A little Dirt-inspired subject line.
I haven't been feeling very creative lately. Frankly, I've been feeling like I'm in a bit of a rut. Maybe it's just the dog days of summer effect, or maybe it's because I've been moving around so much recently and am now settled down for a bit, or maybe it's my lack of a main squeeze to turn to. I'm not really sure, which makes it that much harder to feel like I'm getting anything done.
I think part of it is that ever since I learned how to play guitar, I've been in a band of some sort or another, and that all came to an end about a year ago and that's been catching up with me. Something about standing up in front of people, even if it's just the other people in your band, and playing and singing your heart out. I find myself drumming along with songs more and more, and tapping my hands and feet whenever I get a spare second. This is embarrassing when you blatantly (although accidentally!) ignore a barista asking you what you want because you're too busy tapping the beat to the new White Stripes single that's only playing in your head. Not that that happened.
Ahem.
I think it's also been a while since I heard a music that really hit the spot, that was able to wet that dry spot on my musical palette. I also haven't really met anyone who has broken through the everyday fuzz in my head. I also haven't read anything that really got under my skin, that made me think about life. I also haven't seen any movie that I was able to say that I really, truly enjoyed.
I know, I know. You're sorry my life is so hard. But such is the 21st century question of existence - now that we aren't all necessary for the survival of the species, what's th....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sorry, dozed off there for a second.
I think I need to get more friends who live in my town.
So here we stand, at post 200. I'm also closing in on 10,000 hits, but that won't happen for a little bit. We'll have champagne for that.
I think a retrospective post would be in order.
Back on September 19, 2005, I was starting my senior year of college. I had run a website,
Always Next Year, for a while, and decided, 4 months after it got shut for me being delinquent on payments, that I wanted to write on the internet again. Existential vindication or something like that, I suppose.
This was also about the time I was starting to do some spray paint art, some of which I gave to friends, some of which hangs in my apartment and makes it feel a little like the set of Gleaming The Cube, except minus Slater, Tony Hawk and the other guy from Scarface. Okay, other guy from Scarface crashes on the couch sometimes. Examples:
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two •
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four •
fiveThe early days of the blog, like the early days of so many now-awesome things, sucked a lot. Every post was about Liz, insomnia or Journey. I made a lot of posts between 4:00 and 5:30 in the morning. I was really being a giant pussy about everything. So, all things considered, not much has changed.
I sure
had a lot of hair back then, too.
Then, a little while later, I took one of the only pictures of myself I've
ever really liked.
In February of twenty aught six, I took the practice GREs and didn't realize there would be math on it. I score in the 22nd percentile in math. I also managed to stay online for 23 consecutive days or something like that. Then, I got nostalgic for
my Livejournal days. Winters are boring in North Philly.
Looking back, I post to a lot of pictures of zombies. But not enough pictures in general. This blog is text heavy and stupid. Emphasis on the latter.
May of 2006, I graduated from cahhlege. Then I was a gentleman of leisure for just over a month, and it was grand.
September 2006, I went to
fabulous Las Vegas for the first time.
December 2006, went to Colorado for the first time, and Aspen. Also perhaps my most
visually productive month.
I posted the picture that will be the
inspiration for my tattoo if I ever get one.
May brought
Cinco de Mustache!, which was a smashing, transcontinental success.
Most of May was spent in Denver, with some really great people who have earned a permanent place in my heart. Speaking of which, one of the other things I wanted to do was point out all the people I have linked on the right hand side over there. Lou did this a while ago, and I thought it was pretty cool. You should prolly just scroll down till you see your name.
Drew: I lived with him for two years in school, and we hang out a bit. We also spend altogether too much time talking online while we're at work. He humbles me with his pop culture knowledge constantly.
Lou: Lived with this guy for three years, and he just moved to Providence. He's the only chauvinist I know who talks to his mom every week and uses a soft baby voice with his girlfriend. I don't know who I'm going to watch football with now.
Tuxbury: Basically lived with Gwen for a year, though she was never on the lease. I think she may have spent more nights at the Uber house than I did. Moved with boyfriend Lou to Providence and took their cats. Boo.
Dr Ryan P Carey, DDS: King of all that is slacker in the metro Philadelphia area. Don't see him nearly enough because he lives in Jersey.
Jelosion: Fellow straight edge crusader at rough and tumble La Salle. We have both since broken edge, and I think it makes it awkward for us, because I never hear from him.
