The sleeve begins...

Fuck. Seriously, is that not beautiful. This boy's amazing.

I included this shot just to show how swollen my arm got. My skin is such a baby.


Obviously, it was worth it.

Sitcom Novel?

So I have this retarded/brilliant idea I've been passing around through the corners of my mind for a little while now. See, I don't like short stories, but I love novels. I don't like movies, but I love TV. It doesn't seem to make much sense, that I want to read full-length but watch 30 minutes at a time. I really like the self-contained plot, but then watching the characters grow throughout a season, watch them and their lives develop as they grow and change. Never has this been more brilliantly played out than in the Office. It's basically perfect. And I want to do it in novel form.

Yeah, I don't know, a sitcom novel. It would basically feature the same cast of characters, probably two to four main characters with eight to ten ancillary characters that operate throughout the whole novel. The book itself would be divided into somewhere between fifteen and twenty sections, of approximately the same length. These sections would include a self-contained storyline and basically read like an episode of a TV show.

And that's about as far as I've thought it out. But I'm pretty sure I want to use the characters from this short story I wrote. I just have to figure out an overarching plot line and then all the minor little events that will make up the sections.

So what do we think? IM me or comment, bitte?

Bah.

1) You know how people in the media talk about college students that graduate with loads of credit card debts and then they cut to some tent set up outside of spring break and some doofusy girl is talking about how she knows it's bad to have debt, but oh well. That's me, minus the whole spring break scenario.

2) I like to fancy myself some kind of music nerd. Then I talk to actual music nerds and realize I'm not. Alas, I have a life that involves things that aren't music. Like TV and drinking and writing and studying. It sucks but it's true. This was never more apparent than my stuttering, retarded interview with American Steel in which Rory proceeded to be the nicest dude ever and I pretended to have a single clue what I was talking about. Result: I'm a douchebag.

3) I'm tired. And I don't give two shits about school at all. Hence my grades are going to suck and my parents are going to spend all of Thanksgiving break poking me with sticks. It's how they punish us. Just poke, poke, poke.

4) I'm still deciding what I will ask Lincoln's advice for when I go to DC this weekend. Mr. Lincoln, how do I get my printer to stop dog-earing all my papers? Please, you freed the slaves and started and then ended the bloodiest war in American history, so surely you must know how to fix this.

This motherfucker is bad ass.

Don't tell my mom you guys.

- "Great Lakes/Great Escapes"//The Lawrence Arms (Oh! Calcutta!)

Modern Life is like picking berries on a sweet summer's eve

Modern Life is War at the Beat Kitchen 9/9.

Week in Review

My room is trashed. I'm currently surrounded by discarded Coke cans and beer bottles, plus an old pizza and my clothes, which have managed to explode out of my room into the hallway. There are various snack foods ingrained into the carpet. I haven't changed my clothes in two days. I spent the last of my money buying a cheap cheeseburger and some generic form of Dayquil. I've been sick all week and ensconced in newspaper, so my schedule has been sleep, class, newspaper; repeat. I stared at InDesign for over eight hours yesterday. I thought I was going crazy, plus I was swearing revenge on vigilante freshmen journalists who don't fucking understand what being 'unbiased' means. They also don't understand the difference between 'conspiracy theories 'and 'facts.' I know, it's a fine line. I skipped class today, again (off to a real great start!) and am contemplating if I should reply to this email the lead singer of Orange sent me, defending the similarities between "Suburban Home" by the Descendents and his own song "Republicans." I care way too much about people liking me (whether it seems that way or not). I'm going to Walgreens to go buy some new food with money I don't have. If I can get through Saturday night and only spend the last five dollars in cash I have, oh boy, I will be so fucking proud.


I can't decide if this is perfect or really lame.


I do wish my apartment didn't smell like ashen popcorn though. Ugh, roommates.

Many Days Have Passed

My drinking exploits this weekend have left me a little fucked up. Friday night I tripped over my jeans and fell on the corner of this trunk in my room and am now rocking a major bottleneck bruise. Last night I just couldn't get my ass on the barstool at the L&L so I landed on the floor like a cockroach on its back and that somehow fucked up my ankle. Sometime after that is where my memory cuts out. Too much beer. I handle the first like, four beers real well, then I get to about eight and I should be done, but at that point I need beers like Meursault needed water that fateful day on the beach. So anyway, I hit the point past counting, which I think means about 12 and I'm gone. Only this time I seriously was gooooone. Black out! Shout it out loud, the devil's keeping time on the brake pad now.*

Gross.

