You would think from the image I chose for the header that I was doing something cool with the Nintendo Entertainment System.   This unfortunately is not the case.  Where the Nintendo came into play was that it was the object of my desire.   I desperately wanted an NES.  This was sometime around seventh or eighth grade so the years would have 1988 -1989 and the Nintendo was in full swing, you can see one of the commercials below.

Now my father didn’t believe in video games.   About five years earlier he got us a Commodore Vic-20, this is all fine and dandy – my parents fell for the whole “give you kid a computer and he’ll be computer literate for life” crap that they were handing out in the eighties.  A computer was meant for learning and yes there were a few games we had for it, but it was meant to learn something on.   I learned I never wanted to be a programmer, that’s what I learned.  I could go to my neighbors and play the Atari 2600 or play Ultima on his Mac Classic – but me – I was going to have the Vic-20 and like it because I wasn’t getting anything else.

Picture from here

We moved to Vermilion the summer before my seventh grade year.   I’m sure I started begging for a NES around that time if not earlier.   I’m sure the logic explained to me was that if I wanted a Nintendo I was going to have to earn it.    This meant getting a job.   I don’t know about your area but for Vermilion, OH there wasn’t much call in the work force for 12-13 year old kids.   The one thing that did open up was the ability to get a paper route.  The area where we lived in Elyria was a bit too rough for a 11-12 year old to deliver papers, but Vermilion was a quiet small town where such things almost seem nostalgic.

Picture from here (not me)

Another boy was giving up his paper route that was a year younger then me (should have been a sign) and did a week long transition with me so that I could learn the route.   By the end of the week I learned the route, I had my little punch card slip ring for billing, I had a carrier bag, and I also had baskets on the back of my bicycle to carry newspapers in.   I would try to say it was pimp, but I can’t even type that with a straight face.   I rode my bike to school and I got mocked by how stupid it looked.  Of course being a geek on the nth degree anyways there is always other things to get picked on then a bike, so I struggled through it.  I was a newspaper boy for the Lorain Morning Journal.

You may say that I learned character and fiscal responsibility because of that job.   You would also be wrong.  I hated that job with a passion.   I struggled for the first couple months to get through it.  The NES was the apple of my eye and I was going to save the 99.99 (plus tax) for the Action System which included Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt (and the pimp NES Zapper).   I was impatient to get it, so impatient that I gave my mother the money to get it while I was at school.   You would think this being the first large purchase of my life I would have wanted to go and hand over the money and buy the system myself, nope I just wanted the damn thing home.

I get home, my mother isn’t there.   I go do my paper route and get back home, my mother isn’t there.   I sit in the grass on the front yard and wait.   Eventually my mother pulls up in that blue dodge caravan (minivan) we had.  She had done other shopping and had a ton of bags.  Which one was my Nintendo?????

My mother stopped me and said she talked to the sales person who told her the Sega Master System was the better system to buy since it was faster and supported more colors.  WTF?  I had worked my butt off in a job hated to have my mother go out and buy me a Sega Master Sytem.  No one owned a Sega Master System, only people with no friends owned a Sega Master System.   I was not going to own a Sega Master System.    I told her with certainty that she had no right to spend the money I earned to buy a Sega Master System.  We were going to get back in the car right then, go to the store and exchange it for a Nintendo Entertainment System.

My mother then started laughing.  Out of the back of the van she pulled out a Nintendo Action Set.   You do not mess with a pre-teen in that way – ever.   She said she was going to go upstairs and use the restroom, after which she would come down and help me hook it up to the TV.  I think by the time she flushed the toilet I was already on World 1-2 of Super Mario Bros.  I had hooked up the Vic-20 so many times that I knew how to do it in my sleep.   The NES was more of the same.

At this point I did not want to do the paper route any more, but my grandfather thought it was good for me so I kept plodding along.    I delivered papers a 3 AM Christmas morning wasn’t that quite the thrill, not.   I would definitely preferred to have been sleeping.    More and more of my customers were moving to prepaid accounts, which cut into my money.   You would think it wouldn’t have effected  my bottom line, but I lost out on tip money from these customers – and to this day I believe the Journal used some creative account billing to the paper boys.    My grandfather thought I was just doing it wrong, but I was let off the hook after about a year.

Me and my grandparents a year or so after the paper route.

My brother took over the paper route with the help of my grandfather and my mother in delivering the newspapers.   Now I don’t know about you but if someone would have driven me on the route every day, I may have been more likely to actually like the job.   He is five and half years younger then me, so they were not going to let him go off alone to do it.  The funniest thing was after about a year they started loosing money also and it became not financially viable for them either.    I guess it wasn’t just me.

You would think that this would end my families relationship with the Journal after so many bad experiences, it didn’t.  For the last few years my sister (now 22) has a motor route in Vermilion delivering papers.   I guess she makes really good money at it.   It would seem the third time is a charm.   I don’t think my brother or my sister ever hated it as much as I did.   I did get my NES though.

