I've actually been managing to stay somewhat consistently productive lately, not like the lethargy of days and months past. I've been writing a bit, designed a couple flyers for the upcoming Lucifigous Prick show (see below), and last night updated the LP website itself. not to mention that i've made a few posts in the space of a week…

anyway, i think i'm starting to reach the point where i'm realizing that i'm only busy if i'm actually accomplishing something–making headway. i can frown and fret about how little time i have to do all the things i want, but if i let that stop me from doing *anything* then it's even worse. perhaps, if i can keep this activity on the build for a while, i might get to the point where i'll start getting out of the house more, have some adventures, meet some girls. 'cause we know that's what it's really all about.

today i'm dealing with some crazy crick in my neck. i'm in horrible pain. can barely move my head. it really really sucks.
neck pain is one of my two least favorite forms of pain. abdominal pain (the sudden sharp severe gas pain) is number one. neck pain is number two. at least right now it is. i hate it hate it hate it.

but enough about that, here are those flyers:

(click for printable .pdf versions)

if you're in Louisville on July 5th, be sure to come out to the Rud by 10:00 PM to see us very nervously play our first gig. if you'd like to hear what we sound like before you decide to come out (always a wise decision) download & listen to our demo tracks.

oh, and lest i forget, our friend neil was kind enough to come to our practice on Sunday and take an ass-load of photos of us playing and hanging out, so hopefully we'll have some good pics up on the site within the next week. assuming there are any pictures we're willing to let the public see…

krazy fest was this weekend. i continued my trend of hanging out and not paying for it, which resulted in actually having to work as stage crew yesterday. it was a long hot day in the sun, to say the least. a few bands i was wanting to see actually played the fest, but for the most part i was just there to hang out with all my friends (both from here and out of town).

friday night was pretty low-key. we left when the fest was over and went out to friday's to drink giant mixed drinks. we heard there was a bunch of party going down at a hotel close to where the fest was being held, so we went down there. there ended up being a bunch of people standing around, drinking in the parking lot, but nothing really exciting. we decided to head over to cahoots and see what was happening over there. we hung out at the bar for a little while, but it just wasn't enough party. i ran into a bunch of friends from the skateshop and they decided we should grab some beer, head back to the hotel, and make a party of our own. that turned out to be a pretty fun idea. there's a big patio on the roof, which is where we set up party shop. we ended up hanging out there until the cops showed up. apparently some girl was raped. i guess even the punk kids can't be trusted to be functional, non-disgusting human beings. after that we just drank at my house.

saturday was pretty much insane. after the fest wrapped for the day, we headed over to the warehouse for some party. the cops showed up when there was only about 20 people there. they actually cuffed elizabeth from the reputation, mainly because she told them she was a lawyer and she knew her rights. she learned an important lesson: rights don't mean anything to the police. the cops ended up leaving without arresting anyone, but a bunch of people had already ditched out on the party. so…we decided to take the party back to the hotel from the night before. we ended up back on the balcony, summoning half the people in the hotel for giant party. john dubbed it the "party patio." kevin and i were randomly walking into kids rooms to use the bathroom. we'd just walk in, tell them we had to take a leak, and continue on our way. this went over surprisingly well. kevin handed me his elliott stage pass and kept telling people i was benny. some kid tried to interview me on camera, so i went with it, proclaiming that kevin was our roadie. kevin then said "i let them pee in my butt." after a little while, the cops ended up coming to bust our little party, so we hid out in some kids room and drank all his beer. after the cops split, we went back outside and decided to make it to cahoots for last call.

yesterday was the last day of the fest, and chris and i just worked stage crew and tried to keep hydrated.

in other news…

sebastian got a new kitten.

my review of the new hot snakes record went up on 75 or less.

i am now completely sober and very sore.

ok. i've really gotta get out of this place and get home. but before i do, i just had to post this little image that a co-worker whipped up for me (and several other co-workers). i tell ya, i just about died when i saw it.

he told me that there was a little flash app somewhere out there that was like the storTroopers thing, in that you can take all these South Parkish components and build your own characters. of course, he forgot what the link was. i'll try to find it a little later tonight and update this post, but if any of you industrious fucks decide that you wanna help daddy matt, feel free to include the link in a comment to this post (or in an email to me, whatever floats your boat.)

