Chris Bales

Posted on Myspace today at 12:40pm

"Just woke up in the park behind some Abraham Lincoln Statue. Seriously. Some homeless dude nudged me and said he was making sure nobody tried to "fuck my plump ass". I gave him a cigarette and thanked him immensely before walking back to my bedroom here."

The new Weezer album leaked yesterday.  I found out about it last night, instantly downloaded it, burnt it to a CD, and rented a Zipcar for an hour to cruise around Chicago and give it a proper first spin. 

At first I was a little surprised by it.  Somewhat unsure what to think.  I briefly even thought I didn't like it.  However, I realized an hour or so ago that I couldn't stop thinking about the songs and I really wanted to hear them again.  That's the first time that happened since I originally heard Blue and Pinkerton.

So, if you ask me, The Red Album is pretty solid.  I think I'm going to like it a lot more as I listen to it.  I can say for sure right now that Everybody Get Dangerous is my favorite Weezer song since The Green Album.  I'm sticking to my original prediction when I first heard a 30 second clip of it:  Everybody Get Dangerous will be as popular as Little Jon and Usher's "Yeah" was in 2004.  It will be a 2008 anthem and party song.

Believe it.

Additionally, I have enough homework to be doing right now that I shouldn't be reviewing Weezer.

Only a million more hours of work in the next week and the semester will be over!

I went from wanting to quit school to planning on 17 credit hours over the summer.

This will surely be revised as I'm not even sure if I'm living in Chicago or Syracuse for the summer.

That's mainly why I have so many credit hours.  I have Chicago courses and Ivy Tech courses.  I'll slice off some of them when I figure out what my arrangements will be.

It'd be pretty sweet to stay in Chicago - if only I had a place to live/could afford one.

Going home would be nice because I could work and make dough instead of living flat broke.

Sick of being broke.  Biggest complaint about college so far is that my financial heading makes me want to put  gun down my throat.

I won't.

I'll figure this out though.  I'm trying to pick a place to live where I'm least likely to have any trouble with alcohol as well.  Apparently I can't handle my liquor and apparently I can't fuck up again or I'll be taking a mini-vacation like so many others.

What a joke.

I'm a strange mixture of success and failures.  4 years ago I couldn't have seen my greatest accomplishments or my worst mistakes.

I guess that's how crazy life is.

I have 2 cigarettes right now and I'm debating re-upping at the 7/11.  My last $10 would go to cigarettes though and once I'm starving tomorrow and out of smokes I'll question my decision making.  But if I buy a sandwich today and find myself full and craving the smoke I'll question my decision making just as much.  A psychological conundrum it is.  The answer is:  I can't face stress without cigarettes so I'll forgo eating to get my homework done.

Solved.

Another thing I've been thinking about doing over the summer is living in Syracuse and commuting to Chicago for class.  A fun idea until considering the record gas prices and the number of cigarettes I would smoke a week doing that.  Those costs would almost be comparable to Chicago rent.

I consider the idea that I'm out of my league here in the city.  I think maybe I'm just a rag-tag hillbilly nobody from Indiana who'd be better off back home.  I have a hard time determining if that is just my fear of change influencing me or my current financial ruin.  I can't keep up with this lifestyle - that's for sure.

I'm editing a film right now that a guy spent a ton of money to make.  Over $1,000.  Shit, I spent $100 for Behind Bars and I thought that was a God damned shame.  I'm just not situated like all these other people.  Makes life hard scraping by in this city at this art school of the bourgeois.

Anyway, forget contemplation.  I'm steps away from the next minor step forward.  In a week I'll be a Junior, which is nice.  Halfway done with college.  If I put the pedal to the metal I can maybe be done here by 2009.  That's if a million variables can be figured out.  By then I'll also be over $120,000 in debt if I continue at this school.  And then I can face a job for the rest of my life.  I think college is all about debting yourself into be a societal slave.

