for christmas eve, my family decided it would be a good idea to go to this candlelight barn service at this farm at 10pm. we all bundled warmly and i snuck an earbud under all of my clothing so that i could listen to sigur ros.

we arrived at the barn and headed inside. people were sitting on hay bales that were assembled in rows that were just barely wide enough for my size 11 foot to sit perpendicular. on top of the hay bales were wooden boards covered in green astro turf. what was neat about that, was that it was one of the most incredibly uncomfortable places i have ever had to sit. i spent most of the service practicing yoga breathing techniques and slightly altering my posture to keep my back from aching.

when we walked in we chose a plastic, light-up, candle from a box. i wondered if the fact that i had the only one with dead batteries was cosmically ironic. or maybe god was trying to symbolize my lost faith as some sort of message in my hand.

the music was pretty bad, the guitarist/singer was struggling for the most part, and all the back up instruments were off beat or inaudible. the message was from this pastor who was in poor period dress and was pretending to be the inn keeper that provided mary and joseph with the barn. it was very theatre-y and shitty. then they had communion, so everyone was trying to file out of their constrictive seats and stumbling all over. it was awkward, and i opted to not partake.

this has been the coldest winter in kansas that i can remember. then, the day after christmas it hit 65.

oh yes, and at work, our christmas party included:
guitar hero world tour on a PA and projected huge on a wall
beer, 2 spiked punches, and champagne jello parfaits
a very odd white elephant gift exchange, including a hand painted "chimpanzee riding on a segway"
and 8mm projector with old collected movies including home videos, weddings, and porn, courtesy of my boss.

A Bad List of Good Things

I found a scrawled note in my backpack that I remember writing hurriedly one morning after working at Starbucks. The list was a start of things that made me happy in a pretty unhappy time.

Behold, the things that made me happy in those few days.

1. The puppy in Equilibrium
The movie liberally steals ideas from every popular dystopia piece of fiction, but besides its unbelievably kick ass gun fights, the greatest thing about this movie is Christian Bale's character, experiencing emotion for the first time, finding the most adorable puppy in world history. This picture is a perfect reaction of a man who has never experienced emotion looking at a puppy with emotion for the first time.














2. Kind Executives
By some stroke of luck, I was able to meet marketing legend Bob Thacker, (the man responsible for the turnaround of Target from dowdy second rate retailer to favorite multinational company of college kids everywhere). Not only was Mr. Thacker the most friendly, humble person in spite of his accomplishments, he gave me contacts to several presidents of great ad agencies. Now, as a 22 year old from Wyoming, its pretty scary to call people who were responsible for the budweiser frogs, or who directed multi national ad agencies. Knowing this, its been pretty incredible to call these people who are respected by everyone in the field, and see that they are friendly, understanding, and helpful. World, there is hope for executives yet.

3. Jon at Work.
Jon is about 70 something years old, has worked at Starbucks for 9 years, and is nicknamed "legs" because of his love of wearing khaki shorts at work. He often messes up his coworkers names, makes jokes from the 40's, and gets upset when things don't go perfectly. He is super cheerful though, and just his entire existence blows me away.

4. Sprinting when the good part of the song comes on during your run
After a mile or so, my legs are tired. I'm thinking about how awesome sitting or walking sounds, but then the huge breakdown comes with Spencer of Underoath killing his vocal chords, or the huge bust out after the ambient section of a Genghis Tron song comes on, or the verse where Lil Wayne just f'ing loses it comes on, and I am suddenly full of energy, and find myself in a dead sprint, fueled by the music.

Who knew this dude was responsible for so much exercise?






















(I will use any excuse to use this picture. It is maybe the most gangsta picture ever shot)

5. the 4:30-6:45 am shift
This shift is hellish to wake up for, but waking up this early, seeing the city come to life, and then getting off and eating breakfast with an egg nog latte is a flawless experience.

6. Going to bed at 8:30 at night

an ignorant rant about ignorance

why do conservatives believe that by allowing homosexuals to get married, the entire human race will be wiped out? whoever started this ridiculous notion has to be a closet homosexual, who thinks that everyone is on the brink of smoking a man-cigar and providing reach-arounds, or girl-on-girl 69ing. what is the number, like 1 out of every 10 guys is gay? that still leaves 90% of guys who are totally ready to fill girls to the brim with semen. think of all of the illegitimate children and abortions that are being tossed around these days. gay rights do not equal the end of human kind, and none of us would live to see that even come close to happening if it were true. and if it did, good riddance, humans are horrible people. haha

in an unrelated topic; my friend tyler at work said that when he was in high school, his dad suggested to him that he should hang out with the theater girls, because they were "loose." not only did this make me laugh really really hard, but it also got me thinking. is there any dude so desperate to get laid that he would resort to theater chicks? come on, those girls are either gross, or straight up crazy. example, i worked with an incredibly hot, high school theater girl, who probably was as completely easy as she came off, but was also as batshit crazy as anyone could possibly be. if someone was desperate enough to put their dick in that, good luck.

and so concludes another chapter of healthy morals and sage advice for today!

Ready to Farm

Tonight, I lie almost certainly convinced, that no occupation means anything that has been invented by man.

The only occupations that matter
Farmer
Hunter/Fisher
Builder/Engineer
Doctor
Priest/Holy Man/Shaman
Fighter
Writer/Performer

Thats it. The stock market's brilliant collapse shows us the foolishness of financial algorithms. The collapse of many brilliant companies show us the pointlessness of the most brilliant entrepreneurs. The degradation of humanity, the constant pratfalls of criminals and the negligence of any sort of social justice shows us the futility of the most cunning lawyers. The lack of any empire lasting more than a few hundred years shows the inefficacy of the most memorable, impactful politicians.

