The All-American Rejects Fandom Blog - FYDLS

It’s an odd moment for myself when all I want to do is write poetry for someone I hardly know and can’t give them to. I feel like a self-aware cannon in a vacuum of space. I know I can’t be heard so I choose not to fire.

Posted by Tyson Ritter on Facebook 12.27.11

Sitting at my usual seat at the Okc airport and I think the last three days o family frolic have finally caught up with me. As I drove to my aunt stephanie’s house on Christmas day I remember getting lost in a tunnel of billowing clouds that crested the sunset. It was a moment to savor. If there is a heaven, I hope it’s a moment like that; the best 5 minute drive that every 5 minutes you’ve forgotten the 5 minutes before and have that be eternity. I’d take that one.

Posted by Tyson Ritter on Facebook 12.27.11

I would just like to say that our 1,000th post was our Merry Christmas post. Just saying :)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

xoxo fuckyeahdirtylittlesecret

my favorite christmas i can remember===

** Christmas On The Front Lines**

I think it was 1990 and I was 6. Now i remember this morning well, because it was when i first had proof that santa had visited my home in the night. Well, enough proof for a six year old anyway. My brother and I used to sleep together on christmas eve because we would talk in hopes and wishes to each other until we dozed off. He always daydreamed practically with hopes of various toys and other boyish hopes, but my mind would wander into the absurd (naturally). I believed in canned rainbows and helicopter kits and certificates that would bring pets back from the dead… I remember that i was certain that this year we would be gifted a sherman tank. I was convinced that it would be parked outside ready for us to go off into battle, helmets and all. I of course would be general of the beast, and my older brother the driver. After all, I was the only one that had the required training to shoot the bastard. Throughout the night i remember a sound coming from the living room, and i awoke immediately.

“Zack, you hear that?”
“yeah”
“we gotta”

we swam out of our parents waterbed and grabbed the floor like a G.I Joe in heavy fire. I remembered the military move that the doll did, so we mimicked it to the letter as we inched our way into the main hall. No barbed wire, no land mines; sound was our only enemy. We could not scare santa away. Shallow breaths, be one with the carpet. He was in the room and all we could hear was a silent night with the rustle of a giant putting presents under the tree. It was as if he had four arms he was so loud. We made every breath as quiet as our racing heartbeat. I could feel the floor resisting my ballooning chest, but i still led the crab crawl to the vantage point where we would see the man known as Clause. My brother held my sock and with every tug, that meant he too should advance behind me. I was more frightened at that moment than when we inflated a raft and went down the rapids of our flooded town creek. I was going to see a superhero. This man was a living Christ. The cartoon child friendly resurrection embodied deity of jingle and jangle. I was merely inches away from the sight-line of this holiday wizard when i totally caved in. I can’t really recall why, but i just know that i felt a sudden fear for something else. Maybe i knew that no matter what i saw it would let me down or maybe i just was saddened that if i DID see him, then another dream would be a reality. I lived for my dreams to never come true, that’s why they’re dreams! They alway say you never want to meet your heroes, so I think this was an intuition i found right there on the floor next to a discarded cap’n crunch bite. I just didn’t want to see Santa all of a sudden. My sock in my brothers’ hand quickly turned into a retreating foot in the face and we made like the frosted wind in a full silent retreat. Zack never really questioned why we made the run for it, he just wanted to know if i had seen even a smidgen of the great one. I deflated having walked to the edge of the Grand Canyon and refused to jump. I ALMOST saw santa, and to me, that was just as good as riding in his sleigh all night. They say never meet your heroes, I say never see them from five foot away…….

