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.

Attack of the Easter Grass, Part Deuce

DISCLAIMER:  This is Part 2 of a multi-part story.  Part 1 is directly below this blog.  Please read it first.


***

“Why, I dare ask, did you put Easter grass in the water bong bowl?” At this point, I could somewhat speak in a normal tone, as most of the poisonous gases had apparently left my lungs.


Sammy sat forward on the couch, a sly smile creeping up on his face. “Okay, okay,” he said, trying to suppress a laugh. “You’re gonna love this.”

I love the fact that you can actually coherently speak at this moment, that’s for goddamn sure.

“Keep going,” I snapped. I was still irritated that it had taken this long to get an explanation, and even more pissed that the water bong in my hand contained no actual marijuana.

“Well, you know how me and Africa and Abe Lincoln Emo Fuck always complain about Douchenozzle just coming over and smoking all our weed, right?”

I was indeed familiar with this situation. Apparently, Douchenozzle had come to the conclusion that he no longer wanted to pay for his marijuana, and would instead simply stop by and let Sammy and the gang smoke him up. Since the gang was much too nice to say anything about it to his face, they instead would complain behind his back at all times. I could only guess at this moment that the gang decided to seek revenge by placing Easter grass in the water bong.

“Let me guess: you guys put Easter grass in the water bong as some sort of ill-conceived revenge plot?” I don’t know why I asked; truth be told this was the only rational explanation to the scene I was now witnessing.

Sammy looked to be in a state of shock. “Dude! How did you know?”

I shook my head. “Just a good guess, I, uh, guess. Regardless, did you guys smoke the Easter grass too?”

“Yeah man, shit gets you high as fuck! Who knew, right?”

“How the hell are you all not dead right now?”

“Well,” Sammy paused, eyeing-up the water bong in my hands, “we kept passing it back to Douchenozzle every chance we got, so he probably smoked way more than me, Africa, or Alf” (Abe Lincoln Emo Fuck…the “e” is silent, don’t ask). “Then he sort of just passed out on the floor. About two hours after that we realized he might be dead. That’s when Africa and Alf took off and I called you.”

This was quickly becoming more than I could actually handle.

“Hey,” I asked, “you have any actual weed for me to smoke?” I figured that since the gang more than likely came up with their Easter grass fuck-up while smoking that the only way a solution could be properly invented would be with my mind under the influence as well.

“Um…no. But seriously dude, just take a few hits of that grass, it’ll fuck you up.”

For a split second I actually considered taking another hit from the murderous holiday decoration bong, but before I could come to a decision, Abe Lincoln Emo Fuck crashed through the back door.

“Holy fuck!” Alf screamed upon seeing Douchenozzle and Mr. Coppertone dead on the floor. “There’s a fucking corpse in here!”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I replied looking towards Sammy. “Didn’t you say he was here with you when this all happened?”

“Yeah,” Sammy said, “but he was high off the grass and drinking Vlad so he might be more fucked than Douchenozzle.”

I had to agree; Alf had a tendency of drinking and smoking to excessive amounts and not remembering entire days at a time. In other words, he was about as useless to me right now as a vagina in a gay bar.

“Eww, it’s still warm.” Alf was currently using his right hand to repeatedly poke at the back of Douchenozzle’s arm. “So, uh, guys,” he muttered, still poking, “do you think if I fucked this thing that it would make me, uh, well, you know?”

“What?” I asked. Leave it to Alf to make the situation even more fucked up. Exactly what I didn’t need right now.

“I’m not following you,” Sammy replied.

“Come on guys,” Alf whined, “ you know what I mean.”

“No, I’m pretty goddamn sure we don’t,” I said. I honestly had no idea where he was going with this, even though I probably should have.

Alf sighed for at least a good twenty seconds, then (finally) stated, “Okay, so if I fuck this body here, it would make me an un-virgin, right? It’s gotta count for something.”

Alf looked at us both with a smile that I can only describe as shit-fucking-creepy. In fact, that smile coupled with the idea of him fucking a dead man’s corpse would be enough to haunt my nightmares for the next ten years. Therapy included.

Silence took us all over for what felt like a millennia. Alf continued to stand there, his shit-fucking-creepy smile plastered all over his shit-fucking-creepy face.

“No,” Sammy exclaimed, finally breaking the silence. “I’m pretty sure it would just make you gay.”

“That so deserves a high-five, dude,” I said, putting my hand up in recognition.

Sammy returned the motion, the slap echoing off of Alf’s ears like a gunshot. While Sammy’s last comment was indeed funny enough for a high-five celebration, I was more excited by the fact that such a well thought-out and humorous effort from him meant that he might finally be coming down from his Easter grass high. It also meant that I now had a capable sidekick, and our chances of getting away cleanly with this entire fiasco were suddenly much, much better.

Me, Sammy, Africa, ALF, and the Easter Grass: Part Uno

Disclaimer: All names used in this story are fake…mostly due to a murder case that is still under investigation. Oh, except for Mr. Coppertone, the kitten. His name really is Mr. Coppertone...not that it matters because he dies like, five paragraphs into the story.

“You know,” Sammy said, lifting our victim’s round, fluffy kitten high in the air, “I read that the best way to murder someone is by using their cat as a contraceptive.”

I shook my head, desperate to alleviate the image of my friend wearing nothing but a hissing feline wrapped around his genitals. It wasn’t the first time my imagination had conjured up something similar in the dark, hellish regions of my mind. I just prayed that it might be the last.

