my life in the universe

Pura Vida

2009-02-20T23:44:00.003-05:00

I am very happy! I just got back from Costa Rica with Lauren and it was sucha blast. It was really the perfect time to get away. I cant say I've missed the cold weather... at all. Coming back to a dingy, freezing airport in Newark is a decent reason to just get back on a plane and stay in costa rica for a bit longer.

The people were really amazing, I always felt safe and the food was wonderful. We stayed away from all the tourist traps and refused to eat tuna sandwiches or pizza. Our Valentines dinner was absolutely unbelievable and going to the Eco Termales hot springs was like a fantasy come true.

I'm so glad we didnt do the whole resort thing and just rot around by a pool. We really explored the whole country and renting a car was such a good idea. We were able to let the country soak into us.

All together I am really happy with how everything is going. I love all of the people who are in my life now, everyone who isnt... c'est la vie.

need 2 know

2008-06-08T22:35:00.002-04:00

i think ive been scared of my journal for a while. dont ask why because i really couldnt answer.. i feel like ive been frozen moving through time if that can possibly make any sense to anyone.

i will tell a story.
a while ago my friends mother (who is a teacher) told me that a lot of her students are AFS fans... im like "wow, thats awesome..." then she proposes something so wacky to me. she asks if i would come in and speak to all of the 8th graders about what i do... to which i replied, "what do I do?". haha. i had to push back the date because of us going to the UK, so when it got scheduled it was only ME. No other speakers, it was going to be me speaking to the entire 8th grade, not to mention they were allowing these kids to skip one of their periods on my behalf. I figured the least i could do was get these kids a free period. I cant imagine i wouldve been if ANYONE came and i had an excuse to not go to History.

It went so well... i dont really get nervous before i go on stage that much anymore, which is a different story, but this stuff....wowzas was i nervous. i definitely dont speak in front of 250 kids by myself on a regular basis. I have to give myself a little pat on the back because i was more entertaining than i thought i could be. I had an amazing time and the kids and teachers were telling me that they really enjoyed it, i was blushing.

Right now we are home and i am learning! To be exact, im in real estate school Mondays-Thursdays. in a weird way i like having the regiment of just having something to do basically. i get up at like 7:15, can you believe it???

i just ate a chocolate bar with Goji berries and pink Himalayan salt. people make weird shit nowadays, but i eat it. thats me. i am also addicted to Wii Tennis. Does anyone have Mario Kart? Everyone is telling me to get it.

Lauren and i have been working on her room a lot. I actually still have primer all over my hands and nails that wont come off, i feel like a bum.
back to studying/guitar playing/NBA watching. comment me , maybe... :)

Moebius strip

2008-04-25T02:37:00.001-04:00

New Jersey Cowboys

2008-04-12T14:46:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the lack of blogging, I've felt somewhat uninspired lately.... don't know why. Right now we are on tour with one of my favorite bands of all time, Saves The Day. I've been a longtime fan and suporter of the band and being on tour and playing right before them is a HUGE honor. I watch their set pretty much every night and getting to know the guys, espeically Dave and Chris is a pretty amazing bonus.

We had some time of after the Saosin tour and we re-grouped and drew up a plan of what we will be doing for the next 6 months or so... we realized that putting out our new record sooooo long after WTD came out wasn't good planning at all (not that we planned to do that really). So, expect a new record sooner than you think.....

Also, we confirmed Projekt Revolution this summer. I'm a huge Chris Cornell fan and am hoping he will be accesible. Who knows, maybe we will become lunch buddies..... probbaly not. Haha. The roadie for a day contest has been going so well, it was such a good idea that Warner (Haley) had.

Right now we are in Oklahoma City, currently eating very poor Mexican food with Lauren, yuck! One more place I can't rely on good food, haha.

Very excited for the UK by the way. I was planning on doing a little personal stop in Dublin beforehand with Lauren buttttt looks like it might not be happening which is a slight bummer.

A few days ago when we were in Austin, we realized the The Mars Volta were playing a show the same night as us 2 blocks away!!!! We pulled some strings and got in. We had amazing balcony seats overlooking the stage and watched the mind-blowing show. I loved when Cedric was doing a fish flop on stage and when he took off his shoe and pretended it was a cell phone. Omar is a god amongst men.

i want my MTV(.com)

2008-03-08T00:16:00.002-05:00

Not to brag or anything but my face is kinda on the cover of mtv.com. go check it out......!!!@#$%

Ive been home for a little while now and its FUN. im working with my mom a little bit, she's a real estate agent in NJ. i may have mentioned that a few posts ago. Lauren and i started watching Nip/Tuck. its way crazier that i thought. thats all for now. ily all.

from LAX to JFK

2008-03-02T17:32:00.003-05:00

Hey there!
Well we just got back from LA where we were on a little trip doing some fun, productive and weird little thingies. A lot of good times... We were staying in Universal City at the Hilton.
Very nice hotel , kinda far away from a lot of things though. The first two days were really overcast and rainy and it was a bummer, we had those 2 days free but couldnt really do too much. Anthony and i went to dinner one night at the Universal City Walk. we overheard people talking about a concert, a HEART
concert to be exact. We find out exactly where the Gibson Amphitheatre is and proceed to walk there. We go to see how much tickets are but nobody is there, so we walk in like we own the place and find 2 seats and watch us a little Heart, haha. If you dont know them you should check out "These Dreams" & "What About Love".

We also did a bynch of acoustic shows... one of which was for Fuel TV. Hopefully that will be up soon. One of the coolest things we did was performing at the legendary KROQ LA. Those videos will also be up very shortly. We also got to visit the amazing Hurley. They are some of the coolest people in the world and truly a great company. Check THIS out for more info on that trip.