Finishing off this semester with 17 credit hours, I feel more accomplished than any other semester of college so far.  Yet, I still don't feel particularly invested in this.  I feel distant from my life and I feel guilty for not being where I feel like I should be.  Since I've left home, pretty much all my friends have migrated away or made plans to do so.  My dad has been moved to a nursing home.  Nothing there is as I remember it and I can never go back to the way it was.
This makes me bitter.
This is what I was always afraid would happen.
But that's not all.  School is almost over for the semester and the only real reaction I have to it is good riddance.  I'm signed up for summer classes, but I'm about as enthusiastic about those as I would be facing a firing squad.  I feel like I need to finish school for society though.  I've concluded I'm not doing this for me anymore, but I don't know who I am doing it for.  I'm basically pursuing a hobby.  I'll never work in this business.  I already made up my mind on that.  If I find myself stuck in the film industry I will die young from all the stress.
I wish I had some time to just face myself and figure out what I want with my life.  I want to get myself in order.  I feel like I am always pursing these half-ass unfinished plans and hoping the pieces will come together in the long run.  Well, they haven't.  I just feel more misguided than ever.  And in the back of my mind is the ticking of the money clock, counting up to nearly $60,000 in loans and saying "you'll be paying for this for the rest of your life."
I don't really care about money.  I care about debt looming over me.  I'd like to work on paying that off. 
I think I'm complaining.  Time is better spent elsewhere.
I've got some thinking to do.

Life rule #1
I don't trust people who say they like Wilco.

I've been thinking about discontinuing my education after this semester.  Back in February when I was in serious trouble with depression, I wrote a promise to myself that I wouldn't put myself in longterm situations that I'm unsure of.  Sitting here now with two weeks left, I feel uncertain about tacking on more weeks.  I don't have a place to live.  I kind of hate the city, except when something fun happens.  Everything else is pretty much a hassle.
Making a decision like this is quite serious though, because if I stop, I doubt I'll go back.  Everything I do just feels at odds with who I am and what I want though.  And we're paying all this money for me to feel like trash.
I like to think I could make a movie on my own.  School has me feeling like I can't make a movie at all - not by their standards, so I stand a better chance alone.  I always worry about if I'll regret any decision I make though.
Also, things at home aren't so great.  I really think my mom could use my help, but then I'll have some pretty dark and sad responsibilities.  Right now I'm kinda distant from it all - and while that makes me feel bad - I don't know if I'd feel any better being there, watching what's happening head on.
I have a lot to do and my thoughts are on the wrong things again.  This is a high stress period. 
I wish I had some kind of a consultant.  Somebody just to tell me what to do.  And I wish I could trust other peoples' intentions.

Most days I'm just the dirty kid with weird hair smoking cigarettes by the door.  You know this because you walk past me and scowl at my smoke and make that ruffled up face like it has really offended you.  I just stand there looking forward with no reaction to you.
Some days I can be like a low-level street genius, spitting out brilliant ideas sentence by sentence.  I catch myself doing this when I am drunk.  I'll sit there and say things to the other drunks that they couldn't possibly comprehend and I feel like I came from a different planet.  They don't understand what I'm saying though, and for the most part I don't understand them.  Y'know, I always wanted to be like Good Will Hunting.  I forgot about that for years, but I think I may have inadvertently followed that plot line more than I ever expected.  I'm happy with that.
Some days I don't want to get out of bed, though.  I'm not happy with that.  I have had a headache for three days, but it won't go away.  I'd be lying if I said I knew how to do all the work I have left for me this semester, but it'll get done I'm sure.  Like I said, I've been sleeping a lot lately, though.  My progress is at a standstill.  I'm going to jump start  myself by getting drunk today and going to Looptopia.  That should wake me up.  I worry sometimes that I have some kind of terrible disease like cancer and that's why I'm so lethargic sometimes.  It's a wicked thought, but cancer and illness have been such prevalent themes in my life these past few years that the next logical progression would be to have to deal with them internally rather than externally.
Though I am achieving a certain academic progress, life is not as fulfilling as I would like for it to be.  My desires are rubbed out completely.  I dare not even think about them for fear of becoming depressed over how out of reach they are.  My heart is not in this city, so I hate everything i see and when I hear loud thuds or terrible sounds in the night I hope they are bombs or airplanes or whatever other death plans there are to be unleashed.  I lay in bed when I hear these kinds of sounds and I think, I'm alright with that.  I can go out like that.  Then nothing happens and I start to think about my mental wellness.
Summer, I had hoped would bring new happiness, but I feel the same.  I felt very unwell two days ago, so I shaved my beard in hopes of altering my mood with my appearance.  It didn't work, but I am happy with the change in looks.  I have been thinking about a haircut, but I'm not sure if I'm ready.  I feel very connected to who I was in high school with my hair as it is.  It almost feels like 4 years later, a cycle has returned.
One could wish this summer would be Summer 2004 Redux, but one should not.
A) It won't be.
B) That is unhealthy thinking.
C) I couldn't live through another summer like that.

