Meow Of Taz

   Why did you bring me here? You don't seem to even remember that I exist most of the time, and the only reason you ever do is because I have to force the issue. I spend all day alone in this place where you have broken everything, and then when you finally return I am your last priority. I have to cry out and tell you that there are ants in my food because you would never think to just check, to just make sure that I was doing okay. That would never even cross your mind. I am a burden for you.
   Do you realize that I can't do anything for myself? Do you remember that you took me in, that you said you would take care of me, that you took out my claws? If you hadn't made me so comfortable maybe I'd be able to fend for myself in these trying times. But what's done is done. And you did it.
   I don't care if you love me anymore; that issue is moot. I just want to have something to eat. Please clean out my bowl there are ants in there.

MORNING REVIEW: Labor Day, September 2nd 2013

   I woke up very early, laying on the floor and sweating on a small couch pillow. I didn't want to be awake so early, there was no reason for it, so I just laid there for probably half an hour longer. At early wakings like that, I usually get stricken by immense feelings of regret regarding small details from inconsequential events in my past. Most of the time the regret stems not from blatant errors or missteps so much as it does from oversight and missed opportunities; wasted time. It's not so much what I've done, so much as all that I didn't do, that brings me anxiety and prevents me from falling back asleep. Maybe those events wouldn't have been so inconsequential...
   I began to get kinda hungry but didn't want to make real food right then so I went downstairs and grabbed a banana. It worked just fine for the moment, but honestly I should have known better. Bananas at any other time of the day are just fine but for whatever reason (probably a belly full of rotten vodka) bananas in the morning make me puke. Like, without fail I will throw up about half an hour after eating a banana unless I've already had a real meal. I've seen the Tosh segment about kids drinking 7Up and eating bananas as a method to vomitarily get out of school for the day; I guess the same gastronomical property being applied there also applies to waking up hungover.
   For a little while I half-passed-out due to post-spew exhaustion, but it wasn't real sleep and soon enough I was hungry again. I decided to just get up and try to begin my day. I went downstairs and made some eggs; eating that made me feel like a whole person once more. It was still early as fuck and I felt just pointless, like a completely pointless entity, so I went out on a little walk to clear my mind.It was already too warm and I was too shitty for an actual jog, but a walk sounded nice.

   There are some mile-markers on the trail next to my house that I did the extremely-simple math for; I'm trying to figure out my mileage here. If you go the direction from my house towards Albertsons, where it ends on the hill with the single tree, you'll find a marker that says "1.5 mile". Lately I've been choosing that direction whenever I do rarely decide to leave my house, but I knew there was another marker in the opposite direction, where the cul-de-sac next to mine has its trail entrance. I had noticed them before but this was the first time I had ever paid attention to what the markers actually said. That next one is the "2 mile" marker, so apparently it's a half-mile from the tree-hill to the 2nd cul-de-sac. When I jog from my house to the tree-hill and back, it's nearly a full mile. That's very helpful information. I've never actually watched that show "Parks and Recreation" but I imagine that this is the type of thing they do.Thanks for that addition to the trail, Murrieta City Planning people. I very much appreciate it.
  
   There were a lot of bunnies out that morning and they were like, unafraid of me; they didn't scurry or anything until I was pretty much directly next to them. I walked down past the cul-de-sac, past the ledge where "VELOR" used to do really cool graffiti pieces that have since been painted over. He went back and left a message: "Please just let me paint here!" with a sad-face next to it.That sucks. His stuff was really cool. Further down, as the trail goes downhill, he wrote "Hi Mom" on a utility box latched to a telephone pole.

   I wanted to find the next mile-marker, the "2.5 mile" marker, and I was sure that it was just past where the trail breaks at N General Kearney. I got all the way out to the gate past the street, the one kids crawl under to skate in the basin, and still hadn't come across it. Why would it have been taken down? How have I seen it in passing before but now that I'm actively seeking it out, it's gone? My first inclination was to blame imaginary roving gangs of unruly teens causing mayhem with no regard for the honest trail-using citizens of the community like myself, but some mysteries can never be solved.

