Party 4
I don't think this is gonna be edited in this order, but i think the coolest part of this is that there's no judgment in my writing, i'm not thinking about it. I'm dictating my thoughts who gives a fuck what i think. It doesn't do justice to know i can't type for shit nor complete a thought process ever without jumping from one place to another. But it's interesting, it gives it character, it totally is me what you're reading, so yeah. Emily's a better writer, which i'm kinda jealous of, kinda proud of emily, kinda don't really care. I like this. It feels good.
Still to come: church camp, high school, parents divorce, jon, piper, drugs, alex, allie, sex, bass, guitar, songwriting, therapy (lyle), philosophy, finding my own outlook on life.
There are places that are intensely special to every one. For most of my friends, that place is Arrowbear. They have such a connection to something, they go there as often as possible. Some people i know from my new church, it's Pilgrim Pines, the Southern California/Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ's camp. I attend Feb. Camp there which is the combination of the UCC and the DOC, the denomination i used to belong to. DOC stands for Disciples of Christ. I hate that word, Christ. It's ugly. And it's so associated to the name of Jesus it's like his last name, which it's NOT! The most impressive, the greatest part of Jesus was not the idea that he was the son of god (which i personally don't believe), it's how revolutionary he was with the idea of god and the concept of love. It's that kind of attitude i live my life through, which makes me considerably more Christian than 99.9% of the bible thumpers. I don't need Jesus to die for my sins, i can save myself, and i do everyday by living with his example of universal unconditional love, and whether or not there's an after life doesn't change who i am and what i do and how i do it and however else you want to define yourself. that's kinda counterproductive to praise a guy who loved all while constantly condemning others. And i'm not condeming the majority of christians, i like to this i'm pointing out a large misunderstanding of what it is to be a christian. I remember a quote but not who said it, i learned it listening to Rev. Jerry Stinson preach, and if you want to hear amazing public speaking, he's the guy. The quote was from some eastern religious figure who said, "when i was studying chrisitanity, i fell in love with it. It's an amazing religion. The only problem is there aren't any real chrisians." something like that. That hit me hard, and i decided a long time ago that i wasn't a christian, that i was agnostic, and now i'm deciding to be label-less and just think what i think and believe what i believe and feel what i feel, and maybe that will change someday into something that makes me feel happy then, and if/when that times comes this part of my life will be another entry onto livejournal and maybe by then i'll have more then two friends on this website. I decided i was gonna live my life more like Jesus and Buddha and MLK and not do the whole hate thing, and i encourage anyone who is questioning their religion or themselves to try it out. It's neat. Well, for those people who love Arrowbear or Pilgrim Pines or who knows where else, my place akin to that is Loch Leven. Loch Leven is the DOC owned summer camp. I went there for the first time in the summer after 2nd grade, the first year i was eligable to go, and i haven't missed a summer yet. This summer will be 10 years i think. It's the only place i've ever been where everyone is themselves, and everyone gets along. Everyone likes each other! The labeled bros and hipsters and jocks and gang bangers and geeks and nerds and sqares and crazies and whatever else there is are all in one loving community, totally supportive of each and every one. My best friends up there are "down the mountain" emo, bro, wigger, cowgirl, race girl, prep, volleyball chick, hipster, junkie, drunk, and musician. Anywhere, these people would probably be at each other's throat. Side note: "each other" should be one word. But we are all one huge amazing family. There are still levels of separation, i mean i don't know every single person's life story, but i know a lot of peoples deep dark secrets. It's just a hidden home of love. I mean, there are some deeply committed christians there and then there are people questioning their faith, "Losing my religion" and then there are people that are completely atheist and any idea of god is ridiculous, and then there are people like me who just see god as a universal happy experience beyond the dimensions of time and space that can only be defined by not using words. That might not make logistic sense, but it does if you try it out. Still, all these people will varying and occasionally conflicting views are in love with each and every single thing in that room. Imagine a perfect, interesting world in the mountains for one week at a time, and there you have Loch Leven. It's one of the few places in the world that doesn't need music, but the music there certainly adds something indescribable. That's so weird about the English language, we have a word for not having any words, "Indescribable." I feel fortunate to have been