I want, I want.

I want to build thunderstorms out of broken clocks and fading postcards.

I want to dig tunnels with someone else's teeth.

I want every night's sounds to be recorded and played at my wedding.

I want nothing to change.

drums

I am teaching myself to play drums via youtube.

I hate.

I hate every car on the road I'm not in.

I hate every street sign telling me direction I already know.

I hate it when adults talk about how certain people have "ruined their lives because of drugs".

I hate that I still get scared.

I hate that certain things don't scare me anymore.

I hate that I haven't done anything or gotten anywhere in my life.

I hate that I can't be happy with what I have.

I hate it when I think horrible things and am not even bothered.

I hate the way I convey emotions.

I hate not being emotional and then being very emotional.

I hate the word emotional and ever bit of context that could possibly be associated with it.

I hate people like me.

I hate it when people say "you can do whatever you want in life" because you can't.

I hate the way people organize themselves.

I hate how hypocritical I have become.

I hate writing this and things like it.

I would hate myself if I never wrote this and things like it (maybe).

I hate that most of these things are lies.

I hate knowing people's names that don't know mine.

I hate thinking about how little I have ever done.

I hate being a different person.

I hate the idea of "being yourself" even though I agree with it.

I hate how dumb this sounds.

I hate that people will put more emphasis on the last line of this.

Oh Me

If I had to lose a mile 

If I had to touch feelings 

I would lose my soul 

The way I do 

I dont have to think 

I only have to do it 

The results are always perfect

 And thats old news 

Would you like to hear my voice

 Sweetened with emotion 

Invented at your birth? 

 I cant see the end of me 

My whole expanse 

I cannot see

 I formulate infinity

 And store it deep inside of me

Two days ago my grandmother broke her femur.  I will be playing "mom" for the next few days while my real mom is out of town with my grandmother.  Then my grandmother will probably be living at our house for the next month or so.  That is going to be a change of pace.

Bands I have been listening to recently (and really like):

-Elliott Smith

-Violent Femmes

-Sufjan Stevens

-The String Quartet (string covers of popular songs/bands)

Sometimes the best things in life are accidents.

Yes!

Yes!

Memorial Day

No work again today.

Books I am adding to summer reading:

-The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

-Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

Dead Flag Blues.

No Work Today

Today I have no work.  The pool I work out is leaking.  Leaking thousands of gallons.  I will therefore have the entire Sunday to do whatever I want to do.  What should I do?  Hopefully I will be able to spend time with my girlfriend.  Perhaps I should read as well.  I have gotten really bad at reading lately.  I hardly ever do it.  Unless it is a blog. (or a facebook message).

Books I have but have yet to read (that I will also read this summer (hopefully)) :

-Birth of Tragedy & Genealogy of Morals (Friedrich Nietszche)

-The Three Musketeers (Alexander Dumas)

-Lone Survivor (Marcus Luttrell)

-Desolation Angels (Jack Kerouac)

-Children of Hurin (J.R.R. Tolkien)

-The Art of War (Sun Tzu)

-Walden & Civil Disobedience (Henry David Thoreau)

I figure if I can read these 9 books this summer it will be a success

That is 3 books a month.  I think that is pretty fair.

Do You Like American Music?

We have yet to start shooting for the movie.

I'm going to be so busy with work for the next few days.

We need to start shooting the movie.

We have all summer I guess.

Nap time.

They didn't like American Music.

Awesome Song/Awesome Video

Update: 5-19-09

Today I found out I will be lifeguarding at my neighborhood pool.  Sweet.  Work will now take me about 2 minutes to walk to.  In addition, I will be (and have been) doing odd-job work at the pool to make a bit extra money.  It is good money and I get to choose my own hours.  I have a good feeling about summer work this year.

The mall isn't cool when you are broke.

I need to start saving money. 

Orange Tic-Tacs are my favorite.

It looks like I will probably be spending a lot of time up at the park, just like last summer.  I am okay with that.  I really like the park.  A lot has happened there I guess.  I consider it one of the top 10 most important places to me growing up.  I guess I will make a list of the top 10 most important places to me growing up.

1. 6716 Fallen Leaf Circle (My house in Louisville)

2. The old house in Bloomington, Illinois on Penbrook Way (don't remember address) 

3. The old-old house in Normal, Illinois (don't even remember the street)

4. Our Lady of Lourdes soccer field

5. Seneca-Cherokee Park (specifically dog hill, the playground and the horse bridge)

6. The spot just outside of Trinity's Cafeteria where we would stand at lunch rain, shine or snow

7. Holy Trinity Church in Blo-No, Illinois.

8. Hycliffe (my three best friends all live on this street)

9. Florida (kinda a big place, but its more of the idea associated with Florida than the actual vacation locations)

10. Field outside first house by the old bell tower.  I used to pick raspberries there and first place I ever really "played" 

Can I Kick It?

