One Thousand Years

It was another regular day for Tripp. He awoke to a pounding headache and the drained feeling of dehydration; it was his mother's voice that woke him up at 9am; she chided him saying: "How are you still sleeping? You need to go do something, go look for a job; you can't be sleeping all the time." "What are you talking about? I don't have anything to do today, its Friday," he replied sleepily, "Anyway, I have been looking for work... The job market is non-existent though; you can't yell at me for that."
"Get up you bum," was her last reprimand as she left the house.
The night before, Tripp had been drinking with friends until 4 in the morning (a usual weekend event for him) and somehow he was able to get up. He set about curing his hangover with water, then he went about doing house chores and ultimately he ended up in his room playing video games. He was glad that his mother was not home, she would have certainly complained and told Tripp that he wastes too much of his life playing those games.

The beginning of the end of the beginning of the end.

Later on Tripp went to his friend Pawl's house to play guitar and hang out. Pawl was a good friend of Tripp; they had known each other since high school and at that time they played in a band together. Tripp was attending college and so the only time he had to work on music (a favorite hobby of his) was during the weekends, he did his best to continue practicing with Pawl while taking care of his studies. Another friend, who went by the name Legion, came over to Pawl's house with his girlfriend Bry. Legion was a good friend of Pawl's, in turn, Tripp was a mutual friend and had occasionally hung out with Legion and Bry. 
The four were in the basement garage that had four crumbling walls covered in spider webs; Pawl's car and a couch covered in shiny silver plastic were the only items that were not books or random articles scattered around.
Legion handed Tripp a piece of paper, Tripp put it in his pocket as he continued to play guitar. They spoke of the night before and how they discovered a drunken person in the bathroom of the house party they all attended; being that it was Friday night they also discussed the possibilities of what they could do later on.

Minutes later, Tripp took out the paper to read it- immediately he froze as he saw what it was. Tripp looked up at what he thought were his three friends, he faintly recalled that he knew them but uncertainty overcame him; Tripp was ambiguous about the character and being of the three he thought were his friends. At that moment he did not know who they were at all.
Legion asked Tripp: "Do you remember?" Dread began to permeate throughout Tripp's entire body. "Remember? Don't you remember why you feel like this?" Tripp put his head on his hands as the fear continued to spread, suddenly, while he was looking at his arm he felt nostalgia, he moved his arm and then stared at his feet, the nostalgic feeling persisted; this had all happened before.
Legion walked across Tripp, "Do you remember Tripp?" "I do..." Tripp said, as alarm and reminiscence were fusing inside of him; he felt as if every event in his life had lead to this moment. Tripp thought back to his childhood, his parents and the experiences he underwent throughout his 21 years of life. He looked up at Legion, Joe and Bry; the trepidation had entirely filled his core, he looked at the paper again, it was soaked in his sweaty hand.
"Why is this happening? Why are you doing this?" Tripp asked the three, who he felt were mockingly playing a twisted prank on him. Pawl sat back on his car, grinning widely, "How long do you think you've been like this?" Revelation continued to engulf Tripp. The nostalgia he was feeling finally made sense to him. all the movements he carried out as he sat there after he read the paper had happened before, in fact every single action he performed during his life, was preset.
"Why did I read that fucking paper?" He cursed under his breath.
"Because that is the way it always happens Tripp, and that is the same way that it will happen over and over again for all of eternity," Legion announced as he walked back and forth in front of Tripp.
"You're a thousand years old," Pawl informed Tripp while laughing.

"I'm a thousand years old.." Tripp repeated to himself.
Hearing himself say those words out loud only made his distress increase ten-fold, but for a split second he felt empowered, as if he were a supreme being and that everything was consummate. That moment was instantly crushed as he could not come to terms with the revelation that his life was an endless meaningless cycle. He thought of the potential he believed he had and the future he had constantly looked forward to; dismay filled his heart; the idea of continuing the cycle crushed him. He wanted to change it at that very moment, he shook around violently; he thought: There is no way this all could have been predetermined, this is horrible, why is this happening? I'm going to stop this now. 
 "I'm going for a walk," he told the three.
The three stopped laughing and stared at Tripp intently.
"Oh, that's not a good idea," Joe said. The other two agreed as they continued to glare at the distraught Tripp. An uncomfortably high tonal inflection persistently buzzed in Tripp's ears, becoming increasingly louder.
Time stopped.
"It'll be fine, I just need to get away for a bit," the anxiety was tangible from Tripp's voice, he tried to get up.
"You'll be just fine," the three said in unison as they converged unto Tripp.

