Deadxstop's Journals

hey scotland and england, ill be on tour in your hood next week...

and im bringing my friend cronin. come hang with us here: April, 1 2009 05:30 PM - Biblo Cafe , glasgow, Scotland - donation they have asked me to ask you to please do not arrive before 5pm April, 2 2009 04:30 PM - Friends Meeting House , edinburgh, Scotland - donation April, 3 2009 05:00 PM - starbucks on grainger street , newcastle, - donation grainger street (next to monument metro station) April, 5 2009 04:00 PM - Friends Meeting House room 2, manchester, - donation April, 6 2009 05:00 PM - the croft , bristol, - donation April, 7 2009 06:30 PM - lee rosys tea house , nottingham, - donation April, 8 2009 06:30 PM - starbucks on new street , birmingham, - donation downstairs in new street April, 10 2009 07:00 PM - poetry cafe , london, London and South East - donation

new DRUG FREE necklace available. only 100 made...

ordering instructions are on my LJ: askheychris.livejournal.com do it up.

the collected writings of my life.

i remember coming up with a "retrospective" book idea years ago. i even had my friend stephanie collate every journal entry as far back as jan 2004. i put it off and put it off until basically this fall. honestly, because i figured it would be easy, just throw my favorite journal entries in a book and off it goes to the printer...

see, this is where i fuck up every time.
its like warped tour, it comes around so infrequently that it leaves you with juuuust enough time to forget how fucking bad it sucks. well, i put out a book, roughly, once a year... juuuuust long enough to forget that writing the goddamn thing is only 25% of the effort it takes to go from 'idea' to 'book in paw'.

so many little things you will probably never even notice:
are the margins set correctly?
did you offset the ditch of the book?
will the text transfer over from a word.doc to a pdf?
all pictures must be on the right hand side, if you add that page you forgot, will it throw off the picture pages?
why is there a break in the middle of this paragraph?
wait, why is part of the text missing?
why are there weirdo symbols now in place of quotation marks?
is there enough bleed for the cover?
what are the specs for a barcode box?
do you still have your ISBN numbers?
oh fuck, i forgot to edit that sentence, can i remake another pdf?
60 pound paper is too flimsy, can i do 70 pound on such a large book?
i need a 12 point cover on a book this big? how much extra is that?
will this dude ever finish the foreword he said he would write last month?
is clandan going to kill me if i ask for just one more pdf edit?
wait, paper prices went up how much?

i used to look at cds and think, "what a ripoff, $14 for a cd... i know that shit only cost them like $1 to make that shit."
thats like looking at a painting and judging its value based upon the price of the canvas and paints.
i get this now. i see that its not about the production, manufacturing and shipping of a product... but the time, energy, passion, enthusiasm, heart and soul one pours into their art. yet in the end, inevitably have their party pissed upon by some bratty teen who thinks having to drop the five extra bucks is "selling-out".
sigh.

ive been so stressed out lately that my neck and shoulders feel like worn out rubberbands.
my deodorant refuses to work.
ive ditched out on so many people to sit in a starbucks and "work" that i doubt i have any friends left.
i havent gone running since ive been back from europe.
and im literally taking every last dime i have to pay for the production of this simple coffee table book.
but...
i met the deadline i set for myself.

if you get the impression you have read this book, you're wrong.
this is the beginning,
the heart,
the reason why,
and the man behind the curtain of every meaningful entry i have ever written.
it is a beginners guide to who, what, when, where and why i am who i am now.
it is every entry you've printed out... and why it was written.
it has a brief history written by me looking back five years later and a foreword written by someone who is directly responsible for you reading these words at this very moment.

to me this book is worth far more than $30. it is priceless. it is the most important book i have ever released, because it makes all of this, me, make sense. without it, there wouldnt have been any of my other books, dvds, cds, radio shows, tours or speakings.

this book is my scrapbook. it is my history.

