It's just a constant headache.

So I flaked on my promise of updating this thing once a week. The past few weeks have kind of been a little overwhelming. I hope you understand.

Before I begin, I would like to state that the opinions and views I am about to express are solely mine, and do not in anyway reflect those of anyone else in Bellwether, or Bellwether as a band.

I also would like to ask anyone who feels so inclined to refrain from reposting this elsewhere. Part of the reason I use a blogspot instead of a tumblr is that I find blogspot to be more intimate. Despite this being on the internet, I know that only the handful of people who bothered to click the link will read this, and that’s the way I like it. It sounds silly, but this is therapeutic for me, and I am writing this to help put my mind at ease, not to stir up any drama.

            For years now, I have worked tirelessly as a musician to write music that meant something to me and share it with as many people who would give me the privilege of listening. Growing up, touring the country and playing music that I had poured my heart into had always been a dream of mine, and that dream was beginning to come into fruition with Bellwether. Having done a handful of tours with Bellwether up until this point, I can say that all the hard work I had put in, not just in this band but my previous endeavors as well, had been starting to pay off. 

            The past few weeks have been especially difficult for me, as well as the rest of the guys in Bellwether, because of the actions that were inappropriately taken by a politically correct obsessed vigilante who orchestrated a witch hunt, a la Joseph McCarthy, with the vindictive, and admitted, intent of ruining Bellwether’s reputation and touring prospects, effectively hindering my ability to pursue my dream. As many of you may know by now, allegations of sexual assault against my drummer, and good friend, Harry, has enticed a mob of ill-informed individuals to take to the internet in hopes of getting us kicked off our anticipated tour with our good friends in Seaway by using scare tactics to intimidate venues and promoters alike; unfortunately, they succeeded.

            I am writing this to say that I personally have no ill will toward Seaway. Words can’t really describe how upset I am that we wont be able to do this tour with them, but I understand fully that this was a decision that was out of their hands and was made strictly with business in mind. Locke, Esh, Ken, PC and Shoji are some of the best dudes I had ever had the pleasure to hit the road with and I wish them a safe and successful tour, and I still consider them some of my best friends. I encourage all of you to go out and support them on this tour and pick up their album “Hoser.”

            I have not had the misfortune of meeting the misled, vicious man-child responsible for spearheading this smear campaign, but I can say with confidence that his parents did not name him aptly. Had he lived up to his name, he wouldn’t have maliciously and irresponsibly attempted to destroy reputations based on hearsay. I have done nothing to provoke this guy and certainly did not deserve to have all of my hard work tarnished, and quite possibly destroyed, because of his vendetta with my band. To deliberately sabotage something that I have spent more than a decade working to achieve, and to cause not just my band and I, but my family who has been a non-stop source of support from the time I expressed interest in music, all this anguish is despicable. Being in a band himself, he must know the struggle you have to go through building something from the ground up, and because of that I have no respect for him.

           

As for the girl involved, I want to express that although I strongly suspect that her story was born out of embarrassment, I do not wish her any harm and I strongly urge everyone to treat her with respect and to desist from directing any spiteful comments at her.  This is a difficult situation for her as well and she doesn't deserve to be attacked the same way my band I have.

Everyone reading this needs to be aware that this could happen to you.  You can work toward realizing your dream and someone you don't even know can post gross misrepresentations about you that can potentially ruin everything you've worked for and cherish. Don’t be afraid to take a stand against this kind of slanderous bullying.  It could be your band, your friend, your sister or brother next. 

            To all the girls out there, please never be intimidated or feel compelled to do anything you feel uncomfortable doing or do not wish to do. Neither I, nor my band, would engage in or condone non-consensual sexual activity of any kind. It is reprehensible and abhorrent to each and every one of us. With that in mind, I stress to all girls to know that you have the power and the right to change your mind, stop, get up and walk away. 

            And finally to everyone who has stood by Bellwether through all of this, thank you. Thank you for seeing us through the hard times, and celebrating the good times. You guys are the fuel that keeps this band going. Without you guys, we wouldn’t be half the band we are today. We say it all the time, but it’s true; this is you band too. Thank you, for everything. We’ll see you guys in 2014. Brace yourself for the best music we have ever written.