Yawn.  And sometimes I wonder when I'll let that go and really move on.  I can't wish I was 18 for the rest of my life.

I feel like I used to have a lot more friends.  I know I still have all the same friends, but we're all spread out dealing with life in all our different ways now.  It is strange to think of the way things used to be and the way they are now.  I'm proud of us, I think.  I never really expected to feel that way, especially about myself.  Yet, I think back to years past and I wonder what I had hoped for myself.  I'm pretty watered down now compared to how I used to be.  Being responsible feels boring and doesn't yield nearly the same level of satisfaction as rag tag.  The gratification is no longer instant, and I'm not sure if there ever is any, actually.
Yet, I wouldn't change it.  I know those days are gone, but I still think about them often, on days when my routine really gets me bored and numb.
I was home over the weekend and I went to a party at Jay's house.  I don't mean any disrespect to the people who were there, but the whole time I kept looking around and thinking, "Is this all that's left?"  It was the first time I realized that the locations have stayed the same, but most all of the people have moved on.  It was an isolating thought and I tried not to focus on it.
Still, as faces were illuminated by the campfire in the backyard I thought it.  As I handed the bowl off to whoever was next to me, I thought it.  As I asked for a beer to drink, I thought it.  As I left, especially as I left, I thought it.  Is this all that's left?
And where did everyone else go?  It's hard even to conceptualize the disappearance of the spirit of my homeland.  I know now that it is dried up completely.  I no longer see what I used to in Wawasee.  In fact I barely recognize it.

I'm in Syracuse.
I just got an email from Netflix telling me that they can't charge this month's bill to my credit card because it got denied.
Funny, Dunkin Donuts told me the same thing about coffee yesterday.
Luckily, I'm home and Joe gave me some cash money he owed me, so I can pay my card down and get it reactivated.
Money is hard right now for me.  I'm fucked financially.
School is well and almost over for the semester.  I feel more accomplished than ever, really.  I'm kind of proud of myself.
Right now I'm drunk, high, and kinda on an opiate buzz.  I encountered some pills this evening.
Back to Chicago sometime tomorrow or Monday.  3 more weeks of school.
Final papers, final projects, final finals.  Gonna be busy.

Looptopia 2008, come join next Friday.  Massive party in downtown Chicago.  100,000+people.  Music, performances, stunts, party.

The
momentum
I feel
a shift
Sometimes
I can't believe
That
ANY of this
Is working
And I look around
And think
"A year ago...
did you see yourself
where you are?"
And these are
happy moments
and now that
it is warm
they last
Something feels
different
and something
feels
right
and for once
I feel like I'm
acting like an adult
making good choices
and doing the right thing.

I try not to make a secret of the fact that I spend a lot of time on myspace.  Some days I am borderline ashamed by committing so much of my day to such a wasteful activity.  Most of the time I come away from a myspace experience with nothing more than an increased feeling of need to judge others.  And that is what I will do right now:

A lot of people post blogs, bulletins, or comments expressing their love for their girlfriend or boyfriend.  While it is a nice gesture, it is mostly always executed poorly.  These people take a bunch of phrases they have overheard from others, from the television, from their (shitty) favorite movies and they string them together as an expression of their own love.  Its like taking a bunch of canned statements, putting them in a blender, and then microwaving them on high for 30 seconds.  It just doesn't make a very nice dinner.

I wonder why people are so limited and why nobody can ever say anything original?  I swear, right now there are at least three myspaces that I know of being operated by friends of mine who all have the same awful quote about somebody they love:  "so there's this boy/girl...and he/she kind of has my heart." or some variation of that.  It's great to be in love, but I wonder about how deep these feelings must be if all they can do is copy and paste a quote from somebody else's myspace to show how they feel.  I guess it's not much different than a bullshit Hallmark Card, but even then, most people I know with a single shred of thoughtfulness will write something else inside the card.

Maybe I'm just a grumpy curmudgeon with nothing better to do than think about the naivety of others.  Or maybe I'm on to something and most of the things people say to each other are equivalent to nonsensical mindless bullshit.  I'd hate to be right on this one.

Yo, you all.  Yes, you.  Be more genuine.

Things I want to write about, but don't have time to right now (and probably won't get around to it later):

• Thoughts on Lincoln Park
• "Little Boy Blue" film shoot.
• Spring/Summer in the City (!)
• School (And how this semester is almost over)

If I can say something about even one of these things in the next week, I will consider myself accomplished.

This morning I woke up in bed as a warm piss puddle formed around me.  I had been having this unfavorably bad dream, and at that moment I was in the restroom at a gas station that looked like McClure's taking what would probably be my last pee as a free man.  Earlier in the night I had gone to a concert someplace with Ryan and Joe.  While there, we got incredibly intoxicated.  Afterwards we drove to a gas station and while inside buying cigarettes, a fellow customer scolded us for being out driving.  I became furious and told this older gentleman, who was dressed in a suit and tie, that he'd later wish to have minded his own business.  I bought a forty ounce beer and after paying, went outside.  Ryan and Joe followed and as we rounded the corner we saw the man from inside walking to his car.  I snickered and laughed and said something to Ryan who snickered and laughed as well.  We ran up behind the man and I hit him square on the back of the head with my forty.  Ryan caught him by the arms as he slumped to his knees.  We yelled for Joe to pop the trunk on my car and we threw the man inside.
After we had driven him to a secluded spot in the woods, we beat him to a pulp and eventually killed him by knocking him upside the head with a big wooden stump.  We immediately sought to bury him.  Joe was crying as he reluctantly helped us dig a hole in the ground.  We finally got him buried, cleaned up the scene, and sped off into the night.
I'm not sure what happened for a while.  The next thing I remember is riding in a car with Joe and Eric Tesdahl.  Joe kept begging and pleading to tell Eric what happened, but I wouldn't let him.  I kept saying that all it takes is one person to put us in jail for life.  Eric Tesdahl became some kind of a lawyer type man who turned from his seat in the car and began to strangle me.  As he did this he said, "I know what you're hiding."  He shoved a folded paper in my pocket and died.  We pulled over and he slumped out of the car next to a building.  We drove off and left him there.
The next thing I remember is being drunk again and driving a car.  I was on the phone with my mom who kept telling me she'd help me lie.  I had apparently told her I killed a man at some point.  I told her that it was too late and a private investigator had spoken to me earlier in the day and told me they had security tape from the gas station of me and my friends abducting the man.  To make matters worse, they had already contacted Joe who agreed to cooperate with them for a shorter sentence.  As I drove drunk down State Road 13, a police officer pulled out behind me.  I was swerving and I got pulled over right as I became stopped for a train.
I must have killed the police officer because in the next part of the dream I was wearing his blood soaked uniform, driving his car, and pulling over unsuspecting travelers of the night in order to rob them.  This went on for a while.
It must have caught up with me at some point because I was being chased by more police and I ended up back at the gas station the dream originated from.  I ordered a pack of cigarettes from the woman at the counter who recognized me and was frightened because I was wearing a blood stained police uniform that was two sizes too small.  As she handed me the cigarettes, I had a crooked sort of smile on my face and probably a drunk, demented look in my eyes.  Two or three police cars pulled up outside, as I walked to the front door and locked it.  The lady inside began to cry and hid behind the counter.  "Don't worry,"  I told her.  "I'm not here to hurt you.  Figure I done hurt enough people already tonight."
I lit a cigarette and looked over to her.  "I just need to smoke this cigarette and take a piss.  You got a piss room here?"
She pointed toward the back.  I walked down a grungy hallway into a dingy bathroom.  There was a dead man slumped over on the floor and covered in vomit.  "Great, I suppose I'll get blamed for this too," I said as I sighed and rolled my eyes at him.  I approached a toilet, took a heavy drag from my cigarette, and began to wet my bed.

