I Gotta Go...

"...and you're talking in code
Saying I know where you've been
and I know where you go
but I've been tired from the minute I woke
I stopped listening the moment you spoke
and said I'm long gone yeah...
I'm long gone

And I'm sleeping alone...
in a house I don't own
'cause if you're touring your mind
you'll get lost every time
and you'll sing me sad songs to keep me awake
in that bedroom that we hid away
Baby, I'm long gone.
I'm long gone.

And your voice cracks like a piano
you keep moving...where are you going?
Baby, were long gone
Yeah, were long gone"
~ Margot & the Nuclear So & So's


Ok, so do you ever type up a full blog post and then just decide to not post it? Guess who just did that. It wasn't anything gross or super-personal or anything, it was just something really cynical. Something that I think I'd rather just keep to myself for awhile, because everyone seems so happy right now, and I don't want to be the guy that ruins everything like I usually am.

Maybe I'll post it sometime.

Or maybe not.

Measure Me In Metered Lines...

"...in one decisive stare, the time it takes to get from here to there. My ribs that show through t-shirts and these shoes I got for free; I'm unconsoled, I'm lonely. I am so much better than I used to be. Terrified of telephones and shopping malls, and knives, and drowning in the pools of other lives. Rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony. Get clobbered on by courtesy, in love with love and lousy poetry. And I'm leaning on a broken fence between Past and Present tense. And I'm losing all these stupid games that I swore I'd never play. And it almost feels okay. Circumnavigate this body of wonder and uncertainty. Armed with every precious failure and amateur cartography, I breathe in deep before I spread these maps out on my bedroom floor. Leaving. Wave goodbye. Losing, but I'll try, with the last ways left, to remember. Sing my imperfect offering.
~ The Weakerthans

Well, that about sums it up.

Oh...You want a blog? That's odd. Uhmmm. I've done zero percent of anything since my last post, so I guess just read that?

Here We Are In This World...

"...I don't know how we got here, but somehow we learned how to live here. Now our brains are too big for our heads. They're expanding. You can order your life through meticulous planning, but it's a crapshoot when things unexpectedly start to move faster. And you try to avert a disaster. But you can't always get what you're after. I know you know this. We all want to feel content, but we need more than a place to shit and to lay a bed. If sometimes living doesn't terrify you, if love doesn't pulverize you, then where are you at? Where's the power in that? Though it's been nothing but complicated since the first time that two people dated, and your heart makes you deathly afraid, it's all you've got. Is it impossible, friend? Is it only a dream to find truth in the visions you see? Or to believe the love that I'm waiting for is somewhere waiting for me? Well maybe the way to get what you want is to stop waiting for it to show up. Have faith in the wind and the rain it will come (but only if you let it come). Yeah, everyone feels alone. Maybe more, maybe less, maybe this year or next or when they grow old. But what a bogus affliction! It's the human condition. We all want affection and the sound of another heartbeat. Maybe when this ends and the stars all call down for me it'll finally make sense, or just as likely still be mystery. I don't know where you are my friend, I don't know if I'll ever know. But maybe you'll be there when it's time to go."
~Good Luck

Sorry that that's a bunch of words up there. It should be obvious that it's a song. You don't have to read it if you don't want to (maybe I'm too late with that), but I can kind of relate to it...Maybe you can too? Pardon the language in some spots too. I don't cuss, but I don't believe in censoring other people's art.

Alright, so this is weird. This past week that I've had off, I've pretty much done nothing besides sleep, yet I'm still tired. Now how much sense does that make? Maybe I'm catching up on all of the sleep I missed out on because of school? Whatever the case may be, though, it sucks. Lame, lame, lame.

Graduation is tomorrow. I really hope I don't screw up the words to the song I'm having to do. I probably will, though. Oh well. Oh, and I'm third to last getting my "diploma." Lame, lame, lame. I guess.

So, running a record label sucks sometimes. Well, not so much running one, but dealing with people that don't follow through. My payment cleared for the Matt K CDs about a month ago, and they still haven't come in. So basically, I got like 200 bucks stolen from me. Lame, lame, lame.

I got sunburned at graduation practice today. Lame, lame, lame. Times 17.

A couple people that I haven't seen in awhile and dearly miss are coming up tomorrow. I'm so excited to see them. Hopefully we won't have the nearly unavoidable awkward conversation of "Hey...This weather sure is crazy, eh? Yea...I think so too..." But I'm pretty sure we will. I'm bad at talking to people. Lame, lame, lame.

I hate waiting for stuff. Especially the mail.

So hey, everyone should go buy / steal a bike and come ride with me sometime. Not only is it good exercise, but it's pretty fun and eco-friendly! And if you never learned to ride as a kid, I'll totally teach you! For real. It'd be fun. I'm lazy, and I still think it's fun.

I need to clean my room. And do some laundry. And buy a white shirt for tomorrow night. And find my balla' tie. And go to the Post Office.

My head hurts.

So, since by the time you read this, school will probably be out for summer / ever (no Pink Floyd subliminal message intended, I swear...really), here's a quick list of bands / musicians that I've been into as of late, with a small little description next to each one. I suck at describing things. And I listen to bad music. Sorry.

