Tornadoes

Let me tell you about where I live. it's a city of about 93,000 people. Some of them are rich, some of them are poor, some of them are scraping by. 30,000 of us are students. Every year, when the weather gets warm, we get some storms. The tornado sirens go off sometimes, but we don't ever pay much attention to it.

One week ago today seemed like another one of those days. A storm had come through that night and thought that was it. There was something else behind it, but finals were a week away and there were bigger fish to fry.. I was sitting in my last Wednesday class when the sirens started to wail. Class dismissed. You're all free to leave, but taking shelter is recommended. I stuck around. The same thing happened the week before that.

The warning was originally until 4:45pm, then 5:30, then 5:35. The basement in the building that I was in does not like to cooperate with cell phone reception. I felt my phone vibrate and had a voice message from my dad and from my sister. When I called them back, they both said the same thing: "Stay where you are. This is about to get bad." Everyone was sitting on benches and on the floor, ducked into classrooms and standing by the door smoking cigarettes. The alarm in the building went off; "The University of Alabama is under a tornado warning. Take shelter until the storm has passed." At around 4:50, I slid into a side room in the basement. We were all huddled around the one guy with a computer that was streaming James Spann on the internet. As far back as I can remember, I've watched and listened to James Spann report on bad weather. There's something about those suspenders that make him seems trustworthy. The campus warning went off again. This time, it said that there was a tornado on the ground. It was heading toward campus. Take cover immediately. Good thing ten Hoor was built during the Cold War to double as a fallout shelter. The camera on top of the Tuscaloosa County courthouse showed us the tornado. It was on the ground. It was coming right for us. Momma called and told me to take cover. I tell my Momma that I love her every time that I talk to her. This time, I was legitimately scared that it would be the last time that I ever said it to her. James Spann keeps talking for a few more minutes. Things like "once-in-a-career storm" were heard from him. Darkness. The power goes out. Surprisingly, the two little girls in the hallway remain fairly calm. When I was that little, I didn't get off of the toilet until the sirens stopped wailing.

After a few minutes, we nervously ventured outside. I text Hannah to make sure that she was okay. No one's phones were working properly. I was nervous until she texted me back a few minutes later and said that she was fine. I started making phone calls to friends. Nothing. No response. Were my friends okay? As I ventured out of the building and started to make the hike to my apartment, all you could hear was the wail of sirens. We had heard that the hospital was hit, that the mall was hit, that entire businesses and neighborhoods were gone. This was within twenty minutes of the storm touching down. I was relieved to see that my apartment complex was safe. No electricity. I can deal with that. That just means empty the fridge and take a cold shower. I didn't know what to do, so I just started walking. Tree limbs and power lines were down. I get to the Strip. No power in Jimmy John's, but people are lined up out the door getting sandwiches in the heat and the dark.

I see Hannah. Visual confirmation that she was alright. I see Raquel. One of my best friends made it out alive. Morgan calls from Jesse's a little while later. Two more are safe and sound. We try to see some of what happened, but you couldn't get anywhere. I drive up toward the hospital. I heard it was hit and I wanted to see. There was a line of people out the emergency room door. Police wouldn't let you cross the bridge over McFarland Boulevard because of a gas leak in Alberta. Behind the hospital was Cedar Crest, one of the neighborhoods that was destroyed. I saw a girl walking away from there up Bryant Drive. She was bawling.

Not knowing what to do, I went to work. We had people lined up out the door trying to get food. We were one of the only places open. I spend the next couple of days working to keep distracted. Thursday night, my power was still out. There were rumors of looters. I live half a mile away from the affected area, but I still slept with a baseball bat. My power came back on around 4am Friday. The smoke alarm in my apartment is electric instead of battery. It beeped and I jumped up in bed. "Shit, what now?" I thought my place was on fire then remembered how it was wired up. I jump out of bed and see that the timer on my microwave and the display on my stereo are both on. "I HAVE POWER!"

