Tumblring on

Due to a certain few people (JDKendellecough) getting on my case about it, I am trying out tumblr, another blog hosting site.
If I adjust and enjoy it, I'll probably shift my posting up there. If I get sick of it, I'll be right back here on blogger...blogging.
We shall see.

Check it:
http://theboywholosthismind.tumblr.com

With love,
AJKazlouski

100 things to do before college

The list has been completed!
But first, I'll explain the motivation behind it. I don't remember where it started, but I think it may have just suddenly come to me--a list of 100 things to do before I start college. I thought it would be a fun thing to do, and hopefully it turns out to be. I've been working on it for the past few weeks (It's much harder to think up than you think it would be). If you want to help out with any of them, let me know!
Italicized entries are currently happening as I post this, and the crossed out ones have been completed.

1. Get accepted to an awesome college.
2. Donate blood.
3. Go somewhere amazing and out of the ordinary.
4. Spend $100 or more on one thing.
5. Make an incredible breakfast.
6. Show Torri this list once I'm done with it.
7. Have a big snowball fight.
8. Write a song (using bass, guitar, harmonica, trumpet), record it, and show it off.
9. Start a big sing-a-long of "Never Gonna Give You Up".
10. Run barefoot in the snow.
11. Have a pillow fight.
12. Win a first place award in the CHSPAA contest.
13. Read Tom Chiarella's "What is a Man?"
14. Read "The Things They Carried."
15. Sample every flavor of Vitamin Water.
16. Go to at least two grad parties.
17. Listen to the song "Something Else" by Gary Jules. (Off the album Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets)
18. See Sid and Nancy.
19. Try a new food.
20. Listen to 100 ska songs in a day.
21. Listen to the entire discography of They Might Be Giants in the shortest amount of time possible (day, week, etc.)
22. Send a letter to a stranger about what's going on with YOU.
23. Put up random inspirational sticky notes all over school, a store, or all over. Whatever.
24. Throw food at someone.
25. See a bitchin' band and sing along with every song.
26. Get super good at harmonica.
27. Become an okay trumpet player.
28. Get a bunch of people together to play Brawl.
29. Actually have that John Hughes marathon.
30. Spend $100 at Independent records in one visit.
31. Buy your first hip-hop album (Possibly to go with the above)
32. Watch Rent just to see what the fuss is about.
33. Watch every episode of Invader Zim in the span of a week.
34. Drive around listening to "Hey Jealousy". Both versions. Sing it LOUD.
35. Hold hands with people, stand in a circle, sing kumbaya.
36. Read The Phantom Tollbooth for the millionth time.
37. Hear the Modest Mouse album Good News For People Who Love Bad News.
38. Watch the Labyrinth.
39. Wrestle in something.
40. See my homegirls in Texas.
41. Get tinymixtapes.com to post up one of my suggestions.
42. Write a really epic poem. (But not like the Iliad.)
43. Make 3 (personal) mix CDs for three people in one day.
44. Buy or otherwise obtain a record player to keep for myself.
45. Get a laptop.
46. Watch all six Star Wars movies in a row.
47. Watch the entire first LotR movie. Without falling asleep.
48. LOL so hard I pee a little bit.
49. Eat a whole pie in Brandon’s honor.
50. Remix the swipe video’s audio into a song.
51. Teach someone how to skank.
52. Make the coolest clone picture ever.
53. Write a really great blog that gets at least five comments!
54. At some point have every song on my iTunes listened to at least once.
55. Read all of Evasion.
56. Upload a torrent of the entire Dead Milkmen Discography
57. Get at least $5 playing harmonica downtown.
58. Finally get the first Vacancies album
59. Sing and dance in the snow with Grace
60. If possible, try a Double Down at KFC.
61. Hug a really big stuffed bear (or gorilla via Jace).
62. Do a mash up of “Through Being Cool” by Devo, and “Through Being Cool” by Saves The Day.
63. Mash up “Can’t Touch This” and “Cars”
64. Listen to my entire Bob Dylan collection. (#21 rules apply)
65. Hug a certain person for five continuous minutes.
66. Watch Band Of Brothers.
67. Watch Black Hawk Down.
68. Hold a boombox outside someone's window. (Possibly playing Peter Gabriel)
69.Watch Say Anything.
70. Go to Skate City and have a bitchin' time.
71. Start a conga line in the lunch room.
72. Watch Anchorman.
73. Get a group of people together to work at the Marion House for a day, not associated with church.
74.Write a "Moving On" thing for JD's little project.
75. Take the Minor Threat: Complete Discography/Rancid :...And Out Come The Wolves style photo
76. Cry because something is so beautiful.
77. Get a job.
78. Do a cover of a song I love.
79. Make a "Songs To Play At My Funeral" mix.
80. Get some sort of award for a comedy piece in Forensics.
81. Make a self-portrait.
82. Pull a prank on April Fool's Day.
83. Get someone really into a band.
84. Learn to play the bass solo in "My Generation"
85. Not the use the internet a whole day.
86. Watch The Graduate.
87. Listen to all of the Residents' stuff in a day.
88. Go bowling.
89. Go to a different religious service.
90. Take a picture with the school mascot.
91. Jam with Torri.
92. Make a Spam sandwich.
93. Go to a hip-hop show.
94. Make a snow angel.
95. Read in the slam again.
96. Get a haircut.
97. Send a letter to The Independent.
98. Influence someone to become more environmentally-friendly
99. Read Pay It Forward.
100. Go out of your way to make someone happy.

