RE: The Joe Meno reading last night;

Joe Meno, how are you so great?!? I went in with a pretty terrible mood (attributed soley to my own getting mad at work/everyone else in the world/so forth), but left positively entranced. He was reading from his new novel, which I sat there thinking "Oh, CLASSIC Joe Meno! Wait, this is going to inevitably happen - wait - it's coming - wait - WAIT! - HE JUST PULLED A FAST ONE ON US!!!! OH WOW!!!!!!!" Plus then there was the Q+A session afterwards, and he was just so funny - In the great effortless kind of way, in that he was just naturally charming and humorous, and not all "WELL LET ME ANSWER YOUR QUESTION WITH SOME UNRELATED WACKADOO RESPONSE!! WHOOOOOWEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" Plus I got home with a copy of said new novel that was autographed (Which, I'm often kind of weird about, but in a case like this with books, I kind of look at getting something signed at a reading/etc. the literature equivalent of getting this limited silk screened record release LP at the show itself).

"I hope you enjoy it," he said to me. "Hope." HA! Oh Joe Meno, you lovable card. Now, who wants to go with me to DC to see the play version of his last novel?!?

I did walk out though, with the feeling of "Man, I need to write so much more." Which is true. But, what? I'd like to go through with at least the one book idea I have. I'd also like to go through with another children's book-esque story I have. Then again, I also have an "ultimate career goal" of writing something for television, which I also have weird conflicts about (in fact, I even kind of have conflicts about said conflicts).

I remember when I first got "really" excited about writing; I was in the seventh grade, my first year of junior/middle school. I was in love with my just-married English teacher (not married to me of course - ha!) and of course wanted to excel in the class. We had numerous creative writing assignments which I also loved, and can remember two of them: One "start of the year" story, which I completed with something that was a half-rip off of the Narnia series, and a video game that I'd recently completed and enjoyed. The other was for a horror-based assignment around Halloween time, where I wrote a story about a disgruntled child who takes out a violent revenge on everyone he felt had wronged him (which, I've since well realized, had I been in that class/done that assignment even a year or so later, I would've immediately been taken in for some sort of intensive psychotherapy).

While I suppose I didn't have an incredibly prolific writing career throughout the rest of my high school days, this WAS the time when I started writing for a local fanzine called Undecided, the brain child of my friend Nicole from a few towns away, who was one of my primary "Getting into punk rock" friends (and of course, I was completely in love with). Again, most of my contributions were pretty terrible on my part, and more the result of Nicole being a good friend, BUT I can say I did my first interview, with a band who has since gone on to a major label (and I think multiple major labels, maybe doing the "unsigned" thing now, I admittedly haven't paid any attention to the band in years), where this interaction took place:

Man Of Infirmity: So, front man, what was it like working in a pornography store?
Front Man: Wait, what?! How do you know about that???

(I mentioned this to my friend Joe "Erg" back in the Fall while we were both at Riot Fest, to which he said "Man, you were Megan Pants-ing bands even back then!*")

Again, I didn't really do much writing while in college, due to being completely overjoyed due to the fact that I was living somewhere outside of the same small town I'd grown up/spent 99.9% of my life so fa (which, in retrospect, was probably like "I'm out of that town!!! NOW I'm in a completely NEW small town, a whole HALF HOUR AWAY!!!!"). But, I'd also become incredibly involved in the campus radio station, which I tried to use in helping gain influence when I submitted a number of record and live show reviews to the school papers. That said, I also entered some sort of open mic/spoken word night, reading an essay I wrote, where I came in second in whatever judging they were doing, and won some sort of monetary award which I never bothered collecting. So folks, no matter what, I will never sell out.

(Tough if I were to even think of doing that today, I'd probably punch myself in the face, hard.)

But for some plot loops: I was also taking my Communications Major somewhat seriously as time went on (SOMEWHAT being the key word), I'd been having pretty good fun writing short scripts and performing them in some of my video production classes. This led me to a day I distinctly remember, going to a regular meeting with my advisor, who I'd constantly argue with every time we were forced to talk with each other.

"So, do you have any idea what you'd like to do after graduation?"

"Yes. I'd like to write for television."

"Interesting - you're aware that's incredibly difficult to get into, correct?"

"Yep."

"Fair enough. Well, I wish you good luck."

So from there I graduated college, got really back into/involved with music, tried to get one interview in a few larger punk mag/zines that I really enjoyed, and then ended up becoming a regular-ish contributor to Razorcake, and here we are today.

I'm surprised I was able to even tell that much of a story just over something like this, on that kind of a tangent, but I think there's even more to the story as well. For later though, as the next week is going to consumed with pop punk nonsense and such, and I'll need something not as music related to talk about once its all over.

(*Megan Pants-ing: A term used to describe the band interview method in which the interviewer finds some obscure trivia fact or story about the interviewee, which is then sprung upon them causing a reaction of shock - first pioneered by Nardwuar the Human Serviette, popularized by Megan Pants)