raised being an English speaker because i can effectively communicate ANYTHING! Mrs. Burke my 11th grade AP English teacher said once "The english language has a word for everything!" and that seems to make sense. Other languages steal or mimic or words, but sense the english language really became predominate in the progressive (one of my favorite words, btw) world we haven't had to add words we didn't invent to our language (minus proper nouns, anyhow) so yeah. I like this language, i don't think it sounds ugly. In fact, no language sounds ugly to me. I have a distracted disposition. Loch Leven is where i really first opened up, i got to preach about what god was to me, and in 5 min. i had every single person there in tears. It felt so good to experience a complete connection with everyone in the world (that was the entire world for me at the time). If you've never felt it, let me know when you do so we can geek out over it. I felt special. And i didn't need or even want anyone to tell me it. I KNEW it. And for that feeling alone i owe that place my life. I love it there. And i know that someday i'm gonna have to stop going, and i'm afraid of that. This is my last year as a camper, and i don't think being a counselor would yield the same experience, so i'm gonna have to find a place that that in two years. What makes it unique i think for me from the rest of my friends is that i know no one from my life down here up there. So all that drama that carries to and fro places, like school and arrowbear, i've never felt that. Not really. I mean, the one year i went to arrowbear i remember dating that one girl Sara Kadi and her best friend from camp went to Standford with me and it was through her that she broke up with me on Valentine's day. Lame shit. Still, Loch Leven is incredible.
High School? Really? I don't want to write about that. Well, i don't want to write about jr. SO i'll start from the beginning, maybe by the time i get to it JR. year will sound better then it does right now.
My first high school experience. It was the summer of 2003, in the band room. I had been here once before to sign up for Jazz band, i was with Jonathon and Big Paul and i think Craig and Casey were there too and i had just made the decision to not do sports in high school and do marching band anyway. I told the story for the longest time that i thought Mr. M said i had to do marching band to be in jazz band, which he didn't say, but he did say enough things to infer he didn't want me doing sports because of how it conflicted with some of the jazz band's events. So i did the lazy thing and signed up for marching band and Jon did too, which i thought was weird. I thought he was going to do soccer, but there we were, freshman at band camp, which is a total LULZ moment! We were an insanely large freshman class, and most of us already knew each other. Well, the most important members already did. We were Me, Casey Martin (already 50% of the entire band's musical talent in us two alone), Craig Stukey, Emily Munoz, Jonathon Carreno, and others who just don't come to mind now. People not from Standford: Max Whapner (my personal hero), Becky Rhodes, Will Plummer, Green Shoes, Dylan Golden, Darren Perrin, Ethan something, Erica Crenshaw, and after three weeks Sally Wescott. How little we knew we'd primarily remain in the same group, rarely leaving that sacred room. But it was the first day of band camp, and we had to get the music from Mr. M. He gave me Alto 1 which i didn't think about at the time, but no freshman ever get first part unless their either me or casey. Then off to sectionals. That's where i met Furby who later became Spencer Jakomer. He would be the guy that took me under his wing, i would learn how to be liked in high school from his example. He was a huge cuddly guy with an incredible sense of humor. He would put on story time occasionally during lunch and always be doing something funny. He was band club president and the spirit award winner, a role i would take on in the coming years. He used to be so cool. Now he's one of the few excusses of the little sadness i allow in my life. But he wasn't the real section leader, to tell you the truth i don't remember who was. It always felt like him, maybe he was. I think it was his senior year that he couldn't be section leader, which he took to heart as did the rest of us. But there in that section i met Dylan Golden, who played alto at the time, and we hit it off. We'd become best friends, hanging out all the time, sleeping over at each other's house, just being best friends. It was awesome! He quit band in the middle of sophomore year and started wrestling and we saw less and less of each other, then he got into hard drugs and just recently pulled out of that. He's still super cool, super into music, has a broken down blue sun stained honda civic that can barely make it up signal hill. That has to be my favorite experience on signal hill. It was me, him, and jon who was in the backseat after Taqeria after winterformal 10th grade and we were meeting stefan and spencer and the rest of the gang on signal hill. He went full throttle at the hill but it sped down really quickly and we were yelling CMON BABY! and jon was inbetween dylan and me to take the weight of the back of the