SO this is why we dont wake up at noon.

I was finally written up for my lateness at work.

I mean, damn not like I can appeal it, I'm a lazy ADHD motherfucker!

Lesson learned on that front. Over and over and over again.

ANYWAY. Halloween is coming up, and with Halloween comes the stress that follows with cosplay.

WOAH WHAT?!

WHAT?!

JOEY... DO... JOEY U DO THE COSPLAY?!

Yeaaah son!

I got into it full force in the summer for this years Otafest, and then later I did a group cosplay at Animethon, all of this a la the AMAZINGLY TALENTED Dorothy Thicket!


Otafest was an amazing experience for me, opening me up to convention culture in a very fun way. For a while the whole anime thing scared me. Until I was surrounded by people who were so passionate and intense about it, but just so ready to be friendly and whole-heartedly accepting, that it was just... It was a beautiful weekend of feel good feels and rad rad times. And then the dance on the Saturday night brought me back to a very special time of my life. Oh yeah I am talking about Vic Lewis. Back when it happened every year, I really took that festival for granted. (Also I was surrounded by high school kids... sue me for being bitter) But anyway yeah, festival for granted. Why? Because the experience of dancing with no strings attatched is a very rare occurrence when you grow up. You go to a club at age eighteen and you expect good natured fun with glowsticks and kids shuffling and breakdancing in circles and you get thirty year old meatcakes in cowboy hats grinding all up on each other and spilling a 10$ pint of beer on you. So this dance at the end of the night was... literally perfect. It was just that cloudy pipe dream i explained. it was just a bunch of anime nerds, going hard on the paint to some sick trancey hardstyle beats, and just getting INTO it. This is a beautiful memory for me. It was the defning deciding factor from which I base all of my judgement of anime culture on. Super sweet dance parties.

So naturally, after having THAT good of a time, I feel it imperative to make a hobby out of it, right?

And with this hobby comes a HELL OF A LOT OF STRESS.
And yet, it is INCREDIBLY worth it, since im putting all of this stress on my self and just working through it. going absolutely mad on the hobby and coming out with something Daedric Princess Dorothy Thicket will look at and later tell you "I'm proud of you"

You gotta own it, work hard, and enjoy it. Realize that the stress and problems you are having are evidence of a good time to come regardless of how everything works out.

Bands.

this is a subject so just... big thats its almost bigger than I am.

Almost.


Anyway, I guess for a large part of my life (like, from consciousness to now) I've always been insanely into music, but for the longest time the interest was kind of irrelevant and useless until about high school, that was when I started putting social skills and musical skills together to make... i dunno bunch of really creative messes.

"SO in case you guys haven't caught on yet, I am quite a musical person.

and with my... enjoyment and adoration for all things that make a sound, I have a very staccato history of my experiences with music.

There was this one time when I was in fifth grade and I saw a Beatles tribute band with my parents and I cried it was so good

and then there was that one time I was in like, two bands at once and then I spread myself way too thin creatively, didn't agree with the people involved and that plan ended as quickly as it began

which leads us to now. I sort of put music on hold. I returned my guitar to the music store, and I freed up space in my mind to focus on other things... But we all know how that turns out.


So anyway that space I freed up in my brain became occupied by nothing. I just kind of drifted along life being all bummed out and not knowing why. Until it struck me!

I NEED TO GET ANOTHER BAND GOING!

So I drifted along simply existing, until my friend Tizzy got a hold of me and tried to get people together to start some kind of group. but then school started and she had to go play bass for the motherland jazz combo, so I was all on my own. No big deal though, I can play bass just fine on my own (Been playing for over six years now! GO ME!) So we finally just got together in our drummers basement and jammed. We went over some songs we knew (or knew some or most of) and we turned two of them into jams. Our first jam was The Ramones' oh so cult classic "Blitzkrieg Bop" which turned into a game of "Pass the solo around till we feel like ending the song"

Practising with these guys was really fun, and I think we decided to consider ourselves a band today. we use "nine-pound lemon" as kind of a working title.

Last year, I was in two bands. They both functioned quite differently. One of them of course was Gumby's Stubble,which only had 2 permanent members, myself and Coleman. That band did not do so well, considering I was in charge of it, it was very unorgainzed and sounded shitty because it sucked and I had very little time for it.

The other band was a ska band with people in it that I don't think are very fond of me anymore. The practices weren't practices so much as hanging out playing videogames I'm not a fan of, and smacking instruments occasionally. They kicked me out, changed their name, and that was that. I still support them though, they aren't bad guys, and their sound is amazing. I think they have what it takes to go somewhere.

