javs blog

I wake up early.

Almost every morning I’m up before 8. Before 7, actually.

Thanksgiving I slept in til 930.

Yesterday I woke up at 445. Today 6.

There’s something special about the mornings. About the condensation on the windshield. About the way the rising sun looks coming through the trees on the 405. About the layer of mist sitting on the tops of the trees.

About the way it feels like someone punched me in the shoulders from waking up so early.

i am thankful for having a crazy, beautiful kid in my life. i hope that when devin grows up she is as proud of her kooky dad as i already am of her.

i am thankful for having a mom who looks out for me no matter what. i am thankful for having a good, loving family.

i am thankful for having a skill that has allowed me to do amazing things, even if i could be doing more.

i am thankful for having erakuh in my life.

i am thankful for disembodied, especially tara. she is such a good person.

i am thankful for having friends like mark, chase, erick, brandan, nicole, jason, bonnie, kim…. sometimes i forget that people are my friends just because they want to be.

i am thankful that amidst all of the selling of my records, i still have INTO ANOTHER’s “ignaurus” on white.

i am thankful that schmucks want to pay me for old hardcore records.

i am thankful to josh highland, who has created a forum for me to talk shit freely and openly in.

sometimes i forget that there are really cool parts about life.

i just moderated 42 comments on my blog, and only one of them was from a real person.

im listening to a NPR podcast of Radiohead live at the santa barbara bowl. its good background music. ive never seen them. by listening to this, i dont think i could stand to it unless i was stoned, and then id probably be too tripped out, man.

i have been to a few concerts stoned in my life. the first was DANZIG and WHITE ZOMBIE in like 1991 or 1992 at the irvine meadows. it was halloween, and i LOVED white zombie. my friend erich told me that girls used to get raped in the parking lot after “devils plaything”. all i remember is erich’s friend chad sneaking in a pipe shaped like an elephant and us getting stoned and watching people twirl flaming flannels over their heads and leap over fires. footage from that concert is in danzig’s “mother” video.

i think a little bit after that, me erich and chad went to universal amphitheater to see HELMET, SEPULTURA and MINISTRY. we sat in the back row and smoked and watched al jourgenson roll across the stage on 12 foot skeletons of non-existant animals.

in 2001? i saw isis a couple times stoned.

the next concert i remember being stoned at was PORTUGAL. THE MAN. that was 2007. i sat on the bar and watched them and about 6 people asked me if i was ok. fuck yeah i was ok, i was watching an amazing band.

i dont write in my blog very much right now. frankly, i dont have much to say. my life consists of trying to make it better. that is, trying to “make it”. trying to provide. trying to not be angry. trying to live simply. trying to.. i dunno. fuck. this is my final bellyache with no alarms and no surprises…

im tired

i havent been sleeping much. i have to wake up every morning at 645 to get devin and myself ready for school/ work. its taking its toll. my back and knees hurt.

my job is kinda boring.

had some really fucked up drama with my house. the landlady finally agreed to give me a new stove. it was to be delivered on a saturday but i had to work, so erakuh agreed to wait for it. when the guy delivered it, the connector didn’t fit and he didn’t have one. The area underneath where the old stove was was littered with such items as cigarette butts, silverwear, and rodent poison. Erakuh wnted to clean it and asked the driver not to put the stove there, and he told her we needed to call a plumber.

I called the owner, no answer, so I called the usual plumber. He was “at the drag races” and couldn’t come til monday, and if I needed it done to call an emergency plumber.

To me, having a stove in the middle of my kitchen and a pile of dirt was an emergency.

I called the first costa mesa plumber I could find, and he said it would be $210

He came and fixed it and was very helpful and nice to erakuh, who was traumatized by the trash and the whole affair so far.

The owner called a little bit later and started YELLING at me for calling an emergency plumber and telling me I’ve cost her hundreds of dollars, and then hung up, called again and yelled some more.

Two days later I got a letter from her, telling me she wasn’t going to pay for the emergency plumber and how I’ve basically been a shitty tenant because all I do is complain and cost her money in repairs, and that “if you’d told me when you moved in that stuff was broken I would have fixed it.”

Bullshit.

Not only did I give her a large list of everything wrong INCLUDING PHOTOS, but I’ve probably logged 30 calls to her in the past 2 months.

Yeah, I complain a lot. But a lot of shit is unnecessarily broken and needs to be fixed.

At least now I have a working, clean stove and a new full sized fridge, thanks to jenn. We’ve been cooking almost every night. I want to start baking.

I’m bored.

Sometimes I think about the psychological and spiritual effect that people leaving my life has.

A lot of people leave my life.

