XXI

Just as incessant drinking put a temporary end to all this, unemployment brings it back to life.

Over the last couple weeks our traveling gang of problem drinkers hit the first leg of our world tour. During the 16 hours we spent driving to and from New York City, we listened almost exclusively to mix cd's from 2003, an all-christmas music radio station, and the same two David Cross cd's about 10 times over. Obviously a fan of his from Arrested Development, I had never actually listened to his stand-up. Silly me. It was good. I think %8-10 of the conversation over the entire 4 days was just quoting him, and the record "Shut Up You Fucking Baby" has maybe the greatest description of binge drinking I've heard outside of my own head.


David Cross - "Shut Up You Fucking Baby!" Disc 1 (2002)
David Cross - "Shut Up You Fucking Baby!" Disc 2 (2002)

XX

"He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise."

-William Blake



Elvis Costello and the Attractions - "The Very Best Of..." (1994)

XIX

The rain from Hanna has just started. I hope we get crushed. The one time I was in a bad storm I was sitting on the beach in LBI, and as this big, black cloud rolled in, the wind picked up. I started walking back, but the wind got so strong it was almost impossible to move forwards. Shit started flying everywhere, and when i eventually made it home, i couldn't even get the door open. It ruled. C'moooon, storm.



Bob Dylan - "The Freewheelin Bob Dylan" (1963)

XVIII

Ever take a nap in the middle of the day and the very first thing you think, and consequently say out loud, is "WHY?"

Me either.



Marvin Gaye - "What's Going On" (1971)

XVII

I haven't done enough pool-hopping lately. It was a great way to pass the time when we were in high school and had no cars or anything to do. We'd just walk around from house to house, looking for the ones with pools, jump in and bolt. Eventually I guess that lost its luster, because it got to the point where we rang a doorbell and asked if we could swim in the pool, the answer obviously being no. Then we discovered that the town pool has a much better payoff with much less risk, sealing it as the ultimate aquatic trespass. I miss hiding when we thought we saw cop cars, or running into the woods barefoot when we definitely saw cop cars. I miss the absolute pain of sliding down a giant slide that isn't lubricated with running water. Those were the days. I'm much more mature now. I spend my time drinking until I can't see and passing out drunk on the beach in the middle of the afternoon. I'm a grown up.



Rilo Kiley - "More Adventurous" (1994)

XVI

I really have nothing to say at all, except time is a motherfucker and summer is a dickhead of a season.



Big Star - "Third/Sister Lovers" (1992)

XV

I got my first introduction to Sonic Youth through some interview with Kurt Cobain in which he said he dug them, which prompted me to download "Teenage Riot" via Napster. I liked it, so I downloaded more, all of which I pretty much hated. I didn't get all the noise. I didn't go back to them until probably last year, by which point I finally understood.

I'm currently living out of my car and it seems like every time I get in it Sonic Youth is playing, hence the boring, "who gives a fuck" story.



Sonic Youth - "Daydream Nation" (1988)

XIV

It's 4 am, I'm drinking, forgive me for any incoherence.

There was a regrettable period of my life where I was a mallrat. We'd take the bus there every Friday after school, and just walk around being obnoxious, which is really all I did for the first 20 years of my life anyway, just in different venues. Before we went, I would always go into our basement where my mom kept the money she held for the school store, and take 20 or 30 bucks. It still kind of amazes me to this day that she never caught on, because I was pretty liberal about how much I took. I used the money for three things: food, bus fare, and CD's. This was at the time where I was the only person I knew into punk, so I was on my own as far as discovering bands. A good way of doing this while staying within my limited budget was buying comps, the first of which I bought was Punk-O-Rama 4. There's a bunch of really good songs on it, and I still listen to it almost 10 years later. Among a bunch of others, it was my first introduction to Bad Religion, with their song Generator.
The same year I stumbled upon this gem, I went to Long Beach Island for a week with my dad and my two brothers. I met a bunch of surfer kids that lived on the street I was staying at who pointed me in the direction of a halfway decent record store. I can't remember what else I bought, but I picked up Generator, the album whose title track I was so fond of. I had only heard one song, but I was not disappointed. The music had a level of sincerity that I had not encountered prior and which still resonates with me now, drunk and bitter.
There was a kid we hung out with in my mallrat days who went to see Blink 182, and Bad Religion opened for them. He came back from the show and said that some band of old dudes played and everyone there hated and heckled them. I look back on him telling me that as the first moment that I started to hate the general population.



Bad Religion - "Generator" (1992)

XIII

The summer between my junior and senior year of high school I spent a lot of time walking around our small, 2 square mile town. Only two of our friends had licenses, so mostly we all just moved about on foot, meeting in parks and parking lots and doing stupid things you do as a stupid kid. I did this armed with my trusty walkman (wow) by my side, usually containing a mix cd I had made. Around this same time I started getting really into noisy/screamo bands like Orchid and You and I. I spent many days walking through the gully where the old trolley used to run in Glen Rock, listening to what I consider now to be mostly unlistenable music. There are a few records that I still throw on every once and awhile though, one being the Neil Perry/Kaospilot split. I had never heard of Kaospilot and bought the record because I was really into Neil Perry. However, that riff in "The Noise From the Bell Killed Me" ended up stealing the show. Unfortunately their follow-up LP proved disappointing. The last track on the Neil Perry side is my favorite of theirs.



Neil Perry/Kaospilot split

XII

RIP





Drive-By Truckers - A Blessing and a Curse"