Tonight

Was awesome. Seeing a bunch of my friends taking time out their Saturday night to come see my band play for the first time made me super happy (for those who are reading this who came, thank you so much! Especially Kim for taking pictures), and it made me happy making new friends from the other bands! I was pretty stoked on how we sounded also, pretty solid considering we've only been writing and practicing for 3 - 4 weeks. People seemed to like us, and we're gonna try and hit the studio to record a demo as soon as possible, as well as schedule more shows this month!

Started...

A new blog type thing over on tumblr, mainly of just opinions and such.

If anyone's interested, check it: http://ericxxx.tumblr.com/

Tomorrow

Seeing one of the original hardcore bands from the 80's. So stoked.

To Peeps Who Follow Me on Here:

To the few friends who follow me on here, if any of you aren't going to the beach on June 11th, you're invited to come check out my band Basement Dweller, we're playing at my friends house that night. Just lemme know if you're interested and I'll hook you up with an address!

If every day of summer could be like yesterday I'd be really happy.

Woke up late, after having an actually decent night's sleep. Showered, had some lunch with my mom, and just chilled around the house till about 3:30ish. At about that time, I picked up my buddy Ricardo and we rolled downtown to go to the river with my good friends James and Morris. Even though it was pretty overcast and there was a huge overpopulation of annoying redneck types (not to judge, but I'm being completely honest, that's just how it was) down there, it was still super fun. We swam around for awhile and rode the currents for awhile, which was cool (and got yelled at by cops, apparently you need a lifejacket to swim more than five feet out when the river's high? Whatever). After awhile, it started getting a little darker, so we started to head back to the city itself. We hit up good ole Panda Veg for the vegan buffet, and saw some friends in there which was cool, then decided to just make it a fat day and got Coldstone after. Hell yes.
After eating to the point of discomfort, we went and hung out on James's porch to digest, and just talked for awhile which is always nice. Afterwards, me and Morris jammed and wrote a few new songs for our band Basement Dweller, which I was super excited about. I headed home after that, and met up with Kim to watch "A Clockwork Orange" and just hang out, which was really nice as always.

Awesome.

Past Few Days (Condensed)

Definitely been a really busy past few days!

My big ole head singing along

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Sunday: Cook Out. Basement Dweller loudness/friend hangs for a bit. River (kinda a fail due to flooding but whateva, still cool). Warehouse hangs before the show. Dead End Path/Title Fight craziness. Kim crowd surfing. Sing alongs. Legit one of the best days of the summer so far.

Monday: Gaming all morning and chillin' by my lonesome, then scooped up Ace and Ricardo. Hanging at Hold it Down tattoo shop all day, talking about porn and fights and tattoos and other cool dude stuff with the people there. Bonfire later on with smores and Jackass. Definitely a good day and night.

Tuesday: River with Kim and Liz. Adventuring. Waterfalls. Walking over beaver dams. Being caught in thunderstorms. Burritos. "Nap" time. Bike rides. Downtown chillin' then Liz's place chillin'.

Wednesday: Hangin' at Kim's. Olive Garden with the madre. Deep Run Park with the girlfriend then Short Pump. Some alone time, then a quick late night hangout. Good day and night as always.

I need to figure out a way to stop being a disappointment to myself.

Why I'm Stoked on This Summer

-Music. Sooo excited for my music possibilities this summer, real talk. I've just been asked to take over playing lead guitar for the band American Ruins, which I'm super happy about. It's gonna be awesome being a part of a band that's signed to an independent label (sinkswimpress.com, check it out), that already has an established fan base in Richmond, that's going to actually be active, and that some of my best friends are already in. Also my project band with my good buddy Morris, Basement Dweller, is starting to shape up a lot, so that'll be sick once it gets off the ground. Just gotta save up for an amp stack...sigh.

-My girlfriend. Pretty self explanatory. She's freaking awesome, still can't believe that she's willing to deal with all my nonsense, for almost a whole year now!

-My (relatively) new friend group. While a lot of the kids I hang out with went to Freeman, I wasn't that great of friends with them before college, and I've met a ton of awesome new people since going to VCU that I've been hanging with. I'm really happy that I finally have a super tight group to be with and to get into crazy shenanigans with. I count myself very fortunate to have them.

-Downtown in general. Late nights walking around the streets and down alleys amongst the tall buildings. River hangs. Diving off of things. Belle Isle. Running around Jackson Ward. Hardcore shows. I love my city.

