NOT A HEADLINE

How am I suddenly so critical of every little habit in my life?

Today's questionable vice: mp3 blogs. You Ain't No Picasso posted this bit of nerdboy non-news today:



And as much as I love Of Montreal, the actual song in question sounds like a bad community theater audition. Why are people downloading this?

HERE COMES THE WEEKEND

TEN REASONS TO BE GLAD:

10. John and Catie (O'Brien) Beardsley, in town tonight.


9. Holly's "Dress As Your Mii" party tomorrow night.

8. Thad's "try my pizza" thing tomorrow.

7. Lyfestile.

6. Not doing Making Time (let's hang out on your back porch after 1 tonight, call me).

5. Not doing Britney.

4. 85 degrees. Time with you.

3. New glasses. (The blue ones.)

2. Date.

1. Bikes.

PARTY TOGETHER, DIE ALONE

Lostume party, May 30. I'll be there after Donna's art show and the King Khan and the Shrines/BBQ show. (Oops, wrong month.)

I have two song requests.

DOWNLOAD:
Mama Cass - "Make Your Own Kind of Music"

DOWNLOAD:
Driveshaft - "You All Everybody"

HOW DO I GET...

...my cousins to stop going to Christian music concerts? Or should I stay totally hands-off and let them make the same mistakes I made?




(Can you believe there's a "Christian metalcore" band now called The Devil Wears Prada?)

I saw on Facebook that one of my 18-year-old cousins is going to this Xian music festival. I know that game.

I went to Cornerstone, I spent the entire week NOT getting laid (by a cut-from-marble hippie who stared at me the whole time I was in the shower stall across from him and touched himself, not kidding), NOT doing a dangerous amount of drugs, and NOT flirting with being a hippie before learning why I shouldn't be a hippie.

I could have avoided an 8-year delayed adolescence by going to at least one (1) normal-people music festival, keeping having lots of go-get-it with people, doing dangerous amounts of drugs, and learning why I shouldn't be a hippie.

Although: one of my cousins is moving to Philly for the summer and she's a PARTY ANIMAL, and another one, the 18-year-old, just discovered R5 productions and, well, the R5, so expect to run into her with me at a show sometime soon. She really freaked me out on Easter talking about her favorite band.


Remember these guys? REMEMBER WHEN ONE OF THEM WAS ON ELIMIDATE? Remember when I found their CD at the Kampers' last weekend, along with like 500 other Christian CDs?

I guess even though I stopped bro-ing down with Jesus and started nutting-up with the geighs, it's still OK to listen to some Christians sometimes:



What friends do we have that still "rock for the Lord"? What friends do we have that still "ROCK 4 LIFE"?

I WANNA BE RAD

I guess I wanna be just like Conrad or something: I'm soooo straight edge this week.

xxTRYINTOQUITSMOKINGxx

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Saturday night I paid $7.25 at Trax Foods for a pack of Marlboro Lights. That was the end of it. I officially can't afford to smoke. I won't even be taking your free ones, because they'll make me want to buy more. Just done, period. This is not really about my health. Maybe someday if they lower the price again, I'll unquit. For now, though, I don't smoke, ever. For this week, that pretty much means no drinking, too, cause that'll make me want to smoke. Maybe I'll have a drink or two this weekend--we'll see. And no, Krawiec, I will not try SNUS to quit cigarettes.

Meh, no big deal.

(PS I was doing some Google Image Searching on pictures of SNUS, and everything that came up was way too gross for this blog. Ugh.)


Miss you already, Joe.

DEBBEN!!! BAR-BEE-KYOO CHEE-KENNN!!!

1. Sometimes you finish work, hang out getting drunk for a few hours, go to a show for free, run up the block for a drink, get bought free drinks for no reason, bike down to CC for a party, and drink a lot more...all because you thought you didn't have to work until 5pm the next day, so you could avoid any potential hangover action by just staying in bed for a while. Then the other manager at your restaurant calls at 2am and begs you, BEGS YOU to work in the morning because he's rushing home and some girl just called him to say she was in a cab on the way to his house. So then you spend the next day in agony.

