I found a genius named Edgar Meza and another one named Myla

I got a CD-r in the mail a few days ago in a Xeroxed handglued cover. Awesome packaging. The price was awesome, too (free). It’s an acoustic album by Edgar Meza, a local kid that I’m guessing likes very strange things. When I first started learning how to play guitar, sometimes I would go into my bedroom and turn my tape recorder on when nobody was home. Then I’d strum a few chords, say whatever I wanted to, and pretend I was Woody Guthrie. After about five minutes or so of an improvised recording session, I’d play the tape back and think about how horrible and embarrassing it was. The tapes were eventually recorded over and nobody would ever hear them again. This is what most of Songs of Fame and Glamour reminds me of and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how it was recorded, though something tells me that Edgar’s been playing guitar for pretty good while. However, not all of the songs are just some kid strumming a guitar and singing about why Franny and Matthew Hickey are gay (“8. Everyone is Gay”). There are some gems like the fourth track’s “Recess.” Over the same two chords, Edgar sings lines like “Dodgeball and double-dutch/Watching older kids play with bugs/Hanging from the monkey bars/Scoring points like Olajuwon/I’m gonna eat some cookies with my friends.” If any of your teachers have been teaching you rhyme and poetry by anyone that’s not Edgar Meza then you should go back to every single one of them and tell them that they are horrible teachers and should be fired from teaching forever.

I just found the second genius a few minutes ago. She is my friend Layne’s 9 year-old sister, Myla. She started a blog called The nature of animals and I’m convinced that it’s the greatest blog in the world. Have you ever wondered what’s in the mind of the unpolluted 9 year-old girl? I never did, but I still think that the blog is awesome.

The Dimes/American Sharks/The Ka Nives at Crocker House

I was pretty excited about this show for a while. However, plans fell apart when I found out that my ride was indisposed. After a phone call with Arie, I call up Leah Gilman and tell her my sob story. It works and an hour later she was at my house. She brought her friend Austyn, an innocent girl who had never been to a show before. I was pretty excited to be part of someone’s first-show-ever experience. I hope I didn’t ruin her life. I brought earplugs for both of them because I take ear care and ear damage very seriously (this is why you’ve probably seen me at shows wearing large green firearm-grade protective ear muffs). Austyn was the only person that actually used my earplugs. Apparently Leah Gilman had something to prove.

I didn’t have money to pay Leah for gas so instead I gave her my Tapes ‘n Tapes 7″. She told me that her day sucked but the record made her feel much better and makes up for her crappy day. This is what I intended the record to do because records make people feel better. Flowers die and get-well cards end up in the trash a few weeks later so you should always buy your friends records when they’re feeling down.

The moments leading up to entering the Crocker House paralleled the events of the first house show I went to when I was 15. First, I had no idea where the house was so I drove around the neighborhood trying to look for parked cars, people holding red cups, and started listening for a kick-drum coming out a living room. Then once I found the place, me and my posse tried to play it cool and pretend like we’ve been to that house a million times before and acted like we knew our way around. Then, I walked through the kitchen and into the living room, searching for a familiar face that I could talk to so I wouldn’t seem like a completely naive nobody in front of all the cool kids. I think I pulled it off pretty well.

Before the show started, people were encouraged to bring posters and put them on the wall to be judged for the best poster. Rumor has it that the judge was some guy’s grandpa and the prize was booze and weed. I put up a poster of a dog with goggles.

The Dimes

The Dimes played a pretty damn fun set. They’ve played a million shows before but this one was so honest and innocent that it looked like their first show ever. Mics were dying, mic stands were falling, monitors were dropping, and each song began with long strains of feedback.

American Sharks

I’m trying to think of something respectable and classy to say about American Sharks but I honestly can’t think of anything. The only things that come to mind are a beer, flying open cans of beer, beards, and beer.

I never said that those weren’t awesome.

The Ka-Nives

The Ka-Nives are one of my favorite live bands ever. At every show, it’s like they get everyone to reenact that famous scene of Animal House where Otis Day and the Knights play at the frat house. At one point, I was standing in the front taking some pictures when I felt someone grab my ankles. I knew exactly what was going to happen. The cramped living room left no space for an escape route so before I knew it, I was being passed above and around the crowd.

By the middle of the set, my clothes were soaked in Lone Star and my glasses were completely fogged up.

We left before the poster judging began. I hope I won, though. I kinda want the poster back.

