Stuff I Used to Be Good At
Martial Arts
I have fiddled around with martial arts since I was in seventh grade. I got my black belt in Tae Kwon Do in high school and my second degree black belt just before I left for college. I used to compete in tournaments and stuff, but I never really enjoyed the competitive fighting. Taekwondo moms are like soccer moms to the evilth power. I always loved breaking stuff, so I performed demonstrations whenever I could. At the University of Illinois, I joined the Hwarang Taekwondo club and taught classes when possible (which was rare because computer science is the devil). I also taught myself some acrobatic kicks and joined a gymnastics club in order to increase my flippability.
Media:
540 demo. I think you need to have DIVX installed to play this .avi file. I'm the dude kicking stuff. I do my slant-540 kick and speedbreak two boards. Mike is the guy with the thick Ugandan accent who is introducing me. Mike is awesome.
Brick-breaking party. I never got a chance to break concrete during my training (just lots of boards) so I decided to have a get-together and break stuff before I left for grad school. One of the pics is me standing and jumping on the brick before I broke it with my hand.
flippy videos
crappy backflip.
swipe3.mov - victory!
swipecrash2.mov - bang.
swipe6.mov - clean landing
2xleg1.mov - mediocre double-leg 540 (aka barrel roll)
2xleg2.mov - another
btwist.mov - ugly butterfly twist
5backflips.mov - 5 backflips
frontflip1.mov - awesome camerawork
frontflip2.mov - eh
Guitar
I have played guitar since I was in the seventh grade. I formed a band with my friends Eric and Nathan in high school. At our school's Variety Show, we performed under the name "The Blind Venitians," covering "Ceremony" by Joe Satriani. We got pictures in the school paper!!! The next year, we tried to enter the show under the name "The Hose" but they wouldn't let us. They randomly assigned us a band name, and we closed the show. The three of us wore brightly colored pants and cowboy hats as we played "Down Together" by The Refreshments. Afterward, a popular girl told me we were cute, so eat that. Oh and I also accompanied Pam on guitar as she sang "Landslide" by The Fleetwood Macs. That was fun too.Eric and Pam and I went to college together at the University of Illinois, but Nathan (that slacker) went to Northwestern, so we didn't have as much time for touring as we would have hoped. The Hose did manage to play a bunch of shows at parties and dorms when Nate was available. Our punk cover of "Under the Sea" was always the big big hit. Pam and I played a few open mic nights on campus as well.
We had a mondo recording session during the summer of 2004. None of us got much sleep, so the vocals are very groggy. But groggy can be fun. Nowadays I play solo open mic nights every so often at Eddie's Attic and the Limerick Junction in Atlanta.
Here are some songs. I play guitar and vocals, Eric plays bass and backup vocals, and Nathan plays drums and backup vocals in all songs unless otherwise noted.
Never Happen - Written way back in like sophomore year of high school as a poppy song with meaningless lyrics.
What's Up With Me - It rhymes a lot.
Under the Sea - Our brilliantly-orchestrated punk rock cover of the Disney classic. I'm sorry I gutted the lines about the carp playing the harp and stuff, but it didn't make any sense when played live. Instead we put a solo in there. When we were really tight at shows, we would time ourselves and try to play this one as fast as possible. I think we got it in at around a minute once.
Another Shallow Song - I got another poppy melody in my head and didn't want to bother with lyrics (notice a pattern?). This song gradually speeds up to about double the original tempo, and I LIKE IT THAT WAY.
Array of Pain - This song was meant to be a big inside joke but fell flat. Nathan's dog helps with backup vocals.
Nothing's Gone - A whiny extended metaphor with a speed-metal instrumental interlude.
David - Simply put, the greatest song in the world. Eric on lead vocals and bass, Nate on drums, keyboard, and backup vocals, and me on guitars and backup vocals. We sent this recording to David Schwimmer, but he never got back to us. I auditioned for "Beauty and the Geek" and sang this song in my audition tape, and they aired it. I'm famous. lyrics
Everybody Else - This is a super emo solo acoustic song I wrote in the fall of 2006. I didn't have any recording equipment around so I used windows sound recorder and the microphone that shipped with my Dell.
Priorities - The solo in this song usually makes drunks very excited when I play in bars.