CH 1: The Downward Slope and the Mountain back to Civilization

They said it was a beautiful funeral. They said that it was a send off fit for the strongest warrior of our tribe. I wouldn't know. I spent it curled up in the fetal position on my bathroom floor. I spent two days on the bathroom floor before I even thought about going home. I know it was like I was abandoning my family in their lowest of moments, something I said I would never do, abandon those I loved, but I couldn't face the loss. I couldn't swallow the bitter pill that your God was feeding to me. I stress, your God because no merciful God of Christian Faith would ever do such a thing to me, at least that's what the new Testament tells me. The Old Testament is a little more spiteful and bitter. I was crippled. I kept telling myself, "Gerald get up, you need to eat." "Gerald you knew this was coming someday, we were all born to expire." I just thought that I'd be first, call me selfish, but I really wanted it to be me.

I called out of work for the next two weeks. That wasn't even long enough but life can't just stop because someone you loved more then anything else on this earth decided to die. Right? I didn't know what I needed. I didn't know if I needed time to heal or for work to keep me occupied. I just knew that I needed to go home sometime to appease my family. To show that I'm coping and that I'm not dead. My phone's been ringing for days now. I don't answer but everyone leaves the same message. "I miss you Gerald, I hope you're doing alright. Call me back and let us know that you're OK. If you need anything you know we're here."

I packed the necessities into my backpack and set up shop in the car and headed home. The closer I get to home, the farther away I feel. The entire drive is a fight to keep myself from taking my beat down Toyota into oncoming traffic. I might just push it off a bridge. Maybe head through a guardrail and pick a fight with a tree doing eighty. If the impact doesn't kill me, I'd just hope that the gas tank explodes and sets the car ablaze and I'd just sit there and earn life or death, depending upon what religion you practice or how you look at the situation. I settle myself and hold the straight line, stay in my lane.

I arrived right when the sun was at its highest and I felt as though everything around me was clouded by dark. Every step I took toward my parents house was one more step to my own demise. Like cutting yourself just to know what it is to feel, except I didn't want to feel. I wasn't inflicting this punishment upon myself for some self righteous reason. I had to. I had to suffer like this. This was my purpose. This is what God put me here for. At least that's how I felt. My family met me at my door. No words could really express how I felt and I couldn't wrap my tongue around what my mind wanted to convey to them. How I wish I could have done something. How I hoped that they'd forgive me. I wanted them to understand that this wasn't his fault, it was mine. I'm the reason he was gone, but they'd just tell me to settle myself and send me to therapy. The last thing I need is someone telling me how I'm supposed to feel.

After a tear jerking hug fest, I brought my things up to my room. I looked down at my bag and realized that I had over packed. I always tend to do this. Even when I know I'm only going to be somewhere for two days, I pack one pair of pants, 7 pairs of socks and underwear and ten shirts. It was inevitable, I was worried that something might come up, so I packed whatever I thought was relevant. After slowly unfolding my things I stepped out my door. His room was right across from mine. Right across that dim lit hallway that seemed to stretch farther now then it ever had before. I reached out for the handle but stopped. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to accept it. I ran through his death in my head. How he would slowly inject himself and allow the disease to fill him. How his breathing started to slow while hanging his head, overcome by his euphoric curse. The halo that seemed to surround the top of his head seemed to diminish as the life in his body began to fade. By the time my parents realized anything was wrong they were too late. No one really knew he had a problem but me. They still thought he was edge. Still though that he held true but the truth is, I don't think he wanted to live in my shadow anymore. That's how it usually is at least. That's how all the stories tell it. A deep rooted depression stemming from lack of recognition. He was his own legacy though, he just never realized it. Now his legacy is burned out, dust to the wind. I just wish I could have had the strength to get him help. It was guilt though, he made it seem like I was hurting him somehow. How he couldn't be helped. How it would never leave him now and that we all just needed to accept it. I hope that hell enjoys my company for being such a terrible brother. I did this to you. I did. No one else.

