I went to K’s on Tuesday, which I was very happy about. I did some schoolwork at work, and listened to more of my Infinite Jest audiobook. There is a narrator on YouTube named “A Poetry Channel,” and she is a very nice lady (I don’t actually know her, but she’s put a lot of effort into free narration). Me and K had a very good time and we watched TV and relaxed and ate Cheddar’s and it was very good and she means the world to me. I left that evening and did a little schoolwork.
On Wednesday, nothing of note really happened.
Thursday followed a similar trajectory to Wednesday – however I did get drunk and had a merry time with that and talked to my mom about people who have died. I’ve thought about death a lot recently – not in a Sylvia Plath way, but as like in relation to life – death sort of being “The Other Thing,” something that people are either alive or they are not. This sort of thing can get really edgy and annoying really quickly, but discussing with my mom I asked her about people she knew who died and how she remembered that affecting her, and about how I remember being a kid and my parents talking about people they knew that had died and thinking of death as this bizarre thing outside my realm of experience and now that I’ve gotten older and come to the understanding that a lot of us (people) come to live very similar lives (this is a generalization) as our parents – specifically that once kids enter early adulthood they start to encounter the bizarre trajectory of the lives of their peers (entering the military, marriage, pregnancy, various employments, etc.) and while some our luckier than others, death is part of this extension of the Eriksonian Stages of Development. The new album I’m writing is about some people I know who have died, but this line of questioning came from the passing of a friend – not a super close friend (I don’t say this to discount anything about them, I just want to make it clean that I hadn’t talked to him since I was in military school.), I have a fond memory of them going to the mall at the same time I was at the mall and we played guitar together for a brief moment. They were a good guy, and I remember wanting to be good friends with them, which we were never got around to them.
On Friday, I had a meeting about my degree – I was able to do this bridge option for my Education degree which allows me to pass the tests that I did not pass. I will also be leaving my job around August. At about 2PM, I left work and spent the day with K. We had a very good time and enjoyed each other’s company – me and her went to Hobby Lobby because we are going to make this cute papercraft couples project that I will just have to show you (the reader) in a later entry. Me and her than went to Books A Million where I looked for anything of interest and then compared it to the ThriftBooks.com listing (which was often cheaper (this practice of going to the Corporately Owned BAM to browse and then to actually purchase from the sightly less corporately owned ThriftBooks.com is a practice that I greatly encourage for my readers)) – Depending on my listening of Infinite Jest, I may invest some energy is learning about Kant, I also have a slight interest in Hobbes and Rosseau from IJ. I am unbearable at bookstores, checking the Dostoyevsky, Philosophy, and David Foster Wallace (if applicable) sections. BAM had Oblivion and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by DFW, which I regard as good – in the fiction section whilst Broom of the System (DFW’s first novel) in the classics section which I find rather funny in a sort of snobbish way. From here me and K got Subway and went her house and I scratched her back and we watched Coulda Been Love or whatever that show is called and we soon fell asleep together. It was very sweet.
Saturday Morning, I woke up at around 7 AM at the same time as K. Me and her had a really conversation and I left around 8AM. I came home to my mom and stepdad and boxer pup, and I did that Bridge thing for degree and began writing this journal. At around 2PM, I headed onto my buddy Dave’s, which I was very excited about. Me and Dave were going to see Brian Sella and Emperor X (details about their influence upcoming). Me and Dave left around 2:30 PM – Getting to Huntington around 5 PM and then the show at around 7 PM.
Dave was unable to attend the show but was still in Huntington, I felt sad that he missed the show, but I think me being there with him while he drove helped. I won’t be expanding on Dave’s stuff because of privacy, but my biggest concern was to be accommodating to Dave because I love him and I knew he was stressed. On the car ride to Huntington, Dave asked about my fingertips, and I talked about my compulsive fingerpicking – which he emphasized (AA Word: identified) with and that meant the world to me because I really got to talk about that physical manifestation of my anxiety (which I had never done) and that honestly felt like a weight off my chest. I love Dave and he is a great guy.
I arrived at the show around 7PM, there was a line and there was a kid who I stood in line with from Beckley that I did not really remember. I talked to Nick and his Fiancee from The Apurna Project and Pinky’s Brian alongside Shawn Benfield, which I greatly enjoyed but eventually I hit my social limit and became overwhelmed, so I went inside. I ended up getting towards the front for Emperor X who I was mostly there to see.
When I began listening to Emperor X was around the same time I started writing a lot of the hyper-literary/philosophy-reference lyrics that are on Bush Ghosts and more specifically l’historie de la familie. I was listening and reading all this philosophy and post-modern stuff and trying to learn as many concepts/words/ideas as possible for lyrics and I was unable to really find a way to articulate or find similar artists and I found that in Emperor X’s music w/r/t songs like 30,000 Pounds and Schopenhauer In Berlin. Emperor X is also just a very cool guy. I ended up messaging him on Instagram (I’m sort of annoying like that unfortunately), which he said he would sign my copy of Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer and play song indeed – which he did. Chad of Emp. X went on Stage around 8 PM right after I received his reply and his set was amazing. He played False Metal, Wasted on The Senate Floor, Schopenhauer in Berlin, Erican Western Teleport, Renee Nicole Nicole Renee, The Whale Song (I’m unsure if this is the real title) and he closed with this really great song that I did not know but had a really good audience part. Chad said the crowd was rowdy, which was certainly true, but I think Emp. X does a great job at maintaining stage presence and his songs are so good and articulate and passionate that even a rowdy Huntington crowd would pay attention to his powerful Folk Punk ballads.