Wish me luck,
AJKazlouski

The Zany Zeroes

It's almost been a year since I got this Napoleon Dynamite calendar. It's been hanging around for eleven months now, month after month of pictures of nerds being flipped to reveal a new picture of nerds, with only one photo of nerds left to be revealed. At the end of it, a new decade begins.
The 2000s will be the first decade I will have lived all the way through, and the decade that I've first been really aware of this hectic world around us all. It's a bit of an odd thought for me. So much is coming in 2010, and this shift in life seems to go hand-in-hand with the dawning of this new decade.
I hadn't realized how close we are to the 10s until I saw the cover of the new TIME: The Decade From Hell (and why the next one will be better). Then it just hit me like a puff of steam or something of the sort. A new era is coming.
I feel like I can wear this decade like a badge now. Like a recruit in the military getting his first bar. I have a little more experience, and now I'm a little more prepared for the future. The 00s held the first big historical event I ever lived through and remember. The 00s held most of my time as a teenager. The 00s are ten years I won't forget. The 00s really have a weight for me. Now they're over, and we're moving farther into this new millennium. The 00s are almost history, and I was a part of it.
But maybe I'm just thinking too much about the insignificant when I should be sleeping for school tomorrow. I guess I have ten years to figure that out.

Moving on,
AJKazlouski

(Note: I wrote this November 29th, finished about 11:58 pm)
(I'll be posting about my favorite albums of each year just for fun soon!)

"I consider myself a citizen of the universe."

I am sitting in Mr. Roberson's room on a Thursday after school waiting for opening night of the school play (which I am a small participant in), and listening to some music recommended and lent to me by my AP Government teacher (Album by Girls, pretty good so far, thanks Mr. Ward). My new squeeze is also in the play, sitting right beside me. Tomorrow, I am taking a trip to an awesome college that I just sent an application to, then working on the school newspaper until the wee hours of the night. Saturday morning I will be working on it more, and then later be in the play for the final curtain call. Then on Sunday, I am going to do all of my homework that I wished I could have spread out throughout the weekend, before working intensely on the paper one more night on Monday.

I now feel like a Senior. I just realized how many interesting things are happening so far this year, and it's still only November.
I suppose that this is the epiphany I was waiting for.
Everything is happening, and I'm excited about it.

Forgot to write a sign-off, so I edited this one in,
AJKazlouski

A Static Senior

One of the most romanticized things in the world is the epiphany. The sudden fantastic realization that brings clarity or excitement is often framed as a turning point in one's life. Since I was a freshman, I dreamed of an amazing epiphany come my Senior year. Abruptly, a switch would turn in my head telling me I'm standing at the gateway to a new world, a new life, college. All I have to do is push the door open.