Below is a link to Google Maps that shows the actual route location of my paper route.

Created by WeGame – Video Games

I’ve done the community band circuit for a year now and I’ve played with two community bands.  The one thing I have noticed is that the bands don’t really seem to be growing.  When they do grow it’s usually by an older member decides to join in the band.  The youth market seems to be completely disenfranchised.   I can understand part of that, though I declined to the join the VCMA when it was first formed due to not liking the director.   It wasn’t because I didn’t want to play, I still had the yearly Vermilion Alumni Band to play in, then I moved to Oregon.   While there I hardly ever pulled out my trumpet and when I did it was just for a half hour stint every few months.   My lips didn’t have the range or stamina they once did.   After blowing out my lip the last couple years at Alumni after moving back to Ohio, I decided I need to bring more regular playing in my life.  This led me to community band.  Since I am young(er) I have a different perspective on the band.

The first thing is that the music (at least over the summer) is extremely heavily weighted to music written before I was born.   If we play anything done after I was born it was an arrangement of a pre-existing piece.  I hear the director say things like, “we’ll play this piece because everyone will know it”.   Most of the time this is said, I neither know it, nor do I recognize the melody.  I feel attached and not a part of something I can recognize.  This is not to say that I think the old music should be ignored, no matter how much I dislike traditional marches.  I think we should play a wider variety of music that encompasses all eras.  Young people that really aren’t in to band music should have something that is recognizable to them and not just something that there parents kind of remember or their grandparents danced to on their first date.    There needs to be a mixture.   A mixture that should appeal to all those involved.

Rules I would follow to achieve this if I was choosing the music:

1.  Choose at least one movie/television theme song- preferably something recognizable to all ages.   While we are playing Moonriver in the VCMA and I adore, it is not something that the majority of under-forty crowd would recognize.  I think you would have to go to the over fifty crowd to truly appreciate and remember it.  My wife said she would forever be in love and be inspired to work harder at learning an instrument if she hears The Muppet Show Theme Song.  My personal favorite is video game theme music, something as traditional as The Legend of Zelda Theme Song or a number from the Final Fantasy series.   There is a national company that tours and just does live concerts on video game music, it sells out pretty quickly.  These types of concerts have a great deal of appeal to the under forty crowd and that should be taken into consideration.

Some TV themes I would like to hear:

• Batman the Animated Series Theme
• The Muppet Show Theme
• The A-Team Theme
• The Adam’s Family
• The Star Trek Theme
• Farscape Theme
• Benny Hill Theme
• Monty Python’s Circus Theme
• Futurama Theme
• The Incredible Hulk Theme
• Inspector Gadget Theme
• Macgyver Theme
• Mission Impossible Theme
• Quantum Leap Theme
• Bonanza Theme
• Scooby Doo Theme
• Twilight Zone Theme
• X-Files

Movie Themes I would like to hear:

• Anything by John Williams
• Anything by James Horner
• Harry Potter
• Anything large movie made in the last 20 years.

2.  Choose at least one pop arrangement – the VCMA did the Beatles and this would fit into this category.  The real problem with pop music is that so little of it actually sounds good for a concert band.   The fifties and sixties popular songs actually sound the best, though there are a few later pieces that sound quite good also.

3.  Choose one classical piece that easily recognized, so far in neither of my community bands have we tackled any classical music.  We have done some “traditional” pieces, but nothing classical.   Where is the Bach, Beethoven, or Chopin?  There is an abundance of this that has been arranged for concert bands, but the bands I belong to seem to overlook anything pre 1880 and post 1960.  Christmas music doesn’t really fall under “classical”

Out of these 3 areas community bands should be able to play one piece from each of these genre’s through out there year of performing.  I’m not saying it has to follow that one of each of these pieces get played every concert, but out the forty or so pieces I have played in both bands, they should be able to accommodate one of each of these in their play rotation.

There are other rules I would follow also.

4.  No more then 20 percent of your music can come from any decade.  If it was all arranged in the eighties, that’s fine but the melodies and original music was composed according to this guideline.   I’m not going to pick on arrangers for doing a modern arrangement of In the Mood, its swing era song.   With this rule you could also still fit in easily a whole concert and still have music written from before I was born.

5.  No more then 40% from any single genre.  Whether this is marches, swing, classical, theme music, etc., etc. – variety makes more people take notice unless you’re doing a theme concert.

6. Theme concerts (usually X-mas concerts for community bands) – In a theme concert you should play a maximum of 80% of the music that follows the theme.   One or two pieces should be reserved for something unexpected and interesting that doesn’t fit the norm of a particular theme.  Whether this is a Christmas march or a summer playing of Sleigh Ride, the unexpected brings peoples attention by breaking monotony.

