Tonight I made my way to the Riverhorse for free beer and to watch Holy Shit! play. One of the bartenders was quitting so he was thanking his community. I appreciated the sentiment, even if I could not enjoy the entropic situation. I hate bars; more than that I hate going to public places solely to buy something which forces people who are otherwise alienated to feel a false sense of closeness. I watched the documentary What a Way to Go the other night at a friends and one of the interviewees talked about bars as being "dark, loud and crowded because if you turned the lights on and the music down people wouldn't know how to interact" (paraphrasing) and although this is hardly a new thought I always shrugged disconsolately and shouldered my way in. I always remember bars in rpgs resembling the opposite-brightly lit places with the music subdued and conversation being the focus. Some bars retain this in the real world but very few do it well. I stayed for a less than an hour after holy shit played and left out of boredom. Not with the people, but with the notion itself. I biked quickly home with my headphones playing Stormcrow and continued to listen to their epic crusty metalness in the darkness of my abode. I made a phone call to a good friend expressing my rage and disgust with how apathetic and miserable most people were. I decided recently that I would no longer be tolerating anything that made me miserable and so far this has achieved mixed results. I have fewer friends but better ones and with the exception of not being self-sufficient economically my life is better than it has been of late. People continue to madden and disappoint me but the grace is not letting it affect what I do.
 Hell, I even have two different people that I'm "seeing". I also wrote some ideas out for an article I'm going to write for the next Total Destroy. I'm excited to start it tomorrow.

I wrote something a few days ago for an online rpg I'm currently running in and thought I'd post it here just because those stumbling on my journal might enjoy a bit o' fun.

It's currently 1:19 am dec 24th and I'm still in my disheveled duplex apartment. I was to fly back to the city of my birth Saturday afternoon but alas the airport was shut down due to the fog. I had  thought the chillingly hazy sky to be beautiful and truthfully did even after discovering the large inconvenience it presented. I spent today well, writing at a workshop among friends and coffee. Nonetheless I actually wished to be back with my family today, having not seen them for some time.

This’ll be my 26th winter, second in Milwaukee. A portent of cold nights and further wishes for an oak cabin and wood stove. Winter is the time when many people feel the bitterness of life most acutely. To them I say fear not! Let the scalding cold give you strength to endure.
Reading of the natives who lived in milwaukee before european colonists makes me wish even more strongly that Columbus had never stumbled upon these lands. Of course even if he hadn't some other invader would've likely followed but perhaps with sufficient time the indigenous could have thrived enough to ensure their culture would survive the coming of the dominator's. Although it is difficult to know for certain I would like to believe that these cultures so closely tied to the land would have never made the choices our ancestors did when they sought to change nature into resources and when they chose to enslave the free peoples of this landmass as their own.
To this oath I hold, I will never stop fighting, I shall never allow myself the ease of apathy.

Black hearts and black metal