manuscript - memories

old mvs connections

2009-11-14T18:48:00.001-08:00

basement return party

MVS holiday gala party

so i look through the guest list of this mvs thing, and i see a few people i remember. people from my highschool. people from my grade. of course mr squiers is on there. he was a teacher. he did our english class. he andmr reid did a good job i thought. really out there. and inspired creativety.

then there's mrs kretzler. i mean i told her i didn't like some of the stuff i faced there. i didn't really get much of a response back. looking back she always seemed kinda aloof. her class was enjoyable. but maybe not necessarily 'cause of her. i used to just do whatever i wanted. and i guess her class was the time to do it.

then there's dan gorsky, he was lauren's brother. he was on the soccer team too. i'd eat lunch with this kid sometimes. basically everybody in the grade below me was my age. i was just like a year ahead. but one thing i didn't like about the people in that grade was the fakeness. it was really kinda like contagious. alot of those kids were twofaced.

bethany ward was jasons sister. i didn't really run into her too often.

arthur zeyda was in my grade. the guy was russian and looked like his did. he also had the notoriety of dating lauren a bit. he played tennis. and he would sit with us alot. he came with us to japan. and he actually handed me the massive attack cd. that cd got me through lots of nights in college. or poisoned my mind depending on how you looked at it. but this was an often seen face in school. last i heard he was interning with fred's dad's company.

vin romeo. my senior year english teacher. i guess you could say all my english teachers were notorious. but romeo was the one that did the beowulf stuff. i guess back then i was in kirby's back pocket. the year after i would follow him to OSU. i always thought romeo did a great job of the teaching of that old english stuff. i guess i always tried to impress the guy. with my senior recidal i had the standing ovation. but he didn't see it. so i was kinda disappointed. he was the tennis coach. and he was bald with a goatee. but the guy loved his beowulf. and i guess you could say fed into my tolkienesque interest.

lauren pond was one of my sister's friends. five grades below me i think. we contacted each other once or twice on facebook. she had gone to texas. other than that not much to say about her.

alisha gandhi was in the school when i was there. but we didn't really talk much. but i definately saw her around school. it was a small school after all. just 200 of us in the highschool. plus she was indian. so that kinda made it easy for me to notice her.

anna kersh was katie's sister. i went to their house once or twice. but those were always flukes. ankush was a big friend of theirs. i dont think i ever would've gone there, if like... it wasn't for other people. she just simply wouldn't have invited me.

kristin mann was in my grade. she invited me to one of her birthdays. it was there that i saw her friends do a weezer cover. i had never heard of them before. so i guess you could say that was a perennial step forward. she was in interesting person. she was the daughter of a lawyer. his commercials would come on our television from time to time. she always seemed kinda arty. the last i heard she was in los angeles. her father would do things like go to concerts with her. her other gift to me was that of radiohead. in speach class she did a presentation of radiohead. she basically showed off one of their dvd's and talked about it. i was immediately amazed by their stuff. that was kinda a big day for me. that was another one that got me through alot of nights. and that bands music has influenced mine alot. or you could say its profoundly warped me. either way it was just what i needed.

marlese walters was the daughter of my dad's coworker. basically she was interesting. i guess you could say a playfriend of my sister's. she was at alot of dinner's i went to. the doctors would socialize together. and the children of those doctors would get to know each other. otherwise didn't really run into her much. but we had lots of conversations. she seemed like an interestnig enough person. her mother and father were ex military. they used to get us on base all the time. which was cool. and her mom was great at video games. which was also cool.

phil blum was another soccer kid. younger than me. but we bonded over soccer. in the sense that you would see him around. and he was on your team. so you'd have to know him at least in that sense. but otherwise we didn't really talk. that's all i can really think of that kid.

julia german was another doctor's kid, and she was a friend of my sisters. apparently they don't hang out anymore. but i'd see her alot when my sister and her would hang out.

shannon holland was the sister of a guy called andy i think. he was in my grade. i didnt see her around much. she wasn't really in my circle. strange there were circles in a 200 person school. but i guess even in the smallest of places they have to enforce social hierarchy.

andrew arnett was on the soccer team. seemed like a real aggressive kid. we didn't really hang out other than that.

aubrey smith was a girl i used to ride the bus home with. because of that we automatically talked alot. it was interesting. we didn't get along down the road. she dated mike palmer for a few years. but she was interesting company on the bus ride home.

carianna suiter was the daugther of mr suiter, who definately my favorite teacher at the school. the guy taught me steven hawkings stuff. plus he was just a good conversationalist. and she was one way to get ahold of him.

alan alex adrian was a kid in a grade below mine. i dont remember much about him besides the fact that he was always really scrawny. and the last i heard he was in new york trying film. interesting stuff.

house reminding me of lauren

2009-11-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

house reminding me of lauren & me. hookup during rough times (both shattered), her with a bf (like the husband) and her cuttin me loose without a word right after.
___

but uh, yesterday, i was telling you about how house reminded me about lauren. uh, do you wanna hear why? well basically, do you remember how, well first remember the episode. house is in the ward, getting better, some girl visiting another starts seeing him. she's married with kids but she kisses house. and the pressure of her friend being sick made her have a breakdown. so while she had a breakdown house to her over to his place and slept with her. and apparently he cried when they were doing it. then later when he makes the girl better he hears his girl is leaving. but not from her but from his doctor. so he gets a day pass goes to her house and talks to her face to face. and she basically kindof was like, go away. and so house comes back and is like i don't know what to do, tells his doctor. and by addressing his problem and opening up to his doctor, he actually bought his way out of the place with that. 'cause his problem was he'd go to vicodin instead of talking

so, this is similar to the lauren situation in a couple ways. so basically like, the whole way that lauren and i got to know each other. basically you could say that robs house was the ward. and all of us there were kinda fucked up. we were just i guess you could say trying to make ourselves feel better without doctors. and so it was there that i basically met damien's girlfriend lauren. and so we kept on seeing each other and we liked each other. but the thing was that she had a boyfriend. so that kindof had a line that kept anything frmo happening. but... when vivek died, then like lauren showed up at my house, and she was just like completely distraught. and like... and like basically so was I. so we consoled each other and basically we ended up sleeping with each other. now the whole deal with like houses's girl moving. well the same thing happened to me with lauren. 'cause she moved in with damien and she kinda left me at the doorstep just like that girl did with house.

so for me that whole episode was like really reminicent of like what happened between me and lauren. so what do you think about all that? like is there anything new that you've learned about it? is there a new aspect of it that you now understand better? does it make a little more sense or shed a little more light?

"'cause the both of you lost a friend the both of you were down so you went to each other."

thats pretty spot on. but i dont think youve ever thought about it like that before have you?

"yeah i have."

like when.

"i mean just about every time you takl about the vivek thing. vivek dies lauren comes over and you sleep with her. and to me two people they feel bad their friend is gone they go to each other and just take out the emotion by sleeping with each other."

i wouldnt say taking out the emotion. maybe filling the hole with a distraction. like supporting each other in some way. when people are completely shaken by something powerful, they need something to ground them. thats what they want because it feels terrible not to have that. like a couple days ago when i realized all that shit about my past. and you basically told me about some of the shit you did in boston and i was listening to sigur ros. the same way i did that to make me feel better there, thats how lauren and i did it when vivek died. now the way we solved it wasnt the best thing in the world because it didnt really solve anything. but with you and me you know i sat down and thought about stuff alot before you made me feel better. and thats the important thing youve always gotta take the time to thikn about stuff. so you cuold say im becoming a little bit more functional and stuff.

but there was another aspect to the whole thing. basically like - how house was going to that treatment place in the first place. if something bothers you you've gotta get it off your chest and talk about it. that's what i've been doing for the past couple years and it's been helping me out. and something ellen just said kinda struck me too. if you keep things bottled up inside, you don't know what you've got hidden away. so when i opened myself up and talked about my past and felt that fear, that was a surprise. but thats the thing youve gotta talk about those things that bother you. basically its like in the past alot of fucked up things happened and in order to get over them we've gotta talk about them. as we talk about them we express those emotions and they become things we can deal with. but the most dangerous thing is an emotion you havent expressed and dont even know is inside you. thats kinda something ive learned this week. but what do you think?

"i like the whole thing that ellen said. 'cause it makes alot of sense. the quote that you made. [house] well obviously its a good thing for him because he's going to people and telling stuff about him instead of keeping it to himself."

i think that's clearly what we all need to do. i mean like... given this freedom away from my parents, and like not being around columbus either, there's alot of possibility that i get to be able to do some good. i dont understand why my dad keeps calling to be honest he should be facebooking me.