I decided, that after laying on my family room couch for an hour that I was ready to go to his grave. My family wanted to know if I wanted company, I just said that I wanted to be alone but not to wait up. I might not be back until late, so don't worry and don't wait up. I stuffed a Black Flag record into my book bag along with some other items and got into my car and headed down Stratford Road. We used to play wiffle ball as boys with the Johnston brothers and their neighbors on this road. We were invincible, what happened? It seemed like every place I went I was reminded of him. The old first aid building where we would throw rocks through the windows. The park where we would go hang out with our high school girlfriends together every Saturday night and make out until our curfew's. Even the skate park where I jumped the fence and broke my ankle running from cops brought back memories. How he let me lean on him the entire way home. We cut through back yards for what seemed like an eternity just to shake them. By the time I got to the traffic light by Route 72, I was in tears. Nothing had ever made me feel this low. Nothing.

I made the next right onto Route 9 and finally came up to the grave yard. My grandmother and father were buried there as well as some other friends of the family. I parked on a side road and walked up. It took me a while to find his grave but I found it. It was toward the back under a pine tree. There were still flowers all around it. His tombstone read, "Theodore Allen Roose. Beloved Child and Brother. January 17th, 1985 - May 8th 2007." We called him Teddy for short. He was taller then I was. Somehow he got the height in our tiny family. I was five foot four and he was closer to 6 foot. He was strong and at sometimes a head case. Probably one of the toughest guys I've ever met. His shaved head and deep brown eyes won over any female within a mile. He was just the kind of guy who would sacrifice everything to make you happy. I miss his smile. I miss his laugh. I miss him. Everything.

I didn't have anything left when I got there. I couldn't cry. I couldn't smile. I couldn't feel. I was just indifferent. I opened my bag and put some things on his grave. His favorite record, My autographed Don Mattingly Baseball that he always wanted, and some of our favorite baseball cards. It wasn't much but I knew they all meant the world to him, so I left them. I didn't really say much because I didn't' really have anything to say. Just that I love him and that I was sorry for everything. I sat there for hours and then night came and I sat some more. I finally got so tired that I laid down with my jacket under my head and went to sleep. When the Police woke me up and asked me what I was doing, I told them that I didn't want my brother to be alone. Truth was, I didn't' want to be without my brother. They ran my ID and sent me on my way. Home I went, still groggy, still fucked up, still lost, still desperate for answers.

CH 3. What Comes Easy, Isn't Easy.

Morning wasn't the problem finding the will to live was, seemed like everyday was a struggle to gain confidence. Everyday was a day that I could improve my self esteem. Fat chances accompany big dreamers. All I want to do is leave. The only place I feel at home is in a van and on the road. I keep telling myself that, I believe and believe it more and more everyday. I wish I wasn't such a creature. I wish I didn't want to die every hour of every day. It never used to be like that, not when he was still here. I had long days of skateboarding and bullshitting about hardcore bands to look forward to every weekend that I came home from college. I didn't need a crew, I didn't need a crutch, I didn't need a substance and I still don't, all I needed were those moments when we talked and went searching for girls at the mall. We'd drive half an hour just to walk in and out of stores and look at things we'd buy if we had money and we'd walk into shitty record stores to look at vinyl for our collections. Then we'd sit around all day and read the inserts. We'd look through the lyrics, we'd check out the thanks section and check out the bands that they'd thank to see if we liked them. We'd go to shows and lose ourselves. Our bands would play and we'd both lose it. We were a support system, no one else needed to be there, just us. This is our therapy.

Salvation is a warm gun away. Somehow I knew you wouldn't want that for me but the thought never slipped my mind.

I rolled out of bed at my parents house after laying there with my eyes open for twenty minutes. It was still morning but my blinds let little light into my baby blue room. I walked across the cluttered floor and opened the door. His door was closed, I reached across to twist the door knob just to check if I had dreamed all of it. Some sick dream that finally ended. I stood there for a little bit, then I twisted it and opened your door. Just how you left it, clothes strewn on either side of your bed, sheets askew, CD's and records on the floor in front of your record and CD player. Your favorite windbreaker on the floor where you left it. The life was sucked out of me again. I just wanted to disappear.

I started to stumble down the stairs into my parents kitchen. My mom sat at the far end of the table smoking a cigarette drinking her coffee in her robe. My dad fully dressed as usual and both older sisters sitting in there pajamas. They all looked like they've been crying. We all looked like we hadn't stopped crying. "Want something to eat?"

I hadn't eaten since the accident. I couldn't hold anything down. "No, I'm fine." Pale and losing weight. Eyes swollen and red. No will to live. No strength left to die, and I had the balls to tell them that I was fine. "I'm just going to go for a run."

