COPYRIGHT
Collection copyright © 2007 by Ad Astra Books, Inc.
Copyright information for individual works in this volume appears at the back of the of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group USA
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New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
First eBook edition: May 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-55949-2
To my father and mother,
Richard and Linda Balling
Contents
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
FOREWORD
JUSTIN PIERRE: Motion City Soundtrack
JONAH MATRANGA: Speech to Text, Thought to Action
REBEKAH JORDAN: Dreaming Ferns
JOHN TRAN: Home Grown/Red Panda
BRENDAN BROWN: The Receiving End of Sirens
SCHUYLAR CROOM: He Is Legend
VINCENT REYES: Create!
MEG FRAMPTON: Meg & Dia
DIA FRAMPTON: Meg & Dia
JOSH PARTINGTON: Firescape/Something Corporate
JARED DRAUGHON: Classic Case
RICH BALLING: The Sound of Animals Fighting
JASON GLEASON: ActionReaction
ALEXANDER KENT: Say Anything
JARROD TAYLOR: In Reverent Fear
BEN JORGENSEN: Armor For Sleep
PORTER McKNIGHT: Atreyu
KIRK HUFFMAN: Gatsbys American Dream
ALEX HOVIS: Paper Models
GRETA SALPETER: The Hush Sound
ROB MORRIS: The Hush Sound
SCOTT WALDMAN: The City Drive
DANNY SMITH: The City Drive
TRAVIS BRYANT: Goodbye Tomorrow
AARON CHAPMAN: Nurses
DAMON DAWNurses: Musicalism
KENNY VASOLI: The Starting Line
ELGIN JAMES: Dream Weaver
AARON BEDARD: Bane
RYAN HUNTER: Envy on the Coast
SAL BOSSIO: Envy on the Coast
PETER WENTZ: Fall Out Boy
CHINA SOUL: Minor Celebration
MATTHEW ROSKOWSKI: Delilah in the Calm
MATTHEW CLEGG: Caitlin Going and the All the way’s
MARK ROSE: Spitalfield
STEVEN LEFEBVRE: Sophia
CHI CHENG: Deftones
BRANDON WRONSKI: Dead Letter Diaries
ADAM PANIC: Adam Panic
JOHN NOLAN: Straylight Run
SHAWN HARRIS: The Matches
RYAN TRASTER: Small Towns Burn a Little Slower
JON TUMMILLO: Folly
GABE SAPPORTA: Cobra Starship
JOE BROWNA: Static Lullaby
STEVE CHOI: Rx Bandits
MATT EMBREE: Rx Bandits
BOBBY DARLING: Gatsbys American Dream
M. S. BREEN: Emanuel
AARON BARRETT: Reel Big Fish
ADAM TURLA: Murder by Death
CHRIS FRANGICETTO: Days Away
STEVE ELKINS: The Autumns
DANIEL BARRON: Dollar Fifty Date
JERRY JONES: Trophy Scars
BRANDON RIKE: Dead Poetic
NICK MARTIN: Underminded
EVAN JEWETT: Worker Bee
DUANE OKEN: Socratic
NICK THOMAS: The Spill Canvas
ERIC VICTORINO: Strata
BRIAN TASCH: Boy
BOB NANNA: The City on Film
CRAIG OWENS: Chiodos
JESSE KURVINK: HelloGoodbye
KELCEY AYER: Cavil at Rest
DAN LYMAN: Halos
KERRY TRUSEWICZ: Royden
CHRISTOPHER JAMES RUFF: Kaddisfly
DANIEL MURILLO: Lorene Drive
COLIN FRANGICETTO: Circa Survive
ANTHONY GREEN: Circa Survive
BRENDAN EKSTROM: Circa Survive
ERIC FREDERIC: Facing New York
MATTHEW KELLY: The Autumns
TIM McILRATH: Rise Against
MIKE MADRUGA: Fear Before the March of Flames
LUIS DUBUC: The Secret Handshake
ABOUT THE EDITOR
PERMISSIONS
FOREWORD
In the seventh grade, I was the next Melville. My sophomore year in high school, everything changed.