Some of our good friends in The Academy Is... were also in LA writing their new record so we got to see some of them at the ever popular Monday night hangout on sunset called Metal Skool . I highly suggest it if you are in LA on a monday night. It wont dissapoint.

We went to the Warner Headquarters in Burbank and did lotsa stuff one day too. We signed a bunch of new posters, stickers, album covers, etc that will head out to street teamers. We also had a merchandising meeting where we talked about all of our new merch and making some cool things in the future. I dont know if i should be saying this... but i dont really care. I will tel you that we will son have pillowcases for sale. Yes, you will be able to get a good nights sleep with your favorite band. PS-they look awesome.

this trip made me like LA a lot more. butt im glad to be home now. we have like 3 weeks off kinda.. not including an acoustic show in NJ this week and possible another show or 2 in the area. one might be secret! buh-bye

Valentines Day Picture Blog

2008-02-27T20:49:00.001-05:00

so for those of you who weren't able to be there... heres a few little piccies of the cupcakes from the cupcake party we had and some piccies of how i decorated my guitar for the occasion. luv rulz

SLC punx

2008-02-11T19:27:00.000-05:00

This past week or so has been lots of fun, we have been keeping busy.

About... eh.... something like 1.5 yrs ago I made a surprise trip home during a tour to see Lauren. There was a lot of lying involved, of which i am not too proud, but the job got done and when she saw me at her door she couldnt help but cry. Yea, im that good.
So a few days ago i was in Minnesota and i get her usual texts... im at work, blah blah blah. ha. Then next thing i know she is walking in the bus door!! She got me back! She stayed for about 4 days which included Iowa, Lawrence, Kansas and Denver. Lotsa fun

We also encountered a pretty large snow storm on our day off last week in Schaumburg, IL. It made for some restless fun, which will be detailed in our Webisode thingy coming out today or something i dont know. Picture of this above. Speaking of pictures, ill give a little narration. Some of the pictures are of us doing a radio thing where Ben and i played some acoustic songs. One very special one is of me wearing the Giants Super Bowl Champion hat. Hell no i didnt buy it that thing is like $30.

In the past 2 days i have seen 2 movies about treasure and it wasnt planned. Yesterday Lauren and I saw Fools Gold. A great adventure flick. Today i went to see National Treasure by myself. I know they were both mindless thrill rides so i feel like i need to see a really good cerebral film... maybe foreign. Maybe i need to re-watch Y Tu Mama Tambien

-http://www.amazon.com/Mama-Tambien-Ana-L%C3%B3pez-Mercado/dp/B00005JL57/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1202777232&sr=8-1
Check out the link above.
Today we're off in Salt lake City and i think some of us are about to get some delicious Italian food, so now i am off!

Vermont

2008-02-01T00:15:00.000-05:00

Is definitely one of the best states in America, I want to live here when I'm older. Can someone please buy me a house here, pleez? My mom always talks about spending Christmas in a log cabin and we never have. There's a house with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 acres, etc only $235,000. In NJ that same house would be like $900,000. Yea, that's craziness. Comment if you've ever been to Vermont or want to. Loooove
-pj

what time zone am I in?

2008-01-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

So Ben and I have started doing some radio thingies because of Hole The Door. Yesterday we went to The Point 105.7 in St Louis. We got to the station and had to use 2 guitars that our radio guy Bob got for us at Guitar Center. Yes....... we dont own acoustic guitars. Actually. ben has one but it sucks. So anyway we show up, radio station guy tells us we have time and all this stuff. then he tells us that we will be on air LIVE in 8 minutes. Our guitars arent tuned at all... we're both pretty nervous because its our first LIVE acoustic performance. Luckily, it was all good and we were in tune with each other, played well and ben sang well. I realllly reallly wish i had taken my camera to this and im a complete idiot for not BUT im sure if you go to http://www.kpnt.com/ they will have it up fairly soon.

Im pretty excited because tomorrow is a day off and usually we just go to some random hotel in some random, odd city that you've probably never heard of. Tomorrow we're going to KROCK new york to do something. I actually dont know whether we're playing or doing an interview or just meeting the staff there. I will, however, take pictures there. Then post them on here. to make everyone happy i hope. Its also amazing because originally we werent planning on going to NYC but since we are i get to see Lauren and go home and relax so its a welcomed change.

This week we were asked to record a theme song for a WWE wrestler. The catch was that the song was already written, lyrics and music. They didnt have any melodies though so we wouldve had to fit them in. The song was very not us! and the lyrics were even less us. I guess its kind of a big deal because its such a huge thing, but i think it would've come off all wrong for us. So.. dont think its gonna happen. There go my dreams of maybe attending wrestlemania 08!!

evergreen marsh

2008-01-23T16:18:00.000-05:00

back in texas. we're in Lubbock right now. never been here before. i woke up and went inside to brush my teeth. usually when i do this im in a weird, empty club and no one else is around. this time i had to use what is a restaurant bathroom. needless to say when i was brushing my teeth in there and patrons are coming in and out i felt slightly homeless.

yesterday was a really odd day for me. RARELY do i ever feel sick or weird or whatever. but yesterday on stage i felt like i was a leaf in the wind. i think its because i havent been eating enough (which lauren pointed out) and also ive been working out on tour for basically the first time. so basically i was a recluse the whole day because i was not in any sort of social mood. all this means is that i was in my bunk watching like 6 episodes of LOST. season 3, im re-watching to prepare for season 4 which starts in like a week.

also the two pictures included are fresh from this morning. one is of my actually writing this and one is a candid of ben and Brian (tour manager/sound guy). enjoy!

