OCTOBER - 2002



On Saturday we recorded our 4 song demo. I think it's gunna turn out pretty well. We're also thinking about adding a music video of ours to the master CD (Even though we don't have one yet) But yeah..

Sunday.. what happend Sunday.. oh that was last night.. yeah we saw Jackass The Movie. GO SEE IT, cause it will make you shit your ass! Best movie ever. Sick, but good! Today, Work was work. I found out that me getting a job at WB may be harder then I first thought (which was hard) I have to wait a few weeks, so ... god damn. Today we're gunna check up on the demo to see how that's turning out. And, yeah that's pretty much it. Next time I'm sure I'll have more to say.

  • Wednesday, October 23, 2002
    10:40 PM


MY HEARTAGRAM BELT AND BUCKLE ARRIVED TODAY!!!!! And man, is it the fuckin' coolest thing. I wore it all day today. Um, well let me start from the beginning.

So I woke up at 10AM, set my alarm for 10:15AM, went back to sleep, woke up at 10:15AM, and started to get ready for work. On my way there, an employee and the manager's assistant (who from what I know, are dating or something) picked me up and took me to work. Was nice of him. As for Erika (assistant to the manager) she was pretty airheaded. (By the way, to give you an idea of the Del Taco employee's, they can't speak english very well, and half of them can't spell correctly) I got to work feeling tired as fuck. As soon as I got there, the stupid manager demanded that I ware the headset for drive thru. So, I did. While doin' my shitty job, I didn't realize that the manager was wearing a headset too. He ended up calling out all of my flaws, and told me everything I need to work on. I'm fuckin' tryin to take orders, (and correctly so people don't get pissed) tryin' to fill drinks, put stuff in bags, while listenin' to a stupid fucking buzzer that goes off in my ear 3 seconds after I finish taking an order letting me know there is another car. I was so pissed, cause while that bastard is leaning against the wall looking at his nails, he's telling me basically how bad of a cashier I am. Oh man, I was about to fucking throw my headset at that bitch and walk out. I'm so tired of that job. During my 10 minute break, I started to cry, because I was so tired, my legs were sore, and I had had enough. I wanted to be like Paul, and walk out on my break, but I need some source of income, and whoring myself isn't working. (Joke) So yeah...

After my shift was over, I quickly walked home, cause I couldn't wait to get there. Also I was so hungry, that my stomache was pretty much eating itself. When I got home, my mom told me that I had a box on my nightstand. I asked if it was my heartagram, and she said yeah. I was so excited, so I ran in my room, and picked up the box, to see a label with the heartagram on it. I opened it, and to my surprize, I got the belt buckle (which is made of some type of metal (I think steel) and is crome plated. Very nice.) I also got a belt too, which I didn't expect. I'm glad as fuck I got the belt as well, because the buckle doesn't fit on my ringed belt at all. So, yeah, I now wear 2 belts like a stupid fuck. So what, I got a heartagram belt buckle... do you? Didn't think so.

Josh called me up, and he came over to check out my new (but old) half stack. Oh, for those who didn't know, I bought a 300W 4x12 Carvin cabnet with new speakers for $325, and I got a Fender 100w tube head for $120 (Chris chucked in $50 so I got it for $170) but yeah.. Josh so he dug the amp. He also showed me his new bong. It's red, and has boobs. You hold it from the stomach, and then like, yeah you suck from the back of her neck, or something. It's stupid. Anyway, so I went over to his house (just cause I felt sorry about not hanging with him latley) We sat around and looked at his pot magizene. I learned how to roll a joint, and that's about it. Mom called and said I had company, so I looked out of his window, and see Paul and Chris were in my drive way. I go out, and Chris, Paul, Josh, and I stood in the middle of the street, and talked for about 5 minutes. Then they all came in my house, and it was then I showed Chris my new amp. He digs it! It's too big to fit in his little ass car, so I brought my practice amp. Anyway, I got dressed, and Paul, Chris and I got in Chris's car and headed to Krispy Kreme.

After we ate, Sean called and said that he can't practice from 7 to 9, and that he can only practice from 7-8. We were pretty frustrated, but it was no big deal. We stopped at Paul's house, and Paul got his bass, and drove himself to Paul's. When we all got to Chris's house, we set up. Sean showed up, he set up, and we started practice. Our practice lacked a lot of energy. It was going pretty badly, until the end. Paul had his show to show us, but he was somewhat unorganized, which was fine. I played my new song called "High School's Over" which deals about... the shitty parts of school. Chris digs it, but of course Paul found a flaw with it. Says it sounds too much like Mindless, but it really doesn't. It's just fast like the other song. Anyway, Chris played his new song, and after we all added our parts (Paul was strugglin' to find something decent, but he didn't look too enthused) the song came together. It sounds nicccccce! I started to get scared because while playing, my left hand started to get numb, and my finger tips got pretty cold. Not enough blood flowing threw my wrist, which sucks. It might be a problem for me later .. considering that all I do his play guitar.

