Take This Job And Shove It/Running For President Mark II

 

There’s been something of a lapse in my updating on here, and my job is largely in part to blame for it. I’ve been working practically nonstop from the second week of May up until last Friday and a month and a half with only about three days off will take a toll on you. In addition to that, it’s affected my summer bucket list a bit.

5. Get Out Of Ohio

This had to go on hiatus when my good friend and bandmate, Sean Barry, moved back to Ohio suddenly due to some ongoing health issues, therefore leaving Sarah, Eric and myself with no place to crash out in the NYC/Jersey area so the trip was cancelled. Sarah and I are still talking about trying to go out for a weekend in July, but we’ll see how things go. In light of the cancellation, I still allowed myself a week vacation in Athens which wraps up this Monday when I leave to go back to work, and it’s been a good week. We got her moved into the new place, went camping again and I even got to visit the local comic bookery Universe of Superheroes where I continue to update my comic library through the beauty of marked down, fire damaged (but only slightly) comic books. Tomorrow I’m going to Decorative Injections to get a quote for another bucket list item, 7. Get A Tattoo. to get a quote on this image, the Triforce from the Legend of Zelda series. It was between that on my wrist, Minor Threat’s Out of Step album art on my upper right back or the Wu-Tang Clan W somewhere.

I’ve been into the Zelda games since I was a kid and even though money has kept me out of the loop on the last few entries into the series, it’s always a game I find myself going back to and the Triforce itself (at the expense of me sounding corny) has a spiritual element to it with each one piece standing for power, wisdom and courage and I think that’s pretty nifty. It’s better than a tribal design that doesn’t mean shit or a barb wire band, and it’s something I’ve put a lot of thought into over the last five months and it’s something that I feel very comfortable having on my body for the rest of my life.

In other news in my life, the return of Sean Barry to the great state of Ohio also means the revival of Running For President, our nearly two year defunct band that we started together way back in 2003. We’ve been practicing and slowly easing back into things has he recovers from his sickness, and plan to cut an album before the summer’s out. Currently, we’ve got the following tracks already together

Bomb On An Airplane

The Poison

Counterproductive

State Of The Union

Soldiers

Resist

From The Ashes

with the intention of putting together at least 7-10 more tracks in addition to the previous ones. We’re working on our bass player situation so we can also remedy that as well and get back to having a full band once more and start getting some shows under our belts, as well as shooting some music videos over the course of the school year in addition to a mini-documentary showcasing from 2003 to the present. We’ve got the equipment, we’ve got the knowledge and hopefully 2008 will finally be the year that Running For President finally takes off.

 

Tom Savini Is A Misanthrope/Suck It, Nature!

Fell a little behind, so there’s a few things to recap. 

2. Go to a Comic Con.

The Motor City Comic Con was a pretty good time, and Kitty, Alex, Corey, Travis and myself all had a pretty phenomenal day and walked out with some amazing finds. Travers got to meet up with the one and only Billy Dee “Colt .45 Spokesman/The Cobra/Lando Calrissian” Williams and for a mere $30 bones got an automagraph from the dude. All of the media guests were charging for autographs it looked like, including former King of Queens guest star, Lou Ferrigno who was also demanding 30 bucks a shot for his John Hancock. I got to meet Tom Savini, who is probably the most impersonable dude I’ve ever met and just came across as callous and disenchanted with his fan base. Whatever, duder. We endured through general nerdery and some awesome fucking costumes and came away with matching Dharma patches and it was a good day.

The highlight of the day was probably various nerds and parents asking Travis (who dressed up as Indiana Jones) to pose for photographs both by himself and with various children. Then a Mullet Nerd asked Indiana Fishburn to battle Captain Jack Sparrow and Mullet Nerd would not shut up about how Indy could outrun boulders and dodge arrows and bullets. Apparently, Mullet Nerd wasn’t paying attention during the truck chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1. Go camping someplace other than the camp I work at

Thursday, Sarah and I rented a beautiful cabin in the Hocking Hills region and left early Friday to go down to Old Man’s Cave and hit some of the hiking trails before we returned to Athens for camping. I’d been there before, but I was ten years old when I went and for as much as I complain about hippie/in touch with the earth shit, it was a great experience. We only had a few hours so we didn’t get a chance to cover the entirety of the hiking trails, but we got to check out the falls and the Devil’s Bathtub. I’d love to go back again and spend a whole day just checking out the trails and exploring the caves, so that might be a future bucket list item.

