home for winter

I've been home getting my re-lax on for a few days now. It feels good to be home.

I'm working on a flash cartoon that is very sad.

Dave and I are cooking up something awesome for [as].

Modern Warfare 2 rules.

So do kiffles.

chicken nachos

I had dinner at my roommate from last year's apartment. It was very good. He made us chicken nachos with black beans. They were really good.

behind the door

I had a long, gassy day. I ate my lunch too quickly and that resulted in me having to suppress burps all day. Stinky Chinese burps.

The highlight of the day was an encounter with one of my classmates in poetry. My desk is behind the door, just beside the doorstop installed into the floor. When I was standing beside it putting on my sweatshirt as we were packing up to go, she trapped me behind the door as she was leaving and looked at me through the glass of the door. I made the "zombie cancer" face from the Awesome Center cartoon and she laughed and let me go. She's very nice and she is fair. She calls people out when they are overanalyzing things. Her outside knowledge of poetry brings on a hint of pretentiousness every now and then, but in general her comments are founded. The best thing, though, is that's she's a lesbian and she is very much one of the guys. I overheard her in conversation once talking about how a girl was cute with some other guys in my class and it made me smile. Also, I think I once overheard her say that she was a drummer and that she filled in for the drummer of Algernon Cadwallader on a tour once. I should try to conversate with her about that. She's that kind of rare person that I think I'd enjoy hanging out with. Usually, I only feel that way about people I look up to, or people named Dave Meyers or Jake Schroer. Hopefully something comes out of this. If nothing does, I'll regret it for the rest of my life every now and then. It's one of those things.

I'm listening to the new Russian Circles album actively for the first time right now. It's very good. So far, I like track two the best. I think it will stay that way.

My nose has been running all day in a way that feels like condensation is just slowly and constantly building up on the inside of my nostril. It's really irritating. Also, my sinuses feel swollen and this makes it so I can't blow my nose very effectively.

I wrote all over my left hand today as I listened to people's shitty poetry analyses. Is that the proper pluralization of analysis? My spell check is calling me an asshole. Fuck it. Anyway, I wrote all over my hand. There's stars and bubbles and lines and squares and circles and ovals and words and triangles and punctuation and hiragana and reminders and sentences and the word "DERP" written vertically down the side of my palm.

I can feel the twenty chicken wings from last night swimming through my intestines.

there's a nice purple lion beside me

I need to make it a point to post in this a little more often. Thoughts that aren't so big that happen on a day to day basis are interesting. I want to try to preserve those. Also, I want to preserve the mood that I get in every now and then where I become very blue and decide that I'm motivated enough to do just about anything. I was in that mood for most of the day yesterday, but it's mostly gone now. I don't like the fact that it's gone now. It's so fleeting. I need it. Otherwise, I'm a pile of lazy gunk.

I really need to get back into the position where I can write and perform music. I need to find musicians that are good and that I can easily communicate my ideas with. I'm not good enough as an instrumentalist to produce anything of my own, but one of the only things that I'll ever be confident in is the fact that I'm a pretty decent vocalist and that I have the ability to think up music and communicate it to people who can execute it and also supplement it with the ideas that they have. I had a taste of that when I was in Lest We Forget. One of the best passages of music that we wrote in that band was due in great part to a thought that I tried really hard to communicate to the T and it turned out to be very good. I need to be in that kind of atmosphere again, except this time in a style of music that I really love. I want to combine every kind of music that I like into a huge style that has a few foundations and endless possibilities.

My girlfriend printed out a coloring page of a cute lion and she colored it in with different shades of purple for me. I like it a lot.

I need to find a way to reach out into this big, muddled mass that society is today and find people who share my desire to make good music. Explosions In The Sky got started because one of the members put up some fliers. Nothing is that easy anymore. Even with convenient things like Craigslist around, it seems that the only people that want to play music nowadays are between the ages of thirteen and seventeen and they either want to play music like Paramore or Alesana.

