xB.W.C.x


Where I wanna be...still


Feel like I'm drifting...

It's Times Like These

It's amazing how your relationships with people can take such drastic turns, and how quickly someone you were so close with can practically become a stranger. In a matter of a month.

Or how someone you'd given up on can persuade you to give them another chance. Maybe it will work this time.

I've been trying to meet new people lately. Make new friends. Slowly but surely it is working. I like it.

And I'm becoming a little more discerning when it comes to who I consider friends and who I devote time and effort too.

I've been working my ass off lately. Stocking dairy products at Wegman's and also working as a Residential Aid at a group home for the Barber National Institute. Both are great, good paying, relatively easy jobs, with a fair amount of perks. Working as many hours as I can. Finally making money again. It feels great. Not just to be able to buy necessities, food, or even frivolous things, but to know that my back isn't up against a wall anymore. I've been pretty financially helpless for a while here and I'm finally able to start picking myself back up.

Ready to get back into shape. Going to start hitting the gym hard again. I was half way to my resolution in May, and then things happened and caused me to fall out of routine.

But the good news is that I looked at my list of resolutions for 2009, and I actually accomplished 10 out of 16 of them! So that made me feel good.

2010 is going to be a year of hard work. I hope I'm up to it.

P.S. - I am an S. E. O. G. Don't ever forget it.



Here's to keeping the Edge strong.

Bedtime For Democracy

Had a lot going on lately in my head, in my heart, in my hands...so in liu of a real blog post I will simply submit to you some photos from the past weeks adventures.

BITER HITS THE ROAD FOR ANOTHER WEEKEND


Broken..............Not Broken...........My drums are getting old...


You're never alone with Biter


...really.


The only real reason [aside from Mighty Taco] I wanted to go to Buffalo


It is real. I was there.


And these three fuckers were the most annoying part about the whole weekend!


THE BEAUMONT'S HIT THE HALL EN ROUTE TO TOLEDO FOR THANKSGIVING


Adults need to learn, that we are going to do whatever we damn well please.


"Sasquatch" Probably sounded like shit...but looked cool.


A little piece of history


I hate you Cleveland, but you can be pretty sometimes.


Re-discovering the Panorama function on my phone


Final destination

Let's all go use our sick leave up
And then we'll shoot some pool
Got brand new skinhead hair cuts
You think he's a fool
One of these days I'll blow my top
Or somebody's gonna pay
I'd hate to see the process
As you enter the factory and say

Take this job and shove it
I ain't working here no more
I won't let that shit bother me
That I've been working for
Paper cups, minimum wage
Just walk on out the door
Take this job and shove it
I ain't working here no more

On With My Life

It's been a while. Honestly, it's because every time I felt the need to write anything I knew it would just turn out depressing. And it still might. It probably will. But that's okay... we all know that the skies can't always be sunny.

My brother and I bought a truck at the beginning of the month and it has only been operable for half of October. It's really starting to make me mad, and broke. Work has been slow due to weather and illness so I don't have the money to keep fixing it. I'm starting to feel it was a poor fiscal decision. So as the spiders start to build their houses in my wallet, the debt piles. I now have a $2500 loan to begin paying back in two weeks, a truck to fix, and work that is becoming more scarce as the impending winter looms.

At least I have this girl to keep me sane. For now. She's scared. Like I thought. I understand that she has a lot on her plate as well, but I think her logic is fatally flawed. But I do my best to bite my tongue because I just want her to do what she thinks is right and do what makes her happy. I hope she sees that I can help her. I just hope she chooses correctly.

The coming weeks are full of monumental decisions for me also... Pray that I choose correctly.

On a lighter note, Biter is doing well. Playing some big shows in town as well as out of town! We're getting mixed reviews, but fuck it! We're having fun!

Also, I caved and shaved. I said I wasn't going to shave until March, but this is for a good cause.
Check it. It's called Movember.










So after all that...here I stand hairless, emasculated, but still pretty cute!



P.S. - My appendix might burst!

There's This Girl

That I'm starting to really like.











I hope she's not too scared.

Too Scared To Quit

I've heard it said that youth is wasted on the young and I'm beginning to feel the sting of these words as it becomes my own reality.

I'm barely 21 and I spend my time working, going to class, stressing over money and how I'm going to pay my bills and feed myself. What kind of life is this for someone so young? The weight of all these burdens weighs heavily on my mind to the point that I can't concentrate on doing well in my classes, let alone figuring out which major I want to pursue, if any. I feel almost completely without direction. Just spinning my wheels and digging myself an even deeper rut. I should just suck it up, pick something, and buckle down. "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do." But says who? That seems like such an American concept. "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do...to get ahead, to make money, to be happy." I don't buy it. It always comes back to money, greed, capitalism. If you don't comply, you're some kind of freaky hippie, or a bum, and they'll do their best to keep you down.

