The inside of his friend's apartment was too small with just one person in it, but with fifteen drunk and eager college students mingling in the living room it felt like a sweat soaked coffin. Ethan needed air, and there was none of that outside. He swayed a little bit as he shoved his way through the crowd, pas the bedroom hallway and through the dining room to the back porch. One other person was standing on the balcony, smoking a cigarette. It wouldn't be clean air, but it would be better than inside. He pushed the stubborn sliding glass door slowly open, it skipped along its track and there was a low grinding sound. It hadn't reached the glass yet. Oh well. It wasn't his security deposit either way. The smoker turned around, it was Alex, a soft spoken man-boy of medium height.
“Oh, it's you,” he said.
Ethan nodded and walked to the railing, looking down three stories to the court yard. “Yeah. Just needed to get out of there, y'know?”
Alex nodded and turned back to the view. There was no one else in the courtyard, but two raccoons were fighting over a scrap of food, probably dropped from the party.
“I didn't know you smoked,” Ethan said.
“Yeah, well,” Alex paused, trying to think of the right phrasing. He did that a lot. “It helps me control my other... cravings.”
Ethan laughed. “Like what, drinking, things like that? It's not much better.”
“Yeah, like that.”
“At least you can drive home afterwards,” Ethan shrugged, “What the hell, you got a spare?”
“Sure.”
Alex handed Ethan a cigarette from the pocket of his jacket, along with a silver lighter. It took Ethan a minute to get the thing started, he didn't smoke too often, only when he was drinking. And that did wonders for his co-ordination. After a few awkward minutes, he handed the lighter back. “Thanks,” he said.
In the courtyard, one raccoon had given up on simply taking the food, and jumped on the other's back, biting its tail at the base. It squealed and dropped the food scraps, trying to shake off his assailant and run. After a brief struggle, he was freed, and the attacker started in on the food with the same ferocity.
“Wow. I had no idea they were that vicious,” Ethan said.
“Anything can be vicious with the right motivation.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, flicking his cigarette down, barely missing the remaining raccoon, “Take humans for example. We're not the most peaceful species, but there's almost always a reason. We get hungry, or angry, or greedy. It's always a need that is satisfied. The need for food. The need for vengeance. The need for other people's shit.”
“I suppose. I can't think of anything I would kill for though.”
“Most people don't, ahead of time. But things can get desperate,” Alex said, kneeling to tie his shoe.
“What about you? Have you thought about what you would do, if you got desperate?”
“Yes,” he said, grabbing Ethan's leg, “I have.” He lifted Ethan quickly, tossing him head first off the balcony. There was a sickening sound like a coconut being opened with a hammer. Alex stood up and looked over the balcony. “Mostly, I do it because it's fun.”
He squinted, looking at the scene below more closely. The raccoon's tail was sticking out from under Ethan's slumped and broken body.
“Hey, two in one shot! New record,” he said, heading back into the party.