2. Somebody sat in my lap and I got a date out of it.

3. Seth's a grownup.

4. Jackie (Pete M's ex) was at the Bike Stop and knows everyone I know from different weird channels. She knew Brooks from living in the suburbs, Ricky from hair school...it was weird. Lives in the city now. PS- Brooks was there!

5. The El Bar. I don't even know how to begin. So much slurred speech and illegal things everywhere, but it's so goddamn friendly.

6. Pizza for tickets.

7. Everybody knows Bikini Kill songs except me. I'm working on it.

8. Every time I saw an Asian girl this weekend, I thought it was the HPSTRGRFTR and checked for her chest tat. I don't care if it's racist; I want those R5 tickets!!!

9. Sarah's cowboys and Indians essay. It tells the story of my life.

10. Life imitates art as Conrad has begun to blog about me as much as I blog about him. The hunter has become the hunted, the master the student.

If you see Deven, say "BARBECUE CHICKEN!!!" in a Mexican accent. Don't ask questions, just do it.

XOXO

Download:
Bikini Kill - "Outta Me"
Download:
Bikini Kill - "Distinct Complicity"

NOOOO

Please tell me this is not actually happening:

<3<3<3

MORNING!

WRITING TEN FUNNY PAPERS (IN INDIA)

WORD, COUSIN (EASTER AT GRANDPA'S)

10. We sent my two teenage skater boy cousins outside to hide the eggs for the kids (I'm the oldest of 27 grandkids, the youngest of which is almost two years old), and they "hid" them mostly on the tailgates of my uncles' trucks outside.



9. My 19-year-old cousin S. just discovered R5 Productions. Expect to run into her a lot this summer. She casually mentioned her obsession with MeWithoutYou. That was weird.



8. My Grandpa is notoriously obsessed with trains, having retired several years ago from a long career as a conductor. At some point in every family gathering, I offhandedly bait him with a mention of some trip I took--it could be to Boston on Amtrak, or it could be from Temple to work at Rustica. He will talk for twenty minutes about all the different routes you can take to get there. Sometimes, when I really feel like developing a deep emotional connection with him, I bring up the subject of West Philly trolleys. We recite together the holy litany of trolley numbers and destinations, argue in the same way we have a million times about which trolley comes out of which tunnel when, and then if we're really feeling good we move on to the light rail lines. This is where he always stumps me. I'm no match for him.

7. One of my aunts made CANDY DEVILED EGGS. The women in my family are domestic overachievers. (They say the only way to clean a floor is on your hands and knees.)

6. I made a classic Andy gaffe when my aunt told me 10 ships disappear at sea a week: "What? That's impossible. 10 a week? That would be 3,650 ships a year." Oops.



5. So many jokes about "fags" were happening. I'm not out to all of them yet, and I almost said something, but every time, the joke was legitimately funny. When they make a joke that's offensive AND lame, that's when I'll throw in my two gay cents.

4. My four-year-old cousin said, "Your hair's weird." I said, "I know." He said, "I hate it."




3. He also referred to me as "Guy," "Hair," and "Pizza."

2. He also referred to my mom as "Pizza."

1. Also, his mom told me that they potty-trained him like a year ago, but he's recently been on this weird kick where he'll be outside playing and just not really feel like going all the way inside to relieve himself, so he'll just shit his pants. Then later, when he's finished playing, he goes inside, shrugs, and says, "Hi, Mom. I was lazy and pooped in my pants." She makes him go back outside and sit in it for fifteen minutes.



Download:
"Dirty Ol' Egg-Suckin' Dog" - Johnny Cash

Also:

Why did this picture show up when I googled "Easter bunny gay"?

TU FUNNY THINGS

10. Two people at separate times during the day today ran their hands through my hair before introducing themselves.

9. Zolani is totally uninterested in TV unless we're watching "Baby Signing Time" or sports. Or, as we found out tonight, "The Office." He just could not stop laughing. (He's 22 months.)

8. Keep having to talk to one of the three people on earth I don't like. Had to give him free pizza the other night, too.

7. This girl in my Spanish class told me that when I speak Spanish, she "gets chills."

6. Found out that next week, when this kid in my acting class has to "drop trou" for his scene, that beforehand all the guys in the class have to "drop trou" in solidarity with him.