7.  While conductors normally choose the music in most circumstances, there should be one or two pieces chosen by the band members themselves to work through and play.   These people are there to have fun, play something they really want to play.

8.  Encourage your members to compose or arrange something for your band to play.  This makes the music all their own and gives your band something special.

That covers my notes from music selection.   So how do you attract new members?   Other then people moving into the community or the rare person finding out about you and showing up, there is little in the means of growth.  Community bands are competing with the Internet, Social Networking, video games, hanging out with friends, going to the bar, or clubbing.   Having lived through my twenties already most of these are more fun at that age then community band.  You need to hook members while they are still young.

I’ve always played for the love of playing.  I really started when I was a sophomore in high school, by my junior year you couldn’t keep me from auditioning or volunteering to play for whatever group was available.  This alone helped me grow into a much better musician.  I used to be able to transpose music from the key of C or the Key of F in my head automatically and play along from that sheet music.   My range and stamina were much better then they are still today.   My technique today is better in a lot of ways, but I feel I was a better player in a larger scope back then.  That was after only a year of playing back then, I have some of that memory still in my head and I’m old enough to have gained wisdom.  My knowledge should have grown.   After my single year of college I stopped playing with any group outside of Alumni band.  It wasn’t out of disinterest as much as effort.   If I didn’t love playing I wouldn’t stay with the community band, there is no one in my peer group and for a large part of it it’s not really “fun”, at least not in the sense it was fun back when I was in high school.

Most players fall off because they are not engaged early enough into the community band cycle.  To give an example what non engagement with playing can do, for alumni band out of the 160 of us that went through 3 years together, only 5 showed up last year to Alumni Band, only two of us regularly play now.  That’s hovering around a 1-2% rate of a player likely to stick with their instrument after school form my personal experience.  Almost all community bands explicitly state that will accept members that are in high school with their band director’s permission.   Now while I would have gladly played with a community band when I was in high school I was not going to go up and have Mr. Henry sign a permission slip or call to ask if I could join the band.   This is a turn off.   What should happen is that community band should be actively engaging the high school and middle school band directors for members every single year.  If community band members are worried about middle schoolers, then they should make a junior community band where the regular band can show up if they so choose and the younger players can show up.

Younger players are looking for people to emulate, to try to sound like.  Having mentoring by accepting is only going to raise their skill level.   Players that show up are not getting school credit, they are not getting paid, and so why have any stipulations.   If the music is too hard for them they are not going to stick around.   If they don’t really enjoy playing and are only in the school for socialization or the fun from that they are not going to show up.   If community bands are there to make its own members better, then the younger the better, they can make the band as a whole be better.  The older players get the benefit of mild teaching and understanding of what they are doing and the younger players gain a mentor.

Once the younger players are hooked they are more likely to stick with music, since they then have a place to play after they graduate.  They will be informed about the community band and will be regular members.   If they are anything like I was they will find a great relief about having some place to play over the summer.  Older members may even make a little bit of side cash by giving lessons, even if they aren’t as good as a true instructor they could still impart wisdom and teach a student to the edge of their abilities, at which point the student could move onto someone else. My high school self could play rings around my present self. I think community bands under estimate the skill levels of these players.

Is there a strong future for community bands?  It depends.   The older generations need to realize that playing in band is not “cool” at least not until your in your thirties, and I still get the occasional snicker about it – I just don’t care.  A community band is considered a tired thing by the younger generation who would prefer most of their live music to contain electric guitars.  The ability to evolve and bring new members in is essential for most community bands to last another twenty years.   Showing players it can be fun by playing music they can identify with and accepting them as peers within their membership.  You could still have a stipulation where the younger members couldn’t vote in elections, I’m sure you wouldn’t want your board run by four sixteen year olds – but having one of them in a position with a voice may give you greater possibilities then someone like me who is already twice that age and out of touch.

I’ve gotten the VCMA website in a stable place.  I can quickly edit it and make changes, so before any radical redesigns I’m now working on moving them over to Google Apps for internal paperwork.  I plan in the near future signing the VCMA up for a Myspace page and a Facebook account.  People in the younger peer group will be able to see it as an organization to identify with.  The older members need to realize why they started a community to begin with, which includes – hanging out with friends, playing for people, becoming better musicians, and having fun.  None of what I have written breaks any of that.  It may take them a little bit out of their comfort zone, but the mantra of business these days is to embrace and extend.   Growth happens once some of these things are followed.  If the bands I play with don’t start embracing this I’m not sure they will last another twenty years and things will get shaky in another ten.   Growth has not continued, but rather it has stagnated, unless there is something done to counter-act this, the downward trend will continue.

In my band I’m still considered just a kid, though my father had his fourth child by my age.   I’m too young to them to be anything but a kid so what do I know.  I’m too old for any of the young people to truly listen to me, plus I’m over thirty so I’m to young to be trusted.  If we go by Cory Doctorow’s book Little Brother – they don’t trust anyone over 22.   Somehow I’m stuck in the adult version of the tweens.  So no one will truly pay attention, but that doesn’t mean this shouldn’t be said.