_________________________

7 - ohio-post college

2009-09-21T02:39:00.001-07:00

chapter seven.

so you can say this whole period begins with the advent of kirby's decision and abrupt departure from columbus to florida for film school. the year... 2005, and it was summer. thats when i first met up with damien rob and lauren. they were my second band that i found looking through the net. i met vivek before kirby shipped off, and the three of us all hung out for that final summer. then kirby was out. after he moved, and i think he stayed the summer, i moved into a new house, out on frambes. thats where i spent a good portion of my time, til vivek passed away in april of 06. but rob got ahold of me through the net and i met damien there at his place. lauren showed up at some point. i played with them for about three months, and rob dropped out. then damien and i continued for awhile longer. but by around new years it was all over.

i recently met up with damien rob and their band playing with jason rory and their band and in the crowd stood lauren and myself with anita. and it was interesting. jason and rory were bandmates of viveks from a band called asthmo and it was cool. they were the cd that vivek handed me when i met him in '05. basically he handed me cakewalk and i used that for all my recordings after. then he took me to the studio and that was my first experience withthat. i also had my first open mic, and my first show with a band in front of a crowd. lots of firsts. also vivek got me into the local music scene moreso than anyone else. he was the first to show me that as well. and vivek was also a general all round cool dude too. so that was always a plus for the kid. and as i was explorin the music of the town as per viveks uirgings i ran into lauren damien and rob and formed a band of my own snowdens silent canvas.

jason was the guy that vivek used to collaborate with. the two of them wrote all the songs as i understood it. when vivek passed jason reformed his band and took rory with him. they formed nuclear children, and ive since been to many of their shows. jasons a cool guy and we talk often about vivek. he's got a record label co-op thing going called champions of the arts. it never makes much money but he seems to be building a community of people. but he's still down about the death, and i used to be as well, until i just came to the realization that it was noones fault but viveks what happened. in the sense that we cant call ourselves responsible for viveks actions. and back then we dont really know how to help people with addiction and the like, nor did we really understand the dangers behind the drugs we were taking. so we were all colelctively naive and just generally young. vivek was wise too though and i believe he chose his friends wisely in that they wouldnt bother him with what he did.

but yeah i had a band of my own snowden's silent canvas. and it didn't last very long but it was fun none the less. damien rob and me. and then we had lauren there so often she must have basically been considered a fourth. we recorded i still have many of them, and lauren and i had a fling. so it brought me not only a band, but friends, and a girlfriend. but things fell apart after about six months, rob lost interest after about three, damien and lauren about six. damien and lauren had started living with each other and three became too many.

after vivek died, which was a shock to us all, i moved soon home to dayton. my lease ended that summer anyhow. but i think i might've come home early. but i was miserabl eand without direction, i'd followed people everywhere and i didnt know what it was to just kinda chart my own map. i kinda picked that up more at home. for about three years i had many breakthrough conversations with my folks with much emotion expressed about the past, our immigrations, the lack of them at home, and the problems i faced in the town. we came to better understandings, so much so that they dont bother me with my girlfriend downstairs in the basement of their house today. i tried going back to columbus in 2008 fall but i dropped out soon after enrolling at osu. i met anita about a month later in the music scene, and we've been together for about a year now. im thinking of trying agani this year with a new town, boston this time, and with three community colleges to pick from.

i was very creatively active during this period writing the bulk of my songs to date as well as many pages of text. beyodn that many photographs and... many performances wracked up to date as well. a fourth band has been together about a year my longest creative partnership with my girlfriend. ive done two studio bouts once with vivek another of my own making three years after. many of these guys knew each other, kirby had met vivek and damien rob and lauren, and lauren knew vivek and had of course met kirby, as rob and damien had also met vivek.

while i was home i didnt write much, most of my writing took place whilst i was in columbus while working with vivek and / or damien and rob. but years later beginning around 2007 i began recording again and have steadily written new material monthly since about new years 08. i often brag about having written over 2,000 songs, and its true, i have, over 2,000 unique recordings, although not all have words, but im sure im geting close to that number as a true count of songs with words recorded on pc's all unique.

moments of greatness

2009-09-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

lately ive been talking about moments of greatness, so i figured i'd go down the list.

being on the stage in highschool as a senior playing hit me baby one more itme in front of a crowd and getting a standing ovation.

so a little bit more info on that one. basically i was out there, playing my song, i'd had my acoustic, and basically it was a senior thing in the school the miami valley school more or less near oakwood in the dayton area in central ohio in the midwest of the united states. i was at the school from fall 98 to summer 03, when i finished my secondary education at the age of seventeen. so i was kinda like into this moment because basically i was not like used to getting an applause at all. i think it was the first time anyone from my senior class really gave me a hand at anything. and i guess they saw i had something i really enjoyed and i was really glad to get the applause. i was nervous, i could hardly see the people with the lights in my eyes. i was nervous. but i was super energized when everyone started to sing along with me. i had a great time and i had adrenaline shooting through me by the time i made it to the finish. i was brilliantly happy.

another key moment was the show that vivek and i did in the shisha lounge with he and i for his friends going away party

so basically its become wewll known in columbus ohio usa that at the well known hookah spot that live shows just arent allowed anymore. but this was years before, when the shows were allowed, and the place was hipper. i was there because of vivek, and he was there because of his friend. so it was weird for us to get into this place. but we managed it, and it was amazing. the place was packed and i just went through many of my songs, alot of these guys had never seen me but they were salivating for music. and basically so many folks joined in we had like maybe six or so people out there playing with us. it was amazing.

frmo strum and sung

2009-08-30T19:40:00.001-07:00

untitled by interpol

this is the sound of my highschool years wakling in the halls. hair kinda pulled under thep utka, clothes tight to the skin, and looking all around kinda paranoid and spazzed out. walking around from class to class but feeling super withdrawn, with the putka drawn tight against the skin of my head. just walking around the school and just keeping to myself.

its the sound of sitting in my apartment with like, not a whole hell of alot going on, whilst i was like sitting in frames, and perhaps with a beer, maybe a 24 pack, and just sitting listening to music, maybe staring into a computer screen, and maybe like, just complately bored. and there just wasnt a whole hell of alot going on at the time. but yeah. like there just didnt seem to be a whole hell of alot going for me back then. skinny, getting girls, but hating myself, and writing great music, but having it all be more or less consumed with dark feelings and thoughts. so i kept myself alone, as few people dared to brave the world i inhabited.

its like the sound of music playing in the dorm room over in Morrison tower in Ohio State whilst i was a Freshman, sitting by myself because those other kids moved away, couldnt stand me, so they said, and so i was alone, in my room, with my thoughts. I'd just cut my hair and my family was just not at all pleased, I was basically alone, and feeling terribly depressed. Like I wasn't in england, I had a shitty time @ school, and i beleived half of what i was told, and the other half i just threw away and had nothing left. just me alone in my room watching... donnie darko.

and then the walks around town and stuff while we tried to find a place to go to. jackets tight to the skin, szipped up, with the snow perhaps falling, cold night air, breathing out and watching fog, all in the pursuit of like alcohol. and girls. and just hating myself. its those sorts of thoughts that i remember back when i was younger than these songs seem to kinda bring me back to. walking around in scotland, enjoying it but feeling a ltitle out of place. noone really kinda got me there. and the air cold and the jacket close to my skin, rushing to get home with the beer in hand, looking forward to watching the television.

sitting by the window in harrison by myself watching the skyscrapers and stuff, it was the music of my life then, back when i thought i was just a piece of shit. i cant believe i did, but there were prolonged periods where i just thought i was a piece of shit. fter all why not. its what my aunts told me. i had no functional friends. from jacob, to allen, to kirby, to vivek, all these substance using and dependant folks, who had no futures and despair in their eyes, but vehemently defended their right to be so. walking around, romanticizing the lifestyle, hedonism in pursuit of artistic moments and people, but too shy to introduce yourself.

living alone in neil out in the city going out to bars and meeting people, biker chicks and all sorts getting attracted to me, my dark demeanor, and other things. they felt like hey, perhaps he's down and out, maybe i should toy with him. but they were afraid to get too close. instinct told them to back away. attracted to the bad boy, but then like... brushed aside. curiosity brought them to me, but by the end of the night they were history. i was after all in the grips of something.