Two of these, about four cans of Miller Lite, two Old Styles and then who knows.

In conclusion, I'm out forty bucks at least.

I can't say I'm filled with pride. Blacking out does not equal pride. Not only that but I've basically spent the whole weekend in a venomous booze-filled haze or asleep. I think I've been sober a whole six hours out of the past 48. And to where am I headed tonight? A bar. A bar with cheap beer and punk rock. Goddammit.










*The Falcon/"Blackout"

A Cent and a Half

Now that I've stolen Against Me!'s latest album, New Wave, from my editor and have listened to it, I can safely say the following:

Against Me! sold out. Not their punk ethics nor their original anarcho-stance nor their Gainesville roots--they sold out their fans.

See, after Green Day made their epic move to Reprise from Lookout! and got endless and increasing shit for being sell-outs, no punk band can move to a major and not expect to get shit on. Green Day could feign ignorance to the reaction. Nobody else since could ever doubt the shit storm. My question is therefore always, why? Why take the heat? Is the financial and promotional support really worth it? For the millionaire members of Green Day the gamble obviously paid off and wound up with them being the biggest band in America over the past couple years. Whether AM!'s gamble will pay off or not is yet to be seen. I doubt it though. And in the meanwhile, they isolated their older fans. They didn't appear to give two fucks what their fans thought about their move to Sire or any of the overproduced, boring music that followed. My impression of the situation is that Against Me! chose not to care about their fans because they thought, "Hey, we don't need you, we'll make a more accessible album and replace you." Not. Cool.

However, all was not lost. If AM! did make an incredible record, we could forgive and forget their major status and move on. They essentially had to prove that the punk ethics and boxed-in sound was indeed, restricting them. They had to make London Calling II. And they didn't. They made some slick, boring, toned-down Butch Viggy sounding record. They made an album that sounds like some-band-pretending-to-be-Against Me!. These guys were all punk and passion, they were fucking roots rock. Not only did the expensive studio sound not work in furthering their music, it tears them away from what made them Against Me! in the first place.

I waited for the album's release to pass judgment on these controversial minstrels. I went to their show a few months ago and had a killer time. I had hope. But now that I've heard New Wave, not only did it confirm my worst suspicions, but the music itself was far worse than I even thought it would be.

In the words of New Wave's miserable excuse for a song, Stop!

This Wasn't Originally What I Was Going To Write About...

I need a job. Fast. But instead of looking for one I've been thinking about freelancing which is so above my head it's less thinking and more fantasizing. Nonetheless...

So last week I hung out with my friend Laura, before becoming part of team effort to finish off my roommate's keg in our kitchen at 4 a.m. We were getting saline solution at Dominicks in Roger's Park and Laura was checking out this guy in front of us. Well, not the guy, but his food choices: whole grain bread, vegetables, low fat granola, cottage cheese, healthy shit. He noticed her inquisitive gaze and some small conversation about health food ensued. She said that lately she noticed that a lot of people make healthy choices. I flashbacked to my days as a bagger at Jewel and tried to remember the general trends. Couldn't recall any, but it raised an interesting question. Are fatty food sales down and health food sales up? Health food is in the media, it's available in the stores, but are we buying it? After all McDonald's attempts to healthy up, thousands of people still order burgers and fries. Is the same true with groceries?

As a journalist, I've been trying to figure out how I can ascertain this information. And wondering how original this idea is. I'm betting I could go to the sources, but seeing as "I'm with the DePaulia" doesn't exactly illicit immediate respect outside of the DePaul/Lincoln Park community, it might not be possible. I'm thinking I explain the idea to Conklin, gather contact information, harass and hound people at Nabisco and Whole Foods, etc. and maybe even do a little spying at the grocery store myself. Hopefully Conklin can work his contacts at the Trib and I could actually get something published outside of The DePaulia or punkbands.com. Michelle Stoffel, future freelance journalist? Better than future desk clerk or Potbelly delivery person...ugh.

And random Lawrence Arms lyrics...
Hesitation was the station I used to get on at. Now it's asshole. Can you picture that?