Allow me to wine, dine, and stand-up 69

69th post in most likely over a year of blogging.

Man, that is some slack shit. Right now I'm hanging out at my parents house in west palm beach, probably for one of the last times. I'm writing this on my sister's laptop, and quite honestly, after about a year back on a desktop, writing on a laptop keyboard is a giant pain in the ass. I'm waiting for everyone to get done with their family dinners so we can go out and try and have a fun evening in a boring town. I'm hoping that my years of living here have endowed me with some sort of wisdom and experience that I can apply to my writing, but even lately that's been unsuccessful. Maybe I'm just not channeling the right experiences. Maybe I should just say "fuck it" and write a memoir. I feel like my life has at least been entertaining and interesting enough to do so. I feel like over the past 15 years of living in Florida, I've been imparted with an uncanny ability to describe the human condition. I feel like this is everything I was born to do. I was born to bring to light things people have never thought of before, and the idea of that is both enthralling and terrifying at the same time.

Enthralling because I feel like I can impart ideas and capture people's imaginations the way the Rowling, and Gaiman, and Bukowski, and Klosterman, and even more recently Fowles did for me. Because, hey, maybe I can write that sentence that makes some awkward teenager go "wait, fuccccccckkkkk" the way all of those writers did for me. Maybe I can be the person who juxtaposes the profound with the ridiculous like Dave Barry did for his generation. Maybe I really can be a great writer and a profound thinker like I aspire to be.

But with all of that, it's still mildly terrifying. Terrifying to know that I'm just as capable of fucking everything up. Terrifying to know that the career I've chose to undertake is one that has a pretty low success rate. But it's something I have to do. I feel like I have this unmistakable talent that few of my peers do.

Time to get shit rolling.

-Joe

I guess you didn't get the note on your nightstand about setting the house on fire

So, I guess I've taken one of those accidental hiatuses that seem to happen all the fucking time. Sorry. Really. I'll try harder next time. I swearz it.

Anyway, so much random garbage has happened since the last time I updated this rock that I don't feel obligated to make a catch up entry for the three people who read this. In fact, as I sit here, I have no fucking idea what to write about honestly. I've got a million other things on my mind actually. I've recently begun to undertake the gigantic project of trying to clean up my room so I can limit the distractions available once I decide to get cracking on the general landfill worth of ultimately pointless and completely unnecessary school assignments that are due in the coming days and weeks. So, instead of honing my actual craft and working on trying to publish a book, I'm stuck throwing together a mock business plan with idiots and tools who look to me to organize everything because I'm the only one in our group with any sort of brain stem, for a restaurant that I ultimately have no interest in ever seen through to creation. On the same train of thought, instead of working on this novella that I was, at one point, in the process of writing (and can no longer work on until the end of the semester), I'm stuck writing several papers that, ultimately, are not of interest to anyone. These papers will be read once by the professor (maybe) and definitely not by me, because I never read papers after I am finished with them. Hell, I don't even proofread papers. Ever. I can't honestly remember the last time I proofread a paper. I think it's honestly quite a waste of time because it doesn't sound like me after I correct it. So whatever, fuck it. Proofreading is for ninnies. I'll take my B for grammar and mechanics and discard the comment of "proofread more carefully" on every paper because it's just not that important to me. I feel like lack of proofreading is my silent protest. It's like the big "fuck you" to all of these academic assholes who assign papers that really have no sort of practical application to the world at large.

In fact, the only thing that these stupid analysis papers are actually good for is preparing you for grad school. And, the funny part about that is that once you get out of grad school, you inevitably go become a teacher (because really, what sort of job are you getting with a masters or a doctorate in English?), and then you go and torture kids with similar retarded and pointless papers. It's the circle of fucking life. You're abused by your parents, and then you grow up and abuse your kids. Maybe this is why I hate 99% of the people in my major; they are just in it to forcibly penetrate the assholes of previously well meaning (although probably completely pretentious) kids with utter garbage like Gulliver's Travels and Justine over and over again.

It's all the same, and nothing changes.

-Joe

My 25 (or 43) favorite songs

Self-explanitory. Sort of filler. No order. Rock on.

1. NOFX-"The Decline"
2. The Lawrence Arms-"The Disaster March"
3. The Mars Volta-"Frances the Mute"
4. The Goo Goo Dolls-"Iris"
5. Tom Petty-"American Girl"
6. Against Me!-"I Still Love You Julie"
7. A Wilhelm Scream-"The King is Dead"
8. The Hold Steady-"Chips Ahoy!"
9. Bob Marley and the Wailers-"Redemption Song"
10. Damien Rice-"Cannonball"
11. Godspeed You! Black Emperor-"Sleep"
12. Foo Fighters-"Everlong"
13. Jimmy Eat World-"Big Casino"
14. American Steel-"Finally Alone"
15. Amon Amarth-"Under the Northern Star"
16. Municipal Waste-"Born to Party"
17. Animal Collective-"Bluish"
18. Bad Religion-"Sorrow"
19. The Beach Boys-"God Only Knows"
20. Jawbreaker-"Kiss the Bottle"
21. Ennio Morricone-"Theme from A Fistful of Dollars"
22. Eluvium-"Seeing You Off the Edges"
23. The Gaslight Anthem-"The Backseat"
24. Fake Problems-"Heart BPM"
25. Propagandhi-"Iteration"
26. LaGrecia-"Silently Just"
27. The Locust-"Armless and Overactive/Invented Organs"
28. Modern Life is War-"Midnight in America"
29. The National-"Slow Show"
30. Osker-"Going on the Instincts"
31. Panda Bear-"Comfy in Nautica"
32. Ludacris-"Get Back"
33. Pg.lost-"The Day Shift"
34. Pharoahe Monch-"Welcome to the Terrordome"
35. Planes Mistaken For Stars-"One Fucked Pony"
36. Samiam-"As We're Told"
37. Say Anything-"Admit It!!!"
38. Small Brown Bike-"I Will Bury You In Me"
39. Sundowner-"Midsummer Classic"
40. The Swellers-"Fire Away"
41. Thrice-"Stand and Feel Your Worth"
42. Clipse-"Trill"
43. Radiohead-"Reckoner"
44. Weezer-"Only in Dreams"

