Hollywood is Dead.

3:14 AM

Why the hell does Mike Huckabee have his own TeeVee show on Fox News?
And why are all of these celebrities dropping dead like it's the end of the world as we know it? (I feel fine) (by the way)).
McMahon, Fawcett, Jackson, Mays; You're on the real silver screen now.

I'm not sure if I hate blogging or not, maybe it's growing on me, but I'm not sure if it's a beard or a tumor.
Today is my birthday. I am two decades old. Seventy Three Hundred days (yes, I used a calculator.) And I'm honestly not ultra crunk about it. I'm still one day closer to dead. And I'm kinda lonely and idea-less and blah. I never really found a job in town this summer, or a girl worth breaking my heart over, but I'll probably be better off without the two. If there's one thing we'll never have enough of it's money. Lately in my job search I've been going to this Temp Agency. That's a cute word for "Last chance job opportunity for losers". I show up in work clothes at 5:30 in the morning to compete with homeless people for jobs. I don't even know if I want these jobs though, I don't deserve them.
I sat next to an oily, smelly black man for three hours one day who cooked ramen noodles from his backpack in a microwave in the corner. He rolled his own cigarettes and listened to a hand radio that sold for new sometime in the eighties. I wish I knew where that radio came from. What privileged kid got it for his birthday and after six months threw it away (like everything else we don't need.)
But who am I to take a job from a man who actually WANTS to work? Who showed up at 5:30, just like me (without an alarm clock or a warm shower next to an iHome playing bullshit indie songs) to FIGHT for his next meals.
It blew my mind that we quit our jobs because we're not getting enough hours, or our social status is hurting, or we're just to cool to bag groceries anymore.
I am an ungrateful, apathetic, stagnant bastard who has a 1.8 GPA at the largest University in the state. These people I share the room with probably never took the SAT, they don't have Facebooks or blogs or internships or Nike LowDunks or Laptops. Or what they really need, hope.
I don't care if he has a criminal record, I don't care if he had track marks on his arm, or smells unpleasant, or can't use Excel or PowerPoint or Word, or learn how to right click on a Mac.
Everyone should have to sit in this dirty bus-stop of a room with these men for a few uncomfortably tense silent hours, and think.

I spent my last three birthdays with "girl". This is my first one in four years without her and I honestly hurt. I haven't gotten heard from her in two months (not to suggest that drunken texts deserve sympathetic responses), but it sucks.
I don't know if I want her to text or call, and I'm afraid to sit in the same room as her. I make myself hate her to feel better about the situation.
(By the way, I can send anyone a playlist of I-hate-you, hearltess, vengeful ex songs if you'd like.)
It has honestly really made me re-think my view on love. I honestly don't know if relationships are built to last, or if anyone can love anyone but themselves when it really comes down to it. I feel like she lied to me. She told me she loved me for three years, we had names picked out for kids, honey-moon destinations; all of that. I don't know if I was naive for trusting a girl that much, or if love really should be naked and unprotected and vulnerable (and terrifying).
I don't know if I'll ever trust a girl (or anyone for that matter) again. I've built walls where scars were and I honestly don't want anyone inside of them.
I just want to feel loved and missed and valued and looked up to.
I want to be a dad (and a hell of a good one at that), but I'm kind of an asshole lately. Ask your friends, they'll tell you, I have dirty secrets now that I used to not have. I used to tell the truth, I used to give straight answers, I used to give without asking for something in return.
I don't know if "she" is out there, but I'm so ready to find her, and I hope she feels the same.
ATTENTION ALL ASSHOLE BOYS: please don't break the heart of my future wife. I love her dearly and hurt for her now, even though I don't know her name.

I hope this scared you, I hope you're sweating, I hope you're breathing quickly.
Truth does that.
I refuse to filter.

-Austin is Dead. (No but really, he's fine. Keep it posi'.)