Sean's mom showed up, and practice was over. After Sean left, Paul, Chris, Chris's sister, and I sat around and talked for a bit. She left, Chris's parents showed up, we talked some more, then it was pretty much it. Paul drove me home. I ate, and yeah. My belt buckle is dope! I plan on buying another one and put it on my guitar strap. It's possible, so don't ask, "How are you gunna do that?" Anyway, thats about it. Ohhh yeah, that manager guy didn't show up. I called his cell, no answer. He was suppose to stop by and watch us practice, but he vanished again. Also, we're going to be recording our first demo with Josh The Mosh starting Saturday around noon. We're gunna have 4 songs on there (Another Tide, Mindless and When I Think of You (my 2 songs) and Turn Back Time.. good songs) It's gunna cost us $100. After we get our copy, we're gunna duplicate 1000 of them for $400. I have no money to help (cause it all went on my amp, so I feel bad about that) but, we're gunna be handin' out demo's like a muther fucker. Paul came up with a great idea. Since the last song is called "Turn Back Time" he made a cover for our demo in class, this is what it looks like:

That's funny as hell. Let me know what you people think about that cover! You can email me at either stlbsswt@hotmail.com or at my newish one heartagram18@hotmail.com or message me on aim (heartagram18) about it.
Next practice is this Friday, so if anythin' great happends, I'll let ya know!

  • Saturday, October 19, 2002
    11:03 PM


Well, how should I start off? Well, really nothing has happend before this wonderful day. Saturday.. the big day! Well.. so I woke up, feeling pretty happy. I even hugged my little brother, which was pretty weird. Chris came to pick Sabrina and I up around 12am or something. We headed over to ABC music, and chatted with the owner about fixin' up Chris's new (but very old) Ibanez Roadstar guitar. The thing's like 25 years old, but whenever Chris get's it fixed up, it's gunna rock!

After that, we head to Paul's house. When we got there, he was pretty much still asleep, so we got to wake him up. It was akward for him, cause he was in his boxers, and inside of his DVD player was some kind of lesbian porn. Sheesh... even behind his DVD player was boxes of porn stuff.. and this comming from a guy who hates to see girls being disrespected or whatever. So anyway, Paul got dressed, and after bein' kind of bored in his backyard, it was time to load up his Ampeg cab (big muther fuckin thing) into his car. We were able to fit it in there, after scratchin' the hell out of his back left window. Then, Chris drove Sabrina and I to his house, while Paul trailed behind. On the way, Chris was tellin' me that there was a sub sandwitch place that was super good, and that we should have lunch there. So, after being at Chris's house, and watchin' him and his dad talk about Chris's new (but very old) guitar, and fiddle with ideas about how to fix it up, the 4 us us headed to the sub place.

When we got there, the whole place seemed all greasy. Chris and I both had a meatball sub, Paul and Sabrina both had turkey I think. Wow, talk about a messy ass sandwitch. Messy, but oh so very good. So, we stuffed ourselfs, and then we took a trip to Ralphs to pick up some energy drinks. Chris got 2 "Energy" drinks, and Paul and I both got one of those Starbucks double shot .. drinky things.

We then headed over to the Vet hall to check it out. We got there around I guess 5. We talked with Mike who was settin' up the whole show, paid him the $50 for lettin' us play, checked out the place, talked some more, and then was off to Chris's.

Once there, it wasn't long before we started to load everything into the back of Chris's mom's explorer. It was then we found out that Paul's bass set up that looked to be well over $1,000 but payed $200 for was most likely st- ...well yah. Anyway, it was time we headed off to the Vet hall... and we did.