NYC by interpol

the sound of defeat. sitting back in an armchair with beer, and kirby. sitting, watching smoke waft up. sitting in a den of drink and smoke, drug and sex. but rarely getting any human touch. the kid beside me was a crazed lunatic. perhaps he just got drunk, cried about his past, and sobered up. now we sit, and share a moment of quiet. those rough nights were how we spent our time. take to the streets, roam around, aimless, but in our own world, and in that, things were beautiful. the streets, lights, people, things, all blended into one great cacophany. and this was our life.

sitting with vivek in the apartment, where we would just play music and talk from couches and he'd dance. we'd talk about parties and sometimes go. his friends would show and i'd get the hots for 'em. we'd smoke up and trade songs. he showed me the best song he ever wrote. and beer, with some laughter, and friendship. we had companions then, lauren and i, we kept each other company. those were the good days. in the middle of the drugs, with a person there in arms reach, to talk to, to kiss. to walk with. to drive with. just exclaiming the sun was beautiful today. these things we fell into as our lives fell apart and we were left with drink drug sex and each other.

and the nights we spent together, the days of longing for her, and the never asking, but always going out ot hang out, and getting heartbroken every time she'd leave without me, but rearing to put myself right back there the next day. the addiction of it. the bliss of it. those were the days.

pda by interpol

and then there were the parties, with her friend. sometimes with strangers. always strangers. smokes, beers. always there. even amongst the weirdos friends, i was the weirdo. this was my msuci. the days of arcade fire and susan. people whose names scape me. days at the dube, the smoking, coke, weed, drink. the music. ever flowing. artsty living in a drugged out haze. each day a marvelous risk. and never knowing what would come, but never with expectation. sometimes we'd long, and we'd never go too far, only what felt right. and when the bliss of it was gone, when i was willing to go through the pain of growth, they werent, and the things all broke apart.

and the shows we did, once at the... something. back in the day. we did the shsiah. with the kid vivek once met. he was a smiley kid, i nver was. but he had the charisma to talk us into anything. unless he was on something. in which case he got teary eyed and fighty. that got us kicked out of a place. the open mic guy still sits there today. i know he remembers because he had to throw the guy out. i think i called him on it, but then, maybe not. he's scum. but i remember that day, he was just on a drug, trying to play teh piano, and that guy took the piss on him. what an asshole. just what an asshole.

and alurens friend the comic enthusiast with the apartment and the drug problem. he came back from the war, and was doing coke. he'd sit us around his wooden table. i went out moodily and she came out too. we walked and talked, she told me she didnt love me, and that i probably didnt love her either. what a sadness that spurred. i just fell deep into it. and i dont think i came out for a long time. what a fucking girl to ask me to doubt myself. what are we if we cant trust our own feelings. but she was a drug fiend and i was a freak, a loner, and a druggie though i'd never admitit. writing my songs, and she fucking her way to glory.

and then vivek as he lay in the coffin with my friend acting like a jackass but there he was the guy i spent a year with who showed me the world who i loved as a brother who i actually ohesnt to god actually loevd but there he was dead with his farther teary eyed.

say hello to the angels by interpol

and then the shows id go to sometimes great othertimes just killers of the eardrums. but those were teh days we'd spend out there on the streets just doing whatever we felt we had to. whatever moved us. money tied to us by our parents, we had no worries but girls and trying to impress the next one with a song, would we ever be gerat, these were the thoughts on our mind. never confident, and always full of possibility. perhaps those things are part and parcel. but we'd go out, and there were so many girls, so many of them that wanted a piece of me, that i wanted a piece of. so many. that kid who i found lying on the ground shot up and passed out. and ihelped 'em back to the room, and what a prequel to vivek. telling me sotries abou thorses sold for drugs. i took it all in.

shirley, tora, joelle, so many people. the drive to her house. then the deal with amber. the times out at frambes. carla and the bolivia trip. so many things. the time out with kristen, who i spent so long with, perhaps longing for her, always howing up but never getting any. i guess thats a pattern. but i had her out and she was a twat. got rid of her. but yeah. those were the days. go out, long, go home, empty handed, and beg for another round of it the next day. i think they caught on, at least lauren, she told me. but i never admitted. always so haedstrong. but maybe she was right. i'd never admit it of course. too headstrong.

and the drunken party in the room where i got my cut. lifes been a party since 2003. and stopped being so in 06. but for what reason. have i grown enough to be able to live better than i did when i was younger. can my body take the abuse. and will i regret letting myself loose.

in reaction to manuscript / memories post on radiohead:

2009-08-30T19:38:00.000-07:00

so its like there's many ways to remember the past, but the best, certainly not narration form, but the senses. that which was sight, touch, taste, heard, smelled.

a touch:
the cold snow, the soft warm clothing bundled around.

a sight:
the faces, of many people. the buildings, of Ohio State's campus. the gatherings. the confrontations, of Eddie and the Hall head.

a taste:
the vomity taste of beer, nati ice to be precise. the taste of Udon in your mouth. or of a Mirror Lake sub. or Adriaticos Pizza.

a sound:
the bands, many of them, like Radiohead, Metric, and the hundreds of others discovered through Oink, the music played through my speakers in my dorm room, in Kirby's room, in the many car rides, my own music.

a smell:
the horrible smell of sewage from raw and exposed drains. or the terrible smell of vomit, putrid. the nice smell of flavored soaps. the smell of cleanliness, of an apartment kept clean by roommates who cared, and the smell of filth, the smell of an apartment kept dirty by me, who didn't care.

radiohead, freshman year at ohio state

2009-08-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

i used to be a huge radiohead fan in my freshman year at the ohio state university in columbus ohio. the year two thousand and three the month was september and i was just moving into my dorm room named morrison tower on eleventh avenue on the ohio state university campus designated primarily for first years also known as freshman. i had two roommates, but over the course of the year, many left, and were replaced, and left. mark and rem were the first generation, and then as they both left i had a large football player. following him was a drug dealer named eddie and finally a thai gay former restaurant worker Oui. that rounded out my year. i myself was involved with drugs as im calling alcohol now, and many new faces and sounds. it was a year of discovery and destruction.

but much of my time was spent at my desk facing my computer screen listening to various bands one of them being Radiohead. i was recently turned onto torrenting and i had managed to pick up every album by the band and was just listening through years worth of work. these guys began their odyssey in the 90s and even earlier if you count the years before they were famous. so for me to pick them up in 2003 was to take a look after a great deal of work had been done. but i was hooked, and i listened quite a bit to their music.

Coachella '05 - the year i went.

2009-07-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

so in april? '05 an interesting thing happened. april 30th, may 1st. i took a flight out to california, checked into a hotel @ an indian casino ,and attended the 2005 edition of the coachella music festival. 'course, if i remember right, i just stayed for day 1. it was depressingly boring being there alone so i just kinda hung out on the second day and got outa there. definately a group affair.

but i do have some grainy ass photos lying around someplace of the event. lets see what i can find. alright, so here's what i've got:

so yeah, getting back to it, april 30 '05 to may 1 '05. well... since i'd've entered college fall '03, that year stretching to summer '04. then fall '04'd be the sophomore year, within the bounds of the months in harrison tower, and that'd stretch until the summer of '05. well... i think i remember skipping a class to attend the show hah. i guess i had to, in order to attend, but then i think the compromise was i got back to classes in order to miss the second day. but anyway yeah, was pretty cool, i saw some big bands, weezer, coldplay, bloc party, all great shows, plus other folks id not heard of before. so it was good times. the amount and type of people out there was also pretty amazing. my dad stayed with me in the casino. but he didnt go out with me to the show. i told him he wouldn't like it anyway. but yeah, it was pretty cool. i kinda wish i'd taken better care and organization with the photos though, as there's alot thats missing that i did get to see. i saw the raveonettes, i remember that, and buck 65. who else... well those big sculptures on display. drums you could play by walking up to them and stuff. pretty cool. of course the merch tents too, that and the water you had to buy but werent allowed to bring. and the swealtering heat of course. plus the cool-factor of sitting on the grass watching coldplay perform in the night main theater. great stuff.

metric spurring on memory of college and highschool

2009-07-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

i'm listening to metric and i feel like talking about the past. specifically the college years.

alot of positive things happened in college. i got into alot of new music. all through this site called oink.me, british, with all sorts of different styles of music. and yeah, i would sit in my room, and just listen to music all day long. i used to watch donnie darko alot. and the song... i forgot the name, but i used to listen to that one alot. bloc party was an exciting new band back then. sigur ros was amazing but i dont think i got too into them until sophomore year.

freshman year memories?

