Posted August 1, 2010 at 10:47 pm by Severed Head
It’s all bullshit, really. It’s like that ballboy song
“And all that’s left is to grow old, grow old and hate your younger self and fool yourself when you pretend 
that you know more than you did then”
I was reading over this article and it’s ridiculous how much everyone looks back on their lives and thinks they know so much more now! Here are some examples of the advice:
“Relax, enjoy and stop taking it all so seriously.”
“Save your money. Study Engineering. Go to Notre Dame rather than Yale. Stay away from New York.”
Basically, what it comes to down is that the uptight kids (like me!) regret taking things so seriously, and the kids who went out partying wish they had been more responsible/serious.
So what message can be gotten from all of this very contradictory advice from older folks?
Nothing really. Don’t be so caught up in business/serious matters that you can’t enjoy yourself, and don’t enjoy yourself so much that you can’t be successful in business/serious matters. You should know that already though.
The only message I got is that people, for the most part, think they know a lot more once they’re older. And I disagree. If you think you’re smart at 18, and you weren’t, why the fuck do you think you’re smart now? It’s too easy to just cop out and pretend that that person 18 years ago wasn’t you, but it was, and you probably haven’t really changed that much. You probably haven’t learned that much. Sure, you’ve had more experiences, but it’s just a different set of experiences. And it lacks the fresh memories you had when you were young. The lessons you were just starting to learn. It’s like the 40-year-old who no longer knows how to do algebra, when they could when they were 12. It’s a fucking cop-out to just assume that all young people are stupid or don’t know what they’re doing.
One commenter gave a list of advice about not procrastinating and whatnot and then, at the end, wrote this: “Advice for age 18 x 2 = 36. Ditto.”
It’s sad that most of the advice they give seems to reflect problems they have 18 years later. It’s easy to idealize the youth and say you have so much opportunity, but I’m 22 right now, and it really doesn’t seem like that. I’m definitely trying to see everything as a big opportunity, but at the same time, I’m constantly being pressured by adults to figure out what I’m doing with my life because whatever I choose to do will change the rest of my life. And while I completely agree with that, my entire life is going to be like that. When I’m 30, or 40, or however old, the large majority of my decisions are going to affect the rest of my life, I’m just probably going to want to make ones that keep me on the same path, just to maintain some sort of stability. And, of course, the remainder of my life will be a lot shorter, so the decisions won’t have as much impact.
Some of the other advice amounts to:
“MISTAKE: Realizing that I actually had a chance with the girl that got away.”
These are life lessons! The idea of this article is to give your 18-year-old self advice, not just somehow implant these ideas which take months to really solidify into your head! We’ve all been through bad experiences, and we have hopefully learned something about ourselves and the world in the months following, even if the only lesson was “Well, that won’t work again”–hell, even if we didn’t learn that lesson, that is life! The idea of this exercise isn’t to look back and regret mistakes made, goddammit.
Anyway, what this all leads to is my own advice to ANYONE, 18 or not:
Live your life. Don’t look back on your life as a series of wrong decisions, but as lessons you can learn and what you can do in the future. But even in the future, after having learned any lessons, you probably won’t really be that much smarter. Your memories of the past will probably have all been greatly exaggerated, which will affect you in ways you’ll never understand. Plus kids will all be listening to new, terrible music with stupid fashions. And, even with new technology, the large majority of the problems that exist today will probably still exist then. Nothing really ever changes that much, so don’t expect it to.
Harrison’s Highly Critical, Judgemental, Elitist Rants Presents: Strong Opinions
Life, Limb, Philosophy, Pissed off rants, Propaganda
Posted July 25, 2010 at 12:28 pm by Severed Head
Allow me to explain what I’m talking about before dismissing me as hypocritical: Strong opinions without a good foundation.
Here’s what I originally wrote on twitter: Everyone has such strong opinions on the economy, immigration and health care without knowing how any of these fucking systems work
I am so goddamn fucking sick of seeing my age post about the immigration bill and about Obama and the law and anything vaguely political. I know these people, and they are fucking dumb. The large majority of you out there don’t have a good understanding of how any of these systems work. I completely admit that I don’t understand how the economy works, or how healthcare works, or how immigration works, but I’m learning. How? Public Radio. A completely neutral news source which attempts to explain how the world works without presenting their opinion as the only option. If you get your information from Fox News, I have a difficult time respecting your opinion at all. They feed you your opinions and a completely one-sided view on how the world works. Everything becomes political, from the economy to health care, to alternate lifestyles (whatwith the gays). Now, if you know how the world works, and you’re simply watching Fox News objectively, then I can understand that, but the fact of the matter is that that’s probably not happening–it’s a terrible network to do that with. They feed on your paranoias and take small truths and blow them out of proportion using the slippery slope argument–which is a giant fucking logical fallacy.