It will be entirely worth it
When I accept things as they are
For what they will always be
It will make matters easier
When I let go of the hope
That these things will change
And then I can finally see
Nothing was ever out of place
All along it was just me

In an unplanned experiment occurring through coincidence only, I spent all day Saturday as a vegetarian.  Staci came to Chicago and we consulted on food types while she was on the train.  She wanted something cheap and salad-like, so I brought up health restaurants on MetroMix and decided on the Earwax Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant in Wicker Park.  This was convenient because I had hoped to end up at the bars in Wicker Park later on anyway.
I've been real curious about trying new food lately.  This all started in Lafayette when Eric, Kate, and I accompanied Nichole and her boyfriend to Bea One while we were visiting Lafayette.  I decided to have some sushi because Ryan Cox had given me a piece of his earlier in the week when he was visiting Chicago and it tasted deliciously great.
I'm kind of dieting, so I've been interested in healthy foods.  I have been on the Subway diet pretty much since August, due simply to the fact that I never buy groceries and Subway is a block away from my dorm.  I've had pretty much every combination of sandwich they offer.  I've tried every permutation and I'm getting a little tired of Subway.
The vegetarian restaurant sounded interesting because I have developed a renewed interest in vegetables over the last few months.  Up until I started eating Subway, I never really considered vegetables a real food.  However, the veggie sub clued me in to how delicious they can be.  Knowing this, I am able to adventure further into the vegetable realm of eating.
Once Eric, Staci, and I arrived at Earwax, I was primed and ready for some tasty veggies.  Things went terribly wrong when I ordered some kind of burrito with a sausage substitute.  It was tasteless, soggy, and all around gross.  The sausage substitute tasted like water for the most part and it was all very disappointing.  Luckily, the meal was redeemed by the dish of edamame we ordered as an appetizer.  Those were some tasty little boogers and the type of thing I will eat again.  I concluded that in future vegetable nights, I will aim for real vegetable dishes that aren't trying to pretend to be meat.  I can think of several other things on the menu that sounded tasty and probably would have been.  I chose wrong, which is my biggest fear in casual dining and the reason you'll often find me second guessing myself and ordering last.
From there, we ventured around to several bars with weak ass drinks and high prices.  Finally we settled into a decent bar with good music and $2 swill specials.  The night's swill was Stroh's beer, which is an acceptable drink for me, especially at $2.  The only time I ever had it before was on the Fourth of July weekend in 2006 when some old man was giving cans of it to Ryan Shroyer and I for free while his girlfriend showed us her leathery old breasts.  Grim memories, but also a good visual representation to relate to a classless beer.
As intoxication increased, hunger returned, and I ordered some spinach and artichoke dip, which is a bar food favorite of mine.  I first tried it at Mad Anthony's in Warsaw one time when Ryan Shroyer ordered it.  I've been hooked since.  Chumley's in Lafayette also has some good spinach and artichoke dip.
I finished off my dish fairly quickly and continued drinking.  Before too much longer, hunger had returned to Eric and Staci who ordered a hummus dish and cheese sticks, respectively.  Hummus is another dish that I first tried at Mad Anthony's, probably last summer, and enjoyed more than I would have expected.  I was happy to see it arrive at the table and Eric kindly let me dip a few vegetables.  This particular hummus plate came with cucumbers, red pepper strips, celery, carrots, and pita bread.  I tried at least one of each in the hummus.  Good stuff.
Somewhere in the mix, Staci loaned me a cheese stick.  It was then that I realized I had somehow gone the entire day without eating meat, which may be the first time in my life that has occurred, with an obvious exception being days in Summer 2004 that I didn't eat anything.  For the rest of the night, I was proud to have lived such a day.  Much later one, when Eric and Staci shared a hamburger, I was tempted to ask for a bite, but I told myself that it would ruin my accidental vegetarian Saturday.  From now on, if I can remember it, April 12 will be a no meat day for me.  It is also my mother's birthday, so it shouldn't be too easily forgotten.
I returned to my regular carnivorous ways today when Eric and I went to Tamarind for breakfast.  I had the Indian Chicken Curry.  I have had a strange craving for curry for weeks now, so it was great to finally satisfy that craving.  I also had a sweet potato maki roll, which I will advise against eating on the general premise that it is somewhat disgusting.  Later in the day when hunger returned once again, I went to the Thai Spoon and had some yellow beef curry, again satisfying that spice itch that somehow developed so many weeks ago.
And while, they were not vegetarian dishes, both curry experiences were great and still healthy.  I'm happy to have some nearby Subway alternatives now as well.  I was getting burnt out.
Since I live in a big city with unlimited food options, I aim to become more adventurous.  I plan to cut back on my boozing which will save money.  I hope to devote some of this money to the pursuit of new and delicious foods.  So far so good.

