CHALLENGE!!!

I don't take compliments well. I can't accept the fact that I've done something well, because in my mind there's always something I could have done better. I'd call myself a perfectionist, but I'm far too lazy for that. I guess I'm a nice walking contradiction that way. My dad always made me feel like I could have done better at something, and he's right. I remember he promised me something (I don't even remember what it was) if I got a 99 in all my classes in 5th grade. I wasn't the strongest science student, never have been, but I got a 90 on a test and decided to re-take it, with all the people who failed, just to improve my grade. I felt like an asshole when they asked me what I got on it that I had to re-take it, then asking me "Why are you here then?" Anyway, I got a 95 the second time around and ended up with a 92 average between the two tests. No 99 in science for me.

Sometimes people compliment me on my writing, and I really don't know what to say. I'm only a college student, still learning to write well. I figure, if I'm that good a writer, shouldn't I be getting paid to do it? I don't know, maybe that's not the way the world works. I'm still naive about this stuff. Maybe it's from watching sports for so long, assuming that the person who is best for the job is going to win out every time. Sports have almost no politics, pure meritocracy. I think it's the only industry like that. I worry for my future because I've never kissed someone's ass in my life and I can't picture ever doing it.

On the other hand, I'm so excited when I get positive feedback on something I wrote. Embarrassed, even. But I feel so proud that I've gotten that feedback that I feel the need to tell other people about it, which I always feel weird about afterwards. I can admit that I'm a fairly self-centered jerk, and when I become conscious of the fact that I'm talking about myself, I feel like more of one. Really, I don't brag on purpose unless I'm talking smack in a game or something. But I feel like I do it a lot considering how rarely I get a response to something I write.

Recently I've become conscious that I may be over-sensitive to feedback, both positive and negative. I've always felt unchallenged as a writer, worrying that any editor I had was too timid to tell me when something needed improvement. What if my writing sucks and nobody's got the balls to tell me? It'll be a nice surprise when I get out of college and can't get a job.

But for the first time since I started at the Collegian, I got a letter to the editor about something I wrote. I was ecstatic to get my first hate mail. On the one hand, I feel like I have to acknowledge my detractors and improve upon their criticisms, but on the other hand--and I do feel pretentious saying this--the girl who sent that letter didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Apparently the only criticism of my writing I've gotten to date is that I shouldn't joke around about Sean Paul's obvious negative qualities as a musician, even in the middle of a mostly positive review. Reading that letter made me wish I'd just ripped Sean Paul for being a shitty rapper, but it's too late for that now.

Anyway, I always feel like I need to challenge myself when I write, and right now I'm not satisfied with the challenges that are coming up. I think I need to get better at asking questions, but I think when I prepare well enough for an interview I come up with some really good ones. I could use some faster note-taking skills, but once I get the money for a decent digital voice recorder, I guess I won't really need them. It seems silly saying I don't have enough challenges on the same day I'm going to talk to Lupe Fiasco, Atmosphere, Akron/Family, and hopefully some guys from The Bullet Parade, but it's not something I can't handle. Honestly, it's not a hard job. I love doing it, but sometimes I wish there was more I could do with it.

I've always been an ambitious person, I think. I always think I can do more than I'm doing. I often have crazy ideas that sound great at first, but then reality sets in and I realize I can't possibly accomplish them. I credit my friends for keeping me grounded. Even with all the stupid things I've done in my life, there's a laundry list of others I would have done if not for my friends.

I'm coming up with a crazy idea right now, though. Writing for a newspaper becomes routine once you get enough practice with it. I need someting epic in my life. I'm going to write a book. It might be hard to write the book I want to write, since I have few to zero credentials whatsoever, but I can try, can't I?

My book is going to be about something I'm calling "geek rock." It's not a new term, but as far as I know there isn't a book about it. I'm talking about Buddy Holly, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, Rivers Cuomo, Ben Gibbard. There are others, but those are the guys who've inspired me to write this book. And in the past few weeks, I've learned something: if you work hard enough to find and talk to a rock star, you can find and talk to a rock star. I'm going to write this book. I have no timeframe, no time to do it really, but I'm going to do it eventually.

You're never busy enough in life that you can't take on another challenge. And if you're not challenging yourself, you're not making progress. I might have quoted him on this before, but when Pat Croce left his post as the president of the Philadelphia 76ers, he was inspiring as always. He said, "If I'm not moving forward, if I'm stagnant, I'm going backward." People are never stationary. If you're not moving forward, everything is passing you by. As much as I love Ferris Bueller, he was wrong about what he said. If you stop to look around once in a while, you're missing everything.

