22.07.10......curtains drop

So, this is what I've been up to:


http://blindisfine.blogspot.com

Enjoy? Hopefully......I know I am.

Busy summer to prepare for what's looking to be a very busy fall with Trap Them. Much more info soon.

How many more posts will I say "much more soon" in?

07.01.10....Hungry for everything sale

For a brief length, all paintings on my other blog are $150 or less. A lot have been sold for twice that or more, but certain times call for unwilling measures.
If you are interested in two or more pieces, a further discount will be made. This is the result of not having enough room for storage, and to eliminate the momentarily red budget.
If you, or anyone you know that may appreciate the art, are interested, please email me at:
failgivers@gmail.com

Thanks, boys and girls. Hope to hear from you.

06.02.10.....trailers

There's been quite an absence from this here thought-vomit basin. Loads of work hours at the bar and other numerous stress inducers have left me void of concentration.

On a particularly ridiculous night of making appetizers for drunken frat boys and indie douche bags, my walk home triggered something.

In the next week or so, there will be some new stuff to read on here.

Some will enjoy it.....those that lived in the golden era, specifically.

Until then, to the art form that has given me a re-obsession, all I can say is, "They (meaning I) reminisce over you...."

Much, much more to come.

18.03.10....Nomi

It has been a long time coming, but I found myself with a spare hour before I go back to rolling burritos.

First and foremost, I read Under the Dome. An extremely generous person from the UK sent a copy to me. As a fellow Stephen King fanatic, it was probably one of the best pieces of mail I have ever recieved.

The post below contains a link to his awesome blog of his courageous battle to read every King work in chronological order. Respect is due.

February blew by. Out of the twenty-eight days, I worked twenty four of them. It was all for a purpose, you see. For the first time in fifteen years, my entire adult life, I am one hundred percent debt free. This is a huge step for me. Every time I came close, another setback would come running at me full steam and we'd meet in a head-on collision, me getting the worse of it every time.

So, February was a labor heavy month, but now I can be in the black instead of always floating in the red.

January was the month that became the birth of a new life on meds. The diagnosis of bipolarism was fully labeled for me, and, like my banished debt, was the first time in my adult life that I was able to actively do something about it.

Lamactil was the prescription. I was told to slowly increase my intake over the course of a month, testing the waters, so to speak. I actually noticed a difference within a few days. The outbursts and mood swings seemed to diminish. I was able to calmy converse and not pull my hair out.

Along with this, my ADHD was finally treated and, as of this week, I am on another medication that, I was quite shocked, caused immediate positive results. Focus was never my strong suit, unless it was something that clicked in my head. I've found it easier to do many, many things. I'm actually extremely pleased with the meds I ignored for so long. Better late than never, and at the ripe old age of thirty-two, this was one of the best choices I could have ever made.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to thank anyone that reads this that went to Scion Fest last weekend. I can say, without a doubt, that was the BEST show we've ever played. I was not prepared for that reaction. I was not prepared for the outright insanity that occurred for the forty minutes we were on stage ( or in my case, jumping off of it.).

I am home for another few months, though "down time" is not an expression that can be deemed suitable. TT is hard at work on the next LP. We'll head into Godcity at the start of June and spend the next four weeks there. I will be showing up halfway through because I am a vocalist, which means I scream for a few hours and then my job is done. I have literally zero musical talent, so the best thing I can do to help these guys is stay away.

This is the longest break we've ever had, but we all deserve it. Up until the end of tour last November, this band had done roughly 300-325 shows in just over two years. That's a lot of van time.

Having a long amount of time in Seattle has given me back the home life that I miss on these long runs. Having someone to come home to, to cook dinner for, to have great conversations with....it was exactly what was needed.

And for the first time in three years, I am home for the entire final season of LOST!!

In the next few weeks, I'll be getting into great detail on here of a brand new endeavor for me....something I've wanted to do for a very long time, and it has finally come to fruition. There will be a new blog in the coming weeks that will give a little more info. I am very happy to finally do something like this.

In the meantime, with humble self-promotion, if you find yourself with some spare tax return money and in need of some new art to redecorate your home with, please check out my paintings. The link is on the side bar. Anyone interested in anything, please get in touch. They are filling up my apartment, and I am ready to liquidate for the right prices.

Naked juice "green machine" is one of the best things I've ever tasted.

I bought a rowing machine the other day. I don't know why I'm so stoked on this, but I am.

Two weeks ago, I was sick and stuck in bed....in one day, I watched the entire second season of Breaking Bad. That show is fantastic.

I don't have much else to say. I'm actually feeling really good right now, and it's time to go roll burritos.

Current listening pleasures (I don't have time to sit and watch films anymore.....someday I'll return to my cellulite nerd roots)

High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine (amazing...title track is the best song to run to. Ever)

Daughters - s/t (fully realized Jesus Lizard by way of Providence noise....fucking brilliant. I can't say enough about how much I love this record)

Aerosols - s/t LP + 4th (?) 7"

Darkthrone - Circle the Wagons (I like black metal only if it doesn't sound like black metal)

Deathreat - Consider it War

From Ashes Rise - ALL ( My wife and I went to the reunion show in PDX....perfect. They were spot on and I felt like I did when I used to see them years ago.)