Once there, people were already showing up. We loaded everything into the hall, and then basically sat around. The first band that was up, was pretty good. They were from Van Nuys, and it made me feel a lot better knowing that there was people from my "hometown" up there. So yea... yadda yadda, Sean showed up around 8 something. We, (atleast I was) happy to see him. It was then that Juila and Yev showed up too! Once inside, after a good.. 20 minutes, Vanessa showed up! Awgh man, it was so good to see her again, she kicks ass. Selena showed up not too long after, and it was cool to see her too! She took some really pretty pictures!
But yeah, so we waited, waited, waited, waited, got pissed at a stupid fucking loser punker with a green mohawk, waited, and waited somemore, and then FINALLY the god damn band was done (after they played well over their set time). It was then the lights came on, and it was then, that we started to move in. The stage was bigger then it actually looks. From the audience view, I was set up on the far left side, Paul's bass set up was nex to me, then Sean and his drum set, and then Chris's set up. The spacing was perfect. We didn't play on the stage, because there just wasn't enough room. So, after we were all plugged up, I realized that my amp died on me. I was thinkin'.. "what the fuck!" when I looked, I saw that Paul had thrown his bass's bag right on the cord, which knocked it out of the socket. After pluggin' it back in, things were fine... until the mic's didn't work. We started to wonder, what the hell... Chris's mic started to work, Paul's started to work, but mine, didn't. After Mike was messin' with the PA settings, he decided to make a quick move. He took the BIG egg shapped mic that's for the drums bass drum, and hooked it up to my mic stand. Oh god, it was the funniest thing. Once we all had our mic's in, it was then a lot of cheering happend. The first thing I said was, "It's like I'm talkin' into a big egg! It's like fuckin' easter over here!" So we started the first song, and it was absolutly pumped! People were dancing, moshing, clapping, laughing, responding very well to us! The set flleeww by, and what seemed to be 3 songs and 10 minutes to me, really was 7 and 30 minutes in real time. There was a few times where I didn't like the sound of my guitar, but then I realized it was Paul's bass, and how it was out of tune by the last song. He stopped playing a few times because he either forgot what to play, or he had sweat in his eye, that, I guess burned so much, he had to stop. After that was over, so was the set. We got a really good appluase. People actually liked us a lot. Mike said all of our inbetween talking was great, the jokes, everything was so cool... and it was later he said everytime he throws a show at the Vet's hall, Five Points Up will be showcasing that night. I was so excited to hear that! Who would have thought.. a band that was together for a month, played the first show, and now is wanted for the main set. Fucking awesome.

After all of that crazyness, I got to say goodbye to Vanessa, who I probably won't see face to face again until another.. month.. or even more! Selena had to stay back to get picked up by a parent. Chris, Paul, Sean, Morgan, her friend, Chris, Heela, Tim, Nikki, Yev, Juila, Sabrina, I, and a few more people all went to Big Boy's resturant. It was nothin' but kick back. Paul was pretty much the loud talktive one, but hey, I know he was excited. He started to rag on Sean about his jewish nationaltiy or whatever, and after many times of tryin' to get him to chill out, it didn't work. But, a good thing for Sean, is that he was able to hook up with Morgan's friend, which I was happy to find out. Cute couple.
Julia had bought the band an apple pie that said "5 Point Up" in whipped cream. After singing Happy Birthday to ... no one, only a few people dug into the pie (Me, Sabrina, Juila, Yev) It was yummy. So yeah.. some more people came by, heard the show was good. I started to get into a quite mood, which I'm still in now, and later on, most people left. Paul was forced to drive Morgan and her friend to Semi Valley. Sean when with of course. Chris drove Sabrina and I home, and that's pretty much it. The night was very cool. Now we as a band know that the next show will most likely be even better. People were calling others, saying that we kicked ass. Nicole had told me her friend called her, said we rocked, and Nicole plans on telling her friend Ryan, who's a "Drive Thru" records intern, to put in a good word for us. So, sounds like the only way to go from here is up!

Oh yeah... MY FUCKING HEARTAGRAM BELT BUCKLE STILL ISN'T HERE!!!!!!!

  • Tuesday, October 15, 2002
    2:03 AM


I know, I know... the site updates just seem to take longer, and longer. Things have been pretty busy actually, which explains my horrible updates. But, I'm sure you all have noticed (or if you didn't) that I changed my website's URL to http://www.torrey.tk Pretty slick, eh?

Anyway, I've been out all night with Paul and/or Chris, which explains why I haven't been home. We've been busy makin' flyers, and passing them out at places, trying to promote our show.
WE HAVE AS SHOW
OCTOBER 19TH (THIS SATURDAY) AT THE DISABLED VETERANS HALL
1115 W. MAGNOLIA BLVD.
BURBANK, CA
SHOW STARTS AT 6:30PM, FIVE POINTS UP GOES ON AT 9:45PM
$5 FOR TICKETS, OR AT THE DOOR (I think)

This is our first show, and it's super important that we get as many people to go (yes this means you too). That way, people can hear us, and decide if we're worth seeing again later, or not. I'm really excited, not only for the band, but for myself. I've finally done it. I'm in a band where I play guitar, and sing my OWN songs. Knowing that brings so much joy to me... I mean, it's really rad to be a songwriter, and hear my stuff come to life. I don't think me being in a 3 peice, with me on lead would be more fun then sharing it with Chris and Paul. It's just got more of a flow, and plus all of the writing isn't piled on someone else. It all just comes together naturally.

