We're Out For Dead Presidents, Vol. II

2005-10-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

I have a sense of style.

No, I’m not Kanye West, but I know what I like to wear, so it’s really beside the point. A certain staple of mine is the classic thrift shirt. Yes, the thrift shirt. Maybe a handful of people who read this will judge and say ‘hardly a style’, but all I care about is spending pocket change on shirts that fit and are totally fucking awesome. One of my most common picks at any given thrift store is the any given sports team shirt with the any given number on the back. It’s generic, but gold; my opinion.

If I come home late enough and walk past the few tables in front of Palo Verde East with the random drunk kids who probably don’t even live in this dorm, sporting a generic team shirt with a generic number, I get heckled.

“Giants got their ass beat!”
“Rangers fucking blow.”
“Cubs are out of the series!”
“The Braves? Fuck the Braves. Go Astros!”

It’s not really within my interest to explain to any of these people that I legitimately don’t have any personal regard for the generic team or number on my shirt, yet somehow, it’s always cause for confrontation. What probably surprises all of these kids is I just agree with whatever they tell me. For all I know, the Giants did get their asses beat. The Rangers may very well fucking blow. The Cubs are clearly out of the series, and the Braves? Well, fuck them.

What blows my mind is how any of these kids manage to get laid. If that's the selling factor for the ASU girls around here, it kind of makes me want to be play the douche bag card in general or whenever I see the pretty girl who never called me back coming out of PV East, where incidentally, she works for Res Life; that’s got to be awkward for her. Maybe she’d have called me back if I got her fired up about how such and such team sucks my dick. Or a mean dick. Or any dick. Just whatever gets the job done, dude.

Don't worry. I won't play that card.

2005-10-19T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hold on a second.

Surprised? No, you won’t see my friend Taylor Walton sleeping on the floor of my dorm room like a bum anymore; unless you scroll down. Sure, he’s great, but his reign at the top of this page is coming to a close. That’s right. Here it is. The big update that I basically owe everybody and everything that mentioned how I dropped off the face of the Earth. That’s kind of my trademark at this point.

Great news: I’m still alive. And I still have a blog! Yahoo!

We’ve all officially settled in here at ASU into the college life. By this point, if we hadn’t, there’d be something very the hell wrong with us. The advantages of this semi-independence are good and plenty, and I feel less and less guilty coming home and seeing my mom living alone. My parents are slightly out of their minds because even at this point in their divorce, they still relay messages back through me as the middle man. At least they were. The financial situation with my dad has essentially put me in a position with my back to the wall and I had to cut him out of my life entirely. I feel horrible about that, but it’s not something that I dwell on very much. I’ve got better things happening all the time.

The comedy scene is my favorite part about college, hands down. Whether it’s going to an improv rehearsal, or just going to a sketch comedy writing meeting, I’m around people of my taste day in and day out. Having a show every week simply blows my own mind, so it’s amazing to be a part of. I feel like I’m starting to establish myself within the group, slowly but surely. I love the people involved because they’re incredibly sincere and trying to do the same thing I am above anything else: be funny. Kind of seems trite, but it’s basically my weapon against reality. Next week on Tuesday we’re going to be doing the Farce Side 20th Anniversary Show, which is just insane. I didn’t even realize that the comedy troop here at ASU had been around that long, and I’m easily one of the youngest and newest people onboard for this thing. It’s an interesting time to just be getting into the ASU comedy scene, to say the least. The 20th Anniversary Show will feature some of the best sketches that Farce Side did the last 20 years, and representing the season we have now, we’re actually using a sketch I wrote called ‘Professor Tree’. I’m way proud. The show is at 7:00 on Tuesday if you can go. I’ve grown quite accustom to being a publicity whore for my baby.

So just what the hell have I been up to as of late? Well… let’s see …

Charlie unfortunately ran away. I’ve been pretty miserable all the time as a result.

I’m still fully convinced that out of the hundreds of dorms within Palo Verde East, our room, 229, is totally the gayest.

Crazy Aunt Alecia recently had her fridge flood fucking everywhere. The kitchen was like a shallow pool basically.