:)

You know what pisses me off? People complaining/downplaying the death of Osama Bin Laden. Alright, first we need to divide the categories of people pissing me off into two groups. We've got the Debby Downers, who are all like "Well, this won't do anything for the overall war effort. He was just a figurehead/just one person, it doesn't matter." Really? Considering he was one of the main architects of a terrorist attack that took out a whole bunch of people on US soil, who's to say he couldn't plan something of that magnitude again? Shit, even if it doesn't help in the greater scheme of things, we killed someone who took the lives of thousands of innocent people, including Muslims, all under the idea that he was doing it and following his own religion. That brings me to my next group of people, those who are like "Well we shouldn't celebrate the death of anyone." You know what? Yeah we should. Get off your moral high horse and come back to reality. Why would you not celebrate the death of a murderer/terrorist/brainwasher/religious criminal? It did no one any favor to have someone like that walking the earth. This has nothing to do with patriotism, just acceptance of logic.

Also, 'merica.

Why can't anything be simple to me? It's weird, honestly. My thought process for a lot of things goes as follows: Someone tells me something, be it fact or opinion, and my mind immediately goes running, processing it in that big ole Hoyt head, seeing if there are holes in it or if it makes sense to me. Now I don't do this for all things, I'm not that bad with it. I can accept a lot of things as fact at face value, and I'll always respect everyone's opinions (to the best of my ability). I just wish for some things, like religion, that I could just accept things with full faith and not have to reason it out. Sigh. Maybe someday.

Happy 4/20

I'm gonna be blunt (pun intended), if you smoke weed, I probably don't like you, and not because of the whole straight edge thing, just because everyone I've ever seen high is just a slow, stupid sounding more boring and less funny version of their true self.

Randomly thought about this. What's the deal with flamboyantly gay people? First off, don't get me wrong, I'm totally down with gay people. I'm friends with a few, and they're completely cool and nice people. However, when a gay person gets way flamboyant with it, then it bugs me. Not because of the way they act, but because of the message behind it. Like, we get it dude, you're gay. Not a big deal, no need to overcompensate or blow it out of proportion. I don't walk around yelling about how I wanna make sweet love to all the ladies or how awesome boobs are, so what's the deal?

Just a random thought.

Know what blows? It's really nice out, spring time is in full effect, everyone's getting all romantic and whatnot and couples get to hang out outside, but I can't be with the one person I want to spend time with.

This song is sweet.

Things I miss.

Sorry, long one.

-My girlfriend. Which is kinda ridiculous considering I've been reaaaally lucky and have gotten to see her a bunch recently, but I won't see her for 3 weeks, and after seeing her so often, that seems like a long time. That and seeing her so much has made me realize exactly how lucky I am to have someone who's always there for me, and who has made me consistantly happy for the past 10 months, so being made so happy by her presence just puts it into harsher contrast the times that she isn't here. Sigh.

-Being in elementary school. I don't really miss the actual age from when I was an elementary schooler, or anything like that. I love being 19! I love being in college. However, I do miss how carefree I was back then. The biggest drama among friends was who got picked first in kickball. You didn't have to worry about grades, you didn't have to worry about money, you didn't have to worry about crime, you didn't have to worry about all the emotions that come with maturity. It was kind of nice. Honestly, I wouldn't trade my age or where I am now in life for anything, but sometimes I do miss how easy it was back then. Not that I really have it hard now, but you get what I mean.

-My dog being young. I was looking at Polly lying on the couch the other day, and it really made me sad. Polly's getting up there in age, and has various health complications that sort of slow her down and keep her from being fully happy it seems. I love that dog so much, and it hurts seeing her unhappy and in pain, and it'll hurt even more when the day comes that she's not with us anymore. I miss running around the house and lawn with her, and seeing how lively she was when she was younger. Jesus.

-I miss being able to unquestioningly follow my faith. Nowadays it seems like I microanalyze each aspect of Christianity, and I don't understand or have trouble believing certain parts of my faith. I miss the days (which weren't all that long ago) when I could simply take what was preached at face value and have full faith.

-I miss being really close to my mom. I feel like I've upset her a bunch with school related stuff and whatnot, and that it's kind of put a small rift in our relationship. It sucks going home and feeling stressed around her now, as opposed to how open and easy everything was before. I need to work on that.

Faith.

My perspective.

I completely understand youth groups and their purpose. When I went to a youth group, I admit that it was nice having a group of like-minded Christians who had the same religious perspective as myself and who would support me in my faith. However, while I was in that youth group, I sort of think that my faith began to stagnate. I felt growth in my faith at first from being surrounded by fellow Christians, but later on I sort of felt that I had hit an impasse...nothing challenged my faith and no one brought new perspectives into light about it, which I suppose is comfortable but not exactly stimulating or conducive to growth in my opinion.