well the first thing'd be like, the orientation. i went down with my group, the international affairs scholars. i still had the turban and beard, and got lots of positive questions and comments. when i said i played guitar & music i got alot of positive stuff from that too. girls and guys alike both seemed to kinda gravitate to me so i was kinda floored by that. i was looking forward to having a great year. i dont remember any of my classes from my freshman year. like... i just dont recall what i took, at all. but i remember the room. i was in a building called morrison tower. in the corner. i had a 3 bed room with two roommates. ive written alot about the roommates, but i had 2 to start, rem and... mark? and both left one by one. i was told i was too messy, by others, but i never really got straight answers as to why. i guess mark just moved out to live with his better friends. of course i felt let down. i was young. i just like... felt shitty about it. why did these kids not want to be my friend, instead the neighbors, and why was i so shitty as to be worthy of moving away from. but that's how it went down. and then there was rem, the second of the original two. he was a dude i recognized from my after-prom. he played sax in the band, i drove my beamer there, with... kristen... a girl who i basically have visited a bit since then but i didnt really well along with at all. like she was just fucking uptight as hell. thats probably telling anita about for a laugh.

but yeah... rem left. and i was by myself. but this didn't last, i had a football player shoved in there. he left for bigger and better things, had the connections as a player... i never really spoke with him much, again most of what i heard was either highly suspicious crap from the kid but he did basically get outa there real quick. and yeah... then he was out, and they stuck in... another guy. this one was a dude who literally dealt weed out of the room. crazy shit hah. he got kicked out after literally screaming at the dude down on the first floor. alot of this stuff i just remember observing, like as if i wasn't directly involved. there was another instance where i found a kid lying on the floor just as you walk in, turned out he was strung out on heroin he told tales of being like rich with horses, who he'd sold for junk. i didn't know if i could believe a word he said, but i'd grown up having been taught by my parents to trust all indian people, so i just kinda gave him this respect that perhaps he didn't deserve. perhaps vivek got the same thing. i don't know. but its weird. that guy was just like lying there, and there was like nobody around nobody to help him or anything. and weird thing was he wasnt even asking for help. he was just that out of it.

but there were many nights of drinking. and not healthily, but like... excessive binges with kids who had no futures or at least thought it. gregs place, kirbys place, my place. name the spot, we'd drink. the shot, the beer. whatever. the cheapest was best as tey were perpetually poor and it kinda got you more beer for the limited funds they usually had. i just went with it, i had all the money i needed, but i didnt really feel welcome spending any of it either, as my folks, doctors though they were, had really encouraged me to spend frugally. so thats kinda how i was... to start. weed got involved at some point, like chris kinda like introduced us to weed. he had some hookup someplace, and we used it to get some. i mean i doubt id ever have come in contact with the stuff had i not know the guy. i mean i didnt know the first thing about where to get the stuff, or even like... what you'd even do with it. but yeah. classes were a blur. i probably didnt go to many, i dont know. it was a whirlwind, that first year. i dont remember too much of it. i spent alot of nights in my room probably freezing cold huddled by the pc. one warm spot was when i met shirley. shirley temple, she was a friend of tora's, who i'd previously gone after. in between there was joelle. but yeah shirley and i never really hit it off. i guess like... looking back... i was too immature. i mean everything was a blur then. and i had noone who helped focus me. not my folks, or anyone else. like my folks had made cutting my beard a sin, so for that, and the third culture kid shit i experienced, i mean i was just not in the mood to deal with them any longer, they had soured our relationship with years of shady shit.

so like, yeah, without role model, i gravitated to people similarly as nihilistic and directionless. heh... and in a way they gave me a direction, a purpose, to be as fucked up as i could be. as drunk... and yeah ive beenthinking lately of things that like your situations can enable, like your background and circumstances that can enable happenings. so like... the network of friends i had, that i'd carried from highschool, enabled much drinking. however snice the kids were all antisocial the party scene was out. and so i never got laid freshman year. that was one thing i was like... hugely against. i mean like, no dating in highschool. then like, a few awkward relationships freshman year. cause after shirley there was... carla. and she was weird. like as a relationship. i met her over in bolivia, where i went with the IA scholars, and me and a jewish kid had a fight essentially over who could get her, and in the end i guess i did. but then i didn't do much with her at all so there's that. but shirley was the one who i felt the biggest like... i guess... anything with. like i just was rediculously joyous aruond her, but like... it just ended. i dont know where it went, and i guess you could say i enjoyed what i could get but i didnt know enough to key into it and do anything iwth it. that's something that'd come much much later, after years of just slowly learning it all. good old parents and their backwards views on dating. thats right, restrict your kids for religious reasons, don't explain it to them, don't explain it as a choice, just brainwash them that their chosen religion is your prison.

besides those two, there was a brief period where i was after joelle, another brief period where i was after tora.

listening to metric just makes me feel young. makes me feel like how i did when i was in college that first year. like... anything was possible, at least i felt, and like... every day and night was exciting. and like... this record was one of those exciting things, somthing i can enjoy even today. so its like, in a way, parts of those times are still with me, with the music. much like in a way, massive attack's 100th window is with me from those days, portishead's everything is with me from that freshman year again, most of radiohead's stuff from that freshman year, franz ferdinand, postal service, bloc party, modest mouse, are all with me. its interesting how music can stay with you like that. like, for me, the japanese trip i took in highschool in MVS had a few albums surrounding it, jurassic 5's power in numbers, and then supercar's single, plus massive attack's 100th window. this was back in 2001 i'm guessing. between fall '01 and summer '02. my junior year @ mvs.

and yeah, back to college. this album, metric's '03 release Old World Underground. well, i was a freshman @ osu fall '03 to summer '04. that was my tenure @ school. and i vaguely remember that first summer back home too, like i was messaging folks n stuff. was kinda interesting. like AIM and all that junk. but yeah i felt freer then than i do now. but yeah... things went sour. really sour. drugs, alcohol, skipping classes, getting a letter reading i was under warning, then another letter saying i was suspended. then i tried columbus state, i hated it, i left. i tried wright stat,e i was turned down. i tried ohio state again, i left soon after applying.

three months after the 3 year anniversary of vivek's death.

2009-07-05T08:55:00.001-07:00

so yeah, it's been three years and this is still a topic of conversation. i guess its worth reflecting about how it allw ent down.

well, its 2009 now, vivek was found dead in his apartment in 2006, april, just days after he and i finished a stint in the studio, rephraze studios, in dayton ohio.

i ran into vivek, or rather, vivek ran into me, in 2005. i was sitting outside, playing guitar, and there the kid was, walking down the street. it was late, i guess most folks wouldn't be up. but that was kinda the first sign i guess that things'd be interesting between the two of us.

i was a freshman in college in the fall of 2003 til the summer of 2004. i was a sophomore at the ohio state university from the fall of 2004 to the summer of 2005. im guessing i ran into that kid during my sophomore year, although it may have been in the summer. ive written out diagrams which have the exact dates, but for our purposes here, i'll say it's early 2005.

so im playing my acoustic guitar, playing a song i'd written whilst i was in england, perhaps in the summer of 2003, between my senior year of highschool (fall of 2002 to summer of 2003), and my freshman year of college (fall of 2003 to summer of 2004). the year is now 2009, and i have played the song as late as 2009, in open mics in Dayton ohio and Columbus ohio. so this is a song that has been with me for awhile. and has alot of meaning to me. it some say may very well be my best song. although Anita has claimed that of some of my most recently made stuff, which im glad to hear. its always good to improve.

and then vivek stops by, asks me if i was who he though ti was, i confirmed, and then we talked a bit, he mentioned he lived down the road, and that i was welcome to visit. i took him up on it, perhaps not that day, perhaps later, perhaps it was that day. but over time i saw his basement, where he slept, and saw his recording machine. i listened to his demos, and he was telling me i should record with him. but i was of course already real used to recording, kinda comfortable with my own setup, and so i was more or less like, nah thanks but im good. but basically yeah thats how we met. and then he gives me a copy of cakewalk, which still is installed on my computer sitting in the basement today. it is what i used to record my music in the years following. so from the summer of 2005 until about... well i came to columbus for the second time in the fall of 2008. i brought laptops which i used to record with. i brought my cakewalk computer in the winter of 2008, and i used it to record my demo with anita for our band the welsh assembly. so its been something thats stayed with me awhile.

