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The Ruckus Report
Jun. 19th, 2011
09:59 pm
Totally not doing work. I'm feeling a twinge of regret that I'm not feeling productive. Sleep is playing two blocks from my house right now and I'm too broke and need to do work anyway.
Ridiculous party last night. It was a friends party and I'm pretty sure that I'm the crustiest person that she knows. Once again I was the weird dude at the party that a bunch of people wanted to get to know. I got really inebriated and rolled with it. I'm trying to start a goofy little singing group with some friends and one of the roommates at the party has a similar group who performed a few songs. Rochelle was super drunk and loud and I had to tell her to shut it a couple times and our friend whose house it was eventually pushed us and the other loud people out of the backyard and into the kitchen and closed the door. The alcohol was in the kitchen, questionable move. Later when the party was winding down I talked to the roommate with the choir and told her about my fledgling group. I'm pretty sure she thought I was a wingnut but we talked for a while and made plans to figure out some sort of collaboration with our singing groups in the future.
Then I got super drunk and woke up in my car in front of the party house. After a sketchy drive where I had trouble remembering how to get to my place, I got back and tried doing some work but was in no condition to do anything. I was headed back to sleep when Rochelle came over all hung over with some terrible but wonderful McDonald's breakfast and we laughed for a while about our adventures and how everyone I talked to at the party assumed we were dating and kept mentioning our relationship in conversation. She told me that she had referred to me as her brother all night. I'm sure people were confused.
After breakfast I went back to sleep but when I got up I saw that the singing roommate from last night friended me on Facebook and tagged me in some photos. Ridiculous.
Jun. 18th, 2011
03:03 am
I've been hella busy and haven't been on the Internet for much else but work lately which is kind of awesome. My job has officially turned into a real thing that I'm doing instead of "an internship"and I'm getting a little pay bump which is rad to do things with. I spent a big chunk of that money stuff on music gear and band related stuff this month and now have a pristine sounding amp, a major component in my evil plan to create the loudest bass rig in the area, and my band is recording. The music thing is totally rad for me right now. My sludgy band has only played one show but we got a bunch of show requests and are playing with some of the most killer bands in the next few months. Not to be overlooked, I also have a death metal band that is about a month from playing shows. Crushingly, the show I'm super stoked on is in October opening for Noothgrush and a bunch of other incredible bands. Noothgrush was a Bay legend, now playing some shows after hella years apart, and are, personal historically speaking, one of my first exposures to really heavy and slow bands which provided the gateway to my current doom/sludge fascination. I pretty much bought an ipod radio transmitter back when I was working as a delivery driver (partially, they were in the top 3) so I could stonedly listen to Noothgrush's side of their split with Corrupted every day at work. Now I'm in a band that is able to get this kind of show pretty much through nepotism (truthfully) and I'm going to enjoy the fuck out of it.
That's rad and I'm in the middle of this huge project at MRR to organize their 'zine archive from the beginning. It started as a thing that I did for some community service hours I wrangled to do there for some shit I got caught for. Now I am so into it. As soon as my fucking job's site launches I'll be able to go back and do some more work on it.
Few times does my regular dude disguise do things that chronologically come together in conjunction with my weirdo life but I'm actually winning in a few aspects of the shit I do. And tonight I partied at the house of some friends who live with the girl I like and she asked me on multiple occasions and different ways why we don't hang out together more. I'm feeling pretty good about things in general. gonna stop gushing now. go!
May. 22nd, 2011
12:13 pm
I just spent half an hour lurking the Facebook page for my high school. Never have I been so glad that I turned out the way I did. Mr. Cool is a semi-pro race car driver living in Hemet. Ms. Brad's Big Crush has two kids and lives in Spokane with a dude she seems to be hiding from in the family picture on her profile. Ms. Rad is still in Sonoma being rad with a private profile. I should have tried harder to make a deeper reconnect with her when we would always run into each other in Chico, I would have if I had known I was leaving town right after she was. Ms. Mormon Buddy married her high school sweetheart, Mr. Quiet who was also a buddy of mine. He has pictures of dudes in camo and guns on his profile and it says he worked for the government (I hope he isn't one of those Blackwater psychos). She has pictures of the kids on her profile and in the "about me" section it just says that she's married to Mr. Quiet. Tons of people who were hot shit are still in Redding working joke jobs and reproducing. Every dude who ever played sports is wearing a brand new Giants shirt now that they are the champs. My brother linked his profile to the page but I really don't think that I will. It's bad enough when I run into people when I'm up there and they recognize me.
