Roommate Rants Vol. 3

Recently something amazing happened: the freaky ass person who has been the subject of this and the previous two entries has moved out and is living....well I don't really give a shit where. As long as it's not here. Or anywhere near me. Ever. But as I anticipated she definitely went out with a bang. Here's a rundown of the highlights/lowlights from her final days/weeks....

* Her very absolute last day in the house she, a grown ass woman 30+ years old, took a shit on the toilet seat. Yep. A shit on the toilet seat.

* A few days before she left, I overheard her talking loudly to someone. It had the tone of reminiscing, laughter and things of that nature. Well, she was super god damn loud so I peaked my head out while she wasn't looking and guess what I saw. She was talking to NO ONE. She was walking all over the house putting these conversational breaks and laughter into her own crazy ramblings.

* She called her bank about overdraft fee's in the amount of $300.00. And when they wouldn't take them away, she said she would go to the bank. She promptly hung up and farted like 12 times and then took a nap.

* As mentioned earlier, she fancied herself a culinary wizard. Her shelves were filled with easily $500.00 worth of groceries from Trader Joe's that she just left. For no real reason.

* I confronted her about hogging the kitchen and how no one could use it, and how it was communal space, you know normal roommate/reasonable issues. She flipped out per usual, and I calmly told her, "You can't just bogart the kitchen whenever you want, as long as you want, as often as you want. There are others here who would like to use it." The very next day, she was making a lot of shit, making a mess, being loud with her blender. What does she say while doing this? She yells over the blender: "HEY JOSH!!!! I'M BOGARTING THE BLENDER!!!" I don't think she knows what that word means. And also it was her personal blender...so yeah.

* Lastly my personal favorite. I was hanging out with my girlfriend and then she went home for the night. An hour or so later, this freak comes out of her room and starts making shit at like 11:30 in the kitchen. Then the talking to herself starts. She walks past my room and says the following "Thanks for letting me know that you have a girlfriend......are you trying to fuck me? Cause I'm not interested" Keep in mind that none of that was solicited. At all.

Well, that's it for this chapter of weirdness. As a parting end of these particular entry, as a special treat here is a photo of her AND the cherry on this turd sunday: her room. Keep in mind that this is how her room looked all the time. Imagine the smells at your own risk...

Behold! The weirdo in question!!

The weirdo's natural habitat.

A Different Kind of Circus

As it's January, and it's also that time of the year where musicians from all over the world get together in Los Angeles for the winter N.A.M.M. (National Association of Music Merchants) show; I figured that I would briefly run down the craziness that I was fortunate enough to experience in 2009 when I went. So this not really going to necessarily flow from thing to thing, it'll just be things I saw and experienced. Some will be short one liners, others a bit lengthier.

Without further a due, here we go!!!

*I went to this sweet ass Yamaha party and proceeded to get food poisoning from some bad queso while getting super drunk off of free beer. They next morning we were was supposed to attend an awards banquet for the company I worked for; it was an award for staying in business for 100 consecutive years. Needless to say, I didn't make it. And this was like the second day of the week and a half long trip.

*At the conference I was cut off by Dave Mustaine, twice. Literally. Like he walked right in front of me and I had to stop in my tracks or I would have run into him.

*From across the room, I saw Steve Vai marching across the hall. I say marching because that is one lanky bastard and he was leaving all of his assistants in the dust by about 20 steps.

*John Dolmayan, the drummer from System of a Down, was wondering around like a lost child.

*One day I was leaving and Tony Levin was walking in, looking like some sort of androgynous gunslinger. Parting the seas of people with his bass. And mustache.

*I went off exploring, which is super fun to do there, and saw Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater playing piano to exactly 3 people.

*While wondering around, I found the booth where Michael Anthony was signing at. I got his autograph by inadvertently cutting in front of about 200 people. Oops.

*Oh yeah, and I found a giant ass rave room. Fucking crazy.

*I found Mike Inez from Alice In Chains who was super cool and super drunk (it was like 11AM); talked to him and he signed some autographs for me. And managed to spell my name wrong, even though we were all wearing name tags.

*During one of the days, I found a booth/table where Alex Skolnick and Alexi Lahio were signing. Everyone seemed to be bypassing Skolnick to meet Lahio who was acting like a tool. I was way way more excited to meet Skolnick for the second time and during the whole conversation I had with him, Lahio looked borderline annoyed I wasn't excited to see him. Douche.

*There are like 3-4 levels at this convention. In the basement they have every shit knock off version of instruments that you could imagine by small companies from even smaller countries. It was on this floor that I saw Brooke White; who was on a season of American Idol. She looked so bummed that some sponsor stuck her in the basement.

*This was also the trip that launched the legendary What's That Smell? series I started to write.

*When I was in a meeting with some folks from Randall, I looked off to the side and saw Tommy Shaw from Styx. Styx hasn't been popular since 1983. Tommy Shaw hasn't been popular since 1991. Yet he had a fleet of people with him doing shit for him. And he is short.