and besides that, i invite vivek over a few times. we drank alot back then, so that'd happen, plus the uh... well he'd smoke weed, vivek was a big weed smoker back then, with his own pipe and he'd get his weed from his dealers. some of 'em were also his friends, and so that'd work out for him since he'd get the "friend discount" which is basically having a hookup purely for free weed. they would come over, bring their weed, and then they'd all smoke it. i was asked to try it, and after a few times of turning it down i tried. basically i was surprised with how it affected me. i got the sense his friends were doing other harder drugs, such as ether, and the like, but i stayed away from all that. it was the weed that i did, and i never paid for it, i would just go to vivek's house and smoke for free, and i really wouldn't go there to smoke either, it just happened to be there, i was going to meet a friend from highschool, someone who i just hung out with, and at that time i really wasnt hanging out with anyone else, besides my roommates, as i'd moved out the dorms ( like most people do in their sophomore year ) and i'd stopped keeping in touch with those folks who i'd befriended in my freshman year ( fall of 2003 to summer of 2004 ).

so through kirby, well, the guy was on some hallucinagen experimentations, he'd look stuff up on the net, decide if he wanted to try it out, if he did, he'd go out, buy some, and give it a go. see kirby was alright with drug experimentation, and he'd pick up all sorts of crap. once or twice shrooms were around. mostly it was dex. and he talked me into doing it with him. i dont know why but thats kinda how it went. so i did it, dex was the street name of a pill you would take for basically allergies i believe. im not too sure. but the pills were red, gell pills, and i to this day refuse to touch them as they give me a queasy stomache just thinking about it. you see, you would have to down about 3 to 4 bottles to get the full effect. really 1 or 2 would do it, but there were levels of highs kirby would describe as plateu's, and basically the better high would give you more effects. and essentially the more the effects, the better the high was considered. at least by kirby. i didnt know anything, and i just did what i was told.

see for me, it was all exciting. i had no concept of the dangers i was putting myself in. i soon found out. weeks into our dex experiments, i was taken by an ambulence to the hospital. i was alright, but i was found unconcious on the ground. relatively so. according to kirby's later accounts, i was actually conscious, but delirious, and was easily talked into an ambulence. i have no memories of it. i do remember waking up to a doctor, who sternly lectured me for taking that which i had, mentioning how i could have killed myself. i slowly pulled myself together, made a phone call, and was out of there. kirby was waiting back at the apartment, the rat. he'd let me go off into an ambulence, knowing i'd be charged a few hundred dollars, knowing the drugs weren't fatal, yet he allowed it, letting me think i was going to die, letting me have the death scare and all that. its taken me years to even begin to conceptualize that i wasnt actually at deaths door, that the scare mongering physician had just pulled my leg to try and scare me straight, that it was more disapproval and conservative scolding than real life threat.

but later, i would find a circumstance where a drug could indeed take a life. i was sitting in a bar with a friend of mine from freshman year (fall of 2003 to summer of 2004) nick arnold and his girlfriend. i was sitting there likely soon after the recording sessions with vivek had completed (spring of 2006). i get a phone call and its jason, he lets me know vivek's body has been found. im surprised, shocked, as is nick, and i later found out he told his roommate jared baker, who i recently contacted ( june 2009 ) and had a word with. there were other friends whom i'd kept in touch with that year ( spring 2005 ) millie & nick, both whom i've contacted this year ( first half of 2009 ) and both whom i've got tidbits from regarding my own state after my friend died. according to millie, who i spoke to last month ( june 2009 ) i mentioned the death to her, and soon after i more or less stopped hanging out. she mentioned to me how she felt it was O.K. i was surprised she even had an opinion on it. it was new to me to think that Millie really was someone who'd cared about me. i guess i'd forgotten about my time with the Indian American Association at Ohio State University. I believe i was a student through some of it, but withdrew and later just went to visit the people i'd known.

But the funeral, it was tough, i saw faces of people i recognized from highschool, people who i played soccer with, shared halls with, but i got no resopnses. i feel like i was given the cold shoulder by alot of people. Blake Nolan surprised me the most really. Someone who'd been the captain, under which i'd been a freshman, yet i had not a single word from the guy when i walked up. I was in a sorry state, i hadn't seen these folks for years, hadn't yet broken the ice in my sociability, and had just endured the death of a friend who i hadn't really dealt with healthily. his death loomed in my mind, whilst my third culture kid stunted development had me at a loss for words in the presence of familiar faces. so i lost out on an oppertunity to connect with people. but they literally watched me walk up, didn't say a word, then watched me walk away. it was terrible. that is fucking rude ass shit. and these fuckers are stuck up bastards. it was a slow process for me to learn how many of these people didn't give a shit about me. for some reason i thought they did. i was sorely mistaken. i had just assumed it, and it really had never been there. had i opened myself up, shown myself off to folks, and gotten a true reaction and gague to what i was putting out there, i might have had some clue as to what really these people thought of me. but since i hadn't gotten that, and instead i had no litmus tests done, i had nothing to base my views on these people off of. so i mythologized them. and then those fantasies came crushing down in the face of a serious moment where real support was being extended, apparently i hadn't qualified for it. a shame.

general sum up

2009-07-05T05:38:00.001-07:00

so i used to live in a place called harrison apartments on lane avenue in columbus ohio usa. this was from the year... well let me see. if i graduated from highschool in summer 2003 and then went to college in fall 2003, then fall 2004 i would have begun my second year. so in fall 2004 i begun living in harrison apartments, and lived there until likely fall 2005 as i stayed the summer that year while my roommates had moved out.

i did later get a chance to speak with one of my roommates, years later. my 23rd birthday, in beavercreek ohio. he came to me. as did another of my old friends. in 2009. and it was interesting. i got a chance to speak to the guy about how i kept to myself. about how i could have indeed spoken more. and all that. so i did. and it was good. it was an amazing conversation. and i got a chance to get alot off my chest.

the guy was called curt. the other guy was called kirby. i graduated MVS highschool in 2003, meaning my freshman year there was 1999. well... summer of 2003, meaning the school year began in fall of 2002. so i guess... fall of 1998? which would make... the one year i spent in their "middle" school be from the years fall of 1997 to summer of 1998. i met curt during that first year, from the fall of 1997 to summer of 1998. i met kirby in that first year of highschool, from the fall of 1998, to the summer of 1999. all three of us, kirby curt and myself, played soccer together. i actually managed to get the three of us to sit down and do some songs and stuff on a picnic table in MVS at the edge of the soccer field. Kirby joined a friend of mine named Kelvin in the fall of 1998 to summer of 1999 period to record a little song called masters of the night. interesting stuff... heh.

Another interesting thing durnig that whole tenure at MVS from the fall of 1998 to the summer of 2003. well, the tenure at the miami valley high school. Matt White broke his own arm running into a pole... yep. there was also the soccer deal which must have happened my senior year. fall of 2002 through summer of 2003. for whatever reason everyone in my class was relatively decent about hazing people. i mean i dont really think we ever had our own equivolent of evan hatten or blake nolan. those guys were fucking insane. heh. but then maybe that was just my fearful view at the time.

and i do actually remember our last soccer game, sitting on the bench with stadium lights across the field, a jv player kicked up to varsity for the final game, and it was emotional for the coach, mario carillo. we all could kinda romanticize it a bit, sitting on the field with the lights in the twilight. playing hard but losing ugly. but that day was not so much about the game as it was about the passing of the torch, the ushering on of the children who had done their time, and the chance for a new veteran to take the top rank, and a new newbie to come and be the chum bucket cleaner.

i remember getting on stage for senior recidal, which would be the fall of 2002 through summer of 2003 year, and yeah... that was nice. standing ovation from people like mandy gutmann and who else... elizabeth grimes maybe?... it was interesting. all of the beautiful girls who i'd consecutively had crushes on, suddenly liked me, and for what? a song on a stage. apparently it held some power, apparently i had some power, because i had the power to make them sing and clap in joy. smiles, standing folks, claps. it was great. and i just loved how it seemed finally after years of just kinda minding my own business, i had this moment of shared extasy with all these people who i'd rubbed elbows with for in some cases up to five years, and they managed to see the joyful kid i was inside, and they liked it. its a shame i cuoldn't have come out of the shell more often, but that one experience assured me that yes i was human and yes these people were approachable, that yse there were parts of myself these folks liked, and that perhaps i was going about this whole people thing wrong.