I've been workin' hard on my bands website. Hrmm.. I always feel weird when I say "my band" cause, it's not really MY band, it's mostly Chris and Paul's, and I'm apart of it. Even though I am 2nd frontman (or so it seems) it still is weird. So, maybe I'll start saying "the band" or.. "the band I play in" or something. I dunno. But yeah, I practically stole Betsy's web site design, copied it, and made it a site at Angelfire. The reason I did this was because Betsy is really slow with our updates... and me having to email someone and tell them what should go on the site, just takes too long. So, I'm proud to announce that I am the new webmaster of the Five Points Up website, which is no longer at fivepointsup.iscrappy.com, but is now at:
http://www.fivepointsup.tk (so remember it!)

Yeah, things are going well with my social life at the time. Before I met Paul, and Chris, I was going through a pretty tough depression stage. It's was when I kept throwing new music up here on my site that I made. It sort of helped me feel better. But, now that I actually have a life outside of my room, and Del Taco, things just seem so much better. It's so cool to know that Paul and drive around, not have much planned, and still have a good time. Same with Chris, but it's even better when all 4 of us (usually Sabrina is with us) go out, because we have so much fun. Once we stayed at a Carl's Jr until it was like 1:30AM. All we did was laugh, and say stupid things.

I'm really tired of Del Taco. I told my manager on Friday that I wasn't comming in on Monday. Which, I spent mostly with Paul, his friend Robair, and Sabrina. First, we picked up Robair, and headed to Granada Hills to pick up a Fender half stack for the show on Oct. 19 (YOU BETTER BE THERE). After finding a way to fit the cab in Paul's trunk, we headed to Robair's cyropractor, because he had an appoitment. Sabrina and I got food at Carl's JR, while Paul ordered at El Pollo Loco. Sabrina and I headed to El Pollo Loco after ordering, sat with Paul, ate, and waited for Robair. After all of that was done, and Robair was out, we got back in the car, and headed back to Burbank. We stopped at Paul's house to pick up the CD that had the print out of our shows flyers. He ran out of ink, and we needed more flyers. We headed to Kinko's, which for some reason, Paul didn't make any copies... then we went to the mall, which, we pretty much walked in, and out of (except I got a McFlurry, and Sabrina had a yogurt parfeit or whatever the fuck it is). Then, Robair was dropped off, then Paul, Sabrina, and I headed to Chris's house. It was kind of funny, cause on the way, Paul found out that Sabrina thought Chris and Sean were both cute. Paul and I wouldn't leave her alone about which one she thought was cuter.

Anyway, we got to Chris's house, and we rolled the half stack in. I pluged it up, and tested it out. It worked, but it sounded kind of bad, but then again, it's a loud peice of equipment that was being played really low, so, of course it's gunna sound weird. After that, we all were in Chris's room, and waited for Chris's dad to print us a one page with 4 flyers on it. We then headed to the same kinko's we were at earlier, and it was then I think... 100 copies were made (4 on each page = 400 flyers). Anyway, after cutting some excess paper off of the flyers, breaking Kinko's cutting equipment, and cutting more paper, we finally had all of our flyers cut, and ready to hand out (which made me realize that Paul had made 500 flyers before, and there we were, making another 400... where the fuck did they all go?).

Well, we were headed home, and it was pretty funny, cause Sabrina's black converse are shot to shit, and she never seemed to realize it until tonight. On the way home, Paul threw one of her shoes out of the window. Of course, we ended up going back to get it (after missing it the first attempt) but seeing it laying next to the curb, was pretty sad. It was a depressing shoe. It really was.

