'Twas the Night Before Christmas Break

Twas the night before Christmas break, when all through the web.
Not a tweeter was tweeting, not even your Aunt Deb.
The blog posts were scheduled to autopost with care
In hopes that the readership soon would be there.

The college kids were passed out all drunk in their beds,
while visions of potential high school hook ups danced in their heads.
And mama implores them to help her with chores,
but they’d rather sit around the whole month and be bored.

The news cycle trickles out with hardly a clatter
And we habitually check Facebook to see what really matters.
But everyone posts the same holiday status
of seasonal greetings and some New Years gladness.

The impending threat of the first-fallen snow
gives a nostalgic glimmer to objects below.
And then once it snows, what instead should be appear
But wet muddy roads that make it hard to steer

For every drunk driver, so lively and thick –
that you know you deserved a DUI, you dick.
How rapid you spun when to black ice you came
but you’ll come out unscathed and find someone to blame.

“Well yeah but so maybe I had a few beers.
I was just fine to drive, there was nothing to fear.
I was typing a text to see who else was home
when I don’t know, man, I just swerved on the road.”

And the mornings you spend with your family feel quaint
but by mid-afternoon, it’s clear that they ain’t.
Your parents have so many answers to seek
when they don’t realize that you were just hoping to sleep.

But you’re still looking forward to seeing old friends —
forgetting, of course, their own holiday plans.
So you look back to Facebook, where nothing is new,
and then you check twitter to find something to do.

But your parents have cable, so hey, that’s still cool!
With eight thousand channels, and you feel like a fool
for watching some network crap you don’t like
but that’s better than just surfing channels all night.

Then you see an old ex on the way to the store,
And she’s fat, or he’s married to that old high school whore.
And the comfort is fleeting, but at least now you’ve seen
that your life didn’t peak when you’d just turned eighteen.

So you get drunk with your dad and discuss politics
and you finally see that he’s not such a prick,
and that wine works much faster than cheap, shitty beer
so you start to rethink your plans for New Years.

Then you remember your goals for that productive week,
and the things that you wanted to watch, write, and read.
But instead you fall down another Wiki-hole
and learn about the agricultural benefit of voles.

And you watch with your parents an old childhood great
which washes over you with a sentimental wave
and those annual plans that you made with your friends
are now just spent at home with more emails to send,

checking twitter, and updates on Facebook for news;
you find nothing, so open a new bottle of booze.
And when the time comes to leave, you drive off with a grin
because you can’t wait ’til next year to do it again.

The Voice Of Our Generation

So, okay. Lena Dunham. That's all the Internet talks about anymore. And mostly for stupid reasons. GIRLS is an enjoyable show. Sure, it's got its flaws, but it always has some realistic depictions of a very particular group of people, all of whom I went to college with. But most of the debate around the show is -- in my humble opinion -- around all of the wrong issues (read: misogyny towards chubby exhibitionists). Let's face it, Lena Dunham is hardly the first privileged white kid to leverage Mom & Dad's wealth and success into her own career. I probably would have done the same thing, if I ever had the opportunity. And then there's Thought Catalog. I have plenty of friends who frequently for Thought Catalog, and almost every time I read something on that website (besides stuff by friends, obviously, because the whole point of this is that we're all hypocrites) I find myself consumed by anger towards the whiney narcissism of my generation. Every post is all trying to be deep and profound and whoa I made this brilliant realizations about being 22 now that I'm older and wiser at 24 and shut up.

Except that every time I read Thought Catalog, I'm like "Man, I totally get this. This is totally spot on." Which is probably why I'm so angry at it -- because it, like GIRLS, is totally cliched, and reminds us all of how cliched we are ourselves.

So, long story longer, this week's Five By Five Hundred post is all about that, except in some wacky stream-of-consciousness kind of a way (I mean, more than what I just wrote) because I have weird brain things.

(Also it now holds the record for our most popular post on 5x500! So, ya know, that's cool)

"A Catalog Of Thoughts; Or, Sorry Lena Dunham, But Our Generation Already Has A Voice" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

I Am Become Ernest Hemingway, Writer of Booze

Tearing through my parents' basement over Christmas break in search of several missing WARHAMMER pieces (shut up), I stumbled across a few notebooks from college. Still a bit high from the fun and hilarity of my MORTIFIED experience this past Saturday evening in Cambridge, I skimmed through the notebooks, placing certain moments back at specific times in my life. (there's certainly a lot crap, but a bunch of great lines / idea gems in between the crap that maybe someday I'll revisit in song) One thing in particular that stuck out to me -- pages I have been dying to rediscover since it happened -- was a bit of writing I did in July 2006, my first summer spent living in Boston between my sophomore and junior years. 2006 in general was definitely a very significant transition year for me, and while some of that anxiety might slip through here, that's not really the point. I remember the evening when I turned to my then-roommate, Layne, and said "Ya know, Layne, you hear about all these artists, songwriters, etc. with horrible, horrible addiction problems, but still somehow creating their best creative while completely obliterated. But I've never actually done that." So naturally Layne, being the kind and considerate soul she was, walked directly into the kitchen and poured me ten shots of vodka in a line. I looked down at the counter and looked back at her, eyes wide with fear. "Go," she demanded, and, well, I did, because Layne was just that kind of person that you could never down on, even when it was a terrible idea (because you knew that her worst ideas usually made the best stories).

So bam. 10 shots of vodka in a row, right down the hatch. No dinner. A quick chaser of Diet Coke, and I locked myself in the bedroom with a guitar and a notebook and a pen. I didn't even turn the lights on; it felt more poetic that way (whatever man, I was 20), and there was enough light bleeding in through the window from the construction site next door. And I just went, pouring out my every thought in some strange semblance of verse.