When I left town Friday afternoon, I saw the view from Hargrove Road. My jaw dropped. My heart sunk. Complete neighborhoods were gone. No one in this city has ever been able to see from 2nd Avenue straight to the hospital. There were always houses and oak trees in the way. Not now. You can see all the way to the hospital. Entire neighborhoods are gone. Right now, the death toll stands at 40 people in Tuscaloosa, over 200 across Alabama as a whole and 300 across the South. We know that there will be more as they continue to dig through the rubble. I heard someone working for the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office that the search and rescue teams could still hear people screaming under the rubble. I hope they were able to dig them out in time.

Friday night was the first time that we got together after the storm. One thing that you never forget is the looks and the hugs from your family and friends when they realize that you're alright. I've never hugged my mom or sister so hard in my life. My dad told me that he was terrified when that thing hit Tuscaloosa, afraid that his oldest son was going to die. "Well, I'm alright Daddy. I'm here in the truck with you." "I know, boy." I'm 24 years old. I've never called him anything but Daddy, except the joking and occasional Timbo or Old Man. He still calls me boy. When I got to Jesse's house Friday night, my brother ran over and picked me up. "I'm so goddamn glad you're not dead." "Me too, little brother. Me too." Everyone embraced, thankful that we are alive. We toasted our beers to Tuscaloosa, "TO ONE GREAT CITY!" and to Alabama.

I've lived here for three years in August. It took some time, but I love this city. Attalla is my home first and foremost, but Tuscaloosa has become a home. I cannot describe the joy in knowing that the people that I'm friends with here are alive. A few people that I know lost some of their belongings, but that's just stuff. You can replace stuff. You can't replace people. You can't replace friendships. It's going to be a while before there is some semblance of normal here again, but we're trying.

No matter how long it takes, I love you Tuscaloosa. One Great City.

It's a regular den of iniquity in here...

To the turd that said in the Tuscaloosa News that Tuscaloosa had turned its back on God by allowing Sunday sales...Bite me. People being able to purchase alcohol on a Sunday within the Tuscaloosa city limits has no bearing on your life whatsoever. No one is forcing you or anyone else to drink.

That said, First Sunday (as I have officially dubbed it) was awesome. It was nice to go to Egan's 1) on a Sunday afternoon and 2) see the place packed from the front door to the back with people drinking, conversing, and dancing. It was a blast. Cheers to ya, Tuscaloosa!

That said, I've got a paper to write and an exam this week, both on Thursday. Also, I'm getting the damaged on my car assessed to see if it's totaled or can be repaired on Tuesday (because I was t-boned a week ago). It needs to be next week. Spring break. One week of doing absolutely nothing.

This is dumb. I'm done. I've got to write about Faulker.

Later turds.

I think my legs are getting hollow..

Creeping up on two months since I've done any writing here at the Chronicles. Let's be honest, my updates aren't very regular. I doubt that anyone that reads this gives a shit. Oh well. I don't really give a shit either.

What's new since my last post? Not much of anything other than I have a girlfriend for the first time since 2006. That (or she) is what this post will be about.

It's amazing what comes about when you drink for 15 hours straight. To backtrack, I had some messages pop up on my Facebook back in November asking if I would want to date this girl. Before I could respond, they were gone. The night of the Alabama-Mississippi State game, I was belligerently drunk and demanded that a friend of the both of us invite her over. To be honest, it was the best thing that I have demanded in quite a while.

I was drunk, she drank some of my apple juice/vodka concoction, and we listened to music for a bit.

The actual dating came about because we were drunk and figured that it was a good idea. I knew something good would come out of being drunk. I just didn't know when.

This rules. I'm not gonna lie. I haven't been stoked about anyone like this since I was 17. I really dig this girl and I'm pretty sure that she doesn't think that I suck like hell. It's really nice to have someone around that has similar opinions religiously, musically, and to some extent, politically.

Most of all, and what I think is probably most important, she just rules. I haven't been into someone like this in a long time (almost 7 years), and I'm glad that I know what this is like again. Hell, it really makes me feel young again.

This is as far as I'm going to talk about it. I don't want to get all mushy and make anyone vomit.