car and we just barely inched over the top. We could have died, but we didn't, and it was such a rush!! I remember having to run a lap and i was just out of my jock phase so i took off like a bullet, passed everyone and everything barely breaking a sweat. I got recognized for that, for being in shape, an attention i was looking for. A guy named Casey Maines, the lead trumpet player, a victim of your stereotypical arrogence, said i was fast and asked if i was on the soccer or track team. When i told him and his friends that i wasn't they were shocked and wanted to make sure i wasn't kidding them. That felt good in the ego sense of the feeling. It was later that day when we ran the music and i nailed it flawlessly by memory they recognized that i was Alex Balin from standford, that kid who kicked everyone's ass at jazz, including Nathan Ross, the sax star at Polly who i played with at standford. So i had made it there within the day. Marching was a weird concept to me, but i got it down by the second week and then excelled by the end of the year. In the middle of band camp we had freshman orientation which was not memorable. I didn't learn anything, didn't make any friends, took my i.d. picture with my stupid day old haircut and that was it. The Bruinettes, the famously retarded cheerleaders who marched with the band said i looked like Tweetie from Even Stevens the show on Disney channel, which i protested even when they said he was really cute. I guess i had to have been at the time, because i remember the first even day of the year there was this abnormally cute girl in the band room which i didn't think happened. She had long straight brown hair parted down the middle, a cute soccer girl body, puppy dog eyes, really well toned legs, packing up a flute. This girl was Sally Wescott and i used to slap her but with a broom. This was like the tenth comment i ever got on myspace from her:
"Hey hottness with a broom! Whats happenin my buddy?? My ass is worn out from all that beatin! geez....its like you want me to die of woo hoo! That would actually be one of the nicest ways to go....hehehehe!"
She called me hotness more then once. Then she joined marching band after quiting soccer because the coach was an asshole and a bigot. She was the manager of sorts, she couldn't be in the show cause she was so late and didn't really know how to march yet. So she went to and fro with the band, playing her flute in the stands, flirting with all of us. Anyway, she and i were talking, and then sat next to each other on the third to last seat on the left side in the back of the bus. She talked about her boobs being named ben and jerry cause they're better when they're cold and after i finished laughing we started making out. That would be the first and only time we ever made out. In retrospect, she's my first high school relationship, and i was hers too. She was dating some model during the summer, but she hadn't attended high school yet, and she met me at high school, so yeah. I was Sally Wescott's first high school boyfriend. I guess that makes me pretty cool. Then I asked her out a couple days latter and she said yes and we dated for a three weeks then broke up because we didn't have a lot in common. The thing is, we're best friends, and have a lot in common. Stupid reasonings. If you're gonna break up with someone, you really don't know why, unless it's obvious like "you cheated on me four times" or "i'm gay" but other than that you should just break up with someone and if they ask why tell them the truth: it's not you, it's me. Cause that's who you're doing it for, really, is yourself, at least i hope you're aware of that. If you really think you're doing it for someone else, then you're gonna have to face the music sometime and realize you got shit you're not even aware of yet. And that's gonna hurt, so better start thinking about it now before it hurts so much it changes you for the worse. And don't think you're gonna ignore it for all your life. Thoughts and feelings like that have a way with poking there heads out at the most inconvenient, inappropriate time. Freshmen year outside of band was stupid. I did ok in classes, wasn't really interested in anything outside of Marching Band, Jazz Band, and Jazz choir. Freshmen year i was in B Band, the second band made primarily out of freshmen cause there was so many of us. We kicked ass and were easily the better band. We got 98/100 and a lot of our adjudications. I remember i was hanging out with Casey Maines after my first high school jazz band festival, some small one in orange county area i think. We played in a Gym with Laurence on set. Laurence was so good at drums, he was totally into the sound of everything. We miss him intensely, and one who knew him feels the same way. We played some latin song i got to solo over, and i kicked butt, took names, and rocked out. I threw in some musical reference in the middle of my solo and the guy on the tape screamed when he heard it and said it was the best solo he had heard yet. While we were in the audience waiting for Jazz A awards, they were announcing the awards for the Novice division. Jazz B won the ensemble award and Casey Maines went up to accept it though he wasn't in B band. His reasoning was he was probably never gonna