Thing Of The Week – Looking Back

The thing of the week really has no set rhyme or reason so it is pretty much an open topic for bullfrippery or in this week’s article, reflectiveness. I like to think where I was a year ago so I can reflect on changes in my life and damn there have been a good deal.
A year ago I was still in college, I was working in a comic shop and for the first time I was actually able to save up money and look for the future (part of the benefit of being paid $8 as opposed to $7.15 at McDonalds).
A month earlier I’d started at the comic shop and I didn’t know the territory, I was still learning about customers and I didn’t know that if we were to be open on Halloween, nobody would come in. Apparently Sundays in downtown Pittsburgh aren’t popular. Also the city didn’t advertise any event which was sad.
I’d convinced my manager though to get candy, I’d go in costume (hipster Rorshach) and if anyone came in, I’d give them candy. After 2 hours of nobody I cranked up the Blackwolf I was listening to and was like “Shit, I’m going to be 21 in a month. I want to do something badass”.
It was about this time that Adam WarRock was planning his comic shop tours and the managers had nixed the plans here at our shop so that Halloween I called up a venue and I was like “Hey, I’d like to book a show for my artist.” Euge was not (and still is not) my artist and at the time we’d only had a few conversations. Despite my lack of knowledge though, I booked Euge a show and even got Blackwolf to come down and Joe Hunter did the posters. Also I booked the show on my birthday – my plan was post show to get blazed with Adam WarRock (by which I mean drunk).
The show date came up, Euge visited and sat in all of my chairs (I had about 8 different types and get some BBQ before the show. This was also before I listened to War Rocket Ajax and knew about Euge’s BBQ preferences.
So we got to the show, I’d done poster campaigns in the comic shops and a few record places. The thing was the venue manager never saw my email sending him the poster and he’d prebooked the show aaaaand it was the weekend before Thanksgiving so despite the other band being indie musicians The Russian Futurists, we had about 14 people there. (We’d needed 20 people’s tickets to pay for the venue :|).
Still the manager was nice, he got money and everyone sold some MERCH and it was a fun show.
Blackwolf who also preformed (since I was and still do kind of work for him) invited us out to drink. Euge and I were both pretty tired though, declined, got lost on the way back and then headed home.
It was a pretty wonderful birthday all things considered and it was brought by taking a chances, faking what I didn’t know and it let to another show (Mother’s Day weekend with no bigger headliner), an internship with LBFA and even scoring free tickets to a few shows at other places.
My point is this, live a life where you are in a different state than you were a year ago better or worse. Variety of life brings important experiences to you that are vital to not rutting around. “Go ahead, make mistakes and get messy” to paraphrase the Frizz and remember – life is goddamn crazy and wonderful.

Luke Herr

Luke is a writer and an aspiring professional comic writer who is also the editor in chief of Nerdcenaries. He currently is working on a graphic novel called Prison Spaceship.