VoicePost 224K 1:12

“Annoying Voice Post.” Transcribed by: cbales

An itemized list of the things I did wrong last night due to intoxication:

• Smoking in the Metro
• Peeing on the floor in the Metro
• Rocking Eric's glasses off his face
• Getting lost and disoriented
• $30 CAB Ride

Really, in actuality, it was a pretty successful night.  Everything I did wrong has a pretty valid reason to it.  Peeing on the floor, I'd say is my most unreasonable infraction against society.  However, I was in the front row at the show.  Prime location.  Couldn't lose my spot.
The cab ride was directly related to being lost.  In fact, it wasn't  a mistake at all.  Without it, I'd probably still be standing somewhere lost.
Rocking Eric's glasses off his face is the most unfortunate of my mistakes.  I'm pretty sure it occurred in the course of dancing around and jumping, but the innocent intentions of my actions also don't bring back the glasses.

Today I am hungover.  I am going to spend my morning cooking noodles, drinking diet coke, and watching television.  If I can focus I may find some homework to do.  Later this evening Staci is coming to Chicago.  Don't know what the evening holds in store, but I'd be happy with fried chicken and some sliced potatoes.

VoicePost 361K 1:56

(no transcription available)

VoicePost 21K 0:06

“Merry Christmas, it's Easter.” Auto-Transcribed Voice Post

My roommate, Mike, just found out he got accepted as an intern on The Unborn which is currently shooting in Chicago.
You ask me?
That sounds pretty rad.
Good for him. He's a good dude and he seems to know what he's doing.
I just traded him some 200ASA film I had for Thumbs of Desire for some 100ASA for a shoot he's doing. I'm not sure when I'll need film again, but the 100ASA will be fine for me.
Unrelated to the point at hand really, but maybe one day I'll be able to brag and say I traded film with the world famous cinematographer Mike Herrera when we were in college.