Eventually, I compiled some of these lines into a piece called "The Ballad of Gideon Stargrave," but the first time ever, here are my (mostly) unedited ramblings from that fateful drunken night:

I'm stuck somewhere between Myself and I

(And the lock keeps locking loudly when I'm sleeping late past 12)

In a city full of strangers Or a town that's full of ants I'm an albatross awaiting flight, a soldier's final dance before his life and pride are blown apart locked on target for his heart his pen's the only missile that he flies but he's still somewhere between himself and I

This section was titled "Don't Tell Mom & Dad That I Sold Out"

There's a letter in my drawer that I wrote when I was four with a crayon Though the wax is coming off and my handwriting is rough and my spelling hasn't bettered in years I think it says it all There's a flyer on my wall from the local rental hall where I booked shows when I was just 16 and we still sucked

But I've tried to find the words that best describe my frame of mind It's hanging from the mantlepiece, a mix of nails of twine. The string is strung out and nails are warped

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN I MEAN I'M FINE, IT'S FINE WE'RE FINE WE'LL ALL BE ALRIGHT

Yes, I actually wrote that, scrawled across the page. I assume that I was disappointed with where my words were going -- though looking back, I may have been on to a cool idea with that whole motif of a literal physical frame my mind.

Maybe.

Anyway, it kept going:

Like a charm wearing thin Like a light shining in from the street because I can't afford electric bills. Like a fish drying out Like a boy in a drought of love Only love In a land of snakes and donkeys and the elephants that eat them towering above them like a lamb without his wool but he's offering his blessing to the boy out in the cold because he's given all that he can give he's left with just a face and though the girls can swear he's handsome it's just not to his taste without his arms, without a neck, without his feet, without a heart, he's more than alive and it's more than a start

Clearly I was going for some deep political themes here. I understand the symbolism of elephants and lambs and snakes and donkeys but....what the hell does that even mean?

I think it's the start of a beautiful day when the robots have all gone home and away The sunlight sneaks in through the blinds and tears through the crust that your allergies left on your eyes. The lids peel apart and just to find the calm of her back fast asleep within mine. Your lips part and stretch in a smile as you observer her warm chest rise and fall, rise and fall, to the side and you can't help but smile and sigh as her faint lips part to breathe your air, you long to taste their salty embrace and you long for just once to feel right

He gave me most of his mind He asked me to write To color his life But a poet is lost when his life is alright When the girls are in love When he sleeps through the night

There will be bells and trumpets and choirs that sing to the world when I fall in love There will be wars Once hot but frozen Both hands will shake When I am in love And there will be clouds that will bring in the rain but in moments so precious our lips must stay moist and there will be boys who discover their parents discover their future when i fall in love and there will be grass where dirt resides barren without so much a flower or lone daffodil because the last dandelion that I will become will someday fall in love when he someday breathe his rest

There's another way to find ourselves in love There's another way to find a man within these every walls.

Later I'll be sure to post photos of each of the pages, so you can see how hilariously my handwriting devolved as the night went on.

Naturally the next day I awoke with the sun (because I passed out before I remembered to pull the blinds down), wearing all my clothes and cuddling with my guitar. Surprisingly, I still seem to remember at least a few of the melodies and riffs for the music I wrote during this session...

College was fun.

It's All In The Ears

So apparently there are some people out there who are absolutely disgusted by the sight of attached earlobes. (I assume that these are the same people that experience actual physical revulsion at the sound of the word "moist") (you know who you are) Still, it got me thinking a bit about bigotry, and the features that people are born with that lead to discrimination. Thus, instead of stooping to making fun of Jeph Loeb again, I decided to write a short fiction piece about a world in which those with attached earlobes suffer from the same kind of humiliation, discrimination, and hate as some of the more persecuted minority groups today. I guess what I'm trying to say is, attached earlobes is the new Black. I mean, not that — I don't mean like — I'm not a racist, but — oh, forget it.

"Lobe Lobe Lobe" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Freshman Weekend; or, Beer Beer Sex Shots Shots Shots Shot Puke WHOOPS

Here's the thing: I'm 25 years old, just over 3 years out of college. I stay out late, I drink (and make) lots of beer, I work in the arts, and show up at my job most days in cut-off jean shorts (or "jorts," if you will) and a t-shirt. I don't feel that old — I'm not that old — and the idea of college doesn't seem like it's so far away. But biking from Harvard Square on Friday night, I discovered that college was indeed back in session, and that I have apparently become a jaded old man. It was the first weekend of college for many freshmen at Boston's countless universities. It was a beautiful night as well, so the frosh were out in droves, playing at adulthood by making lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of obnoxious (but incredibly fun) mistakes from which they will (one day) hopefully learn. "Freshmen Weekend," as I like to call it, is not that day. My bike route brought me past Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, and Wentworth University, as well as plenty of off-campus student abodes. You know those 13-year cicadas? It was kind of like that.

So mid-bike ride (I swear, it was totally safe), I recorded this poem, which I then fixed up when I got home. Enjoy!

"Freshmen Weekend" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Emerson GOLD Council

I received a brief shout-out in this article from the Berkeley Beacon, my Alma Mater's student-run newspaper, about the Emerson GOLD (Graduates Of the Last Decade, get it?) Council, with whom I've been working and meeting for the last month or so. It's a new initiative, but there's some exciting plans on the horizon for Emerson Alumni in each of our main networks. Also, special thanks to Caitlin Collins for not making me sound like an idiot, and not publishing any of the incredibly-witty-but-terribly-inappropriate-and/or-incriminating things that I may or may not have said during our brief interview.

Go Lions!*

*Just kidding. No one cares about sports at Emerson College.**

**Apologies to all of you Emerson athletes out there. I think you're fantastic people. I really do. So I don't say this to insult you. I say this because it's true.