i participated in an open mic-contest thing in ohio state freshman year, which would be from fall 2003 to spring 2004. that year was eventful. just the roommates alone were crazy. i had 2 to start, one moved out, then the other, neither really felt they liked me, and both found places elsewhere. so i began with a 3 bed-room, and ended up with just one. i don't know exactly why it broke down like that, but perhaps they were just fucking racist heh. perhaps they didn't know how to deal with people different than them. but yeah. indian kid with a head covering ends up alone in his 3-bed room. rem was crazy. mark was just interested in his own shit. but then the replacements came. the football player, who had a couch he slept on intead of the... well... basically instead of the bed. kicked his girlfriend in the face with his knee after he stuck his finger into the electrical socket. apparently had all these stories of crazy sex parties and shit that he and his football player friends would go to and just have massive sex with tons of chicks. rediculous shit hah. but the dude was like raunchy as fuck. grimy, grotey, i couldnt see what any chick could find nice about the guy. but yeah. after that, there was the drug dealer. and he was fucking crazy. we had beer cans all over the table, my head got gashed open, and uh... yeah. he got himself kicked out, and earned me a warning for the booze hah. and then after that... well... heh. that was oui. and he didnt last long either. but he was my gay roommate, who i had for a little while. basically most people couldnt get over the fact that my clothes were lying around, but really. fucking clothes lying around? ive seen MUCH worse. i didnt leave food out, there was never much of a mess. just clothes. so im guessing it had more to do with me. apparently i had a dark cloud over my head, either that or they were racist ohioans, which isnt hard to imagine heh. i think though people got i wanted to keep to myself and they didn't bother me too much. i guess i still hadn't yet learned how to talk to people, carrying that over from 5 years of highschool. (98-03). but i kinda relate that to my being a third culture kid, during the years of my immigration (92-95). and how that kinda effected things afterwards.

ohio, the highschool years

2009-06-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

the first time i met kirby

so i was on the soccer field, and this massive dude with glasses walks up. we begin talkin, and immediately become chummy. the dude was like 7 foot tall 300 pounds, or at least he seemed it at the time. i was a bit of a fighter & devil may care daredevil type and so whenever i saw someone bigger than me i immediately tried to size them up and try to take them down hah. like fighting. so yeah. that was the first time i met the dude. he also cleted some guy in the face. and we'd run around laps on the field, suicides up and down, and we'd have to fetch the water for the upperclassmen.

the first time i went to MVS

i can remember taking a test in a summer with erin edmiston & others. we were sitting in czarnoda's science lab, and basically we were given a set amount of time to sort our stuff out, after which the time was up and we were free to go. simple standardized tests to gague our performance.

then there was the first day i'd visited, with ross being my guide, and people like beanie & others playing around. everyone used to make fun of and beat up the kid. i never really got too into that whole group, they were intensely protective of one another and also extremely expressive amongst themselves which tended to lead to very many uncomfortable situations for anyone not in the "clan". but we went to dennys, played on a soccer field, i sat through a class, and thats more or less it.

period: MVS

2009-04-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

so this is when i was living in beavercreek ohio. i was living in my parents home. my sister lived with me too.

so to the topic. i was speaking with my friend and i was told my immersion cd came out in 2002. this was a surprise to me because i had assumed it had been 2003. but i suppose i was mistaken. so that was neat. i recorded material @ my friend paul's house. i recorded material with my own all-in-one hard drive recorder. i recorded with friends of mine from my graduating class, aka my grade. i had my drummer friend david percy and my tabla playing friend angad singh meet me. i recorded my electric guitar and i recorded david and angad's drums with me. i recorded david and myself later which i would call more of a blues thing.

2008-11-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

ive started doing a sort of autobiography story thing for a 500,000 word short story competition due at the end of november. im about 10 percent through the whole thing.

met up with jason and spoke of vivek

2008-08-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

jason filled in some gaps in my mind of what vivek was doing in the years i didnt encounter him. vivek rory and jason were freshman at ohio state. sophmore year tey met for the first time. jason had a friend from his home town like i had with kirby and through this friend he met his friends roommate vivek a different guy who worked out and was working on becoming a engineer. there was a small get together and vivek was there with his friend vivek. jason said vivek was very awkward and nervous and maybe didnt have much self confidence. this is very different than what i remember vivek as. but it also makes sense. jason took vivek under his wing at first they were friends but later vivek would call jason late at night and advise him on various stuff. the way nick and kirby did for me. and vivek had a bad relationship with him parents. they wanted him to study and he didnt really. so vivek and rory and jason didnt begin playing together until their junior year. when they did get to playing they also had a drummer and the band was called the mannaquin republic.

there was a television skit where a kid called asthmo would sit and perhaps get bossed around and he finally got the courage to stand up to the woman and she sat on him. he was called asthmo because he had asthma and they nicknamed him that.

i thought that was kind of not great the way they made fun of vivek. but then i guess they like nick and kirby also did him some good. in the end though i decided kirby and nick were not good for me.

photo

2008-05-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

so yea its rarely good to do this but i went n got out old photos ;p

these are the ones that really kinda catch my eye as stand out ones

era: chicago: roycemore

2008-04-17T08:13:00.001-07:00

i remember reading the indian in the cupboard books, and the tintin booksin the library, the classroom used to be on the corner, and thats where i took my psats, and the kids mother with the alien coming out of her shirt lol.

2008-03-09T15:22:00.001-07:00

i was born in wales, a place of great natural beauty. i grew up in blackburn, an old town with lots of crumbling stone old halls and uniforms. i was a young boy in chicago, my first big city. i was a young man in ohio, the heartland of farm country.

period: now: reflecting

2008-03-02T02:45:00.000-08:00

i've thought ofa few things

the quality and clarity of your writing conveys the meaning moreso than the feeling in your writing. while you can have passion in youwriting you need clarity. you need to be able to say an describe your thought and to put ti into words for tother people to really grasp it the way you do. not just seeing the words and getting the gist of it but really feeling how you feel seeing how you see and resacting the away you react. that is really difficult. but maybe if you dont give them reasons but isntead give them feelings and describe those with clarity they can understand them the cirucmstances from whic htheyve sprouted dont have to be something they really agree with because they dont have to be in the description and in that in that method then you cna realy get them to feel something that is yours and then they are really getting something form you relating to you through th ethe text you dont want people to relate to the text through you, you want them torelate to you through your text, and maybe through your song you can get them to relate to you rather than to your song. but its all interesting

anyway on teh subjusct of vivek, why did he come up? because i was sitting in here and suddenly thoght to open it up, im not sure why, i think it was a phrase i red somewhere on someone pondering the meaning of life ah tompts that was where i was looking through old fantasy and there was this tomp t description of one pondering the meaning of life and death and the word death got me thinking about ivvek and then i checked out his myspace and listend to the songs and i hear them differently many different ways have i heard those songs and get new things out of them even today i felt like iw as fprying out iveks secrets trying to understand him and i realized its the people who you look up to as heros that really make things pretty amazing without them then things dont seem as bright ufn and wonderful but vivek was my hero and it is tough when your hero dies and you are there but that happened to me and it wasnt easy this was a difficult period i wastched his body there on the display at teh funeral but i am reading that people return to their elements like we go we build up our body we build up our thougtsh we learn and grow through out life and dthen we return our elements to the world but i wodner because our personalities arent stone or water or air there is somethign there while we areputting togethersomething it does take a life of its own on in the personality and i wonder if those conitnue somewhere with this afterlife idea or something i dont know where they do end up but i do know that there are lots of things about it that are interesting and also things that i have lrge gaps in my understanding of
now that im here in aberdeen im wondering if i came to the right place its cold every day aive read some ome describe aberdeen as three hours below the ... what is it the ... polar .. zone? where its cold and it is cold we have the ocean air and the generally midl weather and also the mild abnd slightly bitter an dhistile tmerpamnt of the people whic his such a huge difference betern the icelandic point of view but at least these people show their contempt to you in america they dont and just hold themselves back immensely and you have these people who spend most of their energy and effort into holding back ; p ai guess there is more of a threat here but i mean i dont really feel threatened. iceland is still my tpoplace and its only moreso the case now that ive ben to aberdeen and seen some of the people here.

period: columbus

2008-01-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

columbus: frambes: amber: on the couch

i had my arm around her and we were sitting talking to friends
i felt invulnerable with her there

we made out on that couch once
we made out in the movie theatre

i remember standing with her outside
i remember seeing her at a club

the club downtown where the party was going on

period: person reflection

2008-01-26T09:14:00.000-08:00

first time met: at a event held at the miami valley school announcing awards for scholarships and achievements with podium speach and crowd in the suburbs of dayton in the state of ohio in the country of usa

last time seen: on the street at the club in the city of dayton in the state of ohio in the country of usa

best shared memory: winter trip traveling to shirley's home in car with few friends visiting her house meeting her parents sliding outside on snow meeting her dog being locked out of the house knocking on the door of neighbor telling her i liked her on the drive back and she told me she liked me with everyone asleep in the back

period: person

2008-01-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

first time met:

on the stage in the miami valley school seeing an indian kid with a guitar singing with a band and playing guitar smiling having fun making it look fun to do

last time seen:

at the two person table in the rear area of chipotle where less people sit eating a burrito

top memory:

playing guitar singing into a mic with amp plugged into the wall at shisha lounge to people filling the place completely having fun getting warm reception and respect and praise and enjoying

period: columbus

2008-01-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

college: freshman year: IA scholars: bolivia trip: carla

when i was over in bolivia i ran into a girl called carla. i felt something for her and this was her home country where her family lived and i think i was and jared was also trying to get her attention. on the bus it seemed like he had gotten her attention but in the hotel and i dont know when i had her attention. and we were going out and into the market place i remember holding her hand and running along the streets in the markets and having a great time. there was something exciting then that was really cool.