   The house that my brothers and I grew up in is being foreclosed on right now and we don't know how much longer we are gonna be there or where we are all gonna go when it eventually happens, which is something that I try not to think about too much even though it affects every single aspect of my life so much more than the meaningless things I do put alot of time into. As I walked back home, past the house where the dogs snarl at the fence and past the spot where we used to spend entire weekends building bike jumps, it hit me how much I am going to miss this trail when we don't live next to it anymore. I feel like I took it for granted, like it was always gonna be a part of my life. I love this trail.I had my first kiss on this trail, before either of us knew how to kiss. I got into my first fight on this trail, before either of us knew how to fight. This trail knows me and I'm truly gonna miss having it a part of my everyday existence. I don't want to move.

   I had gotten a bit more hungry during my walk so when I went back inside I ate 2 pieces of bread. I tried to lie back down but the walk had done nothing to calm my spirits. If anything I was a bit more anxious than I had already been. Clearly sleep wasn't in the cards for me so I begrudgingly got back up.
   I got my mom's tablet and streamed an album by iamsu, a Bay-area rapper who's opening up the main stage for Rock The Bells this year. My listening schedule for this month fluctuates between artists performing at upcoming festivals that I probably will not go to and and artists performing at upcoming SoCal club shows that I probably will not go to. iamsu fell into the former portion of that criteria. I was pretty unenthused with his album actually, it was okay at times but he's doing that sing-song rapping style that Drake popularized and that's lame. He had a rhyme in one of his songs that went, "I be running shit, call me diarrhea." I found that to be unforgivably ridiculous and pretty much a death-nail for the entire album. I posted the offending song "E.S.P.N." to Facebook in a mocking fashion and my friend Damien - who records hip hop as DNVSTY - commented almost instantly on the post saying that iamsu is legit and I am dumb, basically. I just went ahead and deleted that post.

   During the album I cleaned up my desk, which was covered with clutter and trash. Sometimes I don't understand how the mess gets so bad. Why can't I be a little but more proactive about things? Why don't I just put stuff away when I'm finished with it or put away the laundry when it's done? Why do I let shit pile up until it's unmanageable?
   I put my broken stereo under the bathroom sink where I put all my broken electronics; I feel bad about throwing stuff like that in the trash but I don't know where 'electronic waste pickups' etc. are located so it all just gets put under the sink. I got my bags of trash together, along with my bag of vodka jugs for the recycle, and brought them out to the bins outside. It was a nice day.

   KP let me know that everybody was going to Sandia Creek for the day and that sounded like a great idea. I took a shower and he picked me up a little bit later. It's beautiful up there and we had a great time hanging out in nature with our close friends.
   I'm not gonna write about that.

The Story Of No-Face

   I will preface this story by acknowledging that it is kinda dark and some people may not understand or appreciate the Humour being expressed.

   Several months ago I was at the Leisenring house and Big Mark came out to the garage to smoke a cigar. He was a bit swervy and you could just tell that things were about to become hilarious. He was in a good mood.
   I can't remember what would have sparked this story, why it ever even came up, but it was incredibly appropriate at the moment and has remained strongly embedded in my memory.

   When Big Mark was in high school, way back in the day, there was some guy he knew who had really low confidence in himself. Just the way he even began the story gave off the impression, "the person I'm about to talk about is fucking pathetic."

   Somehow this guy did manage to find a girlfriend, but it didn't last long, and she broke up with him. He got all distraught about that and his initial reaction was to commit suicide by sticking a gun in his mouth and shooting his brains out. This guy was a fucking loser though and he failed. He just shot off his face and turned himself into a mutant.

   A few weeks after that all happened, the guy worked up the courage to return to school and show everyone what he had become. He even tried to reconnect with the girl who dumped him but of course that was fruitless.

   Mark and his friends gave him the name "No-Face" because he didn't have a face anymore. I can still to this day distinctly recall Mark recounting how they berated him:

   "You really did it this time, No-Face; Now you got no face!!
   She's never gonna take you back now."

   Pretty much everyone in the garage collapsed into uncontrollable fits of laughter upon hearing this because it was so absolutely, ludicrously heartless.

   Mark said he wasn't sure what happened to that guy after high school and went back inside.

   "You really did it this time, No-Face."

Playlist for August 2013

This is a list of all the albums, EPs, demos, etc that I listened to in their entirety during the month of August 2013. Afterward are my notes and a list of the live performances I saw, as well as the new addition of the zines I read and movies I watched listed as well.