what about heath ledger? can you guys believe that? he was so young and was coming off of what was to be a HUGE role for him. if you didnt know he is going to be the Joker in the new Batman Movie called "The Dark Knight". From what I've heard it doesnt seem like there was foul play, but who knows what they will discover.

i havent really wanted to say anything about this so far because i dont want to jinx us, BUT in the past few weeks we have been added to a lot of really big radio stations. just to name a few..... seattle, san francisco (live 105- we were #1 last night), san diego, LA (kroq), boston, phoenix, kansas city, detroit, and springfield. WOW that is literally insane.

ps- this game has taken over the bus its called BOGGLE and you should play...
http://weboggle.shackworks.com/

check this out

2008-01-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

http://armorforsleep.imeem.com/blogs/2008/01/19/iM9ZY1Iw/missouri_is_for_bloggers

hey, I'm kent

2008-01-15T14:33:00.000-05:00

First day. Baltimore.
Show was awesome, surprisingly good, I must say. One of the highlights of the night was.....
Ill set the scene first: me, brian, anthony, ben, and brad (merch) are sitting in the front lounge. We're beginning to watch the Reno 911 movie (which comes highly reccommended by anthony). All of the sudden someone comes onto the bus and sits next to me. Everyone gives each other "the look". No one knows this dude..... Brian (tour manager) asks the dude his name, he replies "hey, I'm kent". To which we reply. Get the fuck OFF OF THE BUS!
It might sound kind of mean, but imagine if a complete stranger opened your door and sat down in your living room.

Also, mad props to the mom who came and cooked homemade manicotti and garlic bread. Ok day 2. Tomorrow. Greenboro, NC. See ya there

Enero- thoughts

2008-01-10T18:42:00.000-05:00

oh man ive been rotting too much and watching toomuch HGTV. its ok though cuz it gives me lots of time to practice guitar...inbetween TV and the internet. damn that internet.

so ive been reading book which is an autobiography of Ron Wood. Hes the other (besides keith Richards) guitar player in the Rolling Stones. He has lived an insane life and is still going. I keep thinking in my head of ways to adapt the things he did in his life to this day and age. Man, its insane. Things dont work like they used to. If you are a fan of rock 'n roll music i suggest you pick it up. its simply called "Ronnie"

i was supposed to go visit Fenn a few days ago, but it turned out that i couldnt because his mommy, leah wasnt feeling too well. I did get to spend a nice day in the city with lauren though. Anthony and i did a video interview for MSGtv. Its like a tri-state area sports channel. yea... weird, right? Well anthony was the mastermind behind it because of his rabid attachment to the NY Rangers.

Lauren and I were hanging out at the Union Square starbucks and needed to kill some time so we decided to hop over to Williamsburg (yes i did go to williamsburg). Its much quieter there and there is quite a lot to do on bedford ave. A nice way to spend a lil time.

The band has been practicing for the upcoming headlining shows/ tour with Saosin... as well as working what will be the next album. Our lips will be sealed for a long time to come, but let me just say it is our most ambitious idea/album/whatever to date. We will have a well rounded set, most likely playing your favorite song. unless of course your favorite song is kind of perfect.

who does everyone want to be their next president? hilary? obama? mccain? DeCicco?

pictures spanning some of the year

2007-12-30T17:16:00.000-05:00

first holiday show

2007-12-27T13:08:00.000-05:00

So its the day of the philly show and right now, me, anthony, our tour manager brian, guitar tech ryan and holiday merch show guy kyle sit on a shoulder of I-95 15 minutes outside of philly.

Not fun

we rented a van from a band that one of our friends knew because we sold our van a few months back because we don't use it. One of the trailer tires blew the hell up and its 3 o'clock, we should've been there 2 hours ago. Nash and ben are there because they drove seperately.

This gets kind of funny. We called Valencia and asked if they could come in their van and pick us up so we could get our gear to the show. Their tech came and got us quickly which is awesome, the only thing is .... he doest have trailer keys. So we have all of our gear out on the shoulder, a trailer and no way to get into it. So as of right now we're waiting for some other dude to come with the key to open up the heavely trailer which will hopefully get us there in time to soundcheck and save the show. Bye for now. I'm doing a good job of not being pessimistic and grouchy because of this.

Ps- I hope santa brought everything you wanted for x-mas!

the standard

2007-12-22T11:40:00.000-05:00

So we are on our way to burbank airport now... left our home away from home (when making videos) the standard in downtown LA.
It was a lot of fun and I can't say it was half bad getting to be in a warmer climate for a few days.

HIGHLIGHTS

- temperatures from 60-65 instead of 25-30.
-seeing JC from Nsync at the 101 cafe. (He was eating by himself)
- least amount of time we've ever had to shoot the band performance sequence (truth about heaven was the longest by far)
- the rooftop at the standard and the weird water bed things
- out of all the wardrobe, I got to keep my pants and shirt... which is ok. Ill be getting the belt soon.

Pictures of this to come too.

happy belated BLOG

2007-12-15T01:02:00.000-05:00

oh my goodness. im so bad. i've been putting this off for some reason.
lets run through some things that have happened in the last month, shall we.

-tour ended. last show in chicago was awesome. TAI filmed their live DVD there. I miss all of them a lot. Cobra too.

-lauren and i have been trying to plan a european trip for march. theres talk of the band going to the UK again so what we'd like to do is when the tour is over she will come meet me in london and we will go to a few places. i have family in budapest, frankfurt and dublin. so we will save money on some accomodations.

-i threw lauren a birthday bash like 2 wks ago and it was SUCCESS! a lot of ppl got to check out my new place for the first time and i bought way too much tequila (the party had a mexican theme). pictures to come of this event soon.

