There's a reason why I'm drawn to you. I just can't put my finger on it. I also can never say what I really want to. I'm worse than you females. Hinting without hinting yet waiting for a reply. I disgust myself. Those blue eyes... beautiful blue eyes that daunt me and stare at me when I do something stupid. Or when you do and have no clue. It's cute. And you're funny, and you don't know it. I'm not including the times that you're really not trying to be funny but are rather confused. You can seriously be funny. It's cool. So where this is we will never be again - it's ever changing. hopefully never farther than the day before. Just knowing you is fun. To know you better is to be... I don't know. I'll have to see. It's not me, it's you. Someday I'll open my mouth and you'll know it, too. Until then---

something for tonight

i've come to know
all that I
should be depraved
of all the things
i seem to find
of all the things
i want to need
i seem to bleed
though not as much as You
when i remember

i've come to know
some parts of me
i want to be
naked and free
to show me just me
and you just you
in something i can't see
won't ever see
cos there is no more
just less of me

depraved unworthy
allowed to be
just to be for You
and nothing greater
i feel i hate her
i feel i what who
i know i love you
for what i don't know
and that i can't show
not given time
to make me have again

Until then---

So I just have one question? Why is it that my "friends" don't call me to hang out... ever? Just a question...
Transmission from a Lonely Friday Night.
i sit here
alone and thinking
alone unthinking
beliving what seems to be
what leads to the
feeling of empty truths
that mean
i mean
they take my mind away
so much goes through
i read into the little things too much
and not into You enough
there's no hope in what's here
for me
when i look
there it shows to me
the only way
out there
out where
somewhere out where
where i never could be
could never fit
and so it sit and think
alone i think
"i'm alone"

Until then---

Why is it that every time that I update this thing I'm skipping class...? It's 11:30 and I decided in my Human Nutrition lab this morning that I wasn't going to the lecture. Don't ask why...I'm on break already. So uh..it's been awhile. I guess I've been going to class, ha ha. Well I have a lot to catch up on don't I? Quick details:
Halloween day went thriftin' with A.C. (Aaron, Aaron's roomate..he he), he was dressing as Wilson from Home Improvment, I ended up being Samuel L. Jackson, aka One Bad Ass Motha F@#$a, in his leisure clothes. Just roamed the night away, and saw "The Ring" (funny movie) and "28 Days Later" (could have only been more awesome if Samuel L. Jackson was in it...basically movie=awesome) and hung out with some friends til late...ah Halloween.
On the 5th of this month, I finally got another job. (Yay money!) Especially important coz there's no more soccer games. (Less money, booo...) It's a tutoring job for high schoolers, easy $9/ hr. I still need to find more work though...
7th of this month: SAN DIEGO! SWITCHFOOT! I finally got to go home after a long time of not being there. A.C. came with me. It's a very scary place right now...at least to me. The devastation from the fires really put me into shock. I couldn't bear to drive into areas where I knew that there were lost homes. The smell of burning was still in the air, as well as smoke and this was a week later...it sucked. We went by my Alma mater it was Home coming...good times...yet weird. The peeps that were frosh my senior year are seniors now. Weird. Anyway, Switchfoot! Got to see them for the first itm since they've been signed down at Soma. Great show. Things have definitely moved up for them. They are still such an inspiration. On the drive back, A.C. and I were making plans to play and get on the same page...for real, no messin' around. We'll be coming up with stuff very soon. Will keep you posted.
On the same note, David and I played the other day and he's stepped it up. It's been a month since I've played with him and I think that may have been a good thing. He's gotten a lot better. I can actually see me playing with him now and not just dragging him along in hopes that he'll work things out. Ladies and Gentlemen, we may have a band...
Remember Samson. 24 hour Men Madness, November 14 was awesome.
Well not much yet on the day. I'll keep on posting. Until then---

