Things have been crazy on my end, as usual. I'm trying to get everything wrapped up here at OSU before I push off, but my motivation is severely lacking. I have every reason to procrastinate -- my distractions are the best a young lad could have: a wonderful (see also: beautiful) woman, a wonderful (see also: fun) website for making mixtapes, a wonderful (see also: dangerous) hobby of making stencils and not-so-wonderful (see also: tedious) jobs.

For memorial weekend, I went home to visit the friends, the family and the woman. It was simply splendid. Not a care in the world, it was the first time that I completely let go of all of my 'obligations' -- I didn't even check my e-mail once. Amazing. I didn't get to see everyone on my list, but still, pretty fucking good trip.

I'm back at school now and it's taken me two days to write the above two paragraphs -- I’ve been that busy. All my classes are working my ass right up until the end, which kind of makes me sad. It's getting so nice and warm in this town and I'm usually cooped up in some windowless room basking in the cold light of a LCD monitor. Bullshit. Actually, over the mini-break, I crossed paths with a face from my past. He wanted to know if I had gone 'veggie' since I was 'so skinny.' I told him no. He said 'you're fucking pale too; you look like a ghost.'

Sometimes, I wish I could keep these people in the subconscious corners of my mind.

That said, today the most disgusting thing happened to me. I have been gagging on the thought of it all day.

Around 6am I wake up suddenly. My ear feels a bit strange, as if someone has just given me a wet Willy. I stick my finger in there, but feel nothing. I realize I was probably dreaming, feel stupid and then try to go back to sleep. As I'm lying there, I hear this sound -- it sounds like someone is sloshing water around. It's loud. It's a very eerie sound, but the worst part -- it's coming from inside my head.

I flip shit a little bit, sit up quick and quickly think of all the things that it could be -- shattered ear drum, spinal fluid collecting on my brain, cancer, herpes, whatever. I'm wide-awake and just sitting there, shaking my head, trying to get that sound to happen again. I can't reproduce it. I figure it was a freak accident, but decide to swab my ear out, just in case. The swab comes out negative. Thus, I try to sleep again.

As I'm walking back, I hear that noise again. It's terrible. It tears through me. I get really freaked out now, a bit of panic flows over me, I feel flushed. I shake my head around, but nothing. I lay back down in bed, figuring there's not much I can do for my broken head at 6am. I roll on my side and feel something tickle my ear a bit. I lift my head up and what do I find sitting there on my pillow?

A MOTHERFUCKING SILVERFISH.

A silverfish had crawled *deep* within my ear as I slept.

That's fucked up.

REALLY fucked up.

At least it came out, right?

It's almost my bed time, but me and my silverfish-free ears will be judging the annual OSU Battle of the Bands on Friday. Should be a blast. Out very own Darrin is the brains and brawn behind the operation. What a cool guy. He's kind of my hero. A sexy hero, at that.

I love you all.

Clerks 2 trailer

I'm scared.

The original Clerks is widely regarded in the world of Darrin as one of the greatest movies ever made. It is the best film ever about nothing at all. It's crude and funny and dark and overwhelmingly memorable.

So shoudn't I be excited that a sequel is in production?

No, I shouldn't. Sequels always blow, and Kevin Smith's track record of late hasn't exactly been stellar. I think that when he lost his bid to make the Daredevil movie, his soul (and the soul of Daredevil fans everywhere) died a little bit. Kevin Smith has jumped the shark, and he needs to leave Clerks alone. It's a masterpiece. It's perfect. Don't touch it.

And the sequel is in color. COLOR.

Ugh.

On another note, go here. It will make you smile in the wake of all this tragedy.

"That's more than any president in the history of the United States has ever received." Ryan Seacrest, on the total number of votes which came in for this year's American Idol winner.

