See, I don�t hate women; I went and bought the new Sleater-Kinney CD today. Anyway, this is why punk rock music sucks in the year 2002:

I leave for work in the morning, and I�m constantly on guard. I get on the highway and I�m on guard. I get on the phone all day and all night, and I�m on guard. Someone, some stranger wants to hurt me. I�ve hurt, and been hurt over and over the past few. I am caught in this endless cycle, and then I hear about shit people from my past say, and it hurts more. But what the fuck can I do? Be considered an asshole for doing what I feel like doing? I travel around. I used to travel a whole lot, by myself, and now I am constantly wearing a blanket. A security blanket that keeps me closer to home is what I own. I found an old journal from a couple of years ago from a road trip where I wrote most of the songs for the new CD. I�ve become pathetically un-independent lately it seems. There�s no excuse for this. I am not a person who needs to be around people for much time. Not that I think I�m cooler, because I like being by myself, as I do like the people I see every day, but I feel different now. Less serious, and more consistent. Consistency is the bane of me right now. It�s known that every day at least once, I will feel like �X� or �Y�. It�s not the way it was. I kind of miss it. I�m now a fucking robot. The same fucking moron every day. As much as I want to think I can relate, I can�t anymore. I have no trust in people. I get criticized for hanging out with certain people, or criticized for this and that. I�d like to think I don�t give a shit if I hear something like my ex-girlfriend doesn�t want to deal with me. Every single fucking girl I know doesn�t get me. Or rather, doesn�t get it. Maybe I do hate women. Or maybe, I should just ignore them all. I make efforts to try and be civil to people, as nobody wants to be looked at as an asshole. At this point, at 32, there�s no reason why I should really give a fuck what anyone thinks about me anyway. I am destined to not get married or anything like that, so the notion of even giving any effort to make new friends, lovers, whatever is futile. I long for the road by myself. I long for sitting around here reading by myself. I want to end up coming home, cooking dinner for myself, having a glass of wine, maybe talking to a friend on the phone, jerking off, and going to sleep. That�s my dream. I�ll leave the happily-ever-after shit for everyone else. It�s simply not going to happen. (there are people outside this window right now that have it out for me there are people outside this window that are listening to me think there are people out there I hear them there are people outside this window that want to kill me and people wonder why I�m so fucking paranoid all the time it�s obvious they are here to kill me). Everyone is too wrapped up in themselves, and what their own needs are, including me, so I will hold the white flag up, and tell them all to fuck off. I have no time or energy for anything right now, but the guitar, and attempting to get myself back on the road by myself to drive through places I�ve never been. I remember Stephanie mentioned wanting to go away with me this summer a while back. Right, I imagine I would end up throwing her out of the car midway through. I just finished the bottle of wine. There wasn�t much in it, but I feel like I could throw it across the room and laugh at the cracked wall and red wine dripping around it. This is what I feel like tonight. Once it gets closer to 2AM, I want to get fucked up. I need to get fucked up every single day of my life, or else. I need to medicate somehow. I like getting fucked up at this hour more or less. I don�t have to apologize to anyone for acting weird, or talking too much shit at this hour. I can sit here and get fucked up. I took a couple of shots of old shitty whiskey we had in the closet, and I feel a little more alive right now. Earlier, I felt dead. At the beginning of this, I felt dead. I stopped writing for a few minutes, and don�t know what lies behind this. As of right now though, I feel pretty good. I like the way things are going in my life. The band is doing pretty good, and I feel like I am content with my job, and my friends. I feel like I did when I was younger and I didn�t know any better. I never worry about anything anymore. I don�t hate anyone right now. I don�t love anyone right now. I just feel like a straight line. I feel like things couldn�t be any better. I could be happy just being around here doing the shit I do, keeping busy, being around people all the time, and not having to spend unfortunate times by myself driving around the country with no particular place to go. I would travel somewhere, get a hotel room, sit around and get fucked up and write. Try to get in the mindset of whatever particular place I was in. Try to get into some sort of character. I like doing that when I�m at home too. I like doing that here. I can�t imagine