** update ** steve kurp was gracious enough to provide the link to the south park character builder for us. check his comment for a link to a powerpuff girls character builder.

as matt mentioned in his l'il post earlier, our dear friend jess has decided to up and move away. she's apparently getting married and now she's living in dallas, texas. well…i have a different perspective than matt and paul, i guess. i've known jess for around the same amount of time, but…i dated her. she and i dated for about 6 months. this was, of course, after knowing her for a few years. we dated and we had a strange relationship, then we broke up (she dumped me), then i promptly moved into the same house as her (the house that i currently share with scott). i think one of the dumbest things i'm guilty of ever doing is dating jess while i was still wrapped up in my prior ex. it strained the relationship and led to my eventual downfall. shortly after me she started dating the guy she's now slated to marry.

to not put too fine a point on it, i'm not entirely thrilled with the whole scenario. i'm not thrilled with her moving half a country away. i'm not thrilled with her not being around whenever i want to hang out. and most of all…i'm not thrilled with her marrying some guy i feel like she's settling for. jess and i have had plenty of in-depth discusssions since our break-up, and most of them centered on how the future hubby isn't what she likes in guys. to put it bluntly, he's kind of a tool. before you start pointing and laughing, realize that this isn't just petty ex-boyfriend jealousy talking. this is honest concern for a girl i've known for eight years. i can't help thinking that it's all a grand mistake. if it still counted for anything, i'd be the guy standing up at the wedding, stating my objections.

i keep feeling like that guy in the jetta commercial.

but if it's a mistake, it's her's to make. so i have to swallow it like the bitter pill it is and go on. i guess this just meanss we won't hook up on a lazy tuesday to catch a movie and eat at thai caf? anymore…

man, animals can be so pitiful when you have doctors do mean nasty things to their bodies.

we finally managed to get our two kittens (not kittens anymore i guess, they're over a year old now…) into the vet on Monday to have their child birthing equipment forcibly removed. a good friend of ours (who happens to work at the vet's office) was kind enough to come pick them up from the house, then to bring them back to us the next day. man, when they got home… they were just pitiful. laying around, barely moving all day. of course, if someone had ripped out *my* uterus (a difficult task, to be sure, seeing how i don't have one in the first place.) i would probably be walking gingerly for a few days, if i bothered to walk at all.
they're starting to get better and better now, moving around a bit more, climbing stairs to hang out with their three dads. they seem to be pretty good about not licking their sutures too much, and they are eating healthily again. as brax has said on multiple occasions, it will be nice to see them back to their old mischievous selves again.

i guess it's been about two weeks ago now, but we recently came into possession of a vintage Galaga arcade machine. how awesome is it to be able to come home, walk into the foyer, and jump right into a game (or six) of Galaga without having to drop quarters into the machine? well, let me tell ya, it's pretty awesome. of course, i completely suck at the game. i've gotten a little better since we got it, but i'm still not breaking the 90,000 point barrier. of course, i've also gotten to the point where if i lose a ship in the first four rounds, i just let myself get killed and start over.

our friend Jess has finally gotten engaged to her longtime beau, and they've now moved to Texas. it seems weird for her to not be around, despite the fact that we haven't really hung out with her much since we all moved out of the old place (brian's current place). when she was still in town, it was always acceptable to not see her, partly because we knew we could call her up if we were doing something, and have her join us. with that no longer being an option… well, i tend to realize more that she's not around.

and with her gone, our "family" now has only one female member remaning. it used to be that i couldn't count the number of girls hanging out with us on a regular basis with two hands. it's a very different existence when you don't have that special female "energy" around. to top that off, we're down to only one female at my workplace as well… the yin energy is slowly being siphoned out of my life. in six months i'll be a truly desperate, depraved charicature of myself if we don't get an influx real soon. it's a good thing i don't have any "whore money" to throw around… it's all gotta go towards rent & bills & silly shit like that.

perhaps i should just try to get out more.