Classic discussion

Hey kids,

Not a whole lot of time to talk today, since I've got work in about an hour and I still need to shower/shave/finish this grilled cheese/try and be a pace car in the awful traffic jam on the way to work. Then it's an open to close shift of boring, needy, indecisive people so I can hopefully make enough money to pay the electric bill. Such is life, I suppose. We live, work, and die. But somehow, life is a little bit more exciting for me lately. Maybe it's the fact that over the next few months, money is going to be really tight and it's going to take some inventive living on my part to make everything fall into place. Maybe it's the fact that one of my best friends is about to move in with me this weekend, and it'll be nice to have a pleasant soul in the house instead of a bunch of bros, and it'll be nice to be able to get drunk and do ridiculous shit. It'll also be nice to get some quality music writing done, which seems to be the only part of the album writing process that I really would like some chemistry with. Maybe it's the fact that in less than 4 months, I'll be allowed to legally drink. That'll be nice. No more incognito getting drunk prior to public events. Good times. Maybe it's the fact that fall always seems to entail a ridiculous amount of hijinks, regardless of what year. Fall for me has always been the time of new experiences, for whatever reason. Even last year, when I was a seasoned college student, I did a ton of shit and pushed boundaries like I didn't even expect. I'm excited for fall. Hopefully it cools down a lot, and the weather stays clear. I love the end of summer and early fall, as well as mid winter. The best part of the year is yet to come. Anyway, work.

xoxo

It's the end of the world as we know it.

So if you've been to a movie theater within the past two months, chances are you've seen a few movie trailers repeat themselves. Particularly, 9 looks to be a stellar and epic battle of little potato sack guys (or something) against machines while Coheed and Cambria plays in the background. Another one that seems to have an alarming amount of trailers out is 2012, the movie about the Mayan-predicted apocalypse with Kevin Spacey and shit. I dunno, it's a lot like all of those other apocalypse movies in that it looks really cool in the previews, but you know exactly what's going to happen, it's not very realistic, and it's probably going to gargle chodes.

I once met a girl at a party where I knew just the crew of friends that had come with me. This girl was the most attractive girl at the party, but even then, she wasn't exactly a beauty. Regardless, she was one of the few that was not instantly filed under "mountain troll," so she garnered her fair share of attention. However, instead of trying to further her case for a wang to bring home that night and cuddle with, she started talking about how she was absolutely frightened of the Mayan prediction of the apocalypse in 2012. Needless to say, most everyone stopped talking to her after this.

Personally, I think worrying about the apocalypse is a pretty silly thing to do. For one, the day the earth decides it's going to end, that is pretty much it. Regardless of any preparations you make, and any ideas about escaping the planet before it dies, I'm pretty sure an entire fucking planet deciding to self-destruct is not going to be foiled by the actions of even millions of people. Armageddon is a force much bigger than any number of people, and nothing you or I do is going to stop it the day it happens. And if there is nothing we can do to change the inevitable, then you know what? So be it. The world could end at any moment, and I'm certain that if I knew it were to end soon, I wouldn't be typing an overly personified blog when there is any number of things I could be doing.

So in the end, will the world end? Who really knows? I know I don't. But what I do know is that, if the world does decide to end, I'm throwing a party. What better way to go out, right?

Baked Lays: A sad metaphor for my sex life, or merely chips?

Oh wow, so I've posted one entry a month for the past two months. Shame shame Joeycakes. Well, I could sit here and apologize, and then make some stupid excuses as to why I haven't posted, and then promise to post more, but I'm pretty sure that's what I've done the past two months. So, I'm just going to say that I have missed all of you 6 followers that I have. How are you? Everything good? I'm glad. Not really. That's cheesy and way too Chuck Palahniuk for my taste, thanks.

So uh, not really sure where to start. This past month or so has been pretty fun. I'm officially moved out of the bro mansion for good, and I couldn't be happier. Aside from passing moments where both parties are most likely thoroughly intoxicated, I will never have to see those three again, and already it feels like a behemoth weight has been lifted from my shoulders. In typical fashion, they left a ton of their bullshit behind which required me to hang around and clean up/throw away a ton of shit. The silver lining is that now I have a steamer, which I have been trying to get my hands on for a while but haven't had the money (although I do own a walmart steamer basket, so that was pretty handy). I guess the gold lining is that hopefully, I will never have to deal with such complete retards in such close quarters for the rest of my life. That is, until we have Guns 'n' Roses open up for us on our arena headlining tour. OBVIOUSLY.

So I dunno what's going on. Today is boring. I'm eating leftover pizza from I can't remember when, and drinking some swill bud light that I found in the fridge. It's not very good, but in that I didn't buy it, I have no remorse drinking it for free. Definitely drinking it out of a glass though, because fuck actually clutching such a bottle of douche swill.

Anyway, I'm gonna go hang somewhere else on the internet on this unnaturally cloudy day. l8er sk8ers.