Current Life

Blogs are slow going right now, nothing THAT cool is happening and I havent had much to say but theres a few things I suppose I could update about.

I had to spend $500 on my car this week. NOT COOL. My car has been a little weird the past few months. Never thought much of it though and I just figured it was my alignment, which I planned on taking care of soon. WELL, turns out it was my alignment, BUT it was my REAR alignment. Which I didnt even know existed on vehicles! SO, my rear tires wore out to the metal lineing inside. Since ive been continually driving on them for months. So I had to get 2 new tires. Which are expensive as fuck. BUMMED.

On a positive note, Im in the process of getting this whole drum kit thing sorted out. Ive been actually talking to a Company. Which is something I have never gotten to do on my quest to get the hook up on drums from other friends who are fortunet enough to be in bands and get Custom shit done cheap or for free. Cause usually its I tell them what I want, they tell their dude at the Company and somewhere inbetween there, shit gets lost or confused or nothing at all comes of it.

Ive been talking to one company, ive met someone recently, who is on the inside of another, whos gonna see what he can do and I very well might bother Dustin AGAIN anyway, since Ive gotten a price that Id like to see if someone would be interested in matching to make a sale. Its a good price, but id like it to be a little lower. Even $100 difference makes you not happy, cause its only $100, really, but the lower the price, the more appealing it seems. So ill have to see what happens. 

Im going to finally try to get into Ebay. Though this time, actually selling instead of having an account since 2004 and only buying. I got a lot of shit I dont want and money could be used to put towards this kit. I have such anxiety about it. ugh. 

Also, ive been playing music with Jared and Alanna. Its been going alright so far. Not sure what the plan is, but im still cool with just having SOMETHING to do musically. Its been filling up a void in the middle of the week and I get to see them more. 

Other than that, not much is going on. I have a vacation planned. Not sure if im actually allowed to go on it yet, even though its booked. whoops? 

Spring is coming, even though it is spring now, its still like 40 out, not cool Spring, not cool. 

More on things soon!

My last blog ever...

OF 2008!

What Makes A Man?

*Situations will be explained. Names will be stricken from the record. You are all safe. You were all apart of my life this year. Through good times and bad, you are now memories. Ones that must be looked upon.

2008 was quite a year for me. Ive really been thinking about it a lot the past week and I really dont feel "prepaired" enough to be writing a year end recap but tomorrow is the big day and this year as we all know it will be over. In some ways im going against my blog rule of no drama but i feel that its important. It may seem that its focusing on the dramatic but its more focusing on who i have become since. I GREW so much this year as a person due to these experiences and feelings.

It may seem a bit brash to say all this because MY events to YOU may not even seem like a big deal, that this is all so miniscule and i guess in some ways, it probably is, but its what happend. its how i felt and what i went through. This year was an overload of events and emotions ive NEVER felt before. My process of having and most importantly,LEARNING how to deal with every one of them.

If i had to choose 1 word to desribe 2008. That word would be "ADVERSITY".

If i had to choose 5 songs to represent 2008. They would be(in no particular order):
1. Bayside- How to fix everything
2. Atmosphere- gotta lotta walls
3. Alkaline Trio- Standard break
4. Kind Of Like Spitting- All Else Failed
5. Armor For Sleep- Somebody Elses arms

This all started at the very tail end of 2007, carrying right into 2008 resulting in the worst Christmas and New Years to date. As i said, so many feelings ive never felt. They all broke me down completely and made me become the most CONFUSED ive ever been about anything. First, I felt that i totally fucked up and pissed a good opportunity in life away. i was so angry and disappointed with myself. i had also hurt someone i didnt mean to. Always being the "good guy", handling "fucking up" didnt come so easy. Which lead me to feel GUILT. With that guilt and disappointment,  I can honestly 100% say that i truly hated myself for a really long time. The feeling of being completely helpless and powerless to turn back time and do things different and just make everything "okay" crushed me. I felt LOSS for the first time as well and I cried. HARD. Something i havent done since i think 6th grade. 10 yrs of tears came out at once.  Due to this hatred for myself. I began to accumulate self-esteem issues. i thought "am i really as great as i thought i was?". Which really fucked with me considering im always a strong and confident person(ality). Excepting total responsibilty for your own misery is a terrible thing to have to do. Though in the end, it was really just ME having a hard time FORGIVING myself for what i felt i had done.