*While I was there, I learned a few things. One is that when the famous/well known musicians are out and about, they like to just check shit out without being bugged. They do this by turning over their badges so you can't see their names. One guy I saw who did this was Cris Caffery, of TSO and Savatage fame. He could tell I knew who he was yet shot me a look with his eyes that said "Hey, don't fucking talk to me." And then he walked away.

Well, there you have it. Some weird/crazy/interesting shit that happened during my time there. As anyone who has been there can tell you, that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of famous, big name musicians who are there, tons of half naked models, weirdos dressed up, and tons of musicians who were popular for like 3 months in the late 80s' and early 90s'. In short, it's a good god damn time. Tons of shows and some booths (Alfred) give away free beer. Party on Wayne.

What's That Smell: Part Seven: Baby Shit & Aviation Nerds

New Year, new entry in the fabled epic goddamn journey know as "What's That Smell?"

Here we go...


My journey started the day before the actual journey. I had to  book a slot on the Super Shuttle for super fucking early the next morning, and also for the first time in my aviation life; checking in to a flight online. I was a bit nervous about checking in online, because I had never done it and the damn website was only giving me a boarding pass for one of my two flights. So far, off to an uncertain start. The Super Shuttle thing went down easy and I also got like %15 off, which amounted to like $3.
However that night things got interesting. I didn't sleep well, partly because I stayed up late and was afraid that I would oversleep and miss my shuttle/flight. Another thing was that I for some reason had an extremely upset stomach. Every two hours I would wake up feeling like I was going to give birth out of my ass. Good times so far. When I actually woke up and took a shower I thought that it would be a better start. However two things happened. 1) The Super Shuttle guy was like 20 minutes late and 2) I felt like I had to take a massive shit but couldn't because I didn't know when this fucking guy would grace me with his presence. So I had to hold that bitch in ALL DAY.
I'm glad that I did check in online since the Super Shuttle guy was late. We got there with less than an hour to go before boarding and the line to get through security was hella long. I boarded the flight, got settled in next to my window seat and busted out a book I had been wanting to read for a while (Predator: Concrete Jungle; awesomeness). I ended up reading over 2/3's of it on the flight, but kept getting distracted because some ass hat was listening to one of the TED Talks from Sir Ken Robinson and laughing hysterically. Side note to this story....TED Talks are overrated, Ken Robinson is not funny, I don't know what Ken Robinson does for a living but he apparently thinks he is a god damn comedian. Seriously, every time I have heard/seen him speak, he seems to consciously script in laughter breaks. What a tool box. ANYWAYS...so this ass hat is laughing his stupid head off and I can hear him over me listening to Tommy by The Who.
Well, that flight lands and I have to run to the exact opposite end of the airport as usual. I find my terminal and chill out for a bit. Then about 20 minutes later we board and boy was I in for a doozy. Now if anyone has read any of the previous installments of What's That Smell?, you will have deduced that I am from Grand Forks; which is where I was headed. Grand Forks is home to the University of North Dakota. Among other things, UND has a world class aviation program and about 2.3 million fucking aviation nerds with it. About 100 of them ended up being on my flight. The whole way, and by the whole way, I mean the whole way; I had to listen to these losers backseat drive and criticize the pilot for the whole god damn flight. And on top of that, (here it comes) the plane had a weird smell (boom!). Why was that? Because a fucking crying baby (who also cried the whole way) was nice enough to take a shit, before take off. By the smell of it, he probably ate another baby's shit.

Well, that's that. Flying home in less than a week. More smelliness to follow!

Going Deep...Again

Some strange things have occurred as of late. By this I am referring to my artistic pursuits. For as long as I had been making art (a good chunk of my life), I had been pooped on by various instructors and developed a pretty good sized inferiority complex regarding my work, themes, and general abilities. Not that I have over come all of that stuff, even though it's easy to say "hey get over it". BUT a few months ago, I passed with flying colors my Midpoint Presentation; which is me pitching my thesis to a panel of instructors. Then I entered a shit ton of prints and one of my books into the spring show. None of my prints got in and I was super bummed (only like 3 people got a total of 8 pieces in which was fucked up if you ask me), but my book got in! Not only did it get in, but I won my category and got a nice prize for it as well.

Fast forward about 1 month later...

I display my work on a ton of internet sites, some you can buy reproductions others the originals (if anyone who reads this is interested feel free to inquire!) Well, low and behold I am at work and I get a notification that someone bought one of my pieces as a greeting card. That blew my god damn mind! Granted I got like no money from it, but still. A few weeks later, I get a notification that someone was (and might still be) interested in acquiring some of my work. That was awesome as well.
The most recent event occurred when I again signed up for some site to display my work. I had to have my work/profile approved and I hadn't heard back for a few days. Out of the blue I get a phone call from the woman (who was super cool) runs the organization; she tells me how much she loves my work and offers me to be in a show. That again, was super awesome!
I could be jinxing myself here, but to me it feels like I have turned a corner almost. I'm getting respect from peers, and those above me regarding my work. It's a great feeling and it makes me want to bigger and better pieces; prints and books.

P.S. This is like the one time a year I go serious and deep with this blog. For reals, cause this is One Terrible Blog after all.

Stay tuned for more terribleness...