I hope to continue on with my “memoirs” next week. I am currently juggling three jobs, as well as working on a new record with Bellwether, so all the time I had when I first started this project has kind of disappeared. But I intend to continue to post here as frequently as possible.

Thank you for reading. 

At your funeral.

The earliest memory I can recall is of my great-grandmother’s funeral. I actually remember it so vividly that a few years ago, when my Aunt Linda died of lung cancer, I was able to locate my great-grandmother’s grave just by looking at the trees.

I was a very little boy. I remember staring at my father’s legs and I remember believing in god. It was the fall and it was cool. There were plenty of leaves on the ground, and they were wet, but it wasn’t raining. My family formed a semi-circle around the grave, and I was near the far left of the circle, in-between my cousins and my parents.

My great-grandmother was very old, close to 100 I believe, so there weren’t many people at her funeral; just my parents, my little brother Zach, my cousins Adam and Jaime, my Uncle Morty and my Aunt Linda, my grandparents Phil and Molly, the Rabbi and maybe one or two other people. The Rabbi was pretty brief with the service. Before I even had a chance to really grasp what was going on, it was my turn to shovel some dirt into her grave. And that was it.

I wasn’t raised in an organized religion. My father is Jewish and my mother is Christian, and they decided to let me figure out what I wanted to believe in as I grew up, so long as I treated everyone the way I would want to be treated. This didn’t really have any adverse effect on me, although it did become confusing at times.

            My grandmother, Molly, died when I was in the fifth grade. That was the only time I had ever seen my grandfather ,Phil, cry. She was my father’s mother, and she was Jewish. Her funeral wasn’t all that different from my great-grandmothers. The same groups of people gathered around her grave, listened to the Rabbi speak briefly, and shovel dirt into her grave. The days that followed were spent sitting Shiva in my grandparent’s house. My family all sat in the living room and I spent my time alone in my grandparent’s bedroom, watching “Speed” and eating bread. For some reason, I didn’t take my grandmother’s death as bad as everyone else did. I was more or less indifferent.

            When I finally returned to school, my teacher Mr. Golding, had me explain to the class where I had been and why I was out from school. I was the first kid in my class to have a family member die. Shortly after I was finished explaining to my class why I was absent for a few days, I received a note. It was from Veronica. The note read:

“I’m sorry to tell you that your grandmother is going to hell for being Jewish.”

At first, I didn’t know how to handle it. This was the first time in my life that I was met with extreme prejudice. I didn’t tell anyone about the note except for my friends Matt and David. 

This world will know my name when I die.

Today is the first day that I am sitting at my desk since I have graduated college. Until now, my laptop has resided exclusively on the small, black, ottoman next my bed since May, and the chair next to my desk has held more jackets than asses.

            My desk was purchased at IKEA, and when it was first assembled, it looked very nice and complimented my room. Years later, my desk has been somewhat worn down. It is covered in scratches from Tech Decks and the paint at the end, where I rest my right arm, has peeled off little by little. Underneath an orgy of scratch marks, the name “Gina” can still be made out next to the gash I put in my desk with the knife I disposed of in the street one night when I was high and nervous about what I would do with it if I ever came across her boyfriend. There are some burn marks from where I would light tape on fire, or let some lighter fluid leak onto my desk before I would ignite it.

            My desk is littered with mementos from life, things that almost killed me, and things that have defined me. At the head of my desk is blink-182’s “Enema of the State,” the first CD I ever purchased and the reason I play Pop-Punk. Next to that is “…but I have to,” which I consider the most important music I have written so far. On the other end of the desk are the two bottles of Brooklyn Local, 1 and 2, the last thing I drank before I began a life changing diet that literally postponed my death.

            The windowsill that overlooks my elementary school bus stop holds the plastic mouthpiece I inhaled at Kasbah, and the nose of my first longboard that sent my hurling toward the pavement so many times. They sit next to the breast cancer awareness bracelet that I bought when I found out my mothers diagnosis and the “Wake Up, East Meadow” bracelet I bought to remind me of all the friends I lost to heroine and pills. And in a Hofstra shot glass is the only jewelry I own. The bracelet I wear to funerals and two necklaces, one with the words “Love Monica” engraved on the back.

