I am absolutely thrilled to have been on the cusp of history. I've done it before- I predicted and attended David Cone's perfect game, predicting it down to the score: 6-0. But it took Melissa Greene to channel that power, and utilize it to great effect: First we got Dispatch to come together to play a benefit show this summer, after musing about it. When that happened, I joked: Let's focus on getting my favorite band of all time, Rage Against the Machine, back together.
It was a joke. Three fourths of the band resides in Audioslave, Zack de la Rocha was mostly quiet during his seven year hiatus, releasing a few tracks, and reportedly hoarding far more, even as the political scene spiralled into the kind of scenario that the band raged against for the better part of a decade. Their anger was a gift to a scene that had never seen anything like them, and upon their dissolution in 2000, was never to be seen again...
Until now. Just after our announcement to turn our powers their way, rumors start to swirl, and then Rage is announced to headline the Coachella festival, the same festival they ushered into existence in 1999. Sure, logistically, a festival in California presents some problems- 250 dollar tickets, at least 300 in round trip airfare, not to mention lodging and other expenses. I don't have that money. But I will find that money. Somehow. I'm not really worried with how...
Melissa Greene and I are deeply in love, and that love has manifested itself in many powerful ways. We're changing the world around us through sheer force of will. We're unstoppable.
<3
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Keeping the Faith
My journal has changed, like my writing has, over the years I've kept it. I'm almost lacking the ability to be concise, enjoying the freedom to ramble at length all over it to the point that my literary discipline has ebbed almost to a breaking point. I like the long winded passages, a looping route from A to B that is patient and (hopefully sometimes) observant. But instead this approach typically just registers under 'exhaustive.' It's generally not an asset for a writer to illicit a strong urge to take a nap in his reader. Maybe I can write books to cure insomnia, there may be some mad bank in that. Is it time to digress?
The journal really has become an exercise of ad nauseum. I still enjoy keeping it, but I also feel something of a duty to keep it, as it has devolved into a daily ledger, keeping toll of my routines and habits, but generally devoid of the energy and happiness that each day brings- the characters are not fleshed out for a reader, just for me, just in my head. Maybe it's always been like that, I've just been blind to an outsider's perspective. I could spend hours going over it and reflecting, on the good times and the (scant few) bad times, and smiling over all of the otherwise mediocre times. It is my own little secret garden, and I enjoy it. My garden is filled with things like dumpster diving, scotch whiskey, trust falls, parking lots, packing twenty people into a diner, rocking out, cuddling... and mostly just some really fantastic people.
I guess I want to write a novel, to really capture the story as it plays, not just doting on some overarching timeline. Maybe what I have is an incredible resource of notes for myself, sparking memories from all of the most recent chapters of my life: Varsity Football, Senior Year of High School, the Summer of 2005, Going to College... and right up to the most recent, Falling in Love.
It has chronicled all of that for me, and I have constructed a vastly complex skeleton. Now I want to breathe life into it.
Yes, I can fill out a little mood icon, but when nine out of ten posts are labelled 'cheerful' or 'chipper' does that point seem moot? I'm a happy dude, I feel blessed with my lot, and when sadness or anger or any other emotion comes over me, I usually get over it within a few hours. My posts are rarely particularly intense in their connotation, instead denoting a bird's eye view of the scene unfolding. How fun is that to watch? I'm there, I know the feelings on the field that day, but I have not figured out how to transform that medium into something presentable. And maybe that's okay, maybe the target audience is an audience of one, me. Maybe for my closest friends, the ones who have access to all of the four hundred and eight articles posted there, there is some value in my monotony of words. Who knows? I started this project for myself, and that is how I continue it, and if it can offer insight to anyone else, good on it, but that was never my intent. Through this raw analysis, I have decided I am content with my journal as it is, as it has been, and however it ends up being.