Will humanity advance? Yes. The future cities of the world like Abu Dhabi, the breakthroughs in theoretical physics and their applications to our day to day lives, the breaking of the genome code and its ramifications for health, all point to progress.

But what is this progress? In Abu Dhabi, for instance, all the progress has led to a city that runs on the sun and outlaws cars. So basically, it is a fief village with plasma screens. String theory can explain the multitudes of physical abnormalities, and how particles may be waves, but it never really pushes us to a new progress of life that no other human has faced. The works of medicine are unleashing the most advanced breakthroughs of history, while curious authors are discovering all the health dangers our "high tech" food have given us.

I find very little proof that our advances are any more than changes, nothing more substantial than changing the skin of your window's media player.

I want to farm, I want to develop a sustainable water supply, I want to build simple efficient things, I want to hunt my meat, I want to grow closer to God, I want to heal those who are sick, I want to fight for those who I love, I want to write something that will entertain you, and maybe make you think, and enable you to progress. Because human progress is nothing like the progress of the world; it is the definition of sustainability.

However, I have this damned marketing degree, and will end up doing something as useless as figuring out a revolutionary new media, or a ad campaign that will be remembered in 10 years, at the very, most outlier, best!

For the improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.

- From Thoreau in Walden

tis the season

so, i've been really bothered by the idea that telling people "merry christmas" is not pc. understandably, not all people celebrate christmas, but i think that i tend to associate christmas with the whole season, rather than the specific day, and what i'll be doing. i think it bothers me more, because it seems like almost everyone, except jews, celebrate christmas [in america]. and, there are not a whole lot of jews in kansas, so this doesn't seem like a huge deal.

whatever, i'm rambling. basically, the point i'm making, is that i don't give a shit if someone is offended by someone saying "merry christmas." it's a statement wishing happiness, said in goodwill. so, if people get upset, i'll calmly tell them they can fuck off, assuming that that is just as un-pc.

merry christmas, faggots!

This

Clear your damn eyes and see the world

I've always tried my hardest to not close myself to the world. I have seen a million people trapped by their processes each day, and I have always pushed myself to never settle into a groove.

I wish I could say, "Gosh I used to be so ignorant". I wish I could flaunt a moment of realization that changed my world. Instead, I am forced into a pattern of learning in which my own curiousity and realization of my own foolishness is constantly mocked by slaps in the face.

I never claim to know anything, yet it feels like I am being forcefully taught of my own ignorance. I never feel particularly in control, yet it feels like I am being stripped of whatever control I had. I rarely get ingrained in my own plans, yet it seems like I am being taught to not plan. Its all pretty confusing, and I feel like I am in a classroom where the teacher confuses me for another student, yet liberally forces lessons on me anyway, even though I obviously don't need them.

However, the paradox lies in the fact that I obviously don't need them. I pride myself in being open minded, flexible, willing to learn. So, if I think I am those things, than I obviously need to be taught that I am not. Its all so high school philosophy.

In this mindset, I am able to sit still and listen to the lessons as they either violently break my ribs until I am coerced into listening or they casually glide past my ears, gone forever if I don't particularly care to listen.

In the most confusing book in the entire Bible, Job gets his life shitted upon in a seeming cosmic oneupmanship between God and Satan. No human can claim to understand this, and I think this is entirely the way it should be. In the end of the book, when Job shockingly wonders why God did what he did, God basically showers the most kickass metal lyrics upon Job's frail ears about his indomitable creation, and taunts Job because Job doesn't do anything nearly as cool as command the oceans, or order Behemoths.

The book of Job has always pissed me off. It still does, and it always will. But I still read it and it invigorates me with awe for God. I cannot claim to have a special understanding or explanation of the book, other than it is a visceral, upsetting description of man's pitiful stature compared to God. One of the phrases God repeats before his verbal smackdown of Job is, "brace yourself like a man". I always took this to mean, "be a MAN, stick out your chest! Be a tough guy and take this whippin!". The most recent time I read this, I realized that maybe this wasn't what is meant at all. Maybe it means, "brace yourself, brace yourself like a frail little grasshopper clinging to a leaf in a tornado, brace yourself like a sparrow weathering a hurricane, brace yourself like Little Mac controlled by a first time player against Mike Tyson in Punchout! Brace yourself like a pathetic little lump of humanity against God, Brace yourself like a man".

Finally? I learn that man is pathetic and always vulnerable to immediate annihilation by any number of a thousand forces. In this epiphany, that man is unbelievably weak, is the path to man becoming stronger, wiser, more mature.

art class is in session

so i stumbled across this man's website while checking a design blog. he's an amazing illustrator with beautiful line work. also his website is so crappy and simple that it rules. it's actually really refreshing in comparison to portfolio and design sites that fuck you in the face with flash.

i actually followed this link solely based on his website name: I Can't Believe It's Not Better.
everything on that website is worthing giving a gander.

love,

so, i'm trying to look for jobs in another state and it is teh sucks.

Logbook from Getting a Job - the RPG

You have completed college, you now have the ability to interview, move in with parents, and grow a beard.

You have done enough good deeds that you have your professor's friendship. Call him anytime if you get lost or if you need some items for your journey, like a letter of recommendation or job contact

You have a 4 star rating in grades. You now have the ability to apply at small business or intern at medium size business

You have gained a reputation in extra-curricular activities. Try using this to augment your resume.

