cut the shit and start the pit
I broke my six day work week by taking off tonight. I thought I'd be going to Saves the Day but that fell through so I just ended up going to a house show in this kid's basement. I guess for what it was it was pretty cool. Three bands played - Hope is our shield, Blackavar, and the band of the kid who's house it was. I was very pleasantly surprised by Hope is Our Shield, they borrow a lot from Thursday and This Day Forward (mostly later TDF) but they're younger kids and just starting out, I'm sure with time they'll branch off from a narrow assortment of influences and start getting more creative and original. For right now, it was clear that they put a lot of energy and sincerity into their music. The cute little kid who plays keyboards has a great screaming voice too. I moshed for a couple of their little breakdowns, along with Dion and Hober. It was good fun.
Blackavar played and was boring. Short spazzy songs with no real substance behind them, more feedback and other filler than actual music, songs with no backbone, nothing to really sink your teeth into. They'd be tolerable if it weren't for their egos and shit-talking. Also I heard a lot of hyping up of this one breakdown they had and by the time it was over I hadn't even realized it had started yet. Poor. I used to like one or two kids in this band but I've heard enough about the shit they say that I don't particularly like any of them. They're just more leeches; kids who will never make a real effort or do anything sincere, but still feel that they have a license to tear down other people. More fifteen/sixteen year old know-it-alls. What every scene could do without.
The last band jammed for like an hour, it was about as much fun as watching my dad eat riblits and smoke a bong. I don't know where that image came from, but while they were playing it came to me and stuck. So whatever.
I think the $1 I paid to get into this show was pretty fair because I got to drink as much soda as I wanted. AND DRINK I DID. OH YES.
Lauren was there tonight; I didn't say one word to her the entire time. At one point, during the last band, when she was sitting across the room from me in the back, where I sat against the wall, it occured to me how fucked up it is. A week and a half ago things were so awesome and now we sit on opposite sides of a room and don't talk and pretend the other person doesn't exist (or act like we're pretending? one of these things). It sucks, it all sucks really badly but I can't think of anything better to do. I mean, I was the one screwed over here, right? I guess this is the right way to act. I can't think of a better one right now, not one that makes sense at the current time. Maybe in a few weeks or months or something but not at this moment. Oh yeah and Lauren if you're reading this by some off-chance, I'm not charging you with anything. Just stating my feelings; and you don't have a livejournal anyway, I'm not on the friends list of this non-existent livejournal, and there's no real reason for you to be reading this anyway! So don't read it and then complain about how I talk shit on you all the time in online journals, cause there's no reason for you to be reading it anyway! This isn't Xanga!
Wow. Look at that paragraph. I totally hate the person I am sometimes. I look at my entries from summer 2001 and around that period and I hate that guy even more, except I think now i'm a little more intelligent, a little better adjusted. A little less innocent in both good and bad ways. I read a bunch of books and spent a lot of time figuring myself out, but I'm no better off. I'm still a piece of shit, just a little less embarassing. I've got some accomplishments under my belt but nothing really spectacular. Ugh. Saying "I hate my life" has become a crutch for me. I'm gonna stop doing it; not repressing the feelings of depression or angst or bitterness I feel, but instead channelling them into something useful, or using them as fuel to better my situation. That's the way it has to be, after all.
I think one of my problems with girls, or really, one of my problems involving how I feel about girls, is this sense of entitlement I somehow developed. Back in the day, like in high school, I had such a different perspective on girls. Now when I like a girl and she doesn't feel the same way about me I get all bent out of shape, like that's a totally ridiculous and unfair outcome. In high school I was happy if the girl I liked knew my name and said hi to me in the hallways, let alone wanted to kiss me or hang out with me or any of that shit. I don't know when shit changed, but maybe I should try to get back to how I used to be.
The old Justin Ogden was a loudmouth who had opinions about shit he didn't really understand and talked a lot about shit he didn't know too much about, but I had a better perspective on shit. Ultimately, a much more positive outlook, and that's something I'd like to get back. So I'm gonna work on that. If I can get my old outlook and combine it with this wisdom and knowledge I gained over the past few years, I think I'd be doing okay.
