The Will Always Negates Defeat.

Tonights Playlist:

"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" Eric Clapton
"The W.A.N.D." The Flaming Lips
"He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot" Grandaddy
"Bigger Than My Body" John Mayer
"Guaranteed" Eddie Vedder
"Isn't It A Pity" George Harrison
"Time To Pretend" MGMT
"Roscoe" Midlake
"Blue Ridge Mountains" Fleet Foxes
"Firesuite" Doves
"Lost!" Coldplay
"Down In A Hole" Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
"Asleep" The Smiths

All Things Go

The day slowly fades to black after a long day at Cedar Point with the Lovely Carly Sampsel. It was nice to have a day of just her and me before I go back to school in another week and a half or so. Summer's over....tsk tsk. I have 6000/ 22000 dollars taken care of for this school year. So...frankly I'm in trouble. I need a major change in my life. I need to purge the idiocies from my life. As well as the idiocies of others. Tomorrow is the last day of work at Community Markets, with a paycheck following Friday, which is very needed at this point. I am using the last of my cash to pay a few bills then kind of coasting until Friday. I miss London. I miss a little space I could call mine. I miss walking around.... I have nothing of real importance to say.

I'm so broke
AHHHH
$$$$$$$

A Simple Twist of Fate

Well it sure has been a summer so far. Went to Virginia Beach. Sadly...I can't go to Lollapalooza. The road I walk has been hard and it never seems to get easier. I have to sell Augustus. My prized guitar. It always seems that something like this happens. My parents come up short again on me so I have to sacrifice my own gains for it. I did well in my freshman year of school. I had some money and was like "I've earned this". So got myself the most beautiful guitar....now it's on ebay to get money for a car. It's a cruel world. I'll get it back someday. I've got a lot to get turned around though. My mom gave me 100 dollars and that is the extent of their help for the summer. I feel so overwhelmed by everything, but just need to get through college. I just want to be in a band....that's what I want right now. It's hard to imagine sustaining a lifestyle in it though. Such a high risk. I'll stay in school heh. I want to get a good job. Just passed 15 glorious months with Carly. She sure makes me happy. I think once I get back at OU things will turn around. I love the fall time anyways. Especially in Athens. There are always moments I want to leave, but I really love OU. It's hard being back from OU when things suck so bad in Marysville. Paying rent to Ericka's dad, bills, bills, and bills. If my parents just helped me slightly I wouldn't be in this situation...I asked my dad how it felt to be the reason I had to sell the only thing that gave me enjoyment and he just said in such an arrogant way "sorry". The most insincere sorry I've heard. Imagine having a child and putting it up for adoption. That's how I feel. I've got to compromise the things I earn for other people's mistakes. I'm constantly playing catch up to...myself.

But in the end there is no other reason except...
A Simple Twist Of Fate

Abbey Road, Stones Exhibit, and so on

Wow what a day. I woke up and showered and went adventuring. I first went to Abbey Road in North London, but got sidetracked in a giant park on the way there heh. I got there and I was kind of let down. I took a picture of the sidewalk, but I had no one to take my picture walking across : /. The wall in front of the studio was much cooler, with everyone signing it to say they were there. I jumped on a bus from there and the thing that takes money was broken so I got a free ride woo. I walked to a brand new photography exhibit from The Rolling Stones 1969 tour. They were dead broke on that tour, I didn't know that. It was really cool. After that I went to Starbucks and pulled all my stuff out of my pocket to get my money out. One of the items being my roomkey, I left it there, ate and left. I took the tube for probably 30 minutes to get home and right when I got to the door of the complex I was like "Fuck. My key is sitting at Starbucks across town." Since it was late I had to haul back before the closed and locked up. I got there in time though. Outside the tube station was this guy playing guitar. He obviously wasn't like the hobos who play. He was dressed in a very suave manner and had the most incredible playing style I've ever seen. He played...in like this jazz fusion style I rarely ever see. Most people play guitar with one hand strumming or picking notes and the other hand on the neck holding different frets to make different notes and chords. This guy kept both hands on the neck and had the craaaaziest sound. It was so awesome. I took a video, but he said videos aren't allowed and asked me to delete it so I complied. He said he only wanted people who see him in person to hear him. He had cd's, but I'm too broke heh. He was amazing though. Tomorrow I'm going to a few other things that just opened in London. I planned to go to them today, but just ran out of time. Phew.

ART!