Your boss at your work study job has taken note of your reputation and wants to give you something. Meet her in the office.

Your boss has given you her recommendation and career advice.

You know have enough reputation that you have been offered a small business job (+10 gold, +100 xp, +5 reputation). Will you take it?

You decided to not take the small business job. Try focusing your will on finding new jobs, building experience, or completing a side-job.

Word has gotten out of your small town about you! A creative director at a medium business wants to meet you.

You met with creative director at medium business, and you know have access to three business cards of employees at medium business. Feel free to contact them anytime. Beware though, they may be busy.

You have used your experience to apply at a small company.

You have been interviewed by small company.

You have been offered an internship at a small company! (0 gold, 50 xp, 25 reputation) will you take it?

You have taken the internship at the small company. Bring up job quests for this company anytime using your gmail.

A friend from your hometown remembers you! They are now powerful and want to help you. Contact them to learn more.

Your friend wants to introduce you to famous executive. You have enough experience and reputation to meet.

Your experience, reputation, and personality have impressed famous executive! He has given you The List of Important Job Contacts (100 gold + 1000 xp). You can bring up The List of Important Job Contacts anytime to find new job opportunities. Be sure your experience and reputation are high to prevent embarrassment.

You now have famous executive's business card. Contact him anytime.

You have contacted Medium Company President from The List of Important Job Contacts. She sounds interested in your reputation, but first you must impress her HR Supervisor.

The HR Supervisor is thinking of offering you an internship at Medium Company (50 gold, 250 xp, 500 reputation), but wants to eat Turkey and Dressing and Pie before deciding.

You now have HR Supervisor's business card. Contact her anytime.

Your college professor remembers you! They have arranged an interview for you at a Small Boring Company for Assistantship. (500 gold, 100 xp, 75 reputation). Will you interview?

New Job Oppurtunities are opening up in distant lands. Be sure to check out your Google Maps and travel with your Taurus to explore.

take it easy.

today was a slow day at work. which means that you are told to take your time, and not worry about goofing off for a little while. i'm afraid this is going to spoil me when i get some other job somewhere. i assume that not many companies encourage this.

love,

NERRRRRRRRD!

today i finished printing some merchandise for a kansas city company, Nerd Bots. Their company is actually super rad, they take vintage electronic and stuff and turn them into "found" robots. Nuff said.

Also, i worked late today. this translated, means that when i went to have a t-shirt approved, my boss started showing me all of the new shit that coalesce has been recording. so, i got payed to listen to unreleased, unheard, coalesce tracks with sean ingram. so many hxc kids are shitting themselves right now. what's also cool, is that all of their new stuff is totally awesome. probably going to be one of their best records ever.

also, i was going to write about this last week, but then forgot what it was. in an alley in lawrence, one that i travel frequently, so hoodlum has recently graffitotagged the wall. this, i don't care much about, but what it says really made me think.

RioT 4 (peace sign)
(poorly made anarchy symbol)

now, i don't know if this is supposed to be ironic, but it really makes no sense when you break it down. anarchy and peace are complete opposites. i feel like people have forgotten this. no law and no order is going to equal chaos. and rioting for peace, is an oxymoron. however, if you think back to the weather underground, which was totally badass, it still did not bring about peace. finally, my cynical brain came to this conclusion: there is no peace where there is man. so, no matter what man does to try to bring about peace, whether it be war or loving kindness, it's not going to work. it's not possible. and i think the fact that i came to that conclusion 60 seconds after seeing this graffiti, makes me think that i put more thought into debunking that green paint, than the brainless person who put it there.

unless they were being ironic. and in that case, good job... i guess.

love,

On the improving of life and how to "chut up"

Donnie Darko is one of my favorite movies of all time. The conflicting emotions, complex relatable characters, moments of unexpected humor, and intricate plot all make for one of the only movies I can enjoy watching more than once.

In the movie, there's an obese asian girl who is fluent in Engrish who is unfit for the gauntlet of american high school. She is a pretty tangential character to the movie, but she somehow elicits a lot of emotion in each scene she is in; whether getting verbally tortured by bullies or dancing in a decidedly uncool ballet at the high school talent show.

All that to say, one of my favorite moments of the movie comes near the end of the movie. Donnie is becoming overwhelmed with life around him, and upon seeing the girl, he grabs her earmuffed head and states soundly something to the effect of, "I promise, things will get better for you". Her ears being covered to his encouragement, she intreprets his gesture as just another taunt, and runs away, telling Donnie to "chut up!".

The simplicity of being told "things will get better for you" is something that resonates rather soundly in my current stage of life.

Life is open to all opportunities at this moment, and every morning I have to remind myself of the opportunities while shedding the feeling of being paralyzed by the demons of a hard season in life.

Every morning, I have to wonder how I am going to keep it all together for the day. Every night, I go to sleep exhausted, the task of simply pressing through time without panic attacks, teary eyes, or the feeling of numerous shotgun blasts to the chest becoming laborious.

Despite this, I am able to find things each day that shed a glimpse to a better future and a meaningful present. A note from my mom, a phone conversation with an old friend, a job contact sending me an encouraging email, the bliss of running to exhaustion, the feeling of having a meaningful Christian faith for the first time in my life.