Now where the hell is that?

I've waited for it-on the first day, SAT and ACT testing, sending scholarship applications, ordering my cap and gown...but it's still not come to me.

I'm naturally motivated to work hard on things that will get me farther, but I want that spark of fire to set my mind and my heart ablaze. I want the feeling to sink in that my future is coming, and that it's coming fast. I know it, but I don't feel it.

Right now I feel stuck. The perpetual gum stuck to my shoes seem to keep me where I can't touch the dream of college, or life outside of high school.

I've gotten some epiphanic moments though, like so much of my time in Princeton. I had tons of moments there where I felt like I was moving somewhere. But where has that feeling gone? Why is it that it leaves me when it really truly counts the most? I need something in me to turn on. I want to feel more excited about all of this. I want more blogable moments.

Go Phillies,
AJKazlouski

Questionable Content

How should I start this blog...?

How did I do on that SAT?
Will I have my lines memorized by Wednesday?
Why are all the new female cast members on SNL so foxy?
Am I gonna get that Boettcher scholarship?
Are the older N*E*R*D albums as good as Seeing Sounds?
Why did I wait so long to watch The Crow?
What did I get on Facebook to do?
Which sessions am I going to during Journalism Day?
"Where is My Mind?"
Am I ready for college?
Am I gonna be able to see They Might Be Giants?
How do I do this resume?
What's John C. Reilly doing in that vampire movie?
"Where the Hell is Bill?"
When does Motion City Soundtrack's new album come out?
And what's the countdown mean?
What's my grade in AP Government?
Why haven't I gotten the new AFI album yet?
The Phillies are gonna win the World Series, right?
Did I get enough pictures for my story?
Did Allan and Jason read the last blog I posted?
Should we REALLY be celebrating Columbus Day?

...

What was that last question I was going to write?

Meh,
AJKazlouski

"What Will You Do?"

Everyone has their little routines in life- their habits. When you do something so much it eventually seems like an instinct. Cracking my knuckles, biting my nails, watching the news...it's natural at this point. But one particular habit of mine makes me think about the psychological stress of being an artist more than a special on Kurt Cobain- my web comic check.

webcomic, n. (plural: webcomics)

1. (webcomics, Internet) An online comic strip, especially one first published on the World Wide Web. (Thank you, Wiktionary.)

I've been reading webcomics for at least a few years now. It started out with a comic called Megatokyo, and it took off from there. I had a thing for Ctrl+Alt+Del for quite a while. Then I stumbled upon VG Cats, and that took me to MS Paint Adventures, Allan...and so on.

I learned to adore these comics in all of their pixelly, nerdy, clever, beautiful glory. MS Paint Adventures' Problem Sleuth had me laughing until I cried, and confusing me to death with "weird puzzle shit", all the while using simple character designs and a ridiculous story line. Octopus Pie made Brooklyn seem hilarious, and reminded me how much I loved Supermarket Sweep. Beaver and Steve hit me with a shoe.

Whenever I'm online, I flip through my bookmarks toolbar, checking for updates. Did Boston post something new on 21deadmonkeys? Did Herman The Manatee get hit by another boat? And more often than not, a comic artist has yet to put anything new on their site yet. Some will post filler that says, "Updating tomorrow!" But a lot of the time, the artist may explain why they missed an update. These stories are sometimes as arresting as the comics they make.

Some explain their life's issues in ways I think would be very hard to put up online for lots of people you don't know seeing. Some may even draw it out, if they do journal comics (Inkdick and Allan especially). Some lose motivation in what they're doing and move on to new things. Sometimes in the middle of a really great storyline. But I will forever wonder why these people end up in the middle of terrible circumstances. Allan of Allan fame got ran over by a car...and then got braces too. Ducky Boy in 21deadmonkeys was based off of a real friend of the artist, and he died. I only knew him as the guy with the mohawk who usually said the punchlines, but I'll be damned if I wasn't depressed when I read those words. Sometimes an artist's brand new Mac gets stolen out of his car just after they buy it, when they can just barely afford it anyway...but his readers donate money to him and he eventually gets a new one.

