Day of Major Heresy

Ok, so I missed Thanksgiving. Again. So, I've decided it's time to make my own holiday. It shall take place on the 27th of November, not every year, but only on odd numbered years. Every other holiday is lame and celebrates every year. I say nay. My holiday will be different. More information about this Holiday will be posted soon, as soon as I'm done coming up with it.

I suppose though, in light of missing Thanksgiving, I should give thanks to those and these that matter to me.

HERE WE GO!!!

One: I'm thankful to be alive. No one, and I mean no one, ever seems to say this. How in the crap can you be thankful for something if you're not alive?! Crazy. So, first and foremost, I'm thankful for my life and my good health (although sometimes that is very questionable).

Two: I'm thankful for music. Again. Without music, I wouldn't be alive, so it kind of works together with number one. Today was a good music year for me, what with the drop of the new albums from the Foo Fighters, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. I also got to help produce a few songs, and learn things about recording that I never knew, which I think is awesome.

Three: I'm thankful for friends. Music saved my life, but you guys are the reason I stay around. Due to deployment, I didn't have the chance to make many new friends this year, but the friendships I did make are some of the best I've ever had. Here's a shout out to the wonderful Nay sisters, the wonderful Mrs. Ashley Stevens, Corrie (soon to be) Kovar, Hector DeLeon, Rory Grouse, and too many others to remember. Although I only see you all every so often, I love and miss you all dearly.

Four: I'm thankful for the multitude of life lessons I learned this year. As everyone probably knows, I was engaged this year. Sort of. Anyways, it didn't work out. Which kind of sucked a good bit, but everything happens for a reason, and it's just one more story to add to my crazy book of life. Maybe it'll make us stronger in the end, but who knows? All that matters is that right now, I'm doing me, and it feels good, and I'm becoming a better man inside because of it.

Five: I'm thankful for Madden's safe delivery. Last night, Christin gave birth to Madden. Everyone is perfectly fine and healthy. For some reason, I worry myself to death about these things, so it was a ginormous relief when I heard everything went well. Congratulations Chris, I knew you could do it.

Six: Family. For the first time in years, I'm thankful for family. I don't want to delve too much into this, because I'll end up beating myself up pretty wicked, but I love you guys, and that's all that matters.

Seven. I'm thankful, finally, for me. Every year I'm a little bit different than I was the year before. This year is probably one of my favorite models of me, and I feel as if I'm only going to get better as a man, as a musician, as an entertainer, as everything. I've got big things coming for me, bigger than anyone can imagine. And to you I say, it would be wonderful if you were to join me on this ride.

Fly, Dragon, Fly!

You ever have one of those moments when you're trying to wirte/type/say something, and nothing intelligent comes to mind? Well, if you haven't already guessed it, this is one of those moments for me.Writer's block. Brain fart. Whatever you call it, it's essecntially the artists' demon.
But wait, how do you recover from this heinous condition? Honestly, I'm not one hundred percent sure of a guaranteed remedy.
But I do have one trick, one solitary weapon against my brain drain.
So without further ado, I present to you, for the first time on the Internet...

BRAIN SCRIBBLES!!!
(cue applause)

What is Brain Scribbles? A simple exercise I crafted to get me thinking creatively. All you do is right down WHATEVER comes to mind. No exceptions. No matter how stupid, perverse, or disgusting it is, wite it down.

So...

Here...

We...

GO!!!

