cape.

My sleep schedule is balls. Night is the only time I can concentrate on things I want to get done. In the day, all I want to do is drive around or play video games. I finished putting together the atta boy workdisk. Now I have to do the questions for the accompanying workbook. Friday is going to be a big day. I'm playing back the workdisk right now just to see if I like everything on it. Some of these songs are so beautiful that it makes my heart hurt. I can only hope that my bandmates feel the same way. Friday is going to be a big day.

"Now is the time for turning. The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily. It takes an act of will for us to make a turn. It means breaking old habits. It means admitting that we have been wrong, and this is never easy. It means losing face. It means starting all over again. And this is always painful. It means saying I am sorry. It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. These things are terribly hard to do. But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday's ways."

working loading click accept.

I'm working working on preparing for the pitch of my new project. It should go down on Friday. I hope it's good. I forget whether I already mentioned it, but I'm making a disk full of clips and songs, a little booklet of questions to go with it, and a Powerpoint-esque presentation of my ideas. Then I want to have what a corporate setting might refer to as a focus group. No, I'm not forming Hewhocorrupts II. The key to making everything happen as I'd like it to is organization. If I present my ideas in a coherent, organized fashion, then there's little room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding.

Anyway, I'm sifting through songs right now and my head hurts. Check out this sweet cover of New Noise:

goosepock.

Christmas shopping finished. Putting together the atta boy workdisk. EM2C.

soulseek.

I'm downloading music for the first time in forever. I usually stick to purchasing albums, but I'm making an exception for this very hard-to-locate music. It is the screamo of the late 90's that has disappeared from the main frame of the music world, only to be replaced by mallcore and brutal deathgrind. ::tears fall:: Nah, I dig some of that sometimes, but I'm heavily falling in love with this cluster of greatness. It's wonderful.

I'm preparing for atta boy.

wowie!

Deer is delicious. I've eaten it a bunch of times before, but I always forget how incredibly tasty it is. My roommate went home this past weekend and brought back deer bologna and jerky. I had a disk of the bologna (baloney?) and it is the sweetest most succulent meat of all. I wish they made deer everything. Burgers, hot dogs, cold cuts, jerky, ground deer, deer on a stick... Gee golly jeepers.

I practiced keyboard again tonight. I learned a lot of what the different knobs mean, finally, and I learned to record a sequence after wondering why the RECORD button never lit up before now. Instruction manuals! FTW!

So yeah, deer. My roommate is dandy. The other two: one is kindly yet somewhat distant and the other is a McDoucheFart wrapped in bacon and pan-seered until charcoal black who has an undeserved woodsman beard and leaves his Wii on all day. I hope its fan burns out. Twit.

Mmm mm, deer. Deer.
Deer.

dethklok.

I had a dream a couple hours ago right before I woke up about two potential plotlines for the show Metalocalypse. The first one is that for some reason Dethklok decides they want to incorporate a keyboardist, but that ends in disaster because he was either hired by the Illuminati or he just dies brutally on stage or maybe it's a she and she distracts the band to the point of brawling mayhem wherein she is inadvertently maimed and killed. Hmm. The second is that Dethklok decides to do a split EP with a hardcore band in which they each have their own songs on the record, but on one song they mash up. I figured that could go wrong if the Illuminati attempted to brainwash, hypnotize, or control the minds of the members of the hardcore band in order to "gather information," but General Crozier has actually had wicked assassin skills implanted in their heads. Or something. Maybe go MKULTRA style and control them with LSD. But they need to die during the stage performance of the mash up song. I think perhaps I'll write these episodes for fun just to get the hang of the scripting software I just obtained. Still no ideas for the series Dave and I will develop.

dear sister.

So all afternoon into the night I played my keyboard. I learned Soaring Quails by HORSE the band and the first riff in Venus and Bacchus by Saetia, but between those two I learned the theme song to the sugar cube drama from HORSE the band's studio diary YouTube thingy, called Lawrence and Friends. But yeah, this song isn't as easy as it sounds. It feels like playing two separate rhythms from separate songs at the same time. But I'm doing it repeatedly for like an hour, right? And I start getting this incredible adrenaline rush as I begin to get it and then by the time I'm completely getting it I'm fucking pumped as shit and I don't know why, but I start to play Cutsman and I can play it faster than I've ever been able to play it coherently. My fingers were like, blurry. Then I play Soaring Quails incredibly fast. It was so strange. I've never really learned anything that hard before I guess. I suppose the determination led my body to act as if my life was in danger. I can still feel it now, actually, and this was over two hours ago. I'm really proud of myself though. Then I wrote a neat little riff that was pretty complex and recorded it. I'll use it in atta boy. I am preparing for atta boy.