This sort of thing is something I find particularly beautiful about webcomics as a medium. You can talk to your readers more directly than a comic maker in a newspaper could. With MS Paint Adventures, the comic goes in the direction the reader wants it to- creator Andrew Hussie reads fan submissions and picks one and goes with it. You could leave a comment on a comic and the artist may say thanks for your compliment. It's like a really great concert- the barriers between the producer and the consumer are blurred. The unity makes it even better.

Waiting and watching,
AJKazlouski

"Dear Mr. Gepetto..."

The power of the mix tape (CD, Playlist, etc.) is something I think I'm finally understanding. It's come up a lot in the last week or so.

On Friday, a teacher of mine gave me a cd he made. He titled it "I Wish I Were Straight Edge." Him and I have talked about music a lot in the few years I've known him. Minor Threat and the Descendants have been our primary topics. We launched into talking about the Distillers after hearing a Queens of the Stone Age song, and I asked him to show me some of their stuff, me having not heard much from them.

He just said, "I'll make you a CD."

It started with a (cool) Distillers song, "Drain the Blood," and ended in a song by a guy named Mike Doughty with a song called "No Peace, Los Angeles" (quite good). Between the two were some good tunes- the Black Keys, Jerry Lee Lewis, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, the Smiths, Radiohead...some top notch stuff.

But most of these songs were sad ones. This guy has been having a rough time lately, which I don't feel I have the right to write about. But listening to this mix, I somehow feel like I understand what he's going through a bit better. I can't imagine how he feels, but I feel like I understand it better, just by listening to the songs he's been listening to lately.

I've been reading a really great book called Love is a Mix Tape, by Rob Sheffield, about Rob and his relationship with his late wife, Renée. Rob paints a beautiful picture of a wonderful marriage, with stories of how despite their intense differences as people, they stayed together, bound by their love of music. Every chapter starts out with a mix tape, full of songs that helped the author recall specific moments in time.

A couple weeks ago, I was working on a mix for my then-girlfriend, right before she called me and broke up with me. I had a sinking feeling that the songs I was putting on there would be ruined, reminding me of that fateful moment. "My Girl" by the Temptations, "First Date" by blink-182, "Beautiful" by the Smashing Pumpkins.

They weren't. They now seem to have an odd new depth I had never felt before.

I woke up today to a playlist I had made the night before that started with Mustard Plug's "You" and ended with the Suburban Legends' "You." A fun little third-wave ska mix. I woke up in a huff, not wanting to get up. A few songs in, I was ready for a good day.

And it was.

I'll be making mixes until the day I die. I'm off to make one now.

Around the bend,
AJKazlouski

They Might Be Dead Broke

The Sentinel, our school paper of which I am the Chief Designer, is completely broke. In fact, we're $1000 in the hole. Plus, we're hitting a rough patch in finding advertisements.

This is a bit of a problem.

Tomorrow we're doing an advertising blitz, and we'll probably do something similar next Saturday as well. It's a ridiculous process trying to get ads.

A lot of the time you get shut down, a lot of the time you try and try with no luck. It gets disheartening, for sure. But we can't put out our first issue if we don't have the funds to produce it, because we obviously can't stack up any more debt. It just astounds me how local businesses don't jump on the idea of getting ads right where students are looking!

Hopefully it all works out. I'll send an e-mail to the local library to see if they're interested right after I finish this blog.

Also, college stuff is really getting to me. I'm freaking out a bit. But I don't feel like writing about it in hopes that I can get my mind off of it for just a second.

On that note, They Might Be Giants are going to play at a TBD venue in Denver! I've never seen any of my most favorite bands live...this is my chance! I've missed a Primus show in Denver, but this I will not miss. A "Rock Show" even (As apposed to their children's shows)! Hopefully they'll somehow conform to the dream setlist I have in my head.