There they are, each and every day. I wake up completely weak every morning, but each day I can rely on something, someone telling me, "I promise, things will get better for you"

hey hey the devil may hey hey

i discovered this near my house the other day.
it's part of a dam on a small lake.
they decided to add a lot of architecture and fountaintry.

love,
anthony

exercising my muscle

finally designing something after like 8 months, or however long it's been since i graduated. i found the font on a typography website here, and i acquired the diamond's colors from a photo of a motel from kirk demaris' blog.



getting a little rusty. i've forgotten a lot of shortcuts, hot keys, and i accidentally exported it in CMYK instead of RGB. bret and tim are the only ones who are going to truly understand that, i think.

love,

gather round children, and i shall spin a tale of mystery, intrigue, and gender confusion.

so, one of my coworkers is transgender. this was not a hard conclusion to come by, because this person worked there last year when i did,... and was a man then. let's call this person, "x." i have never felt a connection to x because we have mismatched personalities. even when x was a man, i found him awkward, and any conversation with x leaves me feeling puzzled. my friend who also works with me, absolutely hates x, and has for a long time. this is something he is very open about. i try not to let his hatred spill onto me, and that my feelings toward x are not governed by my friend's. so i don't. and i don't hate x, and i don't dislike x because she is a transgender.

anyway, i have had several lengthy, awkward conversations with x, and have learned more about her life than i would care to know. however, today i had a lot of stuff cleared up by a conversation with her. she was asking me if i was going to have to quit working at blue collar if gas started getting too high because i have to drive 30 min to get there, and i told her that i was moving to denver soon, so, no. and then we talked about moving different places and she started talking about wanting to move out west out of a need to meet more transgenders in her situation.

now background, x is an ex-crust punk who grew up in the 80s and was always surrounded by violence between jocks and gays, punks and skinheads, punks and jocks, etc. etc. she has been an alcoholic who would stalk the streets with a 40 and hang out with anyone, including jumping in cars with strangers and getting into all sorts of danger. moving around from okc, to dallas, to austin, and finally to lawrence. she is married and supposedly can't get the full operation because her marriage will be nulled and her insurance would triple. she became a transgender sometime around last year, after i left and went back to school. we have the same birthday and she's 35.

so, x has complained that around the country she has met transgenders like herself, except they're aging women who remind her of her mom or grandma. no one her age, with her taste in music. and it seems the younger generation of trangenders just want to be fabulous, slutty, divas who throw around bj's and look glamorous. however, her wife wants to move east, and x thinks that living in the mountains of virgina, surrounded by hicks, will not be easy for her. and i guess they both badly want to move other places, but cannot come to an agreement, and i think they'll live in lawrence for a very long time.

anyway, i found this out today while printing demon hunter shirts, and it was really interesting. not that i completely back x in her hardships, or that i really care if it works out for her. i think there's a lot of confusion and delusion. which seems normal considering that if you lived your life for 34 years as a man, and then decided to become a woman, how do you even do that? no amount of estrogen pills and surgery is going to make you change your MANnerisms. pun intended.

love,

Highest Form

I am in the process of developing a new "highest form of humor."

Being Really Serious About Everything.

I tried it earlier when i was watching commercials. I glued my face to the screen, amazed at the significance of it all.

Imagine the implications.

What if I'd been born fifty years before you in a house on a street where you lived?

today, i fell in love with a woman i do not know. a woman, who i heard on the radio. to be more precise, the radio station that was picking up my FM transmitted ipod podcast playing This American Life. this woman lived through the great depression, and is therefor, around 50-60 years older than me, at the least. she was amidst a bunch of interviews from people giving testimonies about growing up in that time. she was one of the more positive and awesome of the bunch.

she only attended school through 6th grade, when she dropped out to get a job. she was married at 15, and she and her husband began hitchhiking around america looking for jobs. this woman was so free spirited, and the only negative things she had to say, were about herself, and how ashamed she was of herself in those times for being so racist. she talked about how it took her living the life as the poorest of the poor, picking cotton alongside black people, to realize that she was just like them. however, she didn't come to this realization until years later. this was surprising to hear, after hearing from other old ladies who were still vehemently raciest, and started choking about how mad they were when people said it was ok for black people to get jobs.

this woman talked about working in the valley of texas, picking lemons and grapefruit in orchards, while living in government housing. and about the kindness and generosity of strangers in a time where people didn't even have food for themselves, let alone two drifters. listening to this woman talk was like having Ben Folds' The Luckiest and Jeff Mangum's My Dreamgirl Don't Exist blend together and unfurl before my eyes. My dreamgirl does exist, the person that is my one and only, is a woman i've never met before, and is at least as old as my grandma.

que sera sera, but my heart will not go on.

love,

Live, From Behind the Orange Curtain

This first post from me is basically to relate my current living experiences so that people can know sort of where I am coming from in later posts that are more topical or ideological. This first post is going to be fairly helter skelter since there's a lot to cram in so that you know sort of where I am in life right now, and I promise to try and make following posts more organized and clear.

First of all I love Orange County. Yes I know... yuppies, extremely rich, the proud and arrogent.. but this I can deal with. From the perspective I see it with is full of enjoyable hard-working people with a zeal for life and it's clean, fun, and all-around exciting and great to live here. I just wish I had a job. Everything in my life right now is basically in a complete face-to-the-wall stall hinging upon a job. I should be in the absolute prime of my life, healthy and living it up post and pre family. Instead I'm broke, and by proxy I can't afford a gym to workout at, I have no dental or health insurance so I can't get these darkened spots on some of my teeth checked out. After sobering up (literally and figuratively) from my several week-long binge of discouragement, depression, and alchohol, I now work all day on projects that ironically are probably doomed to be passed over with a 2 second glance, if even looked at. I also have to live in the room of a family here in Irvine. Absolutely my entire life hinges on finding a job, in an industry known as much for the brutal competition in the starting block position as its easy ride with a couple years of experience, and in a super time in the job market.

