December Wishes

Originally Posted Christmas Eve, 2003.

PRESENTING! The most cliche, sentimental, and pretentious christmas post ever!

Remember when you used to wake-up in the middle of the night a hear your dad trip over the space-heater, and think Santa Claus and his Reindeer had finally arrived? 

Remember setting those cookies and carrots out and waking up the next morning to find them half-eaten with your mothers shade of lipstick on them and a note written in her hand-writing on the table, but being too naive to notice?

Remember tearing through presents christmas morning, skipping over the softer wrapped gifts for the harder and bigger ones?

I remember when I was really young I peeped out of my room and thought Santa had brought me a spaceship (which was really a particle board puppet theater assembled by my father). I couldn't get any sleep, fancying all of the distant galaxies and nebulas I would visit in my newly acquired spaceship that night. The excitement and anticipation of waking up the next morning, feigning surprise, and learning how to operate the nodes, dials, and buttons in order to pilot my way to Cignus 5 to visit our extraterrestrial brethern while my parents opened up relatives gifts of pottery and candles, was excruciating. I turned on my hummel-like christmas house-lamp and read through every one of my magazines, even "National Geographic Kids" and "Highlights", in order to fall asleep. No such luck was had, so I tried the tired and true method of counting sheep jumping over fences in the back of my mind. Still a bust. I eventually fell asleep around 4am, with visions of ET and guitar-picked shaped space aliens flashing me the "live long and prosper sign" then heralding their outer-planetary visitor as their honorary emperor. 

The dissapointment of finding out I wouldn't be cruising to the Andromeda galaxy the next day was crushing, but I learned to love my puppet theater. I created short little Shakespearean tragedies with paper-mache puppets, typically which involved bashing the King and the Friar puppet violently together, and then doing the same with the King and the Queen to indicate they were making out. My whimsical plays never quite evolved out of this childish template, however, they just seemed to involve more and more puppets as I soon figured out how to manipulated several on one hand. 

What amounted to a grotesque orgy of flannel and terry-cloth, I soon gave up my puppeteering racket and retired the theater to the fabled annals of the geodesic shed, the graveyard of all flash-in-the-pan presents and failed knickknacks. Out there also lies am Olympic diving trophy which I'm pretty sure my dad never won, a Tweety Bird mask from halloween that accidental merged with surgical tubing and a caulking gun, creating the most macabre looking looney tune since Daffy Duck got shot in the face by Elmer Fudd, fireworks long past expiration, and I'm almost positive at least one dead transient. 

Well, on the delightful notion of me harboring a dead hobo in my shed, I bid everyone a Merry Christmas! I hope everyone gets their spaceships and ponies and dirtbikes and Redrider bee bee guns and Nintendos and Teddy Ruxpins (and if you dont know who that is, you obviously were not a child byproduct of the 80's). 

Remember, if you didn't get what you wanted, there's always receipts, and if the receipts are MIA, then there's always the black market and the potential for smashing stuff.

Ugh

Originally Posted October 12th, 2003, I think this simultaneously foreshadows my musical elitism and retroactively negates all of my musical opinions in the Bands I Like section. But I'm posting it because I still find it pretty funny.

Bands I fucking hate:

Dave Matthews "Band"

Creed

Good Charlotte

Any band with "Mud" in their name

Any band that purposely mispells a word in their name, or inserts backwards letters, in order to connect with their illiterate, low IQ fanbase.

International Noise Conspiracy

Jack Johnson or any shitty open mic artist that attempts to cop his "style" or mentions that he used to be a surfer. Yeah, douche, he also was a heavyweight boxer that nearly stole the title from mohammhed ali.

Phish. Take a shower.

Alien Ant Farm. God, the inverted mohawk is so anti-everything, you rebel.

Bush. Stop whining about how handsome and rich you are, and how every time you bang Gwen Stephanie she screams out her bassists name.

Dashboard. Stop whining about everything, ditch the ovaries, kick aside the miles of tissue, and punch yourself in the face, ugly. (Some people say I look like Chris Caraberra)

Coldplay. Fuck Coldplay. Wow, life is miserable. I'm a goodlooking brit with oodles of money who's boning Gwenyth Paltrow, whom worships the ground I walk on.