Picture from here

]]> http://creeva.com/2008/08/23/is-there-a-strong-future-for-community-bands/feed/ 7 http://creeva.com/2008/07/07/turning-32/ http://creeva.com/2008/07/07/turning-32/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:30:57 +0000 Creeva http://creeva.com/?p=2923

Thirty-two – what a long strange trip it’s been.   In some ways I’m living the normal expected life for my age group.  I own a house and pay a mortgage.  I have car payments.  I have a job with a cubicle.   I have an expectant wife.   These things are all normal and fall within the expected time I should have them.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

But I’m not ordinary.   I’m not up to the trends and buying that people in my age group are.  I’m more likely to buy a comic book then a mocha.  I’m more likely to play a video game then play the stock market.   I’m more likely to have fun then be grown up – or at least grown up in the representation that we were taught when we were young.

To me growing up was always something boring, where you had to put things behind you and move on.  It’s really not like that thought.  I still have a lot of the same interests I had in high school, I play video games, read comics, and play in the band.   Yet it’s more responsibilities and I juggle these the best I can.

I hope I feel as young when I’m 64.

]]> http://creeva.com/2008/07/07/turning-32/feed/ 0 http://creeva.com/2008/06/24/finding-friends-from-school/ http://creeva.com/2008/06/24/finding-friends-from-school/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:56:18 +0000 Creeva http://creeva.com/?p=2914

Picture from here

In the last year I’ve started rolling in more of my high school, college, and for lack fo a better description “real life mundane” friends into my online social profiles.   Mostly in the past I’ve kept it down to current co-workers and friends I was an actively engaged with and friends from the online video games I used to play.  On the surface there is a simple reason for this, most people from high school I didn’t like.  I don’t need to play the “hey great to see you, what are you up to, why have we never talked since high school discussion”.  They seem to forget that we didn’t talk when we were in high school.

Now I have friends from elementary school in my Myspace and Facebook friends list.   Last night my college room mate (and other college friends) showed up on facebook finally.   My college room mate had managed to stay very quiet for well over a decade online and I hadn’t been able to track him down.  I’m still waiting for him to actually accept my friend invitation, but as far as I know we didn’t leave on bad terms.

I wrote the other day about being grown up, everyone is now old married, has kids…the whole gambit.   I wonder if they all feel as young as I do and still feel the same as I did in my early twenties.  Maybe they do.

Do you like bleu cheese?
Nope

Do you own a knife?
Nothing that I carry around with me at all, I’m not one of those guys

What flavor do you add to your drink at sonic?
Closest one is hours away and have never been to one.

Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Not really.

What do you think of hot dogs?
I like them

Favorite Christmas movie?
National Lampoon’s X-Mas Vacation

What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Coca Cola

Can you do push ups?
Can?  Yes.  Willing? No.

What kind of car do you drive?
Geo, Miata, Camaro, Taurus

Whats your favorite piece of jewelry?
Wedding Ring

Favorite hobby?
Blogging, Web 2.0 Activities, Reading, Video Games

Whats your favorite store to shop at?
Amazon

Do you have ADD?
Of course, wait what were we talking about?

What’s one trait you hate about yourself?
Not aggressive enough in life.

Middle name?
Matthew

Name 4 thoughts at this exact moment..
Wondering why I’m doing this, This is going to get absolutely no hits, why is my cat chewing so loudy, am I still answering this

Name 3 things you bought yesterday?
Q-tips, toothbrush, coca cola

Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
Coke, Water, Milk

Current worry?
Sick Cats

Current hate right now?
Broken Camaro

Favorite place to be?
Home

How did you bring in the New Year?
At home with my wife

Where would you like to go?
Rome

Name three people who will complete this
No one, I’m alone in this struggle and don’t ask anyone to go through this pain.

Do you own slippers?
Nope

What shirt are you wearing?
Smokey and the Bandit T-Shirt

What year would you go back in time to and why???
1985 and watch Back to the Future on opening night and ponder the paradoxical and ironic nature of the event.

Can you whistle?
Kinda

Favorite color?
Black

Would you be a pirate?
Rather be a ninja, but yes.

What songs do you sing in the shower?
Sing, in the shower?

