Writing class and picking up chicks

I think the two are mutually exclusive, even though there are a few hotties in my Creative Writing class this semester. This could turn out to be a lot of fun. Our first big assignment is a memoir / autobiorgraphy that's 600 - 1000 words. Considering the fact I post to here with whatever's floating around in this fucked-up head of mine, it should be pretty obvious that I'm comfortable with talking about my life, at least to a (theoretically) anonymous crowd. But this class is a little different than a few readers on the internet. A lot of the pieces get workshopped in groups, so that means everyone gets to see it and read it. I don't think I'm afraid of that, I feed off criticism and coming from other writers on my level this should be good. I'm more afraid of what they'll think of me as the writer of said piece. Because, you see, I came up with a title that's sure to piss off people who know me who read it, or at least make them feel a bit resentful towards me. I'm going to call it "All My Friends Are Gone." I don't know about you, but if one of my friends wrote a piece on how he has no friends, I'd get the message we didn't feel the same way about each other. Making it worse is the fact that I don't need these fellow classmates to know about my lack of a social life. And then again, that's not even what I'm writing about. I'm writing about the nature of friends and how they come and go, how the ones that really matter to me are the ones that stick around. So yeah, it might hurt a bit if I say "you're gone" when you're still here. But whatever, more to come on that when I actually get around to writing that hell-raiser.

Picking up girls isn't something I do well. In fact, what the hell am I talking about? It's not something I do at all. A reason for that is because I'm usually alone, and I need some sort of support to accomplish this amazing feat. I've been thinking, and there's really only two types of people to do this with. Those that make me look good, and those that make me look bad. I have one of each for friends, and it may surprise you who is who.

This is my best friend in the whole world, Ken. His site can be found here. We share a mutual hate for each other, and I think it's because we're fairly unique, yet share some key traits that piss us off so much we can't stand the fact that someone else is so much like us that we can't take it anymore and we end up doing to digital equivalant of stabbing each other in the eyes. Conversely, maybe we acknowledge the fact we're different, and we want someone to share in our anger, so basically we squabble about anything from music to girls to politics in an effort to convince the other to be more like us. It could be both.

Anyways, we could never go cruising for women. Ever. We make each other look so bad it's not even funny. As you can see, he's ugly, maybe even more so than me. But that's not all, because not everyone is in to the whole "looks" thing. You see, every third word out of his mouth is "fuck" and he constantly gets worked up over the littlest things. We'll be shooting pool and he'll miss a shot and all of the sudden it's "FUCK! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! HOW THE FUCKING FUCK DID I MISS THAT YOU ASSHOLE!" and I seriously wonder what the bar patrons think of that. I know, he doesn't care, and that's fine. But for my sake, they must be like

Girl 1: "If the fat one is like that, what the hell is the long-haired one like?"
Girl 2: "Who cares? They're both ugly."

Anyways, you might be thinking, "well gee Ken, that's why girls don't like you." To which he would reply: "FUCK YOU!" He claims some girls do, and I don't doubt that at all. But something's telling me it's not his random anger that's impressing the ladies.

Now I also make him look bad. I tend to look like a creep when I go out, with my long hair and leather trench coat. And, maybe, we'll be at a place or meeting some girls that dig HIM and not me, because I tend to make a point of distancing myself from his tastes in those types of situations. Those girls are probably like

Girl 1: "Eww, the long-haired one is creepy looking. What a geek. Why does Ken hang around with that ass clown?"
Girl 2: "Because he's an idiot."

See, it just won't work out. We can only go out and cause a ruckus or play pool and darts in the most horrible, drunken fashion. Which is all fine by me.


That's my roommate Mick. Actually, no it isn't him, it was one of the results for "abercrombie guy" on Google Image Search and it fits him prefectly, because as you can see from the picture he's a flamer holding a teddy bear. We hate each other as well, this time because we're totally different from each other, but we live together anyways. It works somehow. Given the chance, I'd kick him in the sack with my steel-toed boots, especially when he cranks Nelly's new abomination "Air Force Ones." I hate Nelly.