Four to the Roll Demo

I've been working on this electronica song; a friend told me it sounds like drugs in audio form. Let me know what ya think =)

Four to the Roll Demo

Oh, Hai There

It's been a while since I've posted. Long story short: busy busy. I'm taking two classes until the end of July, Shakespeare and Modern Literature. Jamming it up with Adam and gonna be jamming with David too, and joining Azusa. My first assignment for Modern Literature should recap a bit of what's been happening during my summer, the writing style is inspired by James Joyce's "Ulysses":

“Through the Grey”

Running at night through cornfields that convert into the red-brown track and dark green field from elementary school. A tribunal sentences exile. Escaping frantically from the unknown. A pink haired girl with pigtails sports a toothless smile and fires her revolver. Sprinting towards the edge of the cliff, jumping off only to feel the exhilarating-

KKKRRRINNN!! KKKRRRRIINNN!

            Augh. Five more minutes. Yes.

When I wake up early in the morning,
Lift my head, I'm still yawning
When I'm in the middle of a dream
Stay in bed, float up stream

KKKKRRRIIINNN!!! Damnit, no way was that five minutes. Alright then, its not like five more minutes will make me feel less groggy. Wait a minute, there should still be honey-nut Cheerios. To the kitchen. Yes! This day will be just fine. They should just replace original Cheerios with honey-nut Cheerios, the original Cheerios taste like shit; hey man how ‘bout them Shitty-O’s?

Let’s see what’s on T.V. The news eh? No thanks. Just a bunch of depressing crap all day long: These people died or were murdered today, or a certain city has been destroyed by a natural disaster, the world is going to end, or random nonsensical counseling for better health: Drinking wine is good for your heart! Tune in to the 11 o’clock news. Alcoholics would be long gone after hearing that. Well at least its a bit better than that pointless show where all they talk about is celebrity gossip. What a load, what’s the big deal about celebrities anyway? They’re just like anybody else, they eat, shit and sleep like any normal human being, why do people obsess about these actors and actresses? Hell some of them don’t even have a god-damned reason for being famous! One can only lose their sense of self by being fixated upon these people; life is too full of opportunities and potential to be wasted obsessing over some celebrity’s twentieth marriage. At the same time, I feel sympathetic for celebrities that are constantly bombarded by paparazzi. Invading one’s privacy for another’s entertainment. The paparazzi and people from that channel need to get real jobs. Oh, 7:30! I’ve got to go!

Wash body. teeth and face; apply deodorant, slip into boxers shirt and jeans. Alright then. Wallet? Check. Phone? Check, time to go. Open garage- Wait a minute, can’t start a car without keys. Keys-check, house-alarm on and I’m off.

Jump in the cockpit and start up the engines,
Remove all the wheel blocks there's no time to waste.
Gathering speed as we head down the runway,
Got to get airborne before it's too late.

Ah yes, there’s no better way of getting anywhere on time than listening to heavy metal. Over the hills, through traffic, so very far away.  Another four hours of tutoring young Koreans. Reading and vocabulary. It blew my mind quite a bit when a student referred to me as “Mr. G,” it doesn’t feel that long ago since I was calling my teachers by the first letter of their last name. Reading with Pablo for an hour, the battle to stay awake begins!

Pablo is a funny kid, loves to joke around attempting to waste reading time (his parents left from Korea to live in Argentina for his and his brother(Esteban)’s birth; I remember double-taking when he first told me his name was Pablo). One day Pablo came in speaking in a different voice saying: “Hi Mr. G! I’m Paul the new student!” All because he didn’t do the homework I assigned to him. I could not hold back my laughter; clever kid.

What’s this? “Ah, good morning Mrs. Kim!” This can’t be good-  “Alright, I’ll be right up after I give Pablo his worksheets. “

Up the stairs to the lonely ominous office. Déjà vu. Sitting waiting for a superior, anticipation turns into nervous trepidation; just like the time I got sent to the office in elementary school for punching someone in the mouth for saying something about my mother- same setting, I’m just older now, and no one was hit in the face. Ah, here she is.

[Insert long and winded preamble indicating that business is bad]. “We’re going to have to let you go Eric, “ said Mrs. Kim “there are too many tutors and not enough students.” Just dandy.

Back to the car, final check for 150 dollars. Wait a minute I worked 20 hours after my last paycheck, 8 dollars per hour times 20- I should have 160 dollars! Ah, fuck it I’m already on my way.

You can go your own way

Go your own way

You can call it another lonely day

You can go your own way

Go your own way

Alright, what now? I should start job hunting… After cigarettes though. I really need to quit- I must’ve told myself that over eleventy-billion times. You were right Lord Henry, a cigarette is the perfect pleasure. Here’s the gas station.

Now then, will it be Camels or Pall Malls today- Girl with pink pigtails crossing the other side of the street, but something’s off about her.  Thick wind chimes on the glass door- one of them is going to shatter the other one of these days. What the hell, David’s here too? “Hey man how’s it going? What’re you doing here?”   