The generations after me are complete garbage and the generations before me are so goddamned respectable. I'm part of the little hairline crack between them. Being born in 1990 is a pain in the ass.

headaches

I've been getting frequent and unexplainable headaches for the past three days. The first occurrence seemed to have been triggered by somebody asking really stupid questions that didn't further the discussion and were for their own personal stupid curiosity in one of my lecture classes, and they just keep returning at random times. Specifically, the pain comes from the left side of my head and emanates around the rest of my skull. It's the kind of headache that I consider hitting my head against something to relieve. Three Advil does a good job of getting rid of it for a couple hours, and then I return to this state where I feel like it could hit at any moment, and if anything aggravates me at all, it could come back at a moment's notice. I have one right now.

I haven't typed on this in a while, but since the last time I did, we've finally put together a complete line-up for atta boy. Dave is on guitar, my brother Sam is on drums, and I'm on bass and occasional keyboard. Both Dave and I want do vocals. I like that it's a three piece. A good tight set of people who can work well together. A band of five has way too many opinions flying around.

We've completed our album concept for our first effort. It's going to be called "sojourn". It's going to be six tracks long, which tempts us to call it an e.p., but calling anything an e.p. is generally lame, I think-- especially for our first effort. I don't want to explain any further about it though, because I want to leave room for anyone who listens to it to interpret it for themselves. If anybody thereafter asks me what it means, they forfeit their own interpretation. I actually don't know if I should even tell anybody. The album has a concept though.

We start writing for the first track next weekend and continuing the weekend after that. We hope to finish most of, if not all of, track one in that time. Track one is going to be called "Eyelids". We might post rough boombox recordings on the myspace of us working the song out. It will be completely instrumental and about five minutes long.

That's about it for now.

In bed.

I feel like there's a lot ahead of me. I feel like i'm going to miss something. I need to begin something. I want to befriend people that i look to for advice. I think i'm living strangely. I want something. I'm delirious. inb4 angsty collegiate musings.

Word

Right now, I'm in bed in a house in Outer Banks. My family rented a house for the week. The weather has been really nice and I'm getting sunburn for the first time. I'm going to have to make my hair black again when I get home. But yeah, I'm pretty sure the hole in the ozone layer was right above the beach today. I was wearing sunscreen and I still got a little crisp.

Let's see, life...
I've been having a decent summer. I'd like to be hanging out with friends more often, but otherwise it's been decent. I won $25,000 from Stride Gum, so I didn't have to get a job. Most of it went to paying off school, but I kept 5,000 for myself. I got a Wii, some games, got my PS3 fixed, took my friends out to dinner, and I'm getting a 50" plasma with speakers for my dorm. Honestly, I feel like a piece of shit because of it, and some of my friends make me feel like shit for it. I know that I don't deserve the money, but I make it a point to be as generous as possible with it.

Other than that anomaly, everything is the same. I wish I were playing music, but I'm not. Me and Dave started up an underground rap project, but that's been stagnant for a couple weeks. We decided on inviting my brother to play drums for my dream project that will never happen. I hope it actually comes together.

I have some solid ideas for my script now. I'll start those really soon.

I'm some kind of poser, because I'm not sure what I like on my own. It seems like I model people around me too much.

I want the new HORSE album to come out now so I can start enjoying music again. I'm so bored of music. The last good album that I've bought that I was actually able to listen to over and over again was the new #12, but I've played a hole in that thing. Jon Karel owns the drums. I tried to quell the hunger with that new Poison The Well album, but it's just not catchy enough for me. It's damn good music, but I can't get into it too well.

I need to do so many things, but I'm so unmotivated. I think I like doing nothing too much. I want to paint, write, learn keyboard, do crafts, go places, etc., but I don't feel like it.

I've been riding my bike a lot lately. I think the week before we left to come here, I rode a total of about fifty miles over the course of four days. It feels good to be outside and doing something.

Dave's phone is broken and that's a piss in my ass. It's my fault though. I chose not to buy umbrella from the umbrella man before in started pouring in Central Park before the Explosions In The Sky show. I'm an idiot.

I'm such a horrible combination of bottled up creativity and relentless laziness.