At some point last night, my fingernails started to fall off. I didn't notice it. I don't notice anything when I'm working. There are so many machines around me, and I have earphones jammed so tightly in me ears that parts of my earlobes have scabbed over. It is easy to forget that I am human, surrounded by so many machines. Each one has another person, easily two hundred of them, but nobody knows each other's names, or anything about them really. I hardly even notice if some of the other operators were cute. A year ago I could spot a brunette in glasses from three point four miles away, but now I don't notice when my fingernails break off until said fingernails get stuck in the paper track of the machine, setting off alarms. I fish it out with a paper clip. According to this, my fingernails are worth five dollars apiece. At that point, I realized that when the air conditioned breeze flowed across my fingers, it stung. Not a serious mind-blinding pain, mind you. More like a polite interruption, as if my nerves were saying “excuse me, can you spare seventy three cents for gas,” while shaking and twitch from withdrawal.
Nervously, I clocked out, poking at the touch pad time clock. Of course it is not a real keyboard, because nobody could be bothered to learn names. As I type my six digit number, the essence of me, the first knuckle of my index finger cracks. When I pull my hand away, in shock from the noise more than anything else, as it was very distinctive in the loud hum of paper eating machines, the tip of my finger hangs down like the head of a sad dog. I shake my hand. The fingertip wags and sways side to side of it's own accord. It reminded me of a puppet in the hands of an unskilled child. Shocked, I punch the button to open the escape door. It was a fairly large and obvious button, three inches wide and bright red set against the eggshell white walls. The button was not gentle. In fact, it must of resented being presented with my fist, as all four of my knuckles made a sickening popping sound. My littlest finger gave up, and ejected to the floor. Strangely, there was no blood, no sign of a fresh wound on my hand. It was completely healed over. A dull sensation appeared in the back of my head, and I remembered what pain felt like.
No one got up. No one called the ambulance. I could not fit my broken hand into the pocket of my pants, for fear that it would not return. The door opened, satisfied with my sacrifice, and I fled across the abandoned parking lot to my car.
My thumb broke upwards, pointing sinisterly at me, when I pushed the unlock button on my key chain. Nervously I started the car. Putting it into reverse broke off two fingers on my right hand. Putting it in drive locked my hand onto the gear shift. With both hands crippled, I steered out of the parking lot and to the highway with my mouth, teeth being pushed completely into my gums, further with each speed bump on my path out. There were four, and by the time I made it to the street lights I had the smile of a World War Two veteran. I did not feel anything except for shock, and the dull sensation in the back of my head which had started to grow hot. There were voices, jumbled, whispering, yelling. As if someone had started a bonfire in my skull and were drunkenly commanding others to change the music.
I tilted my head left, and tried my best to stay in my lane. A light turned red, and I tried to slam on the brake. The edge of my polished black dress shoe caught on the pedal, snapping my foot off at the ankle. It rolled around in the hollow beneath the dashboard as I swerved around traffic. Other drivers yelled at me through open windows, but I could not roll mine down to yell back. Besides, my mouth was full. The steering wheel was starting to lose the malty fake leather taste, and beginning to taste like acid and the turkey sandwich I swallowed during my fifteen minute break. As I drove further towards home, I realized I must have thrown up. That made me throw up regardless. I have always been the kind of person who does that as a chain reaction, if I see it, or smell it, or think it, I do it. All I could smell was burning cloth, but I was sure. I pulled over and punched the hazard lights with my nose, which felt more comfortable waiting in the car as I spilled roughly three times my essential organs onto the shoulder of the road. I couldn't make out what most of them were, I didn't study anything useful in school, but I could tell my heart was lying on the side of that road halfway between my job and the four hundred square foot box I call home. It beat three times lying in a puddle, turned gray, and sighed. A blue shimmering cloud escaped from it as it shriveled to something resembling a walnut. I smiled, hopped back to my car, and drove the rest of the way home, finally content with what my life had become.