Papers I pained over came back littered with holierthanthou jargon that was nearly indecipherable. What comments I could read, I wished I could not. The verdict was in: the pen truly was mightier than the sword. The same vehicle that brought forth the thoughtful writing of students was being misused to etch careless comment-graffiti onto their papers, causing many like myself to close up and not explore true potential. I was sure that nowhere in the English-teacher handbook was there a clause that instructed ridding the world of potentially brilliant authors by way of red ink. In fact, I could attest that a little positive recognition went ten times further than reckless criticism. What had I written that had been so bad? One year earlier, I’m certain I would have won the “Most Likely to Write the Next Leaves of Grass” award. I spent the remainder of my high school career afraid to make a wrong move, weary of thinking outside the box. College was a clean slate and stirred some realizations.
Growing up, there were always books around. Lining hallway shelves was everything from Goodnight Moon to the Holy Bible. In hindsight, I feel the density of the latter had a great something to do with me making significant headway in my early literacy development. Headway that would eventually be impaled by the William Somerset Maughams of my high school curriculum and the aforementioned red ink. The only clear and pleasant memory of high school was Mr. Brown, who would dress as Edgar Allan Poe for Halloween and read “The Raven” in character.
My passion for writing was first unearthed in college. After a brief stint in a mortuary science program, I thought creative writing sounded like fun. John Payne, who wrote the introduction to volume one of this series, was my professor for two semesters of creative writing and allowed me plenty of room to experiment and find my voice. He had graduated from Cal State Long Beach, and played a critical role in my decision to transfer there. He was also the one to recommend The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender, which, to this day is a favorite book, and one that continues to aid my own writing.
Though the stories of Bender, Bukowski, Camus, and others have impacted my own writing, nothing has cultivated my literacy more than music. The same solace found in books by most lifelong readers, I find in the liner notes of CDs. As a soon-to-be teen in junior high, lyrics taught me vocabulary, poetic form, how to rhyme, wordplay, and much more. The music of Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, the Rolling Stones, etc., told me stories and used melody to drive those stories into my head. And there they would stay, encouraging my individual growth and inviting imitation.
I followed the dream of becoming a professional musician after high school when the trombone I had played since the fourth grade enabled me to tour in a band. Every other semester throughout my years at Cypress College, I went on tour, traveling nine times through every single state and once through Europe, playing to countless kids each night. I saw firsthand how many people other than myself found music to be spiritual and that it wasn’t just me finding so much passion in melodies and the words that complement them.
Enter 2003. The idea was to contact numerous musicians that I had shared floors and crossed borders with during my years of touring—many of whom had since grown to be extremely popular and had sold hundreds of thousands of records—and gather writing from them. Lyrics th
at had never made it into songs, journal entries, poems, fiction, essays, rants, and even art were collected from nearly eighty musicians. The vision was to make reading approachable to a large number of people who never got excited by the likes of Wordsworth and Coleridge in school and to those that were disgusted by the heightened focus of image over quality content in music. I wanted to show that poetry was, and always will be, capable of engaging even the most apathetic of minds, and that people we all listened to on our stereos wrote poetry. The book, Revolution on Canvas, was released on Valentine’s Day 2004, and in your hands is the all-new second volume. The Ad Astra Books team still receives letters from those that have bought the first book, one of which had written on the envelope, “I just realized this is the first time I’m writing a letter to share the fact I love a book.” A single letter like that validates every second of hard work spent.
Thank you for furthering your own journey to lifelong literacy along with me, through your support of this book. The fact that you are reading this right now is evidence of a hunger for moving the spotlight back onto the words that change lives and shape songs and away from the image-centered mind-set placed on world art by a blind industry.