I can't take it. I feel like almost everything I do in my life just gets in the way and prevents me from doing the things that I love. The things that make me happy. The things that are truly important. Do you really think this life is long enough to spend even a moment doing something that knowingly makes you unhappy? How about several moments? Days? Weeks? Years? I thought not.

I work to make money, to go to school, to get a better job, to make more money, to buy more shit I don't need and then I will have to work harder and neglect my family to make even more money to buy still more shit for my family that will be outdated and more expensive in a matter of months. But everyone has to do things they don't want to right? As long as you keep feeding that golden arrow of consumption, you're doing your part.

I will live my life as such, even though all I want to do is make music with my friends, make new friends, strengthen bonds with old ones, be in love, see the world, and make sure my family and friends are happy and safe. Is that to much to ask? Most of the time it seems like it.

Falling from the top floor your lungs
fill like parachutes
windows go rushing by.
People inside,
dressed for the funeral in black and white.
These ties strangle our necks, hanging in the closet,
trapped in the cubicle;
without a name, just numbers, on the resume stored in the mainframe, marked for delete.
Please take these hands
throw them in the river,
wash away the things they never held
please take these hands,
throw me in the river,
don’t let me drown before the workday ends.
9 to 5! 9 to 5!
And we're up to our necks,
drowning in the seconds,
ingesting the morning commute
lost in a dead subway sleep
we lie wide awake in our parent’s beds,
tossing and turning.
Tomorrow we'll get up
drive to work,
single file
with everyday
it's like the last.
Waiting for the life to start, is it always just always ahead of the curve?
Please take these hands
throw them in the river,
wash away the things they never held
please take these hands,
throw me in the river,
don’t let me drown before the workday ends.
Just keep making copies
of copies
of copies
when will it end?
it'll never end,
'til it gets so bad
that the ink fills in our fingerprints
and the silhouette of your own face becomes the black cloud of war
and even in our dreams we're so afraid the weight will offset who we are
all those breaths that you took have now been canceled in your lungs.
Last night my teeth fell out like ivory typewriter keys
and all the monuments and skyscrapers burned down and filled the sea.
save our ship
the anchor is part of the desk
we can't cut free,
the water is flooding the decks
the memos sent through the currents
computers spark like flares
I can see them.
They don't touch me,
touch me.
Please someone,
teach me how to swim.
Please, don't let me drown,
please, don't let me drown.

Pave Paradise

There is nothing I love more than the road. Period.



This was breakfast lunch and dinner on Friday.




The King

Cody loves.


Machete Fagg0ls


Biter is Pittsburgh








"Ian took a shit at 3:15pm Sept. 4 2009"


Candids of the monkeys playin



Johnstown is a hick town. Proof:

One Leg Sam: "If I had my pistol I'd rob yo ass"

Wilferd Brimmly[sp?] watching me poop.

Fucked up kids pictures...



And Cory threw up in the van.

Strike Anywhere - "Iron Front" [2009]

"Did the banks buy our president?The corporate bail-out,Heaven sent.Legislation from a company town,Washington D.C. burn it down!"

- Hand Of Glory [track 5]

Staying true to their roots, as cliche as it may sound, is something Strike Anywhere has managed to do time and time again over their decade of existence. And they have done it again with their latest record Iron Front due out October 6th on Bridge Nine Records. They've released an EP, as a precursor to the full-length, entitled Iron Fist. The EP features two tracks from the impending album ["Failed State" and "Hand of Glory"] as well as two b-sides that didn't make the final cut ["Orphan Age" and "Twilight's Last Gleaming"].

I got my hands on a leaked copy of the full-length and it is every bit as impressive, passionate, and intelligent as I had hoped. From amidst the couldn't-be-faster percussion, the smoldering riffs, and the melodic leads, blazes forth the lyrical fury of vocalist Thomas Barnett that I've grown to love. With subject matter extending from politics to social issues to animal rights to globalization the words are delivered sometimes in song singing, sometimes in an angsty shout, or in massive gang vocals. The record opens with "Invisible Colony," a song that puts the proverbial 'pedal to the metal' and clocks in at 1:19, and winds down towards the end with more ballad-y tracks like "Western Scale" that screech to a relative hault at 3:14. There's something admirable about a band that can grow and evolve and progress, yet still hold to the same style and beliefs and integrity that drew me to them years ago. If you want something to make you think, or make you mad, or make you sing along, or just something to run in circles to, I suggest to pick up this record in October.

4.5 Clenched fists out of 5, for making me wait so damn long!

Track Listing:

1 Invisible Colony

2 I'm Your Opposite Number

3 South Central Beach Party

4 Failed State

5 Hand Of Glory

6 The Crossing

7 Spectacular

8 Blackbirds Roar

9 Omega Footprint

10 Summerpunks

11 First Will And Testament

12 Western Scale

13 Postcards From Home

Her Lucky Pretty Eyes