get the chance to accept an award so he took this as his opportunity to be recognized by someone. He told me my time would come to accept and award and i had four years ahead of me. Ironic. They then said they didn't get the plaque for Best Soloist in the novice division so they were sorry and that they'd mail it to the school. They asked if a Alex Balin from Wilson High School would stand and be recognized. I jumped out of my seat with my fist in the air, bowed and sat back down. Casey was totally over me smiling congratulating me along with his senior friends who in that moment became my friends too. They were Turtle, Brown Josh, and some drummer kid. That felt so good. That was the day casey ran over a stroller in the parking lot, blew out his tire, and my dad came out to help fix it. I have always had the coolest dad around. He did it for free, thanked him for driving his son, gave him some gas money as an advance for future rides and took off. We had carl's jr. Casey had the packet all week, memorized my solo, played it back to me on monday on his trumpet and it sounded awesome. I felt super good. I met stefan with casey maines. After band rehearsal we went to belmot burger up the street, stefan drove us. We connected immediately on Rage Against the Machine but differed on Audioslave. He said they weren't good, and i told him he was so wrong. He came around two years later with the Revelations album. He played me Tool and i was initially unimpressed. Then i actually listened when he burned for me Aenimia, and then i found my gods. Tool was my favorite band for all of high school and only recently switched to Radiohead, a band he exposed me to at the same time as tool. I owe so much of my modern music vocabulary to that man. He and I would become best friends, and it has only been weigned by my relationship with alex, the results of the atfermath of that (i.e. finishing school early) and him being totally busy all the time now.
High school is a very long subject.
I was with Stefan at his first concert. It was Dream Theature playing a 3 1/2 hour set, it was so intense i had to take a nap half way through it. But they're so good live, if you enjoy metal you should definitely take the time to see one of there shows. Since then he's been to two concerts without me, Real Big Fish and Dropkick Murphys the second time around. Stefan is one of those people like sally who are really into "what you do is who you are" which works for them because they do amazing things all the time. For me, i need more substance to my day. I like being who i am and what i do and how i do it all rolled into one, seems to produce happy feelings. Stefan is super cool. he looks like this:
yeah. he's awesome.
Freshman year i failed the first semester of english. It was a stupid class. My teacher was a real idiot, he didn't get a lot of things. Like the difference between being smart and doing work. He didn't check how well it was done, just if you did it or not. I'm one to not do work outside of class, but in class i'm a maniac, i'm super smart and super articulate (i usually put a whole lot more thought into a class paper then this journal thing i've been doing lately) so i'll get perfects on tests and 100% on everything i actually do, just big zeros everywhere else. I'm happy with that, it suits me, i enjoy it. My teachers, on the other hand, do not. But I learned to talk with them and show them I'm likable so when i didn't do work it wasn't cause i didn't respect them or because i was a trouble maker, i just didn't like doing it i wasn't gonna do it to make them happy, i'll just show up and make you laugh and help people who don't get it and just be a positive energy in the class. I didn't work for the grade, ever. I worked for the assignment value. If it got something out of it that was more than a letter of approval, then i'd generally like the assignment. If not, don't even think about it. I thought i was cool, and i think i was right. But because of failing English i had to take summer school, which was so dumb. I did well the second semester of english, and by well i mean i walked into the final with an F and walked out with a C, so i nailed the final. But summer school was a bungalow filled of people i didn't know really existed. Real Idiots. This prepared me for the real, working world. I didn't know people could be so inadvertently stupid! But the saving grace of that class was it was taught by Ms. Wegter before she was super skinny. She showed me that teachers could actually be really smart and studious, and she encouraged me to do well in school. He had to have a book we were reading on us at every class period, and at the time i was reading Nietzsche for the first time, The Birth of Tragedy, one of Jim Morrison's favorite books. It's super interesting, super complicated with language. But in a summer school class filled with a bunch of dunderheads which apparently is a real word reading One Fish Two Fish and Sports Illustrated, here's me with one of the hardest books out there, and she asks if i was doing some light reading. I really appreciated that, it showed she cared about something i cared about. I got 108.6% in the class, and i really enjoyed it. I'm super happy i had that experience. And so ended Freshman year.
