Skot Kremen's blog

here.

Man, I'm feeling really beaten at this point. I wish that I could seriously sum uup the way that I'm feeling. I suppose that the best way to sum it up is numb. But it's so much more than that. If I wasn't trying to hold it together for my wife, myself and my future child I'd burst into tears. Unfortunately, that's not really an option any more. 

It makes me think back to a time when life was alot simpler and truthfully, I don't want that any more. I love being married, I love the fact that I'm about to have a child, I just wish that it could've been easier. Truthfully, I feel like a failure, to put it bluntly. I usually tend to have faith in the fact that things will work out if you try. 

Well, I'm trying as hard as I fucking can and I'm about 3 steps away from working at burger king. As a younger person, this might've not depressed me as much as it does now. However, in a perfect world, this wouldn't be the case. 

Jersey, so far has been frought with a great deal of frustration. However, we're here, and there are some good things about it. But, I think that right now I'm just really depressed and I've got no one to blame and no where to look for solace. 

I wish that I could just go to sleep and wake up in a week. 

Taken from emily.

1. Where is your cell phone? On my desk
2. Your significant other? At home
3. Your hair? Blondish?
4. Your mother? school
5. Your father? pantenting
6. Your favorite thing? Rachel
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? Shamrock Shake
9. Your dream/goal? love. got it.
10. The room you're in? my lab
11. Your ex? crazy
12. Your fear? present. 
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? with a growing family.
14. Where were you last night? home.
15. What you're not? fully awake 
16. Muffins? rock
17. One of your wish list items? jazzmaster
18. Where you grew up? Jersey
19. The last thing you did? parent conference
20. What are you wearing? fred perry
21. Your TV? flat
22. Your pet(s)? pleo
23. Your computer? Mac
24. Your life? crazy
25. Your mood? up & down?
26. Missing someone? Rachel
27. Your car? beige
28. Something you're not wearing? underwear
29. Favorite Store? Apple
30. Your summer? Transition
31. Love someone? yup
32. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? recently
34. Last time you cried? previously

Parent teacher conference.

Working in a school has always been a bit odd for me. It means that for the most part, my daily interactions are with people who can't legally vote yet. I've grown to like it though. Truthfully, there's alot of things that I've taken away from working with young people. 

Firstly, they're so idealistic. These kids are privileged, yet they tend to be very charitable in more ways than I was at that age. They're impressionable and for the most part they're interested in what you have to say as you're helping to shape their lives. 

Starting this past year, I was given a lab/classroom to set up. I tried to make it a place where the kids can come and hang out, it's become a haven for the kids who're different from most other students. You know the type. If you knew me when I was younger, it's probably where I would've hung out in school. I make sure that the kids stay out of trouble, but have a good time in the process. 

Because of this, there's a whole bunch of students who are here all the time. Truthfully, I'm not sure  how they get to class with as much time as they spend here. In the two years that I've been here, there's been a few students that I've chosen to sort of mentor. 

Yesterday, one of their parents called me. Now this was weird. It really sort of hit home that I was someone who was shaping impressional minds. For those who knew me when I was younger, you can imagine how weird this is.

I had no idea what she wanted to talk to me about and I definitely spiked up my moxy for this phone conversation. I talked to a bunch of the administration before hand in case  I was going to freak out on her for calling me a degenerate  or some such nonsense. I did this as much to cover my ass as anything else. 

However, when I called her back, she just wanted to say that I've been such a positive influence on her son and that she wanted to meet me to say thank you. How incredibly flattering and amazingly weird.

In other school news, I'm teaching a class in writing, recording and producing music here to a group of seniors. Basically, it's the same thing I did when I worked with steve roy a few years back, just like that it seems to be a success. However, there's considerably less booze and cigarettes involved in my classes than steve roy's house. In fact, much to my surprise, it is possible to learn all of this without booze or cigarettes. Who knew. 

There's lots of weird horrible stuff that 's been happening in my life as well, but I wont get into that here.

I'll read anything that he writes.