I dig life.

Summer needs more of this

And more of this.

I am not nearly exhausted enough right now.

Push it.

Someday I Hope You Will

My parents sure are eager beavers.  

My cousin is getting married today.

Tomorrow I am going to a baseball game.

Last night I revisited some of my old hangouts in St. Louis because my sister and I needed something to do.  We walked from our hotel across the street to Union Station where we hopped on a Metro to Delmar.  The Delmar Loop (renamed Barack Obama Blvd.) is a street with a bunch of fun shops and restaraunts and is supposedly one of the top 10 streets in America.  I call bullshit.  It has like a Chipotle and one (albeit amazing) thrift store.  It was still nice to eat some subpar Chipotle and overpriced ice cream (via Ben&Jerry's).  My sister and I then walked back to the Metro station in the pouring rain and waited under an awning for the next Scott bound Metro train.  I tried to take what would have been an awesome picture but I got stopped by a security guard.  Apparently you can't take pictures?  I don't know.  This morning I think I am going down to the hotel lobby for the free breakfast and then maybe I will walk around Union Station for a bit.  It's whatever.

Spirit Animal

One time, not too long ago a group of friends, quite bluntly, asked me what my spirit animal was.  I was just like "lolwut".  What is a spirit animal?  How do you figure out what your spirit animal is?  I asked them what they meant and they explained.  You just pick one, it is up to you.  You just search your soul and come up with what you think you should be.  I asked them what they chose and the three I remember were owl, phoenix and fox.  Phoenix isn't even a real animal but apparently mythical creatures count.  I think its kind of a cop-out.  Otherwise I would have picked "dragon" or "caveman" or "cheetah".  I still don't really understand what a spirit animal is or how it should be decided or what it ultimately means but I did end up picking one.  I hate being left out of all the fun, progressive things my friends come up with.  The animal I picked was the Arctic Wolf.  The white wolf is a rare and powerful creature, who hunts with cunning and is a master of his environment.  I can dig that.  Here are some other similarities and spiritual connections I have with the wolf.

-We are both creatures of the night.

-We both hunt with razor sharp intuition.

-We are both white.

-We both are part of packs but operate alone.

-We both have eyes that seem as if they pierce the soul.

-We both are residents of North America.

-God knows both of us by name.

-We both are pretty good-looking

-We were both raised by other wolves (This last one is a joke)

I for one feel much better after the spiritual journey I went on.  I am more connected with my natural side and I now have the confidence of both a man and a wolf.  The next full moon will forever light my heart.

The World We Live In

Today at dinner I had a conversation with my mom about her newly created "Facebook".  It seems the newest niche in Facebook membership is adults.  Not young-adults.  Adult-adults.  People with real jobs and kids and bills.  My mom was at a complete loss.  She didn't get the point of Facebook.  She didn't understand how to work it.  There were parts of it she just found stupid.  Yet she spent hours today adding her new "friends" and reading other people's "walls".  Can't wait until the next social networking trend.  Hopefully not Twitter.  Twitter is just dumb.  Perhaps it will be Flickr, or Xanga or even Lookbook.  Can't wait until everyone is comparing how they dress on Lookbook.

I wish there was still a legitimate counter-culture.  I need something to yell about.  I think I am going to start a right-winged counter-culture.  Nothing violent or radical.  The trend-whore liberals tend to piss me off.  I don't even like most right-winged ideal or figures.  I just get really upset when I see the same "free-thinking" activists (who called President Bush a fascist dictator) tell people that if they question Obama they aren't being supportive and they are in the wrong.  The same people that called Bush a fascist are the ones that will bite your head off today if you so much as imply a link between Obama and socialism.  I think Rush Limbaugh is a douche but I don't see his saying that he wanted Obama's liberal policies to fail any different than people putting anti-Bush slogans everywhere.  Even Rush Limbaugh didn't stoop to the level of saying "Fuck Obama" like many of his political opposites did about Bush.  It upsets me to see free-trade, vegan hipsters scoff at the "ignorant" masses even more than it upsets me to think of the masses of America as ignorant.  Since when was policy decided by cut-off wearing, unwashed faux-intellectuals who were too good to go to college, but "intelligent" enough to decide to follow whatever their 10th grade public school Enlgish teacher told them because said Enlgish teacher told them they were good at writing and made them feel better about themselves.  To set the record straight, I am in no way shape or form a conservative. I am anti-war, pro gay marriage and anti death penalty.  It just upsets me to see people who might actually care about the world we live in get sucked in to the ebb and flow of political trends and deciding to wield the dangerous powers of mass appeal to accomplish political goals that will ultimately crumble, starting with the hollow foundations they were built upon.  Even a mob that sets out to accomplish good has to cope with the dangers of mob mentality.  I don't dislike Barack Obama, I think so far he has done an okay job, but just like Bush took his huge initial approval ratings and ran (off a cliff) with them, Obama could just as easily do the same.  I hate to say "question everything" because it sounds cliche.  I guess I just want people try to look at issues from both sides.