I am preparing for atta boy.

Watch this and laugh:

dreams.

I've had a lot of aspirations and general things to do (long term and short term) come to me in the past several weeks. Here is a list of all of them: to become an actor, to be a stand-up comic, to write graphic novels, to write a screenplay, to play keyboard really well, to develop a program for [adult swim], to become enlightened, to grow up, to become more understanding of others, to eat good food, to write raps, to create grindcore on Fruity Loops, to work out, to create my own recipe for some kind of dish or baked good, to correct my sleep schedule, to start my dream band.

Some of those, I've done. Some of them are somewhat complete or in progress. Most of them, which are, mostly, the important ones, have not been accomplished. Some of those will never be.

gelatin.

So I played my first show with The Dead Outnumber The Living last night. I can't believe how out-of-shape I've become. I was completely winded by, like, the middle of the first song. I was kneeling all over the place and shit. My voice held out until the middle of the set. I really need to run the treadmill regularly or something. My neck feels like gelatin that has hardened a little bit and my lungs feel like balloons that you're trying to inflate but haven't been stretched enough. But nonetheless, it was a very fun night. The guys from Beyond Dishonor were very cool and the drummer's basement was fucking tricked out. I can't wait to design the floorplan to my own house and fill it with glorious things. Sigh... I'm still in bed right now, but I think I'll shower right after this typingness and get some food. Then I'll probably resort to playing Zelda all day. Maybe Metal Gear, actually. I think I might deserve some Qdoba tonight. We will see.

throw rug.

It's really early in the morning. I woke up at three to come back to my room with Katie. I was extremely groggy upon waking, but I slowly starting gaining energy and at this point the prospect of sleep is a pipe dream. (Oooh, see what I did there?) Basically, Katie is asleep and I'm trying to type really softly as I sit here with my bare ass on the snazzy throw rug I bought at Target at the beginning of the year. After I finish typing this, I'm going to start advertising this blog a little better because I like some general feedback on the thoughts I'm thinking. It's been a bit since the last post, so I guess I'll catch up on that:

In the past few weeks, I've had this glorifying sense of becoming enlightened. I feel like my morals and values are evolving and that I'm gaining this strange maturity that I've only imagined having before. I feel like I can't become angry at anything. I feel like I could make it through anything. I feel like I could bear the weight of a million Earths.

Also, I find myself more and more motivated to create. This winter, David and I are going to take a shot at developing a TV show for [adult swim] because I discovered that they accept idea submissions by mail. Furthermore, I'm growing a greater sense of endearment towards the band I'm in now. I was bummed at first when their style didn't really strike my main nerve, but I'm beginning to realize that I am a piece of the puzzle and that it's not all about what I want to think is good. I can sway the generation of the little aptitude graph towards my end of the polygon, but the other flares will be there too.

Speaking of bands, I finally gathered willing members for the project I've dreamt about for the past year or so: atta boy. I want to combine the real screamo and emo violence type stuff that has sort of died off since the late 90's with a little bit of not-taking-it-too-seriously. I want to be silly at times, but I do also want to express something meaningful with every measure we play. I want to let loose and, while keeping a style in mind, not be bound to a genre. I'm gonna play my keyboard, Dave's on drums, the sexy Jimi McCullian on bass, the prodigal James Kratzer on guitar, and a new face called Dan Palmer from Easton on the other guitar. I expect good things from it. We're getting together this winter to discuss everything and then we hope to actually begin the writing process when school ends for the year, so like late May. Then Dave and I think a single show at the end of the summer in a little room with some other bands will make for a good debut. I'm really excited.

I've just finished all of my classroom time for my fall courses with an exam for each coming up this week. I'm very pleased with how smoothly this first semester has gone. Often times, I don't even notice that I attend classes and simply enjoy being here on my own with some friends and an occasional plip of spending money to do fun things with.

