Aug 24 2008 Denver, CO Aug 25 2008 Denver, CO @ Ellie Caulkins Opera House Aug 26 2008 Long Island, NY Aug 27 2008 Long Island, NY Aug 28 2008 Long Island, NY Aug 31 2008 Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field Sep 3 2008 Southfield, MI @ college show Sep 4 2008 E. Lansing, MI @ MSU Auditorium Sep 6 2008 Allentown, PA @ Crocodile Rock Sep 7 2008 Atlantic City, NJ @ House Of Blues Sep 8 2008 Baltimore, MD @ Recher Theater Sep 10 2008 Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel Sep 11 2008 Charleston, SC @ Music Farm Sep 12 2008 Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club Sep 13 2008 Gainseville, FL @ Real Big Deal Festival Sep 15 2008 New Orleans, LA @ House Of Blues Sep 17 2008 Urbana, IL @ Canopy Club Sep 18 2008 Columbia, MO @ Blue Note Sep 19 2008 Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall Sep 22 2008 Louisvile, KY @ Club Oasis Sep 23 2008 Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall Sep 25 2008 Johnson City, NY @ Magic City Music Hall Sep 26 2008 Los Angeles, CA @ Rehearsal Sep 27 2008 Los Angeles, CA @ Rehearsal Sep 28 2008 Los Angeles, CA @ Rehearsal Sep 29 2008 Los Angeles, CA @ Rehearsal Sep 30 2008 Los Angeles, CA @ Rehearsal Oct 1 2008 Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theater Oct 2 2008 Nashville, TN @ Rocketown Oct 10 2008 Antwerp, Belgium Oct 11 2008 Antwerp, Belgium @ TMF Awards Oct 12 2008 London, England @ Radio 1 Event Oct 13 2008 Paris, France @ Le Cigale Oct 14 2008 Koln, Germany @ Live Music Hall Oct 15 2008 Berlin, Germany @ Huxley's Oct 16 2008 Munich, Germany @ Tonhalle Oct 18 2008 Dublin, Ireland @ RDS Main Hall Oct 19 2008 Birmingham, England @ N.E.C. Arena Oct 21 2008 Glasgow, Scotland @ SECC Oct 22 2008 London, England @ Wembley Arena Oct 23 2008 London, England @ Jonathon Ross Oct 24 2008 Paris, France @ Star Academy Oct 25 2008 Lille, France @ Le Zenith Oct 26 2008 Amsterdam, The Netherlands @ Melkweg Oct 28 2008 Toronto, Ontario
It's 2AM right now. Exactly twenty minutes ago I felt nostalgic about my old job after getting in contact with a former co-worker who I share a mutual friend with. As the current climate of social networking would have it, I am "friends" with my old job and its former employees here on good ol' myspace, and I decided to poke around and see who's up to what these days.
A click here and a click there and I land myself at someone's page who I haven't talked to in probably 7 years. I start reading this person's blog and it's actually kind of funny. I always knew him to be a funny guy and when we worked together I like to think we got along okay. At least that's how I remember it.
Anyway, I keep clicking back through the archives and I finally get to this one part which says something to the effect of "people like Brian Diaz" who... etc etc.. something negative. At first I felt stupid, which I guess would be the intended effect this person was going for. Then I was a little hurt and started to wonder how many other people I have thought I had a good friendship with who just couldn't wait to have me out of their lives. Have I been an oblivious idiot to this all this time?
Then I thought... you know what? FUCK YOU DUDE. I was nice to you when everyone else was talking shit about you behind your back. You told me your whole life story and your current state of problems and I listened. I was the only person who gave you anything on Christmas one year and it looked like you were going to fucking cry. Granted it was just a CD and we worked in a goddamn record store, but still... You need to blog about something I said off-handedly to you 7+ years later??
I'm glad now that I've been an asshole all my life that people wanted to get rid of. It's gotten me where I am now and I have no one to thank but me. I have great friends now, a good life, and a good job.