Sleepless dawn

My mind is a stirring vat of goo.

Whoa!

Wake up

Camera phone =

i was twitching

Last night, I had a brief stress-induced mindsnap. I was angry, annoyed, sad, and hysterical in different random sequences for about an hour. Today, I feel like I understand the world better.

I was in Long Island today at a birthday for Katie's rela-someone. I think his name was Tony. Great uncle, maybe? Third cousin? I don't know.

I'm going to program a rap beat now.

stagnation

I want to be playing music, but nobody else plays music. I mean, the kind(s) I'd like to play. I don't know how to meet people in general, let alone find band members that aren't either a) between thirteen and sixteen or b) complete tools. I'm pretty sure David and I are set on producing one song on our own with our own ideas and seeing if anybody emerges from the woodwork after that.

My brother left God Of War on the TV and the soundtrack that keeps looping is really eerie and airy. Like a doom whistle of some kind. I think he's in Pandora's temple.

I realize now how terrible the metal scene is. It's all about being tough, different (while being the same as everybody around you), or "brutal." I use the word brutal every now and then to describe something, but I'm coming to terms with how wrong that is probably on the same level as the generations before me have used "radical" and "gnarly." They're meaningless buzz words that don't properly convey what is truly intended. I need to improve my vocabulary.

Terminator: Salvation was a disappointment. As Jhonen Vasquez said: "It was no Terminator: Salvation trailer."

I have a lineup of shows I'm attending this summer so far:

June 10th: Dillinger and #12
June 14th: Oktober Skyline and Harrison Bergeron reunion show
July something: Arsonists Get All The Girls
July something: IWRESTLEDABEARONCE
some date I forget: Comadre if I'm able
August something: HORSE the band CD release show (in my car)

I've been staying up until sunrise way too often, yet almost unwillingly. I can't seem to fall asleep before then.

gooob

I had Mr. Softee. Vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. The chocolate soft serve was broken, otherwise I'd have gotten chocolate with chocolate sprinkles.

I saw people handing out Marxist propaganda at the bell tower today. Instead of just focusing on ignoring them, I felt like they were doing something meaningful.

I really like Randy Taylor's character on Home Improvement. He's a smart guy.

amber handbag sandpaper glamour mag

Really hot weather just suddenly happened. Spring was skipped entirely. Winter died down and then summer just popped up out of turn.

So I just got the confirmation that Heavy Heavy Low Low is down to be interviewed about the current efforts to reform marijuana law. I'm really glad to get to do this. I have ten solid questions and hopefully other little sidenotes come up. Yeah!

Otherwise, I'm just pressing my way through the rest of this semester. I'm just done with it. Even my favorite class is starting to get boring.

Seeing Russian Circles tomorrow at The Church. Listen to their song in my player over yonder and you'll see how much you're missing out on.

Oleander Smooth

I'm slowly beginning to realize how uninspired I really am. I think I need something really horrible to happen to me. I have no plight feeding me. No real emotional drive besides confusion and blind ambition. I'm like a creative vehicle with no fuel. Lyrics and poetry aren't over my head, but I don't have any reason to create it besides just wanting to. I have no foundation. My life is too simple and generally good, and that's bad for me. I think I need failure, shame, loss, or something. I have nothing pushing me forward besides the fact that I want to succeed, but I think I need to fail first. I want to go out to dinner with friends. I need to make friends, but I think I hold my traits in too high of a regard. That is, I feel like noone else can relate to what I've got in my head, my mind. I think that some of that will ease during next year when I'm surrounded by philosophy majors. People with depth. People down to earth and in the clouds simultaneously. Or maybe I need to make compromises. Find people in between. Everybody is so contrived in this generation, including me. Everybody wants to be clever. Everybody puts on that clever face and makes a remark. Everybody laughs at that remark with their that-was-clever laugh, hoping that what they've just laughed at was indeed clever and in that moment assessing his or her wit and the wit of he or she whom she just laughed at. Everybody wants to be hilarious. Everybody wants to speak with meaning, including me. I don't really think I do. I mean, want to speak with meaning. I think I appreciate thinking with meaning more than saying it. I keep so much to myself. I don't think I'm afraid of being judged. Maybe afraid of being misunderstood or not understood altogether. Maybe just enjoying that I have those thoughts. Feeling like I understand something about anything, at least in my own little way-- my own little way that I perceive to have incredible meaning, but that is relative. People ten years older than me may find something deep that I'd find earth-shattering or vice versa. Or maybe what I find mindblowing they find phenomenal. It depends on who truly has wisdom and who is just outdated. I think that I will become outdated, my way of feeling, my way of perceiving, my way of reacting to my environment. I realized for the first time a few weeks ago how I'm supposed to smile into a camera. It feels like I'm the actual expression a clown has painted on his face, but it looks good to the camera. It used to look something like a modest mugshot or a driver's license photograph of someone who's unsure whether they should be receiving the permission to operate an automobile. Now it looks good and it took me a handful of years to discover. Will it be like that for everything? If something so small took years, will something as large as locating my creativity be found in decades? Never?