I stumbled back up stairs and put on my gym shorts and a long-sleeve shirt. I laced up my nike's and picked up my ipod. I couldn't be alone in my head. I kept telling myself that I'm what killed him. I'm what made this happen. Somehow, I could have saved him. Somehow.

I was out the door and jogging. At this point in time, I was just trying to abuse my body. I pushed myself to go faster and farther. Three miles in, I wanted to drop. I kept running. Five miles in, I threw up on my t-shirt. I kept running. Six miles in, I finally stumbled to a halt. I leaned against the school wall and lost it. I punched the bricks until they were covered with blood. I wanted to destroy everything and everyone who stepped into my way. We are born into suffering. Empty heart. Empty soul. Theravada Buddhist bliss.

I dragged myself half way home when someone who had been walking their dog, seeing the mixture of blood and vomit on my shirt asked if I was alright. With my eyes staring at my feet, keeping stride, I replied, "No. I'm fine."

CH 5. The Salvation of Lower Class Bondage

The shot heard through the dead of night. I curled my head close to my knees and clutched the pillow that I had been resting my head on. I had no bed frame, no box spring, no mattress. I was just glad that I had a roof over my head. For that split second though, I wished my roof resided in a safer part of town. This is life on your own, no money, minimum wage.

I once had a friend of mine talk about the essentials of life. He said all a man needs to live is running water, a television, high speed internet, a cellphone, a refrigerator stocked with cold beers and a freezer filled with microwavable hungry man dinners. I had none of that, except for running water, and yet I felt complete. I didn't need the essentials because the essentials didn't get man through the ice age. The essentials didn't help man evolve into what some scientists call the "superior species." They didn't hunt food, grow crops, create the foundations of government and they sure as hell didn't instill in us emotions like love and hate, fear and security. The essentials evolved from man's want for easier living. So as far as I'm concerned, the essentials aren't that essential. An unbreakable spirit is the only essential I need. I think it was Frederich Nietzsche who once said, "He who has the why to live can overcome any how," or something along those lines but the premise is all the same.

I woke up the next morning refreshed, as if I had slept for three days. I stumbled shirtless with nothing but a pair of pajama pants on through the white walled apartment to my bathroom. It seemed that this place was either a prison or salvation, I hadn't quite made the decision as to how I felt about it yet. Regardless, I began brushing my teeth. I couldn't help but stare at myself in the mirror. "God Damnit Gerald, you need a shave." It's all I can do to keep myself sane. "God Damnit Gerald, you need a vacation and that black eye is atrocious." Moments when I talk to myself. That's the only time when I'm understood completely. The only time where I make perfect sense.

I turn on the shower and wait for the water to get warm. It's cold at first but starts to create steam as I wash my face in the sink. I know its warm now and hop in while pulling the shower curtain shut. As if it matters, there's no one else here. After scrubbing thoroughly to get the crusted blood out from under my fingernails from last nights fight, I take a few moments and enjoy the warm water. I take some time to enjoy the idea that I might be cleansing my soul in those showers. Somehow every morning, I start fresh. I was the sin off my skin and hope that all is forgiven. I soon lean forward, both hands on the moldy tile and I start to cry. Everything catches up to you. Everything winds up catching up with you sooner or later. It's finally caught up with me. I'm finally realizing where I've been, what I've done, who I've lost and it hurts.

I pull myself together and realize that I need to get to work. Work is walking two miles to the local grocery where I stock shelves for $7.50 per hour. Work is stupid fucking people who can't figure out for themselves where the oat bran is. Work is important sacks of douche who bullshit on their cellular phones because they have something so important to tell someone that can't wait until they get home. Life is Work and work is stupid fucking people that give me a bad attitude. Two miles of this, ruining my own day before I get there. I walk up to the front doors and stop right at the entrance. My manager is standing in front of me and shoots me a dirty look because I'm five minutes late. "I Quit!" I shout and drop my apron at the front.

It never stops raining in my head.

I lost my brother and now I'm losing my mind. Wish.....

The Colossus by Museo del Prado, of Madrid

Fighting Solves Everything!