Wow. I am so deeply saddened by that statement. You know there is a definite problem with the state of our country when more people care to vote for the American Idol than our President. Dear Lord...


always.....

done and done. and done.

graduation was yesterday. as of now i am officially a graduate of pacific university. i have a college degree (no white slip in that folder for me!) and am ready to head out into the world to become a real person. ha! not likely....

it was a weird day. similar to high school graduation in that i had a really hard time taking it totally seriously. i mean, yeah, we're at graduation, but it just doesn't seem like the big a deal it gets built up to be when you're there, sitting, waiting, listening... or maybe that's just me.

immediately following graduation my roommate and i walked outsite to get leied by so many of his hawai'ian relatives, and to retreive the bottle of champagne from the car. we popped that and i proceeded to walk around with it, taking swigs from the bottle for the rest of the time we were there. apparently it was amusing, because quite a few of the professional photographers who walk around taking shots at these things wanted pictures of me and whoever was there with the bottle in the picture.

i saw brian. first time since we broke up. he gave me a hug, told me he missed me, asked why i hadn't been hanging out... he doesn't get it. i'm not ready to be his friend yet. then one of the damn picture ladies walked up and said "can i take your guys' picture!" what am i supposed to say, 'no, please don't '? so she took it.... funny that the only picture that exists of brian and i was taken post-breakup.

our president caught me on campus with my bottle o' booze. he laughed at me, gave me a hug, and told me to have a good afternoon. ha! i love dr. phil...

then it was an afternoon of families and food at our apt. my two rommates and i decided to play it low-key for the day and rather than renting out some room and doing catering and whatnot, we just used the clubhouse at our apt. it was chill, very nice, very little drama.

last night there was craziness, simply because i had a panic attack like none other. i don't know what brought it on, but it was actually pretty scary. i had to leave the restaurant my family and i were at because i honestly thought i was going to lose it right then and there. luckily, i held it together long enough to get to my car. a phone call home to sarah so i could freak out to her (about what, i don't know, i just had to freak out) helped calm me down enough to change, compose myself, then head to the bar to see my friends.

sadly, last night was the last night i'll see a few of those people. this is a lot harder to process than high school graduation, simply because at least there i knew we all had the rogue valley as this common connection. we'd all be at home at some point, during christmas or summer, and we could all hang out then. now... a lot of my people are going who knows where, different states for grad school, fulbrights abroad, peace corps.... it's weird to think that i won't be spending time with these kids. they're a big part of my life here.

so now... what??? dunno. i'm finished with college, though, so i guess that's something.....


always.....

My first stencil. I'm reckless with spraypaint.

This place has died. Forgive me. I have been tending to the blossoming baby that is mixtapecollective.org.

These past two weeks have been pretty crazy. Corey and I busted out the final chunk of the core functionality for the site and were able to go 'public beta' a week ago. Since then we've been patching the gaps, touching up the flaws and makin' things look all swell. We finished on Thursday night with a marathon 'let's write all the help-documents at once' session of swapping files back and forth until the wee-hours.

Today (in the relative usage of the word) marked the end of my official 'senior capstone.' Gathering with the rest of graduating seniors, we took part in the College of Engineering's Engineering Expo, demoing our 'project' and answering questions all day long. It was actually really cathartic, getting to show off and explain all the design decisions, as we think we've got a pretty good thing going on.

My parent's came up for the event, which was sweet of them. We all smiled and hugged and it was splendid. Wonderful people. They stuck around and checked out all the booths and after everything was said and done, we went to the bookstore so I could buy my old man a baseball cap. He's very easy to please.

We went out to dinner afterwards and had some really good esteem-boosting conversation. About halfway through our meal, my dad heads to the bathroom and my mother gets a call. She gets a twisted look and heads outside. I wait for a few minutes and eventually she comes back. I knew exactly what was wrong. Grandma had died. I get up and give my mom a big hug in the middle of the restaurant. It's been pretty bad for the last couple of weeks, so it's been on everyone's mind, this kind of just put some closure to it. She was always good to me and I have nothing but positive memories.

It's been a weird up-and-down emotional day.

And, to rectify the sad-sack news, I now present to you one of the most amazing rooms I've ever seen in my life, my roommate's:

Note: Drums equiped with double-bass pedal.

One of my favourite things about him is his passion for neon-green skulls. It's inspiring.