This new band I am in though. It is great, it is very unlike any band I have been in. Everyone is very relaxed and we agree with each other."

I wrote this in late 2012 and didn't publish it, I guess for whatever reason. Oh man, I am seeing so many errors...

But yeah, I was in Gumby's Stubble, Welcome to the Neighborhood, and then after both of those spun out of control (well, for me at least. Neighborhood became Lo fi eventually), i spent grade twelve jamming with my friend Ethan Hamshaw in a band called The Legislative Assembly (previously Nine Pound Lemon). This kid is destined to be the next Gordon Freeman but in real life. The most organized, talented, and technical guitarists ive ever heard, and it also shows in other aspects of his personality as well. Thanks to him, we were a band that went out and played shows. He cared just as much if not moreso than I did, and I REALLY respect that. We eventually all had to part ways with him, he eventually realized he didnt agree with the original members. Which was fine, i mean everyone needs to live their own lives, but man, I REALLY REALLY REAAAALLY admired this guy. He's off doing school stuff now, much too busy to be a musician...

Anyway, I guess the burning urge to become someone musical really set itself up for me in fifth grade, like I said. Those rose tinted fantasies of being a big shot rockstar filled me with such hope and fire, it was more than something to ignore. And All bets were off when I met one Aaron Red Smith in grade seven. These fantasies became goals after talking with him. So I guess thats why this isnt something im planning on giving up any time soon. I was given a mission to get there, and by god I will.

After TLA broke up, and I decided to make a big goof of myself playing a bunch of acoustic shows for free beer, I guess (the absolute greatest free thing of all, in my opinion) at the bars downtown, the remaining members and I picked up a new guitarist and decided to go under the name of Lets Bomb Pluto

So yeah we had only ever realeased one song, only ever played one show (and this was POST New Black, by the way, but thats gonna be another post for another time.) but I guess it was a lot of fun. I mean, personally I enjoyed TLA more but thats just because we actually met up and practiced often, and kept everything very organized, but that isnt to say that LEts Bomb Pluto wasn't a fun band to play in. We just didnt do much I mean yeah we wrote a LOT of music, but recorded almost none of it, performing only a little more than that. And when school rolled around and everybody parted ways, it all felt so useless. Oh well, We'll see what happens with Pluto.

I mean I'm constantly surrounded by music nowadays, what with my job, and i never stop playing even at home.

But as it stands now I'm just all alone practicing and writing and never stopping.

To here knows when, I guess.

I remember when I tried to be hella punk rock

I also remember when I wrote often and didnt like eggs unless they were scrambled, had to pretend to care about how late for school I was, and didn't work at a strip club as a daytime DJ for way more than I think I deserve.

Anyway, Joey and the punk "scene"

I write "scene", because like, I mean sure I really liked the music, and aesthetic attatched to punk rock, and still do, I never really looked for the "scene" in my city. Part of being a suburbanite prisoner, I guess. You kinda get spooked at whats out there. Another thing though, I guess all through my more younger years, in that back half of going to school, I was terrified that I wasn't doing punk right at all. It all came from the lack of approval I got from any of my friends and stuff. A few of my peers humored me, but I was pretty sure we all had no idea what I was going for in the first place, and if anyone who did were to see me, there would be some hell in a handbasket waiting for me. And for something I loved so much, I really REALLY didnt want to be ostracized from it. So I never really sought out for the other punk rockers in my city. I kinda made it up as I went along, I guess. Getting a few ideas from the internet and going on hours of hours of sleepless nights, clicking through albums on youtube, and dancning in my basement violently and passionately, wailing on a borrowed drumset and thinking i could go places with this (I dont know why I'm using the past tense here). I wouldnt settle for just "becoming one of them", no I could be the NEW thing! No one ELSE was doing it right! I was! I was going out of my way to have a spot on grainy high pitched punk voice with JUST enough Jello Biafra influence, I was reading the Communist Manifesto and Scott Pilgrim, researching things like Anarchy and New Mexico and Pat the Bunny I was learning guitar, bass, and drums simultaniously, painting my nice jacket my mommy bought me when I was 15, everything!

I guess what ended up happening was, the fear went away. I kinda learned through all of the crazy that I wasnt being "punk" or anything, what I was trying to do all along was be myself, like literally every other kid my age. Difference was I was just kinda more... idk verbal about it. I tried writing down who I was, the evidence is all under here. I mean, of course Im still trying to figure it all out, but I dont know, I guess its just not that big a deal for me anymore. Lifes become less of an adolescent cry for identity, and more of a collective day to day bulletin board, full of mistakes and how to learn from them.