Oh yeah, Fall 2010 was the best semester that I've posted since I've been in college with a 3.0 GPA. It blew me the hell away. If I can keep it up for the next couple of semesters, I might graduate with a decent GPA and actually be able to do what I want to do when I graduate.

I decided that I want to teach when I finish school. I know that I wanted to get a degree in library and information science, and I still do, but I feel like I could make a more positive impact being a teacher. I remember the handful of teachers in high school and middle school that had some sort of impact on me and I want to return the favor. That and if my really shaky financial plan works out like it does in my head, I could be out of student loan debt within a couple of years. I doubt it will, but I want to try anyway.

I have two semesters left as an undergraduate. I should have graduated already, but we're all well aware of how I have taken my sweet ass time at finishing college. This semester looks like it won't be too terrible. There is a lot of work and a lot more reading, but all of the classes are enjoyable for once. A class on baseball, the American South prior to the Civil War, a class on women in Europe since 1750, a class on public opinion, and a class on the conflict between science and religion. For once, I'm excited about what I have to do for the next four months.

This, along with pretty much every other thing I post on here, is pretty goddamn pointless and retarded. I don't have anything relevant to say. I'm kinda drunk. I should go take a nap. That's actually a pretty good idea.

I managed to fix my computer and recover all of the music that was on my iPod, so the loss of music was minimal. Good thing almost all of my pictures were posted online or I would have lost all of them.

I'm taking Hannah to see Against Me! for the first time Friday. It's her first time, not mine. It will be my 8th time. I'm still just excited as I was my first time.

Yeah, I'm done. I need a goddamn nap.

Later.

Find more artists like The Tim Version at Myspace Music

They shot at my boots and told me to dance...

I have a 15 page paper due on Friday. Thanks to the wonderful website JSTOR, I should be able to find enough sources to write a paper on a topic that I know very little about. At the moment, I should be in the basement or on the 2M floor of Gorgas library finding the other sources for my book. Instead, I've been sitting here for the last four hours, wasting resources that other people could be using to do school work or research, to search Lawrence Arms videos and trying to not feel like a creep lurking on peoples' Facebook pages (which failed, by the way. I always feel like a creep for lurking).

So I was at my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. It was me, my mom, dad, brother, sister, brother-in-law, and my dad's sisters and their spouses and offspring. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Up until a couple of years ago, we always did Thanksgiving with my mom's side of my family. As I was riding with my brother down to Caroline and Mark's house, we passed our grandmother's old house and I commented that it's still weird to me that we'll never have a family gathering there or set foot in that house ever again.

When I got to town Wednesday afternoon, I went straight to my sister's house. She and Momma were already cooking. If there is something that my family does well, it's cook. I'm for real. Paula Dean can kiss my ass. My mom and sister are the best cooks in the world. As Caroline was getting reading to make the dressing, I saw the note cards with the recipe on the counter. Step-by-step directions written in cursive and neat lines on the cards. It's handwriting that I will always recognize, handwriting that always makes me smile and always makes me a little sad. Before she started mixing the ingredients, my sister took a picture off of the coffee table to set on the kitchen counter. It was a picture of our grandmother. I never asked her why she put that picture in there, but I'm pretty sure I know why.

Back to Thursday. We had all finished eating and my aunt's husband was filling out a family tree, asking our names and birth dates and all of that shit. It bugs me a little bit that the dude that my aunt is married to knows more about my family than I do, but whatever. What really aggravated the hell out of me was when my aunt was telling me about a relative, I think great-great-great-great grandfather, and said that he was in the ledger at the courthouse listed as a slave trader. She then asked me if it feels good to be superior. I can't begin to describe how much this rubbed my ass the wrong way. Superior for what? Because someone four or five generations ago made a living selling people? No, that doesn't make me feel superior. I think it's disgusting and anyone that believes that it makes them superior makes me disgusted. Honestly, I'm ashamed to know that, even if she may be wrong. I hope like hell that she's wrong. I don't know much about my family history. Hell, I can't even tell you the names of my great-grandparents. All I know is that a bunch of them grew up dirt poor and worked for everything that they had. That's what makes me feel superior.