We make each other look good. It's that simple. If Mick decides to drag me to a party, and the girls look at the two of us, it's a win-win situation, mostly for him. He's not the best looking guy, according to him. But he's got image, and that's all he cares about. He's your typical DMB-loving, Abercrombie wearing PETA freak liberal pinko college student, and the chicks love it. He's not too into anything, which just affirms my suspicions that being too extremely into anything isn't a good thing. Like me, I'm too into my music, or porn, or into my own little world. One look at me and Mick looks like Tom Cruise. And that fits as well because Tom Cruise is gay.

I have to turn this around somehow, he has to make me look good too. I think the only way that can happen is because I'm associated with him. He's in a frat (read: homo-erotic group of college boys) so he has instant friends. If I happen to be around, they might think, at least without really talking to me that I'm not that bad of a guy. After all, Mick can stand me. I must have SOMETHING in common with him. The girls might think that too, until I'm being unwillingly introduced to them and they see TOOL on my shirt instead of a brand name, or that may hair isn't frosted or half-spiked, that it instead drifts down to my shoulders. And besides, a guy that has to be introduced is no guy you want to talk to at a party. He has no balls. I've actually been told that. You know what I did? I laughed in her face and shook my head and walked away.

So I guess I should just not look at parties or any other social gathering. The internet works fine for me, I can get to know the person somewhat before they have to see my face. Because I'm like that one episode of Seinfeld where George is trying to con another date with a girl by leaving random things at her house. He says he does it because he knows he's a little annoying at first, you can barely stand him. But after a while he's in her head like a commerical jingle. Granted, Costanza works better than Tryniszewski in the "By Men-nen!" jingle...but it's worth a shot, isn't it?

The boy is back in town

I suppose I should get back to my normal routine after a short burst of drinking and losing myself in my apartment. This semester is going to be a bitch. I hate physics. I don't enjoy reading the memoir of an author who was raped as a college freshman. I don't like it when a professor doesn't have a grasp on the English language. I don't want to hold it against those people; they're only doing their jobs. But I don't see myself enjoying this at all.

What really sucks is that this is all I have to say for now.


Song of the moment - Jimmy Eat World - Just Watch The Fireworks

Radio

After the last post I realized it could stand on it's own, and decided not to do the radio part.

For some reason I started listening to commercial radio again, I suppose mainly because the only station I can pick up in my apartment at school is the alternative station on campus where I have a show. I realize that there is some good stuff out there on commercial radio. Zwan comes to mind, and the new Everclear does also. Of course, if I listen to those stations long enough, I'll get sick of those songs too. Commercial radio never fails to do that.

Like I said, I work at a radio station. Granted, it's a college one, but it's actually run much like a commercial station. We have actual playlists that we play from, and the DJ's pick only 2 songs an hour. Mind you, I'm not counting all the "specialty" shows, I'm talking about the regular alternative and hip-hop shifts. We have about 300 cd's that are in rotation, and about 3 or 4 songs from each cd are good for airplay. This is unlike msot commerical stations that have a list of about 40 songs that they play over and over again, and then other spots in the hour are reserved for "catalogue" hits. I could go into more detail about this, as I learned how station managers plan out each hour. But that's boring.