8/1/13
Ty Segall - "Goodbye Bread"

8/2/13
Thee Oh Sees - "The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In"

8/8/13
!!! - "Strange Weather, Isn't It?"
Exhumed - "Gore Metal"

8/9/13
Charles Bradley - "Victim of Love"
Old Wounds - "Terror Eyes" EP
They As In Them - S/T EP

8/10/13
Walter Mitty & His Makeshift Orchestra - "Overwhelmed and Underdressed"
Peter Gabriel - "So"
Tiny Moving Parts - "This Couch is Long and Full of Friendship"
Modern Baseball - "The Nameless Ranger" EP

8/11/13
When Whales Collide - S/T EP
Sloths - "Knives" EP
Knelt Rote - "Trespass"
end of the summer - summer 2013 demo
Keyes - "Therefore/Without" EP
Ground Up - 2008 demo
Flume - S/T

8/12/13
STRFKR - "Miracle Mile"

8/13/13
end of the summer - summer 2013 demo

8/14/13
Slow Children - "Those Who Mind Don't Matter"

8/15/13
Crisis Arm - "So Bummed" demos

8/18/13
Kurt Vile & The Violators - "The Hunchback" EP
Bobby Meader Music - "My Coffee's All Cold"
Bicep - "You"/"Don't" single
Shlohmo - "Bad Vibes"
Inspired & The Sleep - "Teenager"
Craters - "Velcro"
Les Savy Fav - "3/5"

8/19/13
Roky Erickson - "Gremlins Have Pictures"
Criminal Instinct - 2012 Demo
Soul Search - "Nothing But A Nightmare" EP
Death Grips - "The Money Store"
Toro Y Moi - "Underneath The Pine"

8/20/13
The Melvins - "Stag"
No Age - "Everything In Between"
The Locust - "New Erections"

8/21/13
Yo La Tengo - "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out"

8/22/13
Holy Ghost! - S/T
Lazy - "Party City" 7"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Mosquito"
The Breeders - "Last Splash"

8/23/13
Washed Out - "Within & Without"
Beach House - "Bloom"

8/24/13
My Bloody Valentine - "m b v"

8/29/13
Afflictive Nature - "Strictly Savage" EP
Jungle Juice - "Involuntary Convulsions" 7"
Desperate Living - 2012 Demo
The Yoots - "Bad Acid" EP
Tobias Funke - "Read More" EP
Moderat - "II"

NOTES
- Old Wounds is badass. So is Knelt Rote.
- I thought "So" was gonna be alot better than it is
- The upcoming Crisis Arm EP is gonna be awesome
- That Roky Erickson album had like a million songs but it was good. I regret missing his set at FYF, my friend described it as "some old guy having an aneurysm." Sounds awesome.
- For some reason I thought Soul Search was gonna be like a posicore band. Not so much.
- I just don't really get the appeal of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- "I'm just looking for one divine hammer"
- I'm definitely among those who was severely disappointed upon hearing the new MBV album. Sorry.


LIVE PERFORMANCES:
8/7/13: Spring Break 95/Swamp Wolf/Sold Souls @ The Dial
8/10/13: Modern Baseball/Tiny Moving Parts/My Iron Lung/Just Nick @ The Dial
8/11/13: Sloths @ The Dial
8/12/13: Au Revoir/Rexx/Pioneer Atlantic @ The Dial
8/14/13: Opposition Rising @ The Dial
8/16/13: Crisis Arm/Rookie Town/IBN UBO/(The Gravitys)/California Bleeding/Beanvian Stalks Guava @ The Dial
8/22/13: Lazy/The Nest/Pilgrims @ The Dial
8/24/13: Death Grips/FLAG/Thee Oh Sees/The Locust/The Breeders/Joyce Manor/Charles Bradley/Metz/Waxahatchee @ FYF Day One at LA Historic State Park
8/25/13: My Bloody Valentine/MGMT/The Melvins/Yo La Tengo/Touche Amore/Chelsea Wolfe/Guards @ FYF Day Two at LA Historic State Park

LIVE NOTES:
- Sloths were amazing
- Dez Cadena doing vocals was cooler than Keith Morris doing vocals
- Some guy who was in front of me during Death Grips had really stupid hair it looked like he had a lobster on his head
- The Melvins were one of the best live sets I've ever seen

MOVIES:
"Gummo"
"Austin Powers: Goldmember"
"Sound City"
"Bridesmaids"
"Funny People"

ZINES:
Isolation Zine
Pitted Press
Feral Faun
LA Weekly (LOL)