Brian Sella went on stage 20 or 30 minutes after Emperor X and it was a very good sort of two part set – one part he played a couple of the songs from his solo album “Well I Mean” and the other part was Sella playing a handful of TFB songs – which everyone in the audience knew. TFB occupies the same space as Fall Out Boy in which they have a lot of songs that are good and when people know the songs, they really know the songs. Emperor X writes in this same way, however Emp. X remains underrated but stuns unknowing crowds, which I’m sure is a cool feeling. The Brian Sella set was good and we all sung a long to each of the songs we knew – I can not do this justice how fun hearing these songs that are so tied to my psyche and are the reason I started playing guitar again at 13 and all that stuff – it was a blast. Towards the end of the TFB song request section, people (what I believe was a specific friend group or similar) became a little rowdy but nothing too insane. I will say that Brian Sella and Chad are very good at managing crowds, a lot better than I could even begin to imagine to be – Having that much human interaction/stimuli directed at you and/or demanding attention (hypocrisy on my part upcoming) seems beyond overwhelming (e.g. audiences purchasing alcoholic shots in the hopes of a brief interaction with a specific performer (even after said performer semi-earnestly has requested you not to purchase alcoholic shots for them), throwing things on stage, use of indoor lighters, one instance of audience member seemingly blowing vape clouds in performer’s face (most likely on accident), etc., etc.)
Once Brian Sella set ended, I met up with my buddy Sam, and I went to get an autograph from Emp. X on Schopenhauer’s Essays and Aphorisms in which Emp. X told me to wait around back. I ended up doing this for a little bit; however I was aware that Sella and Emp. X and co. were busy and tearing down so I wasn’t holding my breath, I understand that sort of overwhelming necessity to get everything in the van and wanting to relax, I’m sure it’s amplified after a large tour of what I am sure were other large crowds demanding of attention, so I certainly wanted to be as least fanboyish as possible. At about 11, I decided it would be good to go up front to see what the merch booth was like and to my surprise Chad of Emp. X was there, and we talked for a second and it was great and he signed my book.
Me and him talked about philosophy very briefly, and I held my own and made some wise cracks about Schopenhauer. I introduced Chad to my buddy Sam who is also an Emp. X fan and (Sam) a physicist teacher – I read Emperor X’s Wikipedia page and knew that he (Chad) once taught high school physics and Sam was so excited to talk about AP Physics and all those sorts of things for a second. Chad (Emperor X) had to go and help put up equipment and I asked for a picture, which was great. Chad said, “Everyone say Material Realism,” whilst getting ready for the picture, to which I replied, “Capital R Realism,” to which Chad replied, “This guy knows what’s up.” I include this parable not to sound as the ultimate Emp. X fanboy (I am aware that I most likely am – at least in West Virginia), but my pride in my appropriate use of the phrase “Capital R Realism,” e.g. “Capital T True,” “Capital A Abstract,” etc., etc. I have linked the picture of me, Sam, and Chad here:
Sam drove me to meet up with Dave which was very nice of him, and then me and Dave drove home. I witnessed some form of public disturbance at the Sheetz beside the venue with Sam (I think someone may have been shoplifting(?)), and then I saw another public confrontation(?) over having a purse in a gas station with Dave. The argument was over whether a purse was large enough to be classified as a “big bag,” and it was a very bizarre confrontation where no one really acted politely.
Dave recommended me to meditate. We drove home and we listened to some demos, and it was great. We got home, and I got my oranges that I purchased for Dave’s movie fundraiser. I got to my house at around 1:54 AM and then went to bed.
I woke up this morning at about 7:45 AM, I wrote a little and then I went to church. I had a good day, and I made an honest attempt to pray for something that I don’t fully believe (this line is taken from Infinite Jest). I like my church a lot, it’s an older church and I am the youngest adult member of the church (23). This church is an irony free zone and I’m grateful for it. I am going to play some Minecraft, write some songs, and begin reading my Kierkegaard Anthonolgy Book I bought last weekend. I have had a good weekend and I am hoping to have another good week. I will leave you with this Schopenhauer quote. Goodbye.
"Every moment of our life belongs to the present only for a moment; then it belongs for ever to the past. Every evening we are poorer by a day. We would perhaps grow frantic at the sight of this ebbing away of our short span of time were we not secretly conscious in the profoundest depths of our being that can for ever draw new life and renewed time. We share in the inexhaustible well of eternity, out of which we could, to be sure, base on considerations of this kind a theory that the greatest wisdom consists in enjoying the present and making this enjoyment the goal of life, because the present is all that is real and everything else merely imaginary."
- Arthur Schopenhauer, On The Vanity of Existence