5. Also acting class: we had this exercise where we had to get our partner to do something but only using the words "one, two, three, four, five, six," and "seven." When the professor told everybody to stop, there was still one kid menacing another kid with, "Yeah, that's right, I said THREE!!!"

4. Conrad just will not blog. :(

3. I think I might go Puritan for a while. Wanna stop smoking because I don't get very much out of exercise, and it's soo hard to stop when you're drinking. Maybe next week.

2. I got friend-requested on Myspace by this guy.

1.James will be "inside of" Philly this weekend.

CONRAD CAUGHT HAVING FUN!!! (Thanks dear readers)

An anonymous enterprising photojournalist has sent me this picture of Conrad doing two fun things at once:

1. Reading a book

2. Picking his nose



Tonight I heard him talk about all kinds of fun he's been having, including keeping drinking. Where's the boring man I used to love?

>:(

COMING THIS SUMMER

VIDEO OF THE YEAR?

He sure does love dressing up in women's clothing, riding around in phallic spaceships, Dr. Dre, licking his lips, 00's gay icons LiLo, SamRon, Britney, Sarah Palin and the Winehouse, and butt sex.



SO HOMO

WEST PHILLY CHICKS ARE ALL ABOUT IT

Just saw these two headlines when I woke up today:



This is after the other day, when my mom posted something on Facebook about why I shouldn't be given healthcare. Awesome.



In better news, last night was Dock Street with Siobhan and Red. Chris D, I wanted to make good on my promise and call you, but now that there's actually stuff to do in my neighborhood and people to do it with, it's really hard to leave. I will, I'll keeping leaving, but for now, I'm nesting. Gimme a few days.

Meanwhile, Red told me he feels like he's known me forever and could tell me anything and called us "New Old Friends." Oh man, the Fishtownies and Soufilly people are NOT going to like that. Well, I warned y'all, hippies happen out here, and sometimes I really like it.

My beer was called the "Man Full of Trouble." I don't know anything about beer, but I think it was good. S&R say they want to be "good at beer." I don't think I care about beer enough to put forth the effort.

I also spent a while earlier talking to Alexis about our raw foods plans and to Clites about Bikram Yoga.



<3<3<3



See you in the dog bowl at Clark Park with our babies and our coffee and our organic granola at the flea market at Dahlak at a basement show! See you while I'm growing my male/female beard and drinkin' fawdies and seeing an anarchist lecture while brewing beer at home and drinking kombucha and doing yoga and going to Penn! See you when I'm shopping at the Second Mile with Carlos and going to a queercore festival with a kissing booth and being a Muslim and riding my bike and stealing a bike! See you at church! See you on my roof while I'm looking at trees and painting faces on my sidewalk and wearing bandannas and eating tofu hoagies and roasting a pig!

I fucking love my hood.

SURREAL LIFE

Yesterday I managed to run into almost everyone I know and have a sort of legendary night without leaving West Philly. Siobhan was my date all night for the Human BBQ XXXI at Pi Lam (the "punk fraternity" at Penn) and some show at Danger Danger. The "big surprise" that everybody already knew about Human BBQ was that the Dead Milkmen were playing.




10. "Oh man, I really need tonight to be bloggable."


9. Dan texted that we should bring an empty bottle or can to drink out of. This was our first encounter with the 1,000 Rules of Drinking Last Night. They were really random and bizarre. I didn't know why we should need bottles or cans, but we stopped at Dungeness Crab Place (aka "Garden Court," aka "Beer Breakfast Dungeness Crabs," depending on who you ask)to each buy one can of PBR. On the way, Siobhan had me explain all the rules of buying beer in PA, and I don't know how much help I was. It's confusing.
Not nearly as confusing, though, as the 1,000 Rules for Drinking Last Night. When we found Dan and a bunch of our people outside Pi Lam, he said, "You brought your soda cans, right?" Turns out your can/bottle couldn't LOOK like beer, because they wanted the place to look like nobody was drinking "so it could be an all-ages show." First sign we were not dealing with grown-ups.

So, first rule, drink out of something other than a cup or anything that says "beer" on it. We got some Arizona bottles at Allegro's and came back. Second rule, it turns out, is there is no beer downstairs; you have to go upstairs, because all of the kegs are in the bedrooms. Not every bedroom has a keg, and you shouldn't go into a bedroom if the door is closed. The bedrooms--

--wait, let me emphasize this: these bedrooms were dorm rooms. Like, posters on walls, fleece blankets from Target, Hits of the 80's CDs, the whole deal. This was really happening.