Godsmack...not liking the direction they took with their more recent albums. Same with Disturbed. I love Skyrim. I could use an apple. Thank God for tea. And Samantha-no, just no. That is a crazy sticker on my hard drive! So many cables here, with no ports. Not enough violin players in th world. I have weapons maintenance today. Nope, I'll say right here in the safety of my castle. F*** the police, f*** f*** the police. Rage Against the Machine- just a bunch of whiney musicins. And Billie Joel Armstrong can suck a mean one. Hey there, Mr. Hot Dog Man! I still have paint on my flak. It was a gift Todd, I'm taking it with me. Wal-Mart bag?! You're crazy! Youtube is probably the easiest way to become famous these days. Daniel Tosh is one of my personal heroes. I wish I could be a raging a**hole some days. I'm tired of having glass shatter everywhere. So much dust here.Better get all of it!Why are YOUR shoes on MY side of the room?! Hmm, I should probably get my key fixed. Oh my, I just remembered Yakima. Not as bad as Hawaii. That place is worse than Vietnam. TWO bottles of Vaseline?! Whoa ho ho, that's legit! I need to fill up my power outlets. I wonder if she'll keep the rings or throw them away. Who's brain just started spinning? I need to find my other shoe, it's not safe to walk around half shoe-less. I have beer! Personal success! That waffle was not as sublime as I was hoping it would be this morning. But that's ok, I have raspberry tea now! Sha-bang!!! Concert, concert, concert, concert! Text message, who's it from? Alexis...hi Alexis, check it out! I'm double texting you! Pow pow! I wonder how Katie's doing...HA! Murray's Hair Cream. It's for black people but they have two crackers on the can!I wonder if I can get Kourtney to read this, she'd appreciate it. I got called Big Poppa last night. Life is good. Go Freck yourself!

Well, that's all I have to say about that. To my disciples out there, your homework is to fill up a page with brain scribbles. Have a wonderful day!

Song of the day:
"Flagpole Sitta"-by Harvey Danger

The Wood Stove Blues

I don't know about you, but I'm getting excited for Christmas. "But Tyler, don't you get excited for every Christmas?" You're damn right I do!!! Best holiday there is! Except maybe good ole St. Patty's Day. Embrace the Irish!
Anyways, people are complaining because others are excited for Christmas, even though Thanksgiving hasn't gotten here yet. Screw Thanksgiving! Seriously, screw Thanksgiving. Granted, I love food. I love football. And I love weeks upon weeks of leftovers. But seriously, Thanksgiving doesn't hold a torch to Christmas.
Let's look at their history and coming of birth, shall we?

Thanksgiving: an autumn feast comprised of the harvest of the passing year, combined between the stocks of the Native Amricans, and the foreign Europeans. It was a time of bonding, and frivolities. That's pretty neat, I'll say that much. I'm all about brotherhood. But we know where the story goes from here. White man decides they need more land, so in order to quench their insatiable appetite for power, they rape, plunder, kill, and annihilate tribes upon tribes of Native Americans, driving them into designated "reservations." I for one, do NOT want to celebrate to that. Tsk tsk whitey, tsk tsk.

Christmas: Christmas has a double meaning, because it's that awesome. One, the birth day of Christ. Kind of a big deal. He did that whole dying for our sins thing. Pretty cool move. I like his style. Second, the celebration of the life and deeds of St. Niklaus. Don't know who this guy was? Google it, it's quite heartwarming. In the short term, this guy went around, giving gifts to the children of his village who couldn't afford them, asking nothing of them in return. Very groovy baby! And there's so many stories behind Christmas. I remember learning Italian in high school, and hearing the stories of Babbo Natale, the good witch.

Alright, let's just face it. Christmas is the best holiday. Ever. No argument. No other holiday has so many special meanings behind it. This is a holiday that truly belongs to everyone. Anyone can celebrate the season of giving, regardless of your beliefs and your culture. Thanksgiving? Pfft, waste of a holiday. Just a nice day off to remind us how racist we are and how close we are to being supremacists. Good job pilgrims. You guys were assholes.

I'm going to go watch "It's a Charlie Brown Christmas" now. On November 19. One week before Thanksgiving. If you don't like it, get off my blog.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