Once we got back to Athens, Sarah, myself and several of her OU friends went to Stroud’s Run for a night of lake swimming, weenie roasting, drinking and camping. I haven’t been for reals camping in probably nine or ten years, and even though we were at a campsite it was pretty close to for reals camping, closer than sleeping in a cabin anyway.

I got a chance to show off my outdoors knowledge and fire building skills, then busted out my machete to do some badass wood cutting. I’d forgotten the kind of camaraderie that takes place in that setting, and after going I’d like to try to go camping more often throughout the year. 

So the bucket list is down by two now, and I’m looking forward to knocking more off the list. For the item of seeing a movie every week, you can check out my reviews at Dustin Goes To The Movies.

Standing On The Edge Of Summer

The summer’s begun and my work’s cut out for me with the bucket list, but things are off to a nice start thus far.

1. Go camping someplace other than the camp I work at

Next weekend, Sarah and I are going to a cabin in the Hocking Hills to start off our weekend, and the following day we’re going camping at Stroud’s Run in Athens. I’m pretty excited for both, and God willing I won’t unwittingly summon demons or get killed by some fucking kid that drowned in the lake.

2. Go to a Comic Con.

This Saturday I’m going to the Motor City Comic Con with Kitty, Alex, Travis and Corey in Detroit. Lando Calrissian will be there.

3. Go to the movies at least once a week.

So far I’ve done a pretty good job of sticking to this one (I went to the movies three times last week to see
Baby Mama, Iron Man (quite possibly the best comic book movie I’ve seen to date, even more so than Batman Begins) and Speed Racer (which totally fucked my eyes and was awesome sauce, also Jack Shephard was fucking badass). Tomorrow the plan is to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and I now have my summer mapped for movies.

May 22-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

May 30-The Strangers

June 6-My choices are limited to Kung Fu Panda (I really don’t like Dreamworks’ animated films although I enjoy a great deal of their stuff, like Galaxy Quest) and You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, which I also have mixed feeling about and this is the only week I’m really not super pumped for.

June 13-The Happening and The Incredible Hulk

June 20-Get Smart

June 27-WALL-E

July 2-Hancock

July 11-Hellboy II: The Golden Army

July 18-THE DARK KNIGHT

July 25-The X-Files: I Want To Believe

August 1-The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and The Rocker

August 8-Pineapple Express

August 15-Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Tropic Thunder

5. Get Out Of Ohio

Next month, from June 18-22 I’m going out to Jersey to visit my best friend/former bandmate Sean with my brosephs Eric & Eric and Sarah. The plan is to see some sights in the Big Apple and also to cut a new Running For President demo with Sean at his other band’s studio, so I’m pretty excited for that.

Two weeks in, it’s shaping up to be a pretty amazing summer.

Bitches Love Me ‘Cuz They Know That I Can Rock

Tuesday night I got to go see Mindless Self Indulgence, a band that I discovered in 2001 when I heard their album Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy, which got some pretty heavy rotation through my senior year of high school and then more when I rediscovered the album sophomore year at BGSU. For Frankenstein Girls alone, I enjoy the shit out of this band, even though I was less than impressed with their last album You’ll Rebel To Anything. I was impressed with what I’d heard of the new album, if and Dara had free tickets from WBGU, so I was all ins for an MSI show at the Agora in Cleveland.

The first band was a shitty electronica/techno/shit band called Hollowboy who I kept wishing throughout their set were Fall Out Boy. Their sound mix was shit and their singer thought he was in the Killers and they fucking sucked.

The next band was The Birthday Massacre, who, despite having a cute lead singer, were also not good. They had shitty kiddie music samples and their whole thing is a “death of childhood innocence” deal as near as I could tell. Also, their singer walked out after the band started playing, which in my mind is always bad news bears for a band if they want me to like them and then she left twenty seconds before the band finished their last song.

