Bessie Braddock: Sir, you are drunk.
Churchill: And you, madam, are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober.
When I was three, I broke my right leg. Not in a cool way either. For reasons which I can't recall, I had a toy garbage truck among my various playthings. I have no earthly conception as to what I did with it--threw out my spare Legos, I suppose. Anyways, while running around in my grandparents' house, I got my right foot stuck in the back of said truck. My foot stayed put, but the rest of my body kept going forward, and I received a very early lesson in torque and the laws of physics when my right leg snapped. Spiral break. Not very good.
I'm relying on secondhand memories here--there's no real trauma resulting from this accident. I got a half-body cast and was doped up on morphine half the time, so I can't give you the true specifics. I had a talking Teddy Ruxpin doll at the time, and the morphine convinced me he was real. There's that.
I guess the only thing you could say was that, from then on in, I walked a little slower, a little more cautiously. My leg was wrapped in a cast, and when it came off, it took from me a sense of abandon. I was constantly prepared for a fall.
Over the past year, I've made a conscious and largely successful effort to improve my mind. I don't mean this in the sense of actually making myself smarter, but I've been trying to do more with what I've got. It's worked! I think it's worked. Friends of mine have commented on how much I've "improved". It's my own mini-redemption story, right? There's nothing America loves more than something that used to be tarnished. My confidence and sense of clarity--the idea that I have some kind of purpose--have never been higher.
It's not enough.
I've always been fascinated by the idea of physicality. We have bodies, and I think this is very strange to us. More than once, while staring into a mirror after washing my face or brushing my teeth, I've been struck by a sense of dissociation. The basic act of moving my hand, or the sensation of heat or cold becomes alien. Athleticism is a way to reconcile this--we can conquer the world around us through speed, strength, and endurance. We can become masters of our surroundings by making them surmountable.
Or, at least, some of us can. For my entire life, I've grown up with the belief there is such a thing as a "born" athlete, someone who effortlessly glides through life's pickup basketball games and backyard football contests due to an inherent advantage. Whether it's great size, fleetfootedness, or merely an advanced coherence of movement, it's not something that I think could ever be taught, or learned. It's merely inherent. You are, or you aren't.
But I know that I can remake my mind--strengthen the connection between concepts, beliefs, and expressions to form a greater whole. Why not my body?
I still believe that some athletes are simply born that way. You can tell by the way they move--I met Rangers' center fielder Josh Hamilton once, and he practically bounced down the hall, moving with a certain economy on the balls of his feet. It's something you have to accept if you want to do what I want to do.
I want to make myself into an athlete.
We've already gone over why the grand path of my life hasn't been leading in this direction. But this path is mutable. Perhaps for the majority of us, our surroundings dictate our future. You could have two kids with an equal amount of natural athletic talent, but one of them has an expansive backyard, a lot of free time, and dozens of other kids in the neighborhood with which to play team sports. The other broke his leg when he was three and spent the rest of his life watching his step. Which one would you pick first for a team?
I think this realization is an advantage. I may be far behind, but all I need to do is commit--to treat the base and the summit as one. I could be in for a fall, it's true, or a disappointment, but defiance at the precipice is a virtue. Can you make yourself something you're not? I plan on finding out now. In the morning, I'll be sober.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Myth of Nomar
I have been so terribly irritable over the past weeks, and I think it's Al Reyes' fault.
There are other factors at work. While the wide framework of my life is solid, I've been beset by a series of petty failures--the worst kind, to be honest. Ideally, in the event of a life-altering reversal of fortune, you have some kind of support system--friends and family rally around you if you're fired, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Fail at something stupid, though, and you will receive no pity.
The core of it is this: I haven't been able to write for the past month. This happens sometimes, and though the reasons vary, it always comes down to procrastination. I spent hours today avoiding the whole writing process--having to actually translate the clear threads of my imagination into something muddled and lacking.
To that end, I tried (and failed) to do the following things:
That, kids, is why the basic idea of Al Reyes has put me in a dark mood.
**********
At twenty-three years of age, Nomar Garciaparra hit .306 with 30 home runs for the Boston Red Sox.
At twenty-four, Nomar hit .323 with 35 home runs.
At twenty-five, Nomar hit .357 with 27 home runs.
I've always liked baseball, but I didn't really love it until Anthony Nomar Garciaparra (his famous middle name, which defined him to the world, became one of those words, which leapt above their original meanings and came to stand for so much more) became the starting shortstop for the Red Sox. Here he was, in the full flower of youth, so audaciously talented that, to a 13-year-old with glasses and acne, he didn't quite seem real. Nomar, along with the hated Derek Jeter and the distant Alex Rodriguez, heralded a new age of shortstoppery in baseball.
Shortstops had been, for a long period of time, smaller and scrappier, defense-first types, broken only by outliers like Cal Ripken Jr. Nomar was a sinewy howitzer, both on the field and at-bat. Two images stand out to me, when thinking of Nomar: his uncanny ability to rove into the hole between second and third base, spear a sharp grounder, then (all in one motion), turning, jumping, and firing the ball to first; and his power-laden swing, which (preceded by a series of ritualistic toe taps and glove adjustments that became iconic) seemed to produce naught but frightening line drives, at every angle. He was otherwordly. There was no effort to his ability.
We will never know his true talent level, because of Al Reyes. Near the end of his age twenty-five season, Reyes hit Nomar in the left wrist with a fastball.
Life is rarely cinematic. There was no hushed silence, no frozen movie frame--Nomar was hit, but he seemed fine., and he had an entire offseason to rest it up. In his age twenty-six season, Nomar hit .372, which to this day doesn't seem like an actual number. He wasn't even in his prime yet.
In his age twenty-seven season, the wrist began to act up. He missed a hundred and forty-two games.
In his age twenty-eight and twenty-nine seasons, he hit a combined .305. He could still mash. But it seemed to us, at the time, that Nomar was struggling, at least a bit. He was always aggressive, but his walks fell, as pitchers felt they could challenge him more often. More and more of those line drives turned into weak popups. He was falling off a mountain in slow motion.
In his age thirty season, Nomar Garciaparra played in only thirty-eight games for Boston, before being traded to the Cubs. The Red Sox won the World Series that year. Al Reyes' fastball had finally found its mark.
I've reached a point in my life where some things I once found essential are falling by the wayside. I can't remember my sixth-grade history teacher's name, or the names of the next-door neighbors at our old house. They're lost in the haze. I wonder if Nomar remembers what it felt like to truly turn on a pitch, the way only an elite hitter can. For the past two years, he's been far below adequate. Once the toast of Boston, a future Hall of Famer, news of Nomar's potential retirement due to "constant physical ailments" is buried deep in an article about something else entirely.
Don't pity him. Nomar is a millionaire several times over, married to a beautiful and talented woman--his life has been better, on balance, than billions and billions of others.
But the man used to be able to do something, and he no longer can. That alone is a kind of death.
There are other factors at work. While the wide framework of my life is solid, I've been beset by a series of petty failures--the worst kind, to be honest. Ideally, in the event of a life-altering reversal of fortune, you have some kind of support system--friends and family rally around you if you're fired, or sick, or otherwise indisposed. Fail at something stupid, though, and you will receive no pity.
The core of it is this: I haven't been able to write for the past month. This happens sometimes, and though the reasons vary, it always comes down to procrastination. I spent hours today avoiding the whole writing process--having to actually translate the clear threads of my imagination into something muddled and lacking.
To that end, I tried (and failed) to do the following things:
- Get the new version of AIM to work on my computer.
- Get through even a quarter of Samurai Shodown II (one of those classic fighting games that requires one to have methamphetamine reflexes to even dream of defeating the computer. So far, the pattern seems to be as such: start match, spend twenty seconds having every attack blocked with a dismissive effortlessness by the computer, lose match, consider throwing controller, and, ultimately, sink back into chair with a certain amount of despair and embarrassment.)
- Respond to e-mails sent by loved ones.
- Go to the gym.
That, kids, is why the basic idea of Al Reyes has put me in a dark mood.
**********
At twenty-three years of age, Nomar Garciaparra hit .306 with 30 home runs for the Boston Red Sox.
At twenty-four, Nomar hit .323 with 35 home runs.
At twenty-five, Nomar hit .357 with 27 home runs.
