Childhood stories, Music, Pokemon, Friends.
Alright, let’s begin!
In the previous installment, I had told you I would bring out some childhood stories. Hopefully, you have stayed around long enough to see that things shall begin to get a bit more interesting. Here is the last installment, by the way: http://growingintolife.tumblr.com/post/149873930794/so-this-is-the-start just in case you missed it.
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Now, where do I begin? I guess I should start with some really early memories of being tortu–happy with my older sister. We did get along a bit than I lead on as kids. Let just have the highlight reel for now:
The Golden Nail Polish.
My Sister loves to mess with me. I remember this one rather vividly, since it was a traumatic event to a six year old little me. We would stay at my Grandmother’s house on the weekends, since our parent worked midnight shifts, and then Grandma would stay over on Wednesdays at our house since their schedules would clash. Anyways, My Grandma had two bathrooms, one was a half bathroom, the other was upstairs: full bathroom. I drank a lot of Mountain Dew as a child, and noticed that Nature had said it was time. I ran out of the kitchen, and to the bathroom downstairs. The door wasn’t locked, and I opened it. My sister was in there, doing her nails. “Becca, I have to pee. Can you let me have the bathroom for a second?” I asked her. Of course, she got mad, barging in on her. How dare I interrupt her doing her nails in the bathroom? So, she proceeded to tell me no, and then swiped the brush full of gold nail polish across my hand.
(Now, I’m gonna break the fourth wall a second. I was an easily frightened child. I was scared of monsters, that I had no clue what they looked like, and they were just faceless, body less creatures, coming to get me.)
Back to the story. I hated anything that got stuck to my hands or face as a kid. And proceeded to yell, “what the heck?! Get it off!” But Becca knew she had a “golden"opportunity the minute it happened. She then told me, “you know, Alex. There was a boy in my third grade class, looked just like you. He got gold nail polish on him, and then he disappeared. No one ever seen him again, and I KNOW, that it was the gold nail polish that killed him. You better hurry, and find Grammy, otherwise, you’ll end up just like him. You have five minutes.”
Clearly, I was freaked out bad. I forgot I had to use the restroom entirely, I started panicking, just shy of hyperventilating. Me, die? Just like that? I was gonna disappear, unless I can find my Grammy, and she can help me. So I set off, to find her in the last five minutes I thought I had on the planet.
I remember frantically running upstairs to my Grandmas room, surely she would be there. I rushed up the stairs, tripping on the last one, and falling. But that didn’t matter, I could reach her door on the ground. I started pounding on the door, “Grammy! Help me! I’m gonna die!” But unfortunately, no response. I then searched everywhere in the house, over and over repeatedly. And no luck. Clearly, 5 minutes had passed at this point, but I kept checking in with my Sister, just to make sure I knew how much time I had left. (I didn’t really know how to read clocks well, so I had her look. I’m sure she loved every second of this bad game.)
Eventually, Grandma comes in from outside, helping our Great Grandfather outside with some work. I remember just breaking down, because I knew I was going to die. Over golden nail polish. My Grandma yelled at her for that one. Now, let’s skip over to another story.
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The Day’s Last Cigarette.
When we were growing up, our parent smoked. This story was a bit earlier than the age of eight. I believe I was more around the age of 2. Yes, I sort of remember this one a bit. It would be at the end of the night, about 8-9 o'clock, and Mom and Dad would go out by the front door, and smoke. Now, my Sister and I would sit on the couch, waiting for them to come back, and get us ready for bed. But this time was a bit different.
Once my Sister heard the door close, she decided to get my attention, and smack me in the back of the head, and she did it hard too. She knew what would happen. I would get mad, and then start hitting her several times back.
Now this was in the summer, and the windows would be open. So, after I would start wailing on Becca, she would scream for Mom and Dad. Then, once they came in, she would tell them exactly what happened: “Mom, Dad! Alex won’t stop hitting me!”…really? Anyways, this was the 90s, and spanking were still an acceptable form of punishment. So I got spanked for hitting my Sister. So now, Becca thought she had found a new handy trick.
Amazingly, this happened for three days. Of course, with my Sister being the most…*ahem*…they believed her, okay? Now, on the third night, Mom and Dad got smart. They decided to tell us they were going outside to smoke, and hid behind the corner of the living room entrance, and watched what she did. So glad they did, honestly. Moral of the story? Don’t smoke, folks. Your future kids won’t get the shit smacked out each other. Just kidding. I was a smoker for over 10 years (yes, I started at the age of 12. Oops.) Let tell one more story, where I get revenge.
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“Mommy, I feel sick.”