period: columbus

2008-01-24T13:35:00.001-08:00

college: freshman year: the winter spent in shirley's town

i drove down with shirley tora kirby gregg and joelle

we spent some time in tora house

i went to shirley's house with her

i met her dog her father and mother

we spoke about music and slid down the driveway on the ice

we got locked out of her house and went to the house next door until her parents came back inside

on the drive back i told shirley that i liked her

she told me that she liked me too

it was a nice time that i had

a good time with a nice good person that i really loved

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

osu: the other hang out spots

there was eddies the best bar in town because it would serve alcohol to people without checking id's then there was steak and shake open all night where i pulled some all night study sessions and there was a place called bento go go where i would grab some sushi alot of times

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:35:00.001-08:00

osu: the hang out spot

vivek and i used to go and hang out at chipotle, we'd get a burrito each and go to the back room where there werent many people around and we'd just hang out and talk about whatever. sometimes it was band names, other times it was about music stuff, always something exciting and always some scheme being plotted back in the headquarters out of the rear room in chipotle.

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:34:00.001-08:00

osu: freshman year: food

we used to go eat pizza late at night at a place across the street one place sold out the window another was a dine in sit down place adriaticos with some of the best pizza id ever had and down further was a more stylish cafeteria style place with vegetables and things and then down in the middle of campus was a sub restaurant with nice subs, mirror lake

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:33:00.001-08:00

osu: freshman year: the dorms: gregg's massive alcohol stash

we used to go down to greggs room and get drunk gregg used to keep loads of alcohol in his room and we would go and have lots of drinks there

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:32:00.001-08:00

osu: freshman year: dorms: kirby's room: the martini making set

kirby used to make all sorts of martinis freshman year out his dorm room and invite loads of people to come by and have drinks

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

osu: freshman year: IA scholars: toronto trip

we also drove down to toronto
spent a couple nights there, went on some tours, saw some of the districts, walked near the college campuses, went bar hopping by night

period: osu

2008-01-23T09:30:00.001-08:00

osu: freshman year: IA scholars: Bolivia trip

we went with the ia scholars down to bolivia. i had never heard of it before then, except in old disney cartoons. great place with political turmoil, llama steaks, and cervesa

period: mvs

2008-01-23T09:29:00.001-08:00

mvs: 8th grade: independant study time

part of our eight grade year was traveling to gettysburg to see the battlefields there

period: post sinclair

2008-01-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

went to iceland, saw rejkyavik, saw a band, walked in the city, saw the university, hung out in a library

i had a really great time and we only had 2 nights there

period: return to dayton

2008-01-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

i remember when i was sitting at home and read a message written in kirby's handwriting outside my door

kirby had come to visit and had knocked on teh door but i didn't know
i called him up right away and adam and he came over later on

when they walked inside i was literally shaking i was so excited

period: columbus

2008-01-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

i remember going to vivek's house in beavercreek

there was a family get together, goldie was there along with other people

period: return to dayton

2008-01-23T07:48:00.000-08:00

dayton: friends: Richard

when i returned from columbus i sought out old friends, one of them was a guy named richard. we went to high school together and kept in touch sporatically since.

i saw him with his girlfriend, i do not remember her name, but she was being talked down to by richard, and i was angry by it. when i saw him speaking to someone that way i decided to tell her directly that wasnt a cool way to act and then i told him later. but that was the end of our friendship. i didnt want to continue being friends with someone like that.

period: highschool

2008-01-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

highschool: immersion

one immersion i did with a guy named paul, i made a cd

one immersion i went to japan

one immersion i did photography

period: return to dayton

2008-01-22T12:21:00.001-08:00

last september i got serious about playing open mics, i went and played alot every week i was out someplace and just singing and playing in front of people, it was pretty crazy and pertty awesome at the same time.

period: columbus

2008-01-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

columbus: college: freshman year: cutting hair

so this was something i had thought about for ages and ages and i was excited to do it, to cut it off and to be free of it and to be free really and truely, to be liberated and free, but my parents were hardcore against it like really hardcore, and it was difficult to just go and do it while livin at home. well while i was out at college i got one of my friends to go and cut it and managed to actually do it, and that was amazin. the feelin was great and liberatin as hell. i felt free!

period: return to dayton

2008-01-22T11:20:00.004-08:00

i remember talking to this girl online i guess she was someone on xanga or myspace and i got her on aim and then on the phone. we met up, got icecream, went somewhere, and ended up hooking up in the back of a car. which was unexpected because i was just going to say hi. i got weirded out, i didnt call for a long time after.

period: columbus

2008-01-22T11:20:00.003-08:00

lauren: first time in bed

lots of drugs had been taken, mostly pills, and alcohol i think, and she asked me do you want to sleep with me, and i said yeah, and we did it, i dont know if we really did it or not, but i remember her getting undressed.

period: columbus

2008-01-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

lauren: first time

i met her in robs basement

she was there as a friend of rob and damiens
i guess they all went to school together
rob invited her over
damien had a crush on her
she might have had a crush on damien

she was there while we were writing and playing music

period: columbus

2008-01-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

columbus: vivek: suicide: why?

i wonder why he did it. did he do it? what exactly happened. I never heard back on what the toxacology report was. the results. i think the result was they found many different kinds of substances in his system. i wonder why he did it. he was doing heroin. he began not that many months before. i dont know why he did it.

the fact is he was found in his room, dead, with many substances in his body.

the fact is he was buying heroin and using it.

these facts need to be taken to heart, before anything else.

era: qegs

2008-01-22T08:38:00.002-08:00

in quegs we put on some sort of a play where i was an aold man in bed meant to snore loudly

era: blackburn

2008-01-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

used to take swimming lessons and the pool, also saw the ... pagemaster? film about a boy wizard who reads and could d osomething magical wiht it... unsure

a guy used to drive videos to our house in the back of his car

a guy named uncle bob and aunty kora lived next door,

we used to race to our house first is the worst second is the best third is the one with the hairy chest

the other one was gold silver bronze and a bit fat belly

nina used to get big fat belly alot

QEGS

2008-01-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

they used to have us do piano violin and recorder lessons

we wore garters and gray socks

in heathfield we wore green cardigans and

era: ankeney

2008-01-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

there was a guy who used to clean up the trash but he was also a kid at the school kinda strange

there was a band instructor, i was in band and played trombone, i joined cause in fairbrook goldie joined

there was a song called basin street blues which i really liked and played that alot at home

we played concerts and it was fun

era: england

2008-01-22T08:26:00.001-08:00

i think punch and judy was really common at birthdays

era: England

2008-01-22T08:24:00.001-08:00

guy falks: so a guy trie to bomb the queen but they caught his so the cut off his head had it tarred feathered and put on display in the london dungeon which i saw when i was younger

era: QEGS

2008-01-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

queen elizabeths grammer school black top playground and swimming pool building dining hall wooden tables floor apple crumble singing hymns ( our father who art in heaven ... ) soccer on fridays cricket sometimes gym matt riley cherie phillip christopher barker i went to his house and his grandmother made me apple crumble and it was near guy falks day i think ian had a birthday where he took us all to the blackburn stadium

heathfield

2008-01-22T08:18:00.000-08:00

there was mohammed and hannah and lots of other people that i dont remember

i scraped my knee once and the teacher helped me

we played in the gym alot

i remember the uniform was green

era: fairbrook

2008-01-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

i liked a girl called goldie mehan before her charlotte winter but i never had the guts to say anything to charlotte goldie though i told her i liked her and then people walked around in the halls saying tha goldie and i were going out which made me really embaressed because we werent really going out just i had asked her and she handt said anything

her friend and her laughed at hair on my legs

i had a friend named jacob martin he lived in my apartment complex and he was from missouri

