Month: October 2004

John Saul

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

I awoke this morning at about 6:30, which is far earlier than I really wanted to get up on my one day off, but was not able to get back to sleep. We recently put up a thick curtain over the south-facing window in the bedroom, which a street light was shining through to keep us awake, but have only a blind over the west facing window. Long story short it was bright as noontime in the bedroom by then, I find it difficult to sleep when it is light out. Thus I am groggy and feel like crap in general. I did manage to finish the book that I was reading, however I am not sure if it is a contributing factor in my current mood.

John Saul’s Black Creek Crossing was the book that I finished reading this morning. For me to criticize an author’s writing is much like being the one legged man in an ass kicking contest, but I am not going to let that stop me this time. There will be some spoilers in this, keep that in mind if you ever plan to read it.

I have read a lot of Saul’s work, mostly in my late teens/early twenties, and one thing that I can say for them is that they read pretty well. The flow is usually pretty good, due in part to the fact that you know what is going to happen long before it ever does. His descriptions of places and people work pretty well also; quick enough to not bore you but complete enough that you can recognize places or characters by name. The prose itself is straigt forward and not cluttered with a lot big words for the sole purpose of showing off his vocabulary. With the exception of the overly dramatic prologue, and other such examples littered throughout the book, there is not a lot to complain about in the writing. Saul certainly isn’t Dickens, but he can get the story across in a pretty fluid way, in my opinion anyway.

Now just to note a few of the major problems with the book. The story about the teenager being picked on and getting revenge on his/her tormentors is certainly in at least half of all of Saul’s books. The “horrible things happened in the house in the past, and they happen to the new family that moves in also” premise has been done to death, by Saul. Most all of his books start with a family moving into a house, then something within the house or the community making the new occupants relive the old horror. The family that moves at the beginning of this book at least includes both a mother and a father, often in his books it is just the mother and a single child. Of course the father in this story is an abusive, incestuous alcoholic, so not much of a stretch to not consider him a father.

I am not going to go into any more of the similarities between this book and others that he has written, if you have read any of his other work you already know, if you haven’t it would take only the first chapter of any of his work to see it. He writes what sells, more power to him.

one of the issues that I really had with the book was with the demeanor the main character (Angel)’s parents. The father (Marty) was being portrayed as a very abusive and controlling man. There were at least a couple of occasion where you were led to believe that he was being physically abusive to his wife, albeit offscreen. This physical abuse, as well as most of the verbal abuse, was happening while he was drunk, which was most of the time. In one scene he actually raised a beer bottle with the intent to hit his wife with it. Yet, for some reason, there are several times when the wife (Myra) yells at him and he cowers like a little puppy. That is not the behavior of any of the abusive alcoholics I have ever known, it also made me certain that the father was no threat for the duration of the book (which was bad since he was the only variable I hadn’t explained within the first twenty-five pages).

Now, just to nit-pick. The novel is 358 pages long, that is including the prologue and epilogue. There are 47 chapters, that means that the average chapter (including the prologe and epilogue) is just about seven pages long. Many of the chapters are less than four pages long, and one would have been less than one page were it not for the white space for the chapter heading and the blank space at the end. Throwing all copyright and fair use laws to the wind, I will quote chapter 46 for you right here:

SETH BAKER CAME AROUND THE BEND IN THE ROAD and saw the house that stood at Black Creek Crossing looming against the night sky. Even though there were lights on, the house had a look of terrible foreboding about it, and as he made his way across the lawn, part of him wanted to turn away and go somewhere else.
But there was nowhere else to go.

Not after what had happened in his house.

As he approached the front door, the awful sense of foreboding grew stronger, and he paused at the door, which was standing wide open, and listened.

A silence seemed to emanate from the house, a silence that felt as if it was about to swallow him up. Once again he wanted nothing more than to turn away, to leave whatever was inside the house undiscovered, and again he knew he could not. Steeling himself, he stepped over the threshold into the living room.

The television was still on, but somehow even its droning didn’t dispel the strange sense of silence that imbued the house.

Knowing he didn’t want to see whatever it was that lay beyond the living room, but knowing there was no alternative, he moved deeper into the house.

He found Angel at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the bodies of her parents, who were lying on the floor-her father on top of her mother-in a pool of their own blood. Myra Sullivan’s eyes were open, and as he looked down at her, Seth had the uneasy feeling that she was looking back at him. Turning away, he looked at Angel. “It happened at my house too,” he said softly.

Angel gazed at him, and for a second Seth wasn’t sure she even saw him. A moment later, though, she spoke, her voice hollow:

“I know what we have to do.”

Seth said nothing and when she led him out of the house, he silently followed.

They crossed the lawn to the road, and instead of turning right, toward the trail that would lead them to the cabin hidden in the cliff, Angel turned left.

Once again, Seth followed….