A week ago today, Katie and I celebrated our two year anniversary. There was a gap in between where we weren't together, but we choose to honor that day as the official beginning of our relationship anyway. It's a step towards reconciling that rough, confusing period of our lives and strengthening our relationship overall. It's not to say that that period isn't reflected on and that we completely ignore and condemn its happening, but we're working towards putting it comfortably behind us as a learning and living experience that has some negativity surrounding it. But anyhow, we went to dinner at this very nice Italian place near City Hall called Maggiano's. It's half upscale, half family style Italian dining with semi-reasonable prices considering its stature. They started us off with this delicious fucking bread with the most flavorful olive oil in existence to dab it in. It must have been like, extra extra extra virgin or something; I'm not really up on the standards of grading olive oil. Next, we had fried zucchini as an appetizer with this amazing garlic horseradish dipping sauce. Holy shit, this zucchini was incredible. And the order was so huge (even though we got a fucking half order) that we were tempted to fill up on it. It made a wonderful snack that night back at the dorm. The main course that I chose was lobster fettucine. This was alright. I was good, but it was the least fantastic part of the meal. It was fettucine with white cream sauce not quite alfredo with lobster, Italian sausage, peas and bread crumbs. It was a small order for an Italian dish and it was slightly baked on top which I don't really dig that much. Also, the sausage was kind of an odd ingredient in comparison to the others and it altered the flavor of the dish in a way that I began avoiding the pieces of it in order to enjoy it more. But then, oh, get ready to cum in your undies, Mr. Radogna. A slice of New York ricotta cheesecake. Huge. Strawberries. Decadent. Orgasm. It was a great meal.

I've been slowly making my way through two classic video games in my free time. The one I'm more focused on right now is The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time for the N64 and the other is Metal Gear Solid for PS1. I plan to re-beat the first three installments of the Gear series during my college career (very slowly) before finally buying MGS4 for the PS3. I think I'll be done with all four by the end of my junior year. But the Ocarina Of Time, Christ what a headache that can be. When I was younger, I called my mood during this game "determination" while I now refer to it as "utter frustration." Some parts are so fucking convoluted that I have no idea what I'm supposed to fucking do. I had to look at the GameFAQS at one point in order to remember that I have to somehow know to wander into the Temple of Time to learn the fucking Prelude of Light and then to know that I have to hit this fucking rolling Goron with a bomb before I can figure out how to venture into the Death Mountain Crater. And now I'm in the goddamned Water Temple. Fuck that shit. I'll give it three more hours of enraged searching before I GameFAQ through that whole fucking nightmare. Then after I beat it, I think I'll actually use the walkthrough in full just to get all the Gold Skulltulas and all the heart containers and the Biggoron Sword and whatnot. I fucking forgot about how the other sword fucking breaks after like ten swings and I got so pissed off. Fucking Zelda.

What else... Christmastime is here. I hope I get a nice little allowance to shop with. One of my favorite things to do in this whole world is to pick perfect gifts. I've gotten pretty damned good at it. I figure my main people to shop for are my parents, my brother, my nana, my uncle, Katie, and David. And then maybe like one gift each to some special folks like Matty and Keef and Lil' Mikey. And then my other gifting love: writing out cards. Christmas is the special time of the year where I really sit and reflect on my relationship with a person, then write out my unedited feeling on them in a blank card with a neat design on it. It's not like birthday cards because I suck at those. Birthdays aren't special for me. It is for the birthday person, but not me. Christmas is special for everyone. I pay no attention to the religious background of the holiday and focus it solely on the idea of friendship and togetherness as people. Of recognizing who you truly care about. Of exchanging tokens that symbolize how much you truly care about and know another person. It's a great exercise in humanity and I love doing every part of it.

Well, I think that just about sums everything up that I can bring to mind right now. Five hours from now I'll be heading to the Temple vs. Tennessee basketball game and then playing my first show with The Dead Outnumber The Living tonight in Trenton. It should be a good day. I guess I'll crawl back into bed now and try to fall asleep. If you read this, I highly recommend getting an account on this site, first commenting mine (^_^ pretty please? ^_^), and then starting your own. Think about what it's like to sign into your old Xanga account and see what you were like in middle school. Make one of those for your college years right here! And it's really good to sit and reflect focusedly on your life as you type. Now that I've caught up, I plan to make posts every day if I can. Anyway, take my advice.

Good night.

two egg mcmuffin extra value meal

I went to bed at about 8 last night in order to correct my sleep schedule, but I woke up at about 3:30, unable to fall back asleep. I guess that's a start. I showered and walked to McDonald's for a nostalgic breakfast, the same I'd always get when my uncle took me when I was younger. Not too often, though, because it's not the healthiest thing around! Blork blork blo

I came down into the TV lounge of my building to use the computer because my roommate still slumbers. I'm writing this as I listen to an instrumental of the new band I'm in on repeat so I can write for it. It shows a lot of potential, but it's not a fully developed style yet. It plays a lot on classic metal and ye olde Scandanavian fodder, but I can hear wisps of emo violence and indie-rock in the interlude. Perhaps I'll bring out those qualities with the vocals I use.

