All Things Go, All Things Go (Among Other Things) (P.S. This Post Is Kind Of Innappropriate. More Than Usual Anyway)

"TURTLES! Wooooooo!" - Damien

Long time, no blog, everyone! I realize it's been a couple weeks, but I was holding off on updating long enough so that I could include everything about this incredible past week! Monday to Sunday was balls to the wall fun! One of the best weeks I've had in a while, actually. Not to say that I regularly have bad weeks, but this past week was just extraordinarily terrific. I know you're all dying to hear about it, so why don't I just get on with it?

MONDAY...I couldn't tell you, because to be honest, I completely forget. Moving on...
TUESDAY...The most magical thing happened! I actually managed to get together a successful band practice! Finally! What's that? You weren't even aware I was in a band? Well...technically, no. Barely. We're just barely over the threshold of being a band, but we certainly are one. What's the name you ask? Oh ho...The one and only I Eat Stickfigures, of course! To be completely honest, I'm not too fond of the term "band" though. I'd like to think of IESF as a "musical project" if you will. Bands are much too inclusive, and cause way more headaches than I care to deal with. So, I Eat Stickfigures is sort of a "jump in and play with us if you want" kind of thing, where nobody is stuck playing a certain instrument, and we don't always have the same lineup of people playing with us. I'm technically the foreman of the group, and write most of the songs, but I take an incredible interest in the musical tastes and influences of those we do work with, and I like to incorporate everyone else's sound into the mix as much as my own. It keeps things more lively and exciting, I think. Anyhow, back on the actual band practice: It's a known fact by everyone that IESF has a terrible band practice track record. Mostly due to the fact that we're all busy teenagers and nobody wants to commit to the project when we have nothing to show for it. That all changed last Tuesday, however, when I managed to have my friends Troy, Kaylee, and the infamous Drew Morgan arrive at my house for a jam session, just to see if we still had any music left in us as a group. I wanted to see if we were capable of playing a small, 20 minute set for this cancer charity show that's coming up later in the month. To my surprise, we made musical magic.

Almost without a thought, a simple chord progression was played that developed into a full on jam, that we decided to turn into a song called "Who Are We?" It's a song about how we start off as vikings, fail at it, become airplane pilots, fail at that, become surfers, fail at that, and then get an inspirational boost from none other than Neil Patrick Harris himself to become musicians and just kick ass. Perfect song fodder, right? It was for us. We sat around, playing and writing the song for a good 3 hours, and we nearly have the whole thing buffed out. At the end of it all, everyone was so excited, and eager to set up the next band practice. It was exactly how I'd hoped. I'm still currently writing the song, and working on the instrumentals for several others as well. I'm hoping for this show (which is at the Emmett Church on July 22nd, for those of you who want to know. There will be many other local acts besides us, and The Product is the main act too!) we'll have at least 3 songs to play collectively as a band, and possibly one acoustic song done by me to finish off the set. I'm quite excited, and can't wait for the next band practice on Monday and Tuesday! Now on to...

WEDNESDAY...So, the day before (that being Tuesday) Damien texts me, asking me if I want to go to Chicago. Of course I say yes, considering the fact that we've been tossing the idea around for several months now. He proceeds by saying "Alright cool. We leave at 5 AM TOMORROW MORNING." Despite the short notice, I went to bed at 2 AM, got up at 4, and left at 5, as originally promised. It took many an hour and many ridiculous gas station stops before arriving to our destination to get there, but it was all worth while in the end. I'm not going to spend hours writing about my time there, because we crammed so much stuff into a small time frame that it's hard to recount a lot of it, not to mention the fact I was up for 25 hours straight, on 2 hours of sleep. I will, however, make a special mention of the gas stations we stopped at. First stop, I find this written on the walls.

I lol'd. Royally.

The second stop we made was at a very small gas station in the most destructive town I've ever seen. Honestly, there were more bulldozers, cranes, and wrecking balls than there were buildings. Anyhow, the place was owned by this Middle-Eastern guy who quietly watched us pick out beverages. When I stepped up to the counter to pay for my vanilla coke, I looked in this plastic panel box that was sitting on the side of the counter. In it were various "adult only" substances. Y'know, your average enhancement pills and ribbed condoms. What caught my eye, however, was the picture on a box of anal nitrate I found. Fans of old school fighting games will find this hilarious. It was a picture of Ryu and Chun-Li from Street Fighter...erm..."street fighting"...in the butt, apparently. After already being in hysterics from this glorious find, the shop owner looks at me, cracks the biggest smile ever and simply says "It's good! It's good!" I never busted my gut harder. I snapped a pic of the "street fighting" on my phone, but it's probably not safe to post here. You probably all think I'm a weird ass, but then again, if you hadn't figured that out already from my previous posts, then why are you still here?

Aside from the hilarious rest stops we made, Chicago was a blast! The Seers/Willis Tower was out of this world, and some of the other attractions were very interesting to see! My favorite parts would have to be not the tourist attractions, but all the different shops that were set up there. They had this mega-art store that brought me to my knees the moment I walked in the door. I purchased 3 deluxe art marker pens (which I used to sketch the doodle of my buddy Damien riding a turtle at the top) that were absolutely gorgeous on paper. They had a sweet little comic shop, and a Starbucks on almost every corner. I do love the smell of commerce, no matter where it stews from. Another highlight moment was the deep-dish pizza we ordered (and devoured) at this restaurant we stopped at later in the evening. It was so thick and delicious, I would have easily payed $10 a slice for something so majestic to grace my taste buds again. Alas...until the next Chicago trip...Anyways, fuck Chicago!

THURSDAY...I slept a lot. End of story.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY...Workity, work work!
SUNDAY...Beach day! I snagged my buddy Jake and his girlfriend Erin for another go at the beach! I was longing for another trip to the beach since we went the last time, and everyone agreed with me that it was a great day for it! So me, Jake, Erin, Erin's cousin Elysia, Elysia's sister Emily, and Emily's cousin Breonna(?) all hopped in the van and wade into the waters. The water was warmer this time around, but still cold enough for everyone to freeze. 'Cept me. Cuz I'm the boss. There was much rejoicing, finding of phalic objects for Jake's sexually humorous amusement, making fail castles in the sand, and even some art! I patted out a face with a terrified look, used small pearly white rocks I found for his teeth, and dug my hands into the sand on the sides, to make it look like he was trying to escape the grains. Unfortunately, my phone was in my pants, and I knew something bad was going to happen to it if I just left it there, so I didn't get a picture. It was legit though. Trust me.

After all these antics, we stopped at Arby's on the way home, and I treated myself to 2 Bacon Cheese Melt Deluxe Thingamabobs and a Peach Tea/Lemonade fusion drink I concocted myself. I know, I'm just a gosh-darn genius. After that, I went home. And that, as they say, is that.


So all in all, my week was pretty freegin' good. One of the best I've had in a long time. It was just what I needed to remedy this monotonous cabin fever I was starting to develop. Perhaps it's time to hide all the ninja weapons in my room out of sight? I'd rather not start my killing spree until I can at least afford a more suitable form of transportation. Try stuffing body parts into the back of my Jeep without store-and-go seating, and see how far you get...On that note, good night future vict- I mean loyal followers! Thanks for reading, as always!