But now I want to parlay these experiences into something of worth to a general audience, give the people and things in my life the credit that is due. I'm a writer, I write, but I don't want to just write for myself forever. I want to use this gift, whatever it is, some meager feat of language that at the very least allows me to fill page after page with some sort of drivel, to accomplish something more. More than just writing sports for a newspaper, more than just news reports or a column. I want to write for people, I want to write with a grander purpose in mind. I'd like to learn how to really channel words into something constructive. Can something so flimsy as a font upon a paper ever be more than symantics and posturing? I want to believe it can be. I want to defy the notion that 'we speak the way we breathe' because it's what I do best, and I want it to be something of substance, something palpable, something to put weight behind.
I've already found meaning in life, a sense of worth, and I don't have to look to accomplishing something great in the eyes of the 'world' to appreciate where I belong. The ones that matter to me are right in front of me, and understanding that has allowed me to remain cheerful and chipper, and most of all, happy. I don't need anything more than the people in my life, and the will to do the best I can in every aspect, to love life, to love living. And that I have faith that there is more than just pain and suffering, more than even laughing and loving, more than just life on earth, that helps me keep my chin up too. I don't feel the need to impress the universe, or do anything great for the world as a whole, but I'll try my best to anyway. And if I can't, if my life ends up just being a cavalcade of happiness and sadness on a small stage, having shared that with people I love will ensure me that everything, everything is worth it.
So, yeah, about being concise... not so much. A clue may have been the meandering duality of this entry, with rampant juxtapositioning crafting a landscape that doesn't fit together quite right. I'll try to wrap it up now: I am supremely happy with what I have, and will do my best to excel further, but even if I fail in that, my foundations, the friends and family that support me, are enough to make my internal prosperty endure. That kind of happiness, it makes any struggle and toil completely worth it. The world as a whole is incomprehensible, but it is enough to just try to understand and care for the few others that you share your life with. It is perhaps the most noble pursuit an individual can pursue.
To cynics, you have my pity. Being critical has it's merit, but never mitigate your happiness, or you're missing the best things life has to offer.
Cheers!
The journal really has become an exercise of ad nauseum. I still enjoy keeping it, but I also feel something of a duty to keep it, as it has devolved into a daily ledger, keeping toll of my routines and habits, but generally devoid of the energy and happiness that each day brings- the characters are not fleshed out for a reader, just for me, just in my head. Maybe it's always been like that, I've just been blind to an outsider's perspective. I could spend hours going over it and reflecting, on the good times and the (scant few) bad times, and smiling over all of the otherwise mediocre times. It is my own little secret garden, and I enjoy it. My garden is filled with things like dumpster diving, scotch whiskey, trust falls, parking lots, packing twenty people into a diner, rocking out, cuddling... and mostly just some really fantastic people.
I guess I want to write a novel, to really capture the story as it plays, not just doting on some overarching timeline. Maybe what I have is an incredible resource of notes for myself, sparking memories from all of the most recent chapters of my life: Varsity Football, Senior Year of High School, the Summer of 2005, Going to College... and right up to the most recent, Falling in Love.
It has chronicled all of that for me, and I have constructed a vastly complex skeleton. Now I want to breathe life into it.
Yes, I can fill out a little mood icon, but when nine out of ten posts are labelled 'cheerful' or 'chipper' does that point seem moot? I'm a happy dude, I feel blessed with my lot, and when sadness or anger or any other emotion comes over me, I usually get over it within a few hours. My posts are rarely particularly intense in their connotation, instead denoting a bird's eye view of the scene unfolding. How fun is that to watch? I'm there, I know the feelings on the field that day, but I have not figured out how to transform that medium into something presentable. And maybe that's okay, maybe the target audience is an audience of one, me. Maybe for my closest friends, the ones who have access to all of the four hundred and eight articles posted there, there is some value in my monotony of words. Who knows? I started this project for myself, and that is how I continue it, and if it can offer insight to anyone else, good on it, but that was never my intent. Through this raw analysis, I have decided I am content with my journal as it is, as it has been, and however it ends up being.