Holy cow, Douglas Coupland is a blogger for the New York Times. I'd say that between him and william burroughs, they're my favorite authors. However, Burroughs wrote alot of poetry towards the end of his life which I wasn't really crazy about.

Douglas Coupland on the other hand is almost across the boards awesome. I've read everything that he's written. With the exception of Generation X and Microserfs, I've got most of his books on the day that they were released.

Today (and today is early, it's like 8:15), I've been reading a bunch of the posts and I think that after this I like him even more.

So far, here's a few of the things that I've learned:

"In the world of type, Helvetica was the supposed endpoint of design. It was designed to be 100-percent emotionally neutral (yes, how Swiss, the same country that brought us sleeping pills — Helvetica is the Latin name for Switzerland)"

"Germans refuse to stand in line for anything, and if you tell them to line up at, say, a book signing, they start taunting you and calling you a fascist. This is true. Ask any author who’s ever read there."

He's the best blogger ever.

It's off to work I go.

I keep misplacing my work cell phone. Consciously, this is an accident. However, I can not speak for my unconscious self.

Pulitzer Photography

This is one of the featured galleries of photography. It's one of the saddest things that I've ever seen. Unbelievable.

This way out

So this weekend was a whole lot of fun, although I was busy as all christ. Friday we went over to Britt and Lauren's place for some drinks and we saw /children of men/. It was awesome, by awesome I mean incredibly depressing. I'm torn as to whether bobby would've liked that movie. In one sense, it was amazingly depressing. In another sense, it was about a post viral/apocalyptic future.

Saturday, was the day of the Project Sphere show at Redtail. It was part of the Boston Cyberarts Festival. It most certainly felt very cyberartsy. The show was alot of fun, although there was this one dipshit that I would've liked to knee in the groin.

The dipshit in question was one of the people who apparently took out some area in the space. While we were playing, he walks up to the mixer (we were submixing our own set) and he says some thing like "Oh, I think that vocals are too low" and he turned them up.

What a fucking rod. Had I been less of a grownup, I think that I probably would've hit him in the kneecaps with the mixer. I'm far too professional for that.

After he walked away, I put the vocal back to the level that it was and oddly enough, he didn't seem to complain again.

What a dickbag. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was in the top 5 things that have annoyed me most during a live performance. Thus we ended up leaving right after the show.

There were a few people that I knew there. I didn't really publicize the show. Actually, I didn't really say much about the show as I also gave notice this past week. This was really emotional for me, as I really love my job. My boss and I went outside and smoked a cigar, to just hang for a bit and discuss the future. It was very cool, although, it's going to make me very upset to know that I wont be coming back there.

Sunday was a pretty much a rest day. I tried to take my car to get an oil change, but the place was closed for sunday. So I ended up playing a bit of final fantasy when rachel went out shopping with her friend. Eventually, when she came back, we'd settled in to watch a movie and a bit of the game. As I've got to be in early tomorrow, I'm not sure if I'm going to watch all of it. It'd be nice for a sweep though.

We also looked at a bunch of places to live. We're moving. We have to do that.

*I've just been informed by Rachel that I was not in fact busy.

QotD: I'd Totally Pig Out

If you could eat anything you wanted, and not have to worry about gaining weight/being unhealthy/inhumane, what would you totally pig out on? 
Submitted by Jay.

Sushi, but I do that anyway. Oh, and pickles and cigarettes.

Boy with aluminum stilts

Over the next few days I've been swamped at work, which is interesting and doesn't happen that often. Rachel has been awesome. Tonight, she actually came with me to help me video the Russian class awards dinner. All of the people there (except the students) seemed to think that we'd all had kids in the school.

I'm sleepy. I want a beach house. Those are two unrelated things.

On another note. I've been obsessed with listening to The Autumns again. For those who don't know them, they're on Simon Reymonde's label Bella Union, it's kind of like if Radiohead and The Cocteau Twins had a baby and raised it in LA. This is their best album as I see it:

In the Russet Gold of This Vain Hour

Bokonism

Kurt Vonnegut died. What an incredible loss. What an amazing person.