Although I'm not a big fan of the slogan that is the title of this entry but it seemed to be the theme last night. If you've never been to a Muay Thai fight, you're quite frankly missing out. It really is a good time. Church Street is really good, or so I hear, but we went to the Warrior's Cup in New Brunswick. We got there around 7:30ish and sat for five to ten minutes until the fights started. We were just being belligerent for most of the fights. Yelling obnoxiously at any event is fun especially when everyone else who is there is doing the same and no one cares who you're rooting for as long as you're yelling. Sometimes you get so lost in the hijinx that you forget that it really is a dance and an art form. Regardless, I felt like shit for the majority of the fight but I still had fun. I was having tremendous headaches and stomach cramps. Champa fought and unfortunately lost but Anthony on the other hand won his fight by unanimous decision after three, two minute rounds of great action. He got the other fighter in the clinch and kneed his mid-section like nothing else. He's 4-0 now and has another fight in Brooklyn, NY in April. I think I want to try and go to that fight too. We'll see.

I think me and Graham are going to see Crime in Stereo this Saturday but I'm not sure. I know my car won't make it but if he wants to go and drive I'll be there. I just wish I could go to the Blacklisted show in Philly. The new album is awesome. I don't think there is a bad song on the album. The album starts and finishes with such raw emotion and intensity. They have definitely brought something different to the face of hardcore. Best album of the 2000's, hands down. I pre-ordered it yesterday and I can't wait until it shows up in my mailbox at my apartment.

Adapting to Damnation
Ingrained and demanded. Virtues lost. Soul defiled. All hope of life soiled. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt. I man made of fear and flesh, stand before the light, with guilt to stain our teeth we march. To the center, to the center of a hollow earth. Can you hear me. Can you hear me? To the bottom I burrowed. To the center of a hollow earth. No Answer. No Answers. If this is forgiveness, I don't want to apologize.



The hollow earth theory has been suggested throughout the centuries. Those who believe in said theory feel that at the poles of the earth that there are two holes that lead into this separate world inside that consists of its own sun, center of gravity, and civilization. Now who or what actually lives in the center of the earth is merely speculation. Some believe that its fairies, aliens, leprechauns, or maybe even lost civilizations. This excerpt from strange maps (found at http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/03/) explains in a lot more detail about the hollow earth theory that I've become fascinated with. They also have a bunch of maps with silly features on them that you should definitely check out if you have some free time. Without further interruption:

If the Earth is hollow, where does all that magma spewing out of all those volcanoes come from? Somebody must have a half-convincing answer to that question, presumably that handful of people who still believe the Earth is an empty shell. The idea seems quite ludicrous now, but in pre-scientific times, it at least appeared to make sense: if Heaven was a place in the skies above, where else would Hell be than somewhere deep below our feet?

Harder to understand is why the idea survived several centuries of scientific progress, including the powerful notion of nature’s horror vacui. In a 1692 scientific paper, Edmund Halley – yes, he of comet fame – put forth the idea that Earth consists of a shell about 800 km thick, and of two inner concentric shells and an innermost core with about the same diameter as the planet Mars.

Halley did have scientific grounds for his rather bizarre thought-construct. It tried to explain why compass readings could be so anomalous: each of the inner spheres had their own magnetic poles and rotated at differing speeds. To compound his error, Halley proposed that the inner spheres might be inhabited and that the inner atmosphere was made up of luminous gases that, when escaping outward, cause the Aurora borealis.

Later theorists came up with variations to Halley’s model. In the seventeenth century, Leonhard Euler proposed a single-shell hollow Earth with a small sun (1.000 km across) at the centre, providing light and warmth for an inner-Earth civilisation. Others proposed two inner suns, and even named them: Pluto and Proserpine.

In the early eighteenth century, American John Cleves Symmes Jr supplemented the theory with the suggestion of ‘blowholes’: openings about 2.300 km across at both poles. Symes apparently was utterly convinced by his own theories: he campaigned for an expedition to the North Pole. The intervention of president Andrew Jackson was needed – to stop it, that is.

Quite unbelievably, the hollow Earth idea persisted into the twentieth century, when the study of plate tectonics and the like made it obvious that the Earth couldn’t be hollow. Yet hollow Earth books and theories multiplied, many based on Symmes’ work. In 1913, Marshall Gardner wrote A Journey to the Earth’s Interior, even built a working model of his hollow Earth – and patented it.

More recent theories suggest a hollow Earth inhabited by the creatures that fly UFOs across our skies, or by dwarves, dragons, other ‘lost races’ or ‘ascended masters’ of esoteric wisdom. Some proposed new ‘blowholes’ are located in Mount Shasta (California), Mammoth Cave (Kentucky), the Mato Grosso (Brazil), Mount Epomeo (Italy) and the pyramid of Giza (Egypt).

The pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories ran with a fantastic tale called the Shaver Mystery from 1945 to 1949. It entailed a series of supposedly factual stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver, claiming a superior prehistoric race had built subterranean caves, now inhabited by the ‘Dero’, their degenerate descendants. These ‘Dero’ use the advanced machinery inherited from their superior forefathers to torment us on the surface of the planet.

The hollow Earth theory was quite popular in twentieth-century Germany; it’s even claimed that Adolf Hitler gave the Hohlweltlehre credence in so far as that he ordered an expedition to spy on the British fleet by aiming cameras at the sky – a claim without historical proof, however. An even crazier theory holds that Hitler and other top Nazis escaped the Allies by fleeing to the inner Earth via an entrance in Antarctica.

The hollow Earth theory has a particularly strong hold on the imagination of writers (such as E.A. Poe, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft and Umberto Eco, who have all used the idea in their fiction). A sub-genre postulating a hollow Moon seems to have died out after the 1969 moon landing.

In some hollow Earth theories, there is a city or civilisation at the core of the Earth called Agartha (sometimes spelled Agartta, Agharti or Agarttha). This seems to derive from Aryavartha, which to the Hindus is the place of origin of the Vedas. An alternative name for this city is Shamballa (or Shambalah), which is Sanskrit for ‘place of peace’. Chinese, Russian and Kirgiz folklore all have their own names for a similar place. Sometimes, both names are used simultaneously (as in this map), with Agartha designating the whole interior and Shamballa the main city.

Despite its age, the name of Agartha pops up in relatively recent popular culture, indicating that is was popularised probably only in the twentieth century. ‘Agartha’ is the name of a Miles Davis album, a song by Afrika Bambaataa, and is mentioned in Umberto Eco’s book ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’

There's a girl out in the middle of the ocean,
without a paddle or an oar,
and she sends me encrypted messages,
in a bottle filled with cork.
She knows I'm not a swimmer,
or I'd leave this piece of land,
to save her from her troulbes,
and bring her to my kingdom made of sand.

There's a boy who lives in a castle,
on the beaches that I admire,
off the coast of ivory shorelines,
where I wish I could retire.
I hope he knows I love him,
for it seems that I've sprung a leak,
and this vessel is filling fast,
seems the frame is growing weak.

There was once a girl who was stranded in the ocean,
and I thought she loved me so,
but those bottles once filled with encrypted messages,
I now find filled with stones.
I think she may have found someone new,
someone who could swim, who could float,
who was much better then I,
more Romantic in his notes.

At the bottom of the Ocean,
where the sea floor runs so smooth,
lies the lifeless sailor, the color of her skin
gone from tan to blue.
Seems the Ocean swallowed,
the stranded girl who had not a paddle nor an oar,
who sent her love encoded messages,
in bottles filled with cork.

love floats.

Knee Deep In a Cement Ocean

We're all dieing. Some of us just want to choose the way we go out.

I should be studying and yet I'm here again, blabbing about my life. As if anyone really wants to know. It seems like people look at my blog seeing as though the numbers have seemingly jumped up recently. That means someone has got to care. Someone is reading this wondering what the hell my problem is. Well This is what I pose to you. I don't care, it's not going to be creepy to know you look at this. If I didn't want people to see it, I wouldn't have put it up. I'd have it written in a journal and placed in a safety deposit box. Even then, I wouldn't feel safe. But this is what I pose to those who read my blog: What do you want to know? What do you want to ask? Anything you want to debate? It can be anything, as personal as you want, I'll try my best to answer it here. Just send it to me on this thing or on my myspace (www.myspace.com/stratfordxxx). I won't use any names for the sake of privacy. If no one sends anything, I'll know no one cares and just continue on my merry way. Writing for the sake of writing. Venting for the sake of sanity. God knew I needed a way out, here it is. Enjoy life. Don't let it be stolen from you.

It makes me happy just to know that you're thinking about me.

In the Hands of An Angry God

The Road not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Life is monotonous. Life is static. I haven't written anything creative lately and that has slightly depressed me. So this is where I am. Back at the beginning. I don't think I'm a great writer but I like expressing myself and it seems that its the same things over and over again. The same poor cliche's written over and over again. Anyway, I've always been struck by the poem above. I try to live my life by it's messages from the heart of Poet Robert Frost. This is where I began. This is where I start again.

