched some Mariachis play while my friend requested a grip of awesome songs, went to the Sound and Fury fest, basked in ginger heaven, stayed at another Motel 6, walked around the beach in Ventura with my best friend (no homo), and got kind of sick right after I got home.
- I spent the rest of my summer trying to ignore the impending doom of my last semester of academic probation, had a very serious heart to heart with two really close friends and kind of opened up about a lot of fucked up shit, talked about religion and science until 3am on a work night, called as many friends as I could to ask for advice about what I should do about school, visited my sister and confessed my whole academic situation to her, had another heart to heart with her and her husband, made the decision to continue going to school, and deposited another big check of loan money...
- I put off playing guitar for several months, stopped going to shows (except for when I put up with a great deal of shit with the school just so that I could go see The Unlovables in San Diego), rarely saw any of my friends for a while, rarely got out of my apartment on weekends, watched Southern California burn on the news for a week straight, saw Converge and 108 at Showcase, was held hostage by a terrorist, found out my best friend hit a cop with his truck and put the guy in the hospital (he got away with it Scott free), failed my midterms again (despite rigorous studying as compared to the first two semesters), spent hundreds of dollars to get my car fixed AGAIN, started playing guitar during Thanksgiving break AGAIN, changed the name of my pop punk band AGAIN (for the last time), saw Shook Ones AGAIN (and was amazed...again), started a mini-golf war with my best friend (one which will not last much longer when he realizes he's not the "champion" he thinks he is), completely fried another hard drive AGAIN, had to memorize an entire chapter of the most complicated mathematical theory I have ever encountered, gave a really long and boring presentation about it, got fucked over by a senile Iranian physics professor who hates me because I'm from Texas, found out one of the other grad students is originally from El Paso and spent about twenty minutes reminiscing about the gangs, the awkward shittyness and the violence of having to grow up going to school in a border city in the early to mid 90s, scored two Bs (one of which should have been an A) and an A (which should have been a B), hung out at the OCP on one of its last nights of business, and finally...drove back to New Mexico on one hour of sleep...
The rest, of course, is history...and 2007 was without a doubt a really fucked up year. Yet somewhere in middle of all the drama and all the mayhem of 2007 I met a person who kind of made me look at things a little differently, even though I don't think she was trying to. I think she was just trying to be my friend and somehow I fucked it up or made it too awkward or something by going about everything with the wrong intentions and hopes. I'm just tired of being alone and I get carried away a little too easily these days. She didn't mean to, but she proved to me that I don't have to be miserable like this. The only reason I may be miserable from here on out is because I haven't figured out "where to begin doing for myself". If it's anything I've learned from 2007 it's that my life is going to get a whole lot worse if I don't start living my life.
"Passion and burden are two words I won't use in the same sentence ever again..."
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