Welcome!

Hello, people I may know, and people I may not know.

I've tried and failed numerous times to start and consistently run the constant flow of seemingly pointless words that we call a blog. So here's attempt number 6,000. Here it goes. 

I'm Jake Benavidez and I'm a kid with aspirations and dreams far bigger than the area of my bedroom. I live in Mystic CT, and I go to Fitch High School with mostly people I don't like that much. I'm 16 and the last couple days of summer are rolling in. This upcoming year I'll be a Junior, enrolling in the IB program. Let's just say I'm not looking forward to it. Now, the one thing that I love truthfully in the world with every inch of my body is music, and it's been this way since I was eight years old. I'm not going to give you one of those bull shit stories like, "When I was 8 I knew every band in the history of the world, and I begged my mom to buy me a guitar because I was so inspired. So I saved up my pennies for it and..." I'll give it to you straight. I saw a dude playing guitar on TV and I was like "shit that guy looks bad-ass. I need one of those." So I went and told my mom I wanted a guitar for Christmas. Do you think an 8 year old boy would wake up the next day still wanting that guitar for Christmas? Who the fuck knows. All I know is I definitely didn't, and asking for that guitar out of no where seemed like absolutely nothing back then. But to this day, I love that commercial for everything it's worth, because shit. It just changed my life. That Christmas, low and behold, there's that guitar shaped box under the tree. I completely forgot I asked for it, and I wasn't too excited about it. To tell you the truth, I hated the first two weeks of lessons. We were learning hot cross buns and all that shit, but to be honest, I wanted nothing more than to go fucking jam like Joe Perry and Billie Joe did. So I got through a couple months of lessons and for my birthday I got myself my first electric guitar. It was a piece of shit. But it had distortion and that was the one and only thing I cared about. All of a sudden bands like blink-182, the Beatles, more Green Day, and Led Zeppelin were thrown in my face by my parents. Love you Mom and Dad. Thanks to you I started buying band shirts, asking for iPods instead of batting gloves, and headphones instead of video games. Music started to engulf every second of my life and I was loving it. Pretty soon I joined the Jazz Band and met my best pal Kyle Torr-Brown. I'll be honest I was such a dick to that kid. I really feel terrible because I was that douchebag jock kid in elementary school that shit all over everyone. Luckily this music thing saved me from getting worse. Anyways, I learned Kyle could play drums once I heard him in this Beatles Tribute Jazz Band Concert we did for the closing of our school. So that summer we started to jam. And we haven't stopped since. Soon my other two friends Adam and Hunter learned their shit and we had a band on our hands. Our name is Fish House, and I swear that band is everything I've ever hoped and dreamed. Our music makes me feel great in every way you can think of and I'm not ashamed to say I love all three of those guys and I always will. We've been such good friends since 5th grade, and it's about to be Junior year and we haven't come close to drifting. It's amazing and I'm so unbelievably lucky to have found these guys. Couldn't have asked for better people. As you can tell from the book I've been writing, literally through the night (the sun is now coming up), I really love this music thing. I've gotten into way better bands since I was eight (including bands like State Radio, Dispatch, Brand New, All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, the Foo Fighters, Manchester Orchestra, Oasis, Paramore, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Sigur Ros, Streetlight Manifesto, Weezer) and it's been throwing me surprises ever since. I love the way it sounds. State Radio's ability to play just about any type of music. Brand New's originality. The Foo Fighters power. Radiohead and everything they've ever written. Rage Against the Machine's straight freight train of a rhythm section. Sigur Ros' beautiful melodies and bowed guitars. The way Streetlight Manifesto plays ska (generally happy music) but puts lyrics that bring a tear to my eye in their songs. Just the way certain songs can make my hair stand on end, make me shiver, or make me cry like a baby. Just by hearing it. Could you imagine playing it? Being a part of it? Creating your own? Putting your own feeling and memory to the sounds coming out of those 6 strings? You have no idea. Words can't describe any of it. It's amazing and I'll be playing it until my hands feet and ears come off.


To let you know what kind of person I am (if that didn't do it for you) I'm an extremely emotional person. I'll just say it. Whatever, I don't care at all. If I hear my Mom in an argument with my dad, sometimes I cry. I can say I've cried because my band has had issues. I cry all too often, and It happens with people. I cry at movies if it strikes some sad memory or feeling I've got. Call me a pussy or whatever but that's just how I am.I'm really big on originality and being yourself. I don't act very different around different people and it's the best feeling ever. I'll do the same stupid shit I do around my band to whoever ends up hanging out with our group of friends. And why wouldn't you want to do so? First of all you don't have to go through the trouble of actually thinking of some way to act around people. Second of all you're comfortable around anyone and everyone, solely because you're comfortable with the way you're acting. And third of all, whoever this new person may be, they get to know you right away because you're just being you. It just makes more sense. In another view, you could be going after someone you may be interested in sexually, but instead of just being yourself, you do stupid shit to impress him/her. When he/she finally accepts your invitation to a dinner and movie, you realize she really fell for the guy that does the shit you find stupid. Next thing you know, you're dating and you're just not being yourself anymore. So moral of the story, If you're just yourself in front of everyone then the world will be a better place, you'll feel so much more happy and relaxed, and I guarantee you'll make better friends. As far as originality goes, there's a couple opinions I have on the matter. Some people say that they hate bands because they sound exactly like one of their all time favorite bands. For example, All Time Low's first album Put Up or Shut Up sounds scarily like most Fall Out Boy songs. If I was one of these people, I'd hate All Time Low because they sounded like Fall Out Boy (metaphorically my favorite band). Which makes no sense to me. If they sound like your favorite band, how could you possibly dislike their music? If they sound the same, alright, good deal because you get double the good music. Just seems stupid to me.