Whoa, damn. It gets really high up here on my moral soapbox. I should probably go find those books for my paper. Fifteen pages due by 11:30am Friday. I think I can do it. Then I've got a 10 page paper due next week for another class and I already have the sources for that one. Yeah, this paper is going to be my bitch. Both of them are.

I officially drank too much this past weekend. Last night was the culmination of beating the hell out of my insides when I passed out before 9pm. I woke up to a nice make-up job and a bunch of new pictures of me looking like a turd. It's a good thing that I'll be too busy to drink over the next couple of weeks.

The computer desks in Gorgas keep fucking up my left arm. Every time I sit at one of these for more than a few minutes, it aggravates a nerve in my left arms and the pinky and ring fingers on my left hand go numb. It's weird. It took me a couple of days to realize that I wasn't stroking out.

Yep, I'm outta here. Gotta get them books. I'm going to give you what is probably the most depressing song in the Off With Their Heads discography. That's really saying something, too. Read the lyrics to any of their songs. Regardless of how upbeat the songs sound, the subject matter is some heavy shit. Addiction, depression, suicide. Maybe that's why I like them so much. I love the hell out of some sad songs and these take the cake lyrically.

Playing the role of the idiot...Not me

This is going to be the only time that I bring this up. I'm going to say as much I as I can try to get off of my chest and be done with it. Also, I'm not using names. I'm not that much of an asshole.

A little back story. I had been kinda seeing this girl for a little bit. By kinda, I mean that we weren't actually dating, but we hung out a good bit and I was really into her.

Fast forward to about three weeks ago. Shit was over. No big deal. We just both knew that I was way more into her than she was me. I didn't lose any sleep over it and I wasn't bummed out or anything. We're still cool.

Over supper last night, I found out that someone that I consider a pretty good friend has been making a solid effort to date her. This is were I have a problem. If any of you know me at all, then you know that I'm very, very loyal to my friends. I consider them an extension of my family. As such, when my friends date someone or I date someone, that person becomes off limits to the rest of us. I respect that rule in regards to my friends and they respect that rule in regards to me. It's not an issue of how serious it was with that person, it's that we showed interest in someone for a period time. That said, about a year and a half ago I had sex with the dude's ex-girlfriend (which is where this blog got its name). Even though it had been a couple of years since they dated when it happened, I still told him. I respect my friends enough and hold them in a high enough regard to be honest with them.

That's what I'm getting at here. It was never serious to begin with. This is what has annoyed me the most about this whole thing. If he would have just said that he had an eye for her, I would have no problem whatsoever. I don't mean asking if I was okay with it. That's dumb. We're all adults. People are going to do what they want. Instead, he tried to keep it from me like I wouldn't find out. People find out, and I don't like knowing that someone I consider a good friend would sneak around and do things behind my back. I'm not an idiot, so don't try to play me like one. I show my friends a level of honesty and respect that I expect in return.

I'm not mad. I'm not upset. I'm not losing sleep or plotting some dumbass scheme in my head. I'm just annoyed. That's all. I wanted to get this off of my chest and it will be the last that I mention it. So please, for the love of not being an asshole, don't spout off to me about this. If you do feel the need, you've probably got my phone number. Hardly anyone calls and it would be kinda nice to get a phone call from someone that isn't my mom, dad, or sister.

It needs to be Wednesday afternoon at 2 o'clock in the afternoon already. I haven't crossed the Etowah County line since the first of October and even though I'm only going to be there for about a day and a half, I'm really stoked about going home, going to my home bar, and seeing my family.

Also, the Iron Bowl is Friday! To be totally honest, I really think that the cow college will be on the victorious end. That quarterback that they have is pretty damn good and he has shown excellent composure the past few weeks considering there seems to be someone else trying to drag his name through the mud every couple of days. Is any of the stuff true? I don't know. Honestly, I don't give a damn. The dude is one hell of a football player and the people that are trying to pull him under are probably just pissed that he isn't playing for them (not like it would matter, Mississippi State, you guys are still going to stay near the bottom of the SEC West). I'm just ready to go to my second Iron Bowl in person and watch what is probably going to be the best damn football game that I'll see for a long time.