Alright, my mind is working too fast for my own good so I’m writing. It’s not anything of consequence, but it is something to keep my hands occupied and my mind focused.
Last night, one of my friends tried to make the argument that mc chris has sold out and become a douchebag, both to his fans (illustrated by his behavior at both the Orlando and the Jacksonville shows this year) and by his straying from his core subject material resulting in songs like “awesome fucker” (a song which, it is worth noting, mc whined on his facebook that his fans didn’t like, even though it was in his opinion an awesome song).
To this, I have a few responses, the first and foremost being that my friends opinion is not unfounded, and despite what I am about to say, not entirely incorrect. Further, even if he was, we are discussing a musician, and our opinions thereof, which both he and I, as well as anyone reading this, are entitled to.
So, point the first. Douchebag to fans at shows. Actually, fair enough. He doesn’t take the same amount of time after shows to talk to his fans as he did three years ago. This is true. Three years ago
I went to my first show and he stayed after for a good length of time talking and signing things as well as posing for photographs. At the recent Jacksonville show he stayed for a few minutes but quickly left, without interacting too much with his fanbase.
I don’t blame him.
At that show three years ago, the crowd was relatively small, filling about half of the venue, then called the beta bar. Most of the crowd were obviously coding themselves as harmless nerds and some were coded as punks. The crowd was well behaved and participated accordingly, and he reciprocated after the show.
A year later, at the same venue, the venue was packed. Good for him, having a growing fanbase. Yet, drunken college age females (not girls, but certainly not women) rushed the stage and started dancing as if they were in a cage at a strip club, distracting from his show instead of enhancing it. One attendee threw a lit cigarette at mc in the middle of a song. According to show recaps on his forums from other fans, similar sizes of shows and audience behavior was at most of his performances.
Next year, at a free show he threw in Jacksonville, some drunk person hung from a support beam of the club screaming until security dragged him off. Fans booed that merchandise was raised five dollars to support both the cost of the free show as well as mc’s fund raising for cystic fibrosis.
Similar reports flooded from all points on the forums.
I’m sorry, but if my fans behaved like this every night for two years, I would not want to waste my time after a show talking to them either. What is he supposed to do, sign the cigarette that was thrown at him?
Admittedly, surly audiences is part of the entertainment business, but if you had such a devoted and kind audience through four albums and years of touring to be confronted with this, as well as internet trolling on your many networking sites, you would be pissed too. Perhaps it is the cost of being more famous to have more jack tards in your crowd, but also the cost of being a fan of someone more famous is that the connection is necessarily less personal. Ultimately, I do not blame mc for the noticeable shift in tone at his concerts.
Now, as to the derivation from his “core topics”, as illustrated by my friend in the song “awesome fucker”. The argument goes that mc did not used to be so crass and vulgar, and that when he wrote songs about girls they tended to be more personal (care bear, for example) and that the style is shown in recent songs fallin’ and gauges, but that the admittedly vulgar track “awesome fucker” is somehow selling out to hip-hop principles outside of nerdcore.
First of all, mc is not strictly for nerds. Even his early shows had a crossover of a punk and hip hop audience, and that should not be ignored. He’s been on Warped Tour and collaborated with Talib Kweli, so I would argue that pigeonholing him strictly as nerdcore (although he is that as well) is unfair to him as an entertainer.
The second part is, that this song is ultimately more vulgar and polarizing and less personal than any of his previous work. This is just patently false. While such things are not always the core topics of songs, they do appear enough to be notable. The following is a list, roughly chronological, that contain sexual topics and phrases similar to awesome fucker:
1. Hijack (honeys beggin’ me to break their hy-o-mens)
2. Ten year old
3. Eating’s not cheating (album title)
4. Tractor Beam
5. Blastic (arguable, tongue in cheek)
6. Booties for Breakfast
7. On*
8. Awesome Fucker
Off the top of my head, at least one song off of every album with the exception of his debut, and that is without going through and listening again at the moment. Further, mc chris part 6 IS NOT A COMPLETED ALBUM and we have never had such access to his recording and creative process. For all we know many such songs were cut from previous albums, purely made for fun and to get it out of his system. Even if not, and awesome fucker makes the final album, it will merely be following the trend that spans 4 of 5 previous albums, not including b-sides easily available on the internet.
Therefore, mc chris has not shown more derivation than simple creative growth from his previous work, and cannot be seen as a douchebag unless you are being nitpicky, obsessive, and ignorant of the material he has put out over the years. Perhaps less whining is in order until we can see a finished project, the last thing we need is more heckling.

Fuck it.

