YouTube guy and rock and roll

Back in November I messaged a guy on YouTube whose coming-out videos I watched. He was inspired by Randy Phillips, the gay soldier who came out to his dad over the phone. This guy is a bisexual who has recently become more open to trying things with guys. He's also a neuroscience PhD student, which is the path I almost went down. Suffice it to say, I figured we had quite a bit in common so I messaged him. He was busy with lab work and went away to a conference, but he finally messaged me back last week. We traded a few messages and then last night had a good conversation on gchat. Turns out we really do have a lot in common, which is cool. We talked about neuroscience, US cities we've been to, and of course our paths toward figuring out our sexuality. From talking to him and others online its clear that I'm not the only one who suffers from analysis-paralysis due to thinking too much. It's comforting. I won't share his YouTube name since he has since taken his videos down. I definitely would like to talk to him more, he seems like a really cool guy.

The feeling of urgency to move forward with getting some experience out their in the real world hasn't gone away, I've just been busy lately with the holidays and other things. Facebook Guy's lack of responsiveness was a setback, but I probably shouldn't have put all my eggs in one basket anyway. Time to figure out how best to proceed.

Even though my email for this blog is "socalrockfan" I feel like I haven't talked much about music. I know it's not the point of the blog, but it might be nice to mix it up a little. This week I've gotten really into Breaking Benjamin. They're a rock band from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania who have been quite popular during the last decade. Apparently they've recently broken up due to a legal dispute unfortunately. I picked up their greatest hits and have been listening to it non-stop in the car. They have a cool mix of heavy metal aggressiveness with pop accessibility and catchiness. I love music that you can both head bang and sing along to! :-) The singer, Benjamin Burnley, is pretty good looking too. Here's a link to their video for "Breath," which is one of my favorite songs of theirs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ3qJmgktS0 Also good is "Skin" from their first album, which is the song that got me into them in the first place. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuCemcYJa-c By the way, what the heck is the bass player doing in that second video, haha. He's done that in a couple of the performances I've seen on YouTube, guess he likes to play low to the ground . . .