wow. last night was a doozy. it started out with an innocent trip to the back door to hang out with a few friends, and ended up as a no holds barred, full on bar brawl at the karaoke bar down the street. how quickly things can go south…

i was hanging at the bar with a few friends when most of them decided to leave. brendan needed a place to crash, so i offered up the couch. he wanted to cruise down to cahoots, so we headed on down there. i figured we'd hang out there for a while until they closed and then brendan would want to crash. well…when we got there, it was our friend rob's 21st birthday. everyone from the skateshop was hanging out, getting loaded. we drank a bunch and then someone said "let's go down and sing karaoke for the birthday event!" so we polished off our drinks and walked down the block.

when we walked into the karaoke bar, some girl was singing lisa loeb or some shit. we all grabbed some beers, put in a few songs (amongst our picked hits were "sweet child o' mine," "crazy train," and some boyz II men tunes), and settled in while the losers before us took their turns. well…during a frat boy duet of some lame pearl jam song, one of our friends got onstage and started whooping it up during the very end. the frat boys got a little pissy, but the friend apologized and told them that we were just drunk and showing our friend a good time for his birthday. the frat boy relented, but the bartender decided we had had enough to drink and, without a last call, closed the bar down, cutting us off. the dj tried to throw a couple of our friends out, but they refused to leave. some frat boy started a fight with another friend (keep in mind there were about 12 of us in our group) and i ran over to break it up. i got clocked in the back of the head, and i started swinging. people pulled us off the frat boys and everybody started to calm down. until the dj started pulling the mics off the stage, closing up shop…

that's when we all started yelling and screaming. i think the fratty jocks were pissed off because we had been dancing with their girls and now we had the girls screaming with us about the end of karaoke. the next thing you know, they're totally kicking everyone out and some jock thinks it's a wise idea to throw a punch at one of our friends. all of a sudden, the place erupts and the bartender pulls out a tazer and starts nailing my friend with it. i jumped in and got tazed, but i got plenty of shots in before we cleared out of the place. the last thing i remember seeing was the bar in total ruins. we bolted out of there and laid low for the rest of the night. amazingly enough, everyone cleared out before the cops came.

now i'm sitting around, nursing some tazer burns, and reflecting on one of the most insane nights in recent memory.

it's gonna be a great summer…

i've realized that daytime soap operas (and daytime tv, in general) rate incredibly high on the "unintentional comedy scale." as i was putting on my shoes and getting ready to leave the house for a spot of lunch, i flipped on the tv to see what the gods of television programming decided to grace my life with. what i found was a particular carwreck called "days of our lives." to be honest, i'm mildly familiar with this particular waste of an hour because i dated a girl for two years that watched it religiously. she even made her mom tape it for her if she had to work. it was kinda scary.

to get the most for your "unintentional comedy" buck, you really need to catch the first five minutes of any soap before they even roll credits. the proof may be in the pudding, but the laughs are in the setup, i'd say. that first five minutes is packed with moony eyes, shady dealings, and everything else that you can only find in the dreams of an unhappy housewife. to be honest, the other 55 minutes are just a big tease to make you watch the next episode.

anyhowways…saturday was pretty low key. i spent most of the time recovering from friday night's festivities. we ended up going over to a cookout for our friend jess (my ex-girlfriend and ex-roommate, in that order). she's getting married to some tool and moving to dallas, texas. as long as she's happy, i guess. so most of the early afternoon was spent standing in the hot sun, drinking pepsi (i didn't feel like dancing with beer again, quite yet) and hanging with a bunch of people i don't know.

scott and i ended up splitting to head over to see irina and black widows play at the indoor skatepark. what i thought was going to be a huge show ended up being sparsly attended, but it was all good. irina rocked hard, but they sounded kinda muddy and steve's guitar wouldn't stay in tune. black widows kicked as much ass as always. after that we popped in and out of the various bars and i ended up back at the warehouse until 5:30 in the morning.

but i'm sure you could have figured that one out on your own…

yesterday was the weekly cookout and kickball in the park. we got rained out, last week, so we returned with a vengeance. once again, the team i was on kicked ass and ended up winning 16-13. another glorious victory. another week where we retain bragging rights. ahhhh…kickball. a few of us have joked about starting a weekly dodgeball game. now that would be brutal…

brian gets drunk and makes a giant ass of himself (vol. 3, chapter 472):

scott and i set out to have a fun evening of drinking and socializing, last night. we dropped off some stuff with johnny that he had left over here, then we jetted over to the rud to catch a friend's band (party girls). we hung out there for a while, then we decided it was time to hit the bar. we got to the well at around 12:30 and there really weren't that many people there. scott and i then decided to go grab some booze and drink at home at a discounted price…free (aside from the original price of the alcohol).