Blessings,
Rich Balling
JUSTIN PIERRE
Motion City Soundtrack
Annalisa
The first time I met her I was in the middle of a three-day binge. I had worked my way out of bed around noon and walked the ten and a half blocks down Franklin to Mortimer’s. Mort’s was where I spent most of my drinking time, as nobody I knew would be caught dead there. Thus there was no chance of running into someone who would squeal to the band about my extracurricular activities. For this particular drunk I chose scotch. I was in a Bukowski phase at the time. I spent most of the day writing lyrics and ordered a Boca burger around five. I was sitting on the lower level of the bar. There is an elevated portion they open up after six for the post-work rush. She came in through the side door. She was wearing a blue sequined tube dress. It was obnoxious and it cast a laser light show all around the dim dining area. She ordered a few drinks and carried them over to a table near me. She had quite a mane of dirty blond hair that jostled about as she sank into her seat. I remember asking her, “Why all the beer?”
“Happy hour.” She did have two of every kind, six bottles in all. She smiled at me and winked. Her makeup was a mess—all blues and blacks smeared every which way. She lit a cigarette—menthol, of course. I tried my hand at conversation. “I’ve been coming here for months and they never told me about any goddamn happy hour.”
“That’s because they’re selfish and want it all to themselves.” She had already finished two of the six bottles on her table.
“Sounds like a bad business move if you ask me.” She reminded me of that actress Jane Adams, only with dirty blond hair. She was very skinny and sexy in a skeletal sort of way. We talked for another hour or so as she drank her beer and I downed my two-for-one scotch and waters. I normally don’t smoke, but when I get drunk I tend to break all the rules. She was very generous with her Newport Lights. When the upstairs opened up, we went there and hid out in the corner at a table with minimal light. Turns out she was thirty-six, ten years older than me at the time, and cut hair at Great Clips. She modeled on the side for extra cash, which I assumed explained her outfit. We talked about her various boyfriends, her two cats Camilla and Neptune, and how hard it was to break into the acting business in Minneapolis. She had done a local spot for Jake’s Bar a few years ago which she wasn’t too proud of but she made two thousand dollars in residuals from it.
After a few more hours of drunken conversation, she suggested that we go back to her place. I had nothing better to do so I agreed to accompany her. We walked out of Mortimer’s and into the Wedge parking lot. She was searching violently through her purse. She stopped at a teal Neon that was in pretty good shape on the outside, but the inside was total carnage.
“Fucking keys!” I always thought it was funny when people yelled at inanimate objects. I wandered around to the passenger side and looked through the window. There were several empty bottles of vodka on the passenger-side floor. The back was full of pillows and clothes covered in cat hair. Cigarette butts spilled out over the ashtray and into the parking brake area. I noticed the keys were still dangling in the ignition. I opened the door, which was unlocked, and grabbed the keys. She was sitting on the pavement sifting through all her belongings, having dumped them out of the purse. I handed her the keys. She gave me a questioning look, then threw all of her junk back into the purse and hopped in the car. Even though it’s pretty fucked up, I have to say that one of my favorite things to do is drive drunk. I’m a nervous person by trade and after I’ve had a few, I find that my nerves seem to be calmed enough to deal with the human race. However, being a passenger in a car driven by a drunk woman in her mid-thirties with several boyfriends and two cats is not a good way to calm your nerves, even after ingesting half a bottle of J&B. We made it to her house eventually. Even though it was only ten blocks away, it took us thirty-five minutes as she got lost several times and was confused as to whether it was okay to drive through red lights after stopping if nobody else is around.
She introduced me to her cats as though they were people. They were fat. I didn’t care for them and they sure as hell didn’t care for me. She opened up a bottle of cheap red wine, the kind with the kangaroo on it. Her place was a dump. It was like her car, only bigger and shittier. Her CD player was a boombox. She had no DVD player. Everything had dust on it and the whole place smelled of cat piss. I kind of felt bad for her in a way. Here I was, slumming it. I had a nice apartment, a kick-ass job and lots of toys. She had a VCR and a few uninteresting stories she told over and over and over …
We did end up fooling around. But the thing about drunk people is that we’re never really committed to the moment one hundred percent. It’s like watching two coma patients come out of it and fumble around for floppy penis and bone-dry vagina. After a half hour of bliss we went back to the bottle. Our relationship was solidified. I was her personal confidant and she was the drunk of my dreams, the only girl who could suck it down faster than I could.