Sweet Cobra - Bottom Feeder 12"

The Breed - 7"

Gore - ALL (thank you, Southern Lord....thank you)

Catharsis - Samsara

many more....lots of dog walks, walks to and from work, and running have supplied me ample listening time.

Currently reading : The Terror by Dan Simmons

02.02.10....shhhh

Nothing very exciting today.
I just want to recommend you all to follow this guy's blog. He's reading every Stephen King book in chronological order. This is awesome.

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com

27.01.10....idiot sanctuary

The rest of the years were good enough, though I did settle into a routine. Hating my classes, saying the wrong things to get kicked out once every other month, was one of the more prominent traits I further developed. I battled with teachers that told me I had potential if I would just focus myself. I fell in with a rather safe group of kids, whom I spent my weekend nights with, watching horror movies and listening to gossip.
I made out with a few girls. I delivered newspapers. I still got panic attacks once every few weeks and wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

Weekend days were reserved for going down to a local sports card shop, where for the nine or so hours the store was open, I talked sports with a bizarre cast of townies that had nothing better to do with their lives than, well, sit in a sportscard shop. There was a kid a few years older than me that worked there, who treated me as if I was the annoying little brother he never had. Just like an older brother, one second he would be giving me a rash of shit, while the next few hours were spent killing time, spewing out weekly statistics or theorizing what legendary team was better than the other. It never seemed to get old.
The owner, a local businessman that owned a sketchy chinese food restaurant, would make rare visits. Always scented with a tinge of alcohol, John would swagger into the shop, open a few packs of Hustler cards to look at some naked women without his wife knowing, eject a few inhuman belches, mutter the words "hurt me" as he rubbed his stomach and then say goodbye for another week or two.
David, the. shop "manager" would come in, sit at a back table while smoking cigarettes and harass any potential customer. He was the definition of the word "haggler", always coming in with some unnecessary items that he had scored at a flea market or garage sale for a dollar or two. He would give lengthy lectures on any and all subjects brought up and always seemed to fashion himself as a somewhat small town mystical philosopher. There was always a look on his face after he talked as if to ask, "Did I just blow your mind or what?"
Without a doubt, the most interesting specimen of the shop days was Stretch, a seven foot tall manboy that lived with his mother. Day after day he would come in wearing the same Chicago White Sox jersey with smudged ink on his face from delivering newspapers from his car. He had this bizarre high pitched voice that, when excited, sounded like dying airhorn. Naturally, I looked forward to this. He was, quite literally, the clumsiest individual I have ever been in contact with. His lanky frame seemed to never have a day pass without knocking over something in the shop, or, just knocking himself over.
There were a few other stragglers that found their way in and out of the store through those years, but we were the diehards, the ones who took the sour and dismal weekend offerings and ground them into sweet lemonade. I'd find a way to make it to that place in the dead of January blizzards with twelve feet of snow falling with another twelve on the way. So did the rest of them. On those days, I knew it wasn't that we all had nothing else to do, it was that this was exactly what we wanted to do. There was a comfort in that fucked up sports enthusiast family we had gathered.
Summer vacations, that place became my daily sanctuary. I would alternate between playing pick up games of basketball and sitting my weighty ass down in the air-conditioned shop. I know my parents would have been much happier if I had spent my free time with schoolmates, and, in my defense, there were a few. Unfortunately for my parents, I'd spend time with those schoolmates at the shop, them usually getting bored after a few hours while I was just warming up.
It went on like this for years, well into high school. I loved that goddamn place and all the fuckups that made it what it was. When I think of early teenage years, I don't think of many instances involving school. I think of that shop. I visualize Stretch tripping over a barbell and falling out the back door, setting off the alarm. I think of David, cigarette in hand, opening a pack of cards and getting something valueable, causing him to dance some mutant jig that shakes his beer gut from side to side, up and down. I like it better this way. I don't ever have to worry about where any classmates ended up, because I never made friends with them in the first place.
I don't know what happened to them. My mother would run into one of the guys every once in a while and would let me know, though that hasn't happened for a long time. It's quite fitting though, seeing as throughout my many, many moves since I left home, I don't have one baseball or basketball card to my name. My bedroom back then was filled with stacked white boxes of thousands of thousands of sets, divided into categories by players, teams, years, etc. I think collecting cards had done wonders for my OCD, keeping me occupied with something that, at the time, I could focus all my attention on. (and when I say "all my attention", I meant "all my attention". Homework had established itself as a nemisis..).
I do find myself walking in and out of card shops out here in Seattle, half hoping to overhear a conversation that peaks my interest and give me a reason to include myself. You hear people talking about good old days, or wanting to be able to go back in time to enjoy a school year again. I'd like to go back and spend a few more of those whitewashed winter days at the shop, watching snow fall out onto a modestly busy, small town Dover Main Street, watch the cars hurry down the slight hill all frantic with places the drivers need to be, while I'm exactly where I want to be. I can barely recall any of the stupid crap we talked about, all I know is that I had a great time doing it, being able to block out the thoughts of another day sitting at a desk, being told to do things I didn't want to do.

