How to Be A Musician.

First of all, be a total hell-raiser as a child. Run around hyperactivley until your parents decide you need something better to do. They will consult, and on your fifth birthday, you will be horrified to discover that they have signed you up for regular piano lessons. Proclaim that this is the worst birthday present you have ever recieved.
When you start going to these lessons, refuse to cooperate. Never practice, so that your playing sounds as if it was done with your feet. Piss off your teacher until she finally insist that you take a six-month break from piano. Be thrilled to oblige, get grounded.
Two months later, you are seven years old. You're bored, so you decide to go back to piano. Upon going back, become instantly frustrated, but do not actually quit. Decide that this piano thing is for you and you will learn it no matter what. Learn as much as you can until you start to piss off the music teacher at your elementary school because you're a total smartass and you contradict everything she says.

Grow a little. Go to middle school. Sign up for orchestra and insist on playing the violin, even though they really need cellos and the teacher keeps hinting that she would much prefer you on cello. Blantantly ignore these hints and get a violin. Mean while, instead of learning what she tells you to, figure out a bunch of songs from your new favorite band, Flogging Molly.

School will let out and sixth grade will be over. Go on a road trip to Colorado and take along your Grandpa's guitar just for the hell of it. Mess with it until you manage to painfully produce a song with three notes in it. By the time you head back to your home town in New Mexico, you will have learned five chords and become set on playing guitar.
Practice every single day even though you kind of suck at it. Delay returning your Grandpa's guitar as long as you can, thinking up a whole lot of lame, bullshit excuses so you can keep it longer.
Save up for your own guitar. Eventually, however, your Grandpa will give you the money for one, which he will say is because you got so good, but you will know that secretly he just really wants HIS guitar back.

Now that you have the money, buy a cheap Fender. Worship it. Take it everywhere, especially to dinner. Name it Sid, after your current hero, Sid Vicious. (You are only in seventh grade, give yourself a break)

Meanwhile, discover that you need a new piano teacher because your current one claims that you've learned everything she can teach you. Be suspicious that this is bullshit and she probably just doesn't like you.

Get a new piano teacher. This one is a little crazy but supposedly very good. He has a two year long waiting list but lets you skip in front of every one because you have "skill." Be scared that you pissed off a lot of people who have been waiting a bazillion years for him to have an opening but take the opportunity anyway.

Decide that you want to go to a school for the arts because you are now obsessed with music. Work tirelessy on a portfolio that your friend will try to spill paint on when you aren't looking so that you won't get in. Freak out and save it at the last second. Get glowing recomendation letters from two teachers. Read them and think that it's total bullshit and you aren't half as cool as they make you seem, but put them in your portfolio anyway. and turn it in on the last day they will accept them.

Get accepted. Be surprised and think that they must have no standard if they let you in. Go to school. Hope for the best. And let the future take course.

Why don't I rant any more?

I just started school again. (Yeah, I'm still in school, you wanna say something about it?). This is a new change that is going to require a bit of participation from my still nocturnal brain. I can't get up in the morning, can't go to sleep at night. What is this? Is my body revolting against the patterns of the public school system?
So I had a little observation from school.
"When did Hot Topic get so damn popular?"
Every fourth kid in the whole school seems to be covered in Hot Topic. All over. And then they either think that they're really bad ass because they shop at Hot Topic or they totally deny it, even if they're dressed head to foot in it.
One incident made me chuckle. During a class, someone wondered about how the year would turn out. This girl said, "The freshmen all live at Hot Topic."
One freshmen took offense to this and said, "I didn't get this at Hot Topic, I made it." It was a black t-shirt with two massive safety pins crossed over it. Ironically, though, she not only was wearing Hot Topic pants, she had gotten her huge safety pins at HOT TOPIC.
So, after all this, I was annoyed enough to wear a shirt that said, "save D.I.Y, BURN DOWN HOT TOPIC." It was a beautiful reaction. Every one either hated my shirt or loved it. I was satisfied.
All I was trying to do, (besides advertise my digust for Hot Topic) was unsettle them. They need a little poke now and then.
What made me really sad though, was another day, again in a class room. We were supposed to discuss what made us angry or concerned in the world. Three freshmen actually said, "I don't care what goes on in the world, it doesn't affect me."
You can imagine what my reaction was. I was pissed, irritated, and sad. I wanted to hit them in the face and say, "You think it doesn't affect you? You'll see, wont you?!!"
But I didn't. I raised an eyebrow and stayed quiet. And now I regret it.

The Art of the People

The other day I was enjoying an activity I do often, walking for no reason. I went to the skatepark, and I decided to cut through the park instead of taking the main road back to my place of living. So there I was, walking along, and I saw this.




This is made my day. I need to find out who did this, seriously. It makes me uncomparably happy. Ah, joy. And that wasn't the end of it. There was others, like one that said, "POISON" with a skull and crossbones, and in place of the skull was George Bush's head. I didn't take a picture of it because I'm stupid.
This is real Art. I am going to look for more of these around town.