So today work was pretty hectic. We could not send or receive e-mail outside the company, we could not make or receive long distance calls, and I had a two hour meeting with us (the union people), and the management, about a �layoff� that recently took place, while I was away. Again I feel indifferent to the unions position. As the days go by, I think I should stop my position. I shouldn�t lie. I don�t really like the woman from our main union office, she�s pretty �hard ass�. She always ends sentences with these insulting mutterings that had me looking across the table rolling my eyes out of her peripheral vision more than once. Either way, it�s interesting to see that whole thing going down. A good learning experience indeed. Another funny thing that happened, was this package I got in the mail today. We do not take unsolicited demo tapes from people at the label anymore. But you still get these packages here and there from people looking for a deal. Since we are mainly a folk/bluegrass/blues label, it�s a bit funny when you get something like this package I received today. I�m going to write out the letter here, which also included a videotape(Am I cruel for mocking this poor girl?): �Dear Sirs, My name is XXXXXXXXXXX . I�m a 14 year old girl from XXXX, MO I�ve been singing since I could talk. I just recently made my first demo tape. There are two songs on the tape, and although I didn�t write either of them I am now beginning to write my own songs. The two songs on the tape are: �I need you tonight�, by the Backstreet Boys, and �If you�re in it for love(I�m outta here)�, by Shania Twain. I sing and listen to most types of music.� Okay, I have to stop now, now I feel like an asshole for putting this up here. I shouldn�t be pissing on someones dreams like that. Especially a fourteen year old girl! Although�.I did watch the videotape, and what I saw was a girl looking very stiff and nervous standing in front of a stereo system singing these two songs intent on doing what she loved. More than I can say. My band has been holed up in a practice room for over a year now without a debut gig yet! So I really shouldn�t be making fun. The video is kind of funny in a way though, as it�s so absurd. I am planning on writing her a letter tomorrow thanking her, but explaining we do not take demos right now, but to not give up on music whatever she does. If you have it in you that young, than I say do it.

It�s a bit funny how words can be taken out of context, or how words can hurt peoples� feelings. Words. Words on a screen. Words on a piece of paper. Words coming out of a mouth. The best words always come out of your own mouth. Listening to other people talk and write should be a chore. Everyone is full of shit. Your English teacher was full of shit. Your parents are full of shit. That cute guy you met last week is full of shit. Everyone wants to sell their story, and what they have to say. In the end, it doesn�t really matter. It�s just words to fill up the space when we can�t sit in peace and quiet. I can�t tell you how many times I�ve sat there dumbfounded listening to someone talk. I can�t tell you how many times I�ve sat there dumbfounded listening to myself talk. A lot of times, the best way to get your point across, without sounding too typical, is to use metaphors. I guess I shouldn�t really speak for anyone else actually, as I have my own problems with social interaction. The point is, I got a message from someone today about something I wrote on here two days ago about something that �happened� in Nashville. The story was a metaphor. I would never, and have never thought of buying a gun and shooting myself. How pointless would all of this be if I took that route? People have deep routed problems, and I sympathize with anyone who�s ever had to deal with suicide, as it really sucks. My grandfather hung himself years ago. Went to work with his lunch box, never came home. They found his car on the highway, upon looking through the woods, found him hanging from a tree. No note, nothing. My mother and grandmother scoured the house for any sort of clue. They found nothing. Nobody truly knows what goes on inside any persons� head at any given moment. People snap sometimes, others just deal day by day. I�ve tried to deal day by day, and I do for the most part. I don�t really have that much to be depressed about. I have a good job, a nice car, friends, and more Miles Davis CD�s than the average person has CD�s in general : ) . There is something wrong with me though. If I knew what it was I wouldn�t go searching. Perhaps that�s just it, I do too much thinking. Right now, I feel like I�m back on vacation again. I�m by myself. Nobody has called me and just said �How are you doing?� in a long fucking time. I call people and I get vagueness. I get the answers I don�t want to hear. Is that your final answer? I try and get people together to do something different with themselves, but nobody wants to change, their happy with their mildly self destructive selves, and what they need to do every day. That�s fine and dandy, but when I can�t get an idea in edgewise, it�s aggravating. I feel like I�m just there as some sort of token. �Oh, he�s the nice guy. He�ll always be there. He�ll do anything you say. He�ll be there for you if you need him.�. That�s just what I wanted all of my life, the nice guy. Tonight I took a drive up to Gloucester, now famous for the movie The Perfect Storm. I spend a lot of time there; whenever I feel lonely, or just bored I go there. There were times when I could always bring a companion there with me, not anymore though. It�s not in the radius of activity for people. It�s boring to be in a car. It�s boring to take a walk with you. I drove through downtown Salem on my way tonight and saw some of the �punk rock� people or whatever you call them now and laughed at how trivial they looked. Concentrating on how they look so bad, that they just look like they�re trying to hard to be different. They all look the same though. An empty outfit walking down the street. I know a ton of people like this with their fashions changing from week to week. It�s funny how much time they spend trying to look alright. Make a good presentation. Maybe they have it right, as most of us do judge people by how they look. Sort of like I just did right now : ) So I�m driving up to Gloucester and I was thinking how much I can�t remember anything from my teenage years whatsoever. I have very vague memories of seeing concerts, walking around suburbia. I wondered what I was like. I never wrote anything down back then, as much as I do now anyway, so I have no real recollections to go by. I recently found a journal from a few years ago. I still write in it actually, it's a big book with tons of pages, and I think it spans from 1994 until two days ago. There is some really funny shit in there. I almost wanted to copy some