How am I feeling today? I'm feeling like it's time for a change. A big one. Don't get me wrong, I love me, as self-appreciating as it sounds. But being the perfectionist and entertainer that I am, I'm always looking for improvement. And I think I've found a new way to achieve a higher state.
Of couse, certain people will inevitably reject this change. It happens. But in the best interest of modernization and adaptation, it's a task that must be undertaken. I'm not going to say what these inevitable changes are, I'll let you figure them out for yourself, let you experience and judge them for yourself. If you don't like them, I'm sorry. It happens.
Change is impossible to avoid. Just take a glance at the world around us. Mother Nature changes all the time. From the direction of the winds, to the orientation of the rivers, to the elevation of the deserts, She is always adapting to overcome whatever challenges face her. So, in interest of becoming more at one with my surroundings, I need to change as well. I only fear that these changes will make me forget about who I was yesterday, and beyond that. But we must not be held down by the chains of the past. Instead, we must write down the past within the present, study it, reap all knowledge there is to be had, and employ it to build a better future. I chase no dream but my own.
And what is my dream you ask? That's still a secret yet to be untold, dear reader. If I ever achieve it, then the world will know of my visions and wonderlust. And if I fail, then I will slip into the safety that is silence, and renege my efforts until they can be modified into a new approach. We must never stop believing, never stop hoping. We must have faith in ourselves, lest we become gears in a machine that marches us away from our true inner happiness.
So what makes you happy? Truly, inexplicably, unboundingly happy? Is it something simple? Something that can be found everyday when you step outside your front door?
There's a question that I ask myself on a fairly common basis. If I had three wishes, what would they be? One day I hope I can answer, "My only wish is that everyone in the world can be as happy and as satisfied as me." And after I see that wish to fruition, I would give my two extra wishes to someone deserving of them, lest I try to build something greater than perfection.
For those who have read the Bible, you know what I'm talking about when I mention the Tower of Babel. A unified effort to build a tower reaching the Heavens and level ourselves on the same plane as the cherubim and God Himself. No, I don't want to challenge the higher powers that be. Instead, I want to see the world come together under a different dream, one shared by all the free people of all the Earth. I want to see friendships forged, diseases banished, poverty and hunger stricken from memory. In essence, I want to see a Communism. Not the Soviet Communism of the 20th century, but a new age Communism, where greed and self propulsion are no longer components of the human psyche.
Alright, this topic has evolved to something completely different than what I wanted at the start, so I will end it here. My message to you, dear audience: live free, love openly, speak with a golden tongue, and embrace everything, good or evil. For it is in knowing our world that we know ourselves.

"Windmill, windmill farm the land,
Turn forever, hand in hand,
Take it all in on your stride,
It is ticking, falling down,
Love forever, love is free,
Let's turn forever, you and me,
Windmill, windmill farm the land,
Is everybody in?"

Excerpt from, "Feel Good Inc."
By, the Gorillaz

Retrospective Futures

Today, I want to talk about the decline of physical media. Mainly, in music. Let's rewind the clocks about 10, maybe 15 years. When you used to go jamming around with your Sony Walkman plugged into your ears. Oh yes, the Walkman. I had one for well over seven years. By the time I was done with it, it had more duct tape than what would even seem feasible. The duct tape even had duct tape on it. I remember all my old CD's too. The ones I played so many times that they pretty much ended up melting. Every two minutes or so, they would start to skip like it was crazy, but I didn't care, it just made me more appreciative of the times when they played back flawlessly.
Can you remember buying new CD's? For me, it was like a religious experience. I'd go into Wal-Mart andstart looking through the aisles with the focus of a Shaolin monk. It would be almost an hour long process. "Well, this one really looks good, but I might enjoy this one better. But WOW, look at that one!" Either way, I'd end up retrieving my new holy artifact from the depths of Middle-Earth, I'd go to the checkout counter, pull out my wadded bills and scrap change, and revel in the greatness I now held in the palm of my hand. When I got home, I'd take off like the Incredible Flash up to my room, not caring what I knocked over, and jammed my new CD into my stereo. Engage headphones. Sorry Mom,  I can't hear what you're saying, and I don't care right now. I'm in audio heaven. As soon as the first notes hit my ears, I was transformed into something else. I wasn't Tyler, not in the same way. I was a freaking rockstar, opening up to an arena of thousands of people. This was my fantasy. As I would read the CD booklet from cover to cover more zealously than a priest reads the Bible, I would continue to fantasize about touring the world, hauling my drumset everywhere. This was my life, my dream, and it was good.
But now we come to the present. Where iTunes rules the music world, the selfish prats they are. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, they're decently priced. But when a new album comes out on iTunes, and I buy it, the magic just isn't there. Don't get me wrong I still love the music, and I still to this day fantasize about being a rock star, but the magic...it disappeared. That little boy jamming to his broken headphones, attached to his broken Walkman, listening to his destroyed CD, is still in the past, walking through the Wal-Mart aisles, waiting for that new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. And I owe him a great deal of appreciation. So, I've made a pledge to myself. When I get my own house, I will take one room and dedicate it to music. Not just throw instruments in there. No, more. I'm gonna plaster the walls with posters of my favorite bands, throw a bunch of old album arts up there too. I'll have a huge CD collection, and who knows, maybe a vinyl collection. There will be a decent stereo in there, without an iPod dock, just an AM/FM radio and a CD player. And maybe, just maybe, I'll special order a Walkman from the 90s to keep in there in good memory. The kind that skips if you shake it just a little bit.