Favorite girls name?
Xie ‘lanthia

Favorite boys name?
Creeva

Last thing that made you laugh?
Episode of 6 feet under

Best Halloween costume as a child?
Ricky Raccoon

Worst injury you’ve ever had?
Falling 6 feet down face first into a plywood construction

Do you love where you live?
Ehhh

How many TVs do you have in your house?
2

Who is your loudest friend?
Ghoulishcharm

How many dogs do you have?
Two

Does someone have a crush on you?
I feel sorry for them if they do

Do you have kids?
Nope

What is your favorite candy?
Spree

Favorite Sports Team?
Cleveland Browns

What song do you want played at your funeral?
Starwars1 on slitherhorn with no flourishing (only SWG players will get that) then everyone can know true pain

What were you doing 12 AM last night?
Watching 6 Feet Under

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
Must Go Back To Sleep

I read your article and you seem to blame modern entertainment with morality and work ethic that is generational and not all the technology’s fault.

Let’s get first to what you don’t like about me, I own 8 game consoles, I blog, I’m into online media, I download music on itunes and listen to podcasts.  This are things that according to you would make me a child man.

What you don’t take into account is that I’m middle class, own a house, 31 years old and have been married for more then 9 years.   To give account on your side I didn’t make it through college – yet I blame Quantum Leap more then video games for that issue.   I’m a professional and as such have grown larger in my video game collecting.   I don’t see this subsiding I also don”t see it changing as I get older.

I would also like to add back in the early nineties I played doom and first person shooters religiously – I don’t play them any longer because they don’t hold my appeal.  Even though I was exposed to violent video games I’m an extreme pacifist and don’t even believe in the death penalty and tend for stronger beliefs on gun control.   So this goes against that video games ruined me.

We’ll go a little it further before you think I’m a fluke – out of the closest friends I have either online or offline – the ones that play video games religiously have higher paying jobs, most of them own their own houses, and a larger percentage of them own their own houses.   To bring it closer to my home my brother has owned his own business for almost a decade now, been married for 3 years, owns a home, and has a child – all at the age of 26.

Most of my friends from my home town that I’ve been friends for over a decade however – 80% of them do not own their own homes – 90% of them don’t own a game console at all beyond possible passive games on the computer, 80% of them are not married and have never been married, and only one of them has a child.    Most of these people don’t have the income to be considered middle class – some of them like it that way, some of them don’t.  Most can’t afford the technology that your spinning is the cause of this life.   Granted most of them want to be young again – back to the glory days.   However income level and motivation are more of the issue then video games or other technology.

While I seem to fit in the categories of what

While I’m at the tail end of Gen-X – I know we were always considered the slacker generation.   What does that make the generation that has come after me.  Is it really my generation of the apathy of yours that has made us this way?  The refusal of your generation to understand us and think that our technology is destroying is the same mentality your grand parents had when they said Mork and Mindy would rot your brain.   Unfortunately in your case it may have.
Apathetically and Man Childishly Yours,
“Creeva”

I would have liked to tell you this opened a line of discussion on the downfall of my generation – here is my immediate reply: 

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

editor@city-journal.org

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550 5.1.1 User unknown

—– Original message —–

It seems there was enough people that didn’t agree with her that she shut off her e-mail account – a coward that can’t even own up to take the medicine that she brought upon herself.  Maybe she’ll learn to think and research next time before she speaks.

To call it a flea market is a bit of a stretch.  It was flea market-esque but I would more point to it as a hybrid with a pawn shop.  It had the proper grit and grime of both, and that part has never bothered me – but it seemed there was a central cash register so it looked like only one person ran the place.    It was smaller then my house and had a small group of lay arounds just BSing about normal things.  The other lay arounds seemed to be regulars but from slightly overhearing the discussion it seemed most were always up there, but none of the rest other then the main guy worked there.

I managed to scrounge around and for a place that didn’t specialize in games or consoles he had an ok selection.  If the prices would have been correct I would have picked up something.   The problem that exists is that almost everything was overpriced.    Now this seems to exist because everyone selling at the flea market uses the highest price they could possibly get on e-bay if they sold it there.

The question I have to places like this is why don’t they sell the items on e-bay – isn’t it better to make a smaller steady profit then one lump sum that is the absolute most that someone in California would pay versus someone in the Midwest?   This is just my .02 on things that just don’t make sense to me.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Football teams had trials and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

Frank Zappa is my hero when it comes to views on censorship. When we replace the subject of music with video games we see how truly relevant this is in todays world.

So I’ve been entering in my list of items on listsofbests.com – to see my progress as I add things go to the catalog label item at the top.

The goal is when we think about buying something used we can check online real quick and verify if we own it already. So far I have 80% of my video games in there, my DVDs, VHS tapes, LPs. And we are just starting, books are going to be a huge list.

Well we work to continue.

I could go on and say alot about Joe, but I feel it’s more suited for him to talk about himself in the little bit of writing I still have copied away of his. I had saved these on a web page seven years ago and they had managed to survive. I figured now is the time to make sure they stay saved and not lost into the Internet oblivion.