we were both in boy scouts and we made something called the woodland warriors where we would go out into the woods behind hte apartments and we would follow trails and things and we found this huge field with tons of cement blocks really high and we made these ideas to make forts and things out of the blocks

wiht the boy scouts i went on a few camping trips we went out into the rain and the forest and roamed on these paths for a long way it was fun and we made a fire and decided to keep it up even through the rain and we did and someone had a bird dropping fall on his head and we did a long hike where we walked for ten miles which was a long long way back then

i was in the beavercreek soccer association with a friend called allen donheimer and that was pretty cool one time he got tackled and he did a full flip before he fell down

era: chicago

2008-01-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

we used to live with jasbir masiji and in her basement was this tv that i used to watch star trek the next generation on there was a baskin robbins across the street from the backyard and a card game store too that we could buy things at

era: chicago

2008-01-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

i remember living in an apartment of our own, we used to have a tire swing around in a play ground nearby and there was a school named rocyemore that we used to go to there was a day care after school and perhaps summer program we used to be dropped off at and i think we used to takl about power rangers there and make tie dye shirts and i think in this school we did a musical on johan sebastian bach which used songs based on his music which was cool and we played with plastic dinosaurs and there was a blacktop area outside we used to play on

i remember having some sort of a fight with someone on a bus

i remember i guy named gordy that was into movies and made an entire film himself about bad guys and stuff

there was another guy from puerto rico that invited everyone over to his house for his birthday and there was somehting outside where i was sitting on i think inside we were playing mario cart.

era: highschool

2008-01-22T08:05:00.001-08:00

senior year: senior recital

we had a show i guess everyone had a chance to d something but didnt have to, i decide to do something. i think i did two songs, one was the beatles song let tbe with richard, and the other was hit me baby one more time by britney spears. when i got onto stage i was nervous the light was right in my face, i saw white not teh crowd though ic ould hear thm and see them a little. when i began to play the song people i had crushed on began danncing to it. people were happy and singing along and dancing and i was elated i was well my cheeks were flush probably and my hairs stood up on end on my arms and i was amazed and overjoyed and so so happy it was wonderful exciting and amazing. for a second we all connected over that song and it didnt matter who we were or what we were doing we all loved that song and we all had fun together singing over it.

era: highschool

2008-01-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

japan

while in japan arthur zeyda showed me and some other guys this cd of massive attack, i boguht it and liked it, i also had a cd of... jurrassic 5, and liked that too. anil and kanu borrowed that one. i remember sittin in the flight lsitening to music while we flew from china.

i remember the great wall vaguely. the stairs were very steep.
i remember eating very tastey food in china. chinese food like chicken and things but very well done in ways that you wouldnt imagine after eating mall food.

in japan we visited a town with deer roaming in teh streets, the deer were considered holy. we took a train past mount fuji, both ways. we went to hiroshima, saw the memorial and the museum from world war two, a very horrible place. we visited a few temples and shrines. there was a book we were supposed to read that i didnt. i think sean was my roommate for some of the way. i tied a putka on him once and there is a photo of this in an album. i drank a blue drink in a bar there i think with kirby. yeah kirby was there because we took a rickshaw ride together with the rest of the class. i think this was when we came to a school of children and they were singing and dancing. elizabeth grimes was laughing happily when she saw them and was loving towards them; it was then that i really felt something for her. tokyo had alot of lights and things, there were multi story electronic stores with lots of neat things. i bought a digital camera there for alot of money. i bought a few different things there. the wall scroll came from a werehouse there was one just before we were getting ready to leave and they offered to send it back to the states for us. i bought a jade ball a few different things some post cards and the wall scroll which was an illustration of a dragon.

era: highschool

2008-01-22T07:54:00.001-08:00

sometime when i was seventeen i went to england. i saw our house in beardwood park blackburn. the place was the same, it was a bit dirty, bit of disrepair, but some of my old things were still in the house. down the road sammy still lived with his mother father sister and brother. we stayed with them. i played a guitar there and i think wrote a song. i brought it back to the states and it was about seeing the house for the first time. there are one or two different songs that seem to intermingle around that time one starts with a C cord the other starts with a detuned something with open strings like a dashboard confessional song

this was probably my first song of any meaning, before then i had written a song called... masters of the night with kirby ... and ... something... i remember the chords, A, G, A#

era: columbus

2008-01-22T07:52:00.000-08:00

the midnight stairwell committee

somewhere along the line in the harrison apartments kirby and me began to go to the stairway and hang out he would smoke ciggarettes i would smoke his ciggarettes i would play my guitar and the echo was huge because the stairway was twelve stories high

i wrote one or two songs in that stairway there was one called "... ( something ) ... kyoto "

era: columbus

2008-01-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

laurens friends: cocaine

we went over to his place, dont remember the name, guy from iraq, liked comic books, lived upstairs with a few of his friends, nearby the ... open mic place we used to play at, lauren wanted to get some speed, we got some used it then i went home

i wrote a few songs with it, i dont remember which, but it was alot, ah yes, it was back when i was doing alot of the more darker depressing keyboard things, and those things were kinda righ taround the time vivek had passed away, and i wrote about twelve of them,

i think lauren and i had had a conversation abotu her wanting to get off drugs, i think i was outside her friends place and i had told her that i lvoed her, she told me i only thought i did, and that i really didnt

i wrote this song one of the twelve or so that night for her about saving herself keeping herself clean and alive because i loved her and liked her around

era: columbus

2008-01-22T07:46:00.001-08:00

speed dealer

walked into the apartment, it was across the hall from viveks place
at that tmie he lived kinda way off in his own area with agass station across the street for food and stuff and all along the way from frambes all sorts of parties and stuff

the guy was a bit weird i got that sense right off the bat and he was kinda dangerous too i got that sort of feel, iw as just talkin and then the guy says are you a cop got a wire lift up your shirt so i did and his friends and he got a kick out of it then they were cool. i guess vivek and he were talkin about some speed and then i guess vivek and i ende up splitting some, they had a pipe to smoke it out and we smoked it a bit then headed out.

period: coachella

2008-01-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

the indio california festival coachella....
wow

i went to this place with my dad, we staye din ana indian casino, we flew into hollywood and drove down with a cab and what a great experience seriously i had a badass time. i went down there and in the place and all the bands and everything i had a wonderful time and the music was amaing i saw coldplay live at night with thousands of other peple and i saw bloc party sandwiched in with a ton of other people these were real energetic experiences and it was amaxing i havent seen anything like it all the energy and everthing positive energy people seeing their heroes over and over many times during the day and it was amazing

we stayed in a casino

it was a nice place pretty alrge and the rooms were nice

but the stages of coachella in the mornign when the place was empty was the real deal man

you walk in and you see this huge field and there are these big massive stages

you dont know who is going to be playing but you do know you are excited!

period: columbus

2008-01-21T05:37:00.000-08:00

the apartment: the view

what a sweet view i had man the windows were huge and we were on the twelvth floor right at the top and we had the whole city ahead of us and man it was great. i lvoed that view and the lights looking onto those lights at night was something else it really took you away.

period: columbus

2008-01-21T05:12:00.000-08:00

so yeah, the vivek days.

the night it happened.

I was out with some friends, nick, his girlfriend, and me all out at the bar, eddies was the place, right down the street from my house on frambes, this plce was great because someone else could get you a pitcher of something and they wouldnt ID you. it was nice because that was as peaceful a place as id found fo rpeople to just go and have a drink undisturbed. the palce got pretty busyon some nights. I think chris and i were chatting with some girls there and had some adventures with that. So we were sitting there. and then Vivek's friend Jason gave me a call on the cell phone, back then i and still today i never have may people with that number so its a rare occurence for a phone call to come through so i picked up the phone likely pickign it up thinking wow someone called me there is an excitement slight when you get a phone call because you know its going to be someone you like

and then i hear the words hey sandeep vivek is dead

and then i walked outside and i saw the ambulence down the street in front of his apartment and was thinking ... nothing ... just shock. surprise. amazement.

2008-01-18T02:09:00.000-08:00

so i was sitting watching sleepy hollow thinking wow i want to act

so i asked my dad where the camera was and my mom said check behind the tv so i found it but didnt see any usb inputs on it. i was thinking that it would be cool to write down my story and maybe film it or at least get it from start to finish to get the whole thing down and be able to see it from beginning to end.

so i was sitting and thinking how am i going to do this. and i think i am going to sit down and write my story in as much detail as possible from start to finish and then i can make some sense of the events of my life have a sense of continuity and also be able to let all the past alone and let it stand on its own.