I played a show with a new band on Friday and it was awesome. I'm also practicing with two other bands that both look like they might pan out into a real thing. I've been hella busy this last week working and playing music. My Internet job is supposedly turning into real employment in the next few weeks. I'm buckling down for now. Not partying much, staying in town after last week's Chico Whiskey Blackout, and saving up some money. I'm going to try and talk Ken and Ian into coming down to the Monterrey Beer Festival to play music to drunks next month. We could make a little money busking and party with my nutty cousins. I came to them the last two occasions, and it's about time for a Santa Cruz/Monterrey freakout.
Oh yeah, I just finished Lynn Breedlove's "Godspeed" and I am staying the fuck away from hard drugs. Other than the multiple chapters about mainlining shit it was awesome and I wish that queer punks were more like they were in the '90s, before the hipsterfication of gender bending, the abolition of violence as a means to fight back, and the rise of passive aggressive catty attitudes masked as political correctness. Back when the weirdos were weirdos.
May. 8th, 2011
11:08 pm
I called my mom like a good kid today and wished her a happy Mother's Day today. She called me back to talk some more later this evening and we had kind of an intense conversation where she told me that she loves me more than anything and she's proud of me and a lot of other things that made me want to cry. Then she started crying and told me how much she misses me and I felt really bad that I can't make it up to Redding all the time to see her. I've felt kind of bad for having my own life ever since.
May. 1st, 2011
02:06 am
Tonight was ridiculous. I drove to the Shitty for a show at the Thrillhouse and saw No Statik and had a great time. I opened up my knuckle pretty good hardcore punching around and hitting the microphone. Luckily Ruby's face wasn't on the other side of it at that moment. I'm pretty sure Yosef headbutted me in the jaw and that Max kid from Yadokai kicked me in the face when he was crowd surfing. As you can tell it was an awesome set. The other bands were not as crucial but I talked to a cute girl who plays in a good band or two and generally had a good time.
After the show we went back to Oakland and me and Yosef decided to stop by the Womansion to see if the show there was still going on. When we pulled up hella people were leaving because Badr Vogu had just played and the neighbor's landlord was there arguing with the drunk as fuck kids who were putting on the show. The last band hadn't played yet and they were the touring act (called Funeral something or another) and everybody was drunk and the neighbors were calling the cops. Yosef called up Schenk at Hazmat to see if the band could jump on the show that was happening there and one of the women who lived at the house got into a heated exchange with the landlords that ended with her storming off to the garage/Eric's room/the show space and getting some hedge clippers and chopping down one of the small trees in the front yard.
While this was happening, my friend Chris called up to ask if I was in SF and would I mind coming down to a bar show and flexing a little Redding crazy at some dudes who were threatening to beat his ass. Turns out he was at some party a month ago watching a game with some dudes when he got into an argument with one of the people living there which turned into a shoving fight where he threw the dude into the $1500 TV in the place that the guy had just bought. So the dude with the broken TV drunkenly chased Chris down the street for multiple blocks dual wielding kitchen knives and trying to stab him. Apparently the guy remembered the episode despite his intoxication and was talking shit at the show about how him and his friends were going to jump Chris when he left. I told Chris that I'd come back over the bridge and show the dude a pistol if he thought that it was needed but he said that it probably wasn't worth my time. Going to have to call him tomorrow.
Meanwhile back at the show, the LA band decided that they would follow me to Hazmat and jump on the show. Eric was trying to direct the whole thing despite his obvious drunkenness and it took a half hour to get everyone rounded up. He jumped in my car and said that the band was in the vehicle behind us. I was wondering who was driving that thing since I had talked to everyone in the band and they could barely stand up and my trepidation was validated when the car following us randomly turned left a few blocks from Hazmat. We got to the show without the band and Yosef and Eric ran around trying to figure out what happened while I played free pinball and drank dollar beers in the record store with Kenny. The last band of the night was some terrible punk rapper from Portland or some other lame place and the LA band never showed up. A couple of my roommates were there and thought that the show was amazing. I heard that 15 people paid to see it. Strike 9,000 for the people I live with.
I dropped Eric and Yosef off and went to the liquor store to get an end-of-the-adventure 40. I pulled in behind a lady with a personalized license plate that said Shay III and she got out of the car to yell at me that I didn't leave here enough space to pull out. I looked at her car and there was an empty space in front of her. I felt like the most sober person in the world.
Now I'm home, writing this. My 40 is getting low. My lame roommates just got home and invited me to a fire party across the street at the squat. I'm going to go over there and try to filch beers.