traveling like that again. I would be talking to myself in the car with no music on for three straight hours, horse from all the cigarettes. Did I just smoke a cigarette? It�s depressing to think that I would be that lonely and deal with it like I did. Right now, I don�t think I could do it. I think I need people around me at all times. I think too much when I�m by myself. I think different things back and forth. My ideas and opinions change from second to second, and it�s unhealthy. I like being sober. I�ve been not getting fucked up at all lately. I�ve been keeping myself clean. Well, I had a little pot in the studio, and drank a tiny bit. But at this point, not getting fucked up is a better option. I have more energy like this. I have more to say when I�m sober I think. I look around me, and I see a lot of great things happening. Everyone seems pretty happy around me. Surrounding yourself with negative energy only brings you down. I can�t be brought down to that level again. I can�t surround myself with it (the motherfuckers out there I hear them whisper shit to me). I mean fuck them, they talk shit all the time, and I get accused of being the one that talks shit. This is why I just can�t be around people much anymore. I like the solitude late at night like this. I shut the phone off; not that anyone calls anyway. But I look back, and I see a bunch of unnecessary bullshit I put myself through. I think I want to try and juggle a bunch of tornadoes in my small little pathetic hands. Yeah, that�s what I want to do. I want to try and relate to them now. Sure, I can do that. I can relate to all of them. I can relate that we all have bodies, and physical attributes. I just can�t relate to what the fuck they are thinking. I have absolutely no (now listening to the reissue of Miles Davis Filles de Kilimanjaro) patience at this point. I try and listen, but it goes in one ear, and out the other. I try and avoid confrontation, but I�m faced with motherfuckers every day that feel the need to fuck with me, why do these dudes exist? They walk around, ponytails, attitudes, and shitty taste in shitty music made by white people. White people do not make good music, they never have, we know this. Just look at the Beatles. Elvis Presley. The Rolling Stones. All white people who had not a speck of talent in their fingernails compared to a motherfucker like Sun Ra, or Miles, or Satchmo, or black folk singer, Bob Dylan. Tonight, at one point, I pulled the car over, as I saw France. The country France attempting to hide in front of the moon. I wonder how those motherfuckers would feel if they saw shit like that. They basically make me feel like shit constantly. Then there are the morally bankrupt suckers who try and relate to me because they think I am �one of them� I am fucking nobody. Why anyone would want to deal with me on a daily basis is way beyond my comprehension. Why anyone would want to listen to the shit that comes out of my mouth is beyond me. It�s no wonder they talk shit about me, or �don�t want to deal with me� whateverthefuckthatmeans. The only people I trust, they live inside my head. They only come out after 1:35 AM EST. They only come out when I beckon them with drugs and alcohol. I should get in the car right now and see what it feels like to drive. I am filled with something other than being high, or drunk. I haven�t drank since we went to the studio the other night. I haven�t smoke pot since either. I have a headache because of the shit I hear from day to day. Sometimes, it makes you wonder why you would ever try. I leave them all behind to talk shit about me, and dislike me. Meanwhile, I will slowly decay here. I will slowly just become so unable to communicate with anyone that I will grow a beard and have bedsores from not going out. I so wish I would lose my job so I can just collect unemployment and sit around do nothing all day. That sounds like the ideal life for me right now. A vacation from vacation. A vacation from life. That is what heaven sounds like to me. When my car starts at night. When it is turned on this late at night, it means I am going to roam around just so I can see the display cases around town. Where are the 24 hour houses of ill repute again? Oh, down here I see. I imagine that I will drive by the houses of ill repute, make my way home, and sit around until the phone rings. Sometimes, I wish the phone would ring more often. I wish they would all love me. I love everyone I know, everyone I knew. I have a hard time keeping up. I try to keep in touch. I try to make sense all of the time. I like to stay consistent with whatever it is I�m trying to relay. I like to think that I am a good friend, and a shitty enemy. I�m too much of a pushover. I like the community I am in. I like the circle of people I know, a broken circle at that, but it�s a good one. Reina told me that when I wear this one green shirt, my eyes look green, not brown, I guess I�m not full of shit after all.

before & after