Jesus....This whole quitting smoking thing is really making me edgy.
Anyway, if you're reading this it's probably because you're subscribed to my MySpace blog... well, my actual blog has some new stuff on it... do check it out at .......
- A human being being hurled down the length of a bowling lane. Did I mention this was located in a HOTEL ROOM?!?
- A short nap.
- A room full of rolled up money and people talking really fast and passionately about really intimate and personal details about their lives with total strangers.
- I'm not sure if I hallucinated this one or not, but Ashlee Simpson completely clothed in a hot tub. Maybe it was someone who looked like her.
- 5:30 AM, Jesse Johnson wins $10,000 dollars playing blackjack. It was the most joyous moment of... ever, i think. We giggled like schoolgirls and returned to the bar downstairs. At 6AM. If you ever need to know what absolute despair is like, head down to a casino in Las Vegas between the hours of 5-7 AM. You'll kind of want to die.
This is what $10,000 in $100 bills looks like, by the way...
Currently
listening
:
Make Up the Breakdown
By
Hot Hot Heat
Release date: 08 October, 2002
In 3 short days I'll be 31. Good god. How did this happen? Haven't I done enough to my body to make it stop working already? It's amazing how resilient the human body is actually. I'm surprised I've made it this far.
With my impeding age increase (that's what I like to refer to it as) I have some things on my mind that are totally unrelated. Ready? Here we go!
5-star hotel service
I'm not a 5-star guy. My first experiences with hotels were staying in Days Inn and Holiday Inn with my parents on vacation. When I first started touring, we slept on floors and in the van. We barely ever stayed in hotels. If by chance we happened to make enough money to stay in one, we would all stay in one room, essentially sleeping 8 people in one room on top of one another. I was in a fucking ska band... lay off.
In my later days of touring, I have grown accustomed to staying at hotels with fancy names, concierge service, expensive internet and expensive minibars. I kind of hate it sometimes. I kind of wish these guys would just put me up in a Holiday Inn. It would be cheaper for them, and I wouldn't have to deal with constant calls from the front desk asking me if I'd like my bed turned down or have my room serviced. That's why there's a DO NOT DISTURB sign on my doorknob. I do not want to be disturbed. I can carry my own bags to my room. I'm not THAT old yet. I don't need to pay some guy extra money to get them there after I've been in my room for 15 minutes. Also, these "fancy" hotels always have some ridiculous bathroom arrangement. Whether its some stupid fancy faucet that only a rocket scientist could figure out, or a glass "curtain" for the shower. That's the worst. All it does is make the whole floor wet. My favorite is the giant window in the shower looking into the bedroom. What is this? An hourly porn hotel? What if I decide to take a shower while people are hanging out in my room? I know, that's weird, but hey.. I'm a weird guy. I guess I can't take a shower without people staring at my soapy ass. I don't even like thinking about it.
In the end, I don't need 5-star service. 5-star hotels kind of suck.
Freegans
Well this is about as stupid as humans get. If you don't know what a freegan is visit freegan.info and prepare to have your mind blown by people who can't just come out and say what they really mean.... don't understand? Let me break it down for you. Here are some of the selling points of freeganism and what they really mean...
Waste Reclamation - According to the freegan.info site : "This practice of affluent societies produces an amount of waste so enormous that many people can be fed and supported simply on its trash. As freegans we forage instead of buying to avoid being wasteful consumers ourselves, to politically challenge the injustice of allowing vital resources to be wasted while multitudes lack basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter, and to reduce the waste going to landfills and incinerators which are disproportionately situated within poor, non-white neighborhoods, where they cause elevated levels of cancer and asthma." Oh.... so you despise the much needed waste management systems of the world so you eat garbage? Just say that's what you do. You go through the trash and pull things out that others have deemed no longer useful and you eat them. People throw away food and other items for all sorts of reasons. The food has gone bad, the clothes are torn, the furniture is broken beyond repair, etc. etc. This isn't a practice of "affluent society" that they claim it is. Everyone from wealthy down to the poorest throws things away. I'm not going to eat 3 week old bread because it's "perfectly fine". And, there are waste dumps all over the country. Not just in "non-white neighborhoods". Give me a fucking break. I'm not going to eat garbage because someone chooses to live near a dump.