That is punctuated exactly as it is in the book. I am not very good at sight typing though, so I may have a misspelled word in it. The strange capitalization at the beginning is also just like it was in the book. For some reason the first line of text in every chapter was all in caps. Why? I got no idea. This was the shortest chapter in the book, but not by much. There were several chapters that were just a bit longer than this one, and many of them did basically the same as this one; it doesn’t tell you anything at all. This particular passage isn’t really necessary in the book at all, why emphasize it by calling it a chapter?

The little passage here does illustrate the overly dramatic thing I was talking about though. The fact that he separates a couple of lines into their own paragraphs, most notably “But there was nowhere else to go.” and “Not after what had happened in his house.”

It kind of puts me in mind of the writing I did while I was in my teens, of course the lines set that way gave me goosebumps when I read them back to myself, in reality they don’t seem to have that effect at all, or perhaps they do but only for a much younger reader.

To end this before (hopefully) the friend who bought the book for me and got it autographed takes me off of his christmas list, I will just say that it is a John Saul novel. If you have never read anything by Saul, Black Creek Crossing is a pretty good example of his writing. It has been a long time since I have read the other books that he wrote, and they honestly blend together in your mind since they are all so similar, but I do believe that you should read at least one of his novels. Saul doesn’t seem to posess the unlimited imagination of someone like Stephen King, but the one story that he has been telling (over and over again) over the course of his career is worth a look.

Were I to pick one of Saul’s novels to recommend, this one probably wouldn’t be it. If pressed I would probably recommend Black Lightning even though the reader reviews just shred it. Black Lightning is a serial killer story though, and I think a lot of the reviewers were serial killer buffs. At any rate, Black Lightning was one of only a couple of Saul’s works that I didn’t know the ending of within the first twenty-five pages, in fact I recall still being guessing until near the end.

• Nothing else of note to speak of today. Tune in next time to see if I am indeed removed from my friend’s christmas card list.

Telemarketers; Pool

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

My little bitch about yet more people trying to cover (destroy) old songs yesterday did not result in any sort of feedback, which I have come to expect at this point. Makes me wonder if I should actually go ahead and try to write something worth reading, but, then again, that is hard. Much easier to throw out a bunch of dribble that no one ever reads than to actually take the time to write out some eloquent, poignant post that no one is ever going to read. I do pick my battles.

• So you know how the telemarketer’s call you, my stock response is, “is this a soliciting call?”, then, when pressed, the caller will admit to being the hated telemarketer. Today I happened upon a telemarketer that was alomost as smart as your average rock, of course I didn’t know that initially. The pitch was for long distance telephone service, my angle is usually to just hang up on those types of telemarketers, yet, today, I decided to fuck with him. Hilarity was the direct result.

When I answered the phone, there was a voice saying, “are you happy with your current long distance service?”. This would have been the point that I just hung up the phone most every time I get those calls, yet today I felt a bit ‘rowdy’, as it were.

Mind you, I am on the phone with this guy as we are speaking.

I asked him what company he was representing, he replied that he was representing ‘Verizon’, whom I don’t think actually offer home service in the first place. Yet, after watching a bit of ‘Crank Yankers’ last night, I just wanted to fuck with him.

His next question was, “are you happy with your current telephone provider?” Now, what I told him was both a blatant lie, and proof that I was fucking with him. I told him that I didn’t even have a telephone at home (while I was talking to him on it), because they had de-regulated some of the home service, my phone was one that got de-regulated, which caused my rates to triple and I just had it disconnected.

Well the guy seemed to be feeling sorry for me, and offered to transfer me to their wireless sales department, as they don’t offer local service in my area, so that I would at least have a phone of some sort. So, yes, the guy was as dumb as a rock. He did seem to catch on though. While I made him hold to answer call waiting he hung up on me. I sure hope that at some point while he was holding he realized what a complete idiot he was, that thought makes me smile.

That was one of the first times that I have ever decided to go ahead and fuck with a telemarketer, as such it was a pretty short experience. I am thinking now that I might try to do it once in a while just to see how long I can keep them on the phone, and how outrageous the stories I can get them to believe can get. They are the ones that are bothering me, after all, so making them look like complete idiots seems to be a pretty fair exchange. Trust me when I say that if I do this, as a scientific research project of course, you will be the first to hear the results.

It is Saturday, October 9, 2004

The last post got cut short, a bit abrubptly, when I asked the wife if she would like to go shoot a game of pool at the (remaining) local bar. We went ahead and walked on down there (drinking and driving is always a bad idea, even if it is only a few blocks) to find the place packed. Yet, strangely, there was no one around one of the three pool tables, I asked everyone near the table if there was someone with ‘ownership’ of the table (if you have never played pool in an arena where there are a lot of drunk men, you really need to find this out before attempting to drop your quarters into the thing. Men, especially when horribly drunk, can be a little bit less than understanding when you try to breach the etiquitte of ‘pool table ownership’.), but nope, it was ours to use as we pleased.

I had consumed a beverage or two (a lot of beer) before we went down there in the first place, and while I find that the beer does calm the nerves a bit (in small doses), it seems that I might have dosed myself a bit too much to play pool well that night. Of course we only do it for fun, so that is kind of the point.

