"In this society, as far as the legitimate economy goes, only a certain amount of people are productive. The ones who are not productive, you have to do something with them. You could be and educate them and take care of them and make them part of your economy, or you could say "Go get high."
The addiction rate is increasing-not only in the inner city, but all over the country- because jobs are disappearing, and if I don't need you to work anymore, I'll just get rid of you.
I can't kill you, that would be bad, so I send you down the road of addiction, which is hideous, and I'm quite content to say "It's your fault because you got addicted, not society's fault"
And that's the interesting thing- why don't we do something about drugs? The wars been going on for 30 years and they haven't begun to do anything about it. If drugs went away, law enforcement, as it's structured today, would take a terrible hit."
-Ed Burns


 Yet another brilliant quote from a brilliant dude. America will do anything but take a long hard look at its problems. I see this mirrored in my own life, and in the cultures I choose to participate in.

Holy Jeebus. I feel awful.

So Black Mountain played at the Magic Stick last night. We decided to drive down early, hang w/ Jack, see the show, then drive back.  We from Traverse, its how we do. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

By about midday I was already feeling pretty tired. We ended up drinking a bit the night before and I was feeling it, so I had an impending sense of doom regarding this drive back pretty much all day but I did my best to think positive. Anyway, we ate some good food and shit, hit up the show, had our brains melted by how good Black Mountain were. David Vandervelde opened, which was actually really good, for fans of Tom Petty anyway (which I am).
 Really though, Black Mountain have an amazing live sound. I love that they have the ability to lay down absolutely crushing stoner rock riffs at will, but only do so sparingly, which lends them even more power. So so good. I would describe this in a way that made better sense, but my brain is dying.
So yeah, we get out of the show, Jack drives  my car back to Ypsi just for a little break, and then we head out. At first, Im going strong. FTW. By about half-way, I was totally wrecked. My eyes stop focusing and we were in serious danger of my sleepy ass catapulting us over the median, so I played the entire Terror discography in my brain all at once just so I could SMASH THROUGH the last 40 miles to the next Rest Area. We found a dark-ish parking spot, then proceeded to sleep til LIKE 5AM FUCK. I meant to take a cat nap. The rest of the drive was still really tough, but a last minute tactical maneuver involving coffee and Holy Fuck got us home. Aaron went in to the store, because she is a champion (and got to sleep while I was driving) and I proceeded to spend the first half of the day writhing in psychic pain that can only be achieved by such an asinine sleep/travel schedule. My brain hurts. I have no concept of time other than tomorrow being the 4th, which means we have to work all goddamn day. SUNDAY IS SUPPOSED TO BE OUR DAY OFF. GIVE ME MONEY.

Oh and speaking of terrible white people: Aaron and I got our little scumbuddy Colin (ex-TANOOKI SUIT) into the Look At This Fucking Hipster book!

Some mo-mo whiteboy with an acoustic guitar is covering Cat Stevens across the street at the Shed. Traverse City has more douchey singer-songwriter nerds than it does black people. Im not even kidding. Pug-life.

Oh! And THIS is a fucking original study by the great French illustrator DERIB that I received as a gift from the lovely and talented Diane and Noemie on my birthday, (they're related to him) who I first met because they used an image from a sticker that I used to vandalize the back of Horizon Books (it was a cat sitting on a wrench, I think?) for their band, Mue Sephei. Side note: our friend Jeff Pearce drums for them. Small town!!
That was mostly one run-on sentence! Small brain!

Final draft of a shirt design for my buds in V!FTS. I actually like the draft that came before this one a little better but hey, life is just shit sometimes.

Another SIO gift certificate...I love metallic paint markers.

 And this is the final draft we used for a flyer that eventually became our first sticker design. Neat!
(Did I mention I'm just going to dump photos on here because otherwise they'll just sit on my phone forever. Yep.)

This is a Werewolf Cosmonaut that I painted for my sister, because she is awesome enough not to ask things like "what the fuck is this?!" when receiving such an item. I understand that the whole Werewolf in space thing is only endlessly compelling to myself, and Im ok with that.

Whoa, Blog fail. (Blail?)

Hmm, since I last posted anything, we moved the record store to Union St. Because we are crazy fucking masochists. It's been really awesome though, the new spot is great, and I feel like it really legitimizes us as a business being out of the glorified indoor flea market atmosphere that the Commons had. Of coure 60% of people that come into the store are still condescending old fucks that are slowly driving Aaron crazy, but hey, we're the ones who decided to double down and stay.So yeah, I'm not gonna go back and recount everything that happened since my last post but thats the big one.

Oh yeah and TIGER played its last show a couple days ago to a mediocre turnout before the sun even set, so that was a totally fitting end to that band. Not even kidding. Definitely weird and a little sad, but it was time to let that terribly battered horse lie. Dannys gonna be all married up this summer and it just wasnt gonna work, so Dave, xHoltonx, Hafner and I are starting something new. Had our first practice a couple days ago, Im so stoked to do vocals, and it seems like Dave on bass and Brian on geetar is gonna work out nicely. It's not like TIGERs lyrics were super-posi towards the end, but there was a definite framework to what we would and wouldnt do in that band, so its pretty cool to be totally free of that and starting something from the ground up. I am excited, my throat hurts already.

Gonna do a grand opening thing for the store tomorrow, complete with RBB beer and vegan grilling and the BEST BAND IN MICHIGAN: VICTOR! FIX THE SUN. Plus, Pat and Will's new joint, REMOVER, is gonna play their first set. I haven't heard them but those dudes are about 1000 times more talented than I, so I am quite optimistic.

Alright, records to put away. Fuck the alphabet.