I've always liked baseball, but I didn't really love it until Anthony Nomar Garciaparra (his famous middle name, which defined him to the world, became one of those words, which leapt above their original meanings and came to stand for so much more) became the starting shortstop for the Red Sox. Here he was, in the full flower of youth, so audaciously talented that, to a 13-year-old with glasses and acne, he didn't quite seem real. Nomar, along with the hated Derek Jeter and the distant Alex Rodriguez, heralded a new age of shortstoppery in baseball.
Shortstops had been, for a long period of time, smaller and scrappier, defense-first types, broken only by outliers like Cal Ripken Jr. Nomar was a sinewy howitzer, both on the field and at-bat. Two images stand out to me, when thinking of Nomar: his uncanny ability to rove into the hole between second and third base, spear a sharp grounder, then (all in one motion), turning, jumping, and firing the ball to first; and his power-laden swing, which (preceded by a series of ritualistic toe taps and glove adjustments that became iconic) seemed to produce naught but frightening line drives, at every angle. He was otherwordly. There was no effort to his ability.
We will never know his true talent level, because of Al Reyes. Near the end of his age twenty-five season, Reyes hit Nomar in the left wrist with a fastball.
Life is rarely cinematic. There was no hushed silence, no frozen movie frame--Nomar was hit, but he seemed fine., and he had an entire offseason to rest it up. In his age twenty-six season, Nomar hit .372, which to this day doesn't seem like an actual number. He wasn't even in his prime yet.
In his age twenty-seven season, the wrist began to act up. He missed a hundred and forty-two games.
In his age twenty-eight and twenty-nine seasons, he hit a combined .305. He could still mash. But it seemed to us, at the time, that Nomar was struggling, at least a bit. He was always aggressive, but his walks fell, as pitchers felt they could challenge him more often. More and more of those line drives turned into weak popups. He was falling off a mountain in slow motion.
In his age thirty season, Nomar Garciaparra played in only thirty-eight games for Boston, before being traded to the Cubs. The Red Sox won the World Series that year. Al Reyes' fastball had finally found its mark.
I've reached a point in my life where some things I once found essential are falling by the wayside. I can't remember my sixth-grade history teacher's name, or the names of the next-door neighbors at our old house. They're lost in the haze. I wonder if Nomar remembers what it felt like to truly turn on a pitch, the way only an elite hitter can. For the past two years, he's been far below adequate. Once the toast of Boston, a future Hall of Famer, news of Nomar's potential retirement due to "constant physical ailments" is buried deep in an article about something else entirely.
Don't pity him. Nomar is a millionaire several times over, married to a beautiful and talented woman--his life has been better, on balance, than billions and billions of others.
But the man used to be able to do something, and he no longer can. That alone is a kind of death.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Loud Desperation
I play catcher on my company's beer league softball team*. We hold our games in an athletic complex set a ways into a forested area of Farmington, hidden just far enough in the dark forests that characterize this area of the country so that the entire area is plunged into a frankly primal blackness when the last of the field lights are turned off. It's a fun diversion and a nice way to build camraderie--I would suggest that everyone, at some point during the year, get involved in some form of competitive sport (according to your relative athleticism, of course--I stay away from pickup football because it inevitably forces me into covering someone. Let me be the first to own up to this--I am an appallingly bad cornerback, safety, or linebacker. Inevitably, the game takes on a deja vu-esque aspect, as the man I'm covering is thrown to, again and again, with little to no interference from me).
*We've gone over this before, but this tells you all you need to know about my relative athleticism.
We're all on the younger side for this league. Your typical beer league softball player emerges from a stable of previous few varieties--the middle-aged former high school baseball stud, the fat guy who can hit home runs, and the old guy who can place hits wherever he wants. This is a universal thing. To that extent, we've been struggling this season--our skillsets, which include daring baserunning and good outfield defense--are rendered moot by the onslaught of beer-bellied sluggers who can place the ball just out of our reach.
Maturity is another thing we have on them.
You wouldn't think so, but it's true. We had a double-header Wednesday night, and the leadoff hitter (and shortstop) for the other team complained about the cosmic injustice of every close call pretty much as soon as the game started. He was a lanky white guy, late 30s, with a shaved head and a knee brace--the kind of man whose jittery intensity was apparent from every flared nostril and wide-eyed gesticulation. He would make hard, risky throws when he had no chance of getting a runner out, which is a rather boorish thing to do in a league without batting helmets.
Early in the second game, I popped out in foul territory to the third baseman. My roommate Phil (who has, and I would be remiss if I did not mention this, a really excellent arm) was coaching third base, and evidently was a bit too slow in moving out of the way of the third baseman's path. The catch was made, and before running off the field, the third baseman threw the ball at Phil.
"WATCH where you're going. You have to get out of the WAY!" said the third baseman.
"I was out of the way," said Phil, who used to coach high school baseball, so he's somewhat familiar with the rules.
"NO you WEREN'T," said the shortstop, now choosing to join in. "Why aren't you PAYING ATTENTION!?"
I mean, what do you think this is? A game?
*We've gone over this before, but this tells you all you need to know about my relative athleticism.
We're all on the younger side for this league. Your typical beer league softball player emerges from a stable of previous few varieties--the middle-aged former high school baseball stud, the fat guy who can hit home runs, and the old guy who can place hits wherever he wants. This is a universal thing. To that extent, we've been struggling this season--our skillsets, which include daring baserunning and good outfield defense--are rendered moot by the onslaught of beer-bellied sluggers who can place the ball just out of our reach.
Maturity is another thing we have on them.
You wouldn't think so, but it's true. We had a double-header Wednesday night, and the leadoff hitter (and shortstop) for the other team complained about the cosmic injustice of every close call pretty much as soon as the game started. He was a lanky white guy, late 30s, with a shaved head and a knee brace--the kind of man whose jittery intensity was apparent from every flared nostril and wide-eyed gesticulation. He would make hard, risky throws when he had no chance of getting a runner out, which is a rather boorish thing to do in a league without batting helmets.
Early in the second game, I popped out in foul territory to the third baseman. My roommate Phil (who has, and I would be remiss if I did not mention this, a really excellent arm) was coaching third base, and evidently was a bit too slow in moving out of the way of the third baseman's path. The catch was made, and before running off the field, the third baseman threw the ball at Phil.
"WATCH where you're going. You have to get out of the WAY!" said the third baseman.
"I was out of the way," said Phil, who used to coach high school baseball, so he's somewhat familiar with the rules.
"NO you WEREN'T," said the shortstop, now choosing to join in. "Why aren't you PAYING ATTENTION!?"
I mean, what do you think this is? A game?
***********
Despite my promise to ignore news related to the election, I've found myself drawn to a bizarre phenomenon which I promise I'm going to tie to that asshole shortstop at some point. I'm voting for Obama, just to get that out of the way, for reasons as complex as his views on the economy, and as simple as the fact that, if you fuck up running a country for eight straight years, you don't get another crack at it.
I'm open to disagreements from the other side. There is a perfectly legitimate case to be made for voting for John McCain--I just don't think it's as convincing as the counter-argument. All I really require is a set of logical arguments for your guy, and we're cool.
That's not what's been happening, however. Take this article on CNN.com, titled "Rage rising on the McCain campaign trail":
Bewilderment
Obviously, these people are scared and confused. On some level, I think, this is a natural reaction to being put in a losing position--they've identified with a party and a candidate who are down significantly in the polls, and this upsets them emotionally. That being said, how can you "not figure out how this is happening?" I'm not a huge fan of campaign coverage in general (check out this essay by David Foster Wallace and this one by Matt Taibbi [both in Rolling Stone, unfortunately] to find out why. Basically, it's like a bunch of eighth graders reporting on drama in the cafeteria), but there are thousands of articles out there to tell you why things are happening as they are.
Tantrums
There's a man in a flannel shirt and glasses featured in that article. He looks to be in his late 50s--an avuncular type, someone you'd expect to see reclining on a couch, watching college football with his nieces and nephews. He is SO ANGRY. It's really a sight to see. He's mad--he says it twice, in a half-furious, half-pleading tone. He practically stomps his feet.