With ink, music, and love,
AJKazlouski

Now that the summer is over...

I'm driven so much by music. When summer vacation rolls around, one of the things I really look forward to is being able to listen and discover more music than I can during school. It always seems that certain bands or albums get to me each year...last summer was full of Weezer's blue album and Catch-22's Keasbey Nights (both fantastic efforts if you're unfamiliar). This year has been a bit more expansive, however. I wasn't listening to anything in particular. I was listening to everything I could.

Here's something of a summer mix tape.

They Might Be Giants: Don't Let's Start

For a really long time, They Might Be Giants was little more than the guys who played "Constantinople" and the Malcolm in the Middle theme song. It kills me knowing that I thought of them that way for so long. Songs like Don't Let's Start are intoxicating to me. The start-stop beginning is an immediate catch. Then John Linnell's nerdy (for lack of a better word) voice comes along. It's so different compared to the average alt-rock croon. It's beautifully odd. Then, the words he's singing are incredibly clever and different from anything else.

"When you are alone, you are the cat, you are the phone, you are an animal...the words I'm singin' now mean nothing more than meow to an animal..."

John Flansburgh's guitar playing fits around the other elements perfectly. His guitar, Linnell's voice, a little synth, and a drum machine. So little creates so much.

It would be easy to say that They Might Be Giants were immediately great for me. For a little while after I got some of their albums, they were just a band that had an occasional great song (I was obsessed with a tune called Doctor Worm for a spell). Then I paid attention to Don't Let's Start. This song was a gateway into all of TMBG's music, in that it helped me really realize how amazing they are.

They're now my absolute favorite band.


Dance Hall Crashers- Othello

This may seem familiar, but it took me a really long time to find out about the Dance Hall Crashers. I knew they had a cool name, and a shout-out in a blink-182 song. Something compelled me one day, and I checked out The Old Record, and this song was the one that greeted me with open arms.

"Sooner or later I'll wake up and wipe the sleep out of my eyes, later that day when you wake up you'll be in for a big surprise..."

I can't imagine why people think music on the radio is fun. THIS is fun music. I listened to this song so many times I can't even imagine how I still love it. After realizing DHC's greatness, I went and looked up their history. It makes me feel horrible that I didn't know that this band was a project started by members of Operation Ivy after they broke up. Then those members from Op Ivy left to make Rancid, and DHC moved on and thrived with a pair of fantastic female vocalists (Karina Deniké and Elyse Rogers). More females need to be involved in Ska (or Ska-Punk, whatever), honestly. The horn section is tight, and the song's guitar solo oozes with...well, fun. There's no better word.

The Ergs!- Introducing Morrissey

I always thought Morrissey had a cool voice, but I never understood how people rabidly loved his music. I liked it, but I'm much more impressed by a very pretty song by a very special band (a little) about him.

"The last album I loved the whole way through was by a band that had formed in 1982. I was barely alive, I had some thinking to do, but once I figured it out I was in love and I knew that I...would be in love forever."

Punk rock has always been a primarily simple genre. Three chords, two and a half minutes, and some "singing". I love it when a really band does that and manages to give you the same feeling you had the first time you heard The Ramones or The Clash. Mikey Erg is a great drummer. He's an even better lead singer. How he manages to do both, I have no idea. The Ergs! simply are an amazing band. It kills me that I found them just after they broke up.

I was not expecting to write so much about those...but I guess that's what a really good song makes you do.

With fortissimo,
AJKazlouski

Three At A Time

It always seems like famous people die in threes. One was an amazing person who helped others do amazing things. The other two made incredible art.

We've lost the great Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who made the world a better place through helping those who may have been shunned by those who didn't understand. I'm too young to honestly say I knew much about her before her death. But now I see who she was, a single woman who did so much to help benefit the disabled. From the descriptions of her that her family members offered at her memorial, I wish I could have met her! I only hope that more people come around that do things like what she did.