Limp Bizkit. Wait, I already covered them with the misspelling category. Shit, they deserve to be on here twice.

Maroon 5. I don't really know who they are, but I hate them already.

Metallica. Seriously. Never has there been a band that has caused me to hastily turn the radio to NPR faster than these white-trash dinosaurs. And fuck Lars Ulrich for ratting out his fans and starting the RIAA's crusade to get people to stop listening to music. Everytime I hear one of your shitty songs off of "Saint Anger" you should pay ME royalties for having to endure your turds.

Slipknot. Fat trailer trash in clown make-up pretending to make jock rock. At least KISS exploited it better than you did, number 1-8.

All-American Rejects. Whiny emo kids tailor-made to sell style over substance. Possibly some of the worst stuff I've ever heard.

Incubus. Okay, they aren't that terrible. I'm just sick of every dude with a backwards Abercrombie and Fitch hat think that he's rebelling against conformist rap when he blares another "5 dudes and a DJ" band out of his Toyota Tundra.

The Vines. Okay, where are they now?

Bands that are still kicking my ass:

Modest Mouse
Minus the Bear
The Mars Volta
Wilco
Sigur Ros
Unearth
Mos Def
One of These Days
Hella
Stretch Arm Strong
Dillinger Escape Plan
Atmosphere
The Witness Protection Program
Rythm of 84 (thats not a misspelled name, I just dont know how to spell that damn word. Sigh, after all of these years in public education)
Led Zepplin (Who?)
Darkest Hour

My commencement speech: 2006

Originally Posted April 20th, 2007

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Dean of Students, Karen Morse for inviting me here to speak. If you are wondering where the money went to getting a commencement speaker of more status and integrity, then look no further than your Student Recreational Center. Man that’s one sweet rock-climbing wall!!!

I’d like to congratulate you on reaching a pinnacle in your educational careers. Now we can all start the exciting process of moving back into our parent’s basements.

Over the years at Western, I have learned many things.

I have learned that campus has over 3 million bricks, I think. I have also learned that 2 and a half million of these bricks are precariously dislodged and in no way help you out when you are 10 minutes late to your final exam.

I have learned that a member of our faculty can semi-publicly wish a cancer-stricken student to die, and somehow not get fired.

I have learned in 2003 that apparently Mathes hall is actually an elaborate terrorist training institution run by left-wing hippies.

I have learned that streaking in front of a camera is best done in a ski-mask during live coverage of the aforementioned residence hall.

I have learned that the best place to put level III sex offenders is within several blocks of a college campus in a poorly lit neighborhood.

I have learned that online file-sharing is, shockingly, illegal, unless, of course, no one catches you.

I have learned what plagiarism is. Plagiarism is the usurping of intellectual property, either intentional or unintentional, from a non-public domain source, without properly citing and giving due credit to the legal forbearers of said information. I came up with that one MYSELF.

I have learned that Sodexho, the food-service provider for our dormitories, also is the number one prison caterer in the United States.

I learned that downtown Bellingham has an incredibly vibrant night-life. It’s the only place you can walk a single block and see a college guy puke in the bushes, a homeless man masturbating, and a police car driving by ignoring all of this so he can go issue MIPs at a well-controlled house party

I have found that you always seem to get an MIP a week before your 21st birthday. I have also found that the 30 hours of community service getting an MIP entails is surprisingly easy to “do” if you have a knack for mimicking certain styles of handwriting.


I have learned that the free New York Time’s kiosks run out quite faster than the Western Front ones do.

I have learned that open mic at the underground coffeehouse is a great place to perform in front of a diverse audience of other musicians waiting to play and their girlfriends.


As you can see, the many great classes at Western have taught me vital life skills.

Many of you are wondering what’s next? Graduate School? Internships? Becoming one of those creepy older guys that still go to college parties?

The answer is not a simple one. For some, you may consider taking a year off, traveling around Europe, and coming back broke and hating the United States slightly more than when you left it. For others, you may wish to enter the existential hell known as working--perhaps for “the man” or perhaps for “the man known as your father at his used car dealership”. Regardless of your life’s trajectory, one thing is for certain: You WILL wish got you got a few more seconds in on that keg stand before leaving behind this glorified summer-camp.