What's wrong with radio is this: there's no variety anymore. Sure, you can go from a modern rock station, to classic rock, to rap, and on and on. But what was wrong with having all those on one station? There's way too much good music out there...why limit yourself by listening to only one genre? Some of you may be thinking, "Kevin, you idiot! What about Top 40 radio?" Top 40 radio is the worst of all. They only play the newest songs, and with such a small playlist they drive those songs into the ground (where most of them should belong anyways). Alternative radio isn't the answer, either. Indie rock is cool, I'll admit that... but it's not the end-all of music. Alt-radio tends to be free form, which is good, but at the same time they ignore pop music for the most part. I'm not talking the overproduced crap that passes for music on MTV, I'm talking good old fashioned rock and roll. Some of you may know that I have a soft spot for guitar-driven pop (like Weezer)... So neither of those things are the answer. I think radio in general needs to go back to being free form.. they should play music from the 50's - today with a nice balance of oldies, classic rock, blues, country (some, not a lot)., hard rock.. the list goes on and on. I think this would work, because the people I know that actually appreciate music listen to more than just what's popular and current. Wouldn't you like a radio station that's as diverse as your cd and mp3 collection?

I'm only posing as a writer / Radio

I don't know how many times I've said this, but I can't write. I suck. It's not due to lack of praise, I get a lot of compliments about
my writings from an assortment of people. The problem is, after a while I don't believe a word of it. It's hard to when you have trouble writing things down all the time, like when I just want to write for fun. The words just don't come out. It's not writer's block, because I have plenty of ideas. I have at least 4 NOVEL-WORTHY ideas floating around in my head. Four novels would keep most professional authors busy for at least 10 years. But not me... no, I instead choose to spend my time playing GTA3 and listening to music. And then when I sit down I write a paragraph and can't write anymore. It really, really sucks.

Take my short stories for example. I've only written four. That's FOUR in five years of writing. I had a couple I was working on, but those got deleted when hell broke loose on my computer in November. But those sucked anyways, as far as I'm concerned. Now I've received compliments on all of them. That's all fine and good, really, but I dunno. Here's my view on them.

The Day I Got Good At Basketball: I wrote it in 8th grade. Enough said.
Scene From An American Movie: I copped the title from Everclear, I copped the idea from a dream my friend had about me. There's nothing original here.
Untitled Erotica: The response from this one was great. Two people thought it actually happened to me. There really is a Sheena that lived on the first floor of my dorm, but she never said a word to me. Honestly, I tried to write this like an intelligent erotic story.. so I dunno if hornballs would actually enjoy this.

I started one recently (actually it's one of my novel ideas) and I wrote a good 6 pages one night, and I decided to put myself on a regimen of writing 1 hour a night for the break. I did it for two days and stopped...

I shouldn't have to force myself to write. Not having ideas is one thing, but when I have them, I should be able to put down SOMETHING. But I don't.

I've also tried my hand at satire. News satire like The Onion. People thought I actually copied this one from the Onion. Another one actually made it to the ubiquitous FARK.com, though that was back in the days when comment threads rarely reached 100. I can only imagine what would happen if it made it there now...

FARK USER #1: This sucks. It's unfunny.
FARK USER #2: How many times are people going to rip off the Onion?
FARK USER #3: It's unfunny. And it rips off the Onion. Do something original.

As everyone knows, I also write songs, or if you prefer, (because I don't know how to write music) poetry. I call them songs because I write them with a melody in mind, or I write choruses, or if I'm really lucky I can write in a nice big vocal hook. But anyways, I'll admit there's a definite evolution in my songs. If you look at the stuff I was writing when I was 16 (The Girl, In A Hole), and compared it to my newer songs (anything at the top of the page) you'd see a big fuck difference. At least I hope so. But I still look back at most of it and think that none of them would ever work as hit songs, and none of them are "poetic" enough to be considered good poetry. So why bother?

I've tried at other forms of writing too, but I won't go into them in detail. I've written plenty of essays or rants, music reviews; I've even written a one act play. Still, I feel I'm no good. It all comes back to the fact that when I WANT to write, I can't. It's a horrible feeling, and one that I'm sure I'll have to deal with in years to come.