A Late Night Jubilee

You ever lay awake at night wondering the meaning of it all?
The meaning of life.
The ultimate answer to our purpose.

No? Well, I have. And let me tell you something, I hate those nights. Because, at the end of the maniacal pondering, you realize you end up with more questions than what you started with.

So that brings me to the next question, which always puts me to sleep like a baby. What if there is no meaning to life? Boom. Ultimate question right there.

Consider the possibilities. If we were brought on this planet, not for some purpose, not for some approportioned fate, but to be us. To carve our own little niche in this world, and experience all it's wonders and follies through our own eyes.

Think about it.

When it comes down to the nitty gritty of it, we're truly just animals. We happen to be on the top of the food chain thankfully, because that allows us breathing room to chase our own personal pleasures without the true fear of being prey.

But oddly enough, some people are too scared to chase these wishes, dreams, pleasures, whatever you want to call them. Because we possess something the rest of the animal kingdom does not. Judgement. We are afraid of being on our own, shunned in the cold, so much so that it inhibits our actions, our words, and even our thoughts. Our definition of freedom is false. We're never truly free. We ARE free to do as we want within the moral holdings of others. So in essence, we're trapped within the eyes of others, always calculating our moves, judging us on what we've done, what we're doing, and even what we may do, before we're even aware of it ourselves.

So here's my plea to you. Live one day on your own. Don't talk to anyone, don't acknowledge anybody, and for God's sake, get off the damn phone. Isolate yourself from the world completely. Become self dependent. Figure out what you want for yourself. Then go out and achieve it. Sometimes it doesn't matter which way you jump, as long as you jump. Because, when the day is done, and you're lying awake in your bed, still pondering the meaning of life, you might open your eyes and realize, at the end of all things, you are alone.


Just remember to smile about it.

Today's song is Starlight by Muse

Child's Play

Let's talk about hide and seek.
When was the last time you played a game of hide and seek?
For me, it's been years, probably closer to a decade than I care to admit.
But think about the simplicity of the game. The majority runs and hides from the one "it" person. IN order to win, the "hider" must seize the oppoprtunity to make a break for it and reach home. Simple as it comes, but beyond beauty. Why? Because of it's purity.
When one plays this game, all the problems of the world melt away. Nothing matters when the last safe haven on Earth is fifty feet in front of you. Taxes? No. Work? Nope. Responsibilities? Not even close.
What happened to the days as kids when all we cared about was hide and seek, or toys, or trying to escapes Mom's wrath having induced it by not cleaning our rooms?
Some will say "growing up" is inevitable. Some will say that eventually we lose the foolishness of our childish ways.
I for one refuse to believe this. Somewhere deep down in all of us is our inner child, waiting to get out. You know it's true. When you're walking down the toy aisle Wal-Mart and you see something particularly shiny, that's when your inner child screams out for attention. And yet we walk on by, thinking we're too grown up for such toys. Instead, we go home, watch the news, lament over the fate of the world, and in essence, fade away into the gray doldrums of maturity.
People have mocked me for getting excited over trivial things. I'm sorry I still get excited over rainbows and still wonder if there's a leprechaun at the end with my promised gold. I'm sorry I still like to believe that there is magic in this world.
I'm not saying go out and fill your rooms with Beanie Babies. Don't go t.p.'ing peoples' houses (unless they really deserve it). And for good sake, don't tie a firecracker to your cat's tail! I'm just saying, when you feel the urge to be amused by something that is targeted for a younger age, don't restrain yourself. Instead, buy that toy. Play that game of hide and seek. Just remember, no peeking!

Today's song is "Kids," by MGMT.