Now, this one I don’t remember. But, it’s funny and gross. I don’t know how it happened, but I started to feel sick when I was little. Maybe I ate something that didn’t agree with me, or maybe it was all the shit that my Sister did to me, finally taking effect on a poor child’s–Sorry.
As I was saying, I was sick, and I em ever really got sick. I looked at my Mom, “Mommy, I don’t feel good.” Now before she could say anything to me, my Sister ran up to me, evil smirk, and sarcastically says, “Well here, puke in my hands!” And made a cup with her hands.
…needless to say, she got her request. I heaved the bile of poetic justice right into her palms. She ran all over the house screaming, and flinging her hands in the air. Im just glad I was little, and didn’t have to clean it. 😋
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Now that I gave you the highlight reel of some childhood stuff, let’s move on!
I stated that I’m a music guy, and a musician. I say that I’m a musician, because I’ve written songs, been in bands, played venues, and play a little bit of instruments.
I’ve played guitar for about 10 years now, but I haven’t been taking it as serious as I should be. I’ve been a vocalist (not a singer) for about 6-7 years. I do sing, mostly in my car though, some people say I’m good. I dunno what to say, honestly. I also play a bit of bass, and even less drums.
Hell, I remember getting interested in Metallica, and Ozzy in the beginning. I never really clicked with any other genre of music than metal. Of course now, I’ve gained an appreciation of all music, however, I still don’t go out my way to hear it.
The newest interest in music I have though, is Djent. I love It. Djent is a style of metal, which seems to have more key changes, time signature changes, offbeat rhythms, polyrhythms, etc. mostly played with 7-strings guitars, and 5(+)-string basses. I would have to say that Periphery got me into that. Tesseract, Scale The Summit, Animals As Leaders, and a few others.
Now, I don’t own stringed instruments with more strings than average, and I don’t typically write that style. I still try and write heavy, but I always write my music with a program, cause I’ll forget it otherwise. If I’m picking up my guitar, I always play Bluesy stuff. I mean, my all time favorite band has been Opeth, I even have a tattoo of their band logo: http://d.pr/i/130TE
Opeth is like Between The Buried and Me, but Opeth has less genre transitions. Opeth released a single off their new album, and it shows more promise than the last two. I really could dig the last two, but it wasn’t the Opeth I knew, it was too 70s funk and groove.
Anyways, if you guys haven’t heard THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, you really need to. Sadly, after about 20 years of work, they are producing one last album, touring, and then going their separate ways. One of the band members had said they didn’t want to start getting ahead of themselves, and start putting out lower quality content. Ever album they’ve had released, was well received by fans, and they only put out stronger music every album. It’s just sort of sad to see they’re going. But at least they’re being honest with themselves. Metallica should take a page out of their books, since they themselves have only been reading check books since the black album.
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Onto another thought. I’m in love with the new Pokemon GO! App. It’s been pretty fun to try and catch them all in my area, even though it’s been Ratatas, Pidgeys, and Weedle…Fucking Weedle.
I have to be honest with you: I thought I wasn’t a big fan of Pokemon until this game.
Now before you think I’m a bandwagon jumper, hear me out. This surprised me as much as anyone else. I have fond memories of watching the show, and collecting and trading cards. I remember when the Pokemon movie first came out, I remember losing my shit over that. So why? What made me have an opinion change?
I remember those so fondly, but I never had a chance to play the games as a kid. I didn’t really feel the need to, though. The show, and cards were enough. Once I got older, I decided to go back, and play the old Pokemon games, and see what they were all about. I have to admit, it was mind-numbing. It was very slow, the games didn’t have a great narrative, and they didn’t really tell you your next objective. Maybe it was because I hadn’t played them at the right age was the problem. I had talked to a lot of my friend about their memories of playing, and they all had the same, happy nostalgic feelings.
A few sleepless nights kinda helped me figure it out. It was especially weird to me, because I’m a big RPG fan. I came to the conclusion of it being the dialogue, as well as narrative. At least on RPGs, of you aim endlessly, you more than likely to run into a side quest or two, which enhance the game’s story, or is a part that’s even better than the story. With the old Pokemon games, most of the people you come in contact with are like, “I think Pokemon are great! Don’t you!?”
Anyways, I told myself that if this didn’t get me into the games, nothing will. I was pleasantly surprised how competitive it can make me against other teams. Instinct or Extinct!…Well, I guess I’m gonna give the games another shot soon. Which game should I start with? Lemme know!
I think this is gonna do it for me tonight guys. Again, I wanna thank you for the time your taking to read this blog.
Be back in a while
-Alex