Where were you?

Yeah, yeah - got to do something about how cool DC is and how lame people from Capitol hill are, etc etc.....I'm working on it. In the meantime, here's a project I stole from someone else's blog:

TEN YEARS AGO:

I was just beginning my first job out of college, and I was officially underemployed as a motherfucker. Detailing cars at a dealership that no longer even exists (Silver Spring Auto City), I was working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, in 90-100 degree heat (DC is hot). The other guys used to like to tease me a lot, cuz I was all college edjumacated but still couldn't quite figure out the nuances of a clockpunch machine. It sucked more than I could ever explain.

I was very much accepting that the victim of a short-lived summer romance, a girl that - for the record - did not even live in the US, was not planning on visiting DC any time soon, and I was grudgingly learning that I was probably not going to (a) see her again (b) get out of my parents house any time soon, or (c) get my money's worth for that diploma quite as quickly as I'd hoped. The prospects of ever having sex again were looking dim. Dim, goddamn it.

I was listening to the Foo Fighters and Lenny Kravit a lotz, and don't tell anyone, but I also was kind of into that Jagged Little Pill album. Yeah, I know, so just don't even say it, ok?

I missed my friends back in Philly a whole lot, and I wasn't really making new ones. And I was a total bama. Bad hair, bad clothes, bad breath.

FIVE YEARS AGO:

Single and independent, I was living in DC alone for the very first time, after a three year stint in my band's roackhaus out in the stix of Montgomery County, MD. I was in an ok band, I knew a lot of artists and musicians, and I could go out pretty much any night of the week assured that I would run into someone that I knew. In retrospect, I was sort of on the fringes on scenesterism and having an awful lot of fun.

I had an ok job at a PR agency; the pay was low, but it was a huge step in the right direction after the auto detailing and various other bottom-basement gigs. Little did I know that I was just about one year away from riding with that company on an excruicating two-year implosion. And that ignorance, in fact, was quite blissful.

Bought a computer. Used it primarily to steal music and look at porn.

I was dating quite a bit - spending time with all sorts of people that I didn't necessarily match with, but who were teaching me an awful lot about myself and about relationships and about women. I think it was quite a watershed time for me, and even though at times I was moping and bitching and generally thinking that I was somehow missing out on all the fun, the truth is that this might have been one of the most fun times of my life. I was my own god in many ways -- I had few responsibilities, few real consequences for my indulgent behavior, and a lot of time on my hands.

ONE YEAR AGO:

Re-emerging from that two year slump that I mentioned before. Re-emerging from what seemed like near financial ruin. Re-emerging from frightening health scares. Re-emerging from maddening musical celibacy since 2002. Miserable at work, but unbelieveably happily monogomous, smarter and more mature than I ever thought I could be. Another job, another apartment. I have a goddaughter named Molly and a neice named Bridget. Molly reminds me of my very first memories of my little brother, and that thought still gives me strange and wonderful, yet vaguely sad, feelings every time I examine it.

YESTERDAY:

Got up and worked out in the morning for the first time in years. Critically addicted to coffee. Musically celibate once again. Same girl, same apartment, more roaches. New office, new company, still kind of miserable at work. Complaining more, but finding fewer things to complain about. This computer is dying on me.

Dear DC-101

Ok, I know I said I'd get a mission statement or some such crap on this blog sooner or later, and I promise it'll have something contrarian about how life in DC doesn't really suck, and how all the local resident aren't *all* douchebags. I just need some time to, um, make my case.

In the meantime, I need to get something off my chest. I know DC rock radio has kind of sucked for a long time. I'm not going to be one of those dickheads that tells you that "I listened to HFS back when it was actually alternative", because, well, I didn't.

Oh, my brother did...but I was too busy listening to the Scorpions to have time for that alternative college music crap. And when I wasn't listening to German hair metal, I was probably listening to Led Zep and lecturing people about how the Cure sucked. See, I was pretty progressive and open minded that way.

But I did listen to DC-101. DC-101 was bad-ass back in the 80s. They had Howard Stern in the mornings (which I was absolutely forbidden to listen to....since I was seven years old) and they played a lot of Billy Idol and the Stones and vaguely dangerous sounding music for a sheltered pre-pre-teen.

In fact, I remember, in great detail, being a youngster and watching one of the neighborhood teenagers get into his car one summer night, wearing a super-dooper tight, early 80's style yellow tee, with a big black old fashioned DC-101 logo on it -- you know the logo, the same outdated one with the lightning bolt that I believe hangs over Connecticut Ave today, down around Farragut North.

I looked at that kid, and I thought....DC-101? That dude is fucking cool.

Over the years, though, DC-101 has taken suckage to new heights. That Elliot in the Morning dude was pretty cute for a year or two back in 1999/2000, but not even his hyena ramblings about the Caps and Kegs and Eggs or whatever can compare to the suckage that is DC-101's programming.

And so I give you my open letter to DC-101.

Dear DC-101,

Listen, we all know that the world has pretty much sucked ever since 9/11.

Seriously, we understand...Enron, Worldcom, the recession, the war in Iraq, the London bombings, the motherfucking land-grab/housing boom in D.C., American Idol. To quote Mark Renton, "It's a shite state of affairs, and all the fresh air in the world won't make a bit of difference."

Things aren't what they used to be, that's for damned sure.

But that's no reason to freeze your playlists from September 10th, 2001.

There's actually been, a lot of good music made in the past five years. And I know some people get a warm and fuzzy feeling from listening to "Interstate Love Song" and "Machinehead" and "Evenflow" every single night on the way home from work, but the fact is, that is what God made iPods for.

You've turned a once proud place on the dial into a classic rock station for the 30-something crowd. It's disgraceful. Go ahead, flip the dial to 101.1. I'll wait.

What's playing? Yes, that's Collective Soul. And yes, you had to take a moment to remember their name. That's because they disappeared sometime about 5 years ago, and DC-101 IS THE ONLY STATION THAT KNOWS WHERE TO FIND THEM.

Get with it, you 30-year-old frat boys. You're an embarrassment.

And, no, playing the new NIN single doesn't count. That fucker's been writing the same song since 1995.

If you could just bear with me for a moment

Ok, so like four months ago, i woke up, drunk, in my folks' house (I was dog-sitting) and realized I was the not-so-proud new father of a blog.

Fucking hell....a blog. A blog with a really fucking lousy title, and an even harder one to type (and I'm in marketing). Double fucking hell.

Anyway, I might as well accept it and start blogging. It's been months, and I do have an excuse or two....In fact, I did forgot my own password. I even tried an entry or two in Word, only to find out that there appears to be no goddamn cut-and-paste feature here (if anyone knows otherwise, please clue me in, ok?). And, you know, I really am kind of busy and didn't bother to think through what the theme of this blog was gonna be (something about living Washington D.C., but I'll be damned if I can remember what).

Ok, so just hang in there and I'll get started on some weak-ass personal diary pretty soon. I promise. Based on the four visitors who have stumbled upon this site in recent months, I don't think anyone will mind.....