Rent Free Housing - The freegans say : "Squatters believe that real human needs are more important than abstract notions of private property, and that those who hold deed to buildings but won't allow people to live in them, even in places where housing is vitally needed"
I say "fuck right off". Abstract notions? How fucking abstract is money PAID to someone else for something they OWN. I pay money to a landlord for my apartment. I can choose to have no objects in there and not even be there at all, ever. It's still mine via my landlord. People aren't allowed to live in those buildings because they don't have the money to pay for them. Simple as that. Welcome to capitalist society. Strap on your seatbelt and get ready for the ride of your life, because without MONEY you aren't getting very far. Even the biggest douchebags in the city of Chicago can afford an apartment without having to break the law (i.e. steal housing by squatting). I don't ever want to hear that people aren't "allowed" to do something. That's an excuse people use when they're lazy. Law defeats punk rock ideals every time.
Working Less - "By accounting for the basic necessities of food, clothing, housing, furniture, and transportation without spending a dime, freegans are able to greatly reduce or altogether eliminate the need to constantly be employed. We can instead devote our time to caring for our families, volunteering in our communities, and joining activist groups to fight the practices of the corporations who would otherwise be bossing us around at work."
Okay, so if you steal, eat garbage, and live in illegal housing, you and your freegan family can eliminate the need to be "bossed around at work". Excuse me.... just say "I don't want to work, I want to play all day" because that's exactly what you're doing. Everyone works at some point. Get over it. Unless you were born a billionaire playboy, work is on your not so distant agenda. I work, you work (or have at some point). It's how we can all afford fancy stuff like food, and clothes, and a home. Not everyone works for some evil corporation. Some people have figured out how to be moderately successful on a small scale on their own. It's something called "not being lazy".
Basically all of this is an outline on how to be homeless. My question is, where the fuck did they get the computer to make this website. Didn't THAT cost money? Or did they dumpster dive a Windows 95 Packard-Bell from someone's trash? I wonder.
Basically, freegans make me mad and I kind of want to punch one in the face.
Happy birthday to me.
Currently
listening
:
Dear You
By
Jawbreaker
Release date: 02 March, 2004
I have lost my keys a total of 4 times in my life. This includes automobile keys, house keys, and the front door keys for Tower Records, where I was a store supervisor responsible for opening and closing the store. With people like me in charge is it any wonder they went under?
INCIDENT 1 : THE ROOFING
The first time I lost my keys I was probably about 13 years old. I used to keep my house key on a loop of string which I kept in my pocket. Every day when I would come home from school I would have the added responsibility of going down the street to get my, then, 8 year old sister from the bus stop and walking her home lest any harm should come to her in Deer Park, New York, located in an area with the lowest crime rate in the United States. In addition to walking my sister home I was instructed to lock the door behind me. I was walking maybe ... 1000 feet.... to the corner to get her. On the way back up to the house I decided to swing the loop of keys around into the front lawn somewhere and pretend that I had lost them. My sister found this quite amusing and then decided that she would take a turn at it to see if I could find them, swinging them right onto the roof of the house, where they would stay until that house burned down in 1996. We didn't get in until I got my neighbor Matilda, the one with the blind husband, to let us in, because for some reason she had a set of keys to my parents' house.
