Sugar Mountain, Waffle Making Kicking Through The Shit, The Actualization of Araya

I named my cat Harvey after this man.
Technically they're a girl cat but fuck the gender binary.

Have you ever heard the saying "A Watched Pot Never Boils?" Well this sailor can tell you first hand, that statement is untrue. (In that last sentence I wanted to say, "This sailor can tell you first hand THAT THAT statement is untrue." I feel like I do that way too often. I do THAT "THAT" thing. I need less THAT'S in my life and more commas. I think THAT is the right thing to do. Fuck it.) Anywho, watched pot remember? Stay with me. I just stole some leftover, room temperature coffee from my roommate, (sorry Richard.) And as I tell people often I take my coffee like Harvey Keitel's character "Winston Wolf" in Pulp Fiction. "Lots of cream, lots of sugar." Or in my case, "Lots of almond milk, lots of organic, fair trade, locally grown, no preservatives, gluten free, all natural, cage free cane sugar" Not really, it's that bleached asshole kind of sugar. But I didn't want to add cold ass almond milk to room temperature coffee so I splashed some in a pot and put it on the stove full blast. Within a few moments it was boiling like a pit warrior at a Justin Bieber concert. It still tastes like a microwaved plastic bag floating in boot broth but hey it's coffee.

Classic.

I needed a boost after playing a Tristram show last night. Luckily the show was at a house known as "The Waffle Haus" which is literally just down the street from our place. We really need to invest in a van though, because it still took 3 small ass cars to drag all our shit over there. I have no idea where any of this money will come from but I guess that is the life of a rock star. The show itself was okay at best. We ended up playing last and we pretty much played to the other bands. But honestly, that is not always such a bad thing. Obviously I would prefer more people would come out and buy merch so we can purchase more bleached asshole sugar, but it is always good to make band connections with out of town bands and local bands. I also had never been nor played at that space and it was nice to break the ice over there. That being said, I didn't get home till midnight and I am usually in bed by 9:30 p.m. And yeah I know I am a fucking loser. I have a strange dichotomy within myself when it comes to playing shows. I either want to tour for 2 months straight, or pretty much stay at home all the time every night. When I have a local or out of town show, I pretty much dread it all day and ruin the rest of my day leading up to the gig. It's not quite as intense as having an anxiety about it, but I really hate having plans on the horizon. I like to feel like I can do whatever the fuck I want when I get home. But on the other end of that, when I am on tour, I love that the only things I have to worry about are eating, sleeping and playing the gig that night. It simplifies and compresses all my concerns into 3 easy to focus on categories. Fuck I want to tour. Fuck working. I don't even want to think about that shit since I am actually in a decent mood this morning.

Yep.

Before I started this post, I put my Itunes on random. I rarely ever do that since usually I land on a lot of bullshit that I never listen to and should probably delete. But in the time that I typed this so far I have had "After The Gold Rush" by Neil Young, "Failures" by Joy Division, "Why Are We Not Perfect?" by Jesu, "Accept Yourself" by The Smiths, "This Photograph Is Proof" by Taking Back Sunday, "Call In The Night Boy" by Talk Talk and "Funeral Rites" by Sepultura. Been a good start to a most likely lazy day. But listening to these bands and thinking about that show last night I realize more and more that I need to become more dedicated to my craft. I played pretty sloppy last night and it has been a while since I had that much trouble playing. I am usually a finely tuned mosh machine but I was an adolescent hiccup humper last night. I talk about musicianship and passion all the time, and yet I know I am allowing working all the time to crush or at least dampen my spirit and endeavors. And just knowing that I am unsatisfied with playing on mediocre gear after almost 13 years of playing on that garbage. It's good for getting a start, but I have never been able to break that barrier between me and decent shit. Cause I am a broke ass fool. I seriously wish one of these trust fund fuckhole bands would clip me with their tour van so I could just take all their shit from them and they would have to ask their parents for even better gear. It'd be worth having to limp on and off the stage every night. But hey that's just me being petty right? "Raining Blood" by Slayer just came on. I read a story that Tom Araya trained to be a respiratory therapist and funded Slayer's album "Show No Mercy" with that job. Then when they were going to go on their first big tour he had to decide whether to keep his job, or take a risk and do it fucking live. Maybe I need to follow the Path of Araya, minus the Catholicism of course. God Hates Us All.

One of my personal favorites.