But now I want to parlay these experiences into something of worth to a general audience, give the people and things in my life the credit that is due. I'm a writer, I write, but I don't want to just write for myself forever. I want to use this gift, whatever it is, some meager feat of language that at the very least allows me to fill page after page with some sort of drivel, to accomplish something more. More than just writing sports for a newspaper, more than just news reports or a column. I want to write for people, I want to write with a grander purpose in mind. I'd like to learn how to really channel words into something constructive. Can something so flimsy as a font upon a paper ever be more than symantics and posturing? I want to believe it can be. I want to defy the notion that 'we speak the way we breathe' because it's what I do best, and I want it to be something of substance, something palpable, something to put weight behind.
I've already found meaning in life, a sense of worth, and I don't have to look to accomplishing something great in the eyes of the 'world' to appreciate where I belong. The ones that matter to me are right in front of me, and understanding that has allowed me to remain cheerful and chipper, and most of all, happy. I don't need anything more than the people in my life, and the will to do the best I can in every aspect, to love life, to love living. And that I have faith that there is more than just pain and suffering, more than even laughing and loving, more than just life on earth, that helps me keep my chin up too. I don't feel the need to impress the universe, or do anything great for the world as a whole, but I'll try my best to anyway. And if I can't, if my life ends up just being a cavalcade of happiness and sadness on a small stage, having shared that with people I love will ensure me that everything, everything is worth it.
So, yeah, about being concise... not so much. A clue may have been the meandering duality of this entry, with rampant juxtapositioning crafting a landscape that doesn't fit together quite right. I'll try to wrap it up now: I am supremely happy with what I have, and will do my best to excel further, but even if I fail in that, my foundations, the friends and family that support me, are enough to make my internal prosperty endure. That kind of happiness, it makes any struggle and toil completely worth it. The world as a whole is incomprehensible, but it is enough to just try to understand and care for the few others that you share your life with. It is perhaps the most noble pursuit an individual can pursue.
To cynics, you have my pity. Being critical has it's merit, but never mitigate your happiness, or you're missing the best things life has to offer.
Cheers!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
FIRE, LIKE A TORCH, GET IT!?
With the return to school and the start of a new semester, so too begins another cycle of work for the school newspaper, where I'm like, the top women's sports writer ever. I enjoy my work, I spent most of last semester following the Women's soccer team, before shifting over to the Men's team to cover their victory in the Big East tournament and their foray into the NCAA championships; This semester I'm getting some time in following the prime sport on campus, Basketball.
Also, now starts my eternal displeasure with the editing done upon my work. I like my editor, Stephen, it'd be impossible not to, the guy is the freaking man. But sometimes his changes and edits puzzle me, really just leave me without a clue. I have an annoying habit of working from the department of redundancy department on occassion, and when it's 4:30am and I'm burning the midnight oil, I sometimes slip up and let it by, and he has always caught those kind of things for me, and for that I am thankful; It would certainly be beneficial if I could get him to review the occasional homework assignment I do for my girlfriend, when my eyes are just way too tired to proofread, and I make silly errors. Sorry about that baby, the United States of the United States of America would seem a bit blatant.
I even understand his tendency to remove, or tone down, my horribly broken analogies. I enjoy delving deeply into a horribly flawed and half baked analogy, trying to make it work despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. I take it as a challenge!! But somewhere I can rationalize that they cannot print a three paragraph tangent depicting how Aliens is an allegory for Vietnam, and I accept it. Especially when the article is supposed to be about softball. I think in this article I had three more references to the Women's basketball team starting a fire in the midst of a cold winter, and they were removed, and the story does not suffer, it may even benefit. I won't whine!