I got a proton pack and a white christmas that year. There were only crumbs where cookies used to be, and the milk was half drank. Santa Clause HAD come to town, that’s all i needed to know.

ty

Posted on Facebook by Tyson Ritter on 12.24.11

ritteronthestreetwithacigarette answered your question: AAR Essentials Playlist

Times Stands Still, Sunshine, The Poison (it’s not from any album, but it’s ok, right? :/) yay

I would agree. The Poison is one of my favorites as well. I also love Sierra’s Song :) Their soundtrack songs have been very good! I wouldn’t hesitate at all to put them on the Essentials Playlist! Thank you so much for your feedback! :)

Keep the feedback coming guys! I’ll post the more complete list when I get enough feedback :) Click the link below to leave your thoughts!

http://fuckyeahdirtylittlesecret.tumblr.com/post/14690724267/aar-essentials-playlist

Off I go on a jolly trip across the stripes and stars to the great plains. I have managed to pack my sleigh to the brim with home made presents that have kept me behind a sewing machine, a pair of jewelers pliers, and a bottle of deco-podge for the last 48 hours. I imagine when I unzip my duffel that a ball of goo gathered trinkets will slide out like a banana. Ha.
When I land, I will be jumping into a 15 passenger van and heading to my hometown will a big red bow attached to the front grill. Why the need or such a large mode of transport? Let me explain:

This year is the year of injected joy to my familys’ Christmas. We are a blue collar bunch all around and therefore the economy has made us use our creativity overall to male it still a merry Christmas. So, I have taken it upon myself to bring some sprite to the holiday that has gone since we children of the family have all grown up. I am goin to be Peter Pan and turn this holiday into neverland! The big van, which I will call my season sled, will be decorated with tensil, candy canes, Christmas lights, and blasting only bing Crosby and Brenda lee Christmas songs the whole time. I also have purchased 15 Santa hats as it is a prerequisite of any passenger to adorn said hat as admission for transport. I’m taking everyone to go look at Christmas lights!!!
When I was a kid, my grandpa would loa all of us kids up and take us into the Christmas night to go find the best of the best light displays in town.. Whenever we spotted one, as the game went, we would yell “I raise my hand!!” and it wa such a great competition. I usually would get in a headlock fight with my brother over who saw the grand display first, but it HAD that urgency and excitement behind it! So, this year, we are on the same mission. We might not say the catch phrase, but being together in stocking hats is pretty damn satisfying for me.

family Christmas #2- My cousin chad can play a hell of an acoustic guitar, so at Thanksgiving I asked him if he wanted to play some Christmas tunes at the OTHER family gathering. He said sure and a few days ago we arranged, via text mind you, to play silent night, the first Noel, and jingle bells. So, I haven’t told that side of the family yet, but I’m gonna throw their asses in the van and we are gonna go caroling!!! That’s right, ringing doorbells, candles in hand, and red noses serenading unsuspecting homes!! I’m so excited!! This is going to be the best Christmas ever an not because of the best gift, the biggest spread, or the most powerful flashlight handed out, but because we all came together as a family and made smiles cascade all around my seasonal sled. Hi ho!! Happy holidays friends. And tiny Tim too.

Posted by Tyson Ritter on Facebook 12.23.11 

Hello again, AARMY!

I am in the process of making an AAR Essentials Playlist. I have a few that I know for sure need to be on it, but I need your help in choosing the rest! The limit is 18 songs. So far I have:

• Swing Swing
• Move Along
• Dirty Little Secret
• My Paper Heart
• It Ends Tonight
• Dance Inside
• Mona Lisa (When the World Comes Down)
• I Wanna
• The Wind Blows

I need 9 more to complete the Essentials Playlist. What do you think they should be?

Kids in the street- the new title of our upcoming fourth album is evoking a special period of my life I’m a specific common ground that we all have either stood on at one moment in our lives, or have yet to stand on. Either way, it resonates.

What does kids in the street mean to me? It defines that one tragical magical moment in life where we had almost burned down that precious candle of naiveté, but had yet to light the monstrous one of cynicism. that rotten apple that spoils the sweet smell of the purest candle of them all; the candle of reckless abandon without caring or know ing you should care. Purity. Baby skin faces that smile down a dirt road with the moon as their headlights. No war, no peace, no hope, no means, just us.

I remember taking my first true love out to my grandfathers land and sneaking out there at midnight with a blanket or two, a citronella candle, and two hearts speeding so fast that when we held each other, we were a carousel of emotion. We were going to give ourselves to each other under the stars on my grandfathers pond under the stars. It was beautiful and every moment we were so frightened that someone was coming. In the middle of 80 deserted acres of land we still were scared of getting caught. THATS kids in the street. That was the danger while grabbing onto these adult tendencies.
Staying out all night just walking Across town n. Life before responsibility.
That’s why we are habing this contest for the record. We want you to submit your art/ pictures/ recorded memories, whatever medium you choose, and have it up to win a special gallery show in NYC that we fly our favorite entries out to watch the unveiling of a private show for just them, but ALSo exhibit their original art ! Pretty neat stuff. For more information, go to allamericanrejects.com and enter to win!!