-we are filming a new video for "hold the door" next week. to be honest i didnt like the treatment at all. ben was very very into it and i feel like i had a breakdown because i want to make an amazing video and this song is supposed to be our big song off of this record and i want it to get an all-around fair shot. in the end, things were tweaked and i feel a little better about it. i want our band to stand out, i dont want to slip through the cracks.

-on the last week of the tour i got another strat! i love it. i got it in cincinnati at an amazing guitar shop next to bogarts. i have since become completely obsessed with fender guitars, specifically the strat. im trying to become an exclusive Fender artist... its in the works so seriously wish me luck.

-ive been growing a beard for a while. its the longest ive ever had i think. its starting to itch. i originally didnt want to shave until our holiday shows but its getting kind of uncomfortable. how did ZZ top do it??

PS- do you like this guitar? http://www.fender.com/products//search.php?partno=0255800550

not gonna lie. i want one in my arsenal.

gonna write more things that i forgot about in just a few days. ily.

mexican ice thanksgiving

2007-11-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

so as most of you have heard, we had a bit of an accident the other night. basically our trailer came apart from our bus and our gear went flying every which way. it sucked. we lost a bunch of stuff, we're all fine.i know some of you were wondering if my new strat made it, and it did. without a scratch.

today we are in Michigan playing at a college. its been surprisingly warm the last few days. especially when we were in Columbus on our day off and it was t-shirt weather. the tour is so close to over i cant believe it. i think there are 10 shows left, we've already played something like 65 shows on this tour. going home is a bit scary because when im on tour i dont have responsibilities and when im home i have to drive and go here and there, etc.

im really looking forward to laurens b-day party im throwing at my house. gonna be lotsa fun. its gonna be a mexican themed party lots of good food, margaritas, fun people, etc.
we got to go ice skating today on a hockey rink. i cant really skate at all so i was more like ice running, but i scored a few goals. i really need to think about things before i write a blog. next one will be better.

pS- ninja warrior is the best show ever

i must admit, record, halloween, so much

2007-11-02T23:36:00.000-04:00

i know in an earlier post i said that i hated Halo 3.... well my feelings have changed. yes, i have gone to the dork side.

halloween was so amazing. we were pirates (pictures coming soon?). people said they couldnt even tell it was us, we like being in costume. OH CRAP. I ALMOST FORGOT..#$%^&*()(*&^*^R&%RYTFHGCVGVNB
our record came out a few days ago!!! i havent posted for a few days and i always forget what has happened in that stretch of time. i really hope everyone likes it.
today we are playing a show in UCONN. we thought it was going to be lousy, i dont know exactly why we thought this. it was, in fact, quite the contrary and i would venture to say it was one of the more fun shows on the tour. i think when we have a big stage and lots of room to roam we do a lot better. i think crowds like seeing people go to and fro dashing across the stage and whatnot.

does anyone watch our shozu stuff? its kinda funny. i love candles. i really want the new sidekick does anyone have it? Lauren is really smart, i miss her and her cooking. its getting too cold out, i have to wear a sweater and a jacket now. being on TRL was extremely weird and fun. im sorry if you hate us for being on it, i dont get how that happens.

turned upside down world

2007-10-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

so last night was definitely one of the weirdest nights i can remember. ill try to set the scene....

all of us are at a bar kinda place watching the world series on a really huge screen (providence).
its lots of fun and as the night progresses more and more people from the tour are joining our little soiree. anthony goes out for a smoke and comes back and shows me his phone. .... on it is a text message from a girl we know in albany telling us that shes sorry to hear about one of our biggest fans who has apparently passed away in a car accident. once i read this i go outside and try to see what could possibly be going on. i start crying as i text ben and ask him for haleys number.

i call haley and she is pretty much in the same state im in, not so great at all. we are all devastated. i tell her to look into the surrounding hospitals and see if there is any information we can cling to. in the meantime, i check my myspace and see a message from this person that ive apprently never written back to. i click on her profile and read some of her information for the first time. it is basically mind blowing and so ironic and prolific in this situation.

fast forward about 1.5 hours

ben and i have been huddled around his bunk trying to pool our resources and make sense of whats going on.

at 1:30am i get a call from my mom (she never calls me this late). i see her number on my phone and automatically feel very weary. she tells me that she has just had a nightmare about me, i ask her what happened, she wont tell me what has happened in the dream. so this is also quite unsettling. as im on the phone with her i tell her that we think someone close to us has died and that i have to go.

within the next 5 minutes this person actually posts on bens myspace saying she is fine and this has basically been all from some idiot that was using someone elses myspace to start a hoax.

we are all sooo relieved yet so drained. its such a horrible feeling that someone has wasted your emotions on nothingness.

on a MUCH different and happier note, we are going to be on TRL tomorrow! sweet. bye

-pj

lets go on a living spree

2007-10-16T15:15:00.000-04:00

yes... im somewhat addicted to the new kanye west album. even though when i first heard, i didnt really like it at all. that always happens with me and records that end up being my favorites. i think i have a lot to write because i didnt write anything since before we went on the break from tour.

the last day before we all went home was in kansas city. apparently the clubs sound and lighting was going in and out which made for an interesting rocket summer show (they had no crowd PA). the show was good, blah blah blah. we have a friend who came to see us and told us that Saves The Day was playing in lawrence, Kansas which is about 40 mins away. Ben and i didnt care and opted to go see the show rather than say some goodbyes to our tourmates that we wouldnt see for another 9 days. the show was so worth it, it made me realize why i love music so much. its prettty shitty, but its especially easy to lose sight of that when youre in a touring band.
their set was pretty magical and ben and i were right beside them on the side of the stage (see picture for full perspective) and they kept talking to us inbetween songs like we were in someones living room back in NJ. its real weird for us because they were the band we looked up to as we were coming up the ranks. and here they are.......conversing with us as if we're equals.