BUT WHY, OH WHY, ARE ALL OF THE SEMI-COLONS CHANGED TO PERIODS!? I don't use a lot of short, simple sentences, they are a weapon with a time and a place, used for effect. I understand that Mr Scanlon once returned a paper to me that counted 156 commas on the front of a piece of loose leaf, and that there needed to be a change. That was two commas too many. And I understand that Professor La Monica returned a paper to me that had a three sentence lede made up of 400 words, and he used a couple of simple sentences to convey how he felt about it: He said "Stop this or fail. You are a dumbass." And I got the point. But to reduce me to a bunch of five word sentences in a row? Listen I've been rendered speechless once in my life; I've lost my voice many times, due to excessive talking/rocking out, but that doesn't count. To actually be rendered unable to form a relatively coherant sentence has happened only one time, and it's not something I'll recount here, Melissa knows why.
But I don't like this perversion of my diatribe. It's not me. Give me literary meandering, or give me death! I beat upon the skulls of my potential readers with huge hammers of text, it is just my way. Leave me to my methods! And maybe someday let me write my own headlines. Maybe.
Anyway, here's the article. Kill me now.
http://media.www.torchonline.com/media/storage/paper952/news/2007/01/17/Sports/Prevailing-2651193.shtml?sourcedomain=www.torchonline.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
Also, now starts my eternal displeasure with the editing done upon my work. I like my editor, Stephen, it'd be impossible not to, the guy is the freaking man. But sometimes his changes and edits puzzle me, really just leave me without a clue. I have an annoying habit of working from the department of redundancy department on occassion, and when it's 4:30am and I'm burning the midnight oil, I sometimes slip up and let it by, and he has always caught those kind of things for me, and for that I am thankful; It would certainly be beneficial if I could get him to review the occasional homework assignment I do for my girlfriend, when my eyes are just way too tired to proofread, and I make silly errors. Sorry about that baby, the United States of the United States of America would seem a bit blatant.
I even understand his tendency to remove, or tone down, my horribly broken analogies. I enjoy delving deeply into a horribly flawed and half baked analogy, trying to make it work despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. I take it as a challenge!! But somewhere I can rationalize that they cannot print a three paragraph tangent depicting how Aliens is an allegory for Vietnam, and I accept it. Especially when the article is supposed to be about softball. I think in this article I had three more references to the Women's basketball team starting a fire in the midst of a cold winter, and they were removed, and the story does not suffer, it may even benefit. I won't whine!
BUT WHY, OH WHY, ARE ALL OF THE SEMI-COLONS CHANGED TO PERIODS!? I don't use a lot of short, simple sentences, they are a weapon with a time and a place, used for effect. I understand that Mr Scanlon once returned a paper to me that counted 156 commas on the front of a piece of loose leaf, and that there needed to be a change. That was two commas too many. And I understand that Professor La Monica returned a paper to me that had a three sentence lede made up of 400 words, and he used a couple of simple sentences to convey how he felt about it: He said "Stop this or fail. You are a dumbass." And I got the point. But to reduce me to a bunch of five word sentences in a row? Listen I've been rendered speechless once in my life; I've lost my voice many times, due to excessive talking/rocking out, but that doesn't count. To actually be rendered unable to form a relatively coherant sentence has happened only one time, and it's not something I'll recount here, Melissa knows why.
But I don't like this perversion of my diatribe. It's not me. Give me literary meandering, or give me death! I beat upon the skulls of my potential readers with huge hammers of text, it is just my way. Leave me to my methods! And maybe someday let me write my own headlines. Maybe.
Anyway, here's the article. Kill me now.
http://media.www.torchonline.com/media/storage/paper952/news/2007/01/17/Sports/Prevailing-2651193.shtml?sourcedomain=www.torchonline.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
Thursday, January 11, 2007
For My Puka
Score, I have a blog now.
I don't really need one. I already possess the internet trifecta of a myspace, a facebook, and a livejournal; The first has been rendered hopelessly redundant by the second, and the third has over four hundred entries, dating back to the summer before my senior year of high school, in the innocent throes of 2004. So even if this site proves to be more effective than all that, personal history works against widespread adoption and utilization of yet another blogging tool; Facebook doubles as my secondary means of whining, generally only once a month, loaded with graphical content, and around the same time Eric Cartman and I bleed out of our ass. It's part of puberty, okay?