Then there's John Hughes. I couldn't believe it, he was only sixty. Before I had any idea who he was, he affected me. I loved 101 Dalmatians and Flubber when I was a kid. Before that, his movies were cultural phenomenons, and once I saw them, Ferris Buellar's Day Off and The Breakfast Club became two of my favorite movies. I told my mom about his passing, and I can't imagine how she must have felt, because his movies were not just movies that she loved ("Duckieee!"), but things she passed on from her to me. I wish I could have directly thanked him for what his work brought to me. He was certainly the voice of a generation, a generation I really wish I could have been around for.

Finally, there's Les Paul. While some may dispute the "voice of a generation" for John Hughes, no one can deny the impact Les Paul made on music. He made the electric guitar, for one. And the man knew how to play it, too. As the complete music geek that I am, I myself would be who I am without Les Paul. Nothing would be the same if he never made the guitar or played it. What would Jimi Hendrix do with an acoustic guitar? What would Pete Townshend smash? Would the Beatles be popular without their electrics? What would Kurt Cobain have been if he didn't have a guitar to play? Les Paul's influence was supremely broad, and he helped so many others become influential as well. I'm just glad that he, just like Kennedy Shriver and Hughes, lived a long, respectable, and amazing life. I hope all three of them live on in the hearts of the people who admired them like they'll be living on in mine.

In the simplest terms, and the most convenient definitions,
AJKazlouski

Taking the job.

Meeting both Alex Ross (The New Yorker) and Daphne Brooks (Princeton University, The Nation) has motivated me.
To quote High Fidelity, what really matters is what you like, not what you are like...
Not entirely true, yet these are things that really do help define us. I cry when I hear "Bohemian Rhapsody". I twitch with excitement watching poets slam in "Slam Nation". I've read "The Phantom Tollbooth" more times than I'm willing to remember.
I'll be writing about culture on here.

-AJKazlouski

P.S.- If anything else happens to press my mind outside the realm of culture, I may have to touch upon it. You never know!

Princeton: A Retrospective. (My new friends, my old friends, and jet lag.)

When we all went our separate ways home, we were all having a rough time. We all couldn't help but cry a little, or a lot, we all had our problems at the airport (some more than others), and I learned a lot of us still had some over-summer school work to do. I had some to do. I still do, actually. But the one thing that I dealt with that thankfully no one else had to was the first day of school...the very next day.

My flight on the tenth landed around 10. Then from Denver, it took about an hour and a half to get back to Colorado Springs... and after the last ten days, I couldn't just go to sleep! I had to talk about it all! I don't remember when I went to sleep that night, but probably later than I should have!

I woke up this morning, 5:45 am, bright and early! I get to see my girlfriend for a little, and I'm ECSTATIC. But 7:15 rolls around, so I go off to something else I love...The Sierra Sentinel, Journalism II, Period 1. There's not TOO much explanation about Princeton, considering we have newbies to inform, but I show the Princeton Summer Journal off to the editors...who totally dig it! I pretty much blab about Princeton the whole rest of the day whenever I could, though. But the rest of the day went almost boringly smooth! Nothing much to blog home about!

It's now 9:15 pm. I'm exhausted. But as happy as I am to be here with my girlfriend, my newspaper, my mom, my dogs, my friends, and everyone and everything else...It still kills me knowing the friends I made at the SJP are so far away. So, in a long, roundabout way, I just wanted to say I love you all. Students, directors, counselors, the intern, speakers...you're all so incredible. It may be cliché at this point, but I know we'll be together again.

AJKazlouski
Supreme Design Overlord

Princeton

In about 18 hours, I'll be on my way to probably the biggest opportunity of my life. I'm going to Newark airport in Jersey, and then onto one of the best schools in the country.
http://www.princeton.edu/sjp/
The Princeton Summer Journalism program is a ten-day , all expense paid trip to the University for a rigorous journalism seminar. It took multiple applications, a phone interview, and a lot of reading to get to this point. I cannot believe it's almost come.

I'll try to keep this blog updated throughout the program if I can.
Note to all my friends, I won't have my phone on me during the day and you'd be better checking this blog every once in a while, or just waiting until I get back to hear it all.

Wish me luck!
AJKazlouski