limited to 250.
available december 1st - 8th only at askheychris.livejournal.com

excerpt (# 2) from my new book:

we were kings. I never knew how to fight. But that was all he knew. He didnâ�™t fit in and he listened to the same bands I did. I knew it from the T-shirts he wore. Our peers scorned us both for our inability to â�œgo with the flow,â� so we bonded. Our love for self-loathing was only surpassed by our loathing for the ones who walked the halls looking down their noses. We sneered and made childish generalizations about their status amongst the high school pack of sheep. Together we were solid. A unit. No one thought like we did. We were dethroned kings; waiting for the day we were to regain our title. Because, see then, then the chicks would see that we were more than the flash of leather jackets and Sid Vicious sneers. We would be revered for our individuality and our sense of originality. But until that day, we had to keep our eyes to the ground while we awaited our rightful place. He would spend many evenings at my house eating microwavable burritos and shooting at whatever wildlife mistakenly stumbled into my backyard. Calling girls, watching soft-core porn and listening to Misfits bootleg records. We came together at the perfect time. The planets aligned and we met â�¦ and we skated the same ramps, listened to the same music, went to the same shows, and we understood that we were kings. We bonded even more over the similarities of our broken homes. He had an absent father and a mother that didnâ�™t understand. I had an absent father and a mother that didnâ�™t understand as well ... but the problem was, my mother tried to understand. This he resented. When I was inclined to point fingers to those I accused of stealing my rightful place, my mother did her best to diffuse that anger. But no one was there for him, so that anger went into the mirror ... and when you're a teenager and you hate yourself, itâ�™s only a matter of time before that anger is directed outward. I watched as it built. First it was the preps that ruled over our lunchroom. â�œThose fucking sheep,â� he would say under his breath, as they would walk by. â�œWhy do THEY get the hot chicks?â� I would frown and nod my head in agreement. Then it was the suburban gangbangers that ruled the halls. â�œFucking fakes. Like any of these kids could even point out where Compton is.â� I would frown and, again, nod my head. Then it was the blacks. â�œFucking blacks, why are they so fucking loud?â� That was when it struck me that this might be headed in the wrong direction, but again, I nodded because I didnâ�™t like what I saw in the mirror as well. â�œFucking Mexicans, they come over here and steal all of our jobs.â� â�œWhoa dude, Iâ�™m Mexican,â� I responded. â�œYeah man, but you know what I mean. Youâ�™re cool because you're not like a â�˜realâ�™ Mexican.â� This wasnâ�™t the first time I heard this phrase, nor would it be the last. As time went on, rhetoric like this became commonplace. It began as petty as punk vs. what we viewed were conformists, but soon racism, homophobia and bigotry were the excuse and reason for whatever it was that was missing in our lives. And I bought in... To an extent. Because I didnâ�™t fit in. No matter how much I tried, no one ever liked me for me. I was always too skinny, too dumb, too small, too â�œgay.â� There wasnâ�™t a direction for my anger. There was so much that when I dared to look it in the face, I ended up taking a razor blade to my skin, or breaking out the windows of cars, to telling my mother to â�œshut her faceâ� because that animosity had to go somewhere ... and when you're young, the sights you've been given aren't calibrated for shit. So I aimed, And shot, And hit all the wrong targets. Soon I began to see the holes in his reasoning. The figures and statistics he would throw at us during our skate sessions in the street now ruined our fun and were beginning to wear on us. He blamed blacks for welfare and drugs. He blamed gays for their supposed lack of morals and for AIDS. He blamed Mexicans for the lack of jobs. And he accused the Jews of controlling the media and blamed them for the death of Jesus. He blamed and he blamed. He pointed his finger, accused, tried and convicted everyone that wasnâ�™t like him. Everyone that didnâ�™t live his life. I may have been young, but even then I saw that he had turned into what we hated. What we stood against. What we espoused to never become. I didnâ�™t want it anymore because hate is heavy, and I was too smart to actively seek out such an unnecessary and overbearing burden. So I took one of the most important steps in my life. Standing in front of my bathroom mirror with clenched fists and a tear-streaked face, I asked the question "WHY?" over and over. It hurt, and it was scary. It was like picking at a scab, but I knew it was for the best. One evening, in the bathroom, I learned that I canâ�™t control the lives of others, no matter how much I hate. The only control I have is over myself and I wasnâ�™t even doing that well. How could I possibly point fingers, accuse and hate people, cultures and communities I didnâ�™t know when I didnâ�™t even understand the kid who looked back at me in the mirror? I had no right. I at least learned that much that evening, that I had no right. Luckily, what else I learned was that I had an obligation to myself to be as brutally honest as possible because I knew that if I couldnâ�™t be honest with myself, that I would never have the ability to do so with anyone else. And how was I supposed to learn how to love and BE loved if I couldnâ�™t stand naked and alone in an empty room? I was sabotaging my own life by attaching the insecurities of others to my back. That night I promised myself that I wouldnâ�™t live a life that only moved forward to push others down. I never had many role models in my life. No teacher that went the extra mile. No coach that got me through hard times. No tutor who helped me make the grade. No priest who taught me how to love. No godparent that gave me the secrets on how to allow myself to be loved. But thatâ�™s fine. Iâ�™ve had enough people in my life to show me how NOT to live. And thatâ�™s all the guidance I need to learn how to be a king once again. from my new book: 'notes from the deep end' a year in the life of a touring author order now at: askheychris.com