            The corkboard that surrounds my window proudly displays the Calvary Show flyer that Valet Parking opened the day before my 14^th birthday. Next to that is the joker card I received at a Theatre Guild function even though I didn’t earn or deserve it. Right below that is the napkin that the stripper from Le Café wrote her number on and gave to me while she smoked cigarettes in the woman’s bathroom and told me how her boyfriend beat her. And underneath that is the New York Giants Christmas stocking that CJ gave to me that holds the Polaroid’s and the notes that Eileen has given to me. On the other side is the plate that Grambo drew my face on at Fawn’s BBQ along with this weird pin that I stole from Real Sports in Toronto. And there are my spare set of car keys, still bent and scratched from when they got caught underneath a skateboard while my friends and I were human bowling in front of Stef’s house.

I guess my desk says a lot about me.

            At the end of my last semester in college, I wrote a piece for my Narrative Voice class that explained, for the most part, why I was so quiet during my time at Hofstra. I could give a large summary, or even rewrite the entire thing, but I feel this excerpt from the conclusion pretty much sums up the entire piece nicely:

“For most people, puberty is the most awkward period of time in their life. For me, it was college. For the first time in my 22 years of existence, I found myself unwilling to invite people into my life out of fear that I was going to come off as a condescending fuck if I let anyone know that I tour the country in a band that is starting to gain recognition on and off of Long Island.”

            After I presented this piece, my professor asked me to stay after class to talk to me, and ultimately what she told me was to not be afraid to write about myself. She told me that I have a story to tell and that I shouldn’t allow the fear of being labeled a narcissist interfere with telling it.

So what did I do with that advice? I took my laptop that was surrounded by stories of my life and moved it across my room to become an exclusive gateway for virtual sex.

            Besides one instance when I wrote a long and winded message to this girl Julie about reconciling our friendship, I had pretty much abstained from writing anything of substance until the other day. Kevin Burke had posted some “article” by some clown who rambled on about how chivalry is dead. I promptly whipped up a rebuttal and posted it, and it felt good. It felt good to finally write something not just for people to read, but also for myself. For a moment I had stopped giving a shit about how people would react to what I had to say, and I just said it.

            I spent a lot of time post-graduation feeling numb. I would read articles online, posts on twitter and statues on facebook that I would completely disagree with and just keep my opinion to myself because I didn’t want to feed the fire. So I stayed silent, like I did in college, and I can say now that I have had a taste, I’m pretty much done reaming quiet.

            This post is my declaration, to myself, that I will take my English Degree and do something with it, even if that something is posting on this blog. I do have a story to tell, and it is damn interesting.

            Back in high school, in one night, I wrote out the story of my life on Live Journal. It was rushed and lacked substance. It was pretty much just a list of cool things I had done up until that point in my life. A lot of people read it, and a lot of people liked it. This is going to be my revision to that. Every week, for the next few months or so, I am going to try and post a different story from my life. I hope that if this interested you enough, you’ll come back and check them out, and I hope that you will enjoy them. But at the end of the day, and as cliché as this sounds, I am going to be writing for myself.

See you in a week. 

Why do I like Walter White?

With the exception of an incredibly long winded and private message to a girl from my past, I have failed to write anything substantial since I graduated Hofstra with a degree in writing. Since graduation, and touring aside, I have pretty much found myself with a complete and utter lack of ambition to do anything productive. If I'm not doing anything, I can't write about anything, so I did what any normal 22 year old, single male who just lost a considerable amount of weight would do with his summer; lay in bed and binge watch Breaking Bad.

As a person, I am not someone who would be considered "ahead of the curve." I have never really bought into hype, whether it be about a band or a TV show. I have found that most of the time the pressure to seem like one is on the cusp of the next big thing makes some people "like" something for the sake of liking it, or fitting in, or whatever. And visa versa. I think a lot of people will outright hate something because everyone else hates it. I mean, Ben Affleck is literally the worst Batman ever, and he hasn't even been Batman yet. So I typically bide my time and wait till the hype dies down before I check anything out. I think this is why I really like Transit's "Young New England," because I waited till everyone had forgot it happened to listen to it and form an unbiased opinion.

Anyway, I have had an ample amount of free time on my hands, and figured that 5 seasons was long enough, bit the bullet and dove in.

I got hooked. It took me 2 weeks to catch up to the new episodes. There were days when I didn't leave bed for hours. Not to go to the bathroom. Not to eat. Not to answer the phone. I just stayed in bed glued to my laptop, engulfed in every second of the show.

The hype did not mislead.

*SPOILERS*

Last night was the Giants season opener, and man was it disappointing. After a few hours at the bar post game, sulking with the guys and distracting myself with Brittany from Mephem, I rushed home and checked to see if last nights episode was on demand, and you can bet your ass it was. So I watched it. I woke up this morning, with the on demand screen saver bouncing around and realized that in my drunken stupor, had either fallen asleep or forgot what happened. So again, without leaving my bed, I watched it a second time.

It was towards the end of the episode, when Hank is arresting Walt, that this thought struck me: "Why am I upset right now?"

Obviously, because I have come to love Walt and hate to see him taken down, but what if this wasn't TV?

Walter White, from the start, has been a huge asshole. He essentially blackmails Jesse into cooking meth with him and traps two complete strangers in an RV filling up with poison in the first episode alone. He goes on to let Jane choke to death on her own vomit, which in turn causes the mental collapse of her father subsequently leading to an airplane tragedy that impacts all of Albuquerque. He invades gang territories and gets Combo killed out of greed, blows up a nursing home to kill one guy, orders the execution of 10 people at the hands of Neo-Nazis, manipulates laundromat employees to clean his meth lab which results in them getting deported and drives his brother-in-law into oncoming traffic. This is all on top shooting Mike (the one guy that Walt can possibly relate to, because he too was in the business for his family), and poisoning Brock. Not to mention using Jesse, at all times, as an expendable pawn and forcing him to kill Gale.

Gale, a fucking weirdo like me. If there was one guy on the show that I could relate to, it was the dude who sang operas in his house alone while he made tea. And it pained me to see him killed, but I forgave Walt.

If this guy existed, everyone would be stoked that he was arrested.

But I sat in my bed, feeling physically sick watching Walt get cuffed. And what was more disturbing to me, was my excitement when the Nazis showed up to save him, despite Walter clearly calling off the hit.

Why do I want to see this man win?

You may be saying: "Bilder, he isn't so bad. He was just doing all this for his family."

And to you I say, I hate his family. Straight up. His family sucks. Skylar sucks. Walt Jr. sucks. Hank sucks. Marie totally sucks. The only person in Walt's family that I like, besides him, is Holly.

Skylar cheats on him, Walt Jr. forsakes him, Hank belittles him and Marie sucks.

I can't agree with his motives, because his family sucks so hard.

Then you can argue: "But Bilder, Bryan Cranston is just such a good actor. That's why you love Walt."
To which I say, yea, you're totally right, but that doesn't excuse the character of his actions.

The only logical answer I can derive at is that I am clearly a sociopath who wants to see this criminal take on the law and succeed.

...well that, and the fact that he is so wood-damn brilliant.

I think the difference between Walt and all the other criminals on TV is that he is the MacGyver of criminals. The dude makes a car battery with sponges and nickels, melts a lock with Etch-a-Sketch crap, blows up a fucking building with a rock. Walter White is a mad genius and I love him because of that.

Other than that, I am truly at a loss. I  can't think of why I like this guy, and as much as I do. Everything this man does is apprehensible, and yet I don't want him to go to jail. And that I why I am urging you to save Walter White.

http://www.savewalterwhite.com/

Feel free to stir up some conversation with me about this.  Like I said, I just started watching the show, so I have totally missed out on having serious discussions about it.

This is my Everest.

Its been 8 months since I last posted a blog. I have attempted many times since then to write something, but I ultimately wound up leaving the posts unfinished and un-posted. Why? Probably because half way through them I felt like I was writing them for selfish reasons when I intended to write them for, I don't know... unselfish reasons? Who even cares? Not what I'm trying to write about.

I intend on finishing this post because I am going into it knowing that I am writing it for selfish reasons. Today, I need this. And to be honest, I don't really give a fuck about anyone other than myself right now.

... Anyway.

I started my last semester of college. It is rather bittersweet. I'll give you all the benefit of the doubt and assume I don't need to spell out why it's bittersweet. I will say that despite taking 18.5 credits, and having an incredibly hard time figuring out what to write for my 3 creative writing courses, this is turning out to be my best semester of college. Finishing on a high note.