Here's another thing; if you asked me and gave me some time to think about it, I could come up with a killer list of people I hate. I guarantee there would be AT THE VERY LEAST twenty names on it. I look back at high school, well, the earlier half of high school, and I didn't hate anybody. When I first started attending school in America (9th grade, Wissahickon) this dude named James O'Reilly would constantly pick on me and make me feel like shit. He was absolutely brutal to me, much more directly threatening and menacing than anybody has been to me in the past two years or so. But still, I never hated this guy. I just wanted to understand why he disliked me so much and stop it, and eventually I did. He became arguably my best friend a few months later, and we still keep in (infrequent) contact. I think that if I had a situation like that, a kid like James in my life now, I would just say "Fuck you douche bag, if you come near me I'll tear your fucking throat out" and that would be the end of it. Maybe I've learned to stand up for myself and not take bullshit from people, but what about the friendship James and I had? I'll never experience something like that again because I'll cut it off before it could ever take root. Then again, I have a ton of friends as it is. What I'm getting at, I guess, is that I waste a lot of time and effort on hating people now. What if I actually forced myself to not hate anybody, to put aside my differences with them and talk to them like human beings, every time I had a conflict with somebody? How would things be then? Different for sure, but better or worse?
This is just some shit I've been rolling around in my mind lately.
Since livejournal introduced these PHONE POST things I decided to go premium. I'm gonna start making a lot of them, because I often have a lot on my mind and nothing to do, and nothing but my piece of shit cellular phone to keep me company (and keep me entertained). I haven't made very good use of this phone post feature so far but be on the lookout.
The thought of creating a Doylestown scene zine crossed my mind today, while reading heartattack I guess. If Doylestown ever entered a situation in which we had steady shows and reliable venues and shit like that, I'd undertake that kind of project in a second, but right now things are too erratic to form a decent support system for a zine. Maybe that's what I like about shows around here; maybe if we had a steady venue the Doylestown scene would just burn out and wouldn' t be fun anymore. It's a weird thought. But hey.
(sorry if none of this makes sense, it's late and I just felt the need to unload a ton of crap that was bouncing around on my mind. oh and my new LJ picture is from an American Nightmare show awhile back.)
Blackavar played and was boring. Short spazzy songs with no real substance behind them, more feedback and other filler than actual music, songs with no backbone, nothing to really sink your teeth into. They'd be tolerable if it weren't for their egos and shit-talking. Also I heard a lot of hyping up of this one breakdown they had and by the time it was over I hadn't even realized it had started yet. Poor. I used to like one or two kids in this band but I've heard enough about the shit they say that I don't particularly like any of them. They're just more leeches; kids who will never make a real effort or do anything sincere, but still feel that they have a license to tear down other people. More fifteen/sixteen year old know-it-alls. What every scene could do without.
The last band jammed for like an hour, it was about as much fun as watching my dad eat riblits and smoke a bong. I don't know where that image came from, but while they were playing it came to me and stuck. So whatever.
I think the $1 I paid to get into this show was pretty fair because I got to drink as much soda as I wanted. AND DRINK I DID. OH YES.
Lauren was there tonight; I didn't say one word to her the entire time. At one point, during the last band, when she was sitting across the room from me in the back, where I sat against the wall, it occured to me how fucked up it is. A week and a half ago things were so awesome and now we sit on opposite sides of a room and don't talk and pretend the other person doesn't exist (or act like we're pretending? one of these things). It sucks, it all sucks really badly but I can't think of anything better to do. I mean, I was the one screwed over here, right? I guess this is the right way to act. I can't think of a better one right now, not one that makes sense at the current time. Maybe in a few weeks or months or something but not at this moment. Oh yeah and Lauren if you're reading this by some off-chance, I'm not charging you with anything. Just stating my feelings; and you don't have a livejournal anyway, I'm not on the friends list of this non-existent livejournal, and there's no real reason for you to be reading this anyway! So don't read it and then complain about how I talk shit on you all the time in online journals, cause there's no reason for you to be reading it anyway! This isn't Xanga!