The original site is here

The following contains I wrote or Joe wrote (his is in Bold) all those years ago:

A Tribute To Joe Cyrek

5-14-81 – 6-1-00

Screw The Beer We Have Everclear

Joe was a good friend, a little brother, a loving son, a gifted writer and artist. He was some one I could call on if I needed a hand, as he was to most people. These pages are designed for you, the readers, to share memories of him. If anyone has any thoughts and stories they would like to share I will post them under the memories section. For us that are still in mourning and still will be somewhat for the rest of our lives remember what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger………sometimes though I wish I was a little weak.

For everyone on me about getting this done I hope you understand that dealing and getting through this is one of the most painful things I have done in my life. I haven’t got my tatoo yet, but I will…that happens to be more of a money issue than anything else. I hope other people contribute pictures and memories of Joe otherwise this web site will continue to stay very small.

Sincerely

Brent M. Gueth

Joe was not just a poet he was an avid writer of any kind. He was supposed to be my Gothic style web page designer. He just wanted to write, he had a dream of going to college and becoming a reporter or freelance writer. Please take the time to read his writing and appreciating his unique style. The first is an intro of Joe’s Alter-Ego Damien PuckDraven Darkling.

Well the best way to begin is to introduce myself. I am…
Damian PuckDraven Darkling.

I am a rare breed. I am a mortal vampire along with darkling decent.
I am just of the young age of sixteen, yet I have seen much of this cruel world and have been through hell and back. Yet I do not regret a moment of it. As a matter of fact I rather think I enjoyed my life thus far, always wondering what tomorrow had in store for me. I love life on the edge of insanity. I have only recently come to understand my type of life I am living. It is not as dark and gloomy as the fictional books and movies make it seem to be. It is rather much more clear, yes much more clear through my eyes. It just changes your whole view of life, it just makes every small thing hold some form of interest, no matter how small and trivial it may be. It sill some how holds a wide spectrum of interest. Now I must get back to the subject at hand to tell a so called chapter of my life.

It all started upon the godforsaken night of October 31st. I was in the company of three friends, and for personal reasons, some will be given false names. The two females were Kat and Selissa, and then there was Sam, Selissa’s boyfriend at the time. Me and my Kat were also together at the time, soul mates. Yet in secret my once beloved friend selissa had other plans for me…she wanted me for her own. As for me, some strange reason my insides screamed no, not to get involved with her. Yet she did successfully tear me and my beloved Kat apart. Until this day I don’t know why I allowed this to happen. So it was a lovely night and we were out terrorizing the town, even though my town is nothing more than a speck on the planet, we still had our times. The normal scaring of the neighborhood children to death, out thrill to watch them cry.

Oh how I miss those days, running with the darkness, it was the best time of my life, no our lives… So now back to the task at hand, we are all now separated and relatively hate one another. The sad part is that Selissa did this to benefit herself, and she lost also. Yet what she did not account for is that I am not a normal person to be messed with and my and my Kat still love one another as the best of friends. Now has come a time to teach a long overdue lesson to Selissa and the other one who tried to harm me, Evelen. Evelen tried to get into my mind and then got it will to her dismay it did not work, yet she will pay. They both shall pay for their sins of corruption, deceit, and inflicted pain. Now comes the time for me and my Kat to have our revenge, and oh how chaotic is shall be. I want to reek such a havoc upon them, yet you must understand that there is a million things worse than death, and I know them all.

I now will let you have a slight glimpse into my mind. I am one of a dark souled decent, yet not so dark that I can’t see the light of reality. I enjoy the stranger side of life, well not only because of the fact I drink blood, but also with that aside, I am still different from the rest of humanity. I was born to be this and am glad to try and fit the shoes of the olden times Darkling lifestyles and beliefs. I am a kind of Darkling that enjoys pain, and knows the best ways to inflict it upon others. Yet I will not harm you unless you try to harm me first. After you try that, you are fair game to me and all my insanity. “I think the splash of blood is divine, and if you are my enemy I shall drink your blood like wine.” This I strongly believe in, so don’t test it unless you do not value your life.

Here are a few of Joe’s poems:

A CANDLE BURNS AT BOTH ENDS AND WILL NOT LAST THE NIGHT. BUT ALL MY FRIENDS AND ALL MY FOES, IT DESCENDS A LOVELY LIGHT. UPON THE HOUR OF TWILIGHT’S EVE I SHALL STILL HAVE ONE ACE HIDDEN UP MY SLEEVE. AS A DARKNESS CRAWLS ACROSS THE LAND THERE IS STILL ONE TRUE GOLDEN MOMENT OF GOLDEN BEAUTY IN THIS GODFORSAKEN MAN. NOTHING PURE IS LEFT IN THIS SOUL, SO ALL I LOVE AND ALL I HATE ARE OF NO MEANING ANY LONGER. FEELING OH SO LOST AND SO ALONE AND EVER SO NUMB. LONELY A LIFE IS IT IF YOU CAN NOT TRUST. I DO NOT AND MAY NEVER TRUST AGAIN.