--might be so full of people that when you get to where the keg should be, you'll realize that there's no keg in that room. This is all if you can get past the third rule: there's a nineteen-year-old blond girl with a baseball bat who only lets people upstairs if she knows them, they're in a band, or they're "with" a band. She kept stopping Siobhan--like repeatedly--and she kept nodding at me and smiling like I'm somebody who's so famous that of course she knows who I am. Listen, one of my three hard-and-fast rules of partying is that I never ever do V.I.P. spaces, but when all the beer in the entire party is upstairs, you break your rule.
Sometimes we ended up furtively whispering to people, asking them in low voices if they "knew where the beer was." Then we would be led upstairs through covens of teenagers and weirdos until we found some kid's bedroom on the third floor that had the keg of Woodchuck. We've never had to work so hard for beer. We drank every drop.
Actually this was all hilarious and totally fun. A few hours into it, it got old, but it was fine.

8. Women played better than maybe any other time I've seen them. Dan broke the strings on his bass on the first song and they had to borrow one. I spent half of the show leaning over to Lauren and saying, "Ohhh, my boyfriend's sooo cute. God, I love it when my boyfriend plays his guitar in his band. He's such a rockstar. My boyfriend is IN A BAND." I thought I was just making fun of her, but later she said, "You sent me into such a giggle fit when you said that stuff about Sean. I got so excited."


7. Siobhan discovered something last night that I had to deal with last year, when I started going to Temple. "1989?" she said. "Did that kid just say he was born in 1989???"
"Some of them," I told her, "were born in 1991. I was doing the Bartman in 1991."
For the rest of the night, she kept screaming, "1989? 1991?"


6. By the time we got to the food, there weren't any buns left. We made Boca Burgers and turned them over with pieces of aluminum foil, then ate them with our fingers. This dreamy 19-year-old named Matt (actually, I'm gonna say Mat--he just looks like somebody who leaves off the last "T" for some deeply personal reason) started talking to us. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and iridescent rainbow wings. He flirted with both of us pretty aggressively for twenty minutes and told us about his full-body leather bondage suit which he bought as a Halloween costume but now just wears to shows and parties and "occasionally comes in really handy." This kid totally rocked our world.


5. On the first note of the Dead Milkmen's set, the whole crowd kind of surged towards the set. Right away, some douchester poured his beer over my head and Siobhan got punched right in the lip. Later, a speaker stack started falling into the crowd because some total wad was balancing on top of it to take pictures, and while Woods, Dan and I tried to fix it so it wouldn't crush any skulls, this guy came crowdsurfing by and kicked me hard in the eye. Later, Siobhan lost her jacket. Battle scars.

4. Last week I bought a 95 cent XXXL black t-shirt with rainbow sequins all over it making up dollar$ $ign$ and lucky dice. Siobhan tried it on in my kitchen over her jacket, scarf and pocketbook. I told her she should wear it as a dress.


3. At Danger Danger, we realized we really like being the only girls in the room. Frequently, we were, and the rooms were full of people.


2. More texts from "Spelling Fedish." It's now been like two years since our hourlong text-acquaintanceship that I ended pretty quickly, and he keeps trying. I am catnip for the mentally ill.


1. Last night I had a dream that some of us went to a Christian waterpark in New Jersey, where Lou Reed played a surprise show and David Bowie joined him on stage to sing "Scary Monsters." At one point, Lou was in the crowd, leading us in a singalong, and when he segued into some song that was, in my dream, a pretty unknown Lou Reed song, I was the only one who hollered. He came over to me, put the mic in my face, and said in a friendly voice, "Hmm? Did you say something?" I said, "No, Lou, I just really love that song you're about to sing." Lou said, "Oh, thanks, man, thanks." Then he went back up on stage and sang the song.

In other news, I can't stop looking at this.