an excerpt from my new book:

She said, â�œBut I don't want to try anymore, it hurts.â� I took a long breath because I knew what was coming. She didn't. I asked her if she laughed today. She said, â�œYes.â� I asked her if she has a family that loves her. She said, â�œYes.â� I asked her if she still had the ability to make money, to make friends, to run and smile. She said, â�œYes, now what the fuck are you getting at?â� I asked if she has ever been betrayed, Stabbed in the back, Taken for granted, Abused. She said, â�œYes.â� I told her that the problem was her. That she didn't even realize that she came complete with the armor she so desperately craved. The answers she desired. The coping mechanisms she cried out for. They were all right in front of her. No, they were in her. On her. They were the magic that kept her feet in motion. I told her that she's been walking through fire all along and never once stopped to look in the mirror and appreciate the glorious woman she had been forged into. That she had been to hell, got kicked in the vagina and came back loving. I told her that I learned a valuable lesson years ago the hard way. That if you weren't dead, you could still put one foot in front of the other and that each step forward was a step further away from the hurt. I told her that not trying was suicide. But breathing in and out, putting one foot in front of the other, smiling, not stopping ... well, that was loving. That was learning to love yourself. order now at: askheychris.com 'notes from the deep end' 6.8.08.

currently on tour in the UK...

doing my speaking shows. come out and hang. i like people. sometimes. April, 6 2008 04:00 PM - Friendsâ�™ Meeting House , manchester, - donation April, 7 2008 06:00 PM - Kitchen Garden CafÃ© Ltd , birmingham, - donation April, 8 2008 06:00 PM - landsdown pub 8 clifton rd. , bristol - donation April, 9 2008 05:00 PM - Lee Rosyâ�™s Tea 17 Broad Street,, nottingham, NG1 3AJ - donation April, 10 2008 05:00 PM - Friendsâ�™ Meeting House ship street, brighton, - donation April, 11 2008 07:00 PM - Poetry Cafe 22 Betterton St. Covent Garden, london, London and South East WC2H 9BX - donation venue Tel: 020 7420 9887 more show info. Email: jennygatesdxs@googlemail.com

excerpt from my upcoming book...

'notes from the deep end' out summer 2008. http://askheychris.livejournal.com/181508.html

now you can have me in your house...

just picture it, me sitting there eating pizza and jerking off in your socks...

jokes. my new dvd actually makes me look like a respectable dude. the first 250 orders get a free poster. scope it:

wanna know what you're getting yourself into?
..

go to the store at: DEADXSTOP.COM

i also, have new 'live deliberate' belts available.

est. shipping date: december 20th.