“Will you put Mr. Coppertone down and come help me with Douchenozzle?” Granted, ‘Douchenozzle” was not the Christian name of the dead body that now lay before us, but, due to a certain murder case still being open, I’m not too sure how much detail would be appropriate before Sammy and I would have a guaranteed date in the “Don’t Drop the Soap Olympics” (that means “prison,” for all you non-intellectual types). I do assure you, however, that Mr. Coppertone was the actual name of Mr. Coppertone.

“Tell me again - slowly this time - just what the hell happened here.” Although Sammy had explained the story to me at least five times, I was still having a hard time fully understanding his stoned speech. “And put the cat down, please,” I added.

With a defeated and somewhat sad-looking shrug, Sammy dropped Mr. Coppertone on the coffee table in front of him. With a loud crash, Mr. Coppertone fell through the glass top of the table and rolled to a bloody rest on the carpet, a large piece of glass protruding from his cute, kitten head.

“Good job, fucknuts, that’s two things you’ve managed to kill tonight.”

Oh yes, I do assure you that Mr. Coppertone is full-blown dead.

Sammy opened his mouth to say something, but after thirty seconds of silence that I assumed to be his pot-addled mind trying to form words other than “dead” and “pussy,” I started to lose patience.

“Okay,” I started once again, trying desperately not to sound as pissed as I was at him, “explain again what happened. Without killing small, defenseless animals this time.”

Sammy, apparently broken from his weed-stupor, shouted “but you told me to put Mr. Coppertone down!”

“And I don’t really fucking care!” I screamed back. “How do you like them, apples?”

“Apples?” Sammy asked. “I’m hungry.”

I shook my head, desperate to leave the situation as quickly as I possibly could. I mean, shit, who wouldn’t?

When Sammy called me over to his house, I had no idea I’d be walking into a room with a dead body and eventually a dead Mr. Coppertone bleeding all over the tan carpet. Thanks to the misguided efforts of my stoned friend, I was now an accessory to murder unless I called the proper authorities. But where I come from, friends don’t let stoned friends get butt-pumped in prison. And Sammy was undoubtedly my friend.

And they're just the butt-fucking welcoming committee.

“Ok,” I said, kicking Douchenozzle’s head so that his face rolled around to where I could look him in his bloated eyes. “He’s blue. What’d you guys do, suffocate him to death?” I glanced over to Sammy, who gave me an “I don’t know” double shoulder shrug. He was also taking a hit from his beloved golden water bong.

“Give me that shit!” I yelled, grabbing the bong from his fingers. “This is what got you in trouble in the first place, stupid!”

With a dejected and saddened look on his face as if I had just murdered his brother, Sammy quietly whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I sighed. It was hard staying mad at the kid. Sammy was so high that me losing my temper with him would be the equivalent of yelling at mentally retarded children for not understanding physics. I would have to take this much, much slower.

“Sammy,” I enunciated slowly and carefully like one would to a stupid dog they’re trying to train, “please try to think about what happened to Douchenozzle.” This was it, the last time I was going to ask this question. If he didn’t answer it correctly, I would simply drive off and pray that he didn’t remember me being here in the first place.

Finally, with a look of extreme concentration or constipation, Sammy opened his mouth and responded.

“He smoked too much.”

I waited for more of an explanation. After ten seconds of silence, I decided to push the agenda.

“And?” I asked.

That look of constipation again on Sammy’s face. “No, that’s it. He just smoked too much.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.” I should have expected something like this. Leave it to these assholes to accomplish something that science had proven couldn’t be done.

“So you’re telling me, Sammy, that Douchenozzle somehow OD’d on marijuana?”

Sammy nodded his head excitedly. “Weird, huh?”

I found a recliner in the corner of the room and threw myself into it. I had the feeling that it was going to be a long night. Sammy, still high as fuck, laid himself down on a couch and began singing Tegan and Sara songs to no one in particular. This, I thought, was as good a time as any to have a smoke.

I took the golden water bong that I still held in my hand and put it to my mouth. Lighting it, I took a huge hit, hoping the weed would magically produce a solution to this horrible mess I now faced. Instead, I was greeted with the warm breath of death itself as it crawled down my throat and into my lungs.

Immediately jerking forward, I began to violently cough. It felt like my throat was a random German city that was being firebombed by the British Airforce.

“Holy,” cough, “fuck!” I managed to squeak across my vocal chords. “What,” cough, “in the fuck,” cough, “is this shit?” More coughing.

“Oh!” Sammy exclaimed, suddenly broken from his shitty karaoke act on the couch. “That’s Easter grass.”

“Easter grass?”

“Yeah, Easter grass.”

I somehow saw this coming. Don’t even ask me how, it’s just sort of a sixth sense I’ve gotten from hanging with Sammy for so long. Whether it was the time he broke his foot falling into a 2 inch ditch while drunk boxing at a party, or the infamous day he somehow managed to survive a full-blown 60mph ejaculation from the driver’s side window of his former Mercury Cougar, what should surprise me with Sammy just simply didn’t anymore. In fact, Easter grass in the water bong didn’t even rank a 3 on the “Weird-Shit-Sammy’s-Done-10-Point-Scale.” Still, I had to find out why there was Easter grass in the water bong if I were to even begin to hope to solve the problem of a dead Douchenozzle and save Sammy from a butt-fucking bonanza in prison.

But could I actually save him? 

FIND OUT NEXT TIME I HAVE THE TIME TO FINISH THIS STUPID SHIT...IN OTHER WORDS, TO BE CONTINUED!