underground highland windsurfer unit

I don't know what that title means.

I haven't written anything in a while. Partly because nobody reads this, and partly because nothing has happened. Right now, I've realized that nothing happening is something that has happened, so here I am writing.

I've officially decided on changing my major. Film school is bogus and I'll break into the industry through my writing. If I become a director, it'll be through osmosis. The Charlie Kaufman path. Except I won't make it when I'm near forty. I'll make it within five years after college.

That's my goal. And after college, I'm moving to Los Angeles. I've decided. I'll have written scripts and I'll get an agent to peddle them. I'll become more cultured and I'll be surrounded by everything.

Back to the major change thing. I'm becoming a philosophy major. It's a useless major in the grand scheme of things, but to me it will make me a more well-rounded thinker and writer. I know little bits and pieces of philosophical things, but there's way more out there. Do you know who Xavier Zubiri is? Neither did I until I randomly stumbled across the name on Wikipedia. I'll learn about him and every other obscure philosopher and all the obscure writings of popular philosophers.

I will move to Los Angeles and write. I hope to also make music there. There are no musicians here in Philadelphia who want to play the music I want to play. My music taste is too fucked up. Not too fucked up for California though, I'd bet. So yeah, there's that.

I dropped the film class that has me use a camera and delves into classical film history. Fuck that. The camera is dog shit and film history is something I can learn on my own. Fuck Sergei Eisenstein.

I understand that philosophy can also be learned by just looking on my own, but this is something I'd like a little bit of guidance in. I don't need guidance to watch movies.

The weather is becoming sunny and t-shirt compatible. I'm happy with this. I can't wait to have my first collegiate summer. I have so many goals. I'm getting a new job as a film projectionist--

Why that job rules:
a) no human interaction
b) watch movies I might not watch otherwise
c) work with real film
d) be able to say that I'm a film projectionist
e) earn seven dollars an hour by sitting still
f) time for reading, which I really need to start doing
g) access to movies before their releases
h) access to advertisements like posters, cardboard cutouts, etc.
i) no co-workers except my trainer who is my good friend
j) sitting in a cool, dark room for hours on end
k) free popcorn (?) maybe candy (???)
l) working at a historical theater with a gigantic screen
m) discounted tickets when I'm not working

The list goes on.

I'm still hoping to develop a program pitch with David for Adult Swim. We have a general idea that we love, but we need to form it. If that happens, then we'll be seeing a lot of Atlanta.

I've picked up my keyboard this week after a long hiatus from it. I learned the riffs from Take On Me and Born To Run yesterday. Very joy-inducing. That is, the riffs. And learning them. Joy all around. My repertoire now includes:

Cutsman by HORSE the band (full)
A Million Exploding Suns by " (intro)
Sex Raptor by " (intro and verse)
Soaring Quails by " (full)
Heroes Die by " (full)
Abstract Art by Born Of Osiris (breakdown)
Murders Come With Smiles by Dance Club Massacre (intro and verse one)
Lawrence and Friends Theme Song by Erik Engstrom (full)
Take On Me by A-Ha (the catchy part)
Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen (the happy part)

oh, and

Lollipop by Lil' Wayne (I even have the exact sound from the recording woohoo)

So I want to practice that more often. I think I'll pick up the guitar this summer and at least try to develop some punk/screamo skills because trying to learn metal was an epic fail for me. Learn some chords too, maybe. All I know is C, G, Em, A, Am, D, Dm.