Highlights For Children (Or College Kids)

As I said in my previous entry, I had a fan-fucking-tastic summer. But that statement means nothing if I don't qualify it with some sort of evidence. That's what I plan to do here. I'm going to recount every good night I can remember. It's going to be a muddled, jumbled mess because I have no rhyme or reason for the order, and my memory may not be up to snuff. But nonetheless, I'm going to tell you why I had such a great summer.

I've already talked about the Collegian, but I never really talked about what was so great about it. The first thing you must realize is that State College, being a college town (it's even in the name, for fuck's sake), is a ghost town in the summers. Some people stick around for work or to take a few classes, but mostly people just want to go home. Not that I don't love my family or anything, but being away from home is much better for me than living with them. I don't think I'm the only person who feels this way, which makes me wonder why more people wouldn't stay in State College for the summer.

Because of the nature of the summers here, most of the people at the Collegian had few others to hang out with. In addition to the lack of available hangout buddies, the nature of the newspaper business makes for very late nights. Some people are in the newsroom until 2 a.m., every Sunday to Thursday. But a benefit of the business is that early mornings are very optional. Also, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights are always completely wide open. Here's an excerpt from an article that proves my point further, if you haven't gotten it yet:

"The line between alcoholic and journalist is nearly invisible, which makes it hard to tell if you have a substance abuse problem. Historically, the best writers have been alcoholics or drug addicts. Although no prime examples come to mind, I’ve been told this fact by many journalists—and the media doesn’t lie.

Alcohol and writing seem to be a natural fit like paper and pen. This is probably because it’s hard to hear the muse when sober. Working in media only requires one thing: a high tolerance for alcohol. And the rest will fall into place."

As I've told friends recently, this summer has spiked my tolerance level pretty well. It's a trade-off. On the one hand, it's more expensive and more lengthy getting drunk, but on the other hand, it's easier to pace myself. I'm in prime condition for a longer period of time. However, if you're trying to get irresponsible, it's a bit harder. That's when beer just doesn't cut it.

Back to my point: journalists are, by nature, alcoholics. They work in a high-stress environment, constantly juggling multiple deadlines, and relying on numerous other people to meet those deadlines. They're also nighthawks, getting off work just around the time happy hour is in full force. But you know what? I kind of love it that way. There's a lot of camaraderie in newspapers. That's why on most nights you could find a few Collegian workers kicking back and having a few drinks together.

Sometimes, a few drinks became many drinks. On one particular occasion, Terry Casey's apartment featured drinking games, lots of beer, strong jungle juice, and ska music. If you're reading this, don't ever, ever, ever put on ska music after I've been drinking. You, like Terry, will have lamps to be fixed. Also, it's probably best to stay away from Weezer, as I'm wont to air guitar along and bump into Terry's fish tank, splashing water onto electrical equipment. That was a different night, full of mixed drinks and a 12-pack of PBR to cap off the night. There's some small victory found in waking up in your own room after you've blacked out.

On the other hand, there's a sense of achievement when you wake up in a room you've never seen before, too. That's what happened the morning (afternoon?) after the summer-ending Collegian social. Fortunately for me, I was way down on the list of the sloppiest drunks that night. Many poor decisions were made, and my only fault was apparently demonstrating proper (well, no, not "proper") make-out procedure on my boss. I also had a little Ziggy Stardust spirit in me that night, but I'm not going to explain that any further.

That wasn't the only night I had some flair going for me. A few nights later, the Collegian had its last issue of the summer printed. We celebrated, obviously, with an all-nighter and breakfast in the morning, to which I wore some gigantic star-shaped sunglasses. I was on fire. After leaving breakfast, we marvelled at the sight of 30 or so people in white shirts, black ties, and black pants walking down the other side of the street, two by two. I got excited. All of a sudden, I was running in between each pair of uniformed men, without a care in the world. If my celebration of chaos amidst a sea of order didn't sum up my entire summer, I don't know what did.

It wasn't all a drunken haze, though. Sometimes I was really high instead. Like the time Terry, Dan Winklebleck and I left Kayur's house very hungry and in search of food. Kayur and I had gone on one of these pilgrimages before, to The Diner, only to find that they don't keep their 24/7 schedule during the summer. This time, we would not be denied. We made the trek to Canyon Pizza, the best drunk pizza/worst sober pizza in the world, hoping they hadn't closed early. We arrived at 3:15 to find the lights off and the back door closed. But to our glee, a girl was still behind the counter. All we wanted was a couple slices apiece, but the girl quite frankly made us an offer we couldn't refuse. After we placed our order, she turned halfway around and said, "How about I give you all that for ten bucks?" Six slices of plain pizza, two slices of pepperoni, two slices of pepper and onion, and three breadsticks--for ten bucks. We'd have been crazy not to do it. We took our food out front of the establishment and ate it in silence. We came nowhere close to finishing it all, and Terry took it back to his apartment where his roommates finished it the next day. I will talk about this night for the rest of my life.