4x Colossal Might
3x Might of Oaks
4x Savage Hunger
4x Mirisi's Twin-Claws
3x Behemoth Sledge
4x Viashino Slaughter Master
4x Hobgoblin Soldier Dude
4x Naya Charm
4x Wild Nactl
4x Balefire Liege

I've tried a few different "list" ways to do this, but I'm not really a list kind of person any more.
Things that I've learned in college... most things weren't learned, so much as proven. There were theories I had coming here that we (dis)proven over time. Things about myself, mostly. I'm not sure how comfortable I am sharing them on the internet. It seems pretentious, which is something people, especially family, keep calling me. I'm self conscious about that, because I don't WANT to be, and I don't see how I am, but I am. It's strange. I don't feel any different than before, though I know I've changed. I feel that I have just learned to articulate what I think and feel better. I'm not perfect at it, at times I'm callous, and downright mean. Sometimes I'm vague. But I'm less of all these things than I used to be.
I guess I learned to be a person. Is that pretentious? Is asking pretentious? I don't quite know where the line is.
Important life lessons. The biggest is something I learned my sophomore year, but did not have clarified for two more:
"friendship is based on shared experiences, not shared interests." I hate quoting that teacher, because everything he said was two handed, and it seems like such a cheesy quote... but it is the best summation of why the friendships I have work the way that they do. A lot of my high school friends were people with common interests, anime, comic books, gaming, writing... and most of them fell away the more time I spent away, because neither of us had enough invested in the friendship to maintain it. Others, myself included, had so many life defining events during the time apart that we could no longer relate to each other. Some of my closest friends have had this happen, and it is odd, because I understand why we grow apart, but I am trying so hard to keep it from happening because I have so much invested in the people involved.
I learned what love is, and became wise enough to refrain from defining it. It's something I have, it's something that is currently reciprocated, and I treasure it above all things. I couldn't tell you why though. It's pretty much the only thing that I take on faith, and I have a hard time doing that.
I learned to get it in writing.
I learned what I want to do with my life, and then I learned that I'm terrified of it. Writing professionally is daunting. All my life I've been told that it is a horrible path to go down, that I should be a teacher, or a librarian, or at least an editor. "Writing is a difficult career" "writers don't make any money", etc. I've been called lazy for this and other things, and I think it all stems to the idea that I don't actually DO anything, I don't leave to go to an office, I don't break a sweat. I don't have to get up in the morning if I don't want to, so on so forth. It's amazing that some people tell me it is too hard and I don't have the willpower, and some people tell me it's too easy and I should get a real job. It's harder because if I'm not successful the first time at something, I want to quit, and I haven't been published, and there are set backs and sometimes I just want to throw it all away, burn my writing, put on a tie, and walk into a cube farm and never look back. But I can't. Writing is one of the few things that has been constant in my life, and I can't turn my back on it. It's one of the few things I can do well, one of the few marketable skills that I have, and damn it I'm going to use it. Sometimes I get so sick of it that my head screams and my stomach boils. Sometimes I love it so much I never want to stop.
I learned that sometimes I have to be an asshole. So I learned to be one. I then learned that I have to be able to turn it off. Still working on that part. See also: pretentious.
I learned how to use the stack. That's a lie.
I learned that it doesn't matter how I justify something, if it feels wrong, it's wrong, and I shouldn't do it. Even if I can logically convince myself it's not wrong, my gut is usually smarter than my brain.
I learned that I'm actually pretty boring, but I can make most things seem interesting if I try hard enough.

And that's all I learned. Does this mean I'm grown up yet?