Fantasizing
The man who shouted out "Kill him!" at the Palin rally may or may not actually want to kill Barack Obama. What he really wants is an easy solution to his problems. He figures that a loss by John McCain would remove something essential from his life--whether it's security, or financial solvency, or some kind of vague sense that an old and familiar something has been taken from him. And he sees no way to stop this--no way to deal with his problems--other than for Obama to just go away. This kind of adult wishing isn't anything new--it's why books like this:
And books like this:
are actually the exact same book. They're just addressing different fantasies.
Different escapes. These people don't want to deal with reality. They want an escape.
That Really Annoying Way of Arguing, Where You Make a Point that SOUNDS Good, but Doesn't Actually MEAN ANYTHING, and Then You Say "OHHH, I GUESS THAT ARGUMENT'S OVER, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO THAT".
There's a lot of that shit going on too.
I'm open to disagreements from the other side. There is a perfectly legitimate case to be made for voting for John McCain--I just don't think it's as convincing as the counter-argument. All I really require is a set of logical arguments for your guy, and we're cool.
That's not what's been happening, however. Take this article on CNN.com, titled "Rage rising on the McCain campaign trail":
And:At a rally in Minnesota on Friday, a woman told McCain: "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab."
McCain shook his head and said, "No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man...[a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about."
One man at the rally said he was "scared of an Obama presidency." McCain later told the man he should not fear Obama.
"I want to be president of the United States, and I don't want Obama to be," he said. "But I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he is a decent person, and a person that you do not have to be scared as President of the United States."
McCain's response was met with boos from the crowd.
Here's what we're dealing with:One member of the Palin audience in Jacksonville, Florida, Tuesday shouted out "treason." And at another rally in the state Monday, Palin's mention of the Obama-Ayers tie caused one member to yell out: "kill him" -- though it was unclear if it was targeted at Obama or Ayers.
At several recent rallies, Palin has stirred up crowds by mentioning the "liberal media." Routinely, there are boos at every mention of The New York Times and the "mainstream media," both of which are staples of Palin's stump speech.
Some audience members are openly hostile to members of the traveling press covering Palin; one crowd member hurled a racial epithet at an African-American member of the press in Clearwater, Florida, on Monday.
And at a McCain rally in New Mexico on Monday, one supporter yelled out "terrorist" when McCain asked, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain didn't respond.
Bewilderment
Obviously, these people are scared and confused. On some level, I think, this is a natural reaction to being put in a losing position--they've identified with a party and a candidate who are down significantly in the polls, and this upsets them emotionally. That being said, how can you "not figure out how this is happening?" I'm not a huge fan of campaign coverage in general (check out this essay by David Foster Wallace and this one by Matt Taibbi [both in Rolling Stone, unfortunately] to find out why. Basically, it's like a bunch of eighth graders reporting on drama in the cafeteria), but there are thousands of articles out there to tell you why things are happening as they are.
Tantrums
There's a man in a flannel shirt and glasses featured in that article. He looks to be in his late 50s--an avuncular type, someone you'd expect to see reclining on a couch, watching college football with his nieces and nephews. He is SO ANGRY. It's really a sight to see. He's mad--he says it twice, in a half-furious, half-pleading tone. He practically stomps his feet.
Fantasizing
The man who shouted out "Kill him!" at the Palin rally may or may not actually want to kill Barack Obama. What he really wants is an easy solution to his problems. He figures that a loss by John McCain would remove something essential from his life--whether it's security, or financial solvency, or some kind of vague sense that an old and familiar something has been taken from him. And he sees no way to stop this--no way to deal with his problems--other than for Obama to just go away. This kind of adult wishing isn't anything new--it's why books like this:
And books like this:
are actually the exact same book. They're just addressing different fantasies.Different escapes. These people don't want to deal with reality. They want an escape.
That Really Annoying Way of Arguing, Where You Make a Point that SOUNDS Good, but Doesn't Actually MEAN ANYTHING, and Then You Say "OHHH, I GUESS THAT ARGUMENT'S OVER, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO THAT".
There's a lot of that shit going on too.
************
One of the newer members of our team is from the area. He told us that the bald shortstop with the knee brace used to coach youth league baseball, but was fired. He couldn't control his temper. He'd yell at the kids.
What that really means is that he was probably bewildered, and frustrated, and angry, and hoping that somehow, these qualities would lead to a miraculous solution, whereas his kids would, I dunno, win the Little League World Series.
He was fired because he was no older than his kids, emotionally. Maybe even a bit younger.
An adult deals with his or her problems. The trials of the world are difficult, and sometimes life can be overwhelming, but everything can be fixed (if not totally) with a sober assessment of the problem, followed by action. Stomp your feet, get red in the face, hope for a miracle solution, and you will be trampled into dust by the red hooves of history.
"He's an Arab!"
"He's a socialist!"
"He's a terrorist!"
"Kill him!"
That's what they're saying. But it's not what they mean.
They are children.
One of the newer members of our team is from the area. He told us that the bald shortstop with the knee brace used to coach youth league baseball, but was fired. He couldn't control his temper. He'd yell at the kids.
What that really means is that he was probably bewildered, and frustrated, and angry, and hoping that somehow, these qualities would lead to a miraculous solution, whereas his kids would, I dunno, win the Little League World Series.
He was fired because he was no older than his kids, emotionally. Maybe even a bit younger.
An adult deals with his or her problems. The trials of the world are difficult, and sometimes life can be overwhelming, but everything can be fixed (if not totally) with a sober assessment of the problem, followed by action. Stomp your feet, get red in the face, hope for a miracle solution, and you will be trampled into dust by the red hooves of history.
"He's an Arab!"
"He's a socialist!"
"He's a terrorist!"
"Kill him!"
That's what they're saying. But it's not what they mean.
They are children.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
The Jersey Shore, or the Death of the American Dream, Part II: The First Night
I.
"Make sure you wrap everything up, alright?"
Glenn, our landlord for the weekend, smirked. A muscley dude with spiky hair and a tan, he showed no sign of having spent his life at anywhere besides the beach and the clubs. It's not a bad life, necessarily, but it's one that can really only exist in towns such as this one--tourist traps geared around tits and bronzer, just waiting to be washed away by a class-5 hurricane that Pat Robertson can blame on the wrath of an angry God.
After Glenn's warning regarding the level of venereal disease present among the female populace of Seaside Heights (here, I imagined a tiny particle of syphilis, its flagellum spiked and blown out, meandering its way from guido to guido, techno-dancing all the way), we surveyed our surroundings. The place we had rented teetered unsteadily on the border of livable and shithole--two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Furnishings included a pull-out couch, a tiny refrigerator, and an eight-inch TV. We were going to have to rough it to survive.
The first order of business was exploring the boardwalk.
II
Actually, the first order of business was getting ready, which is unremarkable save for a story which I'm honor-bound to relate.
The weekend was hot as balls, and our air conditioner was barely worthy of the name, so we each relied on different methods of staying cool and dry. I had just finished applying an extra layer of deodorant, when Phil offered a fascinating alternative method, which I hadn't yet considered.
"Do you need some GoldBond powder?" he asked.
Now, I'm an arrogant bastard. Out of everyone who had made that trip, I was the consensus choice for "most likely to get us all killed by mouthing off to the wrong guy". I don't like to admit that I'm wrong. But, in certain situations, I will reveal the limits of my weakness and allow that, yes, perhaps I don't know everything. Case in point: I had never in my life heard of GoldBond powder.
I suppose, at some point, I was familiar with the concept of deodorant powder, but I had neither used nor seen it used. I pointed this out to Phil, who had a quizzical look on his face.
"You know, you put it on you, keeps you dry," he said.
The rest of the crew chimed in with their assent. Apparently everyone had heard of this shit except for me. I felt out of place. What was this strange world, where blowouts ruled the day, where the smell of bronzer permeated the air like the stench of death on a battlefield, where...where...where...
"You use it to GoldBond your nuts."
A beat of time. No one said anything. Everyone looked at Phil.
"Right?" he said.
Pandemonium. Chances are, if you see Phil walking down the street, he'll be fully protected from the evils of genital flop-sweat. He's a better man for it.
III.
The boardwalk was half-continual bar and half-carnival, though clearly catered toward a more adult sensibility than your average sideshow. Our trip up and down the boardwalk was unremarkable, save for a rather ill-advised idea to consume at least one Long Island Iced Tea (aren't we FUCKING HARDCORE, eh?) at each place we stopped. I estimate we each lost something on the order of eighty dollars attempting to win various carnival prizes.