Tsikitas: Studly Greek man who recently moved to West Philly. Love this guy - he gets pumped about everything. And that makes me pumped. And I love it.
Stev: Keeps me updated on everything I need to know about wrestling, which is actually very little. But he keeps me updated.
Phogan: Haven't talked much with the man, the myth, the legend that is P Ho since he moved to NM after school. He was a champion sleeper and snorer, and excellent straight man for the shenanigans at Collegian late nights.
Mo!: She's never around. Which makes me mad, because she's hilarious and awesome.
J. Leo: Didn't know him during school much, but this kid will annihilate you with his movie knowledge. And he took a class with the guy who directed Short Circuit. And he just got engaged. Hot damn!
TR: Lived with him for a year. TR is a champ and my personal hero in many ways. He is a passionate and heartfelt guy in a day and age when people like that are sorely lacking.
Christine B: Christine makes me laugh a lot. Which isn't to say everyone else doesn't, but she has a very cynical and biting sense of humor, which I love. She also loves Van Halen, and that's pretty fucking cool.
Dirt: One of the best storytellers around, and one of the best cooks I know. He's always there, looking on the bright side of things, making everyone laugh and telling you some hilarious story about some time he was living in Saskatchewan or Nepal or some shit. I dunno, I wasn't really listening.
Crystal: One of the funniest people I've ever met, mostly because she gives this unbelievably convincing deadpan look that'll kill you. She's moving to NYC soon and I'm pumped about that.
Wes: My savior in many ways. I wouldn't be able to do my job if it wasn't for him, and he never complains about how incompetent I am - to my face. He's also one of the coolest dudes I've met and, like me, a real beer connoisseur who also loves cheap beer.
Cleanest River (in America): My friend Dan's sketch comedy group. They fucking rule, and I wish them the best of luck. Super talented and hilarious. And Dan is honestly one of the nicest people I've ever met.
Adam: My first editor, and a funny ass guy. I think he was in town last night, but I missed him. Boo to that.
Amy: I like Amy because she suffers from the same restlessness that I do, I think. She's always the one to say "let's go out and have a good time." And we often do. Other times we drink more than we should. Happens, I suppose.
Rico: Never updates. One of my dearest friends from high school who I haven't seen in years.
Denise: The cutest little militant feminist I know. She kicks a lot of ass, mostly figuratively...I think.
Sully: Also never updates. One of my canvassers from when I directed a canvass office in Philly. Very cool, and headed to England in the fall for a whole year.
2F: Courtney, who hasn't updated in forever. She plays like she's a dumb blonde, but she shouldn't, cuz she's not.
Ajayi: Taught me everything I know about towns in southeastern PA and about how to survive as a canvass director: steal food from everyone. Surprised everyone by getting married last year.
Danno: What to say about Danno - excellent musician, hilarious guy, super smart, and hopefully the next covert agent to kill some motherfuckers for the government.
Brooklyn Copeland: Disappeared off the face of the planet, apparently. She was one of my first blog buddies, and we exchanged many hilarious barbs.
Lindsey: Another person I see far less than I should. Easily one of the most sarcastic, and therefore hilarious, people I've ever met.
So thanks to you all, thanks to all the people have read this, and thanks most of all to Steve Perry, who has inspired me in so very many ways. You are all awesome and should be proud of how awesome you are. Because it's awesome.
I leave Denver (again) on Sunday night at 11:55 pm. So, what's a guy to do with his last jaunt out West for a while? Rent a car and drive to Vegas, of course.
"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. But the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing more irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge..."
We leave Denver Saturday morning, drive 10 hours, cause as much debauchery in 15 hours as we can, then drive back to Denver, wheels screeching into DIA 4 minutes before my flight is supposed to leave.
"Stand in front of this fantastic machine, my friend, and just 99 cents your likeness will appear, two hundred feet tall, on a screen above downtown Las Vegas. Ninety-nine cents more for a voice message. "Say whatever you want, fella. They'll hear you, don't worry about that. Remember you'll be two hundred feet tall."
Jesus Christ. I would see myself lying in bed in the Mint Hotel, half-asleep and staring idly out the window, when suddenly a vicious nazi drunkard appears two hundred feet tall in the midnight sky, screaming gibberish at the world: "Woodstock Uber Alles!"
We will close the drapes tonight. A thing like that could send a drug person careening around the room like a ping-pong ball. Hallucinations are bad enough. But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing.
But NOBODY can handle that other trip--the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted."
Hunter Uber Alles!