It occurred to me the morning after that first night I had forgotten to ask what her name was. Typical. We cleared it up as I ran into her several times over the next few months. Her name was Annalisa. She pronounced Anna like the word father, with an ahh sound. So debonair. We spent most of our time together at Mortimer’s or the small bar attached to its side called Gringo’s. Gringo’s was a faux-Mexican joint, modern crappy artwork and paintwork resembling things you’d see at roadside truck stops in Arizona. For some reason all the hipsters filtered into there on the weekends when they couldn’t get into the Red Dragon across the street. Perhaps it was the ambiance. The owner was the only white man with an Afro I’d ever seen other than the Greatest American Hero. His name was Dave. I called him Super Dave, on account of he was that awesome. He was always in a good mood and always remembered my usual like I was a real barfly. I loved him for that. He and Annalisa went way back and they were close in age. It was wonderful to hear stories about the Replacements and Soul Asylum and Minneapolis in the late ’80s before I was old enough to know any better about music. Unfortunately Super Dave’s taste in music had plummeted in the last decade, as all the music played at Gringo’s was crap—bad metal bands doing their best Pantera impersonations and failing miserably. Those blessed drunken nights always ended the same. Annalisa and I would end up at her place after last call and we’d drink until she passed out and I would walk home as the sun woke the whole state.
Eventually I had to go back out on tour. The band I was in had recently gotten signed and our time off had come to an end as our first record was about to be released. I curbed the drinking habit pretty well while on the road, with only a few minor fuckups. I did see significantly less of Annalisa over the next few years. I’d get random drunken phone calls from her on the road beckoni
ng me to come down to Mort’s or Gringo’s to have a nightcap, and by nightcap she meant “sauce-a-thon.” It would just about break my heart. As soon as I would return from a tour, I was down at Mort’s first thing and eventually she would show and we would pick up right where we left off. For the most part, nothing changed. There was only one time we decided to do something other than go to the bar. We went to the midnight movie at the Uptown Theatre one Saturday night. Blue Velvet was showing and we were both David Lynch fans so we drank up before and drove down there. We got kicked out ten minutes into the film when Annalisa accidentally lit up a cigarette and they discovered the better half of a twelve-pack we had smuggled in by way of our jacket pockets. That was the first and last time we ventured further than a ten-block radius from Mort’s.
Tours came and went, as did my time with Annalisa. We saw less and less of each other as the months turned into a year and so forth. One time I came back to Minneapolis and couldn’t get ahold of her. I spent nearly a week at the bar but she never showed. I asked Super Dave about her, but he didn’t have any information. Eventually, she showed up one night. She looked like hell. It was as if she had aged several years in the last few months since I had seen her. She lit up when she saw me and we drank and conversed for a bit. But it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t there. When it came to about midnight she said she had to leave. This had never happened before. I was kind of put off by this sudden change in behavior but there wasn’t much I could do about it. She kissed me on the cheek and bounced out of there. I drank and I drank until I had to pee, then I drank some more and somehow made my way to her place and passed out on the doorstep. Near morning she woke me and invited me in. We drank wine and ate bagels.
“Here’s the story,” she began, “Hank is my sugar daddy, for lack of a better way of explaining things. He pays the rent and I just have to show up and spend time with him every now and again.” And then I was all sorts of pissed off.
“The way you say it, it’s like you think I think you’re cheating on me. I’m not a fucking child. I just miss my drinking buddy.”
“Hey,” she yelled, “I’m not the one who’s never around. You show up when it’s convenient for you.” She had a point there. “You’re not that goddamned original. I’ve known dozens of people just like you who come and go at their convenience.”