Last night was "Disney" night at a friends house.  Would've preferred to watch "Totoro" or "Natural Born Killers".  I still had a good time.  I just don't see what the big deal about "Disney" night is.  It seems to be something people my age do to be nostalgic.  I'd rather just watch a good movie.  Seen "Mulan" way too many times.

Today I was gonna go work (see Cash Flow) but people are doing other work in the pool clubhouse in which i was going to work.  No money.

Also today I think I might be going to get a couple pairs of shorts.  What kind of shorts should I get?  Something that can be both dressy and casual.  I am thinking perhaps shorts of the "bermuda" variety.  What colours?  Navy Blue?  Khaki?  Do I dare get something as "bold" or "fratty" as Yellow?  I guess I don't really care that much.  Perhaps I will get the "Polo" shorts that have the Polo logo everywhere.  Don't really understand those shorts.  I feel like one logo is sufficient.  Polo seems to have cornered the "I go to state school and like to pretend my parents are really rich and sent me to a private school" market.  Similar markets include "I like to tell people about the brands of beer I drink" market and the "flip flops all year long" market.  

I will be golfing on Friday.  Not a big golf fan.  Supposed to rain that day.  Will probably be wearing the one Polo shirt I own.

I have a pizza in the oven (not a metaphor). 

Where I Stand

Last night the song "Angeles" by Elliott Smith played in my friend's car while we were driving around and it has thus far been the highlight of my summer.

My cousin is getting married this weekend in St. Louis and I will be attending.  Going to St. Louis now is much different than going to St. Louis a year ago.

I have been very happy lately and part of me misses being able to complain.  Mostly I'm just happy though.

Last night we joked about telling people wearing tweed that they were wearing some "boss tweed".  Then we spend half an hour making Thomas Nast jokes.  Sometimes I wish everyone appreciated this kind of humor.

textsfromlastnight.com makes me feel just like everyone else.

Next year I am going to be an obnoxious hipster or rich.  Pray for the latter.

Pray for the ladder.

Summer in college isn't any different than summer in high school except I have less money now.

I feel like I am at a point in my life where i get to decide if I want to be successful or not.  Do I start trying in school?  Do I "get involved"?  I don't want to be involved.  I have three and a half months to figure things out.

The hardest part about having a lookbook is telling your parents you are gay (or a coke addict(or european))

What I am doing this summer

This summer I am making a movie.  I am writing it.  I am directing it.  I am composing the soundtrack.  I am starring in it.  So are all of my friends.  We are then going to pay ~$30(US) and submitting that movie to the Sundance Film Festival.  Our goal being: Not Having a Real Job.  The movie is about us forming a band that is going to save rock & roll.  The entire idea is a joke.  But a joke that is going to be carried out.  It is all very postmodern, you probably wouldn't understand.  

  The idea behind the movie started in the spring of 2008 when a group of us were on spring break.  As per typical of guys, on a "crazy" spring break, we decided that if only we had filmed our misadventures, everyone would want to watch it.  Our jokes were clever and our spirit was inspiring.  People would pay to watch that, right?  The idea later evolved into a movie that would be a social commentary on our generation.  I am 19 years old and culture has yet to define my generation.  Kanye West said he was the spokesman but fuck him.  He isn't my icon.  

So, the movie, as it stands, is a comedy about music, brotherhood, growing up, substance use, obscure indie references, a generation looking for definition in a social climate where everything is defined, Steve Malkmus and Glen Danzig jokes and the lack of icons in our culture.  We are a group of boys who haven't had anyone to look up to since Michael Jordan retired from the Bulls.  The music today mostly sucks, the "iconic" figures mostly suck and the ideas of what is "fresh" or "hip" or "counter-culture" is all just indie bullshit.  Fuck Juno.  Fuck Pitchfork.  Fuck Animal Collective.  

The Bind, which is the name of our movie band, is going to redefine music and save the music culture from itself.  Where are our Bob Dylans or Lou Reeds or even our Ian Curtis'?  We have no one.  Along the way the band will partake in culturally relevant, self aware and post-ironic adventures ranging from becoming a horror-glam-punk band to not being able to find a drummer.  The movie will deal with substance abuse, growing up in the 21st century and "just trying to find yourself".  Above all else, the movie will be funny.  Just like Superbad.