I need to write.
More specifically, I need to write a play… for a class…to graduate…within a week. Sad thing is I don’t really know where I’m going with it… I’m not sure I like the plot or the characters or anything at all really. But my professor liked the first few pages. I’m second guessing myself a lot. It’s harder to slip automatically into Writing capital-“w” mode. I over think things more than I used to. Writing used to be something I did that let me just be myself. I can be as self-obsessed/flagellating as I wanna be, and I don’t have to think about it.
Sure, eventually I might have to edit. But who really gives a shit about that other than editors?
Apparently I do. I was shocked too. Still, I think that’s the problem. I need to stop moping and whining and planning and just fucking write already. So I’m starting.
This, this is me starting.
I’ve gone over the comic submission guidelines for a bunch of companies again, read and re-read a bunch of advice columns from writers I love and respect (Vaughn, Ellis, Gaiman, Waid, O’Malley…) and am trying my best to just WRITE. Something. Anything.
Words on a page.
Also, popmatters has an open call for comics criticism. It’s not a paid gig, but it is fairly high profile. ~2000 words a month if they want me. But I have to write that much as my proposal, my interview if you will. So I sit down with some comics.
But reading them feels like fun, not work. I should be working. Stupid brain.
And who am I to criticize this? At least they’re published. More than I can say. Had a book “in development” limbo for almost a year now… no glimmer of hope, no money, no additional prospects.
I graduate in a month and a half. I really wanted to have something… OUT THERE. Something to point to, something to use to get other jobs.
I wanted something I could be proud of.
And what did I get? Probably suckered. Maybe just forgotten. I put my trust in someone who has proven that quite frankly, they didn’t deserve it. I know times is hard, and the industry is rough, but I should have known better.
But it was too good. It was too much fun. It was too easy to do.
And now where am I? I’m stuck. Most of my ideas are halfbaked, and I overthink them. I can’t just sit down and write. I don’t know what to do about that. I know I can’t make a living at this or get published if I don’t write anything, but I can’t see to write anything because I don’t have the confidence that I used to.
It used to be that I knew, I KNEW, that I could take over the world. I KNEW I was extremely good at what I do. I also knew that I could be better, and to take advice and criticism as I got it, but I was confident that I could do this.
I COULD write, and I COULD make money off of it. Because I was that good. But now?
Now I’m not so sure. Am I really that good? Was I ever? Why haven’t the companies written back. Even a rejection letter. Why hasn’t the script that I wrote been produced? Why can’t I find anyone to work with? Why am I not done with school? Why am I even in school anyway?
All it does is stress me out.
But I have no other direction. Without that reason to wake up in the morning, I probably wouldn’t. Why get up? Why not just sleep the whole day away. Why write? It doesn’t matter. No one will read it anyway.
In a month and a half I graduate.
Will I even bother waking up then, or will I roll away from the window and sleep for 20+ hours? Because I feel like I could. Like it wouldn’t matter.
Like I accomplish just as much when I’m unconscious as when I’m not, and at least unconscious I don’t feel this constant stress, this pushing inside my skull.
Jesus, this sounds like a livejournal entry. I’m just writing to write. I need to. I need to get my fingers moving again. I need to find my narrative voice.
I need to find a reason to do something more than just sleep all day, and really that’s what this is a bout.
This is nearly 800 words. Plus a comic strip at ret-con. I wanna do 1000 a day, at least. Just to go.
I know it’s not a lot.
I know it probably won’t matter.
I know it probably won’t make a difference.
And I’m pretty sure I’m gonna fail at this too.
What other choice do I have? I don’t know how to do anything but write. It’s all I’ve studied, all I’ve done for nearly half my life. If I went back to what I did before writing I would pretty much just be finger painting and playing with ninja turtles. So there it is. I need to relearn how to write, and I need to commit to it. Because there’s nothing else I can do with my life. Writing is it.
I want it back. Without it, I don’t really feel like I’m doing anything.
Without writing I’m just going through the motions. Yeah, I can stress about classes, and graduation, and relationships, and moving, and a day-job, and rent, and friends, and everything else. I can make magic decks. I can watch movies. I can drink, I can go to parties, I can listen to every fucking CD that has ever been released. But I’m only doing these things to distract me from this:
I should be writing, and I have nothing to write.
Life is a distraction without writing. So I want it back. I don’t want to go through life dazed distracted and confused. I tried that in high school, and it left a foul taste in me that I still can’t shake. So here’s the new manifesto:
I want to be happy.
Writing makes me happy.
I want to write.
I want to be able to sustain myself writing.
If I can’t, I still want to write. Sustaining is not the goal, it is just a nice perk.
I want to be read.
I don’t want being read to be the only reason I write.
I want to commit to writing. I want to stop cheating on writing with all of these other things in my life. Yes, tv is fun. Yes, Magic is fun. Yes, DnD is fun. Yes, sex is fun. These things don’t go away, they do enrich my life. But they AREN’T MY LIFE. And that’s the essential thing.
I want to define myself. When someone asks what I do, who I am, I don’t want to say “Well, I’m an English major, I read comics, I have a long-term girlfriend who I miss, I have a few friends who I’m going to miss, I have…” I want to answer succinctly.
I am a writer.
This is over 1200 words.
I am a writer.
This is the first step.
But this is no longer something easy, this is not, to use a terrible metaphor, an escalator.
Tomorrow, I need to take another one.
In the meantime, I am a writer. Don’t fucking forget it. I’ll try not to either.

