There's a sign in the road says we're going nowhere, oh yeah.

As much as I've turned into an indie-rock douche over the last couple of years, I can't turn in my hardcore kid card. There's still something about pure anger expressed through music that does it for me. Hardcore was one of the few honest genres. I'm talking real hardcore, not the bullshit MTV tried to sell as hardcore. And I understand that if someone were to come across this, having a Blood for Blood line as the lead of this may make some people think "that's not hardcore," but fuck you, I'm from Boston, and Blood for Blood are a great band.

My love for hardcore, though, stretches back way before metal got involved in it. Minor Threat, SSD, DYS, Slapshot, Bad Brains, Agnostic Front, Negative Approach and countless others made hardcore important - it was completely honest music, uninhibited in its criticisms of society. Makes me sick to think that kids today might actually think shit like Thursday has anything to do with hardcore.

In closing, that had no point, but I'm listening to Blood for Blood and it made me reminisce a bit.

Iron and Wine make things good. So for the none of you that read this, I've managed to get myself into an interesting situation. I've got kind of a thing for a girl I can't have, and I value her friendship too much to say or do anything about it as I don't want to lose a friend (unrelated note, but ever notice that people who can't spell always spell "lose," loose?").

I guess the plan now is to figure out how to stop considering her someone I'm interested in and start training my brain to just think "friend." It's not like I don't have female friends that I'm not into, but this is likely going to be a bit complicated. What a fucking stereotypical "woe is me" blog posting, huh?

Otherwise unrelated, made it to a couple of CMJ shows last week. Spent too much money (student budgets are no good) but it was worth it. Saw Doves at the Warsaw (great venue), and caught Sparrow at Mercury Lounge. I was impressed with Sparrow. Saw them as their drummer is a friend of one of the people I went with, and I'd heard of them, but never heard them. They put on a great set. Hope to see/hear more of them in the future. Unfortunately didn't get to the Arcade Fire set with the much discussed Bowie cameo, and didn't even attempt to hit Clap Your Hands, but it was a fun week anyway. Couple more shows coming up over the next few weeks as well. I love New York.

Know what's amazing? Just writing stuff down kind of makes things better. I guess totally anonymous blogs that no one will ever read are ok.

What the fuck is wrong with America? In today's NY Times there's an article about the standoff between parents of soldiers killed in the war in Iraq. Now I can understand that parents will have different views about the war, and it's fair for parents of those killed to support the war in order to validate the "cause" that their child died for. What got to me in the article, though, was a caption under a photo of a pro-war demonstrator replacing the name of a fallen soldier on a small roadside cross with a rose. It seems to me that there should be nothing more offensive to the parent of whoever that soldier is than a pro-war protestor replacing the soldier's name with a flower, transforming a memorial to a dead person into some sort of perverse "Support Our Troops" memorial. It's sickening.

Of course, if that didn't make me angry enough, here is the last sentence of the article:

"You have to support the war," Mrs. Marsh said, "because you're an American."

Sound reasoning, huh? I guess we also should have supported segregation, slavery, the denial of a woman's right to vote, the massacre of Native Americans, and all of the other horrific things this country has done with the blessing of its government because hey, we're Americans.

Ignorance disgusts me.

So I moved to New York (fucking) City. I am now in the town of hipsters, failed actors, and dudes who offer you coke in bar bathrooms. All of that combines t0 be a pretty cool deal. Now if I weren't half in the bag on a Sunday night...