As far as girls go (I know, I'm such a teenager) I'm not one of those guys that goes out and gets drunk and high and whatever else there is to get, and bangs every girl in sight. And I hate the guys that do that night after night with a passion.As a matter of fact, my band has a song about those guys. It's great. Anyways,  I do very little drinking. I drink every once in a while on occasion, but nothing ridiculous. maybe like a couple times (3-6) a year, mostly in the summer. And instead, with girls, I'm always down to play guitar with them, sing with them, play some video games, listen to some music, ACTUALLY watch movies with them, and just chill with them. To actually have fun. Seriously, guys who are in it for the sex make me sad to be a guy. "All guys are pigs." True statement. Don't get me wrong, messing around with someone you find attractive is obviously fun, but a relationship where you can't do anything but that is not for me. But you can't find much of that in High School. Which brings me to my next point.

I am Ted Mosby. If you are familiar with HIMYM you would understand that he is trying to find "the one" every chance he gets, and all his friends are succeeding at exactly that, while he can't that person. The rest of my band have found partners that they love. It's amazing. I am so happy for all of them and I can honestly say I've never seen them more happy in my entire life. I'm single, if you couldn't tell by word number 234592352 in this fucking post. And, even though I am in High School, I continue to try to find that person with "it." I've come up with a theory where a person can have "it." some people have experienced it dating some people haven't. I have at a certain point in time and "it" is something that's un explainable. All I can say is that "it" is what I'm looking for. But I'm 16 years old. Why the fuck should I be doing that. Now logic has got me there, but I continue to strive for that person who has "it." Where I'm feeling "it." I see it in all my friends and it looks phenomenal. I don't know why I keep trying, because nine times out of ten, It will probably not work. Like Ted Mosby. But the show is called "How I Met Your Mother." So he does eventually find that person. So, one day, Ted Mosby Jr. here will find that lover and a sister wife who sings beautifully and loves music as much as he does. But for now, I'm still unsure of what exactly to do in my dating life.

I'm not happy with a couple things about myself. I always overthink things to the point where I literally end up crying for no reason at all. It's unbelievable that I continue to do things like that but it's kind of just what happens I guess. I've had acne ever since I hit puberty when I was 13 or 14. I hate it. With every bone in my body. I'm afraid to show my face in just about everything there is to show faces on. I hate the hundreds of dollars my mom spends on medicine for me every month. I hate how I can never look in the mirror and be any more than 75% happy with myself. I hate taking promo photos for my band. I hate seeing myself in videos. In every profile picture I've picked ones hiding my face. I hate how I need to wash my face 6 times a day to even close to where I want to be. I shave way more than I have to just to make my face feel smoother. I take extra skin pills that I'm supposed to so it can work faster, but then it dries out any other inch of skin I have left so much it hurts. I hate spending 10-15 minutes looking in the mirrror trying to make my face look like before I go out somewhere. I would genuinely be 600% happier without it and it irritates me to the point of no return. It's one of the worst things in the world, and yup. You guessed it. I've lost sleep and cried over this one too. In addition, I sweat too much. Ask anyone, at any show they've ever seen, I sweat way too much. I hate this, in every way. Some summer days are unbearable. Shows make me on the verge of throwing up and passing out. And being the weirdo who likes to live in an igloo, everyone else doesn't want as much AC as I do, so I sweat randomly in the car sometimes. It's honestly disgusting, and yup. I cried over it. What is wrong with me.

I don't want to grow up in any way whatsoever. I could have had my licence by now but I waited the longest I could without my mom killing me to get my permit. I don't have a job. I don't want to have a job. I want to go play music with my friends. I don't want to get taller. I don't want to act mature. I want to listen to blink-182 make dick jokes and think about sex. I don't care, I don't want to lose myself and forget about how much fun it is to be a kid. If I lived in a neighborhood I'd be sure to start up kickball and baseball games like you see on the Sandlot. I want to be one of those people. But I'm going to be 17 soon and I'm eventually going to have to accept the fact that everyone grows up. but for right now? Fuck that. Let's go be lazy and be rebellious naked people. 

Alright, in conclusion, I'm pretty sure that I didn't miss much about myself, and I don't know this site very well, so I don't know if I can say "comment if you want to talk" or whatever, but yeah.

For anyone who has felt as shitty as me or needs help or advice at all, I'd be happy to help.

Much love,

- Jake

You're exactly the way you're supposed to be.