Speaking of high notes, I stopped smoking pot... kinda. I don't condemn pot, I just don't think its for me right now. I just can't make it a staple of my escape at the moment; gin suits me just fine.

On to other things that I am "quitting" I think I'm just about done with social media. I am all about expressing yourself, I'm doing it right now, but I actually hate everything everyone posts on the internet. I don't even find anything even slightly amusing anymore. And moments of true spiritual clarity and intelligent insight are essentially extinct. All I see is bland, cliche and redundant attempts to get "likes." And to be honest, I think I'm out of the "getting likes" game. Not to mention that my facebook has basically become a dumpster for event invites. Which is fine, I'm guilty of that myself. But it is the only thing that happens, at least for me, on there anymore. So I'm out, for now. I don't plan on deleting any of my social networking profiles, I'm sure they will prove useful at some point, I just don't feel like seeing everyone post such hackneyed garbage all the time. Which brings me to the "asshole moment" of this post:

Everyone, go get an original voice. Stop posting about how sad you are. Stop posting about the weather. Stop posting about how everyone else is posting about the weather, subsequently making you apart of the very conversation you loathe so very much that you felt it was absolutely necessary to post about. Take those last two sentences and substitute "weather" with "sports." And probably most important, stop posting about why you're single.  Start posting about why you shouldn't be single! I think you'll find yourself in a better predicament.

^Now I know that by that I fall into the category of "people who post about people posting," and often times I do fall into that category, but try not to lose sight of the point I'm attempting to make, which is, you all spend so much time trying to be edgy and different that you wind up being the same as everyone else, and you, and probably your life, suck because of that.

Moving on.

I lost around 80 pounds recently. www.drbos.com if you're interested. No, I didn't exercise. No, it wasn't hard. No, it isn't fake food. Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it really works. To break it down for you, you spend 105 days retraining your metabolism to handle real food. They give everyone a free consultation, and they'll tell you how likely you are to see success. So if you're trying to shed some, check it out.

And now that I am not completely repulsive anymore, I think I am ready to date. I would have ended that last sentence with "again," but I don't think I ever really did the whole "dating" thing as defined by my dictionary widget. I have been talking to a few girls, and whether or not they feel like we connect on any sort of romantic level, I at least proved to myself that I still have the capacity to talk to girls in a quasi-intimate tone. I also, hopefully, put an end to a rather destructive relationship that has carried on well past its time. So now that all the pieces are in place, I can finally, and officially move on.

Alright, I guess I'll get to shit people "care" about now. If you bothered reading this far, congrats. Here is the payoff.

In December, Bellwether entered the studio with Vinnie and Brett of I Am The Avalanche. I think I speak for everyone in the band when I say that it was one of the most enriching experiences any of us have ever had musically. Personally, I learned a lot about the process of putting together songs in a way that was foreign to me and felt a sense of camaraderie that I never felt in this type of setting before. I feel like a better musician because of that. I guess I'll start at the beginning.

Prior to this last recording experience, I had dealt with two kinds of producers: the producer who is out for your wallet, and the producer that flat out doesn't give a fuck. Not to discredit these gentlemen, the products came out great (see Valet Parking's "Black Out" and The OverUnder's "First Come, First Served") but I walked away from these experiences relatively similar to the way I walked in, in terms of knowledge and emotion. Maybe Mike Watts taught me a little about recording bass with a pic and cutting the fat out of songs. And Maybe Paul Leavitt let me use the same bass that was used on Thrice's "The Artist in the Ambulance" (or so he claims). But once you look beyond that, all I have to show for those experiences are two EP's that I had relatively no hand in writing and that sound better than anything either band put out before that.

For the first time with this last EP, I felt a real connection with Vinnie and Brett. Walking away from our first pre-pro session (which I consider the first real pre-pro session I've ever been apart of) I knew that we we're in good hands. Not only did they listen to our demos near religiously, they showed up with a plethora of ideas to change and improve the songs. You could tell they actually gave a shit about the music.

Now this post is already long as fuck, so I'm gonna try not to bore you with too many details, but lets be honest, this post is more for me than you.