These feelings made me reach down deep into myself and start the healing. I had to "figure it all out". I had to answer my own questions about why i did what i did and why what i did, happend. Needless to say i LEARNED far too much. I am a very stubborn person(more than id like to think). Im very much an individual, a rebel. I dont like being helped and told what to do. So i tend to oppose simply out of spite for those who are trying to influence me. Ive learned to not hold back, it hurts far too much. Which also lead to the conclusion of how important communication is. To say how you feel, no matter how hard words might be to say or how scared you are to say them. Naturally being Male, i tend to be very immature with my anger. I used to wish the worst for people, even if they deserve it or not, just for some sort of sick revenge. Most importantly ive learned about LETTING GO. I let the thought of someone else "ruin" the future. If i wouldnt have been holding on/out for something/one else, im sure things would maybe be completely different. They say you never get second chances in life and i believe that to be true now. Just stop hoping for them. Move on. Always move on.

All this doesnt even sound THAT bad when i look at it, but if you were a person i was asking for help from, you know how bad i was. Its all set and done and I have come out a stronger person. Ive hit my lowest low and made it out alive. I wouldnt say im "glad" it happened, cause it was fucking miserable but it did and WHY exactly? I still dont know. A harsh late realization i guess but ive learned a lot about things and ill take my new found knowledge and understanding and hopefully if something ever happens again, ill atleast be able to keep my head on my shoulders.

oh...the years not done.

This year also brought my MORALITY into question. I "hooked up" with someone in a sexual manner, completely free of any emotion. Which is weird cause im usually shy and have to have some sort of emotional attatchment to somebody to do such things,but there it happened and i was totally okay with it.

Also, with a different patron, i stooped to a level, one that i claimed i would never. I broke Number 7 of the commandments(sort of). A misdemeanor offense if anything. Theres a fine line between what makes a "great" man, Great. And a man, just an ordinary man. I thought of myself a highly respectable person. I have crossed that fine line into a new territory. I thought that it would feel a lot different, cause it doesnt feel like anything at all but feel as though I should be lumped in with every other dude out there on this,slowly turning black earth and if i had any faith in (a) God, hell would surely be awaiting me. But i am no different than i was even moments before. i am great.

GOOD THINGS OF 08:
-bought a new car
- HWM with Pete in NJ
-NYC with bricker
-RVA with soul control
- Jen norris came to visit
-mayhem festival
- murdza got married

Important people of 08:
rachel B
derek dolan
jared colby
tom laverne
jen norris
matt fox
kimberly morin

i thank all of you for putting up with my shit. listening. giving advice. spending your time with me. i spent a lot of this year in hell and if it wasnt for all of you it surely would have made it worse.

In conclusion i guess 2008 was the year of HUMANITY. I made a lot of mistakes. Did some things im not proud of but that is apart of life. I am not perfect. I am human. Im going to make mistakes and its totally okay for that to happen. But things that happen dont always make you a bad person. we all just get lost sometimes and dont always make the best decisions for one reason or another. Its what we take from all this which allows us to become better people.

2009 is a fresh start. New band, some new friends, maybe some new women. Its going to start off fantastic and i could only hope it gets better, but you never really know. I wish you all the best year possible. Im going to try to be the best that i can.

2008 Book Recap

2008 was a very crazy year for me. Which is something I will surely touch on again soon as the year turns over and I do a long winded emotion filled blog about the events that have taken place for me personally this year.

Though, its not time for that yet! Its time to recap the books that I have read this year. Now, I was never much of a reader, ever. Even as a child, my grandmother would always make me read 3 to 5 pages a day of what was usually an RL Stine book, before I got to go outside and play with my friends and I always hated it. Even when I was in school, I hated it. I never did the summer reading, nothing. Everytime I had to read, I found a moderatly interesting LOOKING book and just stared at it. Whenever I had to do a report, I glanced around and skipped to the end. I was a shit head. The only book I ever found interesting was 1984 by George Orwell. Which, I dont even think I finished, which is why Ive been thinking about reading it again and Anne Frank when we read it as a class in 8th grade(where my WWII interest began).