Consider this: I have been/am a teacher at a beauty school. While I worked at Paul Mitchell, we had 30+ new students start every 6 weeks. It takes about a year for them to graduate. So after 3 years, do the math on how many people have come and gone. This does not include the amount of people I have met in all of my travles from being in a band to traveling with Paul Mitchell, to living in San Diego for a year, teaching, djing, and being in a band there.

As a teacher, you must nuture people. You become attached to them, whether it be good or bad. Well not always attached, but used to. You put a lot of time effort and energy into developing them and their skills or artistry. Then, after 12 months, they are gone and you NEVER see or hear from them again. Or you are in a band, you go on tour with another band for weeks at a time, and then the tour is over and you NEVER see or hear from them again.

Now, I’m teaching again, and the cycle starts all over. With an individual for 1600 hours, then gone.

That being said, last week I threw away a box of pictures. Pictures of people I didn’t WANT in my life anymore, even their likeness on a piece of paper in a box. Gone. Forever.

Yeah

When you point the finger there’s three pointing back at you.

Just read that in the STICK TO YOUR GUNS lyric booklet.

Why do I own a stick to your guns cd? Funny story about that..

So last month I posted that I had extra mistake merch, and I would send shirts for 5 dollars postage paid, and cds for the same whatever blah blah

Two people replied.

One wanted a size/style that I clearly indicated that I did not have. Idiot.

The other sent 5 or 8 dollars to my paypal. I had to send out other ebay shit that day, and had plenty of mistake stuff to get rid of, so I sent him 2 shirts, a cd and stickers and buttons and who knows what else.

He emailed me back a week later saying “its people like you that make me think humanity doesn’t suck. Gimme your address”

Yesterday I came home to a box from century media records, where he apparently works, containing like 12 cds and a not that said “please die- jon”

Granted, most of these cds suck, but its the thought that counts.

Started my new job this week. Wow. All I can say is wow. Its like nothing I’ve ever experienced, but its not as bad as I anticipated.

Its better than being in a band called “blessed by a broken heart”

Last week was difficult.

All that drama at the salon. Dragged on and on. Finally got paid, hurt some feelings, burned some bridges, and moved on.

Thursday put some new stuff on my ipod. I’ve been listening to BRAND NEW a lot. I found allllll the bsides and some live/acoustic stuff. I gobble that shit up like candy. So I put all that on, and went home to listen to it. Started it, and my ipod turned off. Started it again, ipod turned off again. Third time, it turned off and when it came back on there were no songs on my ipod.

Zero.

Everything. Gone.

I felt like someone punched me in the stomach. Like a family member died. I had spent hours upon hours organizing that motherfucker. Stolen stuff from so many people. Gone.

Friday, halloween, had a good outlook. We had tickets to alkaline trio/ rise against at the paladium. Cost about 46 dollars each. Not bad. Hung out all day and started getting ready about 3 or 330. Erakuh had lots of fake scar/ prosthetic stuff to do, and wanted a new dress so I trekked out to fashion island to search forever 21 for something suitible. Found a nice dress and headed to halloween express to try and find some fangs. No luck.

Got back about 5 or so, and she was almost done. I started my makeup and started throwing blood all over our clothes. I came up with the backstory that we were on our way to a dance when I suddenly turned into a zombie and attacked her. I had blood all over my mouth and she had a huge wound on her chest/shoulder. We looked terrifying. People tried to take pictures of us all night.

Finally got on the road at 7 or 730, even though it said the show started at 730. Gaslight Anthem and Thrice were playing first, so I figured we’d be ok.

Made a pitstop at Erakuh’s house so her mom could take pictures of us. Got on the road to hollywood and it was smooth until about the 101. A sign said traffic was delayed at least 45 minutes, and it was about 830 or 9 at this point and I was getting nervous. I made the executive decision to get off on Ceasar Chavez blvd because that turns into sunset, which the paladium is on.

It took another 90 minutes to get there. We sat at one intersection for 5 green lights without moving.

Got to the paladium about 1050. The girl at the front said the show was almost done, but go right ahead. We got in as Rise Against was playing “the good left undone”, which happens to be my favorite song of theirs. They walked off stage and we went to say hi to my friend Ron who does merch for alk3. Rise Against came out to play two acoustic songs. We left as they started to play “swing life away” because some drunk girls pushed us out of the way to run into the crowd.

Walked up to hollywood blvd and cruised around for a while. Insane. Went to Swingers. Sat behind Zoli from IGNITE and saw the bad guy from THE CROW.

Made it home at about 4 and fought a stomach ache til about 515.

So the night didn’t go as planned but I still had fun, and we looked amazing thanks to Erakuh’s skillz.

Start the new job on tuesday. Honestly, not too stoked. I wish I could work at Commissary full time and pay the bills.