One game in particular enchanted us--a giant roulette wheel which promised an authentic MLB jersey as a prize. AP won a Mike Schmidt Phillies jersey on his first try. Juan countered with a bright orange Cal Ripken Jr. jersey. Struggling only a bit more than our first two winners, Phil took home a Derek Jeter All-Star game uniform.
Ron and I were left with nothing. The vendor, a hefty and good-natured woman with a tattoo spanning her ample chest, implored us to continue, but fortunately for our wallets, it was about time to start hitting the clubs.
IV
I've referenced the concept of a "blowout" several times here without truly describing it. A blowout is a haircut that has found somewhat of a habitat on the skull of your average Jersey guido. Perhaps you want one of your own. Here is a quick guide on how to style your hair in the form of a blowout:
"This is probably the second-strongest stuff I have," he said. I shuddered. The strongest stuff was probably toxic.
"I had better have all my fucking hair in the morning," I said, as I went to work.
Andrew is ron to joe: “he’s defining the hairline right now.” 12:35am
I was still getting that shit out of my head three days later.
V
At the beginning of the trip, we had half a notion to institute a rule that would increase the sociability of everyone involved. The rule was as such; were you caught eying a girl, and someone noticed, you had to go talk to her. Phil and I thought this rule was a great idea.
We stood watch on the balcony of Bamboo, apparently the best nightclub in the area, and we observed with a mounting horror just how irrelevant our rule was.
Bright orange neon bamboo trees bathed the place in a hellish light, and techno music blared from three or four separate sources (I was vaguely reminded of sleep-deprivation torture at Guantanamo Bay). The assorted humanity either writhed on the dance floor or chatted at tables.
I looked at one group of girls. Teased-out hair. Deep, bronze-aided tans. Screeching giggles.
I shifted focus to another group. Teased-out hair. Deep, bronze-aided tans. Screeching giggles.
Now disoriented, I spied another group. Teased-out hair. Deep, bronze-aided...wait, was this the same group as before?
Phil shook his head. Behind him, I took a picture of a man with terrible cornrows, and another guy with a graphic t-shirt featuring what looked like an imperial Eagle (used by the Romans, but also by a group of clean-cut German fellows from the 1930s).
"They look the same," he said. "They all look the same."
We left. But we'd be back. The rest of the night is a haze, your typical extended bar-hop, consuming drink after drink at each location until the alcohol has backed up to your eyeballs, until the bare thought of drinking more is getting you more drunk, but you couldn't be, man, there's no way--there's no WAY--you could be more drunk than you are right now, so you feel a sudden need for food and--bless it, bless it--Steaks Unlimited is still open, and the steak sandwiches and cheeseballs taste better than anything you've ever had before in your life, save maybe for the last time you ate something while hammered, and you're all laughing to the blue neon heavens about everything and anything as you all stumble into the apartment, but now AP has decided he needs must swim in the motel pool across the way, so you're cheering him on as he hops the fence and dives in, but now he's trying to get out and he trips and the motel is booing him, which just makes you laugh louder and longer, and you settle back on the floor feeling like ten billion dollars, because this place may be hellish, but it is hilarious, and you've got a whole day-and-a-half left, and
wait
A day-and-a-half?
Suddenly, I began to feel sick.
"Make sure you wrap everything up, alright?"
Glenn, our landlord for the weekend, smirked. A muscley dude with spiky hair and a tan, he showed no sign of having spent his life at anywhere besides the beach and the clubs. It's not a bad life, necessarily, but it's one that can really only exist in towns such as this one--tourist traps geared around tits and bronzer, just waiting to be washed away by a class-5 hurricane that Pat Robertson can blame on the wrath of an angry God.
After Glenn's warning regarding the level of venereal disease present among the female populace of Seaside Heights (here, I imagined a tiny particle of syphilis, its flagellum spiked and blown out, meandering its way from guido to guido, techno-dancing all the way), we surveyed our surroundings. The place we had rented teetered unsteadily on the border of livable and shithole--two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Furnishings included a pull-out couch, a tiny refrigerator, and an eight-inch TV. We were going to have to rough it to survive.
The first order of business was exploring the boardwalk.
II
Actually, the first order of business was getting ready, which is unremarkable save for a story which I'm honor-bound to relate.
The weekend was hot as balls, and our air conditioner was barely worthy of the name, so we each relied on different methods of staying cool and dry. I had just finished applying an extra layer of deodorant, when Phil offered a fascinating alternative method, which I hadn't yet considered.
"Do you need some GoldBond powder?" he asked.
Now, I'm an arrogant bastard. Out of everyone who had made that trip, I was the consensus choice for "most likely to get us all killed by mouthing off to the wrong guy". I don't like to admit that I'm wrong. But, in certain situations, I will reveal the limits of my weakness and allow that, yes, perhaps I don't know everything. Case in point: I had never in my life heard of GoldBond powder.
I suppose, at some point, I was familiar with the concept of deodorant powder, but I had neither used nor seen it used. I pointed this out to Phil, who had a quizzical look on his face.
"You know, you put it on you, keeps you dry," he said.
The rest of the crew chimed in with their assent. Apparently everyone had heard of this shit except for me. I felt out of place. What was this strange world, where blowouts ruled the day, where the smell of bronzer permeated the air like the stench of death on a battlefield, where...where...where...
"You use it to GoldBond your nuts."
A beat of time. No one said anything. Everyone looked at Phil.
"Right?" he said.
Pandemonium. Chances are, if you see Phil walking down the street, he'll be fully protected from the evils of genital flop-sweat. He's a better man for it.
III.
The boardwalk was half-continual bar and half-carnival, though clearly catered toward a more adult sensibility than your average sideshow. Our trip up and down the boardwalk was unremarkable, save for a rather ill-advised idea to consume at least one Long Island Iced Tea (aren't we FUCKING HARDCORE, eh?) at each place we stopped. I estimate we each lost something on the order of eighty dollars attempting to win various carnival prizes.
One game in particular enchanted us--a giant roulette wheel which promised an authentic MLB jersey as a prize. AP won a Mike Schmidt Phillies jersey on his first try. Juan countered with a bright orange Cal Ripken Jr. jersey. Struggling only a bit more than our first two winners, Phil took home a Derek Jeter All-Star game uniform.
Ron and I were left with nothing. The vendor, a hefty and good-natured woman with a tattoo spanning her ample chest, implored us to continue, but fortunately for our wallets, it was about time to start hitting the clubs.
IV
I've referenced the concept of a "blowout" several times here without truly describing it. A blowout is a haircut that has found somewhat of a habitat on the skull of your average Jersey guido. Perhaps you want one of your own. Here is a quick guide on how to style your hair in the form of a blowout:
- Get the bangin-est, most hardcore, industrial strength hair gel you can possibly find. You may have to order it from shady arms dealers, because in some countries, you can make certain low-grade chemical weapons from this stuff.
- Stand in front of a concussion grenade. Wait for it to go off.
- When it goes off, use the gel to keep your hair in the exact same place said grenade has left it.
"This is probably the second-strongest stuff I have," he said. I shuddered. The strongest stuff was probably toxic.
"I had better have all my fucking hair in the morning," I said, as I went to work.
Andrew is ron to joe: “he’s defining the hairline right now.” 12:35am
I was still getting that shit out of my head three days later.V
At the beginning of the trip, we had half a notion to institute a rule that would increase the sociability of everyone involved. The rule was as such; were you caught eying a girl, and someone noticed, you had to go talk to her. Phil and I thought this rule was a great idea.
We stood watch on the balcony of Bamboo, apparently the best nightclub in the area, and we observed with a mounting horror just how irrelevant our rule was.
Bright orange neon bamboo trees bathed the place in a hellish light, and techno music blared from three or four separate sources (I was vaguely reminded of sleep-deprivation torture at Guantanamo Bay). The assorted humanity either writhed on the dance floor or chatted at tables.
I looked at one group of girls. Teased-out hair. Deep, bronze-aided tans. Screeching giggles.
I shifted focus to another group. Teased-out hair. Deep, bronze-aided tans. Screeching giggles.
Now disoriented, I spied another group. Teased-out hair. Deep, bronze-aided...wait, was this the same group as before?