My best friend is in the hospital. I'm not going to put the gory details on here because I'm pretty sure that would aggravate the hell out of her, but I've been friends with this girl since at least middle school and she's been like a sister to me for a long time. I don't pray, but I'm hoping like hell that everything turns out alright.

This past Monday(the 15th), was one year to the day that I quit smoking. If you want to know what motivated me to quit, Monday the 15th was also one year to the day that my grandmother died of lung cancer caused by, you guessed it, smoking.

Okay. my throat is scratchy and I have to be at Jimmy John's at 7am to pick my schedules for the Christmas break and spring semester. Oh joy. Considering how high the turnover rate is there and that I've been there for over a year now, I should be able to get the shifts that I want.

If I'm not back before then, which I won't be, Happy Thanksgiving! Be safe, eat too much, and drink too much.

I'm done.

Breaking the Broken

Someone asked me last night when Suburban Skies was going to do a reunion. I said never. The person tried to change my mind. I still said no. I wrote this song about Suburban Skies the other day. It's simple, but that was intentional. All of our songs were simple. It doesn't have a name yet.

I met them all when I was 16 and no one liked us or so it seemed
And we would stand around all alone
Singing songs on weekend nights
Arm in arm, it all felt right
We never thought that this would end

And I had your back and you had mine

Load up in a beat up truck
1000 fliers and endless punk rock
We thought that we would change the world
Drive around as we sing and shout
But no one cared so we just got loud
Running in circles never felt so pure as we went

And I had your back and you had mine

As we got older things all changed
We lost touch and went our separate ways
I never grew up but we all changed
That last time we had just two
Sang all the songs that we all knew
But I knew that this whole thing was dead

And I had your back and you had mine

So yeah, that's it. I could probably work on it a little more, but I think I'm gonna leave it like it is.

Rock the No!

Today is Election Day. In my beloved Alabama (that would have been a sarcastic statement when I was in high school), we get to choose our new governor, a product of the Alabama Democratic Machine and some old fucker that looks like Mr. Burns and insists on having "Doctor" added before his name on the ballot.

I'm tired of this. I've been getting mailings at least 4 times a week from Phil Poole and Gerald Allen about which one is more of a son of a bitch and doesn't deserve my district's seat in the Alabama senate (I'm registered to vote in Tuscaloosa). I really don't like knowing that the Alabama Republican Committee has my mailing address. Same for the Democratic Party.

Here's the honest truth. Regardless of who you vote for, nothing is going to change. They can talk about how much they plan to do for your city/county/district/state/country/whatever but once they're elected and most of the times even before, there are interest groups with money talking in their ears saying that they will help finance their campaign if they do them some favors in the legislature or give them a few kickbacks. The people running for office don't give two shits and a bucket of piss about any of us.

I remember 5 years ago when I registered to vote. I was 18 and surprisingly, not as bitter a person as I am now. I walked into the Etowah County Courthouse upright with my head held up because I was doing my patriotic duty of registering to vote, goddammit! The first time that I voted was the next year, in the primaries for the 2006 midterm elections. My grandmother was still alive and working as a poll sitter at my voting location. I walked in, was given a ballot, and watched her smile as my name was marked off of the ledger of people that had voted. When I put my ballot in the machine, she walked up to me and put the "I Voted" sticker on my shirt. I still have that sticker, but it's stuck to my laptop now, and covered with a Lucero sticker.

That said, I'm not voting today and probably not ever again (with the exception of the Sunday alcohol sales vote in February). It just doesn't change anything.

That's enough of that. I'm gonna get off of my high horse now and find something to do that doesn't involve drinking. I'm drying out this week, at least until this weekend.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit "Cigarettes and Wine" from Tugboat Productions on Vimeo.