And more than anything, I desperately long for a job so that I can move to my own place, even if it is a small crackerbox studio apartment. To their credit they are great, sweet, generous people who have been so gracious and understanding, allowing me to stay in a room in their house rent free while I look for my proverbial foot-in-the door. However:

1) The lady as nice as she is, is one of those people that makes me ashamed to be a political conservative. Literally hissing at the television screen everytime Pres-Elect Obama opened his mouth whether what he was saying was actual opposing policy philosophy or simply pronoucing Pakistan differently, which was met with "Well sure, you want to blow up our country! Did you here how he pronounced Pakistan! He's and Arab! An Arab! I told you I told you!" This is met with silent disinterest and vague wandering eyes from her intellectually brilliant and almost world-weary husband. He works as a programmer on the algorithms for the trading computers at finance company, and has been working desperately the past month to calm down the pajama traders in their terrified binge selling as they drop the market faster in a day than ever before due to the fact that they can just trade and get scared all from home and watching CNN rather than listening to time-honored prudence and advice from trained financial advisors who have been through and weathered many of the previous bear markets and crashes. Several nights a week he goes to neihboring gang-infested Santa Ana and works with gang-intervention groups for elementary kids.

2) They hate violent video games and movies.

3) They only like hymns. They also try relentlessly to get me involved in the singles group at our church. I can't bring myself to do it because the one time I did go I felt like I was basically surrounded by a large awkward conglomerate of peers all desperate and on the prowl for marriage and sex.

4) They're out of touch with weird random aspects of life that I have to face in the real world. I was talking to them once and they mentioned how there's no reason for anyone to not have a college education because it's so cheap and makes such a huge difference in salary. This was one of those rare occasions where I had to break from my nod and smile routine and just flat out told them that actually the Wall Street Journal had several articles lately making a point of the fact that the benefits in salary of many jobs today versus the amount of debt a student could incur were quite often no longer exceeding said cons. I then related my $50,000 of debt which I had to start paying off in January.

**In a slight break from narration.. here's a fun story about fairness. I have a cousin.. this cousin is the laziest and most insubbordinate person I personally know. He did poorly in high school and he did poorly on his ACT's (not for lack of intelligence but because he was too lazy to try). Now, after being kicked out of military service for insubbordination, and though several years older than I, he continues to live at his moms house where he refuses to do chores, pick up after himself, and does nothing but play video games for nearly 8 hours a day. He has just recently been given a full-ride federally funded opportunity at a college education (again, the first time was when he originally graduated from High School). He recieves these opportunities because his mom is divorced and makes a teachers salary. I come from an upper-middle class home founded in the happy marriage of my parents, and I now get to start life with $50,000 in debt. Draw your own conclusions

Okay that's a lot for now.. Coming up: "The Other (Crazy Left) Hand of California", "My Crazy Adventure and Journey Getting Out Here in the First Place", "Does God Actively Work in Peoples Lives or Did the Majority of the Founding Fathers Know What They Were Talking About(or, We All Know the Before and After But Does This Whole Middle Part Make A Lick of Fair and Just Sense?)", and "Your College Education: Is It Worth Squat or Should You Spend Meager Money At a Tech School and Get an Occupational Jump Start on Your Sap Friends at College?".

interests of an aging man

lately, i have been listening almost exclusively to music that is over 40 years old. including, 60s production music, the kinks, the zombies, the ink spots, leadbelly, scott walker, the walker brothers, joe dassin, peter sarstedt, and the turtles.

also, the new cartoon on adult swim, "SUPERJAIL," is absolutely wonderful.


neither of those have anything in common.

the virgin steps up to the plate...

hullo friends. if you have tried to contact me via my now deceased school email, then you are among the person you tried to have me join this blog long ago, only to never hear from me. anyway, here is a riveting update.

after college i...
1. stayed in siloam for 1 month to work at a coffee shop and hangout. which i did, with my one roomate, the only over friend who stayed. nice.
2. moved home to de soto, ks to live with my parents and beg the dudes at a screen printing company, that i interned at last year, for a printing job.
3. play disc golf daily with older brother, who also graduated and moved home.
4. finally hear back from printing company, accept job
5. visit siloam for a week before i have to accept my new job
6. accept new job as a manual screen printer, working 4 day 40 hr weeks at $8
7. have no friends to hang out with
8. go to denver for friend's wedding, see ms. hoover & ms. peabody & mr. ramlet
9. go to siloam for homecoming. have friends again
10. go back to siloam 2 weeks later for another wedding. have friends again.

and in just those 10 steps, you will be in my shoes. soak it up, assholes. recently, highlights of my life have been...
1. convince parents to finally stop buying internet via AOL
2. parents buy cable and dvr, so i would stop stealing it from the internet people
3. being able to have all of my songs scrobbled on last.fm, and being able to post photos online again.

riveting shit right there. other facts: after binge drinking/smoking in siloam, i find myself wanting cigarettes on a regular basis. i don't believe that god is active in peoples' lives anymore, rendering prayer useless. this does not bode well in my cynical brain while attending my parents' uber conservative presbyterian church. my dad consistently tries to convince me that i need to join a small group, or maybe a different church, to meet other christians my age. i shrug him off to avoid telling my parents that i think it's all bullshit.

life is happy! i buy lots of records because i don't pay rent! i'm listening to the shins right now! it's ok, i guess!

love,

Don't let me be free.