Phil shook his head. Behind him, I took a picture of a man with terrible cornrows, and another guy with a graphic t-shirt featuring what looked like an imperial Eagle (used by the Romans, but also by a group of clean-cut German fellows from the 1930s).
"They look the same," he said. "They all look the same."
We left. But we'd be back. The rest of the night is a haze, your typical extended bar-hop, consuming drink after drink at each location until the alcohol has backed up to your eyeballs, until the bare thought of drinking more is getting you more drunk, but you couldn't be, man, there's no way--there's no WAY--you could be more drunk than you are right now, so you feel a sudden need for food and--bless it, bless it--Steaks Unlimited is still open, and the steak sandwiches and cheeseballs taste better than anything you've ever had before in your life, save maybe for the last time you ate something while hammered, and you're all laughing to the blue neon heavens about everything and anything as you all stumble into the apartment, but now AP has decided he needs must swim in the motel pool across the way, so you're cheering him on as he hops the fence and dives in, but now he's trying to get out and he trips and the motel is booing him, which just makes you laugh louder and longer, and you settle back on the floor feeling like ten billion dollars, because this place may be hellish, but it is hilarious, and you've got a whole day-and-a-half left, and
wait
A day-and-a-half?
Suddenly, I began to feel sick.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Jersey Shore, or, the Death of the American Dream: The Drive
I
I can't say the Jersey Shore is the worst place in the world, because I've never been to Turkmenistan.
Before I committed to the idea of a trip to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, my friend Juan, being of a generally honest comportment, made sure I knew what I was getting into.
"We're going to the Jersey Shore," Juan said. "Watch these videos. These are the people we'll be dealing with."
"These are the clubs we'll be attending."
"This is the food we'll be eating."
"Do you still want to come?"
Well, fuck it. At least the cheeseballs will be tasty.
II
So we went, shooting down the east coast like a blood comet, a portent of doom for all to see. Would it be our doom, or the Shore's? We rolled five deep: our planner and driver, the aforementioned Juan; our minister of hair gel and graphic tee-shirts, Ron (also the one who, in a pinch, could pass as a native); AP, champion drinker and latter-day ninja; Phil, my roommate and the man in charge of music; and finally, myself, purveyor of refreshments and widely acclaimed as the one most cynical about our prospects of having a good time.
Immediately, the mood turned ugly. It centered around the snacks.
"You brought baby carrots?" AP said, more of a deflated statement than an actual question.
Heads swiveled. I found myself on the defensive.
"I don't see the problem," I said. "They're nutritious, easily snackable, tasty, and they'll improve your eyesight. Plus, I didn't just bring baby carrots. I brought apples, and pears, and grapes."
Glares all around. AP warily took a carrot. We ended up polishing those carrots off, but at the cost of this conclusion, preserved through the magic of mobile phone updates to Facebook:
Andrew is eating baby carrots on the way to the shore. that’s the last time we put joey d in charge of the food. 5:51pm
I swear, guys. Three years ago I would have totally gone for M&Ms and such. I eat healthier these days. That didn't stop them from expressing abject horror at the mere prospect of eating baby carrots for the entirety of our four hour-ish trip.
Consider this my apology. Next time I'll bring macadamia nuts or something.
III
Have you ever heard of the story of Nate the Snake? It's a Shaggy Dog story, which is a tale that begins with great promise, descends into redundancy, and concludes with infuriating ambiguity. The intent is to stretch it out as long as possible. While stuck in traffic, I took advantage of a captive audience and regaled them with the story for a half an hour.
I won't reproduce it in full. I do want you to finish reading this.
There's this guy, Jake, who gets stuck in a desert, and he's about to die. Just before he does, he happens upon the Garden of Eden, here represented by a lever stuck in the ground, guarded by a talking snake. The snake, named Nate, promises him eternal health and wisdom if he promises to oversee the lever in time of need. The lever will end the world if pushed by the guardian, so he is being given a great responsibility. If, at any time, he judges the world to be past saving, he is to travel to the garden and push the lever.
Jake says yes, and spends his next few years attaining wealth and fame. He visits Nate and the lever now and again, and one day Nate reveals that he has a son, named Sammy. Nate says that it's past time he retired, and wants Jake to train Sammy to be Nate's replacement, after which he wants Jake to kill him in a highly ritualistic manner.
Jake and Sammy travel the world, and when it's finally time, Jake purchases a samurai sword and, with Sammy, travels back to Nate and the lever. He crests a hill, and to his horror, realizes that his brakes have failed. He's pointed straight at the lever that will end the world.
Jake struggles with the steering wheel. He sees Nate next to the lever. He realizes that the only way he can avoid striking the lever and ending the world is if he runs over Nate. So he turns to Sammy, tears streaming down his face, and screams:
"BETTER NATE THAN LEVER!!!
Groans. Facebook updates send the highly abridged version to the world at large.
Keith Jackson is is amazed that they made it to the Jersey Shore without killing Joe D. 9:36pm
IV
The traffic soon abated, and we hit the home stretch. The GPS system in the car showed us on a long strip of land, surrounded by the bright blue of the Shore. We'd made it.
The character of the land is quickly revealed in the stores on the side of the road. We wound our way through an endless strip mall, which seemed to consist only of tanning salons. Tanning salons and Italian places. Five spires, brightly colored garish neon, soon rose in the distance. The GPS led us to them, as if we were wise men following a perverse Star of Bethlehem, inexorably drawn to the birthplace of some wretched Anti-Christ, just waiting to devour us in its birth throes.
But we ended up being a thirty-second walk from the cheeseball place. So it all evened out.
Our minds weary, our legs numb, and our nostrils foully assailed by Juan's unfortunate gastric tendencies, we spilled out of the SUV and surveyed our surroundings. A motel next to our apartment shrieked with the cries of high schoolers on a prom bender. The boardwalk of Seaside Heights lounged not two minutes away from us, uncoiling like a great Wyrm, grown fat on hair gel and silicone. Bike-mounted cops rode past us, giving us and legions of tattooed, muscled guidos the evil eye.
This was truly the raging hemorrhoid of America.
We had arrived.
It was going to be a great time.
NEXT: The First Night, or what parts of it I can recall.
I can't say the Jersey Shore is the worst place in the world, because I've never been to Turkmenistan.
Before I committed to the idea of a trip to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, my friend Juan, being of a generally honest comportment, made sure I knew what I was getting into.
"We're going to the Jersey Shore," Juan said. "Watch these videos. These are the people we'll be dealing with."
"These are the clubs we'll be attending."
"This is the food we'll be eating."
"Do you still want to come?"
Well, fuck it. At least the cheeseballs will be tasty.
II
So we went, shooting down the east coast like a blood comet, a portent of doom for all to see. Would it be our doom, or the Shore's? We rolled five deep: our planner and driver, the aforementioned Juan; our minister of hair gel and graphic tee-shirts, Ron (also the one who, in a pinch, could pass as a native); AP, champion drinker and latter-day ninja; Phil, my roommate and the man in charge of music; and finally, myself, purveyor of refreshments and widely acclaimed as the one most cynical about our prospects of having a good time.
Immediately, the mood turned ugly. It centered around the snacks.
"You brought baby carrots?" AP said, more of a deflated statement than an actual question.
Heads swiveled. I found myself on the defensive.
"I don't see the problem," I said. "They're nutritious, easily snackable, tasty, and they'll improve your eyesight. Plus, I didn't just bring baby carrots. I brought apples, and pears, and grapes."
Glares all around. AP warily took a carrot. We ended up polishing those carrots off, but at the cost of this conclusion, preserved through the magic of mobile phone updates to Facebook:
Andrew is eating baby carrots on the way to the shore. that’s the last time we put joey d in charge of the food. 5:51pm
I swear, guys. Three years ago I would have totally gone for M&Ms and such. I eat healthier these days. That didn't stop them from expressing abject horror at the mere prospect of eating baby carrots for the entirety of our four hour-ish trip.
Consider this my apology. Next time I'll bring macadamia nuts or something.
III
Have you ever heard of the story of Nate the Snake? It's a Shaggy Dog story, which is a tale that begins with great promise, descends into redundancy, and concludes with infuriating ambiguity. The intent is to stretch it out as long as possible. While stuck in traffic, I took advantage of a captive audience and regaled them with the story for a half an hour.
I won't reproduce it in full. I do want you to finish reading this.