read my interview with absolutepunk.net

link to the article. of if you're too lazy: For those of our readers unfamiliar with your work, please state your name and what you do for a living. My name is Christopher Gutierrez and I walk into rooms across the country spilling my secrets. I am also known as dead stop to my friends, and I write books and rant ridiculousness on the internet. Before we dig a little deeper, can you please give us a brief history of your career? Well, I'm not really sure what "career" you're referring to, but I can only assume you're asking when I started writing. I wasn't some kid who had a dream of being the next Stephen King. I remember those kids, and I made fun of them. "Nerds. Who wants to do homework for a living?" I asked myself. But in the early 90's, I began publishing a fanzine because that's what everyone else was doing. It was called deadxstop, and it was a pile of turds. Not only because the content was a copy of every other zine I had seen before (shit, I even had crossword puzzles to fill space), but because I hadn't yet learned that people respect honesty in art. Whether your art is music, painting, sculpting, poetry or storytelling, people can see through bullshit and that was what I was trying to push over on kids, insincere cliches. I was bored in my community college political science class one day and I wrote a handful of stories that I compiled and assembled that afternoon in the library as a joke. Since I didn't take into account my audience, I wrote about what i found entertaining, my cats balls. As ridiculous as that sounds people responded well to it, and that's when I made the realization that sincerity (regardless of form) is paramount. Year after year, zine after zine, I took baby steps in my progression, often stepping in my own puddles of vomit and shit. Years later, a group of my friends received a small amount of fame and wrote a song thanking me for my support. Kids began instant messaging me asking me about said band, so as a joke I began my blog, askheychris.livejournal.com as my smug response to the annoying questions. After a few years, I found that thousands of people were reading my words. I'm not naive, and I'm well aware of how the attention came about, and agree with it or not, it's here. Yes, I have been given an opportunity, and yes, you're goddamn right I'm going to use it. We've all been given opportunities in life, and I'm not going to walk through an open door because some thirteen year old kid with a grudge doesn't like me. But it's not about that opportunity, it's about what you do with that opportunity, and I'm trying to be as responsible as possible with it and use it to the best of my ability. So, I wrote a book, then recorded a spoken word cd, then wrote another book, then began a slew of book tours. I took a gamble and quit my "real" job to follow my dream of being a writer. [Laughs] I ended up being that "nerd" I made so much fun of. Fucking karma. What inspired you to become an author, and why do you feel people are drawn to your writing? Writing is cathartic for me. What you read is simply the by-product of my late night melodramatics. Someone along the line thought my stories were entertaining enough that more people should read them, so they started an online petition to urge me to write a book. I wasn't aware that there was an actual demand, so I decided to borrow thousands of dollars to invest into my dream, that I think any fanzine writer, blogger, or anyone who writes aspires to see, their words behind a glossy cover. I won't lie, it was a selfish dream. Anyone who tells you that they think of "the kids" of their audience when they open their first case of books is a liar. It was like opening a box of trophies, and for a kid who only owns one award for being in third grade tee-ball, that shit felt amazing. If you can tell me why people are drawn to my writing, maybe we can put our heads together and make millions. Honestly, I don't really understand it either. I've made a few mistakes along the way, and I've been honest enough with myself to write down what I've learned. I think people can identify with that. There are so many common themes like alienation, loneliness, the loss of our innocence, the worry of adulthood, the looming expectations of our parents, are we using our potential, are we ashamed of our mirror, are we happy? I think these things transcend age, culture, sexual orientation and musical genres, but in the end, I think it's as simple as "I may be clumsy, but I articulate my insecurities and triumphs with no shame," and I think people respect that. You recently published your second novel, A Life Deliberate. What sort of material does the book contain? Some days I wake up with good hair, a smile, and an inspiration to live to the best of my abilities, while other days I wake up with eye boogers, smelly farts, and no desire to do anything but jerk off and watch the history channel. My book is completely representative of all of that and everything in between. It's a celebration of my accomplishments and a confession of my sins. It's full of dirt and villains, and smiles and love. In comparison to your previous work, how has the response been to this novel so far? For the first book, I don't think anyone knew what to expect, so people may have been surprised at the honesty. It's like the sophomore slump, you know? You don't have the element of surprise anymore, so people have expectations. The response for the first one was overwhelming, and better than I could have ever hoped for. With the new book, I think people are saying to themselves, "yeah, thats what we expect Chris to do." But the stories are longer, I dig deeper, and I'm much more vulnerable. The progression is obvious. I sold out of my first pressing in half the time it took for the first book, so I don't know how anyone else feels, but I think I'm doing a decent job with the minimal tools I've been given. You recently embarked on a tour in support of your new book. What can fans expect from your live performance? I don't want it to be a stuffy and boring experience. I rarely read from the book. I find that telling the stories from my own memory evokes a better response from the audience, as well as myself. It's much more intimate. I think it's somewhere between a book reading, a high school pep rally, and a late night Denny's hangout with your friends. Now that you've had the opportunity to experience the best of both worlds, which do you prefer: band tours or book tours, and why? Fuck. Book tours. Man, do you know how much it sucks to load amps and equipment, or tune and change strings in the cold of the winter or the heat of the summer? It's brutal. Now, I walk in with a book, a bottle of water, and a mouthful of ridiculousness, and I get to do it for a living. Also, I feel I connect with people more on book tours, as opposed to band tours. It's easy to hide behind a guitar or someone else's lyrics, while it's much more difficult when it is just you, your head, your heart, and a room full of people waiting for you and only you to entertain them. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment to date, and what exactly do you wish to accomplish in the future? My greatest accomplishment? Being thirty-two years old and every year of my life being better than the last. It sounds lame, but it's the truth. The future? I would like to be able to not worry about being able to eat. That's all. I feel like a little homeless man who walked into a restaurant and sat down, then someone came over to me and set a huge ice cream sundae in front of me. I didn't earn it, and I don't deserve it, but goddamn I'm going to enjoy it until someone kicks me out of the place. For me to ask for anything more would be like me saying "thanks for the ice cream, but couldn't you put nuts and cherries on this motherfucker?" I would feel greedy. I don't need anything more than what I already have. Prior to becoming a novelist, you performed in a band called Arma Angelus. Do you have any plans to continue with music in the future? No, although when I'm jumping around my living room floor-punching to old Youth of Today songs, I miss playing on a stage and jumping on kids heads. Maybe I'll do that at the end of one of my speakings, just start two-stepping and windmilling, and then try and walk on the kids heads. While on the subject of music, who are your favorite bands performing today, and who do you recommend our readers support? I'm in love with Modern Life is War, Red Sparrows, Interpol, 2*Sweet, and Bloc Party. 2*Sweet are some of the hardest working, most appreciative dudes out there today. Talk all the shit you like, but those fuckers play just as hard to three people as they do three-hundred. Then, they load their van back up with a smile and five bucks in their pocket, and they keep doing it month after month. It doesn't hurt that they play awesome songs as well. You were slapped with the "HeyChris" tag in 2003 when Fall Out Boy included your name in the chorus of their track "Grenade Jumper." How did it feel to hear one of the scene's poster-bands dedicate a song to yourself, and looking back, are you pleased with what the inclusion has allowed you to do? Fuck yeah, I'm proud of it. That was awesome. It was a moment in time, and when I listen to that song now, it takes me back to an amazing summer. Yes, of course I am pleased and extremely grateful. I'm well aware of the doors that the song has opened for me, and I am forever thankful for it just like anyone would be if someone helped them out along the way. I read in Men's Health magazine a few months back that 85% of people got their job by someone putting in a good word for them, and that's the way I see it. Someone put in a good word for me. To clear the air once and for all, what exactly happened between Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz and yourself, and what sort of relationship do you maintain with the group today? He did something crappy, and I retaliated with something crappy of my own, and now we're both better dudes because of it. Friends have beef. You, me, dudes in bands, your brother, sister, coach, neighbor. It's just that this beef was public. so it was magnified by a thousand. It's over and done with, and of course we'll never be as close as we once were, but we're cool. I love him with all of my heart. As far as the band, I don't think they've ever recorded a bad song. Yeah, I said it. What? Now that you have initiated your own successful career, are you in any ways sick of being of being associated with that reference? It's not really that big of a concern of mine. It was like watching Screech on Celebrity Fit Club. He would get all bent out of shape when someone called him that. yet he brought it up every chance he got. That's lame. I understand that the tag is permanently affixed on my back, and that's fine with me. I don't run around telling people about it, but if they ask, I'll talk about it. Plenty of bands write songs about other people, only this band got popular. It was an honor, but it was four years ago. I've smiled, breathed it all in, and moved on. You now maintain a highly-popular online journal. What is the strangest encounter with a fan you have ever experienced? I always say, no one can creep me out. I'm the king of the creeps. I've been doing this far too long. [Laughs] I have had people break into my apartment building, slip demo records under my door, decorate my apartment building, and on more than one occasion, people have taken pictures of me through my window while I was home. I think it's hilarious, and awesome at the same time. Hey man, it means people are paying attention, and there are people out there who spend their entire lives trying to get others to pay attention. I welcome it. How do you go about dealing with ignorant comments and remarks made towards you personally over the internet? Thank God that they're there. You can either let shit like that bum you out, or you can use it to inspire your art. That's what I try to do. I read every last one of the emails and comments I receive. I look for genuine criticism, and then ask myself if there is any validity. If there is, maybe they have made me look at something in a new light. However, most are just haters telling me to get off of Fall Out Boy's coattails. I've moved on from it, and so should they. It's really low of someone to bring up a beef that happened between two friends that they don't know personally from years ago and pontificate on the direction of their careers. There is a line from a Minor Threat song that I always recite to myself when I read shit like that, and it goes "You tell me that I make no difference, but at least I'm fucking trying. What the fuck have you done?" On the other hand, how does it make you feel to know there are people out there who turn to you, and you alone, for advice and wisdom? I don't feel like I deserve it. I'm not trying to sound overly humble or anything, I'm being completely honest. I'm the same insecure, fifteen year old, punk rock kid who walked down the hall in high school with his chin buried in his chest trying not to get beat up. Only now, I'm older and I've learned how to hold my head up. Either way, some people do look to me for answers, generally answers I don't have. I can only tell them what has worked for me personally, and if someone can take something from that, then I live a blessed life. I'm trying my best to be as responsible as I know how to with the hearts people hand me. Do you plan to go in a different direction with your next novel, or are short-stories alone where your passion lies? The next book will be a cross between the type of short-stories from the first two books and my journal. I want to be even more honest and vulnerable. I want people to know what keeps this machine moving forward, and not gloss over the kinks in that system. Where do you see your career taking you within the next ten years? Man, I have no idea. Seriously, not a clue. If I could keep this up for the rest of my life, I would die the happiest man on the planet. That's all the questions we have for you today. Do you have any last words you'd care to offer our readers? Wes. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is the greatest record ever recorded. Your band will never be as good as Black Flag. Go read You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn. It will change your life. Listen to Minor Threat, and know your history. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to answer these questions for us.