Actually, to digress or possibly just deny the ass bleeding image, I don't whine TOO much. And I don't really blog either. I mostly just chronicle my daily life, to the chagrin of whomever reads my journal, to the point that for the last few years, you could almost predict every single entry; During the week it will touch on class and say what I did after school, and after the weekend it will describe the stupid things I did with friends, the trademark exclamation of "Alright guys, Let's do something we will REALLY regret tomorrow!" followed by burning down a campsite, playing with a tattoo gun to 'hilarious' and permanent results, trying to fit as many naked people in a single hot tub as possible, or demolishing a cute little drinking game, putting everyone in figure four leg locks, and then sobbing on John Burra's couch because you just maimed everyone you ever loved. These are all hypothetical examples of what could have gone on, and by no means are things I, Kevin Grimes, have personally done. No, never. For I'm the stalwart captain of the Anti-Nude coalition, and would never have gotten in that god damn hot tub. I was also captain of my varsity football team. That's hopelessly irrelevent, especially now that I'm washed up, over the hill at twenty years old, but hell, it used to almost be like driving a Corvette. Sort of. Almost... maybe. Never mind. I drive a pickup truck. And... sometimes a mini-van.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Sometimes I do blog though, wax 'swaydo-intellectually' about stuff and crap and things, and try to put a real smug face up. You know who's smug? Mike Holmgren and his freaking Seahawks. And... Andy Reid, but maybe I'm just sore over that playoff loss too. I used to write an NFL Beat report on my journal, but it was for a sports writing class, and it got increasingly slapdash and thrown together at the last minute, until it's priority was overwriten by my weekly coverage of the women's soccer team for the school newspaper. Score.
I MEAN, GOOOOOOOOAL!
I go to St. John's university, which I thought was a fine institution, until I met my girlfriend. I also thought I had manly hands until I met my girlfriend. I *ALSO* thought I would go into the Marines after college, until I met my girlfriend. I was of course, proven erroneous on all three counts, rendered gibbering and subservient to her awful schemes and nefarious manipulations. I was watching one of my favorite movies the other day, Aliens, a real classic- the sequel, not the original which is a little to dry and drawn out for me, and I'm reminded of a quote, just before the phallic infantile creature bursts from an unknown woman's chest, she cries for mercy, she whispers "Kill me now!" But it is too late.
Actually, that was a quote from one of my friends, after foolishly deciding to join the naked hot tub club. Poor choice Mr. W-, poor choice. I tried cleaning that up a little bit, but how many dudes who have last names that start with W and hang out with me do you know? My bad.
A real quote from that piece of cinematic excellence would be "Game over man, Game over!" Because I've been won. She picked me up, in broad daylight, and she scratched me. That's another quote, slighly perverted for context; And for the first time, I mean perverted in a (mostly) wholesome manner. I could have ended this early or not at all, since that's how I usually go about these things. I've selected the latter.
Quotations are fun. Most of my quotations come from American Psycho, the movie not the Easton Ellis novel, Sportscenter, Public Enemy lyrics, and my constant screeching renditions of the White Stripes. Not quite a vast sea of citations, but certainly diverse. There is no argument there.
Let me get back to Melisa Greene for a moment, to clear something up. She's actually the best person I'll ever know, and despite the prior assertion that she has dug her claws into me, the truth is, she won my heart through noble means; The fell beast that I am, I was slayed by her honesty and courage, and devoted myself to her out of love, not fear. Uncle Joe Stalin she is not, despite the fact that she pretty much rules. I don't have a bad thing to say about her, and I won't call her an angel, because of a terrible, terrible, inside joke we have, but she is remarkably divine. And I love her. I love Melissa Greene.
'Tis All.
