Download MY Book!

Two years later, I'm making this crap available for you to download.

If enough people are interested in it, I'm going to self-publish it and then you can have a physical copy you can sell to a used book store.

Enjoy

A WAR TORN LETTER (pdf)

My Bad: Thoughts on the Future and Other Issues I Usually Save For My Other Blogs

I've been really terrible at posting new op-eds on Chasing Coolness. Recently, I've been outsourcing my writings to Redefine (forever, ever) and High Voltage Media (where's my review of that pop-punk band at?). There's something else in the works, but nothing is final, so I'm not at any liberty to discuss that. More importantly, however, is the fact that lately, I've been refocusing all of my energy in releasing my book.

For those of you who don't know, late last year, I penned a short novel called A War Torn Letter. I sent it to a few friends and received a series of positive responses. Then it literally sat on my shelf until two weeks ago when I decided to release it independently. Keep in mind that I had every intention on soliciting publishers with a copy of the manuscript, but in all actuality, I had a rather difficult time swallowing the notion that once in the hands of the machine, the book would no longer be mine. There was, however, one strangely interested party, but that interest eventually fizzled. Which leads me here, putting my money where my mouth is and doing it DIY style.

Hopefully, sometime this week, I will have a few copies available. Everybody who gets shouted out in the foreward gets a free copy in due time. I should have at least five copies available at Easy Street Records in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood with more places to follow. I'll be keeping this site (as well as Stay Off the Crack) updated as information trickles in. I've also somehow fooled myself into starting a new book. The few people who like War Torn will no doubt like this book, but I'm not counting my chickens just yet.

With all this madness of writing a book, I'm also preparing for my return to higher education; that's right, I'm going back to school. I somehow tricked the UW into accepting me into the Digital Media program. It's a pretty fascinating field, which I happen to be employed in. Even if I weren't, the decline of physical product and the relevance of online stores like iTunes and Rhapsody, as well as sites like Youtube, MySpace and Google make Digital Media the best industry to be involved in. That said, I'm going to try to learn everything I can about it so as to not be an extinct dinosaur wondering why my cassette tapes aren't selling.

Those are all the updates I can muster to write. I have some reviews that I've been sitting on that I will post soon enough, but I just thought you'd like to know what's happening on my side of the woods. Excelsior and other fun words!

33 1/3 submission iders

So as you may have read on other 'blogs, "33 1/3" is taking submissions for their next series of books. I have a few ideas, which goes as follows:

de la soul - de la soul is dead
ice cube - lethal injection
descendents - i don't wanna grow up/milo goes to college
too short - get in where you fit in
q-bert - wave twisters
brand new - deja entendu (i'm a little iffy on this one just because how recent it's been released)
kid dynamite - shorter, faster, louder
get up kids - something about airplanes
mobb deep - the infamous
jimmy eat world - clarity
milt jackson and john coltrane - bags and trane
quincy jones - you got it bad, girl
raekwon - only built 4 cuban linx
built to spill - perfect from now on
promise ring - nothing feels good
company flow - funcrusher plus
mos def - black on both sides
gang starr - hard to earn
mineral - endserenading
murder city devils - in name and blood
outkast - southernplayalisticaddilladicmuzik
jay-z - reasonable doubt
pedro the lion - winners never quit

There are some albums that I most definitely wanted to do, like Lifetime's "Jersey's Best Dancers," Nas' "Illmatic," and Death Cab for Cutie's "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes," but those particular bands have had a surge of press recently; not to say that no one's been covering Jay-Z, but most of his press has been slightly negative. I want to avoid a record that is obvious (like choosing Ice Cube's "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" over "Lethal Injection"), which is why the albums I've selected have a sense of familiarity -- basically I went with fanship over critically cannonized records. I'm certain someone would talk shit to me for picking Outkast's debut over "Speakerboxxx/Love Below" or "Aquemini." Bleh.

Whaddya think?