Today (Tuesday) is work, which sucks cause I hate that fucking place, but it's good cause I get my paycheck, but then it sucks again cause when I combine my check with what I have now, I still won't have enough to get a shitty half stack. Which, all sucks anyway. Paul was talkin' about job openings at Hollywood Video, which is close to here. Paul and I both want to work there (since he quit his job). Hopefully him and I can get the same hours. If we did, it'd kick a lot of ass because we'd be going to work, and leaving at the same time. The only thing bad thing is that Chris works until 5 or 6pm. Our last practice was at our new shedual time (6PM - 9PM) - it was our second practice at that time, and it was the first time the cops stopped us. They said we sounded good, but around 8:30PM, they told us to turn it down, or to just shut it off. So, we stopped. We got some pictures taken of us that night, but they were all black and white, and the lighting was bad, so, the pictures came out bad too. You can see a few of them at the bands new site - Five Points Up

That's it for now. I'll try to update at the end of the week. My heartagram belt buckle STILL ISN'T HERE, and I'm kind of annoyed now. I'm gunna keep emailing the guy and asking what the fuck is up.

  • Monday, October 7, 2002
    4:11 PM


Howdy. Hmm, updating seems more and more rediculous everytime I do it. Anyway, things have sort of picked up a bit around here the last few days. On Friday, Sabrina was up here for the weekend, and went to my band's practice. She got to hear how we sound, and she really digs us, which is cool. Saturday, band practice again, nothing too special happend, except I revamped my guitar's look, and now I think it has more charactor to it.

On Sunday, we worked on a new song, which is probably gunna be called "When I Think Of You" which is a pretty fast paced song. It needs to be practiced a lot more, because Paul was getting confused on what to play, and Sean was getting so confused (but it's a really easy song) he started to like, attack his drum set. It was kind of scary! Anyway, after practice, we (Me, Sabrina, Paul, Chris, Sean) headed out for dinner. We ate at a Big Boys resturant, which when we first got there..... thought was so packed, that it would be pointless to go. Well, we did anyway. When we got there, we waited a bit for a table to open up. Once it did, we sat at the table for a good.. 15-20 minutes before someone actually came to set up silverware. Ohh, god, it sucked. After we ordered, and got our food, we kept sending the waiter back, because something was wrong with our order, or something was missing. It was pretty amusing, but I know the waiter was getting pretty pissed. So, we ate, and laughed a lot. I ended up laughing at something Paul said, and I spit my milkshake. It splattered pretty much all over the table. It was the funniest thing of the night. Anyway, the total came to like $55 and something cents. After we ate, and sexually harassed the Big Boy statue outside, we headed home. Paul decided to go nuts and start swurving his car, and speeding up and hitting speed bumps. That was pretty fun too. When we got on my street, he sped up, then hit his breaks, so the car skideded (heh) and made noise. My mom ran outside of the house (it was like, past 9PM) and she was like, "What the fuck!?" Anyway, yeah, Sabrina left during the new Jackass The Movie music video, which, wasn't that good, because, I don't think Andrew W.K. is entertaining.

Today, I pretty much wanted to quit my job. I headed to work at 10:52AM, thinking how cool it would be to not even go in, and just start picking up applications for other places. Of course, I went to work, and worked my whole shift. Wasn't too bad, I guess... until the last person I worked with, accused me of being gay. He asked me if I was an Angel fan, and I said no, and that I didn't watch much sports. He said he'd tell me something after I got his food. Once I brought it to him, he asked me if I liked guys, and I was like, "No? and he said that 99.6% of guys that dont watch sports, aren't straight. I told him I watch skateboarding when I see it's on. Then he remembered that skateboarding was an extreme sport, and then said that I was okay. I felt pretty awkward, but, it was time for me to leave anyway.

By the time I got home, and went online, I got in a bad mood, and well, Im sort of calmed now, I'm sure anything can flare me up again. It sucks because there's no band practice today, or tomorrow. So, now I have nothing to do really. I'll probably take Raven out, and maybe skate around a little bit. Maybe work on a new song, and .. be bored. Good news though, the Honda Accord sitting in the garage will most likely be put in my name, and I'll be paying the insurance, which pretty much means the car will be mine. All I have to do, is drive my mom around (which I wanted to do in the first place) as well as take Yia Yia (grandma) places as well, which is fine, because I wouldn't mind. I still need my drivers license, so, I'm gunna talk to Marvin's mom about her helping me out.

On another note, my heartagram belt buckle should be here around Thursday, or Friday. I'm really excited about that. Oh, bit of a tangent here... Christina and I have somewhat rebuilt our friendship, and now for some reason, she seems to find me more laidback, and easier to talk to. I wonder why. Anyway, that's all for now. My next update won't be until.. probably Wednesday, or Friday. Or whenever I get my belt buckle. But um, check out the band I play in (Five Points Up) at http://www.fivepointsup.iscrappy.com and sign the book. Not like there's any real reason to do it, but still, be a pal. Ah thank you.