I remember I loved fall out boy in elementary school. Fall Out Boy, Sum 41, The Offspring, Blink 182, Avenged Sevenfold, all bands I'd resent later in life for literally no solid reason. My entire life was just high pitched acidic stress over my shoulders for the longest time. And a lot of it just kinda came from liking music (no. I didnt like music. I just liked to hate it. I liked to bitch about nothing thinking everyone loved it every time I opened my mouth.) and thinking it affected who I was as a person to a crazy degree. I've kept quiet about this for like, ever, because this lesson kinda has gone without say for all eternity and i just... was so late to the party that Nick was already throwing up in the laundry room sink, but yeah, finding out the concepts of subjectivity and keeping your damn mouth shut sometimes (most times) ...(all the time) fixed damn near everything in my life. My passion can really like, explode like it should, things make sense, I'm not overlooking minutiae thinking its conceptual, I'm finally GETTING SHIT DONE, and I'm getting help where I really need it. The kind of help that makes you better off as a person I'd like to think.

Not to mention, I'm working hard, following my passion, and enjoying every minute of it all. The stress, the excitement, the apprehension, the ups and downs, its all so crazy beyond words, but it is all so so relevant to me and inescapable that I can't not live in the moment. Refusing to let my fear guide me, but instead breaking out that super sweet little Jack Sparrow compass and letting my passion take me on a super crazy adventure through time and beyond.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Punk rock? Right.
I dunno, I feel like I started with it, and took it as far as I could. The it sorta branched out for me, made me see the good in a lot of things, and kinda taught me how to be myself, I guess? I dunno why, but it kinda feels like thats a hard thing to do. Ive kinda picked up on this just through chatting with people, the whole concept of solidarity and being yourself is a whole other case to crack, though. Big subjective subject, that one.

I guess what ive taken away from this is like... Punks a lot bigger than what I ever thought it was. And that's a pretty rad thing. Its more of a spirit than an attitude, or an aesthetic, or a music genre. Dave Grohl once said something along the lines of rock being so incredible because youll sing something to 80'000 people, and theyll all sing it back for 80'000 different reasons. I feel like that embodies the whole idea beautifully.

Just be true to yourself, and you're gonna have a rad time with life.

Thing a day

I am essentially made of two things,
Time and energy.
What I do with what I’m made of is totally up to me.
That’s an amazing thought for me, it’s also sort of intense,
Because I’m made of time and energy, two totally finite things that I can’t really measure. I mean yeah, time is measured in minutes, hours and years, and energy in joules, but I can’t measure them for ME specifically, you know?
Most songs last a matter of minutes and seconds.
When I listen to music, I’m sharing my time and energy with it.
When I hang out with people, I’m sharing my time and energy with them, transferring energy and cherishing time. And that’s amazing.
I… I might have to talk about people a lot.
I think I already do. People are an interesting thing.
Time and energy, all of us, That’s all we’re REALLY made of.
and that’s not a bad thing at all! People do beautiful things with both.
beautiful, amazing, terrible, awesome, great, no matter what we use our time and energy to do anything and everything.

You know whats awesome?
Your brain is you.
Your heart is you.
through and through.

When you want to be a part of everything, it only serves to make you feel more detatched. But when you find something to be a part of that makes you feel more real?! MAN, you won’t even remember what its like being anything else! (A blessing, and a curse, I guess.)

I remember watching silly little GI Joe parody shorts when I was a younger me.
“As far as arcade games go, pick ONE that you can do. Pick ONE that you can do as opposed to picking thousand different games where you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.” Is a line I remember well.

Jobs.

(I always find the intros to these the hardest part.)

Okay so working is a thing that everyone ever has to do, right?

Because in this society, there's all kinds of moving parts. Lotta do that needs done-in. And we all gotta do that do, gotta contribute and benefit as a whole.

...aaand then, as always, there is me. With like, very spotty motivation and completely random people skills. I've had- I've... been through a lot of jobs.

I mean you all know there was roofing, and then there was pad, and then a whole lot of nothing for six months, and then along came dishwashing, and then clerking, and then landscaping and then the present. These are all lovely lovely stories with their own lovely lovely beginning, middle, and end.