27.01.10...baseball sucks and so does companionship

His name was Mike.
We were on the same little league baseball team. Baseball may have been the single worst sport I have, or ever will, play. I was absolutely horrible. Looking back, I think it had something to do with my lack of focus or attention on anything for longer than any given time. Unless I was utterly enthralled in the task at hand, my mind floated away, which is not very helpful when you have a solid, leather bound ball screaming towards you repeatedly throughout a few hours.
I was the token space case on the team. It was the Dover Elks Lodge, which made my mother quite proud. Her father, my grandfather, had been a proud member of the Elks Lodge for a great part of his life, before he passed away in my first of third grade years. I would not be surprised if she believes that her father was up there in that heaven of his, fishing in a pond with the God almighty himself, stuffing sugar covered jelly donuts in his mouth by the dozen (remember...in heaven there's no calorie counting...), and politely asked the guy to let me be on his pride and joy's team. Even how little I can remember him, I can picture this going on, him with his amazing talent at showcasing an unavoidable puppy dog look, something which skipped a generation, in my mom, and was handed straight down to me. However, the puppy dog look was given an added twitch of both sarcasm and hostility when it landed in my lap, which ends up giving me a slightly frantic and urgent look.
I'll make the baseball stories quick. There's not much to tell, other than my pure hatred of playing. It wasn't that I hated the game itself, however. It was my void of any talent whatsoever that pushed me over the edge. I dreaded going to practice. I found myself getting panic attacks each and every game, which garnered mixed results such as pissing myself while playing third base, which happened on two seperate occasions. I disguised it well and I don't think anyone even noticed because I always made sure my pants were nice and dirty by the second or third inning. I would strike out and bury myself back in the clubhouse, wanting to break down and go home.
My father, the supportive parent that he was, was constantly encouraging me, trying to provide any comfort he possibly could to make sure I knew he was still proud of me. For two of those wretched seasons, he was an assistant coach on the team, trying to make it to a practice or game whenever his oppressive work schedule permitted. I don't think he found the time to be there because of his love for the game, though he did have a passion for it. No, I think he was there because my dad, from a very early age of my life, started to notice that I was a bit on the fragile side. I think he saw how much I struggled to be a normal kid and, though he never said it, wanted to be there in case I finally had my impending breakdown.
The moment I had played my last game of little league baseball, I took of that glove and buried it deep in my bedroom closet, knowing that I'd never need it again. I went back to enjoying the game as a spectator and didn't regret it in the least. A few years later I went to some batting cages to remind myself how much I really did suck, and it only took about seven swings before the task at hand was accomplished.

His name was Mike, and he was on that Dover Elks Lodge team. He was one of the only kids on the team I made a slight effort in communicating with, and he seemed to enjoy me. We were in the same grade, so as I started junior high, we were finally in the same school. We hung out a bit, seeing as we knew each other well enough to do so, and on his end, I think he needed to know he had some friends in the new environment we were all thrown into. He had an older sister that took us to the high school football games on friday nights, where we would spend the time half paying attention to the game and the other half looking for other kids we went to school with to hang out for a few hours.
We'd sit at the same table at lunch, which was a relief to me on that first day of school. The cafeteria is a little piece of hell in it's ownright. You walk in there and wonder who your friends are going to be, who's going to let you sit at their table and welcome you. Years later I found the glory in sitting by yourself while there. Some time around a month into that seventh grade year, Mike stopped sitting at the table, opting to sit with other school friends he had made. We still hung out on occasion, but more times than not as the weeks progressed, Mike would cancel our after school plans, always having something else to do. A few weeks later, he started to forget he knew me.
Weeks after that, we had somehow turned into enemies. I don't think there's ever a way to figure out when a lot of things start to go south in a friendship, especially at that age. It just happened. We would walk past each other in the hallway, and he'd always have some verbal bullets to shoot out. This was before I found my venom tongue, so most of the time I would just look at him in a disgusted confusion, not sure how things had got to that point. It went on for months, until one day I wasn't in the mood to hear anything come out of him. He opened his mouth and I pushed him into a wall and shouted something like, "This ends now....". It had no authority behind it. It was all the effort I wanted to put into the situation, already tired of trying to figure out how friendships were supposed to work and how come they fall apart so quickly. Mike just curled up his lips into an obnoxious little grin and pushed me back, knowing he'd finally gotten me to break from my apathetic demeanor. A teacher seperated the short lived scuffle before anything escalated.
From that day on, Mike made no effort to mess with me in the hallway. I'd love to say it was my forceful nature, that I intimidated him from the moment I put my hands on him and backed him into that wall. I'd love to say that, back then, I had already figured out how to ruin a life and silence the assholes. But, truth be told, I don't think he ever messed with me again because another friend of mine, also named MIke, heard that he was messing with me that day, and knocked him out in the middle of a classroom.