1 - Tell us how
your project(s) were started.
Some of the guys in our band got drunk one night and decided it would be fun to have a sarcastic posi-core band (hence the horrible band name, Thumbs Up!). Once we started playing together, we decided listening to crucial youth was a lot more fun than pretending to be crucial youth so we started playing darker, angrier stuff. There have been a few lineup changes throughout the year we've been together based on members of the band liking pot, law-school, and marriage more than playing with us.
2 - What does music,
in it's entirety, mean to you?
Music, specifically what we play and the shows we're involved in can make me feel like I'm fifteen again, which makes it the most important thing in my life.
3 - What does art,
in it's entirety, mean to you?
Art is important to me both as a source of self exploration as well as a way to distil your emotions into a persuasive and representational force.
4 - Who is your
favorite author, and why?
Ambrose Bierce, he was in my mind the most intense of the Mark Twain/Brett Harte/Lovecraft style of writers. He was both an excellent writer and an incredibly bitter cynic. His time and place of death are unknown, in his late sixties he was last seen walking south in order to fight Santa Anna.
5 - As your best
friend, describe yourself.
Loves friends, family, more than anything else. One good lookin dude.
6 - As your worst
enemy, describe yourself.
The better parts of this person are smoke and mirrors, he is absent of commitment but is dedicated to making himself and others believe he can be resoloute.
7 - If your persona
were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?
Leanardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (Please note that I am not using a GI Joe or Transformers charachter here on purpose because althought they were animated, they are not cartoons, they are religion.)
8 - Do you think
there are conspiracies against the "everyday person"?
I feel that there are countless companies conspiring to take from you what they can, and while this is superficially a monetary issue, I believe the sum of these influences on the everyday person takes a toll on your emotions and your goals in life. I believe the perversity of a culture that is hellbent on the accumulation of wealth and commodities has an adverse effect on the soul of the everyday person. I feel that we all have a hand in this process of derision, and we all feel it (regardless of how much of an iconoclast we may feel ourselves to be). The question is if this can be considered a conspiracy. While corporations and advertisers certainly see human beings as nothing more than consumers, I don't believe the end goal is the spiritual destruction of the consumer, and I don't believe (except in the case of tobacco and alcohol companies) the overall well-being of the consumer is even vaguely considered post-purchase, unless in conjuction with the notion of brand loyalty. To express this point in a different way, while watching television or walking through my neighborhood and being bombarded by thousands of subtle advertisements for millions of products that will in no way enrich my life, and further, my unwitting subjugation to this process, may make me feel deadened emotionally, I don't believe that is the immediate goal of the principal actors in the process.
9 - What do you
do with your spare or free time?
I like to read, watch movies, practice martial arts, as well as backpacking.
10 - Please give us your interpretation of "the meaning of life".
Try not to hurt people, enjoy what and who you have when you have them, and leave the world better than when you found it.
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