Roofing from what I can remember was just a rad summer job I got through my neighbour in the summer between my middle and last years of high school. The job kicked ass! But the people I was working with were fucking crazy. One guy was some crackhead from Ontario claiming to have fifteen years experience in roofing. 12323424234000 mistakes later we find that it was all bullshit, and he taught me everything I knew! Then there was my other supervisor who got pulled over by police for driving the work truck on the wrong side of a one-way road... aaaand then violating his parole. Anyone reading my blog who works in a manual labor position is probably not even a little surprised at my story so far. This shits common, especially in roofing.

my gig with the pad was attained through a similar deal. My neighbor had his own business he ran outta his garage, and I was ready to work for him. Pad wasn't so good though, in all honestly its kinda bullshit. (Yeah, I STILL have to do it and its horrible.) So basically what I have to do is I have to get in this truck, and drive all over the city picking up rolls of carpet foam underlay to haul away and give to the foam recycling plant to be processed. the foam company then pays me 12 cents per pound of pad (which, sounds like chump change, but when I'm offloading like over 3500 pounds every time we do a run, shit kinda adds up. Real fast.) It's a lot of heavy lifting, its gross, it sucks after it rains, its worse during the winter, the rolls are ALWAYS full of smoothedge (if you dont know what that is, its basically thin pieces of plywood covered in tiny sharp nails, and a total pain in the ass) staples, ecetera... Anyway yeah. This pad thing reminds me how important it is to have a real job.

For about half of grade twelve, I kinda kicked back and didnt do much. Just sorta bummed around. But there comes a time when you're tired of being broke, and you go perfect that old Resume.doc, and you go out and flyerbomb the strip malls. This proved to me as the least effective means of jobget. After time and time again of coming up empty handed, I looked on Kijiji (protip: No one. And I mean NO ONE. Is Too good for Kijiji) for something. It was easy, all I had to do was email the ad poster, and wait for them to get back to me! The calls came pouring in faster than I thought possible! This eventually landed me a position as a part-time dishwasher at Moxie's, its some weird restaurant that can't make up its mind about whatever kind of theme it is, its fancy, theres lots of deep fried pub food, lots of fancy ass desert, whatever you name it. I came in on weekends during the day, worked about eight hours a week, it was all pretty okay for the few bucks I made off of it. Looking back, I'm finding it hard to see what I was complaining about. Oh yeah. WHO SCHEDULES A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD KID TO WORK DURING THE DAY ON THE FUCKING WEEKEND. This job was hard, paid like shit, but the people I worked with fucking rocked. Kitchens are fun, man and dont let anyone tell you different. Sure, you gotta buckle down and work hard, but if you can keep it light and smile through it, its Really a lot of fun. And if youre the dishwasher, everyone in the kitchen knows you have the least appealing job in there, so as long as you're not a prick, they just like you off the bat. Even more if you wash what they need before they even know they need it. I had a pretty stainless system in that little kitchen when I was there. I'd have it so all of the dishes needed for prep were done before I even got started on cleaning up after brunch (so. Much. Egg. Won't. Ever. Be. Clean. *shudder*) So I had all of the Tupperware, spatulas, whisks, ladles, whatever all spick n span and drying off at about twelve fifteen. (I had major anxiety over how long I took, because I had no way of timing myself. This went away when I saw how long a short four hour shift felt, and just how much porcelain and plastic I had gone through in those short four hours)this job woulda been GREAT. If I only could show up on time. the place was Really far away from my house, and as patient and lenient as they were with me, I eventually couldn't keep up well enough to keep the job. Life does go on, as they say.

I was fired in June, like June first, so I had about a week of school left, I figured "fine. Fuck it, let's just keep focused on that, go looking for a job when I have some time." You know how focused a grade twelve kid is a week before A. Their official legit lastest day of school, B. Their 18th birthday? Of course you do its not very focused. So anyway, I had a lot of fun on that last week of school, finished it all off with a house party I don't really remember much of, and yeah! that was pretty much it! Except for oh yeah shit I'm still broke what do I do.

BACK TO KIJIJI I WENT.

So I found this little convenience store within biking distance of my house, they were offerring full time, I could do full time (at the time)and hey, it was a job, I cant turn it down! Except for oh yeah, I turned down that other job by ignoring them... And this convenience store just fucking sucked, too. 10 dollars an hour (compared to the 12-14 all of my friends were making) working from 2-10 pretty much every day well no, not working. I worked from 2-2:30. By then I had done everything, so 3-10 was pretending to look busy.(and I had summer classes in July, so wasting time straightening licorice when I could have been studying) oh yeah, and they decided to not pay me. This job lasted about four weeks before I called and pretty much said "Fuck you. I quit."