Still to come: sophomore year, parents divorce, jon, piper, drugs, jr. year, alex, allie, sex, bass, guitar, songwriting, therapy (lyle), philosophy, finding my own outlook on life.
Still to come: church camp, high school, parents divorce, jon, piper, drugs, alex, allie, sex, bass, guitar, songwriting, therapy (lyle), philosophy, finding my own outlook on life.
There are places that are intensely special to every one. For most of my friends, that place is Arrowbear. They have such a connection to something, they go there as often as possible. Some people i know from my new church, it's Pilgrim Pines, the Southern California/Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ's camp. I attend Feb. Camp there which is the combination of the UCC and the DOC, the denomination i used to belong to. DOC stands for Disciples of Christ. I hate that word, Christ. It's ugly. And it's so associated to the name of Jesus it's like his last name, which it's NOT! The most impressive, the greatest part of Jesus was not the idea that he was the son of god (which i personally don't believe), it's how revolutionary he was with the idea of god and the concept of love. It's that kind of attitude i live my life through, which makes me considerably more Christian than 99.9% of the bible thumpers. I don't need Jesus to die for my sins, i can save myself, and i do everyday by living with his example of universal unconditional love, and whether or not there's an after life doesn't change who i am and what i do and how i do it and however else you want to define yourself. that's kinda counterproductive to praise a guy who loved all while constantly condemning others. And i'm not condeming the majority of christians, i like to this i'm pointing out a large misunderstanding of what it is to be a christian. I remember a quote but not who said it, i learned it listening to Rev. Jerry Stinson preach, and if you want to hear amazing public speaking, he's the guy. The quote was from some eastern religious figure who said, "when i was studying chrisitanity, i fell in love with it. It's an amazing religion. The only problem is there aren't any real chrisians." something like that. That hit me hard, and i decided a long time ago that i wasn't a christian, that i was agnostic, and now i'm deciding to be label-less and just think what i think and believe what i believe and feel what i feel, and maybe that will change someday into something that makes me feel happy then, and if/when that times comes this part of my life will be another entry onto livejournal and maybe by then i'll have more then two friends on this website. I decided i was gonna live my life more like Jesus and Buddha and MLK and not do the whole hate thing, and i encourage anyone who is questioning their religion or themselves to try it out. It's neat. Well, for those people who love Arrowbear or Pilgrim Pines or who knows where else, my place akin to that is Loch Leven. Loch Leven is the DOC owned summer camp. I went there for the first time in the summer after 2nd grade, the first year i was eligable to go, and i haven't missed a summer yet. This summer will be 10 years i think. It's the only place i've ever been where everyone is themselves, and everyone gets along. Everyone likes each other! The labeled bros and hipsters and jocks and gang bangers and geeks and nerds and sqares and crazies and whatever else there is are all in one loving community, totally supportive of each and every one. My best friends up there are "down the mountain" emo, bro, wigger, cowgirl, race girl, prep, volleyball chick, hipster, junkie, drunk, and musician. Anywhere, these people would probably be at each other's throat. Side note: "each other" should be one word. But we are all one huge amazing family. There are still levels of separation, i mean i don't know every single person's life story, but i know a lot of peoples deep dark secrets. It's just a hidden home of love. I mean, there are some deeply committed christians there and then there are people questioning their faith, "Losing my religion" and then there are people that are completely atheist and any idea of god is ridiculous, and then there are people like me who just see god as a universal happy experience beyond the dimensions of time and space that can only be defined by not using words. That might not make logistic sense, but it does if you try it out. Still, all these people will varying and occasionally conflicting views are in love with each and every single thing in that room. Imagine a perfect, interesting world in the mountains for one week at a time, and there you have Loch Leven. It's one of the few places in the world that doesn't need music, but the music there certainly adds something indescribable. That's so weird about the English language, we have a word for not having any words, "Indescribable." I feel fortunate to have been raised being an English speaker because i can effectively communicate ANYTHING! Mrs. Burke my 11th grade AP English teacher said once "The english language has a word for everything!" and that seems to make sense. Other languages steal or mimic or words, but sense the english language really became predominate in the progressive (one of my favorite words, btw) world we haven't had to add words we didn't invent to our language (minus proper nouns, anyhow) so yeah. I like this language, i don't think it sounds ugly. In fact, no language sounds ugly to me. I have a distracted disposition. Loch Leven is where i really first opened up, i got to preach about what god was to me, and in 5 min. i had every single person there in tears. It felt so good to experience a complete connection with everyone in the world (that was the entire world for me at the time). If you've never felt it, let me know when you do so we can geek out over it. I felt special. And i didn't need or even want anyone to tell me it. I KNEW it. And for that feeling alone i owe that place my life. I love it there. And i know that someday i'm gonna have to stop going, and i'm afraid of that. This is my last year as a camper, and i don't think being a counselor would yield the same experience, so i'm gonna have to find a place that that in two years. What makes it unique i think for me from the rest of my friends is that i know no one from my life down here up there. So all that drama that carries to and fro places, like school and arrowbear, i've never felt that. Not really. I mean, the one year i went to arrowbear i remember dating that one girl Sara Kadi and her best friend from camp went to Standford with me and it was through her that she broke up with me on Valentine's day. Lame shit. Still, Loch Leven is incredible.
