kidpretentious-blog

[kidpretentious-blog]

So I'm taking things a little easier lately. Like, when I wake up in the morning, instead of going, 'Oh, no, not another day,' I'm going, 'Oh, God, thank you for another day!' "

#reasons to wake up #brian wilson #beach boys

[kidpretentious-blog]

chromatics - "i can never be myself when you're around"

#chromatics #italians do it better

[kidpretentious-blog]

#pablo neruda #sonnet xvii #love #valentines day

[kidpretentious-blog]

#Fritz Lang #metropolis

[kidpretentious-blog]

#inherent vice #thomas pynchon #Joaquin Phoenix #paul thomas anderson

[kidpretentious-blog]

#the long goodbye #robert altman #raymond chandler

[kidpretentious-blog]

#dev hynes #blood orange #samantha urbani #black lives matter #eric garner #michael brown #trayvon martin

[kidpretentious-blog]

#los angeles #skylines

[kidpretentious-blog]

#joe brainard

[kidpretentious-blog]

Do not let these questions strain or trouble you just point youself in the direction of your dreams find your strength in the sound and make your transition.

#underground resistance #transition

[kidpretentious-blog]

I've been thinking about my friend Casey Cosker a lot for the past few days, and it occurred to me that he was the very first person I met from Pratt's writing program. It was accepted students day a few months before we'd actually move to Brooklyn, but Casey said hello to me in the bathroom before we both headed back to Connecticut. We'd just heard the director of our program give an absolutely pants-shitting overview of the program (not to mention an endless summer reading list, because we were told we were completely uneducated). Casey said he was looking forward to the challenge and left the bathroom.

When classes actually started, it became apparent that Casey and I were diametric opposites. He was a frustrating writer, one with some solid ideas about sci-fi and fantasy that would often give up on something halfway through and have his characters killed off by zombies (this happened repeatedly in his workshop stories, I swear). On the other hand, I was an extremely uptight kid attempting to write literary fiction, the sort that tried to make the most out of the program with each passing year. We'd have a drink together at a party, but that was as far as our friendship went in college.

All of this changed, though, the day that we handed in our senior theses. Writing programs and workshops can be vicious, unkind places, but a sort of veil is lifted the minute it's over, and the people you disliked eventually become your friends. It's a bit like surviving a war. The night we'd finished a year's work, our class got unbelievably drunk at our professor's apartment in Morningside Heights. After some shots of absinthe at dawn, we left the house with a few fellow students. We were having a great time, and Casey asked me for a piggy back ride, which ended with both of us crashing to the ground and my shoulder getting a giant gash. We wandered downtown to a diner and had breakfast together with another good friend, one Casey would call his wife several years later.

We began to drink together a fair amount from there, at least when Casey was in town. With very little idea of what to do after college, he drove across the country and left New York for what felt like a year. When he returned to a crappy editorial job for a Jewish newspaper, we hit the bars together in earnest and got drunk watching as many action flicks as humanly possible. Our St. Patrick's day celebrations were some of the favorites I ever experienced. In between all of this, Casey joined and left the Navy. The last two times I saw Casey felt very representative of our friendship: we brought a bottle of whiskey to see Pacific Rim together, and then a week later we drank past close at a dive bar in Prospect Heights. The photo above came from the latter night. It was the last time I'd ever see him.

Despite his darkness, weirdness, and goofiness, Casey had a good heart. Everyone seemed to recognize this, I think, except for him. He's the third person I've lost in roughly six months, and the only one to leave this Earth by choice. My birthday was about a month ago, and it made me think about the people I love that have left New York, and the fact that I rarely see the ones that remain in the city. It doesn't matter where you are in this world, though. If you are my friend, you make my life feel worthwhile. Don't leave this world until you have to, I beg you. I'll miss you, Casey, and I'm sure as hell going to raise my flask at the screen when I see Days of Future Past in your honor.

#casey cosker #death #so much death

[kidpretentious-blog]

"One thing in our favor: some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish — how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”" - George Saunders

#george saunders #kindness #wisdom

[kidpretentious-blog]

#spalding gray #and everything is going fine #miller high life

[kidpretentious-blog]

Better late than never, the April mix has arrived! A ton of unreal new artists on this one.

[kidpretentious-blog]

Hello friends! I've made a proper DJ mix for you to run/dance to! Get down! 

[kidpretentious-blog]

#frankie knuckles #RIP #chicago house

[kidpretentious-blog]

In October of 2013, my older sister Kristen was diagnosed with Stage IV Ovarian Cancer, and she passed away within 3 months. According to the oncologist, it was the worst she'd ever seen... The sheer amount of pain, discomfort and deteroriation that comes with this disease is as indiscribable as it is awful. To experience it is one of the worst things possible, and painful enough to be on the sidelines, watching it happen to a loved one helplessly. Anyone who's had a loved one go through this can attest to that fact, and that's why I want to help fight this disease and find a cure in the future.Kristen was one of the biggest influences on my life, as you can read here, and one of the most important things she did for me was instill a passion for running. Back when I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon for the first time in 2011, she was supposed to run the race with me, but since she was a globe-trotting badass the plan didn't quite pan out. However, she'll be running the race with me in spirit and guiding me to the finish line, I'm sure of it. With that in mind, I thought that running the race for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund would be the perfect way to honor my sister. It's important that we all work together to stop a disease that currently ends in terminal pain indefinitely in best-case scenarios. Nothing ...

Hello Internet! In a little less than two months I'll be running the Brooklyn Half Marathon, and for the first time I'll be running for Ovarian Cancer Research Fund in honor of my recently deceased sister, Kristen Waller. I'm not the sort to pester anyone repeatedly so this will be one of two times I mention it, but please donate if you can and help end this shitty, awful disease. Thanks!

#ovarian cancer #charity #fuck cancer #brooklyn half marathon