so the next morning it was on a plane and back to NJ. so nice to be home, but when you know youre leaving in like a week to do everything all over again, its puts you in an odd headspace. lauren and i had an amazing time at the wedding of our good good friends shawn and mary. i was nervous because i was in the wedding and didnt want to do anything wrong. it was funny though because i had to walk up to the alter and stand beside them as they got married. when i was sitting down i figured i had a minute so i should check if my shoes were tied, i realized my right shoe was not and began to starting tying it. as i started, we were called up so i was on the alter with them with my laces flopping all over the place. whatevs no one noticed.
lauren and i did something we really wanted to do too which is go to this amazing ice cream place near where i live called cliff that have like seasonal handmade ice creams...... pumpkin, apple crumb pie, cinnamon and something else. you get the idea, very autumn-esque. it did not let us down.
something else i gotta say... we recently just kind of got sponsored or someting by taco bell.. i dont really know why but they sent us like $500 worth of coupons. the best part about it is that you actually get MONEY BACK from them. so lets say you go in there order some tacos/burritos whatever.... your bill comes out to $5.25, you give them two five dollar coupons and they give you back $4.75. yea its INSANE. they pay you basically.
so now i sit here in orlando back on the bus and wonder... where did my time at home go. the good things about it are.....

1- i play in NY/NJ on oct 25/26. so ill be seeing lauren in like 8 days, which is our anniversary actually!!!!!!
2- my parents came to florida to visit my uncle so theyre going to beat the show today.
3- its nice seeing everyone from the tour again after having a break, its like coming back to school after summer vacation, except i dont write papers or study or listen to boring teachers. i play guitar. ok

Us onTour

2007-10-11T00:57:00.001-04:00

i wish i could say "y'all" more

2007-10-06T03:04:00.000-04:00

something kinda crazy happened in memphis. our guitar tech and all around good dude, franny "lost" his phone. he said he put it down for a second when he was putting our gear on stage and it was gone. anyway, i hear about this after the show is over and me , tone and our drum tech mikey go looking for it. i figure if we call it and walk around enough, we'll hear it vibrating. anyway, i keep calling it and mikey hears it in the GARBAGE. yea thats what you do when you steal something and wanna get it at a later time. it was pretty shitty, but i was really psyched that we eventually found it cuz franny was pretty bummed.

besides that... last night was new orleans and my first experience on bourbon street. i bought a voodoo doll (picture included in blog) and a indonesian bone necklace at some crazy voodoo shop earlier in the day. the voodoo doll hangs in my bunk and protects me/ scares the shit out of me at the same time. at night we all hung out pretty hard and it was a pretty fun time overall. beale street doesnt compare...sorry memphians....?

sometimes i just think about what my life is and how bizarre it would be to 99.9% of people in the world. i try to never take it for granted and im usually one of the first people out of the bus and ready to explore a new city. i just like knowing that even if all of this ended tomorrow, i would have all of these memories, mementos and really good stories.

texas 07

2007-10-02T18:15:00.000-04:00

i get to go home in like 5 days!!! for over a week lola and i have lotsa plans. sweet. texas has been fun even though i wish the day off in austin wouldve been a little more fun. maybe cuz it was monday??!!

last night was ok though. a lot of ppl from the tour got together and i schooled them in shuffleboard. damn.

yankees are in the playoffs and we are all really psyched.

anyone else really looking forward to halloween? the band is trying to think of something really good to be. anyone have any ideas?

ps.i hate halo 3, actually halo in general.

VIVA...

2007-09-24T17:58:00.000-04:00

LAS VEGAS.
vegas is pretty cool for about 24 hours. im really trying not to gamble cuz i dont got the money to waste. im doing really good. will power ya know. were at the palms all day today. nice, but small. im about to brush my teeth, its almost 3pm. didnt go to sleep til about 5am last night, which is like 3 hrs later than normal for me.

lauren left last night. sucks, but ill be home in like 2 wks, so the pain is eased slightly becasue of that.

my friend shawn is getting married during my break which i think ive mentioned before. i have to miss the bachelor party which kinda blows.

tour is going really well, we have basically a whole new crew. we didnt fire anybody, were not mean or anything it just happened that way.

weve had a few listening parties on our bus and theyve gone really well. all the kids have been really amped to hear some of the new tunes and i kinda wish bands that i loved back in the day wouldve done things like that. i guess it goes hand in hand with the internet revolution.

ok i still have to brush my teeth.

if uve never seen it before you should watch TAI TV (the academy is.com) and see this weeks episode because its funny and it shows our bus. sweet. bye

californ-yaaaaaaa

2007-09-20T03:30:00.000-04:00

well im here in california. its nice. except for the street we are currently parked on in san fran. its where crackheads die and go to crackhead heaven. i know in the last blog i talked about bums so im gonna stop now. tonights show was the best of the tour, not gonna lie. the stage was a really good size, which makes us play a lot better i think. also, the kids were going crazy. then we went out with our girl haley who is amazing and i wish all ppl in the record industry were like her.

tomorrow is LA which means lots of bigwigs... and all the cooool cool cool people. BARF. although i did hear that tom from myspace is gonna be there. pretty pumped on that i gotta say. weve been getting some pretty good news about our record concerning some things that we are getting for the push.

enough about my stupid band. life is good and lauren will be here on friday night. the only bad thing about that is that everyone elses Gf will be here already. i get sad and tend to like distance myself from everyone else just cuz its depressing for me when everyones on "girlfriend patrol". thats what we call it. haha.