I don't really need one. I already possess the internet trifecta of a myspace, a facebook, and a livejournal; The first has been rendered hopelessly redundant by the second, and the third has over four hundred entries, dating back to the summer before my senior year of high school, in the innocent throes of 2004. So even if this site proves to be more effective than all that, personal history works against widespread adoption and utilization of yet another blogging tool; Facebook doubles as my secondary means of whining, generally only once a month, loaded with graphical content, and around the same time Eric Cartman and I bleed out of our ass. It's part of puberty, okay?
Actually, to digress or possibly just deny the ass bleeding image, I don't whine TOO much. And I don't really blog either. I mostly just chronicle my daily life, to the chagrin of whomever reads my journal, to the point that for the last few years, you could almost predict every single entry; During the week it will touch on class and say what I did after school, and after the weekend it will describe the stupid things I did with friends, the trademark exclamation of "Alright guys, Let's do something we will REALLY regret tomorrow!" followed by burning down a campsite, playing with a tattoo gun to 'hilarious' and permanent results, trying to fit as many naked people in a single hot tub as possible, or demolishing a cute little drinking game, putting everyone in figure four leg locks, and then sobbing on John Burra's couch because you just maimed everyone you ever loved. These are all hypothetical examples of what could have gone on, and by no means are things I, Kevin Grimes, have personally done. No, never. For I'm the stalwart captain of the Anti-Nude coalition, and would never have gotten in that god damn hot tub. I was also captain of my varsity football team. That's hopelessly irrelevent, especially now that I'm washed up, over the hill at twenty years old, but hell, it used to almost be like driving a Corvette. Sort of. Almost... maybe. Never mind. I drive a pickup truck. And... sometimes a mini-van.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Sometimes I do blog though, wax 'swaydo-intellectually' about stuff and crap and things, and try to put a real smug face up. You know who's smug? Mike Holmgren and his freaking Seahawks. And... Andy Reid, but maybe I'm just sore over that playoff loss too. I used to write an NFL Beat report on my journal, but it was for a sports writing class, and it got increasingly slapdash and thrown together at the last minute, until it's priority was overwriten by my weekly coverage of the women's soccer team for the school newspaper. Score.
I MEAN, GOOOOOOOOAL!
I go to St. John's university, which I thought was a fine institution, until I met my girlfriend. I also thought I had manly hands until I met my girlfriend. I *ALSO* thought I would go into the Marines after college, until I met my girlfriend. I was of course, proven erroneous on all three counts, rendered gibbering and subservient to her awful schemes and nefarious manipulations. I was watching one of my favorite movies the other day, Aliens, a real classic- the sequel, not the original which is a little to dry and drawn out for me, and I'm reminded of a quote, just before the phallic infantile creature bursts from an unknown woman's chest, she cries for mercy, she whispers "Kill me now!" But it is too late.
Actually, that was a quote from one of my friends, after foolishly deciding to join the naked hot tub club. Poor choice Mr. W-, poor choice. I tried cleaning that up a little bit, but how many dudes who have last names that start with W and hang out with me do you know? My bad.
A real quote from that piece of cinematic excellence would be "Game over man, Game over!" Because I've been won. She picked me up, in broad daylight, and she scratched me. That's another quote, slighly perverted for context; And for the first time, I mean perverted in a (mostly) wholesome manner. I could have ended this early or not at all, since that's how I usually go about these things. I've selected the latter.
Quotations are fun. Most of my quotations come from American Psycho, the movie not the Easton Ellis novel, Sportscenter, Public Enemy lyrics, and my constant screeching renditions of the White Stripes. Not quite a vast sea of citations, but certainly diverse. There is no argument there.
Let me get back to Melisa Greene for a moment, to clear something up. She's actually the best person I'll ever know, and despite the prior assertion that she has dug her claws into me, the truth is, she won my heart through noble means; The fell beast that I am, I was slayed by her honesty and courage, and devoted myself to her out of love, not fear. Uncle Joe Stalin she is not, despite the fact that she pretty much rules. I don't have a bad thing to say about her, and I won't call her an angel, because of a terrible, terrible, inside joke we have, but she is remarkably divine. And I love her. I love Melissa Greene.
'Tis All.
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