Good Luck - Punk, but with lots of mathrock elements (ie, strange time signatures, weird chords, crazy guitar parts). Features Matty Pop Chart and Ginger from One Reason. Their new album, "Into Lake Griffy," is one of the best so far this year.

The Max Levine Ensemble - Real pop-punk from DC. Basically everything they've ever recorded is available for free download on their site. Their recent album, "OK, Smartypants," is also one of my favorites so far this year.

Your Heart Breaks - Female fronted indie-pop from Seattle. Super catchy. Super cute. Super awesome.

Dylan Taylor - Folky Canadian music. Really good lyrics, with vocals similar to Matty Pop Chart.

Jon Crocker - beardXcore. Enough said.

Arkansas? - Rough recordings, but Chicago punk superband, consisting of Toby Foster, redbear., and Victor V-B. Epic! Watch 'em on YouTube.

Well, I think that's about it.

Oh, and hey Krieger, many thanks to you and Batchelor for doing the cookout thing. It was fun. I'm pretty sure everyone else will agree. And Chris, if you read this, sorry no one told you. A bunch of people said you had said you weren't coming, so I assumed someone had told you, but you had something else to do. I don't have your number anyway. Sorry!

Ok, for real this time. Toodles friends and acquaintances. Even though I think I would consider most everyone who knows about this heap of junk to be a friend. Yes. That means you. Hello friend.

Goodbye friend.

So Now It's Over, It's Time To Say Goodbye...

So, I guess this is it. No more high school. Woohoo. Looking forward to graduating, but not looking forward to playing at graduation, or saying bye to everyone. Well. Maybe not everyone, but you know.

So, last Wednesday's show was fun, but kinda weird. About 30 people showed up. Dylan Taylor, Fairyboy, and Sending Regards played. I really like Dylan Taylor's stuff. He played ukulele and had awesome lyrics. Fairyboy's stuff would've been good if it hadn't of been for his vocals. Sending Regards were meh. They could use some practice. Same with me. I could use a lot of practice. I played a couple songs and was done, but everyone just looked at me when I told them to go home, so I told stories then played some rap songs. Exciting, eh? Anyway, significance of this show? Dylan Taylor and Fairyboy were the first people that I've ever gotten to play here from out of the country (Canada! They said "aboot" and everything). They were really nice, but apparently everyone thought they were really dirty? I didn't notice. Maybe I'm dirty too? Haha. Anyway, yea, they were really nice. I gave them like $100 worth of music because I needed to get rid of it, and they wanted it, but didn't have much money. Although they only made 20 or 30 bucks on the show, they said it was one of the best on the whole tour so far. Woo.

While on the subject of shows, the next one is the Saturday after graduation at Mountain High Skate Park. Some punk bands. It was a favor for a friend. Come if you want. I think it'll cost 3 bucks (not my choice), but I could probably get you in for free.

I found out the other day that a track that I submitted for an audiozine made it! It's not a music track, but just me talking about something. Still cool, though! It's on Transmissions #2 on Rock-It-Records. If you want a copy for some reason, lemme know and I can order you one. They're $3 each. Or I could just email you the track. I don't care.

As it turns out, the time I'm going to be in Chicago, is not only when Southwest Folk Fest is going on, but also Mauled By Tigers. I'm pumped!

Oh man, I almost forgot. Friday, I made it through the day without feeling the least bit of sadness until the end of band. Mr. Rittenhouse asked if he could take a picture of me, then talked to me afterwards. He said I had more talent than he could ever hope to have, which is huge coming from someone who works with music professionally. Then he told me to come visit sometime, which just put things into perspective for me a bit: I'm going to be leaving a bunch of really cool people here.

But life moves on for both me and those people. Probably for the best. Maybe I'll come visit sometime?

"...Maybe you should have never met me."

This Juxtaposition of Good and Bad...

"...reminds me of the best and the worst dreams I've had."
~ Andrew Jackson Jihad

The past five days have been ridiculous with ups and downs. First, read the blog I posted last night, then read this.

MONDAY -- Go to school, take my EOCT (which seemed to be easy), finish the day. Off to work. I get a call right before I go in from Randy at Blairsville Bikes and Boards; my bike has come in, and apparently it's really awesome. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go pick it up then, so I'm going to get it tomorrow. Work was boring and slow, and when I get home I found out that two of our puppies died today. We think it was from contaminated dog food. Yargh.

TUESDAY -- Go to school, do nothing. Get home, discover two more dead puppies and a third one is MIA. We now have two left, and they appear to be perfectly fine. Went and got my bike after discovering all of that. I like it, and am planning on going on a decently long bike ride after tomorrow's AP test.

It seems like Death always takes in groups, but what can one do about it? Unfortunately, not much of anything.

These ups and downs are killing me.

Some Guys Take A Knife To A Tree...