I guess now that both Grant and Aro have commented on the fires, it's my turn...especially since I actually do know people that had to evacuate their homes. All of the fires in San Diego have affected someone that I know... in most cases, many multiple someones. I've spent probably way too much time worrying and thinking about what's going on down there. Even though I got a call form my good friend Blake that everyone in his parents/his neighborhood is okay and got out of their homes before the fire went through, I'm still in utter shock and awe. The fire did more than comsume houses, and beautiful SD: they've consumed my mind. Nothing I do can seem to take the freaking fires off of my mind. I have dreams about them, in places that I've created with people that I don't even know...intense dreams. I wasn't sleeping too well...
I got an instant message within the past couple of nights telling me that the house that another one of my friends (who really cannot afford this to happen) house has burned down, too. NO MORE!! And the small town of Julian is in danger too...I don't know. Home doen't seem like home anymore. It's been killed; chared to death; blackened and smoldering; beautiful smells, once burned, are quite rancid. Yet, I still miss home. Some how, I think that it was snowed on me and I may have breathed some of it in.
Just pray... Until then---

I got a hug today.
It was just what I needed.
Thanks.
Until then---

So I am currently skipping class again today. Don't ask why...I really just didn't feel like going. Besides, I never really feel like going so that's not a good excuse. Honestly, I couldn't get myself out of bed this morning really. Hmm... I just take those type of things as signs. Besides that, I'm having a real hard time with whether I really want to be even taking classes right now... anyway...
Yesterday, I made a difficult choice in my music career. I got a call for Breakfast Epiphanies to play at Chapman's homecoming festivities. Well this was all the more interesting because BE is going through major change and really all that's left is me. I've been trying to work with this drummer, David, who is cool, and really wants to play but he still can't feel music. He's got technique down pretty well, but no soul goes into what he plays. I want to help him out by playing with him but I feel as though I should be getting paid to work with him. It has stopped being fun, but rather frustrating to play with him. I wish that it could work, but I know that it won't right now. So there's me... and my guitars, and my songs... I figured that I'd play on my own and put on the show. I am Breakfast Epiphanies.
Also yesterday I started playing a bit with Aro's roomate, Aaron (he he, and that's for mutiple reasons). He plays bass and sings. Sweet. We are going to keep playing with each other, but we don't know where it'll go. We'll have to see. I'm already having more fun than I have been these past few months. Sad. Anyway, off to make arrangements for my songs so I can play them by myself and not suck. Until then---

So can anybody tell me this: why is it that the only women that respond to my guitarist ad are over 30... or close to it? Are there no younger female guitarists that sing out there?! To some, that may be confusing. In the process of rebuilding Breakfast Epiphanies, I need to find a female guitarist to sing (and of course play) with to fill out the sound of the band. Basically I need her for the voice but we also have a need fo another guitar...why not two in one? Besides, what would a backing vocalist look like with nothing else to do but sing? Weird. So this process has been going on since April... maybe March, and the youngest one (of the many I've tried out) was 27. Twenty friggin' seven! That's seven years on me!! Do they understand that I was finishing elementary school when they graduated high school? Anyway, I'm actually finding that most musicians out there looking for stuff are older...men as well. Kind of scary. Especially when they respond to an ad that may say: "Female Guitarist/Vocalist needed." In the delectable words of Aro: What the crap! Any way, still searching obviously looking for compatibility as well but I'd like to find someone who can play... period. Haven't gotten many of those in the search...but what ever. They'll come when they need to. Really, all of this was just a question anyway...not a rant. I'll step down now. Until then---

a poem

stand out on a limb
inch out
a bit
stepping
breathe in the freshness
the newness
air
a feeling
a freedom and chance
to let go
drop
everything
that you have come to know
or have become
inside
when you had
but you never really had a thing
that meant
a thing
so that now
you feel something new
and that
now
it's all
right before your eyes
no longer hidden behind a face
a mask you saw for way too long
and you lived behind its shadowed way
and now you slowly step out from
all you've been and known
from inside the darkness
into the light
you fall