There's this guy, Jake, who gets stuck in a desert, and he's about to die. Just before he does, he happens upon the Garden of Eden, here represented by a lever stuck in the ground, guarded by a talking snake. The snake, named Nate, promises him eternal health and wisdom if he promises to oversee the lever in time of need. The lever will end the world if pushed by the guardian, so he is being given a great responsibility. If, at any time, he judges the world to be past saving, he is to travel to the garden and push the lever.
Jake says yes, and spends his next few years attaining wealth and fame. He visits Nate and the lever now and again, and one day Nate reveals that he has a son, named Sammy. Nate says that it's past time he retired, and wants Jake to train Sammy to be Nate's replacement, after which he wants Jake to kill him in a highly ritualistic manner.
Jake and Sammy travel the world, and when it's finally time, Jake purchases a samurai sword and, with Sammy, travels back to Nate and the lever. He crests a hill, and to his horror, realizes that his brakes have failed. He's pointed straight at the lever that will end the world.
Jake struggles with the steering wheel. He sees Nate next to the lever. He realizes that the only way he can avoid striking the lever and ending the world is if he runs over Nate. So he turns to Sammy, tears streaming down his face, and screams:
"BETTER NATE THAN LEVER!!!
Groans. Facebook updates send the highly abridged version to the world at large.
Keith Jackson is is amazed that they made it to the Jersey Shore without killing Joe D. 9:36pm
IV
The traffic soon abated, and we hit the home stretch. The GPS system in the car showed us on a long strip of land, surrounded by the bright blue of the Shore. We'd made it.
The character of the land is quickly revealed in the stores on the side of the road. We wound our way through an endless strip mall, which seemed to consist only of tanning salons. Tanning salons and Italian places. Five spires, brightly colored garish neon, soon rose in the distance. The GPS led us to them, as if we were wise men following a perverse Star of Bethlehem, inexorably drawn to the birthplace of some wretched Anti-Christ, just waiting to devour us in its birth throes.
But we ended up being a thirty-second walk from the cheeseball place. So it all evened out.
Our minds weary, our legs numb, and our nostrils foully assailed by Juan's unfortunate gastric tendencies, we spilled out of the SUV and surveyed our surroundings. A motel next to our apartment shrieked with the cries of high schoolers on a prom bender. The boardwalk of Seaside Heights lounged not two minutes away from us, uncoiling like a great Wyrm, grown fat on hair gel and silicone. Bike-mounted cops rode past us, giving us and legions of tattooed, muscled guidos the evil eye.
This was truly the raging hemorrhoid of America.
We had arrived.
It was going to be a great time.
NEXT: The First Night, or what parts of it I can recall.
Friday, July 25, 2008
A Metal Primer: Blacker than the Blackest Black, Times Infinity
What's the most embarrassing album you own?
For most of you, I'd bet on some early pop crap you bought on a lark as a kid. Backstreet Boys, LFO, something of that nature. If you asked that question to my parents, it'd have to be Jermaine Jackson's Jermaine, which I found while flipping through their joint record collection once. Both of them deny ever purchasing it, but it's there, which meant that, at one point in their lives, my parents thought that buying the third- or fourth-most talented (depending on your opinion of LaToya) Jackson kid would somehow enrich their lives, musically. I've never let them live that down.
My most embarrassing album trumps all of yours by a wide margin. I am the longtime owner of Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth. This is a concept album about J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Only it's not about the coherent, somewhat familiar story we all watched on the big screen a few years back. This album is based around the Silmarillion, which is Tolkein's attempt to create a detailed backstory for his fictional universe.
Nightfall in Middle Earth is based on a HISTORY TEXTBOOK for a FICTIONAL UNIVERSE. I own this album. I've never read the book. I bet that copy of Pop by N'Sync doesn't look so bad now, does it?
Welcome to the Lovecraftian horror that is my taste in music. What can I say? I loves me some metal.
Metal is, out of all the major genres, perhaps the most misunderstood. Now, I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I am a pretentious know-it-all who can bullshit with the best of them. To that end, I've decided to provide all of you with a quick primer on metal music.
Like all good musical genres, metal is as much about the music's subject matter as it is the actual sound. Metal covers a wide variety of topics, but it's very important to understand what is and is not metal.
Death is very metal. Many metal songs revolve around the concept of death, or someone dying, or how life is pointless and we all should die--this is basically a very tiresome concept in the realm of metal. Go to a Metallica concert and request, say "Kill 'Em All", and they'll probably play it, but with kind of a jaundiced ennui. Death is old hat to the experienced metalhead.
To this end, Murder, Suicide, and occasionally Arson are all metal. Burglary, Kidnapping, Tax Evasion, and Treason are not metal. Murder and suicide are prickly topics in the metal community, primarily as a result of one Norweigian black metal band called Mayhem.
Now, Mayhem is not a band I listen do. Doesn't do it for me, and besides, their story is really all you need to know. At one point in the band's history, they employed guitarist Oystein Aarseth (known as Euronymous) and vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin (known as Dead). Bear with me on the names.
According to the rest of the band (keep in mind that this is a group of people who gave themselves names like "Necrobutcher" and "Hellhammer"), Dead was a bit of a weird guy. He would bury his clothes in the ground prior to concerts, and dig them up so they'd have the "smell of the grave" still on them. Upon finding a dead bird by the road one day, he put it in a jar and would smell the jar onstage, so he could "sing with the smell of death in his nostrils".
You can see how he got his name.
Did I mention that I don't listen to this band? Just wanted to reiterate it.
Dead was melancholic, humorless, and depressed, so it should come as very little surprise that, in a woodland cabin that the band shared, he committed suicide with a shotgun. This would be about 1991 or so. He was discovered by his friend and bandmate, Euronymous.
What would you do in this situation, after freaking out? I'd like to think you'd call the police or something of that nature. I don't know whether or not Euronymous freaked out, but he did not call the police. He went to a local shop, purchased a disposable camera, arranged certain items around Dead's...well, dead body, and took several photographs of it. One of these photographs was later used for the cover of the Mayhem album Dawn of the Black Hearts.
Rumors surfaced that the band had made a stew out of Dead's brain, and had constructed necklaces out of of his skull fragments. The band vehemently denied the first accusation. Brain stew! Ridiculous and offensive. Brain stew? What kind of freaks do you think you're dealing with here?
The second part was entirely true.
Euronymous, incidentally, was later stabbed to death by fellow band member Varg Vikernes, otherwise known as "Count Grishnack". Vikernes claimed that most of the 26 stab wounds in Euronymous' body were not his fault. The stab wound right in the middle of Euronymous' forehead was entirely his fault, however, and Vikernes remains in jail to this day.
So yes. Murder, Suicide, Depression, Darkness, etc., etc.---all metal.
War is also very metal, perhaps because it combines all those things you've read about above. What's interesting is that the further in the past the war is, the more metal it is. For example:
The Iraq War is not metal at all, but The War of the Roses is.
The Vietnam War is only a little bit metal, while The Punic Wars are incredibly metal.
The cutoff point, I think, is World War I, which is very metal. World War II is not metal. Perhaps that's because World War II contained Genocide, which is surprisingly not metal, whereas World War I involved Trench Warfare--very, very metal.
You could probably say that The Past is, in general, metal, while The Present is variable. The Future is almost never metal, unless it involves Post-Apocalyptic Situations or Historical Anachronisms. Take Star Wars, which is not metal in and of itself. If Luke Skywalker was a Viking and had used a Battleaxe, Star Wars would probably be the most metal movie in existence. This would be despite Luke riding in Spaceships (not metal).
Vikings are probably the epitome of metal. There is nothing that is not metal about Vikings. Think about it: you have essentially nihilistic medieval warriors, raiding and fighting for the hell of it, dressed in wolf/bearskin, covered in blood, and wielding all kinds of nasty pain instruments. That's metal as fuck.
My brother (who is in a metal band of his own, The Arkham White) loaned me a CD once by Amon Amarth, called With Oden On Our Side. The first song was a rocking tune that described a viking raid on a village. Awesome stuff. Great for pumping yourself up before sports.
The second song was about a viking raid on a village. OK. Maybe it's part of a triptych?
Once I got to the fifth song, which dealt with the heretofore-unexplored territory of a village, raided by vikings, I kind of realized that the whole album was going in one very basic direction. But at least none of the members have murdered one another.