DOWNLOAD:
The Dead Milkmen - "Violent School"

CONRAD IS A CHEATER

Everybody came to my house last night and had vodka, wings, and campfire. I talked to Josiah's Colombian girlfriend in Spanish for like an hour and she didn't even seem annoyed. People who couldn't stomach the chilly breeze outside watched "The Cosby Show." Later, we all went up to the roof to enjoy the view and ended up FREEZING OUR ASSES OFF.

But more importantly, Conrad had fun! Sooooo much fun! Yes, he gave people rides home, and yes he got us drinks and acted like our butler, but that dude would not stop smiling no matter how much I called him out on it!

Conrad is a cheater.

MAXIMUM FUN

Instead of writing the paper that's due today, I decided to HAVE MORE FUN and write a blog.



If you're not Conrad and you're allowed to have fun with me this weekend, then this post is for you!!!

Tonight I work till 11, and then I wanna get into trouble with you.



I'll have a front pocket of raspberry sweet tea flavored vodka and an ass pocket of LET'S PARTY.

Tomorrow night, grab your bike and meet me in my country, the faraway magical world of West Philly:



Pi Lam Human Barbeque XXXI with Women, Make a Rising, this band called Cerebral Ballzy, another one called Cunt Fuckula (A+ on these names, younginz) and a bunch of other bands, plus a big fucking surprise that's gonna blow everybody's head off. $12, all you can eat bbq/vegan bbq/keg beer (I hear they bought 12 kegs). DJs afterwards till 4 in the morning.

FUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

Download:
"Happy Station" - Fun Fun

WAIT

He's allowed to watch movies? Dumb.



Last night was Raspberry Sweet Tea vodka, a date with Lisa, weed, Haagen-Dazs Sticky Toffee Cake Ice Cream, Cosby Show. Fun.

WISDOM FROM A FOOL.

:( :( :( (Me and Conrad, in times that were so much more fun.) :( :( :(

So my good friend Conrad can be a dickass sometimes. But that's why I love him, and he knows it! He's really outdone himself this time, though.

As of yesterday, Conrad's going on a monthlong crusade against fun in his life. After leaving the Christian Church, I never thought I'd be good bros with an ascetic again, but behold the return.

Conrad says that his life is "too awesome" and that

"My solution to these problems is 'No Fun April.' It is what is sounds like. I will be having no fun in the month of April. I will be abstaining from caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, animal products of all variety, orgasms, major chords, first dates, cheering for sports teams that compete near my place of residence, and Saturday morning cartoons. You are free to call me about if you see me partaking in these activities. Some of these abstentions should be particularly painful as I am probably addicted to at least some of those things."

Also, he's going to start being nice and helping people and blah blah blah.

Wow! This sounds like fun to me! Let's all pitch in to abuse our lovably retarded friend. I've already been harassing him in the comments, and you can too! Just go to www.conradisanaprilfool.blogspot.com and let's try to make this as no-fun for him as possible!

I'm inspired to start having MORE fun (to make him jealous--no fun) and blog about it more than he blogs about his thing. Which means, I'm back!

Also, here's the list I posted in his comments today:


TEN FUN THINGS THAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT

1. Isn't it fun to see CK? And to blog about her?

2. Should I help you out by asking for rides/money/your car/gay sex all the time?

3. Wouldn't the entire enterprise have been jeopardized if you had actually seen/heard a good April Fool's joke?

4. Reading lists is fun. STOP

5. Fully committing yourself to this endeavor and saying "this is no fun" all the time but secretly looking forward to the day when you can brag about your no-fun month is fun in a whole lotta ways, kinda like people who say they're into "masochism" but really, they're having fun doing it, so they're not harming themselves, they're benefitting themselves. All human action is based on selfishness, even so-called acts of sacrifice, right?

Hey wait, philosophy is pretty fun, isn't it?

6. What about attention/being a minor internet celebrity? No fun? Or fun?

7. What about remembering people's blog comments so you can talk about it later? That's all I do in life, because it's mad fun.

8. I think you like complaining. I think it's fun! For you!

9. Love you, Conrad. Wait I hope it wasn't any fun to hear that. Sorry! Oh shit, getting apologies from people is fun too. Dammit! I'm a bad friend :(

10. "Some of them want to be abused." - Some really fun band

Download:
You Make Lovin' Fun (Trailmix Remix) - Fleetwood Mac

A fun song for a funner month than ever before!

Thanks, C-rad!