Ive always been a large advocate of education because I feel people should be intelligent. Existing in daily life just goes to show how much people really, arent. We have been gifted with brains. Which are able to obtain massive amounts of information. Brains that can output massive amounts of ideas and creativity. Which also could influence someone else to better themselves or something else, keeping the train rolling. Here I am, not doing shit simply because im LAZY. So I ALWAYS felt a bit hypocritical on the subject. Though Ive always been a very creative, imaginative person. More so as a child than as I grew older but for pretty much all of my life Ive wasted away my mind on who knows what, guiltily leaning towards video games(though no so much the past 5 yrs), television and the INTERNET.

I guess in some ways its all how you get introduced to things. I was in some sort of rut maybe, comfortable in my lazyness. Maybe just nothing fascinated me enough to go out and wanna gain knowledge of it. Maybe stories just didnt get me going?

Which brings me to WHY I started reading last year. Something happened in my life. What, is neither here nor there right now but what I needed to do was keep my mind busy. ANYTHING to take my mind off the situation that was at hand. I needed to block out thinking completely and distract myself from focusing on...myself. Much like when you are going through something and you confide in songs from artists or even write songs so that you may transcend. I was looking for something to relate to. I was looking for answers. I wanted something to tell me what went wrong, what I did wrong and jesus christ, how to fix it! THATS what reading was for me.

I dont know how it happned. I think one day I just looked at my "bookshelf"(full of CDs and movies) and saw this one book I had purchased in November 2007 at the Snapcase reunion show I had went to because Soul Control scored and got to open the 2 shows. It was a book written by Norman Brannon called "the Anti-matter Anthology". Its a book compiled of a bunch of interviews with bands that Norman had done in the past when his Zine called "anti-matter" was circulating around the New York Hardcore Scene in the early to late 90's. I think it was an alright start. Something light and easy, nothing to extensive, no huge words and something I was involved in and knew a lot about. Its also filled with probably the best interviews ive ever read. Im guessing my sister had saw that I was reading a book, maybe I had made a bulliten asking for suggestions, im not sure but she suggested I read a book entitled "Women" from a Charles Bukowski(how disgustingly appropriate at the time). She let me borrow her copy, which I soon bought for myself later. After I finished Anti-matter, I started on Women...and just kept going.

books of 2008:
The Anti-Matter Anthology- Norman Brannon
Women- Charles Bukowski
Hot Water Music- Charles Bukowski
Post Office- Charles Bukowski
Factotum- Charles Bukowski
The Stranger- Albert Camus
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter- Carson McCullers
The Denial Of Death- Ernest Becker
Nausea- Jean Paul Sartre

I have a whole list of things I still havent gotten to yet. Most of which are all depressing,dark, sappy crap,cause thats when the list was made but I enjoy that shit anyway. Though once those are done, I dont think that Ill stop. So im sure fine stories about other things, more vibrant and "happy" will work their way into the list as I check out and discover new things. Until then its stories about drunken sexual deviants, loss, depression, death, confusion, loss, heartache, uncertainty, shelfishness, burdens, etc. 

Cranial health in 2009!

The Blizzard!

I took this photo last night, it was about 5 hours or so into the storm. It started at like 2pm,this was taken at around 7pm. I have snow above my ankles. In some spots the drifts were mid shin. The storm was also not finished yet! Im not sure when it ended, maybe midnight or so I think, im not sure. When I awoke this morning at around 10am, to no surprise it was snowing yet again. I'm not sure when it started again and its now almost 3pm and its STILL going.

First storm of the year, Br00tal. Also strange, considering Monday it was 60 degrees again and come Friday its 20 and we have a blizzard. What the hell is going on here?

I also was reminded how comfortable sauconys are. I havent worn these shoes since 2005. I have no "winter shoes" so I took them out of the closet to go walk around in the snow cause I dont care what happens to them. The last time I wore them I believe was in FLA at Ozzfest when it was a typhoon. It was the worst. 

I am in the midst of a new begining!

At the turn of the year, when we have to start putting "09" after our dates, i will be shedding last years skin to my new, fresh pink tender coat. Until it hardens yet again somewhere through out the new year.

A fresh start completely free of all of my previous burdens. I am a tree that never wilts. Just changes, with my colors becoming brighter every time.

Though todays poise and feelings surely wont be tomorrows, since ill forever be a melancholy bastard. I still hope that fine moments such as this one will be more involved in my furute.

more to come on this soon...