Until then---

Lovely homework... I'm taking this American poetry class which is pretty cool... lot's of discussion on a topic that I can do. Well we've got this project due tomorrow in which we have to turn verse (a poem) into prose (essay form/sentences/stupid structure). I didn't really want to do something that has been done... Honestly, I kinda wanted to use one of my own writings, but I happened to fall across Aro's Quiche of the Day and I think that this entry is perfect for my project. Read one of them and then the other... I think that it's cool:

Intersection.
Wait for the little red hand to disappear
on the crosswalk light and
then push off hard
and fast
into the street
past the Explorers and Escorts already lining up
at the stoplight.

The asfault of the street
is darker than the concrete of the sidewalk
and rises before it falls,
like a hill you only notice on a skateboard.
Kick off twice
to get to the middle of the street,
side by side with the roaring cross traffic,
then once more
in the center,
at the top,
and ride the rest of the way
down,
then up again
sharply onto the smoother sidewalk
and you’re sailing again.

It’s sometime after seven on Friday night
and Tustin Avenue has everything you need,
trust me.
It’s my inaugural trip to Tustin tonight,
first one of the fall.
I’ve been wanting to decorate
my room
with posters
and pictures
of my family
and my girlfriend
and so I am in the market
push-pins or
sticky-tack or
both.
If Christina were here
with her bike
we’d be enroute to Rite-Aide,
but she’s moved into an apartment,
so I’m going solo,
and though that doesn’t mean
I’m lost,
it does mean I forgot
which way to turn down the
Everything Avenue.

So I’m just on the lookout.

You see things on a bike you don’t see in a car:
the moon in the
milky blue sky above telephone wires strung between poles like an empty music staff;
a trio of young men
lugging five boxes of Corona between them
across the parking lot.
And stores and stores and stores.
No different really,
then a marketplace in any period drama
and I have the sense of being
a visitor
in my own time.

Until then---

Right now, just thinking... Just thinking about my next talk for Tuesday at Refuge: The purpose of God...or something like that; thinking about this article I just read on music piracy/file sharing/whatever else you want to call it and how it's not goign to go away anytime soon. You know what...? I'm going to talk about that coz as a musician, i should care, right? In a way, I definitely do see that this is stealing from possible profits that could be made. But the issue is, who makes the profit? I know, being a musician, that unless you're the producer, distributer, and recorder/engineer, you don't make money on CD sales. The rising prices of CDs leads to the idea that getting songs for free is much more worth the effort rather than supporting the band. I was just thinking. A little more. If we...musicians in this case... got rid of all of the middle men, and learned how to take care of ourselves...or could at least know what's going on, we could make some real money on GOOD music. The producers/record labels just want to put out something catchy. Who hears any substance on the radio anymore? Most all the bands considered old, or too experimental, or (insert crappy insult here), like Bush, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins (just before being refused their last record contract), Pearl Jam, etc. are freaking amazing and actually wrote good poetry/lyrics and music that moved(s). Moved beyond a four chord chorus that mirrors the verse. With guitarists not afraid to rip out a solo...ever. My gosh..I'm stopping now and going to sleep dreaming of that: GOOD MUSIC. Until then---

I have a new nick name: UG. Until then---

Yeah so I know I'm pathetic, sitting at home on a Saturday night after working a soccer game, but I got to do something that I've needed to do for a long time: finally see Pulp Fiction. That is such a freaking awesome movie. It's hillarious. Definitely more reason for Samuel L. Jackson to be the badass of the century...quoting Ezekiel (who's quoting God) just before killing someone. Dang. And then realizing what the passage should really mean after, somehow, bullets go through him and his partner Vincent (John Travolta). A must see if you haven't but I'm pretty sure that I was the only one left... Until then---

I was feeling this song today...so I decided i'd share:

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city lights
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
Just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
"Son," he said "Grab your things,
I've come to take you home."

To keepin' silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho' my life was in a rut
'Till I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" he said "Grab your things
I've come to take you home."