A lot of the stories I'll tell from this summer aren't about me; they're about the people I hung out with. However, I'm a bit tentative to write about other people in a blog that's going on Facebook for all to see. Also, I'm self-centered and there's no way I'm writing about other people in MY blog. Just kidding. Well, half-kidding.

I've been pretty broke the past few weeks because I can't conserve my own money, so the Drink of the Day thing is pretty useless since I've probably already written about everything I've drank recently. However, Unimart is trying to ruin my life by putting sugar-filled drinks on sale every so often. This summer, I lived on their one dollar liter bottles of Pepsi products. Now, I'm afraid I'm going to spend all my spare change on dollar-fifty gallons of iced tea. Seriously, Unimart, stop trying to straight up murder my ass.

In closing, listen to Pavement and the Pixies. That is all.

Somebody That I Used to Know

New title, new blog. Sorta. Not really, but we'll pretend it is.

This was a very eventful summer in my life. Basically, it all started when my parents were reminded of what a fraud, coward, waste I am. Or was. Hopefully was. Another year passed by without much progress made in my growth as a person. I sucked at college again, and again I was too much of a pussy to tell my parents. They found out when a letter was sent home notifying me that because of my lack of academic progress I'd been placed on non-degree conditional status, which basically means I'm on a slow road back to the middle. I'm limited in how many credits I can take, and if I don't get my GPA up this semester, I'm out. My back is against the wall now.

When I returned home to my parents, relations were strained to say the least. We had the same argument every single day. I can't say I didn't deserve to lose their last ounce of trust. Unsure of my immediate future, I tried to get a job. When my attempts proved fruitless for a few days, my dad grew frustrated and blamed me. But without the use of their cars, my prospects were limited. Eventually, my grandmother, who just wanted to see me back on the right track, lent me her car so I could get to and from UPS. Though I worked for the same company last summer, this time the hours and position were different. I quickly grew to hate the job for a number of reasons. In the meantime, my dad wasn't satisfied with my inability to get a second job on top of the UPS one. Frankly, getting a second job would be nearly impossible due to a lack of reliable transportation, but my parents were dissatisfied nonetheless.

Tensions came to a head when I decided I wanted to quit UPS in favor of another (less reliable but more interesting) job offer. My mom wanted to kick me out of the house. My dad convinced her to let me stay, but under the condition that I pay $100/week rent, which is ridiculous. They essentially forced me to move back to State College. Doing so would be the best thing I did all summer.

The summer of 2006 was the best of my life. Unfortunately, I didn't get to spend much time with my old friends back home, or even with people from Phroth. I was keeping myself busy for the first time in years, and I was enjoying it. I made new friends at the Daily Collegian, meanwhile writing about music every week and getting opportunities I've never had. I interviewed members of three national acts: Nick Harmer, the bassist for Death Cab for Cutie; Jason Hammel, the drummer for Mates of State; and Sam Sanford, a guitarist for Sound Team. I had three front-page stories for the paper: one, a review of the concert featuring those bands; another, the story of the last day of Arboria Records, a long-standing record store in State College; and another, a last-minute breaking story about the announcing of a Sean Paul concert. Most of the stories weren't very big; even the ones I just mentioned mostly weren't much. But hell, I had a lot of fun writing them.

This fall, I'm only taking my maximum of 12 credits. However, I'm also assuming the duties of Features Editor for Phroth, Senior Music Reporter for the Daily Collegian, and working at The Deli. It would seem this could very well be my last semester at Penn State. However, I think back to high school. In my sophomore year, I scheduled the maximum number of credits. I had no lunch period and only two free periods per cycle. I did pep band for football games in the fall, concert band, and I was on the wrestling team in the winter. That spring, I had my best semester ever in high school. I don't know what it is about me, but I very rarely stress out. I'm ready to take this coming semester head-on.

There are a handful of reasons I changed the name of the blog. First of all, as I mentioned before, I'm no longer twenty years old and therefore calling myself a "twentynothing," while self-deprecating, no longer has a double entendre. Secondly, as I decided to start writing, I was listening to the Elliott Smith song of the same title, and the lyrics connected with me. The song is written to someone else, most likely. But like John Lennon's "Nowhere Man," the lyrics could also be directed towards the speaker himself, if you stretch them enough. The object of the lyrics is a person who once needed a friend's help as a guide. Now, the person is flourishing and is "somebody that I used to know." Here's hoping that I'm somebody that I used to know.