The biggest problem with life after college is the freedom.

Freedom is one of the most revered words in America, it peppers our political speaches, works as a replacement adjective for items derived from annoying countries, elicits a lot of wordplay from citizens wishing to compound their ethos into a bumper sticker, and strikes the singing lips of everyone from Broadway singers to East Coast hardcore tough guys.

Freedom is like the final sword in the videogame Fable. We know about it when we don't have it, we revere the idea of it, we gather a lot of XP and kill a lot of theives and werewolves to obtain it, but when we finally kill our teleporting former mentor to obtain it, we see that we don't really need it. Everyone has been conquered and we are left to stroll The United States of Albion with our Freedom Sword looking for something to use its almighty, hallowed power on.

I have freedom. I don't have debt, I don't have a child, I don't have a significant other, I don't have a steady job, I don't have a lease. I have a trusty Ford Taurus and enough money to get me anywhere in the country or a plane ticket out of it.

I work at Starbucks, and have days of with no time commitments.

This is every man's dream, and I should be relishing it like a child relishing his alfalfa sprouts that a starving child in Africa would love to eat.

I should be watching V for Vendetta daily, listening to Frank Sinatra, and showing off a different colored derby hat every day. I should be scheduling my plane flight to prague. I should ask the middle aged south african reporter who comes to Starbucks on a date. I should be running on the beach with my shirt off. I should be getting in my car to drive to des moines just to eat pancakes with cousin. I should call up the girls that had a crush on me in college. I should bring a football to a park and start a game with strangers. I should wake up at 6 am and drink 24 Coors lights by lunch and then fall asleep. I should get a night job and day job for two weeks, and use all my money to buy a scooter. I should wear my best clothes and dance with vacuous strangers in overpriced clubs. I should learn how to breakdance. I should draw portraits of my least favorite actors. I should get a 100% completion on GTA IV. I should call up my friend in Texas and see what he was doing, because I just got into town. I should move home for 3 weeks for the sole reason of training my dog. I should read Harry Potter.


But I don't want to.

I want a job to go to everyday that I am needed at. I want to have a family who I am tied down to. I want a dog that gets upset when I don't feed him.

I want stability and reliability far more than freedom. I know this is heresy and I will hate myself for writing this when I am older and long for the freedom and brashness of youth. Such is the way of us always wanting what we had/don't have more than what we have, but for now, I am firmly entrenched in this beginning-life crisis.

Mystery

So, Vince and I are in this constant dilemna of whether or not the neighborhood that we live in is a "bad" neighborhood.

We just moved into a one bedroom apartment in the City of Joliet, Illinois, a decent sized city right outside of Chicago. Our brown, three story aparment building is surrounded by many very similar other buildings, forming a large apartment complex. Our apartment is pretty standard apartment fare complete with outside hallways that smell like a curious blend of cigarette smoke and J. Alvin.

The neighborhood is not nice, but its not un-nice either. Its right off of a busy street littered with discount shopping places. The suburban neighborhoods closest to the apartment buildings are like normal suburban neighborhoods but just slightly more rundown and the houses are slightly smaller. But Is this an indication of the status of our safety?

What we cannot figure out is if our neighborhood could be called by such terms as "dangerous," or "unsafe."

Vince and I never really considered it until some of the following circumstances occured:

1.Vince's sister implied that it was sort of shady. This being a ridiculous statment, Vince and I scoffed at the idea, but then proceded to be more on edge when walking past groups of 1 or more people gathered near entrances in the apartment complex.

2.When we signed our lease, we got a bunch of papers, one of which was a coupon to Domino's pizza. When we called to order pizza at around 7:30 pm one night, they informed us that they do not deliver to our neighborhood after dark. We ordered from Pizza Hut. It was delicious.

3.Vince went to walgreens the other day to pick up some smokes. Its like 6:00 pm or something. He is walking out of Walgreens when a large African American Gentleman approaches him and proceeds to make statements to Vince, both advising Vince of his unfortunate current affairs and suggesting that Vince should monetarily assuage the accrued grief. The man made statements similar to the following:

• "Man I am f***ing hypoglycemic"
• "I Don't have any f***ing money right now"
• "Can you (f***ing) help me out?"

These questions were interspersed with vince mumbling statements like:

• "hmm"
• "dang"
• and "I have to go I have to be somewhere"

Not a big deal, except for directly afterwards as vince was walking to his car a large white man in an SUV pulled up behind Vince's vehicle, blocking his exit.

"get in the car" says the man."
"what?" says Vince.
"Did that guy hurt you?"
"what?"
"get in the f***ing car!"
"what?"
"that guy is dangerous and crazy!"

hmmm. seemed like that was just a crazy paranoid white guy. But are Vince and I just naive? Listen to some further indications:

4. Gunshots? we are pretty sure thats what we heard in the apartment buildings directly across the parking lot in the middle of the complex. Vince and I momentarily paused our Wii Boxing venture for approximately 10 seconds to peer casually out the window and then forgot about it. A police car showed up but it didnt seem too intense and we failed to further investigate the event, such was the quality of our boxing competition and the food we were consuming. My dad will probably send me an email of a news clipping of that shooting, asking me if i live nearby. I will probably reply that no, i live in a different suburb called "Joliette" and it has a french pronunciation.

5. At "Ultra Foods" the other day, the checkout girl was making casual conversation and we found that she lived in the same apartment complex as we do. "Lock your doors!" she cautioned, proceding to relate that her apartment was recently broken into.