And of course my boyfriends and I have been up to our no good shenanigans time and again. They even persuaded me to play a game of Edward Forty Hands; bad idea.

Heavy drinking is the only thing that makes Jack feel like a man anymore.

My other best friends and I were recently involved in country club parties. Chances are anybody reading this saw my little plaid shorts and loved them, too.

My roommates opted for class over just purely gay. They let me down all the time.

Todd still remains the only friend who dresses to kill, which pisses Jack off a ton.

And recently, Jack, Taryn, Crazy Aunt Alecia, and myself decided to take a trip out to L.A. to check out DC’s sketch comedy troop, the Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz. Or a good portion of them. We departed from Phoenix shortly after twelve because Jack’s last Lakeshore Drive show went until late, and I had about three chronic blunts I had to smoke before the long car ride ahead; bad idea. Nevertheless, we rounded up all the troops and shipped out not too much later than we thought.

Taryn sat in the back with me, which later she complained about. She was kidding because I am fun all of the time.

Since I love comedy shows, car rides, my friends and being high, I just couldn’t hold my enthusiasm. I kept the rock alive in the back seat.

We later arrived at the ungodly hour of about 5:00 am, I had been slipping in and out of consciousness myself, but Jack and Alecia were still going strong with pills. It took us about two hours to actually wind up inside the coolest and smallest motel room around the Hollywood & Vine area. We’re going there again; nothing could convince us not to.

Jack’s bags made him look like a homeless orphan who was looking for safe passage on a train; destination: nowhere. Jack is probably a good name for any orphan; my opinion. Alecia was essentially a secretary with her rolling suitcase thing. Taryn was the basketball star with her sports bag. I basically just looked twelve, like I always do, with my backpack. We all had such different personalities but such big respect and admiration for one another which made the trip #1.

We saw many of the sights of Hollywood, including the Capital Records building.

And incase you were curious, like, at all, yes – they do have Subway sandwich shops just off of Hollywood.

Since we all hadn’t showered and smelled really great the fire department came down to put us out because we were so fucking hot.

And incase you were curious, like, at all, yes – they do have a lot of buildings in L.A.

You believe me now?

Try to spot the irony in this picture. I’ve got twenty bucks that says you don’t because you have a certain level of respect for Kirk Douglas. Michael’s all right… but … I don’t know.

Finally it was time to get ready for the Hammerkatz show. We basically swam our guts through an Olympic-size pool of alcohol; Taryn and I conquering a full bottle of Baccardi Razz and Jack and Alecia toppling a full bottle of gin. We also chain smoked the night away, leaving half of us addicted to cigarettes and the other half more so addicted to cigarettes.

Many sexy night life pictures were taken as we crossed the underpasses where homeless people slept and lived, which was sad, but on the other hand, the one’s that we talked to sound incredibly cheerful. Take that world.

Donald’s show ruled. Although the Hammerkatz didn’t have their full troop along for the ride, they still rocked us. My camera shortly died after this, as if God was saying that DC was too powerful a force to be photographically chronicled. We’ll be seeing him again in November or something, at the same UCB theatre. You should go if we like you.

We then later partied with Donald and there was much talking of “pod”ing. If you don’t know what “pod”-ing is, then you don’t deserve to know what “pod”-ing is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm dropping off the face of the Earth for a little bit.

2005-08-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

College basically just means Saturday doesn’t feel like Saturday.

Likewise, any given Monday through Friday just feels like a day. Gone is the feeling of waking up Monday and thinking, “Too bad.” Gone is the feeling of waking up Thursday and thinking, “Fuck. One more day. This weekend just better be good.” It all just got caught somewhere in between.

College is basically just that, and allowing your friends who live off campus to crash in your room on the floor after being really high and drinking four bottles of chocolate milk.

Oh, Taylor!

It’s just peculiar; the whole college lifestyle here in the dorms. What it really comes down to is that, we, my extraordinary league of friends and I, are living here in this hotel-like atmosphere with no real perception of what possibly lays ahead. It’s like that for me at least. As for waking up and labeling the continental United States with Trevor in history class and waking up and learning the choreography to the Ying Yang Twins ft. Mike Jones, “I Need a Dime”, for hip hop dance class, my life just doesn’t feel real.