Makeup is not metal. By extension, Hair Metal is not metal. Wearing Paint that Makes You Look Like a Corpse is very metal, just keep the spray out of your hair, wuss.
Faeries are not metal. Elves are actually very metal, as are Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, Wizards, and most assorted fantasy concepts that don't seem too feminine.
Religion in and of itself is not metal. Aspects of religion are totally metal. Jesus is not metal, but Crucifixtion is incredibly metal. God is not metal, but Satan has his own branch of metal.
Concept albums are very metal, but the concept needs to be Obscure, Socially Awkward, and Repellent to Women. Kamelot's Epica is a concept album about Faust. We've already mentioned Nightfall in Middle Earth. Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime "tells a story of a young man, Nikki, awoken from a coma suddenly remembering work done as a political assassin, then falling in love with a nun, mixing around with heroin, seeking help, then being ordered to assassinate his love", and oh God, just kill me now.
Nu-metal is not metal, and it's just embarrassing.
This is metal, though it is equally as embarrassing:
Running through the forest behind your parent's house whilst wearing a wizard hat and carrying a torch in broad fucking daylight is, unfortunately, metal.
Really, it's just a lot easier these days for me to listen to funk. Funk is not metal, but Sex, Dancing, Getting Up, Getting Down, and Booty Shaking are all funky.
James Brown is both metal and funky. Let's end this with a little bit of the Godfather of Soul, in his prime, to make you forget about vikings and Dead and whatever.
For most of you, I'd bet on some early pop crap you bought on a lark as a kid. Backstreet Boys, LFO, something of that nature. If you asked that question to my parents, it'd have to be Jermaine Jackson's Jermaine, which I found while flipping through their joint record collection once. Both of them deny ever purchasing it, but it's there, which meant that, at one point in their lives, my parents thought that buying the third- or fourth-most talented (depending on your opinion of LaToya) Jackson kid would somehow enrich their lives, musically. I've never let them live that down.
My most embarrassing album trumps all of yours by a wide margin. I am the longtime owner of Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth. This is a concept album about J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Only it's not about the coherent, somewhat familiar story we all watched on the big screen a few years back. This album is based around the Silmarillion, which is Tolkein's attempt to create a detailed backstory for his fictional universe.
Nightfall in Middle Earth is based on a HISTORY TEXTBOOK for a FICTIONAL UNIVERSE. I own this album. I've never read the book. I bet that copy of Pop by N'Sync doesn't look so bad now, does it?
Welcome to the Lovecraftian horror that is my taste in music. What can I say? I loves me some metal.
Metal is, out of all the major genres, perhaps the most misunderstood. Now, I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I am a pretentious know-it-all who can bullshit with the best of them. To that end, I've decided to provide all of you with a quick primer on metal music.
Like all good musical genres, metal is as much about the music's subject matter as it is the actual sound. Metal covers a wide variety of topics, but it's very important to understand what is and is not metal.
Death is very metal. Many metal songs revolve around the concept of death, or someone dying, or how life is pointless and we all should die--this is basically a very tiresome concept in the realm of metal. Go to a Metallica concert and request, say "Kill 'Em All", and they'll probably play it, but with kind of a jaundiced ennui. Death is old hat to the experienced metalhead.
To this end, Murder, Suicide, and occasionally Arson are all metal. Burglary, Kidnapping, Tax Evasion, and Treason are not metal. Murder and suicide are prickly topics in the metal community, primarily as a result of one Norweigian black metal band called Mayhem.
Now, Mayhem is not a band I listen do. Doesn't do it for me, and besides, their story is really all you need to know. At one point in the band's history, they employed guitarist Oystein Aarseth (known as Euronymous) and vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin (known as Dead). Bear with me on the names.
According to the rest of the band (keep in mind that this is a group of people who gave themselves names like "Necrobutcher" and "Hellhammer"), Dead was a bit of a weird guy. He would bury his clothes in the ground prior to concerts, and dig them up so they'd have the "smell of the grave" still on them. Upon finding a dead bird by the road one day, he put it in a jar and would smell the jar onstage, so he could "sing with the smell of death in his nostrils".
You can see how he got his name.
Did I mention that I don't listen to this band? Just wanted to reiterate it.
Dead was melancholic, humorless, and depressed, so it should come as very little surprise that, in a woodland cabin that the band shared, he committed suicide with a shotgun. This would be about 1991 or so. He was discovered by his friend and bandmate, Euronymous.
What would you do in this situation, after freaking out? I'd like to think you'd call the police or something of that nature. I don't know whether or not Euronymous freaked out, but he did not call the police. He went to a local shop, purchased a disposable camera, arranged certain items around Dead's...well, dead body, and took several photographs of it. One of these photographs was later used for the cover of the Mayhem album Dawn of the Black Hearts.
Rumors surfaced that the band had made a stew out of Dead's brain, and had constructed necklaces out of of his skull fragments. The band vehemently denied the first accusation. Brain stew! Ridiculous and offensive. Brain stew? What kind of freaks do you think you're dealing with here?
The second part was entirely true.
Euronymous, incidentally, was later stabbed to death by fellow band member Varg Vikernes, otherwise known as "Count Grishnack". Vikernes claimed that most of the 26 stab wounds in Euronymous' body were not his fault. The stab wound right in the middle of Euronymous' forehead was entirely his fault, however, and Vikernes remains in jail to this day.
So yes. Murder, Suicide, Depression, Darkness, etc., etc.---all metal.
War is also very metal, perhaps because it combines all those things you've read about above. What's interesting is that the further in the past the war is, the more metal it is. For example:
The Iraq War is not metal at all, but The War of the Roses is.
The Vietnam War is only a little bit metal, while The Punic Wars are incredibly metal.
The cutoff point, I think, is World War I, which is very metal. World War II is not metal. Perhaps that's because World War II contained Genocide, which is surprisingly not metal, whereas World War I involved Trench Warfare--very, very metal.
You could probably say that The Past is, in general, metal, while The Present is variable. The Future is almost never metal, unless it involves Post-Apocalyptic Situations or Historical Anachronisms. Take Star Wars, which is not metal in and of itself. If Luke Skywalker was a Viking and had used a Battleaxe, Star Wars would probably be the most metal movie in existence. This would be despite Luke riding in Spaceships (not metal).
Vikings are probably the epitome of metal. There is nothing that is not metal about Vikings. Think about it: you have essentially nihilistic medieval warriors, raiding and fighting for the hell of it, dressed in wolf/bearskin, covered in blood, and wielding all kinds of nasty pain instruments. That's metal as fuck.
My brother (who is in a metal band of his own, The Arkham White) loaned me a CD once by Amon Amarth, called With Oden On Our Side. The first song was a rocking tune that described a viking raid on a village. Awesome stuff. Great for pumping yourself up before sports.
The second song was about a viking raid on a village. OK. Maybe it's part of a triptych?
Once I got to the fifth song, which dealt with the heretofore-unexplored territory of a village, raided by vikings, I kind of realized that the whole album was going in one very basic direction. But at least none of the members have murdered one another.
Makeup is not metal. By extension, Hair Metal is not metal. Wearing Paint that Makes You Look Like a Corpse is very metal, just keep the spray out of your hair, wuss.
Faeries are not metal. Elves are actually very metal, as are Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, Wizards, and most assorted fantasy concepts that don't seem too feminine.
Religion in and of itself is not metal. Aspects of religion are totally metal. Jesus is not metal, but Crucifixtion is incredibly metal. God is not metal, but Satan has his own branch of metal.
Concept albums are very metal, but the concept needs to be Obscure, Socially Awkward, and Repellent to Women. Kamelot's Epica is a concept album about Faust. We've already mentioned Nightfall in Middle Earth. Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime "tells a story of a young man, Nikki, awoken from a coma suddenly remembering work done as a political assassin, then falling in love with a nun, mixing around with heroin, seeking help, then being ordered to assassinate his love", and oh God, just kill me now.
Nu-metal is not metal, and it's just embarrassing.
This is metal, though it is equally as embarrassing:
Running through the forest behind your parent's house whilst wearing a wizard hat and carrying a torch in broad fucking daylight is, unfortunately, metal.
Really, it's just a lot easier these days for me to listen to funk. Funk is not metal, but Sex, Dancing, Getting Up, Getting Down, and Booty Shaking are all funky.