The traditional post-show dining at at 24-hr cafe

(from left to right: Zach, Austyn, Andrew, Leah)

Accidents and the Importance of Lab Safety

My biology instructor is this really squirrelish looking guy. He’s overweight, has a double chin and a disgusting molester’stache, wears very large glasses that magnify the size of his eyes, and the top of his bald head is badly concealed by a very thin, grey combover. He’s basically Milton from Office Space. He’s a smart guy, though.

My group sits at the very front of the class, right in front of his desk. Today was our first biology lab and near the end of the lab when everyone was setting up the last parts of their experiment, he sat down at his table and started talking to my group. He said, “You know, the laboratory is probably the most dangerous part of your college careers. You always have to be on the tip of your toes.”

I thought to myself, “Wow, what a really inappropriate thing to say on the FIRST DAY OF LAB.” Now I’ll have his words hanging over my head for the rest of the year.

This Venezuelan girl in my group, the star student that always has something to add into discussions no matter what the discussion is about, then started to tell a story. “When I was in high school, I always loved labs and chemistry. I was always sitting up front to see all the action! One time, my teacher did an experiment with sulfur and I took a big whiff of the sulfur and it caked my lungs! I was coughing so much! But what I’m really surprised about is the household cleaners that can be mixed and can cause toxic fumes!”

My instructor said, “Yeah…you always have to watch out for that kinda stuff. When I was a grad student, I was cleaning my shower and I thought to myself, ‘Well I need to clean this shower. Bleach is good. And so is ammonia!’ BIG MISTAKE. I was lucky I made it out of there alive!”

I didn’t want to say anything snappy but, of all people, I would’ve thought that a SCIENCE MAJOR in GRAD SCHOOL would know the basic formula for guerrilla mustard gas. Before you read this story, take a look at the drawing I drew up there. I mean, take a real look at it. Just imagine that guy, with his magnified eyes, telling you the following story.

He then continued with, “But if you want to hear about a lab accident, I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT A LAB ACCIDENT! In one of the graduate classes I was teaching, a young lady in my class was emptying a tank of toxic waste. She somehow slipped or lost her grip or something and ended up spilling the toxic waste ALL OVER HER BODY. I mean, it was soaked into her shirt and into her jeans, it was EVERYWHERE. I pulled out the Geiger counter and she just lit up like an ATOMIC BOMB. I asked her, ‘Would you rather lose your dignity or have prolonged exposure to radioactive waste?’ She chose to lose her dignity. I stripped her naked down to her BIRTHDAY SUIT and put her under that lab safety shower. I mean, she was BARE NAKED. NO BRA! NO PANTIES! I hosed her down with soap and water until the Geiger counter was back to normal. We had her clothes sitting up in the sealed room for 4 months before she was able to take them back in order for the radiation to decompose.”

I asked, “She chose to keep her clothes after she spilled radioactive waste on them?”

“Well, I guess she really liked those jeans.”

It sounded like a story I’d hear by a drunk under a bridge.

536

January 13, 2008, 11:29

School starts tomorrow! I wish it was still winter break and I was sitting under a bridge with Helen doing nothing.

Madeline Adams and Nana Grizol are goin’ to Austin during spring break for SXSW. I hope they play Houston before or after that or else I’d be forced to skip a week of school and drive to Austin to see them because I don’t have a spring break this year.

Friday was a pretty good day to end the week before school starts up again. Morgan and I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of candy and sat in the car in the parking lot at school and ate it all.

535

January 06, 2008, 11:38

This break has been pretty great. Helen came down from Massachusetts to hang out with me and Ryan, then with me and David. I met up with Dano at a warehouse to see one of the greatest shows I’ve ever been to where I sold some merch for B., saw Grant Olney play his first North American show in a long time, chanted “HAIL SATAN” with a biker holding a 10 foot tall burning cross, saw Adrienne for one last time before we both part ways forever, and later saw a stripper.

And one night Layne called me at 1 AM out of the blue and we went out to eat at House of Pies and then we drove to Galveston. We got to Galveston, sat on the sea wall for 10 minutes, then got back in the car and drove home.

Last night I went out against my will to Agora where I ran into Felipe and Derya and Franny and Masha. I haven’t seen those kids in a long time. Later I took photobooth pictures with Andrew Sainz and Arie and Leah Gilman. I’ve decided to get a tattoo of Arie, but I don’t have enough money to buy a new bike, a speaker cabinet, and a tattoo. This is going to be a tuff year.