Speaking of things that don’t seem real, after a relatively grueling two day series of auditions for Barren Mind improv and Farce Side sketch comedy, I received a phone call hours later after the second night and was told I was cast in Farce Side. I was convinced that if I was going to make anything, it was being cast as an understudy for Barren Mind, as my brother alongside Trevor are responsible for the casting. So it just seems entirely unreal that I’m now a member of the cast of Farce Side, knowing I didn’t exactly have my brother pull strings for me to have it happen. It’s a huge deal to me because people involved with either Barren Mind or Farce Side usually didn’t get cast their first audition. I could not be more excited as this is the one college thing I wanted to be involved with above everything else. I feel incredibly humbled and lucky as all hell every second I stop and consider what it all really means. I’m all about the comedy thing. So much so, that when I saw that Fry’s gave me 20 hours this week and one of my shifts was scheduled over our first Farce Side meeting, I decided never to go back in.

That now makes three, count ‘em, three, fuckin’ slavin’ for the man total abandonment’s. I’m biting at the heels of Crazy Aunt Alecia’s five, and who knows how far I’m off of meeting Trevor’s total. It feels good to be so talented at life.

The way that I see it, however: Money is trivial throughout the scope of this entire year. I’m living in this little room, surrounded by some of my best friends and within close enough proximity of my others. I have Farce Side. I can basically say I have everything I really want. Life is good.

Dear Mom,

Hi, all the way from Tempe! Don't worry. Everything's fine. Sa'll good, bitch. And Kevin and I love grapes.

2005-08-14T15:41:00.000-07:00

If I consciously feel myself growing up anymore this week, I think I’ll be nursing myself back to working condition over the Porcelain Prince. That’s a working title for the toilet.

Let’s get back on track.

Somewhere along the lines of life, reality turned out to not be kidding. I’m really leaving. Right about now. My stomach is just churning over and over with thoughts of anxiety, excitement, hope and a little spark of sadness. I feel guilty here and there about getting out of this house. Being the youngest, therefore taking it upon myself to usher in the age of the ‘Empty Nest’, just leaves me a little cold. I don’t think this feeling would be as emphasized if my step-dad lived here in Arizona with my Mom, but there’s nothing I can change about circumstances out of my control. The hardest part of leaving is knowing my Mom will be here in this big house by herself for the majority of the week. She’ll be all right.

It’s almost too much.

I’ve got bags to pack.

God damn.

Tunes: Athelete - I Love

2005-08-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

In a matter of hours I’ll be guessing my way around campus.

Scheduling a 9:30 am appointment regarding my fall classes for Monday morning seemed a necessary evil the last time I was at ASU. Yeah. I regret it. But if I don’t work this out eventually then the improv thing just isn’t going to be a possibility. It’s a shame that I didn’t think this far ahead when choosing my ‘learning community’ of a ‘baseball diamond’. Confused? Good. So am I, and it’s my fucking schedule.

Go Devils!

I put chocolate sauce on Charlie tonight. I felt a little bad afterwards because he kept licking at it and developed a big knot in his healthy yet otherwise loosely managed coat of fur. It was truly a sight to behold. Guess you just had to be there.

My room downstairs is being pit against Trevor’s in an ultimate struggle for who can ascertain the most depressing general state of things. So far he’s winning since I went into his room and spied the unplugged television set and semi-assembled lamp lying amongst the heaps of clothes on his floor. Not to be completely outdone, I’m biting at his heels with gross and old fast food cups and empty cans of Gatorade/Powerade/green tea sitting around my computer. It should also be noted that I have an empty bottle of Rolling Rock beer sitting on top of the tank of the toilet in my bathroom. Although I’m not responsible, I will use for my own personal gain in this competition.

A depressing room contest is kind of like my final pointlessly upsetting thing that I do towards my mother before I move out of the house. As soon as I’m out of here, she’ll be so busy laughing in loving approval that she won’t have time to clean this abandoned room for work space for at least a little bit. And that’s something.