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
they've come to take me home."
-Peter Gabriel
Until then---

Oh yeah... I forgot...fantasy footbal draft...nice. And...

I got my phone call. Pretty stoked. Until then---

I'm bored, so I think I'm going to write or something. I dunno really what I'm going to put here. Right now I kind of have a headache. But not really... The SCR party is going down somewhere areound here, but I don't really want to go coz I'm kinda waiting for a phone call from a long lost...not really...maybe long not heard from, may still be, but not sure, but also hoping so, girlfriend of mine. I don't know. Just a little thing. That seemed a weird thing to write... Idunno, maybe nasty. I'm thinking about playing with another band until BE can get it's act together...but I dunno if that's right... It's kinda my fault that it's not really there right now, I guess... But I think that God has me on call...like I've got to really call Him...bad. Freaking school starts tomorrow! Dang it all! I don't wantto go... I pretty much over school. I enjoy learning as long as the homework doesn't suck. or maybe no home work... I've got to figure out how to make some real money... I have none and I may only have one guitar lesson set up so far for this fall. I need to advertize more. I GIVE GUITAR LESSONS!!! THEY ARE GOOD!! I SWEAR THAT YOU GET MORE FOR YOUR BUCK WITH ME THAN SOMEWHERE ELSE!! I'm too concieted...egotistical? what ever..both probably. I think that I may want to do Chapman Radio finally...but at the same time Idunno if I want to take that time away from anything else that I could potentially do...like ... this? I'm done...still bored...don't want to type any more...at least for now...video games? Until then---

Right now I smell like smoke and you weren't even there. I'm going to vent for a second. Maybe it's not really venting but it getting something out that I'm just so confuzed about. I don't know what's going on; with me with you, us. I haven't even had a chance to really talk with you since you've been home. All I know is that when you left, we were on the "we're not sure" and "let's wait on God for this time away" terms and we're supposed to see what's up now that you're back. I'll just say that it's messing me up. With some of the other stuff that's going on with me, I just don't know what to think when you say you'll call me and don't get around to it. At the same time, I know you're busy and I don't want to impose on that. That is definitely mutual understanding. You seem excited when I call you but phone conversation is never as real as face-to-face. I need to be able to talk to you everyonce in a while. It's not like you're on another country anymore which was hard enough. But I know...I"m supposed to be waiting to see what God wants to do. Well I want to know if what I heard matched up with what you heard! I just feel as though I'm losing it; myself, and all that I know God has planned, coz I know that I'm not always in tune with what God wants for me. I feel like I'm habitually screwing His plans for me up. I don't want this to be another one...another screw up. I don't like being a failure especially for the One who has been there for me since forever. I'm just wondering where we stand...that's all. I know my side, but I think, somehow, I've ruined it... I've failed... somehow... again. Until then---

So I think that I've been away long enough. I'm going to attempt, once again, to update this on at least a semi-frequent basis. And once again, you can watch me fail miserably! Anyway, just a short blurb to say "I'm back!" Until then---

KING: We're back with Bono. You mentioned being Christian, and...

BONO: Trying to be.

KING: ... trying to be. Are you -- do you like organized religion? Are you a Catholic? Do you go to mass?

BONO: Who in Ireland could have too much respect for organized religion? We've seen it tear our country in two.

My mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic. And I learned that religion is often the enemy of God, actually.

And religion is this sort of -- religion is the artifice, you know, the building, after God has left it sometimes, like Elvis has left the building. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.

My friend Dan (aka Danus) Orris' has this on his AIM profile. I thought this to be interesting, and insightful, and from a musicians mouth. I'm telling you, most of us are the ones that get it! Until then---

I won't usually promote movies mainly because I'm not a film person (but maybe that's why I should promote movies) but "Tears of the Sun" starring Bruce Willis (sorry Aro) is freaking good. It's definitely a thinker, and whether you're pro-war or not you should see it to get your noodle going. On that note I leave. Until then---