High School? Really? I don't want to write about that. Well, i don't want to write about jr. SO i'll start from the beginning, maybe by the time i get to it JR. year will sound better then it does right now.
My first high school experience. It was the summer of 2003, in the band room. I had been here once before to sign up for Jazz band, i was with Jonathon and Big Paul and i think Craig and Casey were there too and i had just made the decision to not do sports in high school and do marching band anyway. I told the story for the longest time that i thought Mr. M said i had to do marching band to be in jazz band, which he didn't say, but he did say enough things to infer he didn't want me doing sports because of how it conflicted with some of the jazz band's events. So i did the lazy thing and signed up for marching band and Jon did too, which i thought was weird. I thought he was going to do soccer, but there we were, freshman at band camp, which is a total LULZ moment! We were an insanely large freshman class, and most of us already knew each other. Well, the most important members already did. We were Me, Casey Martin (already 50% of the entire band's musical talent in us two alone), Craig Stukey, Emily Munoz, Jonathon Carreno, and others who just don't come to mind now. People not from Standford: Max Whapner (my personal hero), Becky Rhodes, Will Plummer, Green Shoes, Dylan Golden, Darren Perrin, Ethan something, Erica Crenshaw, and after three weeks Sally Wescott. How little we knew we'd primarily remain in the same group, rarely leaving that sacred room. But it was the first day of band camp, and we had to get the music from Mr. M. He gave me Alto 1 which i didn't think about at the time, but no freshman ever get first part unless their either me or casey. Then off to sectionals. That's where i met Furby who later became Spencer Jakomer. He would be the guy that took me under his wing, i would learn how to be liked in high school from his example. He was a huge cuddly guy with an incredible sense of humor. He would put on story time occasionally during lunch and always be doing something funny. He was band club president and the spirit award winner, a role i would take on in the coming years. He used to be so cool. Now he's one of the few excusses of the little sadness i allow in my life. But he wasn't the real section leader, to tell you the truth i don't remember who was. It always felt like him, maybe he was. I think it was his senior year that he couldn't be section leader, which he took to heart as did the rest of us. But there in that section i met Dylan Golden, who played alto at the time, and we hit it off. We'd become best friends, hanging out all the time, sleeping over at each other's house, just being best friends. It was awesome! He quit band in the middle of sophomore year and started wrestling and we saw less and less of each other, then he got into hard drugs and just recently pulled out of that. He's still super cool, super into music, has a broken down blue sun stained honda civic that can barely make it up signal hill. That has to be my favorite experience on signal hill. It was me, him, and jon who was in the backseat after Taqeria after winterformal 10th grade and we were meeting stefan and spencer and the rest of the gang on signal hill. He went full throttle at the hill but it sped down really quickly and we were yelling CMON BABY! and jon was inbetween dylan and me to take the weight of the back of the car and we just barely inched over the top. We could have died, but we didn't, and it was such a rush!! I remember having to run a lap and i was just out of my jock phase so i took off like a bullet, passed everyone and everything barely breaking a sweat. I got recognized for that, for being in shape, an attention i was looking for. A guy named Casey Maines, the lead trumpet player, a victim of your stereotypical arrogence, said i was fast and asked if i was on the soccer or track team. When i told him and his friends that i wasn't they were shocked and wanted to make sure i wasn't kidding them. That felt good in the ego sense of the feeling. It was later that day when we ran the music and i nailed it flawlessly by memory they recognized that i was Alex Balin from standford, that kid who kicked everyone's ass at jazz, including Nathan Ross, the sax star at Polly who i played with at standford. So i had made it there within the day. Marching was a weird concept to me, but i got it down by the second week and then excelled by the end of the year. In the middle of band camp we had freshman orientation which was not memorable. I didn't learn anything, didn't make any friends, took my i.d. picture with my stupid day old haircut and that was it. The Bruinettes, the famously retarded cheerleaders who marched with the band said i looked like Tweetie from Even Stevens the show on Disney channel, which i protested even when they said he was really cute. I guess i had to have been at the time, because i remember the first even day of the year there was this abnormally cute girl in the band room which i didn't think happened. She had long straight brown hair parted down the middle, a cute soccer girl body, puppy dog eyes, really well toned legs, packing up a flute. This girl was Sally Wescott and i used to slap her but with a broom. This was like the tenth comment i ever got on myspace from her:
"Hey hottness with a broom! Whats happenin my buddy?? My ass is worn out from all that beatin! geez....its like you want me to die of woo hoo! That would actually be one of the nicest ways to go....hehehehe!"
She called me hotness more then once. Then she joined marching band after quiting soccer because the coach was an asshole and a bigot. She was the manager of sorts, she couldn't be in the show cause she was so late and didn't really know how to march yet. So she went to and fro with the band, playing her flute in the stands, flirting with all of us. Anyway, she and i were talking, and then sat next to each other on the third to last seat on the left side in the back of the bus. She talked about her boobs being named ben and jerry cause they're better when they're cold and after i finished laughing we started making out. That would be the first and only time we ever made out. In retrospect, she's my first high school relationship, and i was hers too. She was dating some model during the summer, but she hadn't attended high school yet, and she met me at high school, so yeah. I was Sally Wescott's first high school boyfriend. I guess that makes me pretty cool. Then I asked her out a couple days latter and she said yes and we dated for a three weeks then broke up because we didn't have a lot in common. The thing is, we're best friends, and have a lot in common. Stupid reasonings. If you're gonna break up with someone, you really don't know why, unless it's obvious like "you cheated on me four times" or "i'm gay" but other than that you should just break up with someone and if they ask why tell them the truth: it's not you, it's me. Cause that's who you're doing it for, really, is yourself, at least i hope you're aware of that. If you really think you're doing it for someone else, then you're gonna have to face the music sometime and realize you got shit you're not even aware of yet. And that's gonna hurt, so better start thinking about it now before it hurts so much it changes you for the worse. And don't think you're gonna ignore it for all your life. Thoughts and feelings like that have a way with poking there heads out at the most inconvenient, inappropriate time. Freshmen year outside of band was stupid. I did ok in classes, wasn't really interested in anything outside of Marching Band, Jazz Band, and Jazz choir. Freshmen year i was in B Band, the second band made primarily out of freshmen cause there was so many of us. We kicked ass and were easily the better band. We got 98/100 and a lot of our adjudications. I remember i was hanging out with Casey Maines after my first high school jazz band festival, some small one in orange county area i think. We played in a Gym with Laurence on set. Laurence was so good at drums, he was totally into the sound of everything. We miss him intensely, and one who knew him feels the same way. We played some latin song i got to solo over, and i kicked butt, took names, and rocked out. I threw in some musical reference in the middle of my solo and the guy on the tape screamed when he heard it and said it was the best solo he had heard yet. While we were in the audience waiting for Jazz A awards, they were announcing the awards for the Novice division. Jazz B won the ensemble award and Casey Maines went up to accept it though he wasn't in B band. His reasoning was he was probably never gonna get the chance to accept an award so he took this as his opportunity to be recognized by someone. He told me my time would come to accept and award and i had four years ahead of me. Ironic. They then said they didn't get the plaque for Best Soloist in the novice division so they were sorry and that they'd mail it to the school. They asked if a Alex Balin from Wilson High School would stand and be recognized. I jumped out of my seat with my fist in the air, bowed and sat back down. Casey was totally over me smiling congratulating me along with his senior friends who in that moment became my friends too. They were Turtle, Brown Josh, and some drummer kid. That felt so good. That was the day casey ran over a stroller