1st & Pike

2007-09-17T06:11:00.000-04:00

portland was cool and seattle was the best show we've ever played here so far. i walked around a lot today. woke up early to see the Giants lose to the packers. it was fun, mad ppl were into it. i bought the feist record and listened to that while i roamed around downtown seattle. so many bums... i seriously probably saw like 300 homeless ppl today. what else..... im watching eddie murphy RAW right now and its ridiculously funny. im italiam and he does a dead on italian impression.

day off tomorrow in portland at the pretty famous jupiter hotel. its like THE band hotel in america. i think we've been there once, but im really looking forward to it.
i think my next post is going to contain some tour pictures. i need to take a lot more.

seeing lola very soon, cant wait :) :) :) xoxoxo

whoa whoa (1,2,3,4)

2007-09-15T15:10:00.001-04:00

in portland now. i never get my computer out when im on tour. i like walking around cities in the afternoon and blending in with all the people, i wonder if they know that im not a native. went into a few awesome stores today (west elm, diesel, whole foods, local coffee shops). today is an early show, doors at 1, we play at like 330. thats too early to rock.

btw, ive been using my new strat for every song in our set. its so much fun to play. it has the best balance and sound. last night our guitar tech franny cracked my back while i was laying down on the bus floor. it was a really odd sensation but ive been in need of getting those cracks out of my back for like a week or so. also, ben was filiming something with our band phone from Warner and Anthony didnt want ben filming so a fight ensued but it was a playful one. i think at one point nash had tone in a sleeper hold.

my girlfriend doesnt rememeber things she tells me at 4:30am and when i wake up with no calls i get sad. i wish i was at the Rutgers game today.

first day back to school

2007-09-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

we just got off stage in milwaukee. it was such a build up, buying lotsa new stuff, figuring it all out, practicing for a few weeks. then we get dumped on stage in milwaukee (all very nervous) and then 45minutes later, its over. so weird. i think it was a good first show, we definitely werent 100% and we realized we were playing too many new songs and in general it was a learning experience to see what works and what doesnt.

besides that i basically miss lauren every second. more blogs more frequently i promise.

i would be the sunlight in your universe

2007-08-27T00:22:00.000-04:00

i hate falling behind on this thing. not like a lot of ppl read it or anything, but i feel like im letting myself down if i dont re-cap and think out loud on here. what i was saying in the older post that got deleted by some blog hating internet pirates was that lauren and i have been eating a lot of raw foods lately. raw food diets basically include any foods that have not been cooked or processed. i suggest going to www.rawguru.com ok thats the jist of that... lots of other things too but now my mind has been flooded with new more recent happeneings.

just went to the jersey shore with my fam. it was a nice end of the summer getaway save for the fact that it was raining for like 72 hours. i also went to my first racetrack in monmouth. not as much fun as gambling in vegas. i was just picking the horses with the best names or one that magically kinda sorta meant something to me. didnt win. not a single penny. so that was fun, lauren was there my 2 brothers and their fiances. the rents, etc.

i think we're supposed to be filming a video before we leave, which is sep 3, but as of this minute nothing is known about what song, where this will take place, and who wil be directing it. that makes me very anxious and kind of nervous. you HAVE to shoot a video before your record comes out!

lauren starts her first day as a full time employee of her gallery tomorrow. im so proud of her.

i have so many things to do this week, it gives me a headache thinking about them. i hope to do as many as i can tomorrow. i have to get fitted for a tuxedo for my friend shawns wedding. im excited because i get to wear a paisley vest.... as some of you know. i love paisley :)

my mom gets a new car tomorrow because hers got totalled (shes fine) when my dad encountered a very large amount of rain water one day in newark. the car flooded. suxx

im just going to keep writing random things as they pop into my head. they will all be spaced out like they have been above with one full space in between thoughts.

what does everyone think about the world? environmentalism? politics? free speech? BUSH? season 4 of lost? you know the important things. im not one for being burning bushes but i think that our generation has a calling. i think we are really supposed to save the world.

practice makes (close to) perfect

2007-08-18T09:20:00.001-04:00

i just wrote a whole in depth post and when i tried to publish it i got an error which basically shattered my heart. once i recover i will post again

update

2007-08-07T17:52:00.000-04:00

so lastsunday we had a surprise party for my dad at a cafe in maplewood it was in the works for a few weeks. i didnt want to write about it in here because i think he might read this occasionally. not sure. haha. anyway it was a blast and im a good secret keeper! im going to put some pictures up from that as well as some pics of my place which ive been promising for a while and perhaps picks of me rockin out on that new strat of mine.

also, yesterday me, nash and tone did some craziness. we converted one side of his garage into our new practice space. we were really hard workers, and anthonys neighbors power saw didnt hurt either. we moved out of our old space in clifton because we drained it of creativity, it had just become a horrible black hole of ideas and frustration. this will hopefully shed some new light on us. we have our in-ears coming pretty soon which is a huge thing for us. were trying to become porfesional without losing our youth and passion onstage... ya know. kind of a compromise.i think thats one thing we always thought. in our eyes we are always treated as amateurs (did i spell that wrong?).