So are these indications of a normal neighborhood or a mini-gotham city?

Vince and I have maintained a pretty cavalier attitude about our own personal safety, even finding it humorous. We have had several debates on the topic of the neighborhoods safety, none of them lasting more than 17 seconds. As soon as the topic is brought up, we realize its absurdity and dismiss it.

Yet in spite of this seeming offhandedness, indications like the ones related above keep the topic in the back of our minds, and a slight degree of uneasiness wedges its way in. Tonight before he went to bed, vince came out of his room in his boxers and asked me if i had locked the windows. "good" he said, as i replied in the afirmative. We recently bought rental insurance that will insure all of our stuff if it is stolen. We make sure the doors are always locked.

But until something really significant and unavoidable happens, we will probably continue boxing away our time on the Wii.

why are some things so cool?

Ok I have a question for...everyone.

I can't figure out why some things are so cool. Like some bands and some colors.

poem

weather on earth

if i could type really fast,
i might type one hundred emails per second
warning you that:
it gets so hot and then
so perfect and then
so cold and
then perfect again.

Coming home.

End of May, 2008

After a year of challenge and triumph and a month of hopping planes for important dates in Dallas, Chicago, and Vegas, I headed home to Wyoming for the summer. Driving to Wyoming is always an assault on my emotions. The visual emptiness of the land coupled with the memories of the isolation of my hometown make for a holistic transformation experience every time I drive the Taurus up the lonely Interstate 25. The feelings of coming home to a warm bed, fresh banana bread, the untempered excitement of my mother, the stately love of my father, and the mudslinging kisses of my 2 year old golden retriever always combat the loneliness of Wyoming with distinct warmness.

As I finished out the final two hour stretch from Douglas to Gillette of my 18 hour sojourn, cold rain battered my car, and my mom casually told me she was at my dad's office, a conversation that would become a theme of my summer. I remembered a prior conversation with my mom a week or so ago where she told me that the house had been flooded. During this conversation, I was riding a train into Chicago, where I was to meet a creative director of a prominent agency. Needless to say, I brushed aside the disaster at home in my mind to make room for my own important events. Now, as my excitement mounted for a traditional homecoming experience, I was being told that none such experience would be had, because there was apparently mold in our house from the flooding, which made my mom impossibly sick.

I made it to Gillette, driving towards my dads office past the blue collar taverns, monstrous randomly trapezoidal homes, and 4,000 or so muddy white trucks. I casually met my mom, and decided, rather annoyed, to go unload my car at home. As I unloaded my car by myself in 40 degree rain into an impossibly cold house with all windows open for ventilation, I did not realize the distinct shift in life this moment represented for me.

For the next few weeks, I attempted to regain the stability I loved when coming home. Me and my dad stayed at the house, watched TV on DVD, and drank Coke and ate popcorn. My mom, plagued by many health problems, decided to stay at a friends house for fear that the mold would make her sick. At this point, I was fairly certain my mom was just resorting to her own irrational yet warranted fear of health inhibitors. It was stressful to not have her home, and there was always a tension of her thinking me and my dad were ignorant and stupid for staying in such a diseased house.

Life moved on in a somewhat jilted normalcy. I decided to pursue the construction job my brother in law Aric had told me I could get for the summer. Aric has operated machinery for this company for over 10 years. He works 70 hours a week in the summer, and only takes time off to hunt. His shop is bigger than his home, and he gets uncomfortable if he has to sit still and not work for too long. These were all harbingers of toughness to me, and I believed that I could live that life for a summer and it would build character and an, awful topical reference intended, appreciation for the Joe six-pack life. I hastily drove to the company, filled out an application in 6 minutes or so, and talked to the hiring director for a few minutes before he essentially gave me the job.

The next morning at 6 am, I slipped into my mint 501s, timberland steel toes and a trusty high school basketball camp t-shirt and headed to the office with my crisp construction helmet and vest and lunch and water in tow. After sauntering into the office in my greenhorn getup, I was soon berated by the glares of many veterans. Rail-thin Bill's rodent eyes looked me up and down from their tanned, wrinkled skin cave, I detected a slight smirk from underneath darryl's white beard, and only cody, the youngest (detectable from his 90's high fashion goatee), made converstion with me.

"hows it going man?"

"good, I was just told to come here this morning to find my crew"

"Oh, you'll want to go talk to Big Al" (points vaguely)

"alright cool man, thanks".

As I walked down the hallway, I hear the voice that the McCain campaign wishes it could use

"Didya hear about what Pelosi is doin now? She wants to raise our ****** taxes again and ****** take our money, and I work my *** off to get this far and she just wants to ****** tell me that she knows what to do with my money better than I do!"

"Um, hey," I enter

"I was just told to come here this morning to join a crew"

"Oh, you Aric's brother?"

"Um, yeah.." (clarification seems like a pointless argument)

"Oh you'll be doin' demo and prep with Clint"

"OK" (I meekly leave, hoping Gabriel the angel will give me a vision telling me who Clint is, or what demo and prep entails)

After sitting in the nicely appointed kitchen and reading the hilarious slice of life emails that were printed out and put on the refrigerator, I was introduced to the legend named Clint.

If this job is about character, then God has given me the right boss. By that, I mean God has given me the most horrifying, frightening, repressed man to work alongside with for 50 hours a week for the next three months.