in the parking lot, blew out his tire, and my dad came out to help fix it. I have always had the coolest dad around. He did it for free, thanked him for driving his son, gave him some gas money as an advance for future rides and took off. We had carl's jr. Casey had the packet all week, memorized my solo, played it back to me on monday on his trumpet and it sounded awesome. I felt super good. I met stefan with casey maines. After band rehearsal we went to belmot burger up the street, stefan drove us. We connected immediately on Rage Against the Machine but differed on Audioslave. He said they weren't good, and i told him he was so wrong. He came around two years later with the Revelations album. He played me Tool and i was initially unimpressed. Then i actually listened when he burned for me Aenimia, and then i found my gods. Tool was my favorite band for all of high school and only recently switched to Radiohead, a band he exposed me to at the same time as tool. I owe so much of my modern music vocabulary to that man. He and I would become best friends, and it has only been weigned by my relationship with alex, the results of the atfermath of that (i.e. finishing school early) and him being totally busy all the time now.
High school is a very long subject.
I was with Stefan at his first concert. It was Dream Theature playing a 3 1/2 hour set, it was so intense i had to take a nap half way through it. But they're so good live, if you enjoy metal you should definitely take the time to see one of there shows. Since then he's been to two concerts without me, Real Big Fish and Dropkick Murphys the second time around. Stefan is one of those people like sally who are really into "what you do is who you are" which works for them because they do amazing things all the time. For me, i need more substance to my day. I like being who i am and what i do and how i do it all rolled into one, seems to produce happy feelings. Stefan is super cool. he looks like this:
yeah. he's awesome.
Freshman year i failed the first semester of english. It was a stupid class. My teacher was a real idiot, he didn't get a lot of things. Like the difference between being smart and doing work. He didn't check how well it was done, just if you did it or not. I'm one to not do work outside of class, but in class i'm a maniac, i'm super smart and super articulate (i usually put a whole lot more thought into a class paper then this journal thing i've been doing lately) so i'll get perfects on tests and 100% on everything i actually do, just big zeros everywhere else. I'm happy with that, it suits me, i enjoy it. My teachers, on the other hand, do not. But I learned to talk with them and show them I'm likable so when i didn't do work it wasn't cause i didn't respect them or because i was a trouble maker, i just didn't like doing it i wasn't gonna do it to make them happy, i'll just show up and make you laugh and help people who don't get it and just be a positive energy in the class. I didn't work for the grade, ever. I worked for the assignment value. If it got something out of it that was more than a letter of approval, then i'd generally like the assignment. If not, don't even think about it. I thought i was cool, and i think i was right. But because of failing English i had to take summer school, which was so dumb. I did well the second semester of english, and by well i mean i walked into the final with an F and walked out with a C, so i nailed the final. But summer school was a bungalow filled of people i didn't know really existed. Real Idiots. This prepared me for the real, working world. I didn't know people could be so inadvertently stupid! But the saving grace of that class was it was taught by Ms. Wegter before she was super skinny. She showed me that teachers could actually be really smart and studious, and she encouraged me to do well in school. He had to have a book we were reading on us at every class period, and at the time i was reading Nietzsche for the first time, The Birth of Tragedy, one of Jim Morrison's favorite books. It's super interesting, super complicated with language. But in a summer school class filled with a bunch of dunderheads which apparently is a real word reading One Fish Two Fish and Sports Illustrated, here's me with one of the hardest books out there, and she asks if i was doing some light reading. I really appreciated that, it showed she cared about something i cared about. I got 108.6% in the class, and i really enjoyed it. I'm super happy i had that experience. And so ended Freshman year.
Still to come: sophomore year, parents divorce, jon, piper, drugs, jr. year, alex, allie, sex, bass, guitar, songwriting, therapy (lyle), philosophy, finding my own outlook on life.