toinghts gonna be good. lola and i are going to watch Weeds, season 1 disc 1 which shouldve arrived at my house today via Netflix. how did ppl live w.out that. peace

topless

2007-08-03T21:37:00.000-04:00

just got back from the beach where lauren and i crashed for 1.5 days in a crowded shore house, which included like 8 girls under the age of 5 and 1 boy who was 1 week old (and liked to cry at 4am). it was lots of fun, nash and lauren were there. the highlight was probably me swimming w/out my shirt on 2 days in a row. as you may know i am very very pale and once in like 6th grade i refused to wear my shirt while swimming and the end result was an emergency room visit and multiple 2nd degree burns on my shoulder and chest. being that I am much older and wiser, I decided to take another chance. I should note the above mentioned burn happened at my town pool. so yea... ive never swam in the ocean bare-chested. I felt good because ive been working out lots and my "bod" was lookin prettttty good.

a few posts below, i talked about some guitars. i ended up getting a strat. its an american and its black and gold, bridge humbucker. u know whats up

chill it out, take it slow

2007-07-26T20:58:00.000-04:00

so for the last month or so ive been on a health kick kinda. I made a promise to myself that i would only have desserts on July 25th (my dads birthday) and sept 4th (the day before tour officially starts). which means no desserts from july 25- sept 4. crazy, right? so this means no cake, cookies, brownies, candies, hot chocolate, basically ANYTHING that could even be considered a sweet or dessert. ive also been working out about 5 times a week. twice a wk withmy brother who is an amazing personal trainer and running 3 times a week. so far ive lost 5 lbs in 2 weeks. i feel so much better and i think my skin looks better. A few days ago i ran 3.5 miles, i wanted to give up about 2.5 miles into it, but i pushed ridic hard and just told myself i couldnt stop until a certain point of Wyoming ave in Maplewood. pretty stoked because a 5K is only 3.1 miles. I would love to run one of those.

In addition to all of this, my brother is getting married on sept 1, I have 2 family reunions in August, and i think were filming a vid sometime in August.

Sometimes when im home i work with my mom who is a real estate agent, its a lot of fun actually. Its so much better than a 9-5. BTW, if anyone is reading this wants to buy or sell a house ANYWHERE, or knows anyone who is, let me know. seriously!!!!!!
to wrap up some of the last post, i think i bought a stratocaster. i told the dude i want it and he is holding it until i pay. sweet. lauren really likes it and thats a huge part of it for me, i know if she doesnt like the guitar, then its no good. haha
BY the way, hannah montana rules

Wating on the world

2007-07-22T01:11:00.001-04:00
Just wanted to say that i came across John Mayers blog on the internet (http://www.johnmayer.com/blog), and its so insightful, its really worth the read. He has a lot of important things to say. Im glad that his career went in the direction that it did.

Finally, ive been watching a lot of Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel. Im sorry, but its a really good show. I hope that pre-teen girls will look up to her and not someone like Paris Hilton.

Im buying a guitar this week, what should i get???

This City is Full of Hawks

2007-07-14T13:31:00.000-04:00
hmm whats been going on? i just watched an amazing movie ON THE WATERFRONT. i like old movies and when something this good is out there and i havent seen it, i feel kind of stupid. Nonetheless, i got it from Netflix and its a classic for a reason. its soo good. its like.... why dont people make good movies anymore. which also leads me to.. why dont ppl make good music anymore. In the old days you got to where you where because you were part of a small insanely talented population. Now, any Joe Blow makes a movie or album and it sounds decent because of technology which in turn makes everything sound the same. You dont know whats good anymore!! Because you cant tell!

Thats a long enough rant. Last night was fun, I went to see my friends Shawn & Marys new place. Its really amazing and im so happy for them. Also, one night Nash and I rotted at my place, watched a Bon Jovi acoustic show thing and YouTubed ppl covering our songs. It was quite amusing and actually very embarrassing and i shouldnt be writing about that. haha

Uncle PJ

2007-07-06T12:34:00.000-04:00
Found out yesterday my oldest brother is gonna have a baby. Uncle PJ in full effect '08.

pik-shur blog

2007-07-04T16:58:00.000-04:00

most pictures are of the engagement party, 1 is from austin so far.
P.S. lauren has wax in her hands.

more than meets the eye

2007-07-03T12:13:00.000-04:00
so im in austin now. we arrived yesterday at like noon. had some trouble getting our rental car because apparently my licsense expired like 3 days ago, which i was unaware of. two places saw this and denied me a car, then i went to AVIS. i was talking to her a lot to distract her, she never even noticed and i got a for focus y'alllzzzz.

Lauren and i went to the midnight showing of Transformers last night at one of the Alamo Draft Houses (http://www.drafthouse.com). These places are insane, def the coolest movie experience ive ever had. If i had the money i would really think of opening one up in NYC. The movie was sooooo long. Im sure they couldve cut out like 45 mins easily. It was interesting though. I was desperately trying to stay awake for the last 20 mins or so.

Now we're off to a place called Progress Coffee in East Austin. Supposed to be really good breakfast, even though i probably wont get there until noon. Its raining today which is kind of a bummer. Gonna call Robert Mann today and hopefully schedule some sort of 4th of July hang out sesh.

bittersweet

2007-06-29T00:20:00.000-04:00
So tuesday night was pretty fun and was a learning experience. i kinda said some things to people that they didnt need to know, felt real shitty about it, felt a little better about it, now feel somewhere in between about it. Either way, i got to stay in a realllllly nice hotel in the city. Angels & Kings was hoppin on a tuesday night, so awesome. I also saw Tyler Rann who i bump into occasionally. Its always good to see him and talk about man jewelry. I was in the city again today and walked into a furniture store and bought 2 chairs and an end table for my living room. I have to explain the table briefly, its a glass top table, but the stand for it is like drum hardware. I guess if you know what drum hardware looks like you can imagine it in your head. Only part that sucked was that i had to carry 2 chairs 6 blocks in the 94 degree heat to my car.
I got the routing for our tour with The Academy and its sooooo long. I was really happy to see that the days im playing NJ/NY happen to fall on my anniversary with Lauren. Basically the best coincidence ever. Hopefully somewhere in that tour we will play our first late night talk show. I only really wanna do Conan.... who knows.
Saturday is my brothers engagement party and its gonna be off the chain. Looking forward to grilled peaches with vanilla bean ice cream. Its gonna be a real outdoor ripper. Also, on monday Lauren and I leave for Austin. Ive heard its going to be quite stormy most of the time, im hoping for a few normal days.

oh, i cut my hair....