Fast forward a few years, and I'm in college downtown at VCU. The set of friends I've made are certainly a different crowd than those in my youth group; of about the 15 people I hang out with most, only myself and maybe three others are Christian. As for the others, it's a mix of (mostly) atheists and agnostics. In the beginning, constantly being around those who truly believe that there is no God (for personal reasons; these aren't just atheists who choose to be so because they want to seem edgy, they all have had things happen in their lives to bring them to this point) was somewhat of a challenge, and I thought I felt my faith slipping a bit, or that I wasn't the same Christian as I was before. However, after awhile, I really started to listen to what they said and believed in terms of religion, and I realized that I wouldn't want to live with no hope for anything to look forward to after death, and with nothing to rely on but myself. I feel that from hanging out with these people my overall faith has grown stronger, because I have seen those without faith, had my beliefs questioned and even insulted at times, and yet I can still feel God's presence.

It's definitely been refreshing and revitalizing in terms of my faith to be around those with such radically different perspectives. I'm not in any way saying being around other Christians all the time in youth groups or other organizations is a bad thing at all; for some people, that approach to Christianity works best. For me however, getting outside of the traditional box and broadening my horizons was the change of pace I needed.

Final Four.

I Love My School.

Rawkstar lyfe. Not really.

Haven't posted on this joint in awhile. Not really sure what to write about, kinda feeling sleepy and sickish (what else is new), sooo I'm not feeling too deep tonight...hmmm...spring break!

Spring break was awesome. The first part of break pretty much consisted of me just hanging around my house and doing yard work and relaxing, which honestly was awesome. Some of my friends had been being sorta dramatic and whatnot leading up to break, so it was cool to just sorta remove myself from all that for a bit.

Come friday of that week however, all relaxing stopped, as I was going on a weekend tour with my friends band, Break Away! I was dropped off at the Warehouse at about 11am that morning by my friend Ellie, and met up with the band there. We got a little later start than expected because of one of the guys' dogs having some health problems that morning, but it was no biggie...or so we thought. We were heading up to Jersey, and because of our delays we ended up hitting rush hour traffic in DC at about 5pm, which SUCKED. To sum that up, it turned what would have been a four hour drive into a six hour drive, which isn't too bad, but not the most comfortable thing in the world when crammed into a van full of eight big guys!The NJ show was alright. Kind of a weird scene where they played, not too many people came out, and there was just sorta an odd feel to the whole thing. Still, it was pretty cool overall, and we met up with the band Compound, who are definitely good dudes. We stayed at some guy in the band Lifeless's house that night...which was kinda sketchy. Not the best part of Jersey, judging by the gunshots (yes...gunshots) we heard that night. Sleeping on a hardwood floor's kinda a bummer too, but it was a place to stay and the guy who owned the place was really chill.

Saturday, we woke up early, ate at some awesome bagel place, then peaced out to Washington DC, where we were gonna meet up with the band Compound again and hang out before the Harrisonburg show. DC was definitely cool; it always is. We checked out the art museum (always funny to see a bunch of big tattoo'd rough looking guys appreciating art), the Indian museum, and all the monuments, typical touristy stuff. Good times for sure. At about 7, we left DC for Harrisonburg, home of good ole JMU. We got there at about 9, with the show starting at 10pm. The place was way cool, some heavily spray painted basement in a kid's house. The crowd there was much more receptive of the band, though they seemed a little taken aback at how rough the kids from Richmond and New York were. Whatever, just having a good time haha. Kim came to meet up with us and check out the show too, which was obviously awesome, even though I only saw her for a couple hours. Sigh.

After the show, we hit the road again at about 1am, which put us back in RVA at about 4am. Ellie again saved the day and picked me up from the Warehouse, and I spent the next day sleeping until the final show on the tour, which was of course at the ole Casa de Ware.
Honestly, this was one of the most memorable weekends I think I'll ever have. It was way cool getting to travel around in a van and sorta experience the touring lifestyle, I liked it a lot. Not to mention just getting to spend a weekend goofing around with crazy friends, that's guaranteed good times. I met a bunch of awesome people, and made my friendships with preexisting friends even stronger, so that's another plus for the tour.

Fun.

It really is an amazing thing to be able to talk all day to a person that you've been talking to for two years, and more or less every day for the past almost nine months, and still be able to get on the phone at night and talk about whatever for three hours. Craziness, in an awesome way. Never had it before, and wouldn't trade it for anything. Nice to have someone who you know will always be there. :)