And, on that note, I depart. I love you all.

i am in yuma az with my dad. boy this is a place. the first thing that comes to my mind is that Ry-guys grandpa lives here in a trailer getting drunk. i dont know where but somewhere in the desert. this place...is not really that nice. a city, full of trash and heat. the people are nice. lots of mexicans live here since the border of mexico is only ten minutes away. from what i can tell there isnt much racism. i really like this. in some other hightly mexican populated places i have been there seems to be segrigation, but here people seem to like eachother. and having the border so close. they seem to like that too.
today me and my dad got a taxi to the boder, and went into a town called los Algodones. there are like fifty dentists and eye doctors here. on only 4 or so streets. it is funny, signs layering eachother at different levels and angles. dr. so and so, and doctor fro and fro... there are even guys yelling at you, "he you need drugs, come into salvidors pharmacy", ect. we went to dr. rubio's office. they say i need 8 fillings but i dont really believe them. i dont know if i will get any teeth filled tomorrow. well see. as for my dad, he is in trouble. he has some sourt of degenerative deseaze in his jaw and cannot get any dental work done until it gets cured.
We left the office quite unhappy but he handeled things very well, even better that me. (i have been acting like a pussy this whole trip wanting to whine, and pine about all kinds of thing). we walked around town for a while. found some of the real town not the shops that line the border, but it was really the mexicans homes so we left. in Az. we walked like 5 miles in the 100+ heat (though it only felt about 90+ because of the dryness) until we made it to the mall where we saw Hoot, a great movie about wittle ground owles.
Me and my dad are doing a good job of getting along. i am being depressed a lot, and he is being himself, but we are working hard to break out of our routienes and help eachother. it is very good for us. me and my dad have a hard time to get along much of the time.
Then we went home and made a little food and watch the season finally of Grey's Anatommy, a pretty damn good show. and i will go to bed soon. we are both hoping this trip will be over soon though because there really isnt anything to do around here. were thinking to go camping instead, of this planned 2 week trip. this might be cool. but no matter.

Version 1.0 is live, make an account and start crafting your hypothetical mixtapes: mixtapecollective.org.

After another boiling-tent 7am morning followed by a long wait for the showers, we pack up the car, making the 30 minute trek two times to get everything loaded. Much more hot than the first day. Desert like, even. We drink lots of warmish water and head into the octagon to fight yet another cage match with the skin-raping sun. We lay in the shade tents and slept for a few hours, missing a bunch of bands in order to get the fuck out of the heat.

While sitting in the shade tent, we got a kick out of folding this fake dollar bill up and placing it out in the grass, watching people pick it up, look excited then realize they’ve been had. What assholes we are. I feel like a fucking fourth-grader.

We meet up with my bestest RA-days friend, Ms. Kleeb and start with Phoenix, which put on a silly show, followed by a pretty decent Minus the Bear set. Lots of unfortunate tattoos. We eat some overpriced food and then hit up Gnarls Barkley, who worked the crowd like a prison bitch.

Catching a few minutes of Seu George, Kim and I dip out to urinate and head over to Mogwai. They rocked shit up. Only two new songs, but their old stuff had a nice layer of Mr. Beast-era distortion over it. RAD. More terrible tattoos. The Go! Team followed. I didn't know about their live show, replacing the album-samples with a rambunctious female vocalist who worked the crowd so fiercely and danced so hard my I almost had a seizure. Good stuff.

There were trash-cans and recycle bins *everywhere,* but people just threw there shit whereever. Classy.

Tool ended the night, playing a flawless (as usual) set. A few new songs from their new album, which I’m still kind of weirded out and debased about… They had some pretty crazy updated visuals and Mr. Maynardo was in fine asshole-form.

While playing ‘The Pot,’ a track off of their new album which was to be released the following day, you could hear the crowd singing along – shows how widespread this whole piracy has gotten. Maybe Tool fans are just extra rabid.

During Tool, there was a girl on what must have been excstacy grinding on her boyfriend directly in front of us. She looked like she was having fun. Her boyfriend didn’t. Go figure.

Anyway, ending at 1am, we head to the car to hit the road. We're running on empty from a shitty night of sleep and have been going pretty hard since 7am. Taking over and hour to get a few miles to the freeway, we start driving. We make some shitty decisions in trying to get on to 99 -- the connecting highways are fucking confusing at 3:30pm.