 *DISCLAIMER*
What I am about to write is in no way an attempt to discredit the efforts of anyone in Bellwether. Everyone played a huge and integral role in writing and recording all of these songs. And without the collaboration of everyone in the band, as well as Brett and Vinnie, these songs wouldn't be half of what they are. I am incredibly grateful that I was privileged enough to work with people so in tune with each other, and I think if there was any other combination of people in the studio, these songs would have suffered. Desmond, Harry, Dutch, Nick and Kyle are all as much apart of this as I am.

This is the first EP that I have been apart of where I primarily wrote the music. Out of the 5 songs, I essentially wrote the bulk of the guitar and bass parts for 4 songs with a heavy hand in the arrangement of all of them. Lyrically, I worked incredibly hard on two songs and as far as content goes, I believe they are some of the strongest and most meaningful lyrics I have ever written and I feel that people will really connect with them. So needless to say, I am incredibly invested in this product. These songs are all a culmination of a lot of hard work and they reflect the feelings and attitudes of myself and everyone in the band in regards to a collection of times that made us all who we are individually, and as a group. I feel that these songs all stand out from anything I have ever written before and show a more versatile side of Bellwether that may have gone unnoticed otherwise. I am incredibly proud of these songs, and I am eager to share them with everyone. I hope the excitement is mutual.

There are a handful of standout moments from this whole thing that I will remember for the rest of my life. The first came during one of our last pre-pro sessions.

We were essentially done making changes to most of the songs, and were getting ready to buckle down and get the new ideas locked in. Roots (which is going to be the song that closes the EP) was still in limbo. Vinnie felt that the chorus was too wordy and that the melody didn't stand out, and all of us were so used to hearing the songs the way we had originally written them that we couldn't come up with anything else.

The next time we met, Vinnie took out his phone and played us a recording of him in his apartment playing the song on an acoustic guitar with the melody he came up with...

I am having a staggering time putting how this feels into words...

I guess for this to make any sense, you'd have to know that I really look up to Vinnie. When you think about bands from Long Island that really paved the path, you think of Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, maybe Glassjaw, and The Movielife. Without these bands, I probably wouldn't be playing the type of music I am playing. Lets be honest, without them, who would this generation of Long Island musicians in Pop-Punk look up to? They really set the tone for Long Island, and that is why so many great bands in the genre come from here. That is why Long Island has its kind of sound. That is why the scene here prospers. "Long Island Pop Punk" is a genre all its own that is hard to duplicate if you aren't from here.

So to have one of Long Island's finest come to me and play me a recording of him playing my song, and then to actually pick up a guitar and play my song for me was an experience, that for me, someone so invested in my music and in the scene, is so hard to put into words.

The next moment came after we finished our last session at Westfall Studios. Desmond, Brett and I stood out in the cold talking for a bit, and Brett spoke to us about the importance of passing what we learn down to the next band to use and build on. We are nothing if not a community of people striving for the same thing, and when you reach one plateau, you have the choice to move on up alone, or pass the rope down to those who need it next. If my memory serves me correct, for Brett the band that tossed him the rope was RX Bandits. He told us about what he learned from them, and what he passed on to us. The whole conversation made me think about what I'm doing a little differently. I have an obligation to make music for myself, that will never change. It is who I am, and without it, as cliche as it sounds, I have nothing. But now, I have a responsibility to carry on a legacy, a tradition, of helping those who strive as much as I do grow the same way Brett and Vinnie helped me grow. For me, this makes what I'm doing all the more important. It added a layer of depth to the kind of person I want to be.

The last moment came in Vinnie's kitchen, when we officially finished tracking. We were saying our thank yous and good byes when Vinnie and Brett stopped us and showed a sincere sense of caring toward us. We were about to embark on tour, and they left us with some advice that may have been incredibly obvious, but the fact that it came from both of them was incredibly touching. Not to say that I didn't expect them to be caring people, its just that when someone you look up to so greatly shows compassion like that, it means a lot. I never thought they were just out for money, but if anything proved it, it was this moment.

I will forever have an undying sense of gratitude to Vinnie and Brett. Without them, I wouldn't be where I am or who I am now, and I have to say I am a better person and musician because of them. I'm not sure if they will ever see this, but thank you guys, for everything. I can't wait to get to work on a full length with you guys!