2007-06-22T01:41:00.000-04:00

we had our second practice today, which was also our second to last practice at our space. i think we drained every ounce of creativity out of that room after this record. now it just feels stifling and depressing. we're coming up with a lot of good ideas for our live show. im pretty excited because im going to start singing backups with anthony.i never felt confident enough to do it, but i do now. and its necessary so i just need to step up to the plate. we made our set for the maxwells show and it is all about jersey.
im pretty stoked because i finally remembered to take a guitar home today so i can actually play while im bored at home all day long. oh yea i saw 2 fox(es)? today. ive never seen one before like 2 days ago and then all of the sudden ive seen 4!!
just finished watching"good night and good luck". wow was that boring. cant wait to give that 1 star on my netflix rating. also cant wait to see lola tomorrow, and shawn and marys new apartment in madison on saturday. thats all for now.

Master (master, master)

2007-06-20T17:58:00.000-04:00
So i got the mastered CD, which to everyone else basically means the final CD, today from Ben. its soooooo goood. jesus christo! so yea we practiced a bunch of new songs for sunday and decided we're gonna move our practice space to anthonys garage. weeeee! were gonna be a garage band. its gonna be soo much better, we talked about how to fix it up and make it like a kewl practice space. maybe we'll have a show there one day for lucky ppl. i gotta go back to my car and finish listening to the album and th B-sides as well. later sk8r

proud parent

2007-06-19T14:36:00.000-04:00
So now is the time where things start happening with our new record. we just posted "williamsburg" on our myspace page. im not sure if im emotionally ready for ppl to start hearing the new record. i know its very different, but i think when youre in the band youre so detached from what you actually are. i just hope people realize that we are trying to grow with them. also, this record basically took everything out of us and we have been working on it since late novemeber, with little break. also, "end of the world" is coming out soon on the transformers soundtrack, it will also be on the record.
Ive already begun to field some questions where people are asking why we would write a song about williamsburg, Virginia. Haha. Definitely NOT about Virginia. Its weird because we've never written a song thats so specific like this, i dont think people understand this side of us. I dunno, the record is very varied, more so than our other records. oh yea come to our little show in Hoboken this sunday June 24. should be interesting.

New Jersey Revolution

2007-06-17T00:18:00.000-04:00

so my dad was telling me about this arena football team that plays in our town and said they were playing, i was like yeeeea nice. so we went and its like the super d00per minor leagues of arena football which is, well, pathetic. but it was fun and the players family and friends were way into it. we had the best seats in the house. woohoo! here are a few pics, as you can see it was a packed house on the visitors team section.
best part of the whole game was the guy they had sing the national anthem stopped TWICE because he forgot the lyrics or something. amazing. most embarrased ive ever felt for someone, yet i couldnt stop laughing.
the floors in my living room got done today so i cant walk on them. this means i have to go outside and thru the garage to get into my bathroom which is superflous (wrong use of word but i felt like it would fit)

ps. heres a picture of me playing football in california.

plans

2007-06-15T17:33:00.001-04:00
looks like i got a busy couple o weeks comin up. shootinga newwww video in LA sometime in the next 2 wks, my brothers engagement party and a trip tooooooo......... AUSTIN with lola. phew. pretty busy after sitting on my ass for what feels like most of the summer.

pictures/record/NBA

2007-06-15T00:56:00.000-04:00

so i want to put pictures up.but i want to know what people want to see. my bed, tv, dog, toilet, shoes??? what? in other news im pretty psyched because we've been getting our mixes for the new record and except for some minor things its pretty awesome. really insane to hear everything come together. on another note, im kinda sad because lauren and i have been following the NBA finals and we wanted Cleveland to win, but they got swept by the spurs. SAY-LA-VEE (after writing this i felt like putting the above picture up. i dunno why.)

bedroom/cereal

2007-06-14T12:47:00.000-04:00
my room sometimes feels like my bunk in the bus, very dark. i dont know what time to get up cuz when i think its like 6am, its really noon. yea. i just helpedmy dad move a couch into the garage because we're getting a new, bright red one today. i need to go buy cereal now.

first new blog

2007-06-14T02:13:00.000-04:00
i am in the middle of a slumber party where i am eating graham crackers under the covers of my bed. today was fun. i have netflix now and lauren and i watched THE FOUNTAIN. if you see it please please please watch the extra features to see how they made all that shit, its really a joke. my dad bought me a candle which is awesome, its caramel apple. i had to get a new one because my favorite candle which is hazelnut creme is slowly dying because i use it the most.
for those of you who dont know i moved recently. from south orange to morristown. i live in a house again. yay. i just got my own refrigerator which doesnt have much but some drinks and like mayo, ketchup, salad dressing and mustard. it also has a few slices of turkey which is leftover from 2 sandwiches ive made myself in the past few days. ive been trying to play a lot of basketball and tennis this summer. maybe ill join a b-ball league but then i was thinking about it and i would play against like older dudes who definitely weigh like 50 lbs more than me and i would probably just get hurt or something. i can definitely light up some 3-pointers though, thats for sure. thats all for now. im gonna try to write in this thing a lot. bye for now.