It's been a really interesting week this week. Between the Chelsea game, with the following riot and the Jim James concert, things have been great. I actually saw all this art yesterday, but saw Jim James so decided Jim came before this post heh. We went to the East End, yes where Jack the Ripper did almost all of his killings. It was kind of run down or...well being in Chelsea the day before, which was super loaded then coming to the grafitti filled streets was quite a jump. The first thing we saw on the street were class was, was a taxi repair shop. Needless to say they don't put those right next to Buckingham Palace if you know what I mean. I wish I would have taken a picture of the street. It looked like a rather boring street, but upon meeting art art prof, there were 15 galleries hidden in this short little street. The whole street used to be manufacturing warehouses, but slowly artists came in and bought the space to work in and eventually galleries came in everywhere. We saw a few of them, some were cool, some were odd, and some were incredibly sad....

The cool thing about this was that it actually worked. There's a pickup at the bottom if you can't see it and that really goes to the amp. hitting the strings would cause a loop of continuous feedback, eventually swelling to ear piercingly loud.

heh I liked it.

Well Hello!

This was just my camera through a letter on a piece of glass. e to be exact.

Jim James!!!!!!

Wow. Jim James and Carl Broemel, the lead guitarist of My Morning Jacket, put on a phenomenal show in St. James Church in London. My Morning Jacket's songs are known to have reverb drenched vocals, but since the church was SO vast, they turned the reverb off the mic and let the church do it. The reverb sounded TEN times better naturally. James was in a very congenial mood and between songs joked around a lot. I would post videos, but there is a video limit for size and all my videos are too big. Ugh Blogger uploads pictures, but scales down the quality. The pictures look much cooler than they look here, when they are bigger it is easier to see the vibrant colors


Is that the divine light of god coming out of a steel lap guitar? Well...no.

Chelsea Vs. Manchester United!

Soccer isn't my forte, but everyone knew that the football championships were yesterday in Moscow, Russia. It said on the BBC's website that it is the first time two teams from the UK have competed against each other in the finals. So since it was Chelsea, which is a borough of London, vs Manchester United, which...is in Manchester, we decided to go down to a pub in Chelsea and became Chelsea fans for the night. It was one of my best experiences in London by far. We arrived 2 hours before the game and most people were drunk or just singing their Chelsea cheer songs badly, which made them sound drunk haha. Everyone had a few drinks and watched the game in this VERY crowded pub. Manchester United scored first, but before the half, Chelsea was able to score and tied it up. No one else would score in the game or in extra time(overtime for americans) so it went to penalty kicks. Each team missed one so it went to sudden death kicks. MU made theirs and then Chelsea missed so Chelsea lost : (. The pub cleared out very silently and bottles began to be broken so we got out of there. It was SO fun and I've never seen anything like this in my life for just sports. Riots broke out really quickly and I saw the riot control come with their shields and stuff and we just got the hell to the tube and back home haha. Chelsea is a really rich and nice area of London and the stadium was sooooo beautiful. It was so fun. It was really great

If you can't understand them, they are saying "Lets go fucking mental, let's go fucking mental ahaaaaahaaaaahaaa" and repeating it. This video is a more mild chant of it. Usually beer is pour over evvvveryone and for some reason they were throwing celery everywhere.

Today I'm going to see a really famous art exhibit. It was an exhibition of works by Man Ray and Duchamp. I've been putting it off forever, but am going today finally. The most famous piece there is called "The fountain" by Duchamp.


I've been working on a bunch of new songs on guitar, I have a pretty solid song I think, it needs some vocals, perhaps some keys thrown in, but I can't sing and have no real equipment with me.
I'm really digging Weeds. I've been watching it a lot lately and am on the 3rd season now. Heh I'm flying through it pretty fast. I wanted to go exploring a lot today, but the rain has kind of prevented me from doing too much with comfort. The high today is 57, when just a week ago the high was 80. The temp is on the way back up after this though. We have a place to stay for Lollapalooza I'm pretty sure. Should be a good time there. Everyone here is obsessed with Vampire Weekend and Crystal Castles. I like M79 by Vampire Weekend and have only listened to a few songs and Crystal Castles use a lot of sounds that could go in Mario for the NES. Going home was nice, but it's nice being back here. I just love the city. Jim James in 4 days!
I took this a while ago:

God Save The Queen.