Wow. Look at that paragraph. I totally hate the person I am sometimes. I look at my entries from summer 2001 and around that period and I hate that guy even more, except I think now i'm a little more intelligent, a little better adjusted. A little less innocent in both good and bad ways. I read a bunch of books and spent a lot of time figuring myself out, but I'm no better off. I'm still a piece of shit, just a little less embarassing. I've got some accomplishments under my belt but nothing really spectacular. Ugh. Saying "I hate my life" has become a crutch for me. I'm gonna stop doing it; not repressing the feelings of depression or angst or bitterness I feel, but instead channelling them into something useful, or using them as fuel to better my situation. That's the way it has to be, after all.
I think one of my problems with girls, or really, one of my problems involving how I feel about girls, is this sense of entitlement I somehow developed. Back in the day, like in high school, I had such a different perspective on girls. Now when I like a girl and she doesn't feel the same way about me I get all bent out of shape, like that's a totally ridiculous and unfair outcome. In high school I was happy if the girl I liked knew my name and said hi to me in the hallways, let alone wanted to kiss me or hang out with me or any of that shit. I don't know when shit changed, but maybe I should try to get back to how I used to be.
The old Justin Ogden was a loudmouth who had opinions about shit he didn't really understand and talked a lot about shit he didn't know too much about, but I had a better perspective on shit. Ultimately, a much more positive outlook, and that's something I'd like to get back. So I'm gonna work on that. If I can get my old outlook and combine it with this wisdom and knowledge I gained over the past few years, I think I'd be doing okay.
Here's another thing; if you asked me and gave me some time to think about it, I could come up with a killer list of people I hate. I guarantee there would be AT THE VERY LEAST twenty names on it. I look back at high school, well, the earlier half of high school, and I didn't hate anybody. When I first started attending school in America (9th grade, Wissahickon) this dude named James O'Reilly would constantly pick on me and make me feel like shit. He was absolutely brutal to me, much more directly threatening and menacing than anybody has been to me in the past two years or so. But still, I never hated this guy. I just wanted to understand why he disliked me so much and stop it, and eventually I did. He became arguably my best friend a few months later, and we still keep in (infrequent) contact. I think that if I had a situation like that, a kid like James in my life now, I would just say "Fuck you douche bag, if you come near me I'll tear your fucking throat out" and that would be the end of it. Maybe I've learned to stand up for myself and not take bullshit from people, but what about the friendship James and I had? I'll never experience something like that again because I'll cut it off before it could ever take root. Then again, I have a ton of friends as it is. What I'm getting at, I guess, is that I waste a lot of time and effort on hating people now. What if I actually forced myself to not hate anybody, to put aside my differences with them and talk to them like human beings, every time I had a conflict with somebody? How would things be then? Different for sure, but better or worse?
This is just some shit I've been rolling around in my mind lately.
Since livejournal introduced these PHONE POST things I decided to go premium. I'm gonna start making a lot of them, because I often have a lot on my mind and nothing to do, and nothing but my piece of shit cellular phone to keep me company (and keep me entertained). I haven't made very good use of this phone post feature so far but be on the lookout.
The thought of creating a Doylestown scene zine crossed my mind today, while reading heartattack I guess. If Doylestown ever entered a situation in which we had steady shows and reliable venues and shit like that, I'd undertake that kind of project in a second, but right now things are too erratic to form a decent support system for a zine. Maybe that's what I like about shows around here; maybe if we had a steady venue the Doylestown scene would just burn out and wouldn' t be fun anymore. It's a weird thought. But hey.
(sorry if none of this makes sense, it's late and I just felt the need to unload a ton of crap that was bouncing around on my mind. oh and my new LJ picture is from an American Nightmare show awhile back.)