James Brown is both metal and funky. Let's end this with a little bit of the Godfather of Soul, in his prime, to make you forget about vikings and Dead and whatever.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Worst Party Ever
The last place I expected my views on theology to change was at a party.
Like all good young Catholic boys, I had some semblance of belief drummed into me as I grew up. I took to it for a bit, even indulging the briefest of notions that I would one day become a priest. The years faded that belief, and I left college fully agnostic, leaning toward atheist.
For this particular party, I had been invited by someone with whom I had a passing acquaintance. There's always a risk in going to parties blind to the identity of the participants--you run the risk of experiencing a nightmare scenario. Bondage freaks. Nazi sympathizers. Nudists. Furries. My brother and I were trapped at a gathering once where the following things happened, in no particular order.
This recent party, fortunately, had only the vice of being dull. I suppose it just was, like a million parties before it. People mingled. Music was played. I didn't know anyone there, and I wasn't really feeling the crowd, so I parked myself in front of an NBA playoff game and started drinking. And you know, it wasn't that bad. I had just finished calling Sam Cassell a "worthless sci-fi reject" when the host brought out a microphone and speaker.
"OK, everyone," he said. "It's time for the PIE-EATING contest!"
There are phrases in life whose mere utterance causes fear and anxiety. "We need to have a talk," is one. "I think the condom broke," is another. "Remember how your house USED TO have three stories?" is one I bet you don't hear all that often. "I just injected you with a fast-acting poison, Mr. Bond," is just patently ridiculous. But none of these compares to the sheer terror I experienced at the mere mention of a pie-eating contest.
These things have their place, you see. Were I at, say,, a county fair, or a sock hop*, I doubt I'd have given a pie-eating concept a second thought. There are PERFECTLY APPROPRIATE venues for the rapid and competitive consumption of circular arrangements of fruit and crust.
*What is a sock hop, exactly? Am I using this term correctly?
But we are young, you see. We are young and we live in the state of Connecticut, where one must strangle as much fun as possible out of every night, 'cause the state itself isn't helping one bit. It seemed to me like taking time out of preparing for nuclear Armageddon by...well, having a pie-eating contest.
My horror at spending one of my limited allotted Saturday nights watching a pie-eating contest was compounded rapidly. Two contestants were plucked from the crowd. One was nondescript, someone I had no connection to. The other was a guy whom I had encountered briefly at yet ANOTHER party. He took it upon himself to narrate a Dodgers game in the style of noted announcer Vin Scully. He did this for five minutes. No one was paying attention to him.
But he had the stage now, and he took advantage of it. Have you ever watched a professional wrestling show? Much of it isn't really wrestling--it's buildup, posturing, speechifying, storytelling. The kid must have had a bloody library of that stuff in his head, 'cause he launched into a lengthy diatribe regarding the world of pain his opponent was about to travel. My head started to throb.
The host brought out a belt. Not a real belt. A cardboard facsimile of one of those over-sized championship belts for boxers. A trophy. This had been done before, I realized. The whole point of this party was to provide a venue for pie eating. I sank heavily into a chair, the full Lovecraftian horror of the whole happening attacking the corners of my diminishing sanity. The curtain had been thrown back on the whole charade. But it was far too late.
The two contestants dug in. I felt the sky tremble. A great white light appeared, and out of it stepped God himself. I was dimly ware of the kid I disliked beginning to pull away, his face covered in a purple jam. I stood, gaping in awe--whether of the spectacle, or Yahweh, I cannot say to this day.
God approached me. What do you say in a situation like this? A million questions flew to my mind, but were dismissed, one by one, like so many imperfections. I had only one thing to ask.
"God, why am I, a young man in the prime of my youth, spending my Saturday night watching two people eat pie?"
And He placed His hand on my shoulder, and He smiled. Behind Him, the Vin Scully-wannabe roared in triumph, his entire face a purple mask of victory.
"BECAUSE, MY SON," God said. "BECAUSE, I HATE YOU."
Needless to say, I left immediately afterwards. Pie and the Almighty. Too much excitement for one night.
Like all good young Catholic boys, I had some semblance of belief drummed into me as I grew up. I took to it for a bit, even indulging the briefest of notions that I would one day become a priest. The years faded that belief, and I left college fully agnostic, leaning toward atheist.
For this particular party, I had been invited by someone with whom I had a passing acquaintance. There's always a risk in going to parties blind to the identity of the participants--you run the risk of experiencing a nightmare scenario. Bondage freaks. Nazi sympathizers. Nudists. Furries. My brother and I were trapped at a gathering once where the following things happened, in no particular order.
- The hostess claimed she wrote editorials for the New York Times, and got testy when I asked her pertinent questions, like what she wrote about, when she published it, and how exactly she had managed to convince the Old Gray Lady to bump William Safire off the page for a week.
- Her boyfriend made a loud and extended farting noise with his hands. He did this in a restaurant. Angry that I didn't find it funny, he decided a second-go-round was in order.
- Fancying herself the arbiter of musical quality, the hostess dismissed my brother's band as one of "those" bands after hearing nothing but the band's name.
This recent party, fortunately, had only the vice of being dull. I suppose it just was, like a million parties before it. People mingled. Music was played. I didn't know anyone there, and I wasn't really feeling the crowd, so I parked myself in front of an NBA playoff game and started drinking. And you know, it wasn't that bad. I had just finished calling Sam Cassell a "worthless sci-fi reject" when the host brought out a microphone and speaker.
"OK, everyone," he said. "It's time for the PIE-EATING contest!"
There are phrases in life whose mere utterance causes fear and anxiety. "We need to have a talk," is one. "I think the condom broke," is another. "Remember how your house USED TO have three stories?" is one I bet you don't hear all that often. "I just injected you with a fast-acting poison, Mr. Bond," is just patently ridiculous. But none of these compares to the sheer terror I experienced at the mere mention of a pie-eating contest.
These things have their place, you see. Were I at, say,, a county fair, or a sock hop*, I doubt I'd have given a pie-eating concept a second thought. There are PERFECTLY APPROPRIATE venues for the rapid and competitive consumption of circular arrangements of fruit and crust.
*What is a sock hop, exactly? Am I using this term correctly?
But we are young, you see. We are young and we live in the state of Connecticut, where one must strangle as much fun as possible out of every night, 'cause the state itself isn't helping one bit. It seemed to me like taking time out of preparing for nuclear Armageddon by...well, having a pie-eating contest.
My horror at spending one of my limited allotted Saturday nights watching a pie-eating contest was compounded rapidly. Two contestants were plucked from the crowd. One was nondescript, someone I had no connection to. The other was a guy whom I had encountered briefly at yet ANOTHER party. He took it upon himself to narrate a Dodgers game in the style of noted announcer Vin Scully. He did this for five minutes. No one was paying attention to him.
But he had the stage now, and he took advantage of it. Have you ever watched a professional wrestling show? Much of it isn't really wrestling--it's buildup, posturing, speechifying, storytelling. The kid must have had a bloody library of that stuff in his head, 'cause he launched into a lengthy diatribe regarding the world of pain his opponent was about to travel. My head started to throb.
The host brought out a belt. Not a real belt. A cardboard facsimile of one of those over-sized championship belts for boxers. A trophy. This had been done before, I realized. The whole point of this party was to provide a venue for pie eating. I sank heavily into a chair, the full Lovecraftian horror of the whole happening attacking the corners of my diminishing sanity. The curtain had been thrown back on the whole charade. But it was far too late.
The two contestants dug in. I felt the sky tremble. A great white light appeared, and out of it stepped God himself. I was dimly ware of the kid I disliked beginning to pull away, his face covered in a purple jam. I stood, gaping in awe--whether of the spectacle, or Yahweh, I cannot say to this day.
God approached me. What do you say in a situation like this? A million questions flew to my mind, but were dismissed, one by one, like so many imperfections. I had only one thing to ask.
"God, why am I, a young man in the prime of my youth, spending my Saturday night watching two people eat pie?"
And He placed His hand on my shoulder, and He smiled. Behind Him, the Vin Scully-wannabe roared in triumph, his entire face a purple mask of victory.
"BECAUSE, MY SON," God said. "BECAUSE, I HATE YOU."
Needless to say, I left immediately afterwards. Pie and the Almighty. Too much excitement for one night.
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