"live radical"

...said the pin that the comadre guys gave me for buying a cd at the show.

Best show I've been to.......to date. Things mainly went downhill after Comadre covered "Rather Be Dead" by Refused. I, and everyone in the place, lost our minds. Imagine 30 sweaty guys, and a few slightly moist girls yelling every one's favorite punk band from Umeå, Sweden's lyrics:

"Rather be dead,

Than alive by your oppression,

Rather be dead,

Than alive by your design...."

~Dennis Lyxzén

Graf Orlock following this up did nothing to help the situation. I'll be seeing them again in Indy this Saturday. I, then, drove in a torrential downpour to watch a friend of a friend play acoustic guitar and sing at a local coffee shop. One minute insanity, the next, drinking a root beer float while watching some guy sing songs about a unicorn matador.

I want to play music again. I need to before it's too late. Despite the lameness of the following statement; it's happening:

All that the show Saturday night did was remind me how not free I have made myself over the last couple of years. I'll become an engineer, I'll be successful, but I'll have to live a little more in the process. Living beyond going to the same bar every week and getting demolished - doing something. This does not entail my becoming sober, just a little more sober than usual.

Plans For The Next Year:

- 3 Days Till Dude Fest

- Coalesce show in Chicago weekend vacation in August?

- Auburn trip sometime in the Fall?

- University of Arizona trip as well?

- Boston for a few days then Italy for Christmas, speed tour de Europe with Charlie Jan 1 - 15 [passport renewal = being processed as we speak]

- Month long trip playing music everywhere between here and D.C. next summer or Summer spent interning in Alaska for B.P 150 miles north of the Arctic circle.

Then I'll be a senior. With one Christmas break between me and grad school or a job.

Something tells me that I'll not be living in a suburban country club when I get older...

~live radical~

it's only rock and roll...but I like it

Pure insanity filled with old friends, a few new ones, and every bit of bullshit in between.

Shows, a few shows.

Namely:

Kid Crash & L'Antietam [this ex from Dallas introduced me to them (Kid Crash) about a year ago, so this was really anticipated]

http://www.myspace.com/antietamnh

http://www.myspace.com/thekidcrash

and

Coheed & Cambria, which was last night.

http://myspace.com/coheedandcambria

Coming up:

- july 21 Graf Orlock Comadre Jude Fawley - dragon's den NOLA

- july 27/28 dudefest - indy, road tripz 2k7

- aug 15 - Mass Movement of the Moth Anchors PROMIS Thou - green space NOLA

If you glanced over that and read "road tripz 2k7" you are not mistaken. Charlie, Tyler, and myself are taking a road trip starting on July 25 to Indianapolis, IN to the almighty dude fest held at the Harrison Center for the Arts. It will be killer.

Read about it, sadly...i hate myspace, here:

http://myspace.com/dudefestindiana

Other than shows I'm starting to play music again with two fellows by the name of Larry and Jasper - bass player pending.

Other than the whole rocking out with my, you know, out. Life has been simple. I've learned the following recently:

- how to pour and level a concrete slab (from experience it sucked.....do not do this, nor let anyone know that you can)

- how to use some fluids system modeling software at work

- that my hughes and kettner amp head can be run through my marshall combo with no problems

- how to parallel park a full size truck (oh yeah, I got a 04 F-150 two weeks ago, pretty sweet shitty mileage is exactly that...shit)

- how to air guitar mid-pit at the coheed show (seriously, people were getting elbow dropped and kicked in the nuts and I was just air guitarin' away unscathed)

- being single and disinters ted is by far one of the best positions to be in as a 20 year old guy

- how to field strip a SKS assault rifle and install the 25 round banana clip. (below is a picture that I found online of a misc. girl and the assault rifle in question)

I went to a gathering of friends a week ago. It resulted in a t shirt ninja that plays guitar on liquor bottles. Putting far too much hot sauce on pizza, and fortifying my extreme man love of applehead.

All Ways But One

For the past two years of my life things have gone all ways but one, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thursday Night:

Roaming around New Orleans on a Thursday night normall results in some quantity of everclear being consumed along with the almighty $1 high life at 80s night on Toluse St.

Two Austrailian girls introduced themselves to Brad (pictured far right) and myself at the Dungeon. They were on a 24 day tour of America and could not understand the worth in our Grand Canyon "I'ts just a buncha rOcks." Apparently, the "grog" is cheap in New Orleans as well. They also said the word "pOckets" in the most charming way. After thirty minutes of listening to Slayer and enjoying adorable accents it was time to move on.

At one point in the night I was walking a newly made friend Jessi to her car. We ended up in the courtyard at the W which, however awkward, was quite nice to look at. I got a bottle of free champagne out of the deal as well. Jessi stole it from a hotel on Camp street right by Lafayette square that she used to work it.

The bar upstairs didn't have a credit card machine which resulted in my becoming a beggar for a short amount of time. At some point I yelled at amy about nothing for a good three minutes. And by nothing I mean the fact that we are going to have amazing Jewish babies who are investment bankers. Brad found a Samsung Sync cell phone, which is now mine, and we ended up dancing a good five pounds of water weight out. Upon waking up the next day uptown and driving home Brad reminded me that we spent maybe a total of $20 on the night before.

I love New Orleans.


Friday Night/Saturday Day:

1am road trip to Dara's house in Baton Rouge. A very intense (green) laser was brought. This resulted in my dancing around the living room making both light saber noises and singing Jennifer Lopez's Waiting For Tonight.

Lunch with Liz was nice,as usual, and the laser was ever present. By the end of this week I will most likely be a governing authority on the lens effects of different materials on green lasers.

Rain tried to ruin Paul's birthday, so Brad and myself ventured to the bike shop to get clip shoes then Donell's apartment to say hey. A quick ride around the lakes at LSU capped off our trip to Baton Rouge, but we were not done yet.

A cocktail party awaited us an hour away in Metarie. Some dick on the interstate flashed his brights at Brad and got a prompt
laser in the face (see above image for artist interpretation of what happened). This was not a good idea being

that he followed us very closely for a good ten miles. Pictured to the right is the effects of peeing while walking down a street. I like to keep it classy.

Sunday Night:
A former teacher/current friend called me to have a few drinks with her. She had recently moved to Boston and was in town to hang out with some friends (she's 28 so don't think I'm some cougar hunting weirdo, we actually have things in common to talk about). The night was spent catching up and ended with both of us putting quarters and pennies on a rail road track in front of a a train - a very slow moving train. Then a good hour after was spent discussing potential infomercial sales angles on these flattened pieces of currency. Ideas included but weren't limited to:

• cutlery (particularly used to cut and serve candy bars)
• tiny treys for tiny appetizers
• jewelry
• hats for tiny animals
• instruments

In the future my posts will not be as play by play as this one, but I feel that one of these was necessary to truly understand the random nature of things. Waking up at 5am to work a ten hour day at the nuke plant was about as painless as a 90 second enema.