of it into here, as it�s so silly. �Oh lonely me� etc�. I guess it�s the same shit as here, just different people, and maybe some bigger words here and there. So I�m thinking back to my teenage years and I remembered a few key things: 1) being �straight edge� For those who don�t know. �Straight Edge� was a song by a hardcore/punk rock band Minor Threat in the early 80�s. The lyrics were: �I don�t smoke. I don�t drink. I don�t fuck. At least I can fucking think� People adapted this into a movement, following these rules. Wait, that�s wrong, those were the lyrics to �Out Of Step� by the same band. The song �Straight Edge� was pretty similar though. So people made this movement of being straight. It was a good positive scene, I met a whole slew of people who are famous now. Including Ian MacKaye, who wrote the song, and is probably one of the coolest, most down to earth people on the planet. He never intended it to be this thing it�s grown into nowadays, which is this militant movement of people who have brought veganism, and views like pro-life into the picture. Hell, it was just a song. I talked to Ian a while back, when his current band, Fugazi played here. We talked about the whole thing, and how much of a cartoon it is. He�s still straight at this point, but I�m pretty sure he doesn�t use that label at close to 40 years old. So being part of that whole thing was a big part of my teenage years. It was sort of sandwiched between my early high school experiments with alcohol and marijuana, and where I�m at now: A cigarette smoker, and a �trying to quit� marijuana smoker. I think I�ve always had that attitude towards drugs though. Hypocritical as it is. I have always felt right though, as I �just smoked pot�. In the midst of this though, I let something bad happen. I got addicted to it. If you don�t watch something, it jumps on your back and attaches itself to you. Tonight, I didn�t smoke any pot. I�m just about out, and aside from being low on money anyway, I don�t plan on buying any anytime soon. I wanted a clear mind to be myself in, and I had that. 2) Having a huge group of friends. Sure I barely talk to any of them at this point in time, but I had a good group of people I called my friends. We all called each other all the time, and did everything as a group. Nowadays, I�ve sort of morphed into this person that can�t handle anything beyond a one on one evening with someone. Such are the pleasures of being young I guess. You feel invincible, you feel like you�re on top of the world with your whole crew of friends. You can do anything with large numbers. You can be who you want to be, or so you think. You all grow apart at one point. There is a certain amount of honor I�ll always have towards people I grew up with, or have just been acquaintances with for years. I�ll always remember a handful of people I met along the way that made a difference in some way in my life. The rest of the people are forgettable. Probably unhappily married, in a shitty job, with no social life. I always think I can get that again, but I�m not sure if I can. Am I too old now? Am I going to meet anyone that �rocks my world� again? 3) High school. If I could do it over again, I would. My family had money at one point. My dad was successful working for a major record company in Los Angeles, doing the best drugs around, and hanging out with rock stars, etc. The parents divorced, and my brother and I moved back here to Boston with my mother in 1980. Since then, we never had the money we had. When I got to high school in 1983 I got a job. I�ve not spent more than a day unemployed since. I guess in retrospect I could have been saving to go to college, but I didn�t. I did shitty in high school. My English Teacher, who contrary to what I said earlier, was not full of shit. He reminded me of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. Sort of a rebel. He told me I was the smartest kid in the class, I was just too much of a fuck up with other things to do well. He was an honest guy. His best friend was this gentleman from Gloucester named Israel Horovitz, a playwright who has had some modest success. His son on the other hand has had much success, as Ad Rock of the Beastie Boys. Mr. Webster was the teachers� name. After I graduated high school, Mr. Webster killed himself. I don�t know the details, but it doesn�t seem like him at all. He was a really cool guy, and one of those teachers that changed your life. I now wish I had listened to him during the many �after class discussions� I had with him about life. Perhaps I would have kicked it into gear at one point. I did do a little bit of college, but realized it just wasn�t for me at all. Nothing is for me though. I�m unsatisfied. I am always unsatisfied. Nothing is good enough. What do I expect. I can�t really remember what I else I thought about regarding my teenage years, but the fact is, it�s a blur, as is my 20�s. I don�t want my 30�s to be a blur. I want to do everything I can do. I want to go everywhere I can go. I don�t ever want to look back at this year and say �I can�t remember 2000�. I also don�t want it to be the year I remember as the year I went crazy. I don�t want to remember it as the year I crawled into a shell and only talked to myself, my computer, and the anonymous readers that may stumble across this. Hello there by the way. I wanted to remember this as a great year with a million triumphs and the like. So far, that�s been minimal. I feel isolated. I feel bored. I feel like I am still driving in the middle of Virginia by myself waiting for my phone to ring and have someone say �hello, how are ya?�. I feel like I didn�t really discover anything when I went away except for the fact that I am alone. I am always alone. I was supposed to have the trip turn into something even better when I met up with my friend, it went the other way though. I got aggravated that my daily rituals, and how I was doing everything was being intruded upon. Selfish. I came home exhausted, and back to square one. There�s not enough space here to begin to express the feeling in my stomach every day. Or the feeling I feel midway through the day when I think about the monotonous ride home from work to this room, or other rooms just like it. Empty rooms. Rooms filled with books, music, people. But empty rooms nonetheless. That stewardess is never waiting here with my ticket to a new place. It�s the same old ugly cab driver waiting to charge me for this ride around here all day and night. I look forward to his weekend. I think I�m going to head up to New Hampshire or Maine and relax for a day. Check out some shops, or walk the beach or something, This is what I look forward to this weekend. Not the busy loud city streets, or the wild late nights screaming Eminem lyrics. Just a couple of days not at work to sit back another day and wonder what the fuck this all means

before & after