Kim slaps my hand, I step out of the driving ring and take a nap. A bit later, we stop at an IHOP for an amazingly hilarious breakfast. All very sleep deprived, we couldn’t stop belly-laughing the entire meal about the most banal shit – like the fact that Ian ordered JUEVOS RANCHEROS. See, not funny.

He also kept flashing his nipple through the hole in his shirt. Okay, that’s kind of funny.

The rest of the trip was spent taking turns driving with Ms. Kim, passing through some kind of pretty California interstate. The strech of I-5 a few hours outside of Sac-town is actually sort of nice. They slept while I listened to Peeping Tom and got my groove on.

A long motherfucking time later, we roll into Ashland drop Zac and Een off. By 5pm I’m on my way to my parent’s house with Kim in hand.

Shoot the shit with the parents, drop off their tent (Thanks!), clean up a bit, kiss Kim goodbye and I’m on I-5 by 7.

The rest is a glazed-eye blur. I was so freaking tired, I kept pinching my leg to stay awake. For the next couple of days my inner thigh kind of resembled an abuse victim. Roll into Corvallis around 10, in bed by midnight to ‘rest’ for my midterm at 9am the following day.

Livin’ like a rock-star. For serious.

The first-day lineup was kind of weak on paper, but it turned out nicely in actuality. We first hit up the Walkmen. Then came Wolfmother, who didn't really impress me much, despite the ferocious hype behind the band.

Coachella hosted some of the worst tattoos I’ve ever seen in my life. Sadly, at this resolution, you can't quite see it, but just take my word for it: Giant, homemade Bic-pen/needle tattoo of a question mark.

We then watched Animal Collective shower the crowd in their chaotic happiness. A few minutes of My Morning Jacket, whose vocals were pretty foul, which made me sad, then on the Deerhoof, which made me smile.

Imogen Heap with the lady, who was beyond awful -- she is *terrible* live. Her vocal gadgets were malfunctioning and it was uncomfortable to watch her try to be cute about it.

Sigur Ros put on a pretty wonderful sounding show. Then came Ladytron followed by the amazingly cute Cat Power. Sitting Depeche Mode out, the lady and I laid in the grass for an hour or so. By this time, there was trash everywhere. The entire field was coated in a thin layer of smashed water bottles. It looked like a warzone near the ‘food courts.’

Eventually we all reconnected. We were thrashed. The ~100 degree weather raped our energy and moisture. My feet hurt. We walked across the fields to the dance tent. I sure as shit wasn't ready for what happened next: Daft Punk. Actually, Mr. Daft Punk sir, to all of us undeserving non-robots.

Getting started a little late, the curtain was drawn for Daft Punk on their first US appearance in 8 years. They were in their usual garb perched in the middle of a giant lcd-screen pyramid. They had an amazing array of crazy stage lights as well as a multi-layered backdrop of lcd-ish screens.

After a lengthy intro, they finally busted out into "Human After All" and proceeded to rock the crowd for a solid 60+ minutes. The most amazing stage-performance I've ever seen. Ever. And I've been to a bunch of shows.

I seriously can't express how fucking it rad was to watch what must have been 35,000 people all have a mind-blowing experience. I'm pretty sure everyone there is now a lifetime fan of Daft Punk and will remember ROBOT ROCK until they die.

After the show ends, 80,000 people shove through a 10-foot gate and go their own ways. We head back to the camp, intending to drink, but only ending up falling asleep, exhausted.

I have been back in "the valley" for about 2 1/2weeks now. Getting adjusted was a bit of a trick. Everything is exactly the same except slightly different. For Example, when I left for Portland, my cat, Bobo, was fat and lazy. Now two years later, he is elderly and emaciated (literally skin and bones). Ashland now sports two fast food joints, with Taco Bell, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut and soon KFC closing down since I left. Now Im not big on fast food, but I do miss the late night Bell runs and I especially miss the Queens sweet Blizzards. The "Creek" is now the "Creekside" and doesn't have a deck. O'ryans just sold and is going to be closing in about a month. Omars is filled with the Great American Pizza crowd. The Hong Kong is packed and expensive. I dont even know if Alex's still exists. Luckily, there is the Beau Club to fill in the O'ryans/Omars vibe. I mainly miss sitting on the deck of the "Creek". Im working at Giseppi's again, which is like I never left. Except there are all new people there and there are some slight changes in how you do things. The room Im sleeping in is my old room, except now its an office. Like I said, slight changes. It reminds me of a David Lynch flick, where it goes from reality into dream reality or subconscious reality without really signalling.