Hmm, what else... Contract on my cell phone finally expired. Get to pick a new one. I'm thinking the LG Dare, but Michelle says to wait it out until the summer for new models.

Ooo, Born Of A Broken Man just came on.
I'm hungry.

chew chew

I'm feeling a lot better.

ahhh

Everything hurts. I want to grow up in 1.5 speed. I want to experience it all, but a little bit quicker. Last night, I thought about not waking up because I had this pulsing head pain and I was roasting. It was scary. I really don't want to become nothing.

I'm Ill

I have the flu. Everything hurts. The screen makes my eyes water. I may have to go to the Dillinger show with the flu. Everytime I blow my nose, I think I'm waking my roommate. They really should make tissues two tissues thick. I always use two. I only ever use one if a little extra fluid lines the edge of my nostril. I guess Puffs thought of that.

in the sun,

I feel so weird. I can feel myself evolving as a human, as an intelligent being, and as part of the society. The world will eventually seem so small that it will be like I'm standing on the head of a pin, surrounded by darkness and stars.

I just ate a lot of Wendy's food. She shared it with me. Actually, I ate it all. She never eats. This is because she is a restaurant.

I'm okay with using the term "youngblood" now that I've seen it in print.

Music is getting better.

Friends are getting smaller.

At this point, feeling joy and sadness at the same time is a frequent occurrence.

I feel so weird.

ambiguity.

I'm going back to school tomorrow. I'm happy about that. I can't wait for creative writing class.

messing around in photoshop. / hook.

If anybody (all two of you) can guess what this picture used to be, you win. If you can find the very picture that it once was, then you win big.

I was trying to learn how to hook a bowling ball today. It went alright. I got a couple nice cuts and I think one of them was a strike. It's so tough to fall into a groove with it when you've got a scrawny arm that struggles to toss a twelve pound object. I'll get it. Some other dollar game Monday.

King Sarcass

I just watched a whole buttload of videos featuring Bill Maher, some on his show, some of his stand-up. Brilliant man.

I don't know why I titled this blog King Sarcass. I said the word "sarcasm" to my brother before titling it and remembered the SNL skit when Kevin Spacey hosted that explained the origin of sarcasm: King Sarcass. He was apparently the first user of sarcasm and nobody in his kingdom understood. The video doesn't seem to exist on YouTube, so I don't know where one may find it.

I'm gonna minor in philosophy.

anger/

I feel better, but I still need this time alone. I'm not meeting my goals. This isn't right at all. My body defeats my mind nine times out of ten. I can't let that happen. I'm not creating. I'm not getting my ideas out. Everything is constrained.

kent.

I just discovered that I like Bloodhound Gang. I've heard two of their songs before, but I never knew the band behind them.

I was up late last night. I finished off a loaf of French bread by ripping it up and dunking it in a jar of Reese's peanut butter. Funny: Peanut butter jars are the only plastic "jars." I would never call that container a jar unless it contained peanut butter. Otherwise, it would be like... a weird cylindrical semi-solid holder. I would call peanut butter one of the bridges between solid and liquid. If you squirted it from a tube into a container, it would take the shape of that container. However, it doesn't really flow on its own without some kind of force moving it. It doesn't slosh.

My bread, my peanut butter, and an orange sports drink. I felt like a middle-aged bachelor eating his normal dinner.

I'm going to try to learn Japanese on my own.

blearrr.

Today went well. We had a good jam session. The guitar kid from Easton didn't show up, so I'm hoping there's a logical explanation behind that. I drove home from East Stroudsburg this morning at 10 AM. It was difficult considering I had gone to sleep at about seven. I'll be hungry soon.