I went to the Williams Street County Fair and Expo yesterday, which was really fun. I spent an hour and a half of it waiting in line for a free customized T-shirt. However, the only color shirt in size M left was white, so I got a white shirt with an old-timey Meatwad design on it. Then I got a bunch of free stuff from Xavier, the mystical gift log of wonder. Reach in your hand, receive glories upon glories. That is, a Meatwad stress ball, a Snake n Bacon sock puppet of Snake, a book of Adult Swim postcards, some stickers, and a snazzy Zorak pen. Didn't win any of the raffles for DVD sets... or custom Mooninites Etnies....

Met a kid here recently with similar music taste. May become a friendship, who knows.

I've had a lot of aspirations lately. In the past two weeks, I've had the desire to write a graphic novel, learn to illustrate for it, make a documentary, do stand-up comedy, and become a voice actor. I wish I had the ability to just bust into one of those careers. If I really sat down and thought, I think I could possibly write some good stand-up. And if I had the ability to create characters or was given some kind of loose prompting, I could probably come up with some funny voices. Hmm.

That's So Raven is on the TV down here. Disney channel programming is not funny. I understand an eight year old kid enjoying it, but I hate when people my age love High School Musical or the Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana or any of the other shitty sitcoms they run. The only good show the Disney channel ever had was Even Stevens. Period.

If anyone ever reads this, then post a comment. Even if it's just you, Katie. <3!
rk.

dead cat; content / bored.

I found out that Jewel died while I was in New York City a few weekends ago. My mom called while I was there, but she didn't want to ruin my fun by telling me. I found out when I went home on the weekend of the 26th-28th. She rotted for three days underneath some long grass. She chose a shaded place. A few nights ago, I saw her silhouette in my foyer. I didn't say 'bye yet because I want to see it again. Next time I will, but only if she promises to show up every now and again.

That weekend that I found out, I came home for two things. One was the CD release show of the band that I was kicked out of for going to college, and they still owe me somewhere between 300 and 450 dollars for my cut of earnings. I don't complain about it anymore because it makes me feel like a dick, but I could definitely use that money. Even so, I went and supported. I played a song with them. I upset Matty. He was the bassist when I was the singer. Now he's the singer. People say that he thinks I upstaged him. I didn't mean to. I didn't want to upset anybody; it was a milestone evening for those guys. Hah, when I asked one of them how much the CD cost, I expected a copy to be handed to me. Instead, I was told that I could "download it online from one of them if I wanted." They all know that I hate not owning the physical record. So I had to buy one, all the while them owing me a large sum of money. I hate what money does to music. And friends.

I'm still with the band I joined here in Philly. I decided that leaving would be wrong of me considering I said that I'd be solid. I did what I originally said I wouldn't do and I meddled with their writing process and gave a speech about uniqueness without trying to offend them. If any of you guys ever read this, I mean no offense. People may like it, but I consider it boring music. However, they all sort of took what I said to heart and we're gonna try to write interesting stuff. Still, I want my dream band to come to life. NO ONE on campus seems to like my kind of music, and if they do, it's one or two bands thrown into a grab bag of Fall Out Boys and Say Anythings and Metro Stations. Philly in general seems to be, for the most part, absolutely desolate in terms of having an outstanding music scene. Few bands that I know of came out of this city, and only one local band that I know of truly stands out to me so far. They're called John Fonda.

My life is, aside from my musical aspirations and boring college courses, absolutely stable. I have a girlfriend that I care for very much and a nice, small group of people that I know here. I occasionally see classmates from high school, which is comforting. But at the same time, I'm forced to feel kind of bored. I sort of want something that really challenges my creativity and imagination. All I've had like that so far is a small film project based on displaying a space within two minutes with multiple angles. That was boring. I did jack shit in pre-meditating anything or deciding what I would do; I just filmed what I saw in my space (the Broad and South Street garden) that I found interesting. Even so, my project was probably in the top three for the receiving of classmate comments. Most other people planned their shots, even storyboarded. I feel like I can't express myself at all. I'm in a (currently) flat, undynamic band and am stuck in an entry level film course because I don't know how to use fancy cameras. Sure, other people have way more meaningful problems in this world, but this is about the worst that can happen to me that isn't absolutely extraordinary. I need to be able to think and make good things or else I'm bored and content. I'd rather be active and jubilant.

HORSE, come back to Philadelphia.