I spent the week and half leading up to Coachella drinking every night with Wispy. He was the only other guy in town with nothing in particular to do or with a female putting him in a freedom full-nelson. The only highlights from these particular nights were both at O'ryans. I got a guy so pissed at me about my stance on Barry Bonds that he wanted to beat the shit out of me (even though he had the same opinion I did), and then the next was when Some scummy ass toothless piece of shit tried to steal Wispy's jacket. Fun.

Coachella was a blast. We listened to the new PEEPING TOM album on the way down laughing about its silly lyrics ("Driving Lambourginis and sipping Martinis..."). Me and Wispy managed to get the beat to MF DOOM's "Rap Snitch Knishes" stuck in our heads, something that would come back to haunt us while we were high and drunk and standing around the drum tent. Great shows, Hot Chicks, Hot Weather, Lax Security. What more can you ask for? It was nice to actually hang out with Eric's lady for longer than the total two seconds I had met her previously. We got along quite nicely and we spent the whole trip pissing Eric off on purpose, like when he woke up from a nap in the car, we told we missed a turn and we were going to still get there but it was gonna take longer. You know, stuff like that. It got so bad that eventually on the last day of the trip Eric had to plead to us "Please! Please stop trying to make me mad!". Oh man that was fun.

The shows I caught at Coachella were:
Saturday------
Celebration
The Walkmen
Wolfmother (two songs)
Animal Collective (Four songs)
Deerhoof (First 30 min)
TV on the Radio
Sigur Ros
Eagles of Death Metal
Depeche Mode (Half of their set)
Daft Punk

Sunday------
Giant Drag (first half)
Phoenix (Most of it)
Minus the Bear
Bloc Party (just some of it while I was eating a hot dog, terrible band, terrible dog)
Gnarls Barkley
Seu Jorge
Mogwai (three songs)
Massive Attack
Tool

Awards for Best Show at Coachella:
1st - Daft Punk
2nd - TV on the Radio
3rd - Tool
4th - Seu Jorge
5th - Massive Attack

Best Introduction Award - Eagles of Death Metal had Danny Devito introduce them (drink in hand)
Should have been on a bigger stage Award - Gnarls Barkley, damn that was packed
Should have been on a bigger stage 2nd place Award - Daft Punk, I think they drew more than Depeche Mode, it felt like it at least
Most over-rated band - Wolfmother, HEY we play dancey retro rock!
Band I wanted to stab in the face - The Scissor Sisters, whos sounds drowned out Tool more than a few times.
Show that had the hottest chicks - Tie - TV on the Radio and Deerhoof

When we got back to town, I lost my drinking buddy (Wisp) to an early morning job. So I went out the other night by myself assuming as this is Ashland, Ill run into someone I know, which I ran into tons, although only one recognised me. I ended up overdrawing my account (by 6 cents).
Then I had to work all cinco de mayo!!!!!

Untill next time

SLEDG

It was a lightning-chaos trip to Coachella with my (beautiful!) woman, Sledg / Ian and Zac Attack. It was pure craziness from the get go. I have personally waded over nearly 200 inane, banal pictures to bring you a few of my favorites, along with a detailed report. I'm sure you don't care, but maybe, someday, in a few years, I might like to re-read about the time a middle-aged Arab man kept staring at my penis in the communal showers, so shut up.

Picture this, if you will:
It started with the pain of having to rearrange midterms / tie up loose ends in a few class projects. I finished on Thursday at 3pm and was in the car by 4. At my parent's house by 8:00 to kiss the parents, shave my head, borrow tent and greet kim as she arrives with the rental car. A quick bite to eat, a quick shopping spree and I'm in bed (with my woman!) by midnight. Wake up at 4am, kiss Kim on the forehead, shower, and we're in the car by 4:45.