Any of you who take one side strongly, whether it be protesting SB 1070 or shooting Mexicans, look at both goddamn sides first. Both sides have good points and their good ideas. It’s to easy to lose yourself to the bipartisan bullshit that the media is feeding you. And by media, I include facebook too. Like I said, I believe that most of the people I know who use facebook to voice their opinions and entirely uneducated on how immigration/healthcare/politics works. It’s really easy to do this. Most of the information out there, anywhere, is one-sided and extensively uses the continuum fallacy (practically synonymous with the slippery slope argument–that there is no middle ground, that your 2 options are for or against something).
One of the biggest problems that seems to cause this issue is our political system. With only two political parties, (I know there are others, but let’s pretend they don’t exist since they don’t for all practical reasons) we have politicians out there who want to make a difference. Let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that all of them out there wish to do what’s best in the world. In order to move up in the world, they have to align their views with their political party. This makes it extremely difficult for any politician to stray away from his party’s political views, and if their terms are fairly short, and an opponent starts the campaign process as soon as one election ends, the only choice for everyone is to keep campaigning. There are a lot of flaws in the system, and we haven’t even gotten to the corruption yet, not that it affects everyone as much as you’d think. Classifying all politicians as completely self-motivated and corrupt is just as stupid as only listening to one side or closing yourself off from learning about the issues because there exists biased information out there. In order for a politician to keep an office, he has to stick to his party’s values, which drastically reduces the possibility for free thought and new ideas.
Look, we are all going to have our own opinions, and we can’t always help them, but PLEASE go educate yourselves before ranting about something which you really don’t understand!
All of these links will help you understand what the fuck is ACTUALLY going on in the world, and how to get through the shit that you’re being fed from other media outlets:
The Economy
Reading through politician bullshit
An article about immigration
Health care podcasts: 1, 2
Long messy all-over-the-place rant-type deal
Guitar, Life, Limb, Music, Philosophy, Time Paradox
Posted June 29, 2010 at 9:14 pm by Severed Head
When I went to see CAKE (for the fourth time! second this year even) the other night, before they played Guitar, John went into his usual brief description about the song and how it was written in a very tall building. I’d heard this many times from the other shows and from many bootlegs. But this time was different. He talked about the meaning of the song, something he so rarely does. He said something along the lines of, “This song is about taking something and just throwing it away. What would happen if you just threw away something really important? Something as OH SO IMPORTANT as music?” When he said this, I laughed hysterically because of the crazy layers of what he was saying, and because the audience was cheering, probably not fully comprehending what John was saying. CAKE have been playing music for years, and I’m sure John has had to give up a lot for music, and over 10 years after the song was written, clearly, he has still not given up on music itself.
I remember reading about it before and writing about it on this website somewhere, but I read about it again recently: Scott Lucas, another frontman from one of my favorite bands, Local H, was talking about, in an interview, how he never left himself any option. He played music because that’s all he left himself. I really feel like that is what I need to do. I’m not sure how exactly I came to this conclusion, but doing anything else has always seemed a bit unsatisfactory to me. I get such a ridiculous amount of job and fascination with all things music. I view playing my instrument as a lifelong journey, not just some temporary outing. More or less, I think, going into the ASU school of music was an effort to prove to myself that I’m a serious musician. And a real one. And here I am! Almost done, and loving it.
But I have another degree coming. But will I do anything with it? And for that matter, does the actual music degree matter? Not really. I don’t want to do shit with either of them. I just got a job with Apple, and I love the company, though I’m kind of iffy about the job sometimes… Well, not even really. I feel like I’m way ahead of my coworkers in my technical support skills, and I genuinely like helping people. It feels good when I get off of a call and my customer is really happy that I was able to help them. Or when I check my customer survey scores and they are awesome! BUT. I guess the big thing right now is that I’m helping people over the phone, and that part kind of sucks. But there are advancement opportunities. And also, the timing sucks. A few weeks ago, for the past few months, I had somehow become a morning person, and was waking up early every day, and didn’t seem to have too much trouble dealing with it. Now, however, now that I’ve taken a 6-3 shift (after trading in my 12:30-9:30 shift!!), I’m no longer a morning person. I can’t stand it, and I can’t get to bed. I’ve been a night person all my life, so what the fuck? This schedule only has 5 and a half weeks or so left to run its course though, so it’s not all bad.