The Visit Home

I flew home the past weekend, left on Thursday morning and arrived mid-Thursday to the welcoming arms of my beautiful girlfriend. It was nice to see everyone again, though I felt a little out of place even seeing all the places I am so used to calling my own. Things are changing everywhere, for better for worse. Who knows about anything anymore. It's so hard to gauge anything...

The Cans Festival!

Angie recommended that I check out The Cans Festival, which was this really cool spray painting art exhibit that was in this street tunnel and it looked AWESOME. I was blown away. I am going to go back tomorrow to see some stuff that wasn't finished. It was so cool though, I really enjoyed it. On that note, here are some pictures from it!

Well...Alright

I missed my flight to Rome : / So I spent another lonely weekend...alone. It's alright. I made the best of it. I watched Into The Wild, which proved to be probably one of the best movies I've ever seen. It just struck me so deep. The last line of the movie is:
Happiness is only real when shared.
I thought about Carly and Clint and Cj and Brock and everyone else and I was like...it's so true. I was sitting all by myself and I was like I'm not sharing any moments with anyone. So I decided not to travel anywhere. I want to go with my best friends to make it a real life experience. I guess I missed my flight for a reason. I have a BUNCH of cool pictures I took, but am waiting to upload them until I have more. Until then here are a few videos.

Rome

Today I leave for Rome. I leave at like 10, which is 5 in America. For a few days I will be like 7 hours ahead of the US. It's going to be rough heh. I am really excited to see the city though. Today we are going to the British Library. I can't wait to see everything there! They are supposed to have some really cool stuff. Today marks 4 weeks since I left. I miss everyone a lot. It's really hard to only talk to people on the computer. I mean I talk to people here, but I miss my friends a lot...I was really underestimating how attached I am to them. 6 weeks from tomorrow until class is over. I'm almost halfway done living here in London and I am doing pretty great on money. Once I get reimbursed for buying the stuff I did when I didn't have luggage. If I didn't write it yet, I got my luggage back. It ended up in Chicago somehow, I don't know how and neither do they, but the important thing is I got it back. It's been over 8 weeks since I've seen Carly and 4 weeks since everyone. It's hard missing everyone, but not seeing Carly even longer is really hard : (. I saw the play called Major Barbara last night and it wasn't too bad. The acting was really good. It had its parts where it dragged, but it was not too bad. Now that I have my clothes, I have a bunch of little memories of home : ) I'm way happier now.
I will update from ROME!

Evil Urges Review

Well Evil Urges is kind of an album to grow on you. I read stuff from Jim James (lead singer) who said the first three songs would shock MMJ fans. I wasn't shocked. At first I wasn't keen on it, but I really dig it now. The first second and 4th songs are really good. The 3rd track, "Highly Suspicious" is still trying to grow on me. The first song "Evil Urges" starts out with a solid beat on drums and slowly all the other instruments come in until a break and then the song takes off. One thing to note is how much more Jim James sings in a falsetto on this album, compared to It Still Moves and Z. I was distraught at first, but I like it now. He does this in "Evil Urges," which I'm sure will be a single. In it, James uses less reverb on his voice as he sings, showing off his vocal range, similar to the way he did in the opening of Z in "Wordless Chorus." "Evil Urges" of course goes into a classic jam towards the end, which I'm sure will just underline their unbeatable live prowess. The whole album bounces around between a couple different sounds. The Neil Young sounds of It Still Moves, to the stoner lullabies in Z, to a new sound presented in the opening song. The second song, "Touch Me I'm Going To Scream" returns to the stonerish sound of Z, but is very welcomed. The song has James almost in a whisper as he begs, "Touch me, I'm going to scream if you don't." Keyboardist Bo Koster really adds another layer to this song with the sounds that he adds to it. "Highly Suspicious" reminds me Prince with the way James sings and how the song jives. The first time I heard the chorus to this song I was really confused haha. It's really different. The song is fun and catchy though, it starts to take off at about the 1:30 mark when the first solo comes in. The song returns to the chorus then takes off into the ending, which really shows off Carl Broemel's abilities to produce catchy riffs. The next song, "I'm Amazed" continues the strong opening into the album, with this Tom Petty-esque tune. "Thank You Too" follows "I'm Amazed" and the song is really carried by the way Jim James can so simply captivate the listener. The song just has so much sincerity behind, that is easy to hear as you listen. "Sec Walkin" sounds like it was just pulled right off of "It Still Moves" with the way it carries on. It is a solid track though. "Two Halves" reminds me so much of another MMJ track, with the guitar riff, but I suppose that is just their sound. The backing vocals remind me of The Beach Boys in the way that it sounds. The next song is not a song I am fond of. "Librarian" has a good acoustic melody, but I felt like it never picked up. "Look At You" is another song I felt kind of dragged as well and there isn't much to say about it. "Aluminum Park" is a pretty decent track, I like the melody, but the opening is a rip off of....themselves. "Lay Low" off of Z has almost the exact same riff as the opening to this song. Aside from that it's good. "Remnants" has such an awesome opening riff, especially when both guitars come in. The entire album as a whole is a lot more rock compared to any other albums, but a plus to this is that their live arsenal will be so full of show stoppers, it will be hard to pinpoint exactly when the show has reached it's climax. I love the last two songs on the album. "Smokin' From Shootin'" starts of slow and quiet and gradually builds into a really catchy song that fades off and into "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream pt. 2" which closes the album in the perfect way. At first listen, I was really sad, but I enjoy the album a lot. Of course I have songs that I prefer over others, but the album is solid overall. Clever lyrics, more catchy riffs and a really enjoyable layered sound.