Apr. 20th, 2011
12:25 pm
I'm back in Oakland after a week of banging around the San Diego area and playing music in the desert. I've got a few new musical projects lined up. I'm stoked that there are some dudes in Chico who want to play old timey music and I have an open invitation to join them, and a friend who plays drums from the North Bay is moving to Berkeley in a week or two and may be the perfect fit to fill out a D-beat project I've wanted to do for a while. I've been practicing with some other dudes before I went on my trip and we have our first show late next month.
When I got back last night I had two Facebook messages about my show blog. One from a guy in a band that I really like asking if he could use a photo on their next record's packaging. I'm super stoked about that and it makes me want to get back into real photography, maybe save up for a decent camera. The half-broken digital point and shoot camera I have now doesn't really deliver great images in show type conditions. The second message was from an ex-girlfriend saying she liked my blog. I don't really want to deal with her and whatever reason she's been recently contacting me but it is cool that people are reading it. I really need to sit down and get caught up on that thing. I've got a lot of work to do in the next few days and I'm going to Eureka this weekend but maybe next week I can really kick some ass on expanding my "web presence."
Apr. 10th, 2011
02:06 pm
I am getting hella restless about my upcoming trip to San Diego and Slab City. I'm going down to play some weirdo gospel music with friends (awesome) but need to receive either my paycheck or my long delayed final unemployment check to afford to go (not awesome). One of these should show up by Tuesday so I'm not worried about having to cancel the trip but I can't help feeling a bit listless, which makes my job harder to concentrate on and I find it difficult to make myself sit down and do work. I'm not going to the anarcho bookselling extravaganza this weekend in order to buckle down and get some hours but self discipline in the face of fun has never been my strong suit.
Also, new girl I'm interested in has a boyfriend which I didn't like to hear, but the word is that he's another fat dude with a beard so once he fucks up I feel pretty OK about my chances to be the next dude. Old girl that I'm interested in apparently does not have a boyfriend anymore and is sending me messages on the Internet about hanging out. Of course this happens when I'm broke, busy, and my priority is putting in hours and going on a trip.
And my show blog is so far behind that when I go to shows people give me shit about it.
On the rad side, there are tons of excellent bands playing here soon, San Diego is always amazing, and I think that my job might turn into something more permanent in the next couple weeks. There are a lot of things to look forward to, I just need to get through the next couple of days in a responsible and restrained manner.
Mar. 31st, 2011
12:00 am
got a slight sunburn today. First sun damage of the year. It will be fine in a day but right now I feel all hot sluggish. My roommate said that she rode past a marquee sign that had the temperature on it and it said 88 degrees. It was raining and cold as fuck three days ago. How about some consistency?
Mar. 30th, 2011
01:48 am
so I was just watching the Thundercats and drinking some whiskey drinks and I decided to buy a washboard on ebay. I'm going to what is becoming a yearly pilgrimage to Slab City, Ca in mid-April to play a show in the gospel/punkish/old timey country band that I'm kind of a part of. I've been wanting to procure a washboard to play this year since last year I found I was pretty OK at it and also I wanted one of my own since last year I borrowed one and it ended up walking away after one of our sets and I felt really bad about losing a rad dude's gear.
I have been sorta looking around for one and now its less than a month before show time and I needed to get one soon. I decided a few days ago to just get one on ebay since they are hard to find in junk stores and collectible stores want to charge way too much for them. I did a Buy It Now! sale for a set of two washboards so I could have one soon and also have a spare to give to my homie in San Diego whose board I had lost last year. See I'm a good friend and solid dude. I'm also a dumbass who shouldn't be on the Internet late at night because I like to party and then buy things and not remember it. I discovered in the payment process for my new washboards that I had already won another auction for a washboard a few days ago.
So now I have three washboards coming in the mail.
Mar. 29th, 2011
07:59 pm
I took and hour off today and sat in the sun with my roommate. If it's sunny tomorrow I will probably spend some time outside again. I'm not the biggest outdoor person in the best of times but lately I've been working during the daylight hours, or at least kind of working. I should talk to some of the other people who are doing my job, I feel like I'm not getting enough done or doing something wrong sometimes. Today I decided to not worry about it too much and drank a bottle of champagne while editing. It was more fun than usual.
The people hanging out on the street on my block were really noisy today. After a lot of cold and rainy weather this winter, people are out in the sun and making noise again. The neighbors who hang out in their back yard a lot had the sound system pumping today with their bad classic rock and Latin music. If they played mariachi music all the time I would be more down but how many times can you listen to "The Final Countdown" in one day?
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