Oh hey Tumblr! How’ve you been? I know we haven’t talked in a while and I realize I might’ve hurt you, but…please forgive me. I still have feelings for you. Take me back?

Sincerely,
  Brown Bear

Quite a few people have been asking me lately, so I thought I’d just clear the air of everything. I am no longer a member of American Mantra. “Why?” you ask? Well, it definitely wasn’t an easy decision, but it was something I needed to do. On a personal level, we were just too different of people. Our morals, humor, interest, etc. just didn’t completely mesh. I’m not saying anything is negative about them, we’re just awesome in our own ways. On a musical stand-point, I always have and probably always will love their music. It’s something I enjoy listening to and playing, but definitely challenging to write with. They are some of the most talented individuals I’ve ever encountered, and I felt as though I wasn’t on the same level as them and wasn’t really contributing much. I also put the band above virtually everything, and as such everything else just kind of fell to the waist-side, even myself at times. My relationship with my family and friends, my financial situation, where I work, etc.: none of that is where I want it to be, or thought it would be by the time I became the age that I am, and being in a band somewhat prevented me from improving those aspects of my life. Plus, because of my finances, I couldn’t really contribute much towards the band, which wasn’t fair to everyone else who carried their weight. I think they deserve more than what I had to offer.

Finally, everyone continuously told me how much they really enjoyed my solo material and how I should make that my main musical focus, so I’m finally listening. I’ve been in some sort of band for the last few years now, and I feel like now is a good time to finally enjoy some “me” time. I do plan on taking a short little break from the music scene to get myself together so that when I do finally come out with solo stuff, it can be something I am completely proud of and can devote a fair amount of time to instead of juggling more than I can handle. I appreciate you guys’ love and support so, so much; I can’t express in words how much it means to me, seriously. Please continue to support American Mantra with their future endeavors. They’re good folk and the new music is definitely going to give you at least an eargasm or three. I can’t say thanks enough for everything that you all have done for me, regarding my music career and everything I’ve been blessed to be apart of. This is only the end of a chapter…

Miles take minutes in modern miracles,
trading glances with birds as we part the clouds.
Yet minutes are miles in demanding minds,
the world in our hands just isn’t enough.

Talking stones allow passage to foreign lands.
Windows bring to life images from my mind’s eye.
We’ve produced magic it seems; modern-day sorcerers.
The world in my hands is more than enough.

Honesty is subjective, tailor-made to fit our own lives. We are all righteous in our own minds. We are all saints in our own hearts. The reality is we are all liars to society and ourselves in one way or another, all victims to deceiving ourselves; double standards, hypocrisy, self-illusions. We birth monsters that feed away at our eternal souls, feasting what we serve on silver platters. Day after day, I stare in the face of my own beast. I know how to slay it, how to be rid of it, yet I continue on nursing what I know shouldn’t be for the sake of saving others from the chaos of what could be unleashed. I am righteous in my own mind.

One of the most real things I’ve read in a while…

“A thought is the single most dangerous thing a man can create. With it he can alter his own thinking to be in line with any new theory that comes to his mind. In time he will replace his old thoughts with new ones and those will be “truth” for the time. A theory can change the views of every person in the world if it is proven to be a true thought. And a theory can lead to a man’s destruction if his theory is ultimately proven false. Everything we know now, good or evil, started with a single thought. How are we to know which thoughts are true and which are false if we are always right within our own minds. Who then is to say who’s sane and insane? Is the killer then justified if he is truly right in his own mind? A man can control his actions, but what he thinks will never touch the surface. Our minds are moldable to the extent that we have little control.”
  -Brandon Wronski