“Oh, hey what’s up brotha? Nothing much dude, just getting an Arizona, what about you?” David said.

“Nice, I’m just getting some smokes- Hey man, have you seen that girl over there with the pink pigtails?”

“Huh? What girl?” David asked as he looked out the glass-chimed door.

“That one crossing the street right there, how can you not spot out pink hair?”

David burst into laughter right away, “Dude, you are tripping, that’s not a girl at all; that’s a hermy!”

“Your crazy, get out of here! That’s totally a little girl with pink pigtails!”

“Haha, nope. That’s not even a girl. That guy, or person, is actually like forty-something; one time Julian’s friend talked to him, er shim? You need to take a better look of who you’re checking out man.” David joked.

“Ah, whatever man, I wasn’t checking her out at all, just reminded me of something.”

“Yeah, sure man- hey what are you up to today? Aren’t you supposed to be working right now?” David asked as he grabbed his Arizona.

“Yeah, supposed to, not anymore though, I just got let go.”

“Ah deng, that sucks man- well, you down to jam today then?” David said

“Sure man, what time?”

“I’ll roll down like at 4, check ya later brotha.”

Camels- 5.51, Pall Malls-4.67. Pall Malls it is.

What to do until then? Time for a bike ride. Ditch four wheels for two. Everyone says I should get a road-bike, being that we live in the city of cement. My mountain bike is just fine it got me through the forty-mile journey to Venice Beach last October- though I was the only one with a mountain bike I was never at the ass end of the group. I’ve had this bike since middle school, its not going anywhere without me on it.  

Bicycle bicycle bicycle

I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

Riding downhill is so exhilarating; it must be the closest feeling to flying like a bird. Air and sound rush past as you gain speed. Unless you turn too sharply- exactly what broke my collarbone in high school; now I’ve got a bent bone for the rest of my life- so rad. Reminds me of that time walking to the bus stop and seeing an ambulance in the middle of the street, apparently a girl was riding her bike across the street just as a car was driving by. I wonder if she felt any pain, I really hope not. There must be a loud noise right before darkness and the unknown take over.

Smoking while riding- how paradoxical.

Agh, curse you red lights, always killing my momentum. Woah, Florida plates? You are far from home buddy. Green- go go go. Hm, I wonder what ever happened to Elian Gonzalez, someone told me he was a full-fledged communist now, interesting but not surprising. His iconic picture brings back the time when we were playing hide and seek at Anthony’s house, Mendez was hiding in the closet under clothing, when we found him he shot us that same look that Elian had in that famous picture. I was pretty good at hide and seek, but after one time during elementary school when we played at the park after midnight I thought twice about where I would hide. Alone in the dark. I wasn’t scared as much as I was bored and restless. Maybe that’s why many people absolutely loathe the idea of being alone, not having anyone to share anything interesting with would probably make one implode with ennui- that’d be great for the news: Boredom causes people to blow up! Tune in at 11! Being alone is usually associated with depression, something I definitely understand; but an optimistic viewpoint of being alone is that it is the only point in time where you can really get to know yourself. The hustle and bustle of everyday life occupies your mind or traverses through the grey matter and reminds you of countless past events.

VRRRRR VRRRRR

Vibrating leg? Oh it’s David. Yeah, yeah I’ll be right over.

We mould the sound waves, one guitar speaks with the other and they proceed to converge in harmony, absolute bliss. Then one holds the rhythmic pace as the other shreds through the radiant plane of sound, exchanging back and forth; minutes turn to hours but time is never of any concern, nothing is of any concern.

So far far away

It has been another long while.. Story time!

Listen to this while you read this story: Sergio Mendes- "Mas Que Nada"



So, the weekend of May 7th(?) my friend David told me there was a chance to make 50 dollars for working at this marijuana convention/festival called the "Dr. Greenthumb and Tommy Chong present: Spring Gathering." Me, needing hard cash, said "hell yeah, I'm way down." So we drove an hour and a half to the location in San Benardino and got straight to work at about 9 in the morning. For about 2 hours we set up barricades for panels that Tommy Chong, Cypress Hill, Methodman and Redman were supposed to hold. In between work tasks David and I took "smoke breaks," or as we call it MBT (the top-secret term for smoking, More Bowl Time)- anytime you hear "MBT!" it means you are most likely going to fly high. Anyway, by taking our MBT breaks we found ourselves a more suitable position; David ran into his friend Carol from school and she happened to be working the V.I.P. area for the entire festival. So we started hanging out with her and almost immediately MBT'd along with her. After MBT'ing we went back to our supervisor, but before asking for an assignment we performed the "hands in!" call after swearing that we were going to find a way to MBT with Tommy Chong. After our supervisor watched us collectively put our hands on top of each other then to throw them up assigned us to work the V.I.P. area with Carol! SO MUCH BETTER THAN SETTING BARRICADES!