BITE THE BULLET

FREAKS CREED-WE MAY BE FEW BUT WE ARE STRONGER THAN ALL.
WE MAY TAKE ON THE WORLD AND WE WILL FALL FROM GRACE,
BUT WE WILL TAKE THIS WORLD WITH US A WORLD ENGULFED IN FLAMES.
YES WE MAY FALL TO THE BOTTOM BUT THAT IS WHERE WE THRIVE
THE WORLD WILL COME WITH US AND IN OUR LOSS THE OTHERS WILL GAIN
NOTHING BUT RECYCLED PAIN. AGONY IS SUCH A STRENGTH TO THE ESTRANGED.
TO THRIVE HERE IS TO SIMPLY SURVIVE
TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE YOU ARE HATED FOR WHAT YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN,
IT IS SAD.
ONE DAY WE WILL THRIVE AND CONTROL THIS WORLD.
THEN IT WILL BE FREE TO BE WHO YOU ARE.

MaLkAvAiN
MaDnEsS

WeLl Im MuSt SaY We ArE NoT DoInG TO InSaNE LaTlEy. As A MaTtEr Of FaCt LaTeLy YoU AlL HaVe BeEN RaThEr SaNe AnD IM SiCkENd By This So I ImPlOrE YoU To JoiN Me In My MALKAVIAN OnSlaUgHt We MuSt OrGaNiZe AnD Be A cLan AgAiN JoiN Me AnD ReMemBer YoUr INSANITY OR FORGET It I ThiNk . WeLL I LiKe JElLyBeaNS AnD SMall KitteNNS IN SoUP AND MiNiTuRe HorsES NamEd WiLd BiLl MaKe NoT SeNSe. HAvE YoU DrIvEn A HeBrEW LaTlEy?????

WeLl GooD ByE I MuSt Say Or Is IT No MoRe NoDDlEs In A CaN Of SpOOnS I CaNt RemEMbER AbOut ChiKeNs In SmaLL ShoEs .

LoVer
DiaB NiTtreL AnD HiS LeaChEs Of My BiG ToE

Shattered

Madness and confusion tears and pulls at my soul
Now my final stand broken I have no one to whom I can consul
My insane love has taken a heavy toll
Too heavy for me to be able to control
And now my heart lay still upon my window sill, black as coal
I am still falling through my collapsed dream
And pain, despair, sorrow, and confusion flow through my heart like a stream
The only thing heard is my dead soul’s silent scream
Then in a flash of moonlight, you can see my soul on its knees in the black light
Then out the twilight, demons take flight
And the devil lays claim to my fallen soul
Whom no person, not even I myself could control
Now my black heart remain still as it under the will of an unforeseen soul
My soul can now only pray for rain to wash away its pain and for this it has no more then enough lonely time to kill
Here hours seem like days, while your soul spins around in a haze
You search for one thing to stand true, yet your last in your own mind’s haze.

Torn

Feeling oh so lost and alone, can’t help the one I love so dear. I cannot go home ’cause I must keep near. My soul feeling abandoned and mistreated. My heart is utterly defeated. Yet the hope holds true, oh so true. For the light inside still burns bright and my dearest of friends will not give up the fight. Yet to see one so strong, in such a weak state, it burns my soul in two. I’m barely able to keep control, doing this on my own. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. Being so strong for everyone else’s sake, yet wanting to break down and fall apart.

Below is what I wrote about Joe all those years ago

My Personal Memories Of Joe

By

Brent M. Gueth

I first met Joe at the Haunted Schoolhouse in the 1996 season, one of the best seasons as far as I am concerned. I was working graveyard in my usual fashion (a story for another time) getting a ton of scares, and in comes this idiot acting like he runs the place telling me that I am doing it all wrong, and this was a kid over 5 years younger than me. He told me his name was Joe Cyrek and he was surprised that I never heard of him (like most the egos of the schoolhouse work). He started banging a shovel across the entranceway to graveyard crawling up the walls and hanging upside down from the garage door. I told him he was crazy and I would continue doing things my own way, he shrugged his shoulders and wandered off to cause mischief somewhere else in the maze and to hopefully pester someone else. After my accident in the schoolhouse (it goes along with that story for another time) I will say Joe’s way definitely influenced my method of working the room. I was he idiot banging the shovel against the entranceway, crawling up the walls, and hanging from the garage door. Not to let Joe’s ego get to big, he was not the sole influence for this behavior, but he did give me a second perspective into how to work the room.

For the next couple years I did not have much contact with him, seeing I was semi retired from the Schoolhouse. I ran into here and there at the Moore residence and he always said hi. I said hi back, but I told my then Fiancée to ignore him and maybe he’ll go away. He kept trying to talk to us and when we left we would turn to one another and go is he your friend? I don’t talk to him so he’s not my friend.

