Andrew Jackson Jihad

I just realized now that I haven't done a post in four days, and I just wonder where all the time went. I guess I've just been so busy at school that I haven't really had the time to do anything else at this point. Yesterday, which was first Friday, was one of my only times to relax this week. On top of that, mono has been going around our school, and I've been feeling pretty crappy. But on the other hand, this week I did an interview, and I'm also setting a couple more of them up.

I want to start off today by talking about a band. They're an amazing local band called Andrew Jackson Jihad. They're a two man band made up of Sean Bonnette, who is the lead singer and guitarist, and Ben Gallaty, who plays the upright bass. It was actually Rachel who got me interested in them, so much so that I decided to Facebook Mr. Bonnette himself. To my surprise he replied almost instantly, and I sent him a message about an interview. He agreed, and I sent my questions in. Since there are a lot of them (18 to be exact), I don't expect him to reply for a couple of days, maybe even a week at this point. I'm just excited to have had the opportunity to interview this guy. His music is very unique, incorporating Anti-Folk and Punk. I can talk about it all I want, but if you want to listen to, I can post a couple of links as well as an Amazon thing. They have a few albums out, but my absolute favorite one is People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World, followed by, Can't Maintain. Trust me, they're worth the money.

Another thing I wanted to talk about today was this episode of True Life that I saw on MTV. Ironically enough, it was about stuttering. I had no idea that they had even produced an episode about stuttering, but my mom sent me the link after she had heard about it and watched it on the MTV website. Basically, the episode follows three people who have a stutter. Tim from West Virginia who can't afford to pay his rent because his stutter prevents him from getting  a good job. Caryn, a 20 year old college student who has hidden her stutter from her family and friends for her whole life, but is tired of keeping it a secret, and finally, Jessica, a 20 year old beauty pageant connoisseur from Buffalo, NY. The episode was really intriguing and truthful about stuttering, and I felt like I could really relate to it, seeing what the three of them went through. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to post a link for it. It's 37 minutes long, so be sure to make some time for it. I'm also definitely not saying you have to watch it, but I suggest you do.

http://www.mtv.com/videos/true-life-i-stutter/1574617/playlist.jhtml

I want to end the night with my first Friday story. When our little group was walking around on the outskirts of the first Friday zone, we saw this meth house, or drop house. We must have gotten there at the exact right time, because we saw these two meth heads walk in with crutches and a paper bag. I was pretty freaked out by it, I must admit. On the side of the house, by the gate, was spray painted "Keep out keep your life!" The ironic thing is that my friend Nikki also saw something similar, and posted it on her site, http://www.notforpublicuse.tumblr.com/, so you can check that out too if you want. Fast forward to about 10:00 PM, and my mom and I had just dropped off Lizz at the lightrail station. My mom decided to have a Good Samaritan change of heart and wanted to take Lizz to where she was staying, Piera's house. Piera lives in Tempe. That's about a 20 minute drive from where we were. We proceeded to pick her up, while I jumped out of the car, and Lizz and I chased after her around the block, getting stares from everyone around us. When we finally were able to catch up with the car, we hopped in and started driving. The drive itself wasn't very exciting, but when we got to Piera's house, Piera ran out, and we helped Lizz bring her stuff in. To my surprise, Willow was also sleeping over, and she was knocked out on Piera's bed. Piera woke her up, she jumped, and looked around, almost like she was trying to remember where she was. She saw me, and her eyes got all wide. She said "Jjjooooooeeeyyyyy" and got up from the bed and gave me a hug. While Lizz was getting all her stuff out and getting ready with Piera, Willow just looked around the room not quite sure what to do with herself. She was sick with mono I think it was, so she had just taken a few painkillers. After about a minute, all she could say was, "Hey guys, look, Joey's here!"