5am, Ashland. Pick up ian. Drive two blocks to pick up zac. Grab coffee and hit I-5.

As we all collectively woke up, the caffeine having a funny effect on some obviously sleep-deprived kids, we all started to converse. A long motherfucking time later, we arrive in Sacramento. I manage to cut someone off, get cut off and have a black man driving a big white truck yell "shut the fuck up" at me within 3 minutes. Back on the road, Ian breaks out his "The Apprentice edition of Mad Libs" -- no joke, such things exist. We do a few and laugh at the lamest product ever. I think Zac actually thought they were funny, which is quite troubling.

An even longer motherfucking time later, we arrive in Indio, which reminded me a lot of the 'not-so-shitty' Medford. I destroyed my in-and-out cherry. By this time, it's like 9pm. We go to the parking lot, and grab our stuff. We stand in the securing line for 30 minutes to have them do nothing pat our backpacks down and ask us if we have any glass.

We get in, quickly set up the tents and head back to the car with our backpacks for the booze.

We drink a fair amount and mull around the campgrounds, checking out the food, bathroom situation, all that jazz. A bit later, Kim and I crash on the account that we were the only two to drive and we’re both so completely road-fried. I think Ian and Zac got swerved and went to a drum circle, or some shit like that.

We wake up to see the sea of tents at 7:00am. Our tent is around 110 degrees due to the desert heat.

We all sit around until noon, feeling the sun get hot-hot-hot until noon, to where we enter the festival.

And the award for best show at Coachella (and possibly all time) goes to:
DAFT PUNK!




These dont even get near showing this show justice.

This video gives you a fairly good impression of how EVERY person was freaking out during the set. The crowd is just like the guy who filmed this except times 30,000.

Friday was amazing...

It could have been Portland, it could have been anywhere - I desperately needed to get out of Corvallis for a day. My fiance, Jen, and I went up to Dantes on Burnside to see Stellastarr* and one of my new favorites, The Editors, play a bar show on their way down to Coachella. I love bar shows, and I hate festival shows.

Before the show, we decided to go out to eat at Kells'. Several fine beers and a shepard's pie later, I stumbled into the bar portion of the establishment, only to find my good friends from Amadan setting up for a show. If you've never seen Amadan, they are the best "get-real-shitty-and-dance-band" ever to grace an Oregon stage. I talked to them for a while, and Jen and I decided to skip the opener at Dantes and watched a bit of their set. Rockin' as always.

We arrived at Dantes just in time to grab a couple more brews and watch Stellastar* go on stage. I'm not an enormous fan, but they put on a pretty impressive live show, despite some technical difficulties (some sort of power short) cutting them off mid-set. Nothing kills the energy in a show faster than a power failure, but fortunately for them the crowd was just drunk enough not to care. For the most part, every one in the building was just staring at Stellastarr's ridiculously hot bassist. In her honor, and because I love making top fives, here is Darrin's Top Five Hotest women of Indie Rock:

5. Melanie Cambell - Bassist - Burning Brides 

4. Amanda Tannen - Bassist - Stellastarr* 

3. Amanda Barrett - Guitar/Vocals - Ditty Bops

2. B. Amber Valentine - Guitarist/Vocals - Jucifer

1. Liza Rietz - Keys/Violin/Vocals - Swords (Swords Project) 

I was going to link to photos, but a good picture of Liza or Amanda Barrett from the Ditty Bops is tough to come by...

The Editors' set was incredible as well. They are a band who will probably never be able to overecome the singer's unfortunate likeness to Ian Curtis, which is far too easy a target for lazy critics. Their set was short, like 8 songs, but they had to play their lead-off single three times due to more power failures. Though visibly upset, they handled it well and managed to keep the crowd interested. My roomates were at the show, shitfaced beyond all recognition, and the night ended with my roommate's ex-Marine brother releiving himself on an ATM machine on Burnside while a security guard watched. The guard started towards Randy, then turned around when he realized how fucking huge the guy is - pretty funny.

It was a good night on the town, but alas. The week has come, and it's back to reality time. Yick.

I have one thing to say to you all: Word up.