MSI came out and opened up strong with Shut Me Up, one of the singles and tracks off the last album that I actually liked a lot because it made me think of Frankenstein Girls. They played a surprising amount off the new album, but unfortunately only four songs from Frankenstein Girls, although they did play one of my favorite tracks, Planet of the Apes. However, MSI shares something in common with Anti-Flag and that’s that most of their fans are fucking retarded and lead singer Jimmy Urine rips on them all the time and they take it and laugh and it boggles the mind. But I’m glad MSI hate their stupid fans as much as I do.

Tonight marks the kickoff of the summer movie season with Iron Man and I’m pretty damn pumped. There will be a comprehensive summer viewing schedule from me next time, so until then, later days, Bromfield Faces.

P.S. Bad Genetics is officially a student organization!

Kick The Bucket List

It’s been a good long while since I’ve updated anything, and finally I’m getting back around to it. The semester’s been a bust for me academically and rather than go to class and update blogs, I played Lego Star Wars II instead. But after sorting things out with my advisor, I’m on the track to graduating again next year and things are looking up.

Some things of interest…

I’ll be living in an apartment in The Enclave next year with my good buddies John, Travis and Zach in a place we like to affectionately refer to as The House That X Built. The prospect of not living alone next year is kind of exciting and renews my interest in doing things since I won’t have the seclusion to sit around and veg all the time like I do now in The FratCave.

To keep me active and interested over the summer, I’ve decided to create my very own summer Bucket List.

1. Go camping someplace other than the camp I work at

From elementary school through most of my high school years, I was involved in the Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts and although we’d get the miserable ass, rainy, mosquito season shitty camping trip, more often than not the conditions were pretty favorable for a camping trip. There’s a camaraderie that seems to manifest around a campfire, and I’d love to get another chance to experience it.

2. Go to a Comic Con.

I’ve not been to a real comic con in two years now, and although I always leave them near broke, I always have fun as it’s more or less a chance for me to just bask in everything that I love all in one place. Since I started collecting again, it’s nigh impossible for me to leave a seller of comics and comic paraphernalia without dropping a little cash, and call me materialistic, but I really love building onto my collection. Plus it’s a chance to meet some like minded people, and that’s not always a bad thing.

3. Go to the movies at least once a week.

I’ve actually done this fairly consistently for the past month, seeing movies like Prom Night, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Ruins and most recently Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanomo Bay. With the summer movie season kicking off next week with Iron Man, nearly every week of the summer looks to yield a pretty amazing movie with the likes of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Hancock. There are countless others, but that’s a post for another time. With the current roster of summer releases, I’ll have to go once a week just to keep up with all the amazing movies coming out.

4. Get A Bucket

This actually was a point of interest before the Tracy Jordan joke on 30 Rock, as my boss and I hold a high amount of reverence to the Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The 36 Chambers, constantly referencing various songs but chief among them the line “If you want beef, then bring the bucket” from Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ Ta Fuck Wit. My boss has been promising to buy me a bucket for sometime now, and I intend to get that bucket this summer.

5. Get Out Of Ohio

The last time I was out of Ohio was to visit Corey in Michigan last fall, and since Ypsi is only an hour or so away, it’s not much of a departure from Ohio. So this summer? Go somewhere that’s not Ohio, Michigan or Kentucky for a little while.

6. Write

Doing the last 48 Hours, making SkyNetflix (which only needs to go through post now) and talking with Mark and Simon has given me a new hope for getting some films made next year, and I aim to come in with some stuff already prepared so we can start productions immediately upon everyone’s return. I’m setting a goal of ten films for next year, length doesn’t matter but I’m not going to factor 48 Hours and class projects into that count so there’s more incentive to do stuff on my own.

7. Get A Tattoo

It’s something I’ve talked about with Sarah and my boss for the past year or so now, and I figure this summer’s the summer to do it. As it stands, there are about five different tattoos that I know I wouldn’t regret getting, so it’s a matter of deciding which, but that will also be a post for another time.

That’s the list for now, and it’s not entirely inconceivable that it will grow longer as the summer continues.