"...just to say hey I was here and in love
so here is my name plus the name of a girl
and the year in which this thing took place

when they see it they will know
even though we have the same names as so many others
that this was not just everyday
it was the first and only thing I thought to say

Please remember us
'cause I'm not the kind of guy to get a statue in my honor
now we're running out of ground
and I won't get a stone to say that I was here
so I will make my own memorial
right here on this tree

Some guys put some paint on a stone
on a road cut, on a highway
said Class of '88
and go bulldogs, go
let 'em beat that rival school
we are here, we are young, we are great
when they see it they will know
even though so many football players graduate
that this was not no gangster graffiti
it was so important that we had to paint

Please remember us
cause we're not the kinds of guys to get a statue in our honor
now we're running out of ground
and we won't get a stone to say that we were here
so we will make our own memorial
right here by this road

And I know that trees tend to grow
long after we are dead and cover what we carve
and the rain will mar the stones so that nobody will know
that the Class of '88 was really tough
but waves of sound never die
they just fade into the background and haunt us in our sleep
so we can sing, and dance, and laugh, and hope that this was enough

So don't remember me
I know I'm not the kind of guy to get a statue in my honor
I only wanted to be just another human being in my time, in my place
So I make my own memorials"
~Jon Crocker

Well. What an eventful weekend. Well. Kind of. Here's a summary.

FRIDAY: Work. Get home a bit past 10 and about two hours later get a call from Jon Crocker asking if he can come spend the night because apparently he hates Sylva and everyone in it. Of course, I say yes. The second I get off the phone with him, I get a message from my mom telling me that my great-grandpa has just passed away. Jon shows up a bit passed 3 and I go to sleep soon after.

SATURDAY: Wake up to a phone call from my mom. I'm supposed to be a pallbearer at 3:30. Eeep. Jon Crocker has a show in Blairsville at 2 and another in Hiawassee at 5. Well, about thirty or so people show up the the 2PM thing. We get outta there by a little past three. And I fly all the way to Hayesville, do the funeral stuff, which wasn't really sad until my uncle got up to say something. Jeez. "People say when an old person dies, a library is lost, and I think today we lost a full library of Appalachian history." Anyway, made it to the 5PM show right exactly on time. At first, only like 20 people were there, but by the time Jon Crocker got a few songs into his set there were probably about 45. And it was awesome. And I actually had a ton of fun. We wound up getting back to my house around 9:30, and I helped Jon get ready for his European tour which is coming up in about 3 weeks. Oh, and he gave me like 52 CDs. Well, he gave me like 40. I bought the other 12 (anyone want some Jon Crocker CDs? Only 4 or 5 bucks each. They're worth it. For real).

Oh! Something else about Saturday. I got a letter from the school saying I've missed too many days and am now losing credit in Economics. But uh. I haven't missed that many days? Three of my "absences" were for school related events (AP Test, practice AP test, Multimedia fieldtrip). So uhhh. I hope those get fixed soon so I don't have to go to that stupid meeting thingy on Friday.

SUNDAY: Went and had breakfast with my mom. Came back home for about 30 minutes and saw Jon Crocker off, then went off to work. Which sucked. To the max. YARGH! And now I'm here. Bored out of my mind. Not sleepy, but knowing that I should go to sleep. My bike is getting here tomorrow, but I'm working tomorrow. Which is weird. Because I pretty much never work Mondays. Double yargh.

One more week of school. Economics EOCT tomorrow, AP Language Wednesday, U-lympics Thursday?

The End.

I Had a Heart Once...

"...full of fire and passion
but the summer took it away from me
And autumn has come to retrieve it."
~Andrew Jackson Jihad

So, I'm buying a bike tomorrow. Maybe I can start getting back into shape a little bit? Oh, and saving on gas. I'm getting an Iron Horse hybrid bike and it costs $337.05. I think it'll be useful in college, not only in getting to and from class, but when I get bored. So woohoo.

I hate waiting on things in the mail. I've got like $300 worth of music and other miscellaneous junk (presumably) on the way. Blargh.

Something else I don't like: Waking up early. We have to be at the Brackett Room at 7:15 to take our AP tests?! Ack! At least we don't have to go back to school afterwards.

Last Wednesday's show was an adventure. There were like 20 people there around 4:30, when we were originally gonna start, but it turns out my friends from Chicago, Pat and Ty, thought the show was at 7, and wound up getting there around 6:15. They played for 7 people. It was a blast, though. A guy from Jamestown, New York played too. Afterwards we went back to my house and watched MASH 'til four in the morning. As usual, it's all on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=DakotaFloyd&p=r

The next shows are this Saturday. One is at 2 at Meeks Park. Ben Chapman, Jon Crocker, and maybe me (but I doubt it), then 5 at Mystic Mountain Coffeehouse in Hiawassee with Danny Rangel, Mr. Microphone, Jon Crocker, and Ben Chapman & The Turnabout. Should be fun, if people show up. Probably not gonna film much of these, if that makes anyone wanna actually come?

Well, I let myself get wrangled into playing at graduation today. I'm playing "My Wish," by Rascal Flatts. Mrs. Ludlum said I could play something else, but that's what most people wanted. So whatever. I already figured it out, now I just need to memorize the words.

Wow. It's almost 1 in the morning already. Guess I'd best be going. Adios.