This sucks

I'm a whore for money, some people know that and other people think I'm a communist. I tend to lean towards the whore side myself. I can't explain why else I would come back to Northwestern Mutual time and time again to get up at 6:45am and deliver mail to people who could give two shits about me. So I need money, because I'm dumb and spent a large amount on food and stupidity. No one hires over Christmas break, understandably... I mean, most normal college people got jobs in their hometowns while in high school and kept them through college. I didn't, so I get screwed come break time and summers.

My dad had a splendid idea. Why not go down to Labor Ready, a temp agency (kind of) where they pay cash at the end of the day for a hard day's work of scraping shit off the ground or gutting pigs at the Patrick Cudahy plant. Sounds good to me, hard work doesn't scare me... not when I need money. I said, I'm a whore. But I go there, and discover that the kind of money whores that go there are of the variety that are ADDICTED TO CRACK. It turns out their offices open at 5:30 AM. I understand work usually starts early in the morning, but nobody except for farmers and drunks should be up that early. I don't want a job that bad, not for 5.75 an hour.

In other news, I ate at Cousins' subs and had a wonderful meatball and cheese... it was wonderful until about halfway home I feel a small tactical nuclear wepaon go off in my stomach. I realize no one really wants to hear this. Posts like this about the most inane details of one's life are the reasons online diaries/journals/blogs/general wastes of bandwidth get made fun of so much... but JESUS CHRIST ON A CRUTCH my body can't seem to decide whether it wants to take a big watery shit or hack up a gallon of phlegm with a chunk of lung. It has yet to do either of them. Bastard. That last horrible mental image has been bouncing around my head. Actually on my morning walk to labor ready (at about 7:00AM) I had many visions, including "walking across the vast wasteland of the ghost town to go to work with a bunch of drug addicts and alcoholics" or "an interview in a cool magazine for my debut novel that's now a best seller." Guess which one happened. Oh yeah, and I got around finally to thinking about that one fantasy with that one girl who goes to a college relatively far away considering I'm not well traveled. You know who you are. It'll be great...

I can ramble no longer. I've been up for roughly 18 hours, which for me is a record, usually it's a lot less than that. I need sleep.

Song of the moment - The Get Up Kids - A Newfound Interest In Massachusettes

PS: A big "screw you" to all the emo-haters. emo = emotional. all music should have emotion. so shut the fuck up.

I'm never making online promises again. (oops.)

You know, I don't usually lie in real life. I try not to. Maybe it's a flaw, I have no idea. I even feel bad about the little blunder in the previous post. What I wanted to do was a mock music awards for 2002, with off the wall categories such as "Most overhyped music" (All the "the" retro-rock bands like The Hives and The White Stripes) and "Best Name for a New Band" (And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead). Obviously that never happened and I apoligize. Instead I come at you with something I wrote over Thanksgiving, after one of my storied arguments with my dad. They may not be storied to you; I try not to talk about them to anyone. But if you lived in my house, you'd know what I meant. Here it is.

I am a human being like every other human being. You've read or heard those words beforeI'm sure, and this reaffirms the fact. I am fragile, sensitive, vulnerable. I need justification for my existence. It's not a matter of why I'm here, or what I'm here for, or how I'm doing it. Put simply, those things don't matter. What matters is who I'm here for.

My insides, my soul, my being...are all like a covered light. Why you'd cover a light up, I don't know. But it's covered, and everyone knows it. Only a fraction of the light is visible, straining to be seen through the shroud. Sooner or later the shroud has to fall, someone has to take it off. People want to see the light. The problem is, I don't let them. No one understands why; At times I don't understand why. The light isn't ugly, it's isn't disgusting, morbid, or repulsive. It's full of brightness, of energy. One day it's bound to break through.

I need help to do that. I understand that only I can do it. Only I can change myself. But it can't possibly be a one-way street. I listen to music, watch films, read books; I write my feelings down when I think they're worth writing. They help me see the light in others, see the light in myself on occasion. In short, I see myself everywhere but here.