Good night’n

Posted on Facebook by Tyson Ritter on 12.20.11

Why I drive my van from our first tour and ONLY that van:

Well, we let off into that beautiful GMC rally STX series in1999 for the first time just nick and I. We headed up to kansas city fresh faced and very underage to play a little hole called The Hurricane. It’s the kind of place that introduced me to basement beer drinking and putting honey on pizza. The concrete beer of a thousand Friday nights smell was so soaked into the foundation that it was a contagion that enveloped you into a mindset that you were the most important band on the bill that night. Nick and I were a two piece back then and our drummer was a Korg Triton that ran on the archaic floppy disk method, but it never skipped a beat. (Jesus we are old) That first show in our van was monumental being that it was the first one that the ride home didn’t result in the van burning down. The last ride from Kansas city ended in nicks dads’ van bursting into flames going down the highway -cut to- an all elderly woman volunteer fire department dousing the van and driving us home from where we and our gear were abandoned. That van burned to a shell of a crisp. The gas tank even exploded. Immaculate conception that one. True story.

So, on our way home from Kansas in the van I drive now, we were just about to exit for Stillwater when—- pOW! Nick hits bambi’s dad right on the front right corner panel of the van. I swear I saw the head of the beast fly past te passenger window. With the blinker in it’s mouth. We’re lucky that nick didn’t even react on the steering wheel, he just wide eyed the road and wore an expression that told me “that just happened”. Our first drive in our flawless van and wheels hits a deer. The van was injured badly, one eye down. I call that her birth mark, and I’ve never had the heart to fix it. It would jinx the essence of her, shes the warrior and that is a battle wound. I love this van. It’s like my Los Angeles litmus for people. So many Angelinos judge you for what you wear, what you DRIVE, or what kind of phone you have. Fuck that. I drive a ‘95 GMC that’s beat to shit, and my cell phone is shattered just enough to function… But it DOES function, just as my van runs like a top from hell. I’ve lost a couple second dates because of that van, but with just cause: they were Hollywood assholes that wanted me to roll in a fancy dickhead car. No thanks.
One time, we were almost home from a month run and we made 1’600$!! That was nuts given that our rent was $100 a month and all we needed was enough money for food and booze for 2 weeks. We were gods. I digress- we were coming home, and the van blew a radiator hose. This hose helps circulate the water in your van to keep the engine from overheating. Luck be a lady, we broke down right next to a pond, and luck be a sexy lady, the hose burst right by the connection, so I could cut it short and re attach it to make it home at least… As long as we could get to that pond and fill up the now empty radiator. There must have been 100 plastic water and soda bottles in the van, so, we fire water bucket all these bottles with muddy water from said pond and get the job done. I managed to flag down a hippy van and relinquish a pair of channel locks (wrench) to repair the hose as the boys drained the pond for our van quench. It totally worked.

Ya see, this van is more to me than a van, it’s an extension of who I am. I’m not a materialist, I am a man who cherishes memories that I can actually remember. Those are the important ones, and that’s why my van is like a time capsule. Such a great piece of
my life. I think I’ll get buried in it.

Good night.

Posted on Facebook by Tyson Ritter on 12.23.11

Hey guys! I just wanted to take a minute to thank each and every one of you for making this blog possible. I began this blog just over a year ago and I never could have even imagined that it would have turned out the way it has. I am so thankful to be able to share my love of the All-American Rejects with so many of you.

So, in honor of fuckyeahdirtylittlesecret being just over a year old, I wanted to thank you all for all of your support. Please remember that our ask box is always open. We are always looking for ways to make this blog better than it already is. 

The submission box is always open as well. Please submit your pictures from AAR shows and your stories on how you came to love them. I will be posting my story soon. I can’t wait to hear all of yours and see your pictures. 

Thank you all for your continuing support and happy holidays from fuckyeahdirtylittlesecret.