Deep down the shipwreck mess,
at the edge of the waves in your sheets,
crawl slowly down to red rock pier,
hide low in the spring marsh reeds,
hear the hum hum hum of distant shores,
wash gently against your feet,
Watch the mounting swell build
across a blue green sea.
And we wait and watch the inlets mouth,
for signs of sailors dead and drowned,
and hope love will find us here.

In case you're wondering where the idea of the poem came from, it was from this house which had a chair on top of it. No more then five minutes from my house is a house where a chair sits on the very top. Although no one really knows why the chair is up there many people have their theories. Some say that a woman used to sit at the top of this house and watched for her husband to come home from the Navy. She one day died at the top. They say the house is haunted with the ghost of the woman and the only way to calm her wandering soul is to leave a chair on top of the house so she can sit and watch the inlet. Love lost at sea.

When I play music...

I never really knew why but before we'd play I channeled into the energy of the music. Especially now because things are more honest and emotionally driven. From the first note to the end, I get the urge to lose myself in what's going on. Sometimes it causes me make some poor decisions but it's where the music takes me. It takes me to the edge of who I am and makes me face a lot of difficult things in my life. Everything I've written about has been very personal, whether you can read into it and get that feeling or not. For example: (A line from the new song "Titan")

"I live a life of misconception and misery." People believe that just because I have a smile on my face that everything is alright, that every time they talk to me they're going to get this person who is full of joy. I'm not. For a long time and probably for a while to come, my life has absolutely sucked. I fucked around and screwed up my school situation. I've made sacrifices for this band that have severely harmed relationships I've had in the past. My family life was up and down for a while. My Mom and Dad had cancer scares. I broke my cheek bone and eye-socket that still doesn't have all the feeling back in it but I'm too afraid to tell anyone because I'm afraid to face the truth that it may never come back. Things recently kind of got shitty but brightened back up. Don't expect me to be as fresh as a daisy every time you see me. I'm a person who has ups and downs just like everyone else.

Another example (from The Alchemist):

"I hope you can understand, why I'm leaving you, in the absence of death, I am the end." I wrote this in a daze one night, half out of it because my brain was fried from the extensive studying that I do on a daily basis. I woke up the next morning and read it again. It just made sense. The song itself has to do with how I turn everything gold in my life to sand. I try not to, I put every ounce of myself into a my life, maybe that's my problem, regardless it happens. Sometimes I want to pack up my things and leave, just start walking across the Desert that is the United States in hopes of finding new land that has never seen civilization and set up camp. Getting back to the line itself, "I hope you can understand why I'm leaving you," is me giving up and telling my family that I'm sorry but I have brought no happiness to the earth. I am no ray of sunshine that you thought I should live up to. I am leaving them in search of the metaphysical. "In the absence of death, I am the end." This is me explaining that if I stick around I may find solace in the static life I live. It is either death or ruin all things from there.

I've tried my best to show pieces of me that don't normally get exposed. Sometimes you'll find me punching myself in the head, slamming my fists against the floor, trying to put a microphone through my forehead, trying to stomp holes in the floor, closing my eyes and losing myself, reaching up and making awkward had gestures, or kneeling on the ground hoping to find purpose. You may hear me say some pretty awkward things like, "I am a garage flower, The sun never shines on me," or "DJ Jazzy John play that beat back." This is all my release from reality. My search for substance outside of the physical constraints of politically correct America. I give everything and leave nothing. I give myself to a groove that has no rhyme or reason. A long time ago I realized and became accustomed to realization that I may one day die and never come back, I may never see the people I love, I may just be dead, worm food, there may not be a happy ending waiting for me, dead may just be dead. I'm not sure and I'm not about to get into a discussion regarding religion. I guess my point is, I'm not living my life with the understanding that I may die at any time and that scares me but what brings me solace is that I'll leave behind a grain of sand on the beach that is eternity. Maybe it'll be washed away or maybe not, but at least I'll have tried.

Every Mistake I Made, I Couldn't Have Made Without You

I am planted with deep roots spreading through the topsoil and grass,
Cursing progression for defining my method of design,
So those celibate sons can pull at my hair to loosen the new voodoo,
did it?
Some say that these are times of market booms and declining moral values,
others attribute the faithless to rapid proliferation of certain doom,
I have found that pastors find salvation in the ruin's of children's' youth,
was it ever?
Is it the bottle or the prescription that eases your wandering mind,
I am such a good parent for giving my children the opportunity that I never had,
Half naked in an apartment popping the tops off batteries cooking my dreams in a bedpan,
have I found it?
Is it normal for a child to hide behind a soldier's heart in search for the strength to be weak,
I've broken down the most anticipated arguments and found empty all promises,
The jingling of my pockets tells a story far greater than monetary value,
I search for change?