INCIDENT 2 : THE PRACTICING
In the early 00's I was in a band. Before we toured we practiced a god awful amount, which is ironic because we were god awful. Okay, we weren't that bad. In fact we have been told that we were catchy and even had a song in a video game and on MTV's TRL for a while (as the theme song, no less). Shit, we even took my current employers on tour for a month in the summer, which would incidentally turn out to the be the breaking point for our pop rock juggernaut. During this time I was employed at the Tower Records of Massapequa, NY. I was loved there. So much so that without any training or advance warning really, I was made a store supervisor which basically meant that I could run the ticket machine, sit in the back reading magazines while clerks worked up front, deal with irate customers who disagreed with our inane return policy, smoke weed on my lunch breaks, and most importantly, at least once a week, I would have to either close or open the store.
After a full day of working til 9pm and then heading directly to a marathon practice session terminating at somewhere around 3am, I fell asleep in our studio space which was conveniently located less than half a mile from the record store which I had to open back up at 9am for the breakfast rush of customers who would surely be coming in to buy the latest releases from Limp Bizkit or Disturbed or whatever the hell was popular in winter of 2001. I trudged through the snow to my car which was now frozen over with ice and impossible to unlock. Great. Now I'm running in and out of the rehearsal space to get cups of hot water to pour on my lock in hopes of melting the ice. Somehow in doing this I must have dropped my store key, which I didn't realize until I walked up to the door of the store, which at this point had two of my clerks standing outside of waiting for me to save them from the brutal cold. Now we're all standing here with no way in, and just as I'm about to get myself fired for being a complete fuck-up by calling my boss to come 40 minutes out to the store to unlock the door, one of the other supervisors rolls up to the store. Apparently I wasn't even supposed to be there that day.
I was never cut out for retail work. I found the key later that night in the rehearsal space couch.
INCIDENT 3 : THE BIRTHDAY
On my 30th birthday, as we often do in my house, we had a party. A rager. Earlier in the day, after consuming many a drink we decided it was a "key party" for a few minutes. We all put our keys in a bowl so we could swap them and ... i don't know. Whatever we were thinking was stupid. Since I have the memory of a guy with no memory when I'm drunk, minutes later I had forgotten about my keys. Fast forward to the next morning (because I forgot all the in between parts) I woke up with no keys and a pounding headache. I spent the whole day tearing apart my apartment looking for those keys. Looked through every drawer, in the couch, in the trash....
They finally turned up in the back of the refrigerator. How they got there is a mystery to me. Third set of keys lost, 2nd recovery!
INCIDENT 4 : THE THEFT
As some of you may know my computer, and basically all of my electronics were stolen in England in April. My house keys were in there, along with the keys to my parents' house. There's nothing really outstanding or funny about this story, unless of course you find it humorous to give police officers in the UK a detailed description of your computer ("ummm, its a white apple computer"), your camera ("it's silver"), your bag ("its black"), or your keys ("they're keys... on a ring").
No, nothing strange about that... The thing that's bizarre, which happens anytime I have lost my keys, or my wallet, or anyone in my family has done this (most recently my sister), my dad suggest....no, INSISTS, that he change the locks to the house. He is completely convinced that someone is coming to empty out the house. Like some dude who finds a set of keys with no address attached to them is going to try every house on Long Island until.... JACKPOT!! And even in the 1 in 75,348,242,123,093,143,001 chance this very persistent and patient criminal finds my parents' house, what the hell are they going to take? The Foreman Grill--? The giant 1995 version 1 non-widescreen flatscreen that weighs about 1000 lbs.? Their collection of salsa and merengue CDs? A treadmill? This is made more improbable by the fact that I lost my only set of keys that wasn't recovered in England.
So, I guess this long winded blog is basically saying this... I think if my parents had never been paranoid of crime in the relative safe confines of Suffolk County, New York and let me just leave the goddamned front door open while I walked 1000 feet to get my sister from the bus stop, I wouldn't have started a long tradition of losing my keys and my dad freaking out about changing the locks.
And, you wouldn't have to hear about it.