8/10

Evil Urges...

It's Coming!!!!!! AHHH

Short on money, but long on time

Well today I was on the tube practically all day. It's kind of shitty out. Did what I had to do and am going out tonight! It's Camden Crawl tonight. Which if you don't know what it is, look it up. It's a 48 hour festival. A bunch of good bands are in town. I am going to go party and have fun.
6 days until Rome
3 days until a year with Carly : )
God, I love Augustus, but I miss Cher. Muhaha my Sheraton. Ahh she's gotta go to the shop when I get back : /. I am making some good new stuff that I like. If I could sing, I am pretty sure it would be a hit. I can't wait to get back and play with people again. I love playing acoustic, but really like collaboration with people. Well I'm off for a crazy night. Here weeee goooo

Old teenage hopes are alive at your door, Left you with nothing but they want some more

Interesting to note, Da Vinci is SO good that they frame his sketches. Which is what this is if you can't believe it.
Today was pretty cool. Either my lack of food or staying up til 4 a.m. everynight is setting in this really bad fatigue. It's so hard to function through the day. I took the Tube for the first time today. It was so nice. Easy to use, fast, whateva. I took a tour of the house the composer named Handel lived in today. Then saw Jimi Hendrix' flat. It was pretty cool, I suppose. Things didn't get interesting until I walked to Subway for the day haha. I was ordering food and this group of like 11 or 12 kids probably 10-12 in age came in. They began flipping all the chairs and making chaos until the subway lady chased them out. I was like phew those kids were nuts! So I ate and walked home. Next to my flat is a parking garage. The kids were in the street next to it waiting for cars to drive by and launching this grocery cart they had at the cars! It was nuts. Then There was this kid in the parking garage I saw who was tipping over motorcycles, then I saw security come out and the kids fled pretty quickly.
Welcome to London.
Love,
London
haha.

Also! In other news I finally named my acoustic. As it's bad luck not to name a guitar. My acoustic is officially named:
Augustus

It's just so legendary. : )

Blazing Fruit...

Well gee. I went to the National Portrait Gallery yesterday, as well as today and it's such a magnificent place. Yesterday was very busy and I got back to the flat and I was sooo tired. I walked to the gallery yesterday and this crazy man stopped me. And he was rambling to me, but it was hard to make sense with his accent. In the end he was telling me he liked my glasses and headphones haha. He then insisted on giving me this book of poems. I told him no, but he insisted and I was like well it's just another memory so I took the book haha. It's called 'Blazing Fruit." haha poems from 1967-1987. I haven't looked at it, but I own it! I bought some new clothes yesterday. I am trying to get a few outfits here at least. I usually only eat one meal a day, but I keep racking up so many different subway coupons that I can go in like everyday now and i have a coupon or buy 6 inches get 6 inches free! So I eat 6 for lunch then 6 for dinner later. It's just my lucky day. Financially, eating once a day is great! I allocated to spend so much more on food that I will have more money to travel. Rome in 8 days.

