The Smoking Diaries: DAY 40 - COMING TO TERMS WITH LOSING YOUR FAVORITE MENTHOL FLAVORED FRIEND

 Over Christmas break I found myself back at home with my parents for a week.  In other words, I had to go without smoking cigarettes for SEVEN WHOLE DAYS.  Seven.   A literal shit-ton.  Technically, I could have excused myself at any time during those seven days to go outside and have a smoke, but I knew how my parents felt about it and I myself would have felt like too much of an asshole to even try it.

I smoked for eight years, starting when I was just 16.  How much I smoked or how many cigarettes I went through always seemed to be changing from year to year.  When I started smoking, I went through one pack a week.  Then it was two or three.  Then I started making my own cigarettes because it was just too damn expensive paying $15 a week.

The “making my own cigarettes trend” lasted about a year since I only rolled them because I had the time to roll them.  I was a senior in college and not working.  This was due to the fact that I worked my ass off all summer on a sausage production line - ten to twelve hour days were a norm.  So, I would spend an hour at night or even in my car between classes rolling my own cigarettes. 

If you haven’t ever rolled your own cigarettes then you have no possible clue how much time and patience it can take to accomplish such a small ordeal.  Sure, after a month or two I was rolling one cig per minute, but it’s still a complicated and meticulous pain in the ass.  Also, when you first start rolling, it literally seems like an eternity to just roll ten or twenty cigs.  An eternity.  I cannot express that sentiment enough.  Rolling your first twenty cigs is the equivalent of watching Rush Limbaugh run a marathon:  after appearing to only move a few feet towards your goal in the first ten minutes or so, your determination begins to be overwhelmed by a hopeless sense of failure.  I mean, shit, why should you spend all this time and effort running when you could just get in your $450,725 car and drive to the destination?

Yet I had the time and figured I might as well save the money.  Unfortunately, I was saving so much money that I was able to smoke almost triple what I normally consumed on any given day.  I would find myself rolling 30-40 cigs per day and sometimes needing to roll even more.  Yes, I was saving money but also smoking excessively at the same time.  Whenever everyone I knew was complaining about how badly I smelled (except for my best friend who was also rolling his own), I began to consider a change of pace.

I stopped rolling my own and kept myself to a pack - to a pack and a half - a week.  I was able to keep at this steady ratio for nearly two years.  Also during those two years, I had to deal with my girlfriend on my ass every single time I lit up.  It sucked.  I’d always have to go behind her back (feeling like an asshole the entire time) or just deal with disappointing her over and over again.

My habit had now been turned into an epic conundrum not seen since the “Is Jesus Really Our Savior?” debacle of the early 0’s.  Unlike Jesus, however, I was getting off that cross.  Hard.

…and I’m going to cut it short here.  I’ve run out of time – unfortunately - but I can say it’s been 40 days since a purchase of cigs (as I revealed in a previous blog, I did drunkenly smoke one this weekend) but I’ll be damned if the cravings aren’t still there, uh, obviously.  Sucks.

From the Archives of the Shore

So here's a bit I wrote about a month and a half ago.  I was actually sitting in the library in between finals and had nothing else to do with my time.  Really, what was I supposed to do, study?  Anyways, it's all kind of pointless now since the topic was all about that flavor-of-week-bullshit Jersey Shore...which I dearly, dearly miss.

Enjoy.

So.  I have a headache.  A massive, Steve Urkel-esque tumor of a headache that repeatedly screams “did I do that?” right after my frontal lobe explodes.

I know, it’s been awhile.  Shit’s been busy, not much else to say. 

I really really really want to finish my weed-inspired tale of virgins and Easter grass, but it looks like that won’t happen for at least another week if not longer (Christmas break starts this Thursday night at 9pm and I doubt I’ll be sober until sometime on the morning of the 25^th).

So, this headache thing.  I’m coming back to it because it keeps coming back to me.  Honestly, the stress of the last two weeks of every semester is enough to turn people crazy...crazy enough to watch Jersey Shore, even.  Okay, okay.  Everyone is talking and writing and masturbating to this show already and I promise I’ll keep this short.  Honestly, though, what attracts even normal, level-headed people (like myself) to this show?  I don’t even watch television that often but I’ll be damned if Jersey Shore isn’t scheduled on the dvr right now.  And, after initially hearing about this new form of “entertainment” from multiple sources this weekend, I had a morbid curiosity to see it for myself.

Then, I watched it.

Enjoyed it, even. 

Was completely ready to name it a guilty pleasure of mine and never speak of it to the real world outside of this computer screen. 

Then, the unthinkable happened.  I read an article on Cracked.com by a writer that I very much respect (as much as you can when considering it’s Cracked) explaining that he too enjoyed the show with little to no knowledge of as to why.

I have no explanation to provide, either.

Though I do believe that Jersey Shore should be used to educate all the creationists in the world that evolution does indeed exist.  Confused?  Well, you can’t have evolution without de-evolution, which is proven to humanity through the eight “people” that star in this literal fuckfest of a television show.  No disrespect to Italians, I realize that these “people” have chosen to be the way they are perceived…but goddamn, really?  Guidos and Guidettes?  Are you really proud of who you are and what you do?  Seriously, these “people” spray tan themselves to a point where they can’t even be categorized into a color-based race system anymore.  Shit, I’ve seen Africans with lighter skin then these folks.  Basically, they’ve hit a point where someone out there is going to have to create a new term for these dipshits.  “Spray-tan Americans” or “Fucking Pieces of Shit Who Overcompensate by Painting Themselves to the Point Where They Can No Longer Be Seen Without the Assistance of Nightvision,” or even “Disillusioned Motherfuckers that Need Our Help Through Laughter and Ridicule….” 

Okay, maybe I do have an explanation for my love of the Shore.  It’s not politically correct nor is it morally okay to laugh at retarded people or those with mental health issues.  Honestly, I’d feel like a pretty horrible prick if I laughed at those less fortunate in the world. 

If you laughed at Chase No Face, well, fuck you. 

And really, I wouldn’t poke fun to begin with because, hell, that’s just not me.  Yet thanks to the douches and douchettes on this show, I finally have a group of people that I can feel good about making fun of because they’ve chosen to be literal retards.  It’s kind of like that episode of South Park in which the boys had the definition of “faggot” changed to represent those individuals that ride Harley Davidson Motorcycles.  I, for one, am all for changing the definition of “retardation” to represent Guidos and Guiddettes.

Seriously, these “people” are Italian-Americans.  Be proud of who you are!  It’s been a shit-ton of a long time since Italians were discriminated against in America, so I don’t see why you’re trying so hard not to be Italian.  Don’t give me that bullshit about how being a Guido is so Italian.  You can wave your little Italian flags and use all your Italian slang, but I bet if I go to Italy I won’t  see a million spray-tanned black guys on steroids running around fucking anything with a hole and a pulse.  I’d wager money on that, even. 

Still, I’d almost call it a privilege to watch Jersey Shore.

For those of you who don’t “get” the Shore and think it’s just dumb television (which, I guess, I can’t really argue against when it comes to the “stupid” part), I almost feel as if you think this way because you may see just a little bit of yourself in some of those Guidos and Guidettes.  Maybe you do frequent clubs and fuck multiple individuals on such a consistent basis that you could literally repopulate the world if nuclear holocaust occurred tomorrow morning.  Perhaps you just enjoy spray tanning, hair gel, and Axe body spray to the point where you are no longer genetically considered a human being.  Or maybe you just think you’re above it all (which, I hate to break it to you, you’re not, Mikey).

Watching the Shore is like looking into America’s deepest, darkest regions of consumerist hell.  Only in America can you be someone you’re not through the use of beauty products.  Although honestly, I’m really not sure what these people are trying to become with all the spray tanning and hair gel and alcohol.  A new race?  I guess we already discussed that one but still, I’m baffled.  Maybe  the guys watched too much Dragon Ball Z as kids and maybe the women watched too much…fuck if I know.  God, that one chick looks like a chubby Smurf whose been marinated in liquid shit for ten years of her life.

"The Situation" ...minus the book...though not completely ruling out the whole tail thing.

Gross. 

Review: Motion City Soundtrack - My Dinosaur Life

Let me be honest here:  I struggled writing this review from the very moment I turned on itunes and let “My Dinosaur Life” come to life through my computer speakers.  It’s not because this particular album is terrible or in any way unlistenable.  In fact, the newest effort from Motion City Soundtrack managed to surprise me in almost every way.  Yet for some reason or another, I can’t quite shake the feeling that the band I once knew so well is now no more.

Well, let’s hold up for a second and backtrack eight or so years to the early 2000’s.  If you’re like me, you fell in love with MCS when you first heard the album, “I Am the Movie.”  Brutally honest lyrics paired with music tuned to a blistering pace managed to keep MCS’ first effort in my own personal rotation for the past seven years.  Their follow-up album, “Commit This to Memory,” was nearly able to match their initial pop-punk endeavor in terms of quality lyrics and quick tempo and is again something I find myself listening to from time to time.  However, 2007’s “Even If It Kills Me,” made me forget about MCS until now.  An album with nearly no redeeming qualities, “Even If It Kills Me” seemed to be a crossroads of sorts for the band; almost every song was a mass of confusion, consistently feeling like an unpolished pop record with a thin coating of punk aesthetic laminated overtop.  The band’s identity was inarguably gone, and “Even If It Kills Me” was MCS’ failed attempt to recover it.

When listening to “My Dinosaur Life,” it is easy to assume that MCS never did find that identity lost from their first two albums.  Unquestionably, “My Dinosaur Life” proves that MCS is not the same band you adored when “The Future Freaks Me Out” first made sweet, sweet love to your ears.  Instead, the identity that MCS appears to have now claimed can more or less be considered all pop, minus the punk.  Imagine if you can, if “From Under the Cork Tree” mated with “Stop.”  Essentially, this album has some great, sugarcoated pop hooks that never really manage to break from a mid-tempo pace (in fact, my biggest complaint is how restrained lead singer Justin Pierre feels; his voice never hits the extreme ranges that are found on earlier albums).  Is this a bad thing?  That’s where I find myself struggling.  Sure, I would have much preferred another “I Am the Movie,” but I never expected such considering “My Dinosaur Life” is a major label debut.  In fact, this album is a pretty solid pop record all around.  Sure, a few tracks manage to elicit memories of previous efforts; Disappear could be a b-side from “I Am the Movie” while Delirium could have been ripped straight from “Commit this to Memory.”  Overall, however, this is where most - if not all - similarities end.

So here I am again, struggling with my general feelings about “My Dinosaur Life” and how to properly score it.  Yes, Motion City Soundtrack has created a solid pop record that has managed to keep my undivided attention for the past week.  However, I have to ask myself whether or not I see this release passing the test of time as the previous two albums have, or whether “My Dinosaur Life” will find itself collecting dust with other flavor-of-the-year pop records.

 My prediction right now?  Probably the shelf.

3.5/5

Pointless Update: Entry 101189

I haven't been writing as much, I know.  Don't ask why.  I wouldn't blame it on a lack of time or subjects; in fact, I've actually been participating in a lot of cool stuff lately.  I went to a party at Penn State this past weekend, for instance.  I even managed to only drunkenly smoke one cigarette, which, by the way, was not as good as  I remember it.  The unfortunate aspect is that I know I would still start smoking again if I bought a pack randomly someday.  It's truly a weird situation knowing that smoking really isn't all that great nor is it what I remember (taste/smell wise) but that I'd still pick it right back up if I really wanted.  I guess that's a weakness of sorts.  I highly doubt I'd ever start smoking again while in a relationship with my girlfriend, but should things ever go south and that would end, I can 100% guarantee that I would begin smoking again.  Shit, that almost rhymes.  Onward and upwards, I guess.
I'm starting to think I might just have writer's block...but a really weird form of it.  I mean, I have tons of ideas and stories literally floating around in my head at this very moment.  Unfortunately, I don't really feel like writing about any of them.  It almost feels as if I'm waiting for something, though I really have no idea what.  Well, I take that back.  I know I'm waiting for that one great idea that will eventually culminate into a story that I feel could be the one that gets me out in the public eye.  I know that is coming.  What it is or what it involves, however, is still pretty vague.
I did write a review for punknews.org today, though.  I'll see if it gets posted this week at all and add the link to this page.  If it doesn't, I'll just post the entire review for anyone interested.

Goodbye, December

When you're still in the never-ending swing of continuing education, December is by far the fastest month of they year.  Whether it's cramming for finals or finishing the six, 15+ page papers you put off till the last minute, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas blows over quicker than Paris Hilton's acting career.
To be honest, I had absolutely no time to update this thing for the three people in the world that actually read it.  I apologize.  For the first two weeks of December, it was finals time for me, and then I spent a week back home with the parents, enjoying the holiday season and separating myself from technology as much as possible.  I then spent New Year's here, at the apartment, with my beautiful girlfriend.  We got shitfaced and watched Jennifer's Body.  Happy New Year indeed.
I've also been coping with quitting smoking.  In fact, I've been smoke free for fifteen days now and holy fuck, does it suck.  I'd like to get into more detail about the situation, the side effects, the pain, and all the usual suffering, but my beautiful girlfriend who has also been pushing me to quit just walked in the door from work.
I'll have some free time tomorrow morning, perhaps.
Talk to you later, kiddos.