So this basically marks the end; the end of a summer of minimal communication with just about everyone and everything. Come on. I probably didn’t answer at least four of your calls this summer. Yes, you. Seriously, come on now. Raise your hand if you were bailed out on by yours truly over the course of this summer. My dad falls into that category a lot, so you’re in great company. I’ll be the first to say it: It’s been a summer of many trials and tribulations for us all. And now I’m just fucking bored. I need to get out of here, quick.

Living with these kids is going to be unreal. I don’t receive idle threats of having my room polluted with gay porn, but I already do in my home to be. Hey -- When life gives you lemons…

2005-08-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

I love to turn out being wrong.

2005-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Reality sets in pretty quickly.

This is another one of those; those posts that apply to no one but the new class of incoming college freshmen. I read plenty of these posts last year and didn’t quite get my finger around the legitimate fear behind the words. You don’t really feel it till you’re here, at least in my case. It’s scary to leave. It’s scary to actually be starting something so new, so big. It’s scary to really be doing things for myself in a matter of days.

The thing about this kind of fear is that you know it’s going to be good. I’ll change a lot within these coming years, and it’ll be awkward to come back to these words I’m writing now and know to what extent that shapes out to be. I’m anticipating all the things headed my way. More than anything else, I want to get a start in the ASU comedy scene. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but this isn’t the one factor that intimidates as opposed to starting classes or anything else to do with the University. The kids already involved with the sketch comedy and improv are extremely talented, and leave me humbled, but I know that this type of thing is what I was probably supposed to end up with. I take to it so much, there really isn’t much of a choice. I’ve learned though that when trying to join the ranks of the people you considerably have respect for, you need to shut up about how much you look up to anyone and just make a name for yourself. Naturally, their talent will hopefully just rub off on you if you’re all just focused on being funny. The old improv with Rebels really showed me that.

I have nothing real to say at a time like this. Summer dies a little more every day, and it’s not something that I particularly feel a loss over. I feel like every cliché holds a little weight with me right now, which is ridiculous considering I have the worst time taking anything or anyone seriously. Come August 18, I won’t be an Ahwatukee kid any longer. I will definitely chronicle whatever transpires in room 229 in Palo Verde East and otherwise just to keep you in the loop. It’s going to be good.

2005-07-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

For more or less, it’s the end of an era.

To make a long and ugly story short and general, when people have a conflict and both parties can’t be adults about it, bridges get burned in the process. It’s big news that both Matt and Jack have been ‘evicted’ from their place in Tempe to a handful of us, considering that most of our nights are spent utilizing the house and it’s sheer convenience. Alas, no more. No more.

It’s a shame, and about to feel like high school for the next month or so. Remembering the days of driving around in Matt’s rickety truck and going stealth mode anytime we decided to take it upon ourselves to get weed just makes me feel older now that it’s happening again so long after we came out of that. So it goes. I think it goes without saying now though that this move is easily for the best. To not have to deal with the bullshit anymore is worth the trouble now. This is pretty temporary and slightly awkward set of circumstances since it was so abrupt, but hey. We’re grown-ups.

2005-07-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

EMPLOYEE COUNSELING FORM
Fry’s & Fry’s Marketplace

Employee: Tyler Thursby
Employee Number: 543358309
Date Submitted: 7/22/06

Summarize This Incident: Tyler, on 7/20/05 you redeemed a CoinStar for $48.00 and threw away the voucher. This results in a loss of $48.00 to the store and is considered poor job performance.

What this means to you: Pretty much nothing. You dick.
What this means to me: Any more fuck-ups within the next 90 days will result in job termination.
What this means to the American economy: This is definitely not good news for you, old friend.

Pardon, but that's just pretty fucking ridiculous, grocery store. C'mon, Fry's. I'm here to do your bidding. I'm earning your dollar. By the third day you expect me to not short the store on some money? Sure. We can WISH. We can HOPE. But I don't deliver positive qualities until you really get to know me as a person. What do I like to do? What are my interests? Well, pictures say a lot.

You know, you're boring anyway.

I don't know about you, but my world definitely looks better with ritzy sunglasses.