In school

This is the first time I've posted onto this since I've come to school. I'm in Philadelphia attending Temple. I'm majoring in film and I just decided recently that I'm minoring in philosophy. I joined a band here. They're basically typical metalcore, but they have potential. I'm hoping to create a vortex of uniqueness within their ranks sometime soon.

I still want to start my dream band; it'd be a cross between the screamo or emo violence from the late 90's like Saetia or like Circle Takes The Square type stuff, really fun and silly stuff that is heavy and lighthearted at the same time like Heavy Heavy Low Low, and then I'd play keyboards over all of that. The whole band would have vocal duties and it would be absolute equality. We'd create music for us, to everyone. For example, every member will ideally get a mic or share them. Between songs, we'd all talk as if just conversing with a group of friends. Maybe even just talk to each other. We'd write music. It wouldn't have genre rules like "you can't put this there" or "you can't use this riff" or whatever. Yes, I'd like it to embody the qualities set forth by those other genres, but it'd be its own thing above all. Everyone loves a good breakdown and everyone loves a nice interlude... that kind of stuff would stick. Everything else just happens. And like I said, I'd play keyboards, which I've grown to love. I'm no guitar man and I just attack drums. The keyboard is just right in front of me and I can do anything I practice enough. So far, I only really know a few chords, a few scales, and two HORSE the band songs. It'll be a learning experience. Anyway, I'm done rambling about that for now.

Speaking of HORSE, I saw them on Friday night at First Unitarian. It was the best I've seen them yet. It was the first time for me at that venue and I love the room. No flashy colored lights and no cigarette smoke. No barriers, no security. Short stage. Energetic yet reasonable kids. Clean bathroom. Sitting space. It's great there. But yeah, the best I've seen them yet. Heard a couple songs for the first time live: Hyperborea, Seven Tentacles and Eight Flames, Octopus On Fire, and Kangarooster Meadows. It was great. Erik signed the shirt I bought with this neat "Lord Gold" text and his face on it. And I was the kid that brought the Sharpie; a good handful of kids got their stuff signed thanks to my ingenuity. It made me feel good. The sweaty walk back to the subway felt fantastic in the cool air. I'm so sore right now. My neck, back, thighs, shoulders... I hurt all over. I leave no other band's show that damaged unless my band opened for it. Still, I get much more hurt being in HORSE's crowd than I do flailing onstage.

It's very late. Or early. And I'm not tired at all.

jewel

My cat was taken to the vet this week after progressively throwing up more and more often over the course of two or three months. It used to be only once or twice every two weeks or so, but now it's to the point where it's once or more per day. The vet initially suspected hyperthyroid to be the explanation, but after some bloodwork, it became clear that it was not the case. The only evidence of any kind of problem in the bloodwork was a high white blood cell count. So, there's something wrong, but they don't know what. If what she has isn't figured out through normal testing that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars, then she'll be put to sleep. I've lived with this cat since I was seven years old. I'm almost eighteen, and the thought of her exiting my life is like losing a family member. She can barely climb stairs or even stand for long periods of time. It's gonna be hard for me; I've never lost a pet before. If she's in pain, it's probably best, right? I hope so. I feel really young and small as I write about it. I feel seven again because now is the time that I must appreciate her fully. I never appreciate anything until it's in danger of leaving my life. I hate that.

hmm

I'm content with my life for now. I don't have anything profound to write. I need to remember to do it when it's actually on my mind. I'll write a note.

pulse

I feel my pulse behind my eyes.

may twenty fifth

I ate an Arby's feast and I'm very full. Our last day of high school was Friday and summer has officially started. In three short months I'll be departing for film school. I'm really excited to be able to start a creative career. This summer we're hoping to do at least two big projects and one music video.

the ins and outs

My life is typical. Life is typical. I have a lot of good things happening and a lot of bad things happening. My problem is that the negative things have so much more power. I can easily say "I'm having a bad day." I could count on one hand the times in my life I've said "I'm having a good day." I've never said "I'm having a great day," but I often say "What a horrible day." Why is negativity so strong? Why does it hold so much more weight? I don't understand that lack of balance. Buddhism says that life is suffering, so perhaps happiness is rare for a reason; we must suffer constantly in order to truly enjoy the good times. Otherwise, life would be really dull I suppose. It's just dealing with it, I guess.

my signature

I've been trying to make a signature for myself that I can be able to do repeatedly and have it look unique, but you can actually read my name in it. I'm not doing it to be pretentious, I just want to like how my name looks when I write it. That's basically the extent of exciting activity going on at this moment.

a place to just write

Nobody reads MySpace blogs with purpose or meaningful replies. This is a place to just write.