The EP is coming into its final stages and should be out in the near future. We are still working on a title, but if I had to choose one, I'd go with "Ranz des Vaches."

Look it up.

Across the room, I hope to watch you writhe again soon.

A few weeks back I posted about a friend who passed and made a vow, if you will, to go to the bar Benchwarmers once a week on Thursday's just to keep in touch with some of my friends that I had fallen out of touch with since High School. So far I have been able to keep this promise to myself.

Throughout the weeks I have seen and spoken to a handful of people that I haven't seen in years. Some of them, like Rich and Dewey from the class of 07 and even kids like Matt G who I really haven't been able to speak to since elementary school. And of course the few kids from my grade that I somewhat got along with like Kevin, Luis and Tom.

In high school I was friendly with everyone, but I wasn't really friends with anyone with the exception of the kids in the music and drama departments with few exceptions. Since I was in Valet Parking in high school, most of my friends we're supplied by the scene. This remains true to this day. Some of my purest and longest friendships happened because our bands happened to be on a bill together. So most of the time when I run into someone who I wasn't particularly close with from my grade, and they happen to acknowledge my existence, the exchange goes a little like this:

Christina: Hey! How are you?
Me: Well. How are you?
Christina: Good!

And then she will continue her way to the bathroom and I will go back to sipping my beer up against the wall. However, last night something unprecedented happened, and that is the reason I am writing this.

Last night a girl I graduated with, Nicole, spotted me at the bar and shouted across the room to get my attention. I finished purchasing my beers and walked over to her and we actually had a conversation. Now I know this doesn't seem like that big of a deal but to a degree it really is.

I personally feel that since social networking sites have basically taken over the majority of peoples lives, the need to be openly social with people outside of your close friends circle is almost unnecessary, because you get enough of those people on your newsfeed.

So for Nicole, a person who I was never really friends with, to initiate a genuine exchange really brightened up my night. In fact, I would say it was the highlight of my night.

I don't know if Nicole will read this (I added her on facebook last night so who knows) but if she does:

Thank you :)

Nobody move, nobody get hurt.

Be prepared to call me an asshole. 

For awhile now I have been hearing this overwhelming outcry for "support" in the scene. "Everyone should be supporting everyone else's bands regardless" seems to be the ethos today. I think this is bullshit. 

I don't know what happened to most people. No one has a backbone or thick skin anymore. Every comment, critique, criticism is taken as a verbal threat and because of this no one is allowed to have an opinion that differs from the masses. 

This may not be the most pleasant thing to read, but it is the reality of things, and that is not everyone gives a fuck about you or your band. I certainly do not and deep down neither do you. It is absurd to say that the scene is "close minded" because not everyone likes everyones band despite genre. If that was the case everyone would of bought tickets to Friday's Bamboozle to see Skrillex because he was once in a band. And do to the 6 degrees of separation, it actually makes more sense to have done that then it does to support every band you ever meet ever. 

Now please don't get me wrong, I believe there should be some comradery in the scene, but it should not be forced or demanded. What makes the scene so wonderful is that it is the truest form of democracy. If a band is good, people stand behind that band and support. Kids will come to their shows, other bands will spread the word and that band will gradually see success if they continue down the right path in the right way. To infringe on that process by denying people the right to decide for themselves what they like and insisting that everyone like everything is tyrannical and will ultimately lead to more people getting upset when they discover a band isn't as supportive of another despite the idea that no matter what we should all support one another. 

Everyone needs to come to grips with these facts: 

1: Everyone perceives things differently. Me not liking your band does not hinder you from what you are doing. 

2: Everyone talks. When someone says they don't like this, that and the other thing about your band, they aren't "talking shit", they are just talking. It means nothing more than that they dislike what you like. It does not hinder you from what you are doing. 

3: The scene doesn't get better if everyone just got along. The scene needs controversy, the scene needs different flavors. It makes things interesting and keeps things fresh. 

4: Some bands suck and are made up of shitty people. Supporting bands like that is stupid and counterintuitive. 

We are all different. Lets just accept that. So if you want to support every band in the scene, go right ahead. Just don't expect me to do the same. And don't try and make an asshole out of me because I disagree with the way some bands conduct themselves and therefore withhold my support from them. I am not shit talking, I am just talking.