Basically we kept the V.I.P. area clean and watched over an exclusive cabana and attended to people in the cabana. Everyone in the area was smoking, and I mean EVERYONE; absolutely epic. I got smoked out from three different parties I was attending; one instance I was removing trash for one party of three guys when one asks me if I smoke then offers me a packed pipe, I say: "Awesome!" to which he replies: "Wait a minute.." he turns to his friend and demands: "Hey, put some hash on this bowl for this guy." Being high at work is quite optimal. And on another occasion I was taking out the trash for one guy when he asked me the favored question: "Do you smoke?" I said "yeah" and he gave me a card for a clinic he owns and a tube with a well-sized joint. YES! Later on, after he had smoked for 4 hours straight with friends he asked me to go get them food, in total I went on three runs for them but every time I came back he had a twenty dollar bill for me! And the ultimate incident was when Tommy Chong came to sit in the cabana! Immediately we jumped at the chance to MBT with the legend, so I sparked up the free joint I had received earlier and went up to him saying: "Tommy, it would make my dream come true if you hit this with my friends and I," he laughed and my friend David said: "C'mon, make two boys' dreams come true." He accepted the joint and proceeded to hand-grenade it! He passed it back and I left him alone, he probably had many people pestering him to smoke and such. I now have the roach in the tube and the memories along for that epic time in my life.

Above: THE LEGEND!

At the end of the night we ended up balancing out our easy V.I.P. work by working for 5 hours until 4 in the morning striking down the huge main stage. Very tiring, but yesterday my 50 dollar check came in the mail so in total I received a free joint, 110 dollars and a priceless moment of smoking with Tommy Chong.

School ended last week, I did alright in my opinion on finals, hopefully my grades are posted soon. Today I wrote and recorded a riff, I'm almost done with all the riff ideas for my latest metal song. I'll try to update far more often than every couple of weeks again.

This wicked song has been driven me through the stress of finals and beyond: Periphery- "Letter Experiment"

 

Aye Carai

Finals coming up, papers due, stress increasing- but I've been managing everything fairly well; freedom after next week!
I have many stories to relate when I have the time, they include such topics as: Being beyond drunk, working for free but making money with charm, and guest star Tommy Chong! Dun Dun Dun All this next week, maybe sooner =D

Here's Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer from that show 24) being a bad-ass.

Fly Into the Waters

I'm officially 21 and it has been a great day so far. Three of my great friends, Joolian, David and Andy came to my house at midnight and took me to go buy my first legal beer and it felt pretty damn good. For some reason I was nervous that I was going to get denied, which totally merited a 'why the fuck?' moment after I purchased two 32 oz. Miller High-Lifes. Joolian got me a 24 oz. Newcastle, so tasty! We parked on a random street and listened to music while we drank; nothing out of the ordinary from our usual routine ahaha! To say the least I got thoroughly drunk and didn't sleep until about 5 a.m. somehow I made it to my 8 a.m. class, an amazing feat indeed.

Tonight I'm going with friends to legally purchase drinks from a bar for the first time. Hopefully I don't end up in hand-cuffs =D

Here's a phenomenal song by one of my absolute favorite groups: Between the Buried and Me, it is entitled: "Selkies: The Endless Obsession." The second half of the piece is a timeless gem.

Edge of 21

Its a couple of minutes until my birthday, I'm finally going to be 21. I honestly do not know how to feel about this; some people tell me its going to be "totally awesome," I'll be able to drink whenever I want etc. I have never had a real problem getting drinks being that the majority of people I hang out with are already over 21; nonetheless it will be quite convenient to be able to buy my alcohol whenever I want. Some people have told me to throw a huge party or go to Vegas; while I am not against these notions I simply do not have the money for either = /. I've been looking for a job the past couple of years, I thought I'd have one by now, alas I do not; fuck. Some people also complain about 21 being the beginning of becoming old; I'm making a vow right now that I am not going to be one of those annoying whiny people who constantly says: "Augh, I'm getting old," every year.

I find that the U.S.A.'s drinking age being 21 is pretty lame; if anyone under that age wants to drink they can easily find a way to. I believe that having the drinking age at 21 leads to many alcoholic related accidents and deaths; people lust for what they cannot have. If it were legal people would not find the same excitement or satisfaction after a while, it would become a common thing, like cigarettes.

Earlier I was spending time with my Ma looking at baby photos of myself. Its pretty amazing looking back at that stuff, pretty tear-jerking actually. All in all, I cannot complain about the past 21 years of life, some things have completely sucked but I've had loving parents that did their absolute best to take good care of me and now it is time for me to grow up and return the favor.