But like I said, I love the company. I can genuinely see myself having a career with Apple. I’ve loved them my life, and they treat me fucking awesomely.
But I don’t want to get too caught up. Not if the alternative is being a musician, whether or not I have healthcare or financial stability.
I suppose I never explained the relevance of the CAKE song, Guitar. Here is the chorus:
If I threw my guitar
Out the window so far down
Would I start to regret it?
Or would I smile and watch it slowly fall- fall- fall?
So… I’ve been thinking about the opposite. Not throwing out music, but rather, throwing out everything else. Most of the crap I own doesn’t have that much real meaning or use to me. Is it really necessary I have all this stuff and waste my time with this crap when I could be playing music? I could be writing songs right this moment, or learning songs, or practicing with a band.
Just some thoughts! I don’t know where I’m going with that or what I want to do about it, or hell, what I want to do with my life. This issue has come up a lot lately. Whenever I get together with my mom, she and my stepdad always ask me at least 5 or so questions about what I am doing after college. And I don’t know. And, from what I can tell, nobody knows. Hell, most people I know get about 2 years into their majors and go “FUCK. I don’t want to do this! I want to switch to this major, but it might take another 2 years, so I won’t”…
My chemistry degree started as something I might like to do. Then changed to the degree I’d use to backup my music career. Now I don’t want to do that at all… My ideal backup career would be something in psychology. A counsellor or therapist of some sort. I think I’d just find that fascinating. I often find myself studying any interaction between humans and analyzing the shit out of everything. I can’t stop. To be able to have that as my job and have people respect my opinion would be wonderful.
But still, right now, it doesn’t really compare to music.
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, one of which is the Nerdist podcast. Bill Burr, a comedian, was on today’s episode. They were talking about a comedian who said, regarding becoming a comedian and finding your style, “Go out and do 100 shows. Come back and see where you are at that point”… I really feel like that’s what I need to do with music. I just want to get out and play a fucking shit load of shows. Write my own music, particularly, and see what kind of stuff I like playing. Stop trying to be cool, and just play music. Not that I’ve ever really made a conscious effort to be cool, as anyone could tell if they listened to some of the samples of music I’ve recorded… I don’t know. I guess it’s really hard to evaluate the stuff I write, but I know what stuff is cool, and what stuff is not cool. But I guess I probably shouldn’t care? I have no idea. Haha.
But fuck… Basically, I guess I should just get out and play some music and see what happens. See what reactions I get, see how I feel (Again with the analyzing of all human interactions! I cannot stop!)….
Learn the entire catalog of ballboy
Fun, Guitar, Life, Lifelist, Limb, Lists, Music
Posted March 12, 2010 at 3:57 pm by Severed Head
So, a while ago, I made it my goal to learn the catalogs of all of my favorite bands, and I thought it’d help me a be a better musician and guitarist overall. I made a list of what bands I wanted to learn the discographies of, but I did not fully define what I wanted to do to accomplish this. It’s important to set very specific goals, if not purely for motivation. So, I’ve put the artists’ catalogs that I want to learn in order, from least difficult to most difficult. It is important to note that Local H is excluded from this list because it requires a particular kind of guitar. More on this in a bit.
My goal is to try to get through an album a week, but, as I move on, I’m sure that will become more difficult as the albums become more difficult. For example, one Jimi Hendrix album could take months, and don’t even get me started on Paul Gilbert.
Still, as ridiculous as a goal as this is, whenever a musician has played with Paul Gilbert, they’re always impressed by his knowledge of the catalog of basically every band… And this isn’t just any old band too. This isn’t Nirvana and ballboy and The Offspring (like me). This is The Beatles (a ridiculous catalog), Van Halen, The Who, etc. I’d really like to get to that point. It really shows dedication. And I can acknowledge that it might not be until my 30s or later that I finish learning all of these. That’s why it’s a lifelist.
Anyway, here is the list of what I want to do… First, I want to go album by album for each band, starting with the earliest album chronologically and working my way to the most recent album. Next, I want to learn any b-sides or alternate/live versions (to a reasonable extent… I’m not going to learn every single guitar solo from every Primus bootleg I have, but I want to figure out their main structures and cues)…
Now, what it means to actually even learn a song becomes an issue. The following criteria are what I’m looking for:
Be able to play the main guitar parts (rhythm and lead)
If there is no main guitar, a guitar version. If it’s chords on a piano, I want to learn all of those on guitar. Or maybe piano. But the main chord progression. There will certainly be exceptions to this, and I’ll bring those up in upcoming entries.
The guitar solos (or the equivalent, if it is a flute or I don’t know… god knows what… Just a really important part)
For certain bands, particularly, Local H, a special guitar is required. When Scott Lucas plays, he has a bass pickup attached to his guitar, and has two outputs, one for the bass, which goes to a bass pedal and bass amp, and one for a guitar. I want to make a guitar with this set-up, and be able to play all Local H songs in the same manner, switching back and forth between the pedals. I feel this is the only true way of REALLY learning the catalog. Otherwise, I might be playing the chords in a different way than Scott does.
So, in terms of the actual method of learning all of this music, I have this order:
1) Play through the album while listening to it.
2) Notate how I played them, make it as short hand as I possibly can (a lot of the ballboy songs will be stuff that takes up less than a line like Cm-Eb-Bb=main riff)
3) Put the album on shuffle and be able to play the entire thing without sheet music
4) Be able to play through the album entirely without sheet music or a recording
5) Add all of the songs that I learned to a “Repertoire” playlist, and, after finishing an album, go through a fair amount of this playlist, and be able to play through it without sheet music. This will help to keep the older stuff I learned in my head.
Anyway, the first artist I’m working on is ballboy, and the first album is Club Anthems. Next up is A Guide to the Daylight Hours. I’m going to try to get both of them finished by the end of the next week… Hopefully with another album, even. We’ll see. Here’s the to-do list for ballboy:
Club Anthems
A Guide for the Daylight Hours
The Sash My Father Wore and Other Stories
The Royal Theatre
I Worked on the Ships
B-sides/Acoustic arrangements
Future progress on this lifelist item: 2, 3, 4
On budgets and My Fitness Coach 1 vs. 2
Conspiracies, Life, Limb, Propaganda
Posted January 30, 2010 at 4:02 pm by Severed Head
First, the budget part: Here. Obama is getting a bad rap for shit he just plain didn’t do. That’s right. Fuck you Republicans who want to misdirect blame because of the public’s poor perception of how an economy works.
Now. My Fitness Coach 1 vs. 2:
The first one was good. Unfortunately, there is no way to turn down the music so I can listen to my own music. That is, if I turn down the music, it turns down the instructions as well, which is a bit annoying. On My Fitness Coach 2, you can turn down the music all the way. Unfortunately, it still provides you with a beat on how stuff must be done, and it not only does this, it makes you use the Wiimote in order to judge that you are in fact doing this on time. Why the fuck would you take away music but still keep you on the beat? The whole idea is to let you listen to your own workout music. Good workout music is the thing that has helped me most in motivating myself to exercise, personally.
In conclusion, fuck My Fitness Coach 2 and Republicans.
Posted September 13, 2009 at 11:24 am by Severed Head
Writing from bed right now. Writing from my iPod. This rocks. WordPress iPod app FTW. I’m hoping to add another rant in the next couple of days, but I’d like to first figure out my future living situation. It’s all up in the air right now. What I’d most like is to be able to find a place like Jake’s. A house, but a studio. I don’t think they have those here. 
Harrison's Highly Critical, Judgemental, Elitist Rants Presents: The Misunderstood 'Like' Button
Life, Limb, Philosophy, Pissed off rants
Posted July 30, 2009 at 11:34 am by Severed Head
One thing that bugs me about Facebook is all of the ass holes complaining about facebook, and complaining about stupid shit. One particular complaint I’ve seen many times is about the lack of a “dislike” button. I’ve always though that was a dumb idea. The whole point of the like button, I thought, was so that you don’t have a bunch of ass holes leaving the same goddamn comment on everything. E.g. “Nice”, “cool”, “Haha”, “lol”, “Awesome”, “Me too”, etc. The whole goddamn point is to eliminate that waste, the stupid comments people leave when they have nothing else to contribute. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of stupid comments everywhere for those of you who have a strong desire for people to see your thoughts, even if you really don’t have any. If you click the “like” button, you’re kind of pushed to the side now. Thank God.