GOONIES!

currently i am in astoria, oregon where they filmed the goonies, in less than an hour i am leaving this hotel (where the cast stayed while they filmed the movie) to roll through the town and find all the locations and possibly one-eyed willie. pictures and videos to follow. tonight i will be speaking in seattle. then minneapolis then milwaukee then chicago ...oh, you get the drift. come out to my readings, i promise to be entertaining or your money back. Sep 13 2007 7:00P cutter point cafe tacoma, Washington Sep 14 2007 6:00P bean scene minneapolis, Minnesota Sep 15 2007 6:00P mocha a coffee bistro milwaukee, Wisconsin Sep 16 2007 6:00P the fixx coffeebar chicago, Illinois Sep 17 2007 6:00P AJs cafe ferndale, Michigan Sep 18 2007 6:00P Brielleâ�™s Coffee and Team Room cleveland, Ohio Sep 19 2007 6:00P caffe aroma buffalo, New York Sep 20 2007 6:00P professor javas coffee sanctuary albany, New York Sep 21 2007 6:00P Umass-lowell lowell, Massachusetts Sep 22 2007 6:00P voxpop cafe brooklyn, New York Sep 23 2007 6:00P starbucks Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sep 24 2007 6:00P blue house baltimore, Maryland Oct 22 2007 6:00P poetry cafe london, London and South East Oct 23 2007 7:00P University Of Nottingham - University Park campus nottingham Oct 24 2007 6:00P cafe pop manchester Oct 25 2007 7:00P the centre for life newcastle Oct 27 2007 6:00P TBA glasgow