Across The Universe...Nothing's Gonna change my world

Ahhh....I love the Rufus Wainwright version of Across The Universe. So much. So today I rode the London Eye. Which is the worlds largest ferris wheel and you can see over the whole city of London from the top. It's very nice. I saw a spanish opera last night, it wasn't like what most probably think, where there are actors and fat women singing, it was an orchestra with a couple people singing over it. It was really really good. I forgot my camera for that, but had it for the London Eye.
yes. im not photogenic

I never though of running, my feet just led the way

Today was alright. I went to Burton and bought some clothes. They had some good deals! I bought a button up for 5 pounds and a t shirt for 3 pounds. So I have something to wear. Tomorrow we are seeing the importance of being earnest. Still no clothes, so I don't have anything nice to wear. I am still hoping my clothes will come. I don't even know what to do anymore. After class I went on a little adventure and got some better pictures. It wasn't hot or cold today. It was absolutely perfect. All the people here love the show Sex and the City so now they think Americans are either fat or obsessed with sex. But little do they know it's both. In class we sat there for about 15 minutes then went to Trafalgar Square. I took a few pictures then he talked to us again and let us go. I don't know where everyone else went, I walked to the river and walked around a while before coming home. I guess this pub right next to us is supposed to be the first of some kind of pub. It attracts all these hipster kids. I was going to go see Pete Doherty next week, but of course he was put in jail until June.... uggggh. A car almost hit me today. I dodged it though and am alright. It jumped the curb completely and I had to dive out of the way. Phew.

It's hard to live, it's hard to live in the city

Phew well things have sure been coming along lately. Still no word on my luggage, but I really would like some. Anyways, I had class today, we met the only time we will until midterms in a classroom. Then after midterms, no classroom til finals. It's pretty cool. Alas, here a few pictures of home : ). Also, the last one is an art exhibit. It's a giant crack on the floor. It was seriously SO cool. It might sound dumb, but it was awesome.

Hell

Well the past couple days have been rough. I stayed in some cheapo hotel that is pretty gross, but I just needed SOMEWHERE to stay. So let me write my story to you. So I get on the plane around 10:30 for London and we leave around 11. I was like hmm I told Carly I would watch P.S. I love You and so I started to. But it made me think about everyone and how much I was going to miss them, I had to turn it off. It was just too sad. I threw my blanket over my head because I was getting choked up. Anyways so I try to sleep, but don’t really get any because everytime I am close the plane would get bumpy. So we land and I am super tired. I get my stuff and head to U.K. customs. The guy wanted proof that I was studying abroad, an itinerary, a schedule, anything. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any. So he yelled at me and said he was going to deport me. Then just got mad and let me through. So I go to baggage claim, and of course, my bag doesn’t come through. So I wait in line or 30 minutes and they say they will call my flat if they find it. So I’m like whatever. There is a direct train from the airport to downtown so I jumped on it. It was nice, it was an express train, which means there are no stops. So I get to the station and am again, completely lost, so I follow people that were on the train and find the outside. I walk around, not having a single clue where I am, when I stumble across a park. I decide maybe I can get some internet and talk to people. So I did and through Verizon’s website I sent brock a text and told him to get online. I talked to him and Cj and then Carly just for a bit, when my laptop died. So I was like I will book a room around here and get on the net there. So I am in this cheapo room and they don’t even offer internet here! THEN I didn’t have the UK power adapter so I had to walk around looking for it. So then I went to Oxford street, which is a lot like Michigan Ave. in Chicago except WAY more stores and stuff. I saw the Gucci, Louis Vitton, Prada, and a bunch of other names all in this building together. I got subway, which was really expensive and sat on a bench and ate. Coke is different in the UK. It tastes…like Pepsi haha. So I came back to my room after buying a ttoothbrush, paste, and chap stick and played the psp and guitar. What a day of hell. Once I get my luggage and move into my flat everything will be alright. Things are so busy here and exciting. I went to Hyde Park, which is a famous London Park and people in London play outside way more than in America. It was such a nice day today. I don’t know what the forecast for the rest of the week is, but today was nice. Moved in to my flat the other day and had a bus tour today. Met kids from NYU and Dartmouth and FSU and stuff. Still don't have my luggage. Haven't been able to add pictures. I am at an internet cafe and my time is up in 2 minutes. I will elaborate and post pictures later. wooo

In Toronto!

wooooo the first post in a long line of posts, this is the start of my journey to the uk. I'm sitting in Toronto right now bored as fuuuuuck. I sat next to a canadian on the plane and they really do say "eh" as much as you would think. He was talking "aboot" all sorts of crazy stuff in his lingo. Then I met some Scottish guy, who invited me to go to a rugby game with him. He was moving a little too fast for me so I declined. Him and his wife kind of made my day though : ). But here I sit with nothing to do. So this is the first picture of my journey: