I'll wallow in my misery as long as I goddamn please, thank you very much

Something about the holidays makes me extremely depressed. Moreso than usual. I don't even remember last Christmas. I remember New Year's Eve, refusing to go to my dad's friend's party and the huge feud that ensued, but not Christmas. I can't figure out why. Nothing traumatic happened, my family isn't silent enough to keep that down, so I doubt I'm repressing anything. Maybe it was just really uneventful and I smoke too much weed.

I'm going to say some very personal things in this rant, some of my deepest insecurities and most demented thoughts. Things about myself that I've kept hidden for years, the first attempt I'll make at some sort of memoir. Things I swore to take to my grave. For those of you that knew me when I lived in Mason, the things that make me the biggest fucking hypocrite in these 50 states. For those of you that didn't, some insight to the warped monster I used to be and how it ruined my life. I don't know who reads this. I don't know if this is going to end up in my parents hands and I'll end up in the psych ward again. At this point, I really don't fucking care. I want what I'm thinking to be in public. I want to know how crazy or how sane I sound. When I'm gone (This isn't a suicide note, either. If I had the stomach for that I would've done it by now. Though if I ever muster up the balls I'll just print this out instead of writing another letter) I want people to really know what I was going through and to understand why. Part of me still has a glimmer of hope for some reason and figures I'll want to remember how horrible my teenage years were and keep in touch with those feelings, possibly to help others deal with them. The more help I seek the more I wish people did that. I have nothing to look forward to and I'm honestly indifferent to what happens next. I can't possibly feel any lower than I am right now.

Everything you'll read will be completely honest. They say you can't be completely honest when others are reading your words, hence judging you, but I believe that only applies if you care about how those reading think of you. I'm gonna allow pretty much whoever asks to read this, but only because I never see any of you and could easily be rid of you if you think my problems too petty or I'm fairly confident you'll understand what I'm saying. If you're one of the 5 people I deal with on a regular basis, tough shit.

I think I'll start with definition of clinical depression,

clinical depression:

  noun Psychiatry. a depression so severe as to be considered abnormal, either because of no obvious environmental causes, or because the reaction to unfortunate life circumstances is more intense or prolonged than would generally be expected.

I post the definition because seemingly everyone I know has their own definition of depression, and seemingly everyone I know doesn't know what true depression is. Their interpretation is usually when something unfortunate happens to them and they're really sad for a few days. Or, when stress becomes overwhelming they have a hard time coping with it. They're able to function normally. They're able to get up on time and go to school/work. They maintain a social life and find pleasure in things. I don't. I use the term extreme sadness because sadness is an emotion, depression is more than that. Depression changes your outlook on everything. It changes who you are. It warps your personality and takes control of your life. It sucks all the hope, passion, joy, drive and energy from you. It makes you feel completely worthless, useless and stupid. Over the years I've developed a stutter and I can't think clearly anymore. Anything remotely stressful results in me completely falling apart. I used to be loud and obnoxious. I'm quiet and withdrawn now. I haven't felt happy since 2005. Merely days where I feel numb, where I stop thinking about the turn my life has taken and can somewhat enjoy thinks I used to care about. People that don't realize this and belittle this disease (yes, disease) bother me. Learn the difference between sadness and depression. I'm prone to believe anything right now, as authoritatively as I say this, if enough people tell me that I will eventually believe that is depression.

The title of this blog (it's "I'll wallow in my goddamn self-pity as long as I want, thank you very much" on my actual blog. I think I'll choose something a little less pretentious for myspace. I have my reasons.) is partially a joke, but there's some truth to it. It's the other assumption people make about me. To really understand where I'm coming from, (*sigh* I went to my bed and lied down for a few minutes before I started this part. I really don't like talking about my past.) you'll need to understand my history first.

Ever since I was about 9 I've been a loner. Isolated. While I hate large groups of people, being a total recluse isn't fun. My dad was in the army and if you don't know, the army transfers you a lot, so I moved 10 times in my life. Maintaining a steady group of friends hasn't exactly been easy. I found ways to deal with it when I was younger. Video games, hanging out with people with no standards, baseball, tv etc. I got sick of it really fast. Around the end of 8^th grade the hormones kicked in. I decided I wasn't gonna take anything from anybody and I would say what I think. If I didn't like you, I'd let you know. I'm sure you're thinking "Yeah, you and 488374748378437843874343 other middle school boys, Tony", but I took it to a new level. I deliberately singled out emo kids, goth kids, preps, wiggers, skaters; basically anyone who followed a trend that wasn't indie or punk. Also white trash. These were people I felt no sympathy towards. The white trash kids always hated me cause, being a half Puerto Rican army brat, I was a little more cultured than them, and that bothered them. I also kinda rubbed it in their face, but that's expected from little kids. I think that's it anyway. Maybe I just hate people that smell like cat pee. I hated the trendy kids because they rejected me.

I said the most terrible things I could muster to them. I'd find out what bothered them the most in life-if their parents were divorced, if they were insecure about their looks, if they thought they had no future, even if they were raped or abused-and I'd exploit it. I thought it was hilarious. They gave me shit before, and I found a way to get to them. I didn't do it for attention. I didn't do it to feel better about myself. At that point in time, I thought I was the greatest thing since oral sex. I just stopped caring one day and decided to be an asshole. I was amazing, I thought, if they couldn't see that, fuck them. They made me feel like shit long enough, not anymore. I'll make anyone that doesn't see my greatness miserable. I didn't try to justify it. I proudly proclaimed that I was the worst person on the face of the Earth and I could make Hitler curl up in the fetal position.

They expelled one of the said white trashlings from school for threatening to shoot it up. When they raided his house they found guns and notebooks of fantasies/plans. They found a hitlist. I was the second name on it and I was called down to the principal's office. This was early in my freshman year, when my assholeness peaked. Since the end of 8^th grade I feuded with him. I don't remember who started it. I remember hating him more than the other white trashlings, though, because he wanted my friends and he was a racist. I don't remember what we said to each other, just that my insults revolved around his jailed father, failing grades, lack of friends and the fact that his mother hated him. No holes barred.

The school didn't do anything to me. Legally, they couldn't. I just made fun of him. At that time, I would've had to threaten him for them to take legal action. I could see it in my principal's eyes, though, as he said he read AIM convos I had with the kid, that he wished he could've done something. He saw an insecure, depressed, vulnerable kid taken advantage of and driven mad by a broken home, a lack of friends, no future and lastly, one malicious asshole. I knew he wanted me. I knew I committed a terrible crime, maybe not in the eyes of the constitution, but in the eyes of anyone with a heart. I had cheated authority and society for the first time. The rush was unlike anything I ever felt. I did not care that his life was over and he probably felt more depressed than I could ever imagine, up until now anyway. This event summarizes me as a person at that point in my life, and if it does what I intended it to do, it will make it hard for you to feel sympathy towards me. This is kind of a tale of karma. (In case you're wondering, the kid tried to hang himself a month later and has been in and out of mental institutions since. I haven't heard anything about him in well over a year, though.)

In retrospect, I see that I'm a different person now and that I did some terrible, terrible things, but I honestly feel no remorse. There are remnants of that person in my personality, still, but that is not the reason. These are things I'm not even capable of doing anymore. As disturbing as this sounds, that was the happiest time of my life. Ironically, when I stopped caring about having friends, I started having friends. People thought I was hilarious. People thought I was honest. People thought I was edgy. It all fed my ego and made those who could've swayed me from that path's words meaningless. It also wasn't gonna last forever. People grow up. You'll see what this has to do with self-pity if I ever decide to do a second half of this.

Australia is a piece of shit Country

but a terrific movie. The first hour and a half followed a typical shitty action/adventure movie formula and the last hour was a pretty decent war story that made up for it. It really shed that Steve Irwin/Crocodile Dundee image and put Australian culture under the microscope, which needed to be done. They're in their equivalent to the Jim Crowe era right now, and they were committing acts of genocide against the aboriginals up until the early 20th century. It bothers me that people treat the island like some sort of paradise with all the terrible things that go on there.

A lot has happened since i forgot i had this. Dropped out of school, spent some time in a psych ward, went back to school, started another band, made the mistake of smoking crippy (the Jacksonville equivalent to hydro... and for my more domesticated readers that's highly potent weed) while on a mood stabilizer before band practice and possibly ending that band last week. If my brain ever recovers from that I'll try to tell that story with some form of cohesion.

Palin held her head above water

but still lost. I imagine McCain's staff thought something along the lines of "We cannot let this bimbo speak on her own after this" after the Couric interview and gave her a bunch of rhetoric and talking points to stick to. She mentioned very little fact or detail and stuck to these, almost like she was giving a speech rather than debating. Still, that's all she needed to do. Reverse her image she got last week and become a non factor in the election.

No excuse for her reaction to Biden nearly crying talking about his wife and daughters. She seemed oblivious to the fact that someone losing half of their family is something she should acknowledge and went straight to her "but we're mavericks!" line. It makes you wonder if Biden had the Rove machine on his side how this would be perceived in the press tomorrow. I'm guessing Kerry's lesbo commentx982389288238923.

Biden did a good job of not coming off as an asshole and getting his point across. I suspect Palin's approval rating will level out by the time the media plays the highlights of the debates. I doubt the average voter watches debates let alone VP debates. In a way, not being a punchline for SNL makes her the winner, even though Biden did a much better job in the debate.

And while I half watched the debate, I half watched the Cubs basically die. Ugh.

John McCain's achilles heel in the debate

seemed to be Kissinger. I loved how his reaction to Obama saying he 'agreed with Bush 90% of the time, including his policies that increased our spending over the last 8 years' was his usual "listen, the American people know I'm not miss congeniality. I'm a Maverick gosh darnit!" bit. Slogans aren't exactly the best foundation for your debate.


While McCain was overly aggressive Obama didn't seem to be aggressive enough, letting McCain drive the "He doesn't understand" line a little far and missing a few opportunities to rip open McCain. They both seemed unprepared. Going to washington was a bad move, but I think Obama came out on top.

And I thought McCain couldn't come up with anything that could backfire more than Palin

^Letterman is pretty merciless here. Hilarious, but merciless. I'm glad. I don't think McCain is stalling like everyone else thinks he is, the debate's on foreign policy anyway and he had all the time in the world for that. I think he was just trying to make himself seem noble and seem like he's putting the country before himself, and it really came out on the bad end. Bringing all the stress of a presidential campaign to a Bill that NEEDS to be changed soon and is under a lot of pressure already isn't what's best for the country, especially with his lack of knowledge (I feel like I know more about economics than him. That's bad.) on the subject.


PS, Olbermann filling in for McCain was absolute genius. I might start watching Letterman because of that.


EDIT: Maybe he is stalling. The proposed date for the debate would take the place of the VP Debate.



I can't blame him. Something tells me if a Biden-Palin debate occurs, Palin would look like a hypocrite on her rape kit position... I couldn't resist.

Tony's biggest problem with the bailout

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Before we start calling Paulson's plan Socialism for the rich, addressing the lack in oversight, putting some more regulations to it and all the other flaws in it: Shouldn't we worry whether we can afford it or not? It's gonna cost a minimum 700 billion dollars, I've heard estimates up to 1.5 trillion dollars. We have 800 billion dollars in the federal reserve and SS is almost completely gone.

Where is the money gonna come from? I don't see us taking any foreign loans and we'll have to print a lot of money, so the dollar is going to be worth as much as the peso. If we don't intervene though, people are saying we'll be in a recession. It seems like a lose-lose situation.

I didn't give two shits about the economy until two weeks ago, so this could seem like unintelligible babble. I've read so many different opinions on what would happen if we didn't bail out the banks that it's hard for me to see if the concern the economy will collapse is valid or not. I should take an econ class.

Who says I don't do anything productive?

I sent out some emails for my podcast a couple weeks ago and finally got some replies. Our first guest is METAL MIKE! I have some west coast punk related questions for him but I'm not gonna focus too much on the Angry Samoans. His big thing right now is putting some definition to Heavy Metal... and everybody assumed he was a crazy old man spouting crazy shit for awhile, but some editor from rolling stone and those vh1 documentaries gave him some recognition for it. I haven't heard too much about the review he coined it in, or what made him think of calling Humble Pie heavy metal, so that should be interesting.


Our second guest is some shitty youtube sensation that Raechel (my partner) is obsessed with. They're mostly shock humor. The only video I saw of them was them asking old ladies if they like giving head at a gas station. Eh, she's controlling all the technical stuff so I gotta give and take some.

Which reminds me: her recording equipment crapped out. My dream of becoming the radio Lester Bangs is suspended until she gets her stuff (she didn't really specify what was broken, and I don't really know what we're using anyway so it doesn't matter) fixed. I'm gonna give her about a week until i start getting up her ass about it though. And David, if you read this, there are no metaphors in this paragraph.



I started writing a book. The premise is a terrorist attack occurring in the continental United States, causing the country to swing to the right in fear and elect McCain. McCain croaks the day after he's inaugurated and Palin becomes president. The country becomes more and more backwards and they eventually start preaching fear/paranoia-based rhetoric in elementary schools. A group of fifth graders eventually start go insane from it, get their hands on really powerful recreational drugs, and massacre their town. The right-wing government gives them the death penalty and blames their behavior on pop culture and drugs, and ignores what drove them to do this. The protagonist is their principal who really gets into the gubment's bullshit and realizes what he had being doing at the end of the novel, at which point the 5th graders kill him.

I wrote the intro chapter (i wrote a bunch of paragraphs in about an hour and spent the next week editing them. That's how I see myself doing the rest of the book.) and i'm writing the ending next, that's something I do with essays and I figure it's a good guide for the body chapters but it might be a little creatively constricting. If I make it really vague that still gives me something to work towards and some flexibility as well. The main theme seems a little cliche too, I don't wanna seem like another left-wing nut, so there's some work there to be done.

Those last 2 paragraphs are probably really incoherent. 4 am is a bad time to blog. I wonder if I'll even remember I was writing a book in a month.

PS, St. Johns county schools are still a goddamn bureaucracy.