I grew up in Murrysville, PA. Murrysville is a suburb located about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. In high school, I got into punk music (mostly pop, don't hate) and skateboarding. Through high school I was pissed at cops for harassing me for skating, my parents for not letting me do what I wanted, teachers for telling me what I had to learn and how I had to learn it, and politicians for making laws that I didn't have a say about. Mostly I just wanted to skate, smoke, and play music.
After high school I started college at Penn State Altoona. Right as I was starting school the military was bombing Afghanistan and, soon after, Iraq. I talked with my roommates (who I hadn't known before school) about the war and learned a lot about what it was like growing up in different cities. Three of my roommates were people of color. I learned a lot about the effects of racism through the stories they would tell. Until then, I hadn't known a whole lot of people of color because I had lived in the white suburbs. I ended up coming back to Murrysville after my second year and switching to Penn State New Kensington.
By then I had switched my major from Information Science and Technology to Applied Psychology. I was (am) interested in how and why people develop the way they do and how to relate to them and work to help support people in their personal struggles. Although it was clear to me by the end of the first year at New Kensington (my third year in school) that the psychology they were teaching was fucked up (looking at people as patients instead of peers, prescribing medicine for almost anything, my instructors applauding subliminal messaging in marketing), I continued into my fourth year. About three weeks into the first semester I dropped out. I was sick of the life that I was leading. I didn't want to spend my life telling people what to do to fix their lives. I didn't want to live in the suburbs. I didn't want to continue doing nothing while the government was bombing people all over the world.
I started hiking more. I started talking with more people about life and what was missing. I started writing about people working together to make something better. One day in September of 2005, my friend Lindsey told me about a Anti-military recruiting protest that was being organized by a group called the Pittsburgh Organizing Group. We drove to Pittsburgh and went to the protest. We talked to the people there. We continued going to protests and talking. We started organizing with the group. It was great. I finally felt like I was doing something.
Soon after, Lindsey and I started putting together a group in Greensburg, a small town east of Murrysville. We put together a two anti-war protests and a poetry reading before it fizzled out. At the first protest, I played the first song that I had written about revolution.
In June 2006 I moved to Pittsburgh. Since then I have written more songs, organized and attended many more actions, and learned a whole hell of a lot of things. I've learned more about what I want to see and what I don't want to see. I've met tons of awesome new people while continuing to hang out with my friends from Murrysville. A few of my friends from Murrysville have even started organizing.
Now I am living in Pittsburgh, babysitting and cleaning houses, writing music, organizing, talking with people, and hoping. Hope is good. So is action. And root beer.
Sorry my bio is so long. These things are all in songs.
ryan
Email - RyanRustyStrings@gmail.com
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