Clint ...
...is probably pushing 400 lbs.
...is the best equipment operator in the company
...is viciously, yet deservedly nicknamed "crack" by his coworkers, why?
...has the most obvious, humiliating problem of showing 8+ inches of buttcrack I have ever encountered
...wakes up at 4 am every morning to commute 90 miles one way for work
...has a son named Jason that also works for the company. I learn from Clint that Jason and Clint are the only two competent employees at the company
...has fired 4 laborers this summer already. It is the beginning of June. He tells the stories of firing people with too much relish to give me any comfort.

I worked with this man for more than half of my waking hours during the summer. I rarely worked with anyone else, and spent more one on one time with Clint than probably any member of my family, my best friend, or my long-distance girlfriend during the summer.

Back to my house. After week two at my house, I started having some breathing problems. No big deal, I have asthma, so maybe I'm just having a hard time. After a couple nights of distinct breathing problems in the house, I realize, my mom is right. There is mold in the house and I can't stay here. This leads to the rest of the summer being spent in a fellow church members house 15 miles out of town. I have no computer connection, hardly any phone service, and no place to cook meals. I fight disappointment all summer, and have hope that maybe we'll be able to move into our house the next week. Company after company comes to our house and gives conflicting advice and does meaningless, expensive operations on our house, sometimes making it worse. Finally, we find someone who will fix it for real. they are delayed, and won't be finished with the house until August. I am leaving in August. Perfect.

I can talk to you about mold for hours. It is not pretty and will destroy your life.

Anyway, at this point, my life consists of getting up at 5:45 am, working at from 630 to 5, going to take a shower at my dads office, going to eat, arriving at my makeshift home at 730, making the next days lunch and maybe watching a half hour of tv or reading, then talking to my girlfriend from 9-10, then passing out only to start again the next day.

I have never lived such an exhausting life with such little free time.

What made matters the worst is my work environment.

A few of my responsibilities at work,

• flattening dirt with a shovel and making sure it is 4" from a certain point
• hand picking up soggy trash
• sweeping sidewalks
• raking rocks
• unbolting by hand 90 rusty guardrail pillars

However, I did get to do some pretty sweet things too, including

• using a saw to cut a sidewalk
• jackhammering a bridge
• operating a skid steer and dirt roller.

Of course, this was all shadowed by my interaction with my boss Clint. Clint was the most miserable person I have ever met, let alone worked for. Sometimes, he would attempt to have patience, and I could see that he was following steps in his head that he learned in anger management in order to prevent firing/choking/killing another of his laborers. I gained solace in knowing that I wasn't the one Clint was miserable to. In fact, he even told me that, in an apparent effort to make me feel better, that he "treats everyone like that". I saw him get childishly sullen when the truckdriver was late, make sarcastic comments about other supervisors work quality to their face, and basically call other laborers morons.

On my final day, after a misunderstanding between me and Clint, Clint told me it wasn't worth talking about, because I'd be gone tomorrow, thank God. After realizing there was nothing more I could do to placate this man, I signed out for my last time, saying, "I don't know what to tell you, I tried my hardest this summer, I'm sorry it didn't go well". Clint told me all the things that were annoying him about the company, and how he was annoyed that I was just working for the summer and not devoting my life to construction, and how everyone was basically a moron and didn't get things like he did. He finished it all off, with "Sorry I was hard on you, I knew you were trying".

I walked away stunned. That half-assed apology was probably the most penitent thing the man has offered, and it almost made me feel good about the man. almost.

I worked an impossibly grueling job with a miserable boss, wasn't able to live in my own house, and was struggling to find a place to live and work in chicago in the fall. I thought the summer was the end of my trials, but it seems like it was just a time for me to adjust to the impossible life facing me after my graduation.

The Dead Diploma

My life is an epic.

My story is the most compelling, my struggles the most poignant, my victories the most inspiring.

It is with wry realization of the self-importance of blogging that I bring my own inconsequential tales to you. I know this blog will not change the world. This does not mean I will withhold its background to you.

I am a 22 year old male with all the potential and bravado of Mark Cuban and all the insecurity and fear of Holden Caufield. My life has had its shares of hardships, but none significant. I was born into a great, caring family. I was provided with a innocent childhood and a great education. I have been called a leader, a standout, and people have been excited for me. My life rose to its zenith in my senior year at my small private college. I was involved academically, professors knew me, I was in love, I had a great core of friends and a supportive family.

All this would be cocky if it weren't for my constant reminders as to my insignificance.

The day I left college, I stepped into the bold real world that every college student is ready to conquer and fix. My story is my immersion in this next stage of life, and I share it with the other contributors to this blog. The group of writers on this blog was a group of close friends in college who had everything under their control and are now learning how to cope with a life at the bottom, with friendships fractured by city, state, and country lines, with their accomplishments politely smiled at and forgotten by more important people.

The authors are made up of,

A marketing graduate working at a Starbucks and doing unpaid intern work for a marketing firm in Chicago,

• A marketing and Spanish graduate teaching English to students in Honduras
• A graphic design graduate screenprinting t-shirts in Kansas City
• A marketing student working construction in Dallas
• A graphic design graduate working as a junior creative in a Texas ad agency
• A marketing student finishing his final semester in school
• A graphic design graduate installing medical equipment in Chicago
• A digital media graduate looking for work in animation in LA
• A biology graduate attending medical school at Texas A&M

There is a lot of diversity in location, current job, and expertise. However, I believe we all share in the struggle of finding a foothold in the nascence of the rest of our lives.

There is little doubt that we all are confident of making an impact in our world, it is just the matter of struggling to find the right beginnings.