on the way back to the car we ran into our awesome friend kelly, who invited us to a midnight pool party. scott and i were pretty determined to get our drink on, so we told kelly we'd give her a call. that was the first mistake of the evening: never tell someone you'll call them if you plan on doing a lot of drinking first. chances are…you're gonna forget to call. either that or you're drunk dialing, and that's bad news, as well.

so…we got home and sat out on the back porch, drinking and shooting the shit, and enjoying the onset of summer. scott and i have decided to stop feeling so old and have a fun summer, this year. cookouts, back porch drinking marathons…we're gonna have to get matt and paul over here more often. good times, for sure.

scott and i decided to amble back down to the well to see if anyone was there. it was a bit more crowded when we walked in at around 2am, this time. elizabeth was still there, so we sat around and talked about whatever. second mistake: get really drunk and talk to pretty girls. chances are you're only making an ass of yourself. that's never a good thing.

scott ditched out and went for a walk to cahoots, then he dropped back in, hung out for a bit, and headed home. i stayed parked at the bar, hanging out to see if john would show up. right around the time i had given up on that and was getting out of my stool to make my way home, paul cruised in. i was literally off my stool and getting ready to head to the door. there's a cardinal rule in life: the party's not over if paul is still there. so i sat my ass back down and hung out with the illustrious puffin. a couple of beers and shots of beam later (the puffin is nothing, if not a tank), they were kicking us all out. i said my goodbyes and headed home.

you'd think being at home alone (except for the cat and a sleeping scott), it'd be hard to make much of an ass of myself. you'd think i'd be home, done, and ready for bed. well…you'd be thinking wrong. i called one friend and left a really drunk message on her voice mail. i ended up talking to another friend and lost all ability to make sense. fifteenth mistake: alcohol and phones just don't mix. if you're gonna drink, don't dial. if you're gonna dial…don't drink.

so…to cap this off, i'm issuing a blanket apology to everyone involved. i'm sincerely sorry, and i promise not to do it again…until later tonight.

i tried to keep last night low-key, but ended up failing miserably. i left the house at around 2am under the pretense of grabbing something to drink so i could take some medicine to knock out this summer cold ("the death," as scott calls it) that's been plaguing our apartment for most of the week. while i was out i decided to see if anyone was down at the well of spirits, our new neighborhood bar.

well…as soon as i walked into the place, i knew i wasn't going to make it home anytime soon. i ran into the usual gang of…usuals. i hung out with john and elizabeth for a little bit, and then steve and billy showed up. at this point, john decides everyone should go back to the warehouse to make some party. i stopped off and grabbed some beer and ended up back at the warehouse until 5:30 in the morning. steve and i sat around and plotted out a new band for when irina is on hiatus while phil is in russia for the fall. other than that…a lot of beer drinking and socializing.

and now i'm sitting around with a stuffed head, listening to mission of burma, contemplating some medicine (for real, this time) and a late afternoon nap. you have to love fridays…

well well. paul has finally delivered a piece of the puzzle that is my next poetry book. i had commissioned him… must have been two years ago… to write up a nice introduction to my second volume of poetry (since he'd had the honor of doing the cover for the first one). well, in a flash of inspiration today, he completed that task, and did a fine job. so, for multiple reasons, i'm going to let you guys be the first to read it!

there comes a time in the lives of most young adults when the pangs of emotional confusion run headlong into artistic cathartic bliss. the resulting carcass from this car wreck of a creative process lies there and begs us to stare. not that i'm equating the writings presented here as being that of roadkill stench nor am i making a statement about the writer's technique in developing his work. my point is simply this: angst + outlet = art (and believe me, art – outlet = angst). and sometimes this process happens violently and without warning.

paul steven brown
june 4, 2002

now i just need to get off my ass and finish pulling the book together. if anyone wants to contribute artwork, send me some samples and i'll send you some poetry to work from.