The very idea that you dislike something generally means you have a conflicting view. If you do, this generally depends on something. There could always be the “That sucks” comments that could be eliminated, but those are few and far between. Plus, if you had a dislike button, who the fuck would click that in a lot of cases? It’d just be a dick move. I may not be psychic, but I can definitely foresee problems in this hypothetical situation. A friend of yours clicks dislike on a link you posted and offers no accompanying comment, and you get annoyed. Like, what kind of ass hole would you be to just go “Nope” or “Wrong” or “I disagree” and NOT say anything else?!
Plus, you’d have to have an “Undislike” button, and that’s just retarded.
But if it’s really that big of a deal to you to express your discontent with someone’s posting, just type in “Dislike” and hit send if you are that much of a fucking ass hole that you have express you disagree without any goddamn reasoning and that you can’t give the person the time of day to explain yourself. It’s fucking disrespectful.
The bottom line is that, if you don’t have anything to contribute, stop fucking talking. I feel that way about everyone always. If you are entering a conversation just to say “cool”, shut the fuck up, unless you’ve got a goddamn brain to back yourself up.
Letter to Jake about playing music
Awesome thing of the week, Comics, Conspiracies, Dreams, Fun, Fun Facts, Grammar, Guitar, Life, Limb, Lists, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants, Plane, Propaganda, Robots, Snakes, Time Paradox, Uncategorized, Website
Posted July 25, 2009 at 11:58 pm by Severed Head
I think maybe we should just start booking gigs here in Phoenix. I will find some that you and I can both make in terms of dates. If we get booked, I’ll really quickly record some shit and send it to you, and we’ll basically jam some songs off of that at the show since we won’t really have time to rehearse.
Just to get the ball rolling and play some fun shows. What do you think?
Harrison’s Highly Critical, Judgemental, Elitist Rants Presents: Drugs, Alcohol, Religion, etc.
Awesome thing of the week, Conspiracies, Dreams, Guitar, Life, Lifelist, Limb, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants
Posted May 31, 2009 at 8:55 pm by Severed Head
First of all, let me get this out of the way if any of you are wondering. People are all fucking stupid.
There.
You know why kids who go to Catholic school are fucked up? It’s because they’re raised by people who make certain behaviors taboo. Drinking or drugs or candy or video games or sex or what the fuck ever. Simply, when people are repressed, socially, politically, or otherwise, they end up lashing out, eventually. People who don’t drink who suddenly start drinking do stupid fucking shit and burst out and get drunk. Nearly everyone does. I personally RARELY hear of anyone who starts off drinking light and knowing his or her limit. No, they start off pushing their limit. (This applies to driving too. There’s a lot of ass holes out there slamming on the accelerator to make it to a fucking red light. If this isn’t a perfect metaphor for the folly of this American society, I don’t know what is) And I’m not saying people shouldn’t drink, but they need to practice restraint. Moderation is the key to ANYTHING being good. Our society emphasizes two extremes: instant gratification, and this religious bullshit of nearly everything enjoyable is related to sin.
But here’s why getting drunk is stupid. It’s one thing to drink to get a buzz to relax a bit and get out of your head. It’s another to kill brain cells and act out and deal with your problems, emotionally or socially, with a bottle. People call it social lubrication for a reason. But once you start depending on that for social interactions, you’re fucking pathetic. Plus, let’s be honest. 90% of being drunk is acting like you’re drunk. Alcohol can affect your system, but only as fucking much as you let it. Not only are YOU the one choosing to imbibe more alcohol once you’ve already caught a buzz, YOU are the one deciding to act like a fucking idiot at a party to get attention. And the thing that bothers me most? People embrace this behavior. Everyone does. People enjoy a drunk. At this age at least. Once you get older? Not quite as much. Want to know why? Because it’s fucking pathetic.
Now, I’m all for the idea that life is about your interactions at people and that, while we’re here in our short lives, we should enjoy it, but personally, the large majority of people I know drink in order to be someone else. They’re almost repressing an alternate identity, and then when they drink, letting that personality come out to become the drunk version of themselves where it’s acceptable to act on impulse and do stupid things.
Largely, drinking is self-destructive. So are drugs and any other form of acting out. Sex with strangers or people you just met. etc. This doesn’t seem apparent to a lot of people. This is because, going back to earlier, our society emphasizes this instant gratification bullshit. AND YOU ALL GIVE INTO IT. There are a few good ones out there, but let’s be honest, THIS BASIC PRINCIPLE IS HOW OUR COUNTRY JUST GOT FUCKING FUCKED. People don’t want to put in the goddamn hard work to make money these days, and some ass holes making money on buying and selling stocks made some decisions that fucked us, the general public. I don’t want to get political here, because I don’t think it’s a political issue. Stupid people got into too much debt, putting trust into companies who are supposed to keep one’s money safe, but DIDN’T because they were too busy fucking around trying to make a quick buck. And I mean. I can understand where these bankers and stock traders who fucked our shit up are coming from. They don’t want to work hard. They want to take the quick, easy option, and make lots of money. Nearly everyone who comes into my store wants a new condition book for a used price. Everyone wants to be on the winning end of a good deal, yes? But when it comes down to taking the easy option over the hard option, the easy option almost always wins. The hard option might take a bit longer to pay off, but that’s not what we want. Well, let me tell you this, kiddies. If you keep taking those easy options, you’re going to fail, and you’re going to be pathetic. Andrew W.K., not exactly a great philosopher, someone who preaches partying and instant gratification, outside of his music, does have a really great idea. I remember watching an episode of his show where he said “Nothing easy is ever good, and nothing good is ever easy.” I don’t like maxims that use “nothing” and “ever”, but looking at my life and everyone’s around me lately, it has never seemed more true than right now.
Adam Carolla has a podcast, and with nearly every guest that comes on, Adam asks “What’s your story? How did you get to be successful?” You know many of them said shit like “Well, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I got lucky?” NONE OF THEM. IT TAKES FUCKING BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS TO GET TO ANYWHERE REMOTELY RESEMBLING THE TOP. Do you think it’s any coincidence that Brian May and Paul Gilbert, arguably two of the greatest and most successful guitarists, who get to do whatever musical projects they like without worry for money or approval from critics, don’t do drugs or drink heavily? IT’S NOT. And I want to be at that level, personally. I’d love to have complete artistic freedom, playing music with my idols, or able to play with any musician I want. As my old chemistry teacher said, it’s the American dream to aspire to mediocrity. Well, I say: FUCK THAT SHIT. I’m not going to settle. I’m sticking to my fucking morals and my beliefs and my work ethic, except that instead of just sticking with that stuff, I’m going to keep making it fucking better. A lot of you know that I’ve worked harder and fucking harder each year for my life. I’m doing two majors at college, and two of the hardest fucking majors, I might add, and I’m doing it in just a bit more than 4 years. I’m not going to sit on for 5 years of college and hope everything works out, I’m fucking making it work out.
And you think Paul Gilbert and Brian May and all these great musicians are naturally that way? Of course not. I read this wonderful article by my guitar instructor talking about some of the great musicians of all time, the classical composers. Do you think they just got more inspired than everyone else, and that’s why they’re so good? No. They put hours and fucking hours into their craft. They worked their goddamn asses off to get to a level of musicianship some of us can hardly comprehend. This shit takes fucking time and hard work. And now their music is still being played today. More than half the shit on the radio is never going to be heard from again 100 years from now, but people are going to keep listening to and playing Bach forever.
And let me just add, by the way, that most of you people out there who really need the help don’t fucking accept it. My beliefs and my ideas about alcohol and drugs go against nearly EVERYONE’s I know, and I hardly exaggerate. I have a few friends and a wonderful girlfriend who agree with me and who curtail these stupid behaviors, but I must emphasize how few these people are. And it’s hard. It’s hard for me to maintain certain friendships and seeing them go down this road and not giving into the ease of mediocrity. It’s fucking hard as well. So why do I do continue to be such a stubborn ass hole when it comes to drugs and alcohol or being lazy? Because, like Andrew says, nothing good is ever easy and nothing easy is ever good.
Conspiracies, Life, Limb, Lists, Pissed off rants
Posted January 3, 2009 at 12:33 am by Severed Head
August – Present: Our dishwasher has had a few inches of water in it since the first time it was used. This wasn’t noticed until much later, when there were more pressing maintenance issues to address, and since then, it has been a string of issues, so a maintenance request was not put in, as this was not as important to us, and with the delayed reaction the maintenance staff seems to have, we figured we could live with this, moreso than the other things.
September through late November: Our A/C began leaking shortly after moving in. Shortly after putting in a maintenance request, it was fixed, but left with a large hole in our ceiling. Upon contacting the office, we were told that someone would be in to fix it over the next few days. A few weeks later, another request was put in, and a few days after that, the air conditioning was turned back on, and the hole was covered up. Within the next day, it was leaking again. Again, we told the office about this, and a few days later, the air conditioning was fixed, and, again, a hole was left in our ceiling, as we were told that someone would be back shortly to fix this. After waiting about a month, as this was not a terribly pressing issue, we called upon maintenance again, and they closed it.
October – Present: Our light in the bathroom stopped working. The issue was not a burnt out light bulb, as many working light bulbs were tried. A maintenance request was put in for this as an electrical issue, but never addressed. Approximately a week later, after tinkering with the light a bit more, I was able to fix the problem, but nobody had come. Within the last week, the light stopped working again. No request was put in for this yet, so I can understand why it hasn’t been addressed yet.
Early December: Our toilet has been clogged multiple times. Having used plungers and augers, it would still not unclog, so a maintenace request was filed online. This was not addressed until a few days later, when they did something to unclog it. Unfortunately, they did not do a good enough job, because, by the end of that day, it was clogged again. Again, plungers and augers were used, and they did not do the job. An online maintenance request was put in, and the “emergency maintenance” phone line was called, and within a few days of not having heard anything or having our toilet fixed, we put in another maintenance request online. Finally, two days later, it was fixed, and we haven’t had any problems with the toilet since.
Mid-December: One night, while cleaning dishes our kitchen sink had begun to drain slowly, so we turned on the garbage disposal, which had worked previously. It cleared the kitchen sink of water, but later, it was discovered that the water had simply moved to the bathroom sink. The bathroom sink started to flood with water and small bits of food, and the area under the sink flooded a bit as well. Eventually, the water level in the sink went back down, and a maintenance request was submitted. It kept filling up and draining for about two days, and then simply stopped, with both sinks partially flooded. After a few more days, the bathroom sink began to overflow onto the floor, and the “emergency maintenance” line was called. It was at night, and we had received no response to either of our requests so far. The next day, it began to overflow wildly, and the emergency maintenance line was called again. Someone came nearly instantly this time, and the problem was fixed.
Early November: This appeared to be a issue throughout the whole building, if not the whole complex, so I’m sure the office was aware of this, but for many days, both our air conditioning and heater were turned off. This made it difficult when, during the days, it was hot, and, during the nights, while my roommate and I were both trying to sleep, it was very cold.
Mid-October-Early January: This is not a maintenance issue, and it was never brought up to the office, so I can understand why this was not addressed. Our upstairs neighbor was playing his music very loud one night in early October, so I went upstairs to try to talk to him, trying to be as friendly as possible. After introducing myself, he snapped at me and said “So you want me to turn down the music or what?”. I said “Yes, thanks”, and he did. Since then, he had played his music very loud multiple times, but I had never confronted him about it again because, over that period of time, I overhead him screaming at whom I can only assume was his girlfriend, as well as the sound of slamming doors, and loud thumps. I had heard evidence of his anger multiple times, including him screaming at someone on the phone, and another incident of him yelling at another man to leave his apartment, calling him, as he was leaving, “A stupid f**king n***er”. The issue of him yelling at the other man happened on the 29th of December. It didn’t occur to me to notify the office about these incidents, and I apologize, but I didn’t want to get them into this as well.
Tonight, Friday the 2nd of December, he played his music particularly loud, enough so that it was shaking our apartment. After about an hour, I decided that I was fed up, and called the police to file a noise complaint at about 7. Shortly afterward, I heard him banging violently on the rails, which I have heard him do many times before. About 40 minutes later, a police officer came to talk to him. I had not been outside in a while, but the officer told me that the man upstairs had thrown a “bottle of alcohol” down onto the ground in front of our door. He said that the man definitely did not like any of his neighbors, and he told me that I should not confront him to avoid starting a fight, as he was intoxicated. I overheard a bit of the conversation, and he expressed hate toward many of his neighbors, including some racial slurs toward specfic African-Americans, as well as Hispanics who live in the area. As the officer also said, apparently, the music could be heard from the parking lot. A few minutes after talking to the officer on the phone, the man came and knocked on my door. He knocked for a few seconds, then paused for about thirty seconds, repeating this three or four times afterward, getting slightly louder each time. I did not answer the door. Eventually, he got frustrated and said very angrily under his breath “Motherf**ker!” before leaving.