In the 1999 Schoolhouse year a group of us were talking of role-playing dungeons and dragons at the end of the night. Well this guy (Joe) asked if he could come over and game with us. I told him that I didn’t'’ care, the more the merrier. He asked if he could crash over my place, I cleared it with Autumn, seeing I didn’t want her to have to wake up with a stranger or strange person for that matter in the house. Well he came over created an elven thief character, Damien PuckDraven Darkling, with a double long sword – think Darth Maul with swords instead of the light saber.

He was real excited about getting to airbrush the sign of the schoolhouse. It was almost like his coming of age at the schoolhouse. He was one of my guides. Every night he wanted to bet that he would not get the first fiend award, we had to keep telling him that the award was for the younger generation and he missed his chance once upon a time. He had a real fetish for glow in the dark make up and loved roaming/ working the ramp.

At the end of every schoolhouse night Joe came and stayed over and usually we gamed I think he missed one night of gaming the whole season. He became a constant fixture upon my couch. Sometimes he stayed days on end always the thoughtful son checking in with his mother. We did a lot of things together but all in all not that much. We gamed went out about town which we all no is not much played video games, role-played, went to borders, then around the beginning of December Joe disappeared for about a month. There was an altercation with another one of our friends who will remain nameless. Then around January he started showing back up again. Autumn and him started competing in Final Fantasy 8. The whole problem I had with that is when one of them found something the other had missed they restarted the game all over again, and it is a long ass game. We all saw Dogma together and I managed to get Joe on the boat that was Kevin Smith is the greatest thing ever.

Around February we started going to the Flying Saucer Coffee Shop which many of you know was a big part of Joe’s life, he always talked about how cool it would be to work there. We usually spent at least every Saturday they and a day or two during the week. His favorite beverage was a 25 oz. Brian’s Comet. One time Sean bet him a free Brian’s Comet if Joe could drink the full 25 oz. one in less than 20 seconds. Joe did it in 17 seconds. He always said he was going to work to get it down to less than ten. He said the answer was a larger straw.

Joe always told big stories wanting you to think he was larger than life. In some ways he was, in other ways he seemed to feel inadequate.

He never wanted his family to know he smoked so he would always send me into Speedway to buy his Marlboros from his grandmother Sandy.

Then there was Marcon, the one thing that we had talked Joe into (not much talking required), that we actually followed through on. I was in a separate car than the one Joe, Autumn, and Jonathan took down to Columbus. I rode with Griffaw on the ride down. We left roughly 3 hours after they supposedly left. When we reached Ashland I got a call on my cell phone, from Joe, that they needed the directions again because they forgot to copy them down. They were only 45 minutes ahead of us on I-71.

Looking back Joe and I never did a lot but we did things he loved, go to the coffee shop, role-played, watched Kevin Smith movies, we didn’t have to always go out and be off the wall. I really enjoyed just hanging out with him. He was one of my best friends.

these crw designs are what I am considering for a tattoo

o

Here is what my sister wrote – she was 12 at the time:

		IN MEMORY OF: JOSEPH M. CYREK 1981-2000
	Joseph m. Cyrek ,19, died suddenly Thursday, June 1, 2000, as a result of an auto accident on SR 2 in BrownHelm township. He was Born May 14, 1981, in Fairview Park and a lifelong resident of Vermilion. He was a manager trainee for the Flying Saucer Coffee shop, Elyria, and had also been employed at Harrison Manufacturing in Birmingham. He was a graduate of EHOVE career center, where he studied carpentry. He enjoy volunteering at the Haunted School house for friends of harbourtown and wrote articles for the “imprints” section of the Sandusy register. Cyrek, 8415 risden rd, had just worked a night shift at a new job and was traveling west on SR 2 toward his Vermilion home about 6 a.m , when his red 1997 ford ranger pickup truck rolled over and landed on its left side along the high way in Brownhelm Township by SR 2 rest stops, according to the highway Patrol, Cyrek was thrown from the vehicle and landed about 10 feet away in a westbound lane on the road, according, to the Elyria post of the highway patrol i loved joe he was so funny and crazy at some times but still every one loved him. It was really hard for me to go to school the next day i found out about what happened, because every one was talking about it and i started to cry.I know lots of poeple cared about him. I just hope every one is ok. -Branda Gueth- this is a picture of joe working at the haunted school house , he has SCAREY make up on!!

That is all I have – I wish there was more but there is memories – more memories then I can ever write up that are precious to me. Joe left us before the days of myspace memorials and I don’t plan of doing anything like that. This post is enough – my affirmation that he is alive in my heart and thinking about him can still make my eyes water. I have a picture (the one my sister used on her page) up in a spot I can see it every day in my house. Joe I feel is the guardian angel that sits over my shoulder and keeps me from truly growing up – I still hope one day even after all these years I will wake up and find out it was all a dream.

I still haven’t got that tattoo I promised – but I will – I promise that I will.