1987 Volvo 240 DL

5:36 AM
I just secretly smoked a cigarette in my back yard and hid the butt in the bottom of the trashcan. I am sixteen years old.
I got a crazy buzz of the aforementioned cigarette. I am sixteen years old.
So I'm not really planning on writing so much on this blog, but here I am. I figured I should write as much as possible at first though, seeing as I'm not really good at keeping anything going long-term. Except for three year long unhealthy dating relationships, which I'm sure you'll hear all about at some time.
I want to be terrifyingly honest when I write, so this could get really scary. Brace yourself.
I'm turning into quite the regular when it comes to being a manwhore. My dad called me a "makeout artist" a few days ago, that was interesting. I'm not in dire need of girl's attention, or maybe I am and I won't say it, but I think everyone's in dire need of attention when it really comes down to it. I don't think any honest person can truly be happy sleeping alone at night, and after much trial and error with no-strings cuddling ending in alot of confused bodies and breathing patterns, have decided it's time to settle down and get married.
I watched the show on MTV about sixteen year old pregnancies tonight, and something about pregnant, young girls really gets me. I want to impregnate.
There's just something about the tragedy and hopelessness of these girls that is powerful and striking. I cried (just like Joey Mcintyre) the first time I watched the show in a rented condo in Florida. I want to rescue these girls. I want to hold them still and tell that all boys aren't selfish, childish *ssholes, but let's be honest, I don't think anyone can say that with much resolve. Sincerity, just like every other human emotion, is all chemicals anyway.
I have a side tab opened to Thesaurus.com. I'm dying to seem studied and intelligent, but so are you, think about it.
I've been hearing alot of talk about maybe touring for music in the future, and it's making me wonder what I really want with my life. I used to be so comfortable with settling down and doing "the family thing". I'm an advertising major, but I've been slowly figuring out that I really don't know anything worth more than twelve dollars and hour. I am theoretically an "idea guy". I can't use photoshoppe, writing for newspapers is pulling teeth, I tried to paint yesterday and all I got was a rastafarian spin-art looking canvas covered in glitter I found in our Christmas decorations.
Idea guys with degrees are still just idea guys. And when idea guys run out of ideas, they have no worth, businessly speaking.
I have no job, I have no internship, and I have no ideas. I have one hundred and nine dollars to my name, not to mention a negative ten thousand give or take debt dollars from everyone's least favorite university (go cocks!), at least in Greenville.
I'm not sure if that bothers me or not. This is by no means a pity party, and if it was, you wouldn't be invited anyway. (Or if you were, you would've gotten a Facebook invite and RSVP'd ages ago.)
I'm not much of a writer when backed into a corner, and every good writer has to write themselves out of corners. That's how we know these guys weren't good writers. (And look how THEY ended up...)
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Journalists.htm
My friend Daniel says I need a blog because I have alot of interesting things to say, but I doubt that (and if I didn't I'd be a tool shed.) But he also tells me all the girls think I'm so cute, and I'm in bed alone right now.
I wonder if the great writers/songwriters liked their songs? If I think my content is sh*t, does that mean it's sh*t, or does that mean I'm a genius? They say that Jeff Buckley could hardly finish recording his song because he was never satisfied with the end result, and I think we can all agree that that kid had "geen" (genius) written all over him. I mean, he drowned mysteriously in a river completely sober. You either have to be majestically brilliant or a bumbling fool to do that, and bumbling fools don't write songs like "Hallelujah". (I think his dad drowned in the same river, which is pleasantly poetic.)
Death is nothing to be afraid of, and I know everyone says that, but then our country turns around and shells out billions of dollars a year to keep our proverbial cameras rolling. No one's exactly "embracing" the after-life.
We weren't built to last. It's like a 1987 Volvo 240 DL with 200,000 miles. I loved the hell out of that baby, but there comes a day when the wheels stop rolling, it's the circle of life. We're like snowballs rolling down some fantastic cosmic hill, but when we reach the bottom, instead of allowing ourselves to melt we spend our every last effort trying to roll back up the hill. Snowballs weren't built to roll up hills. And there are billions of other metaphorical snowballs experiencing identical existences.
So I hope today is a wonderful day. Not a day to greet with cynisism. But honesty. We are young, we are vibrant, we are invincible. For at least the next twenty minutes.
Now go beat the hell out of your twenty minutes.
Austin Is (Definitely not) Dead (For at least the next twenty minutes.)

Sex and the City; E-mail Fraud; Breathing Exercises

4:13 AM.

I’m in my bed, clicking away at what plans to be the first of a spewing series of blog entries. Very Sarah Jessica Parker-esque, I know, but no one’s really getting laid around here. Well I guess my mom and dad are, or at least I hope they are, I’m all for that.

I don’t really know what to call myself; a social critic, a philosopher, a pretentious hipster kid that thinks people will marvel at my musings, maybe I’m an ex-journalism major that has gotten a little cabin-feverish this summer. Whatever the case, you’re reading this.

Oh by the way, my name is Alex Wingate. I am an exiled king from the country of obscure bullsh*t and I need your help to withdraw one hundred million dollars from some non-credible bank. And I sent this e-mail knowing that it would be the best way to reach you, since we’ve never met. So just send back your social and a credit card number…

Anyway, I don’t really have anything important to say, but a friend requested I try this. I think all the truth we’ll ever need is bouncing around inside our skin from the moment we’re born.

Practice breathing exercises by the way, in through the nose, out through the mouth. They’re absolutely incredible.

I think we’ll shy away from the deepnesses tonight though. We don’t want to get too serious on our first entry now, do we?
I’ll be back around soon, so direct your digital attention sometime.
Preesh.
Austin.