Currently
listening
:
Graduation
By
Kanye West
Release date: 11 September, 2007
On August 7th I left Chicago, IL for Mexico City. From there I went to Tokyo, Osaka, Russia, Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, England and Scotland, and then back to Chicago on August 27th. Literally, I circumnavigated the entire world in 20 days. To say it was tiring is an understatement.
For the first time in a long time, I was a tourist in places I had never been before. In fact, I tried to do the tourist thing in every city we went to, whether I had been there before or not. Every morning I walked somewhere, every spare hour I had I spent exploring cities and taking pictures of random things. I got to see some amazing architecture, famous places, and weird food markets. I ate some local fare, hung out where the locals hang out, learned a few choice words in the local languages ... and guess what? I liked it.
Everyone thinks I'm this impatient, angry, world hater... but I'm really not. I just never have time to experience anything. I feel like my office changes every day and the only thing that changes is the scenery outside my window which I never get to experience. I, along with my cohorts, made a concerted effort to see things this time around. Even with no days off we were able to explore and walk around, and take things in. We at least tried to feel a little normal in all the down time we had. I guess its hard to feel normal when you fly to a new country every day and then when you're at work you turn around and Ashlee Simpson, Scott Ian of Anthrax, and Rhianna are standing behind you... and you know them personally.
After all these years I have developed patience and appreciation of things, of some sort. I have a desire to see things again and re-experience the world that I've been treating as my personal hotel for years.
I'll post some pictures one of these days... i have some of them up already in my pictures section. Theres a few up here for me and my crew to share. But, you can look at 'em too.
I must say although its been amazing, it's also good to be home and see Chicago Mexicans and eat a lunch special from China Fast Wok. I missed the shit out of those guys.
Currently
listening
:
Tha Carter
By
Lil Wayne
Release date: 29 June, 2004
It's not great, but I think these will work. The following are all grounds for capital punishment (carried out by your choice of being hanged, drawn and quartered or firing squad). I worked on these with Ross. We need time to refine these.
- Driving on the shoulder during traffic. We all understand that you're a COMPLETE douchebag, but why do you get to drive in the emergency/breakdown lane during traffic that the rest of us have to sit in?!?
- Paying with a check in public. It will still be okay to mail in a check to pay your bills and rent. You're even allowed to slip a check under someone's door. But, when you're in line at Target and you're holding up everyone else because you're paying for your Spaghetti-O's and the latest Us Weekly magazine with a check for $6 when EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD USES A DEBIT CARD... well we have to take you to the gallows for that one. The thing is, you can still pay for shit with a check, and the store will still cash it. But, if you get caught.... dead.
- Talking about living in a storefront apartment. Wow, look at me! I can have a wacky little storefront. Maybe I'll have shows in that storefront. Or maybe I'll run my 'vegan grocery/bike collective/art gallery/used record store/thrift swap/hippie-punk commune/screen printing operation/jewelry repair/bullshit excuse to continue getting money from my parents' out of the storefront. Oh yeah... my bedroom has no windows because I live in what's supposed to be the storage closet.
- Asking the waiter/waitress to adjust your bill (for less than $5). Don't be petty. So what... they charged you for an extra quesadilla? Move on. The thing is, being a server and fucking up a bill will also be punishable by death, so pay the $5 and relish in the fact that he/she will be dead before you know it.
- Quoting news stories from the Red Eye. Only excusable if you're between the ages of 5-12.
- Being 13 years old. How annoying are those fuckers!?? It's, like, GROW UP already awkward 13 year old with zits. Grow up, or be killed.
- People who answer the phone by going "YELLO!". I want to tear your eyeballs out. For serious.
- Asking a total stranger anything. This oughta put the kibosh on anyone at all bothering you. The streets outside your house will be perfectly silent. That homeless guy that bothers you on the way to the train for spare change? Yeah, we "took care" of him.
