Wednesday, September 23, 2009

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have to work harder and neglect my family to make even more money to buy still more shit for my family that will be outdated and more expensive in a matter of months.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.



Sunday, September 20, 2009

Pave Paradise

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



This was breakfast lunch and dinner on Friday.
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The King
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Cody loves.
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Machete Fagg0ls
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Biter is Pittsburgh
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"Ian took a shit at 3:15pm Sept. 4 2009"
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Candids of the monkeys playin
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Johnstown is a hick town. Proof:
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One Leg Sam: "If I had my pistol I'd rob yo ass"
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Wilferd Brimmly[sp?] watching me poop.
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Fucked up kids pictures...
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And Cory threw up in the van.
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

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

Friday, September 11, 2009

Thursday, September 3, 2009

My New Life.

Work.

Class.

Work.

Class.

Work.

Work.

And resting on the seventh.

And now...some stuff I found on my phone I meant to post over the last two weeks:

Drove this Ford F-350 Diesel with Duellies. Courtesy of the Olzaks.
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Demon Goat at the Crawford County Fair
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An awesome painting by the lovely Ms. Kimmi Rosser
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Dogbed
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Best Man speech at The Rage's wedding
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Buy this shirt.
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WE OWN YOU. 611
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Deadend conviction addiction rejection your body's running down so tired so busy fitting in your bloodshot hippie ways are going to lead you down a blackened road think for yourself or are you so drunk you can't think at all I can't get through to your mind so blind that it can't predict your fall no one can stop you but you you put me here to watch you fall thinking it's so funny to us all a life to live I have but one you put me here to watch you run you've got no body to run you've got no eyes to see you've got no way to make it through the other side of me think for yourself wake up

P.S. 21 and still Edge. Love it.