Can't sleep. Ramblings ahead.
( Read more... )

Meme of the year
( Read more... )

I'm in Jacksonville, FL until January. Cell: 850-212-1437.

If Jeffrey McDaniel does not email me before 3pm tomorrow I may, in fact, be fucked.

Damon Albarn: "I've been hanging out with Graham quite a bit recently, and it's really nice to have my old friend back."

Now, this was at the end of an interview about the third in-progress Gorillaz album. Honestly I'm more excited for another G-Album than a Blur reunion, but the reunion would be awesome too. My greatest hope is that they just end up collaborating on other things, showing up in each other's work, instead of reforming Blur.

I would love to see more of them (and Alex and James) in the others' music, but honestly? I don't need another Blur album. I would buy it, yes. And I would probably love it. But there's enough reunions and useless albums from bands that have evolved past their previous work that I am wary of the very idea.

Damon and Graham in particular have moved too far ahead in their individual careers to make the Blur reunion anything like what the fans of Blur would want. It would sound more different from their catalog than than Think Tank did. I'm one of the few that truly loves Think Tank, but it truly does not fit with the previous aesthetic of Blur.

The greatest hope of them being together is just that they are friendly, and that's great. The second, and the greatest for me personally (since I don't know either of them personally, one of my life's greatest sadnesses) is that we could potentially get a Graham song featuring Damon, or a Gorillaz feature Graham. That would make my year.

You said it couldn't change;
that I
couldn't change,

so that's when
you decided to change me.
It was for me, right?

All in my best
interests, really.
Really all the best intentions
at heart,

but they were somewhere
inside, in the right
ventricle, and you couldn't

get to them without
breaking me open and
looking inside and
going "hmmm".

You didn't say much
after that. You stayed
out of the apartment

for a few days
and I thought about
setting your things
on fire, and I thought

about handcuffing myself to
your bookshelf and
going on a hunger strike

and of hiring a hit man,
but really I couldn't do
anything to hurt you

because I have the best
of intentions, your best
interests at heart really.

So I placed microphones
in your alarm clock
and I wake up when

you wake up and
I leave my house when
you leave yours

and I take my spare key
and sneak in to spray
your pillow with my perfume

and I'm sorry that I left
no fingerprints, and
I'm sorry about her,

and I hope that when
you get out you will
reconsider us,

because I have our best interests
at heart, really.

Magic Shenanigans, and me being an irresponsible student, under the cut:
( Read more... )

So, even if it's said to be unlikely:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
Is anyone really excited about the possibility of a black hold opening in Switzerland?

After completing my previous poems, I was accosted by a "trout" bot, which some of you may be familiar with. There are also "salmon" "hat" and "taco" bots, but I was not put in contact with any of those. Regardless, as the conversation hit two of the four required pieces for a poem, I wrote another:

( Shawn Norton, Lab Rat )

and for context, the original conversation in its entirety:
( I know it ain't his fault )

I'm in poetry workshop at school. This means I write a lot more poetry, which is easier to post on here than the other writing I've been doing lately, and faster too! Hooray.
Both poems were assignments, with their own restrictions, and specific words that I had to use.
( Shawn Norton, Fisher of Men )

( Not a Honeymoon )

My parents offered to trade the Jeep for Joe. I shouldn't even view this as a dillema, it should be an easy decision. But I've grown kind of attached to Joe. DECISION.