Now that everyone is living in complete fear and all the douchebags and minor personal annoyances have been removed from the gene pool isn't society way better a/k/a scarier?
Currently
listening
:
Live from Austin, TX
By
Guided by Voices
Release date: 15 May, 2007
In one of the most bizarre accusations/scenarios of my life I was accused of hating Hawaiian people in Red Robin restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah. The best part is that I wasn't even there for it.
Me, AJ, Matt, Kadaver, and 2 of AJ's female friends headed over from the boring day at the venue to Red Robin for some tasty burgers. We sat down and AJ's friend Heather didn't take off her sunglasses. In true Larry David fashion (actually what I said was realy a Larry David line) I told her "Take off your sunglasses. Only two types of people wear sunglasses indoors : blind people and assholes." The woman sitting behind our table did not find this amusing. I figured because I has said "asshole" out loud while sitting in public. Sometimes I forget that I'm not in the catering room and that real life exists outside of tour.
Anyway, I apologized to the woman and continued on with my conversation. We ordered food, waited, and right before it showed up I went to the bathroom. When I returned there was a large Pacific Islander looking man sitting with the offended woman. I announced that I had found it strange that there was a large framed poster of Jennifer Love Hewitt in the bathroom. Everyone at our table was eating their food in silence. Every so often AJ and his friend would look at me and choke back a laugh. I figured there was something on my face or something like that. Nothing. I thought maybe someone had spit in my food, or maybe I had chosen the wrong type of seasoning for my fries. I could not figure out why everyone was laughing, clearly at me.
I freak out.
"FUCKING OUT WITH IT!! WHAT IS EVERYONE'S PROBLEM!?"
Nothing. I get a text from Matt.
Word for word what it reads : "The guy in the booth in front of us freaked out on us when you were in the bathroom... his girl told him something about how you were talking shit or something."
The first thing I try to assess is the sharpness of the silverware. I could probably hurt a small child with the knife, but no real damage to an adult. And, especially not to this giant fucking angry Samoan, or Tongan, or whatever dude who is staring EXTREMELY HARD at me with enormous clenched fists firmly planted on the table.
I have no idea what he thought I said. All I could think is that this woman told him I was swearing in public and he wasn't having it. The entire time she was on the phone speaking in some language I could not identify and he was completely silent and staring.
FINALLY, our meal ends awkwardly and we walk out into the parking lot where everyone bursts into insane laughter.
Apparently while I was in the bathroom, the woman at the table behind us told her gigantic Hawaiian husband/boyfriend/whatever that I had said something negative about Hawaiians. I guess MAYBE she mistook "...blind people and assholes..." for "Hawaiian people are assholes". When he heard about this he got up, SCREAMING, red in the face...
"WHO HATES HAWAIIANS!?? WHO HERE HAS A PROBLEM WITH HAWAIIANS!??!"
To which he was met with the repsonse : "..... lions? what are you saying?"
"HAWAIIANS!!!! WHO HATES HAWAIIANS?!?!"
"dude.. no one here hates Hawaiians... what are you even talking about?"
The woman then informs them that it was "the guy who left."
Meanwhile, I was in the bathroom inspecting posters of JLH and marvelling over the fact that most restrooms in the world have switched over to that foamy soap that I really like.
Let's get some things straight :
- I love Hawaii. I have ZERO problems with Hawaiians. I have Hawaiian friends. I have visited there twice.
- Kadaver almost wore a Hawaiian shirt that day. Not a Hawaiian hater.
- Ironically, most Native Hawaiians hate mainlanders and especially caucasians. Ever heard the word "haole"? Yeah... it means you. (AKA NOT-Hawaiian). I've been called haole before on the North Shore. Not cool.
Anyway... just thought I'd get that out there. I will never write the word "Hawaiian" again. Mainly because it has 4 vowels in a row. And, I hate that.
Currently
listening
:
Virulence
By
Only Crime
Release date: 23 January, 2007
