More Thoughts.

Well shit. Speak. More thoughts from this dude.

1. Which acoustic guitar riff do you think is better? The intro to Dispatch's "The General" or the intro to Jack Johnson's "Taylor"? Both are total gnar-dog riffs. To the max. 

2. How often do you think about the people you walk by on your way to class? That is, think about the random people you see everyday during your life. The people that you pass once in your life that you'll never see again. What kind of person do you think he or she would be if you actually stopped to meet him or her? What kinds of stories/experiences would you procure from meeting such a person? Would it be worth it?

3. And finally, how do you describe your relationships with others? Are you closed-off and boarded up from the rest of the world, only sharing with those who you feel pass the test of truthfulness after twenty years of knowing one person? Or do you share with others like it's your fucking job? 

   I constantly think about how I portray myself. It's human to be insecure in such a manner. It's a hard thing to relate to someone, and for someone to open him or herself up as well. It takes a lot to trust someone, no matter who he or she may be.

   I'm optimistic. I trust people very easily (as I stated in my last blog entry).  But I think my view of humanity is justified and worth it. Even if some do not believe so at first.

   We've all met shitty people. It's a known fact and this may seem like a tangent from my previous paragraph. But it's senseless to keep such little faith in people. As my last question was posed, why do we shut ourselves off? Why do we keep people out of our situation much like a bouncer keeps an 18-year-old guy like myself out of a club?

   Everyone is insecure and that's for good reason. Everyone has so many flaws that it's not even funny. We all possess negatives in our personality that we come off as shitty people, no matter how hard we try to skew it.

   We need to embrace these flaws. Let people know who you are: for the good and the bad.

   You're denying yourself life if you do not give someone (even a complete stranger) your absolute self. It's never a good thing getting a false-image of someone during the first meeting. It's real shitty, actually.

   Let yourself be free. Let yourself be free of imitation and share yourself with another person. It's alright. 

   I've never believed in shutting yourself off from the world. Maybe it's because I've met enough people who try to continue to do just this, but in the end it's not worth it.

   You never know who you'll meet in life. 

   It's always safe to not let anyone in, to not let a person get close to you. But how do you meet people if you do such a thing?

   I say live and give your life story. Sure, you'll get hurt. And sure, you'll find people who don't agree with your principles. But in the end, you took the risk and you let people have the honest-to-fucking-God image of yourself. And you can't disagree with that. 

   And this is how you find your closest friends. Risk it and let people in. Be ballsy and grow a pair. Who gives a shit? 

   The worst that can happen is you find someone that doesn't respect you, but do you really need that person influencing your life?

   Not at all.

   Be vulnerable and step off the edge. How do you know until you've given someone a shot? 

Thoughts.

Well...balls. That break went quick.

I haven't posted in here for awhile, but I have a few things to write about today to kick off the new year. A few things that I noticed during my break that particularly struck a cord while mind-numbingly staring at the cheap, retail-fashion-lined walls of Express. Well, at least for the four weeks they consistently employed me. 

1. "You're like a rain cloud if it rained mushroom clouds, everybody hit the ground." Ryan Adams is fucking brilliant. 

   I would just leave it at that, but I don't think such an abrupt conclusion would necessarily be enough to suggest how awesome Mr. Adams' music is. 

   First, I would like to thank you, Patrick Kouskouris, for mentioning such golden, musical honey to me in the first place. Your suggestion was MUCH appreciated. 

   I don't think I've been this excited for a new artist in a long time. That's not to say that Ryan Adams is new to the music scene (he's been releasing hit albums since the mid-1990s), but he's definitely a new name to me. 

   What excites me the most about Ryan Adams isn't necessarily his sound--well that's a lie, his sound is fantastic. But it's the way that he has a song for almost any sort of mood. He's versatile, a sort of amorphous figure in alternative rock/country, blues, folk, etc. (he's got way too many genres to qualify for).

   His album Love Is Hell sounds like A Rush of Blood to the Head b-sides, had the lyrics been written entirely by Thom Yorke. He provides melancholy and truth that's so cathartic you can feel depression running down your leg like piss. I want "The Shadowlands" to be played at my funeral.

   His other albums Rock N Roll and Cardinalogy rock your colon out your throat with plenty of steel-nosed guitar. And Easy Tiger is a throwback to what made Adams so popular in the first place: good, ole' fashioned alt-country music. 

   Check him out if you haven't done so already.

2. Has anyone ever noticed that Hugh Hefner is a modern day re-incarnation of F. Scott Fitzgerald?

3. I guess it took for a good friend to cut-up on me enough to make me realize that I don't actually hate Lil Wayne. Rather, I just can't listen to him for more than four of his songs (unless those songs appeared on the Birdman & Lil Wayne album. Or Lil Wayne appears on the track with another artist in general. It gives a nice Weezy dilution).

   So, there you go. I don't actually hate him. His voice and rhythm isn't the most pleasing to me, and I still can't stand how he can go from trying to shove every syllable into one bar to trying to sound like some codeine-induced version of Allen Ginsburg. 

   It's frustrating. 

   So I don't hate him. I just think he's way overrated. 

4. I'm ashamed to be a Big Ten fan. I hope to be so liquored up on Monday night that my beer jacket turns into a beer blanket and coats my eyes from another state-wide tragedy.

5. Finally, I have to disagree with your opinion, Pfef. Ignore my original comment on your blog post yesterday. 

   For those of you who didn't read my roommate's blog yesterday, he wrote on the relationships we keep between ourselves and members of the opposite sex and how he classifies certain types of women. 

   So, Pfef, neesh. 

   Relationships in general--on a romantic or friend level--are difficult. I'm sure everyone can agree with me there.

   Determining how people are going to act, what they're like, or what they essentially mean to you--even upon first meeting--is just as difficult to determine. Women are especially hard to "classify." And I'm sure that everyone can agree with me there.

   It's not possible to determine these "winners." No matter who the woman is, all are too complex to simply group into Pfef's original categories. You never know what a person has been through and you never know how one is going to act in a certain situation.

   I feel that everyone should be assured a certain type of respect. Even a simple "how do you do?" or general amiability works. I've seen women who appear to be perfect have issues and I've seen women who seem bitchy have so much more than the cutting sarcasm that defines them upon first meeting.

   You never know who you're going to meet in life. People are so different from one another. What makes one person tick might not make another tick. You never know who you're going to find yourself making friends with or getting close to. Every person out there has a voice and has something interesting to say. In order to ascertain what that person is about takes respect--that basic, unwavering respect. Sometimes, women (or men) haven't been shown enough of that respect in the past, so they act as if they have none. That's why it's important to give everyone at least one chance, even if for a brief second.

   Now that's not to say that method is perfect; it is definitely not. But it's more truthful than simply cornering women into titles that most certainly do not define them. 

   I've most certainly fucked up relationships and friendships in the past and I've got way too many apologies to deliver. I'm probably way too open of a person for my own good, I trust easily, I'm needy, and I worry from looking into something too much. 

   But I still stick by my method. It lets you determine who you want in your life and who you don't want in your life. And that's how you should group people.

   Give respect in order to get respect. Give respect and you might just get a good friend. Give respect and you might find your future boyfriend or girlfriend. Give respect. Much respeck.

Anyways, I hope that everyone had a great New Year's. For those of you who go to OU, I'll see ya soon.