THE TIES THAT BIND [you may not agree with the life I lead but I never asked for your permission]

The dudes that hold me together....
The music that moves me....
The life I chose....
Is one of misconception and misery....
But hope is what keeps me here....
The van that keeps me moving forward....
The release that keeps me sane....
How can I truly be miserable....
I can't....never have been....never will be....
As we put road behind us.....
I realize that the only place I feel at home....
Is in a van.....
On the road....
That's the life I lead....
With a group of amazing people to surround me with hope.

Never Again....It's All Joel's Fault.

I got home on Thursday at around 8:30 and basically sat around and then shot up to Hayden and Sonya's for a little hang out time with them and Erin and Dylan. It was fun, we sat around and shot the shit, played a little guitar hero, ate brownies that Sonya had made and then I headed home. It was getting late and I knew that Sonya had to be up for work the next day.
The following day, I hung out with my nephew. He's so funny. We played Cowboys and Indians and made each other laugh all day. It was a fun time. For the first time ever, I swear, he said a complete sentence and it was, "Uncle Bob, we get out of here!" I couldn't stop laughing. Later that day I went to a show with Pillars of Violence, which was fun. The highlight of the night was some girl eating shit because someone jumped on her back. This girl was some shade of idiot. She deserved it. hahaha. Anyway, after sitting there until like 11, Pillars finally played, I grooved, Chris broke a microphone, Jimmy Drop kicked Chris from Life's Cold Grip, Keith almost fell off his stool while playing, and Tony and Dalton thrashed. It was fun. After getting home, me and Tony went over to Kyle's and played a little halo. I got home at 4:00 am and went to bed and didn't wake up until 2.
The next morning, I went and hung out with POV for no reason in Toms River/Manchester. We found some sweet pillars though that looked as if they were medieval torture chambers. After a rousing game of catch and tag we headed back to Manahawkin. I chilled around with John a little while before practice and we went and got some food. I had a Chicken Badass from Burger King personally served to me by the King while John ate colon cleaning Taco Bell. After making a few select stops we headed back to practice. After an hour of feeling useless since I have no speakers for my PA, I left and drove over to "Meat and Cheese's" house where I hung out with the guys from POV and some other honorary mentionable including K-Deini himself, Meat and Cheese aka Brandon, and a few others. That's when Graham called and we both decided to head to a party on the Island. With a short stop at the liquor store to buy Graham the official beer of Bill Murray, "Pabt's Blue Ribbon," we headed over and hit up the party scene. It was a pretty good night. Me and Graham were really raging hard. I had so many root beers it was awesome (still edge). A few hours and a fist fight later, the cops showed up. After realizing that there may have been some underagers there, Graham and I decided to take our party elsewhere. Upon leaving we were pulled to the side by several police officers who issued me a sobriety test because I was driving home. I offered to take a breath-a-lizer because I wanted to blow a zero and blow his mind, but he told me it wasn't neccessary. After standing there for about thirty minutes waiting for my ID to come back showing that I had no warrants out for my arrest, we were allowed to leave.



That is not my beer. I am still edge. Don't worry. Graham on the other hand is drinking the official beer of Bill Murray.

Sunday was lulled along while I started packing my things, like I do every weekend, to head back to the drawing board at Rowan. I feel like I come back with a clean slate. No matter how terrible last week was, this week is going to be better. It's that way every time I come back. I headed over to kyle's house because we had plans to do some things before we headed back. First we watched his Giant's superbowl DVD. Then we tossed around the Frisbee and decided that we would head over to Stafford Forge and walk the trails with Cooper, the dog. I wanted to see if Missy's dog Leo would want to come but Kyle advised against it. He was afraid Cooper would fuck around with him and get eaten although I assured him that Leo was the greatest/nicest dog ever. We had an awesome walk down a few miles of trails. I had never been there and didn't realize how much shit was around there. I'll have to take a special girl there sometime. Maybe sometime. In the future.

Until next time - enjoy the breathes we share together because they are surely running out with each day.

I want to be your Sun.