Why is that? Because there are days when no one, even me, cares anymore. I mean that people that don't have to care, still don't. I understand that I have a family that loves me, friends that care, a God that looks out for me. I know this and appreciate it, but it's never been enough. There's still something missing. Maybe I'm just greedy, maybe I'm secretly in denial of my family ot friends. I don't really know sometimes.

It's weird how I can take those things for granted sometimes, those things that are supposed to soothe me, supposed to make me feel at home, supposed to make me feel like I'm wanted. And I throw them away because I know they have to be there for me. They wouldn't be my parents or my friends if they didn't do things for me. It might hurt to think that, but it's true

It's also weird how I can get sick of things so quickly. Cd's, videogames, girlfriends - they all come and go. They are temporary. Maybe that's my problem, I know I can move on to the next object. Somewhere it has to stop. I know where it stops.

It stops with a smile. A smile, if only for 5 seconds, can make me happy. It doesn't have to be only a smile, it can be praise. It can be a "good job" or a "thnak you" for something I've done. A smile disconnects me from the hurt, anger, and loss I deal with on a daily basis. I don't say that to cry and whine about how bad my life is; My problems are as insignificant as anyone else's. For every petty argument I have, or every dirty look I've gotten from a girl in a bar - a smile can make the difference between a bad day or a good one. A smile, in all it's simplicity, is better than a cold beer and a soothing cigarette after a hard day of work. It's better than all the cd's, all the sex, even all the money in the world.

I'm disconnected by your smile. It doesn't matter who it's from: black, white, yellow, indian; fat or thin; pretty or ugly; man or woman; teacher or student. Those things are secondary. All that matters is that you've taken the time to do it. In time, with enough prodding and pushing, I'll return the favor tenfold.

The end of another semester

I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, there were some good things going on this time around. On the other, some very bad, disturbing things happened, things so bad I won't even talk about them on here. And don't try asking me personally either, if I haven't already told you, you don't need to know.

I hate school. I absolutely hate it. It's one big fucking high school clique of abercrombie-wearing dolts. They all seem like stupid liberal pinko communist PETA-loving freaks. And I'm just talking about my roommate. Except for the communist part, that's me. ;)

OK, so I hate the people there, or at least most of them. But I did meet some cool ones, not necessarrily students, but some professors too.

Professor Erdmann is nuts. This guy...he's insane! All his classes are in the morning. The early morning. I had his 8AM Intro to Language Studies class, where he was fully energized from his morning coffee and God knows what else. I suspect a mixture of speed and crack, but that's just me. He makes fun of students' names, bangs his head on walls, slams doors, and a bunch of other stuff. He has a genuine interest in what he's teaching, and takes great pride in what he's doing. You don't find guys like this every day. Plus he has such a distinct sense of humor, it's all very hard to forget. I'm sad to see him go, as he doesn't teach any other classes besides freshman english.

Professor Coates, despite her husky voice and dyke-like short red hair, is actually pretty cool. When she's not talking about her adorable 4 year old daughter, she's teaching the Fundamentals of Electronic Media. In other words, we watch TV and listen to the radio. It was such an interesting class, so that alone is a bummer to see that behind me. But from day one, she let us know that she was one of us. She majored in "punk rock and partying" as an undergrad, and now she watches TV for her job, basically. We felt comfortable talking about smoking weed, or whatever in front of her. It was one of the few classes I wanted to go to every day. She also really liked the essays and papers I wrote for the class. After one she told me I should write a column about the media in a newspaper or something, because I was just that good. Another time she told me I should go into stand-up comedy, because my stuff was so funny. That kind of praise is something I don't hear very often.

Other profs were total asshats. Elitist english teachers that talk down to you, or insist that they know more than everyone because they read a lot. Whatever. I could care less about them.

There's not much else to say about this semester, it's been the same as any other, except it had the obvious abscence of a girlfriend. Oh well, I've made it through those before.

I promise to have another post up before the new year. It might even be kinda funny.
Song of the moment - Ben Folds - Army