Fear and Loathing on Cape Cod

If you haven't noticed by now, the titles of my blog posts may have absolutely nothing to do with what the post is about. This is one of those cases. The title is a song by Piebald. It's about a group of friends taking a road trip to Cape Cod and having the time of their lives perhaps with the help of alcohol and drugs. That fact also is not relevant to this post's true nature, but it's such a good song that it is clearly worth mentioning. Now, on to the good stuff...or at least my skewed view of whats good stuff. I just finished a month long internship at a screen printing warehouse (I Heart U Productions)that does a lot of merchandise for independent bands and record labels. While this has no long lasting relevant impact on my major in school, it really got me thinking. The people we worked with were awesome. They lived well and didn't seem to face any real financial problems. They basically get to hang out all day while making shirts, koozies, record packages, and other related stuff while watching TV or listening to music. They get too meet all sorts of people through their business and have made some great friends along the way. To me, that really sounds like all I would need to be content in life. It's started to make me wonder what life would be like behind a desk working as some low level financial analyst or whatever other entry level job my major can get me. I mean, I like the idea of working in the world of business and learning about that kind of stuff as well, but this just seems so much more fulfilling. If you're reading this, let me know what you think. Is it more important to have a well paying job that I can eventually support a family with or is it more important to go with a career that may not pay as much but will give me something more like meeting awesome people and doing something I actually care about?

On to other stuff. Every year in October there is a huge drunken music bonanza in Gainesville, Florida called The Fest. This year will be the 8th year they have been doing it. As I was only recently introduced to punk and hardcore music within the last few years, I am still realizing what a fantastic idea this is. Imagine all the bands you love in one city playing at different venues for three whole days. For three days you immerse yourself in great music, tons of food, and for those interested, tons and tons of beer. People carpool to get there and also to get from venue to venue if it's a long distance. All in all, you meet new people, make great friends, and apparently have the time of your life...or year. I really want to go. I'm sure there are people who want to go more than I do, but I still really really really want to go. The issue is finding cheap tickets to fly there and also finding cheap hotels to stay at.

Finally, I realized if there is one person in the world that I could choose to eliminate from this earth it would be Bill O'Reilly. If I could pick more people, then more of the Fox newscast would likely appear on the list. Now, while I have pretty liberal political views, this isn't the only reason why I would choose him. If you are so unfortunate to have to sit through an episode of his show, you will immediately notice his disregard for the opinions of his opposition. He has literally told guests to "shut up" while they were giving answers to the questions he brought them on his show to answer. Really? Is that polite? Does that make you more intelligent or mature? Cutting guests who do not share your opinion off is one of the most disrespectful and ridiculous things I have seen on TV. I have no problem with people being assertive and standing up for their views, but there comes a certain point where you cross over the line of being a good debater and being a dick.

No one reads this, bye now.

Don't Worry Brother, This Will Blow Over.

So, this past weekend O Pioneers (the band of the dude who we are working with at I Heart U Productions) started their "Great North American Tour". The tour started down here and is going to take them up north until they hit Canada and then back down for a few shows. Thursday, we tagged along with the band on their first stop in San Antonio. Well, technically this show was "pre-tour", but It essentially was the start. Either way, we went to the show and got to see a ton of shitty bands play and also got to see three pretty good ones play. The first couple of bands were way too PUNX for me wearing their Casualties, Virus, and Operation Ivy shirts and sporting twelve inch high Mohawks. The next few were still better but still shitty. Then a band called The Anchor played and they were pretty cool. Then a band called the Menzingers played. They had just gotten done touring with Broadway Calls who are also pretty cool. When the Menzingers played it was like someone plugged in an Ipod in and started playing their songs. They sounded sooooo good live. On top of that, their music was really cool. I suggest that every person who is so unfortunate as to have to be put through this hell I call a blog should also check out this band via the link above. Honestly, this band makes me want to be lucky enough to be in a touring band. They played again the next night in Houston and ended up staying at the warehouse where we live and they were totally nice dudes. Their merch/roadie/singer's brother guy was totally awesome as well. Seeing how much fun this band had while playing and simply hanging out made me wonder why I wasn't doing the same. I then quickly realized being in a touring band involves being good at an instrument and being able to write good music (neither of which I can even remotely do). Maybe someday, maybe. In any event, they showed us what kind of life touring bands have. It's a life where you may have to drive 10 hours to a show where 20 people show up if you are lucky. However it's also a life where that is totally fine. To them, as long as their playing music every night they possibly can, they are having a great time. This seems beyond awesome to me and I hope it always stays that way. This band deserves to be heard.

In other news, I went to Dave and Busters for the first time in my life tonight. It was pretty sweet. Its like a Peter Piper's Pizza on steroids...make that crack...and without the pizza. I had a good time and plan on going back on Wednesday when they have half price games!!

So, we have a band in College Station. We have recently got a MySpace, but don't have any songs up yet. In any event, you should be our friend! We are called Stay In Touch! At some point, some poorly crafted and under produced songs will make an appearance on the page. Get stoked.

Month O' June

So, during the month O' June, me and a friend of mine are interning/working fo' free at I Heart U Productions. That's one of their logos on the left. I Heart U is a Houston based screen printing company that makes a lot of cool stuff for a lot of cool bands. Maybe you've heard of some sweet bands like The Gaslight Anthem, Anti-Flag, Chuck Ragan, Fake Problems, The Swellers, and many others. Well, I Heart U does a bunch of stuff for these bands as well as a ton more. The company/warehouse is run by a dude named Eric and his girlfriend Val. Eric's in a cool band called O Pioneers!!! You should check them out at Myspace. They do everything from t-shirts, to posters, to vinyl sleeves. It's neat being able to see the screen for a shirt that you know you'll likely be seeing at some show you go to in the future. So far, we have been able to make a whole lot of buttons, patches, and t-shirts. Today we had to clean the screens on which the designs for the shirts are put on. That was kind of a pain. Luckily there is a large screen television in the warehouse right by the huge screening machine. We basically just do work, hang out, watch movies, and have a good time. We are also lucky that we are working in a place where do overs are allowed. If you mess a shirt up, it's likely that there is going to be an extra just in case so this takes away a lot of the pressure that comes along with thinking you are going to suck and fail at something. In turn, it makes the job more fun! The company also puts on local shows at a bunch of different venues in the Houston area. Hopefully, we will get to see some of those in the next few weeks since there haven't been too many during the last few days.

Houston has been real cool. It's different than Corpus and College Station which is cool. The area that we are in is not luxurious but its not hooooorible either. I've really enjoyed the Houtson-y atmosphere. Today we went to eat at an Indian buffet. The thing about Indian buffets is that they usually suck rather hard. I was very pleasantly surprised by the food at this place. It cost 11 bucks but was worth it to me. One of the better Indian places I've been to in a while, and that includes buffets and regular dine-in places! We also saw Drag Me to Hell on Monday. That was a pretty cool movie. It had some cheesy acting at times from the lead girl, but all in all I enjoyed the movie. Anyways, I'm going to go watch some more "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". What a great show. Honestly, this show has the best episode titles EVER. Bye, now.