People use to ask me quite often how much porn, if any do I watch. I’ll get to that in a second, but first I have to tell you about the gayest dream I had last night. I was on my computer playing WoW (which is how I KNOW it was a dream haha), then decided to take a break and get on Facebook and whatnot. For some reason, I decided to look up “bears” on Google. It brought up several porn sites. At first, I thought “What the hell?! Bear porn? Like big, fuzzy animals mating?! What kind of sick freak would even record that?!?!” My first instinct was to do something else, but I was compelled by curiosity to watch. Little did I know that it wasn’t the big, fuzzy bears I was thinking of, it was more like big, hairy men. I immediately freaked out! I clicked the X to close the window, but another window with more popped up. I tried clicking that one close, and more popped up. Eventually the whole screen was filled with mangina!! Then, somehow I magically ended up on the set of Zach and Miri Make A Porno, during the scene where they “make love” and then…I woke up to my mom coming in my room {and that was the last time I watched porn}. For some reason, I jumped out of bed, which startled her pretty good. She probably thought I was masterbating or something haha. Later on, I decided to actually look up ‘gay bears’ on Google and see if it was real or not and, sure enough, it is. I learned from my dream to NOT click on any link provided yo me >.<
Now I think I’m going to write a song about the experiences I’ve gone through during these last few hours…

Car - a lot
Orange Crush 30R - $200
Fender Standard Telecaster Vintage Noiseless Ash - $500
Guitar Rig Kontrol - $280
Laptop (preferably MacBook Pro) - $200 to $2000
Fender Acoustic CD140SCE - $350
Nintendo DSi - $170
Xbox 360 Elite - $300
PS3 Slim - $300
A phone call saying how much you love me - Priceless

I understand there’s something you guys probably can’t buy, but for everything else…there’s Mastercard  :D

I went to go watch All Time Low’s MTV Unplugged session (again) and saw Katy Perry just posted her own, so I decided to just check out the song I Kissed A Girl and see what that sounded like acoustic, going into it thinking I knew what to expect. I was completely wrong. Not only is she a fantastic singer and a great musician, she’s freakin hilarious! If your a fan of music of any genre, go check it out. You’ll be just as surprised as I was.

Lately, I haven’t been able to sleep, but it’s probably because I stay on this damn computer so much! But even when I’m not, I just…lay there, motionless, with countless thoughts running through my head uncontrollably, endlessly it seems, until in what seems like a blink of an eye the sun greets me with a smile and it’s time to drag my fragile body to do its daily routine, which usually includes working slave-like conditions, playing music in one fashion or another, and being on this computer for several hours. I feel like I’m starting to become exactly like what I wrote a song about, which is not a good thing to say the least. Maybe I should write a song about becoming a song…

The other day, I was amazingly happy for really no reason at all. I need to find out what happened that day and make that happen every day! WHO’S WITH ME?!?!?

Today was a really weird day. I woke up two hours early for work, thinking I’d be able to work out and whatnot before I went…too bad I stayed in bed for a whole hour hitting the snooze button haha. I really need to get some sleeping pills…Hung out with my buddies Shane and Michael today at Fellowship Church. Purdy gewd service. Went to Steak n Shake afterwards and had a blast. Been amazingly happy all day for some reason…

The fellow that was serving us at SnS (Scott), I felt we could’ve been really cool friends. I felt like if I gave him my card, he’d either think I’m gay or some sort of creepster, so we just left after we were done. I hate the feeling of knowing I could’ve meet a new friend but just passed up the opportunity. I know I do it all the time. Makes me wonder a lot about how many good friends I could have right now, but just missed the opportunity.

Think I’m gonna start ranting on this so I can start remembering things. God knows I have a horrible memory. Ironically, I feel like I’ve typed this before haha  >_<

I realize now that my alter ego Ronaldo likes to come on Tumblr and post random, depressing things. Well no more! From now on, only happy thoughts…like pandas, and asians that dress up as pandas! For some reason, asians are especially awesome to me. I don’t know why, they just are. Maybe it’s cause of their hair…

ANYWAY, this is the first of a series of post I’d like to call…um…I’ll call it…panda?

(I need sleep)