The downtime for this lasted about two weeks, in which I was snapped up by a landscaping company in August, who payed me 13 dollars an hour in cash every friday(oh how I love breaking the law) working pretty much every day of the week from eight until whenever we were done, lunch was payed for, dinner was when we needed it, and my worker's compensation package consisted of a hole to be buried in if I died on the job. Also my boss was an annoying prick who was never clear on what he wanted done, but was really REALLY good at telling you how you fucked up (just like an english teacher.) So when I LOST THAT JOB... I was pretty done. Just... done with work, done with life. I can't do what crackhead kids need to do in order to pay for more crack? God whats my problem?

...Not like I'd want to dig fence post holes for the rest of my goddamn life anyway, some crackhead kid can do that so he can buy more crack.

So yeah i just rode off of what I made at that job for the last few weeks, now I'm broke, wide awake at one AM, and have a new job starting Monday at a Starbucks in Copperfield. (Copperfield is behind McKenzie Towne, which is beside McKenzie Lake, which is in the middle of Butt Fuck Egypt, beside Okotoks) it is all really close by, and from the research I've done, this fire-breathing corporate monster is gonna take really good care of me. holy fucking benefits!

Moral of the story: No one. Is too good. For Kijiji. See yall later.

So I Guess this Is Hello?

Well, I-

Err...

Well, I suppose it all started like this. I wanted to make a blog because I saw Hyperbole and a half do it, I saw the Oatmeal do it, I saw Dan o'Brien, David Wong, Gladstone, Soren Bowie and everyone else under the golden californian sun do it, and I thought "Hey... People think I'm funny! I like talking about myself! Let's give making a blog a real shot!"

And then this happened

As a vessel of my thoughts, this little corner of the internet I call my own became a vessel of my negativity, and good god was there a lot of it.

I started this blog at a very abrupt turning point in my life.

Let's cut to grade eleven. For whatever reason, things got dark for me about this time. I could blame it on whatever, but this is when I learned the hard way to be very careful about people I let close in to my life, (and I gotta admit, I'm still kinda learning.)

This is where I became very jealous, insecure, and kinda frightened by people. I was still posting then, so I won't dwell on this TOO much seeing as I commented on it as it was happening, but in retrospect it is always different.

One main thing that bugs me more now than it did before was all the name calling and labeling I was going through. By others, and myself. Like, I couldn't fucking figure out who I was and I didn't really get that I could just take a deep breath and be me, because what that meant to everyone else isnt SUPPOSED to mean anything to me.

In watching everyone else be themselves, and trying to be like them, I ultimately made myself more... Different. But not the good kind of different that everyone just is, that horrible kind of different that nobody wants. This forced isolation and sudden insecurity drove me into a sort of emotional numbness. I didn't have any emotion in whatever I was doing, and my personality was very lacking.

Things did get better in grade eleven though. Something kinda popped and I came out of myself after MUCH trial and error. Let's fast forward to that summer before grade twelve.

I started working outside, someone was crazy enough to trust me with power tools, and it was a majorly rewarding experience all around. Doing that kind of work made me feel way better and more confident in myself, and all I could focus on was my own self improvement. This may explain why this summer was my least social. But as ever it was not to last.

I underwent a significant nervous breakdown at the end of that summer. And here I thought I was getting better! I didnt know what I was gonna do with myself, and I was frightened at the end of my wits that it was gonna happen again at some point! (and, you know happen they did)

I gotta say however that my last year of school was a pretty entertaining one, albeit with its rough takeoff.

In all this pussy bullshit, I had forgotten where my friends were and how to deal with other people, but that did eventually change.

And you know what? I had an amazing time! Me and my friends played Pathfinder together, I got to start (and kinda end) a band with some younger kids, it was nothing short of exciting and fun! And yeah, I guess these are all posts for another time :P

And I guess that's pretty much all I have to say for now. You guys deserved an explanation, like always. I feel like in most decent writing there's a barrier between the reader and what they're reading. I dont want to be a decent writer though so, don't go expecting too much of that. I've done some learning, I know what I'm capable of.


So I guess in other terms, I'm back? With a liiittle more to talk about than just my pills and my brain. Stay tuned, my little luminescent saboteurs!

Aw man I gotta name it, too?

I either have all drawings, or all writing these days, don't I?

Well, theres LOTS of this. Lots of random stuff kickin around.

I've missed this, whatever it is.

I think I'll get back to it.

MY writing gets better when I practice.