So close.

I'm stressing the hell out these days because the last few days of the school year are upon me. This past week I had two tests and three presentations in four days. I was up till goddamn six in the morning working on a stupid, stupid video for film class that was only for extra credit (okay, it kicked ass, but still - 6AM.) I'm so ready to just get the fuck out of school and throw myself into two things: working my ass off to finally make some more money, and music. I'm playing as many gigs as I possibly can this summer; I already have two lined up and one of those is at Borders, which is a big thing for me. Yikes. I'm gonna be doing a lot of recording once I get my two nifty condenser mics as well and hopefully have an EP done and on iTunes by September or October-ish. I can't keep being this fucking exhausted all the time. It's nuts.

That's all.

Trent Reznor is officially God.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's done it again.

I totally forgot to post a blog ranting and raving about this a few months ago, but as you may be aware (but probably aren't, because you're probably dumb), on March 2, Trent Reznor released a brand-new, two-hour, 36-track instrumental Nine Inch Nails album via nin.com called Ghosts I-IV, with absolutely no prior announcement, beyond cryptic hints, that a new record was coming out. Free of his record label, Trent sold the album at various tiers - $5 for the digital download, $10 for the download and a physical two-disc CD copy with mighty fine artwork, $75 for a deluxe edition with a hardcover book, the multi-tracks for remixing and the album on a Blu-Ray in hi-def, and $300 version with all that shit, plus a 4-LP vinyl set, signed by Trent himself.

Long story short, the guy made a million dollars in a week - more in one week than he saw from his last album, Year Zero, to date (it was released about a year ago.) That's pretty fucking incredible.

So it looked like all Trent was going to do was tour. Nope - the other day, again out of nowhere, Reznor releases a new single called "Discipline" (this time with vocals) to radio, having finished mastering the song the previous day. A note in the ID3 tags says "Go to nin.com on May 5," leading me to believe that there is yet another new album on the way from Nine Inch Nails.

I absolutely bow to Trent Reznor at this point, even more so than I used to. For not only is a musical genius, but now he's completely changing the way shit gets done in the music industry. Free of his label, he can pretty much drop a record whenever he wants. And being sober and apparently thinking more clearly and having more creative spurts, the guy's pretty much shitting out music right now. Once again I have to lament that Flo Rida is on hour rotation at every shitty radio station in America and this, because it's by NIN, will never get played - despite the fact that the song is perfectly radio-friendly, and a lot cleaner than most of what's on the air these days anyways to boot.

But I digress, and now you will listen to my instructions and you will follow them flawlessly:

Step One: Go to discipline.nin.com and download your free copy of "Discipline," and check back on May 5 because there will probably be an EP or possibly a full-length album awaiting you when you do. For the record, it's a great song - fun and dancy, albeit slightly more in the spirit of the With Teeth album. If you liked "Only," you'll like this.
Step Two: If you haven't already, also go to ghosts.nin.com, or go to Target, and check out Ghosts I-IV. It's completely instrumental, but it's a great record too - as Reznor describes it, "A soundtrack for daydreams." For those familiar with NIN, there are little bits and pieces of this record that each remind me of different albums. It's very The Fragile-y, but there's also some very The Downward Spiral and Year Zero elements to it. If you have a hard time actively sitting down and listening to instrumental music, it also makes for great study/work/drawing/other music.

I'll know if you don't do these things, and I won't be happy about it.

If we don't elect Obama, we deserve whatever's coming to us.

It's a good thing no one actually reads this blog, because if they did, my official Kicking Reality endorsement of Barack Obama for president may just hurt the guy. So just this one time, thanks for NOT telling your friends about Kicking Reality. I've been thinking a lot lately about this election. I'm almost 20 years old, so this will be the first one I get to vote in. I live in North Carolina, so our primary is May 6. I am biting my nails hoping that maybe Hillary will be out of it by then, but she probably won't be because the bitch doesn't know when to quit.

To the exact same degree that I love Barack Obama, I loathe Hillary Clinton.

I think she's evil, conniving, back-stabbing, ice-cold bitch and I don't trust her as far as I can throw her. She's flip-floppy, she's too polarizing, and not to mention, she's about the least likable candidate I could fathom. I know what I'm gonna get here - I don't like Hillary Clinton because she's a woman. Wrong. My dislike for Clinton has nothing to do with her politics (which I'm perfectly alright with, since even I can admit that they're close enough to Obama's) or the fact that she's a woman. As a matter of fact, she's such an evil hag that I don't really consider her much of a woman at all. But speaking in the technical, if she didn't have a vagina, I'd still hate her just as much.

I hate all the bullshit that goes around about her "experience." Dave Matthews said something that I'm gonna totally rip off here - I don't want someone with her kind of experience, because all she's experienced in is the same kind of political manipulation that she practices now. I don't want someone like that running my country and I can't believe anyone does. The only reason this woman is still in the race is because she's been riding on the coat tails of her husband. I need someone I can trust not to fuck us into oblivion and I can trust Obama not to do that. I know a lot of people argue that he just speaks big empty words, but I don't want to hear that because empty or not, those words unite people a lot more than any of Hillary's, and that's exactly what this country needs right now - unity. Besides, whatever experience Obama MAY lack, I'm sure he can make up for in the cabinet, and I'd venture to say that he's going to be a lot better at foreign relations - if only because he's fucking LIKEABLE - than Hillary or McCain ever would be.

Oh, McCain - how could I forget you, you wrinkly, twisted old son of a bitch? I don't understand why this guy is the frontrunner for the Republican party, either. Even most of the Republicans (finally) no longer support the war in Iraq and are beginning to become disillusioned with Bush, but now they want to put a guy in office who would keep us there indefinitely? A guy who sang "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"?

Fuck that. I'm 20 years old. We've exhausted our troops as it is, and if we go into Iran, as we most certainly will if McCain gets his hands on the Oval Office, they're going to have to start a draft again. Who do you think is gonna go first? When I look at John McCain I can't help but think that he's so excited about getting into office and thus Iran that he's practically sweating napalm with excitement. Fuck John McCain.

Before I close, I'd like to remind you that Hillary supporters are fucking retarded. Even if you like Hillary more than Obama, obviously one candidate needs to be picked. Now, if you look at the politics, they're similar enough to be reconciled. But let's say Hillary does get the nomination - she won't stand a chance against McCain because she's too polarizing. Almost all Republicans hate Hillary, and indeed a large percentage of Democrats hate her too. But Obama, on the other hand, has the support of many more Democrats, and is even pulling a lot of Republicans and independents. Thus, he'd probably ruin McCain's pruny shit come November. If the bottom line is the politics of the person you're putting in office, and Obama's politics are similar enough to Hillary's, why would you not just rally behind the guy more likely to get elected? What it comes down to is this: What's more important to you - Hillary winning, or a Democrat winning. What's worse to you - Obama getting the White House instead of Hillary, or McCain getting it and keeping us at war?

The bottom line is, we desperately need someone like Obama in office, and if we elect anyone else but him, we probably deserve whatever shitstorm comes our way.