I have a kind of ‘double-bell curve’ thing working when I play pool. I can not play worth a damn when I am stone sober, that is related to the fact that I am very shaky most of the time. Before you go trying to blame that on the consumption of alcohol, or lack thereof, let me state that I have had this problem since I was in my early teens and had never tasted that sweet nectar. Once my hands stop shaking, (enough of the alcohol depressant to slow my nervous system) I can play pretty well most of the time. I was, unfortunately, already past that portion of the newly created ‘double-bell curve’ at this point, yet not into the fourth part of the it. The third point of the ‘double-bell curve’ is that point when I am actually drunk and can’t hit a damn thing. Once again, and again unfortunately, I can not skirt the edges of that zone to get the pool prowess from the next zone. The final zone, in the ‘double-bell curve’ is absolute incoherence. That is when my pool is pretty much at it’s best. It is much easier to make the shot when you see three of every ball, and three pockets to get them into, and since they are all the same ball, and all the same pockets, all you have to do is sink it.

Last night’s pool play was dominated by my inability to make simple shots (indicative of the first or third levels of the double-bell curve), but ended with me playing pool with a man, whom I had never met, that wanted to “win” the table from me. At that point I was not able to hit the ocean with a rock, and wanted to just let him take the table, of course he would have none of it. Damn, those (we) drunkards do have our values. I did eventually lose that game, which was not much of a “throwing” of the match, since I couldn’t make a damn shot to start with. It did allow my wife and I to hobble home though, and I say hobble because I am pretty sure that walking kind of implies that you are on an invisible track, while hobbling could take you from curb to curb.

• This thought will be taken up in a future post.

Song Remakes

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

I had absolutely no intention of putting anything up here today. Nothing on my mind, just thought I would go ahead and take care of a couple of Pogo.com challenges. Not a lot on my plate for bitching tonight, or so I thought.

I have previously bitched (at some length) about the fact that I really hate it when bands remake (cover) songs, yet I never really thought that I would get as angry about it as I am right now.

Some of the songs that get remade later, ‘Smokin in the Boy’s Room’ for instance, stayed true to the song, while beefing it up a bit for the ears of the people who would listen to it a couple of decades later. Sure, Motley Crue took a few liberties and changed little things about the song, but the song remained the same, though the names had changed. That is the same thing that has happened with every fifties classic that I can even think of. It is almost like there are only four actual songs (I mean only four songs that have ever existed, and everyone is ripping them off) and everyone tries to spin them in their own way…

I truly believe that most of the remakes are coming from a band trying to pay homage to their roots; It is what they grew up on, it is what they played while they were alone in the garage, it is a kind of a ‘thank you’ to whatever band made the song that made them, in turn, go ahead and form a band. If that is the way that it happens/happened, they should really try to pay a bit of respect to the source material itself. I will mention Metallica’a cover of the old song ‘turn the page’, Metallica nailed that one right on the head (even though I don’t really care for what metallica has become), and brought an old song back to life. There are times when a remake can introduce new fans to old music, but, not only are they few and far between, they also require a bit of talent. Unfortunately, I seem to be more talented (at the guitar anyway) than about 80% of the hacks (I mean bands) that do their best to totally destroy the song that they are trying to ‘cover’.

I suppose that I am being a little bit more bitter than usual (at least I hope I am being more bitter than usual) because of the remake/cover of just one song. The band Nonpoint tried to do the old Phil Collins classic; “in the air tonight”, and they tried to make it a power-chord-laden, Old Metallica song. The thing is that the song was not written that way. The silence that follows all of the verses was done intentionally to set the mood. The original song is powerful for its silence, for its lyrics, for the fact that you don’t want to listen to it without someone next to you, or at least someone else in the house. The song is very dark, very morose, and impossible to listen to without someone holding you… Unless, of course, you have listened to that horrible cover of the song. Trying to turn this particular song into some sort of a speedy, punk-rock type of song is just so, so wrong. The song was what it was, and it is still played on classic radio stations all over the country. If you really want to try to make a name for yourself, why not try to remake some old ‘Beatles’ or ‘Zepplin’ songs?

John Saul; Watches

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Well, Yesterday’s post actually resulted in two emails. While I would like to think that it was all a result of myself writing better, or perhaps more controversial, things, that is certainly not the case. Both of the emails were asking me the same question: If you don’t really like John Saul, why have you read so many of his novels?

I expected this question to come from Flux at the BlackChampagne website when I originally wrote the message to him. When he didn’t actually ask the question, I kind of gave up on looking for an excuse to give him. Then, when two people emailed the question that Flux never asked, I was forced to start to try to come up with a reason why. I have found that reason, basically put, I don’t know.

The year was roughly 1991, I was riding with my oldest brother from Oregon to Arizona. Speed limits at the time still being in the 55mph range on much of the road, while being 65mph on others, it was taking us a while to get there. The only tape that we had in the car, at least the only one that I would agree to listen to, was Europe: The Final Countdown. That was what we listened to for about 20 hours of driving time and it really, really, really got old.

My mother, while we were at her home in Arizona, offered us a book-on-tape version of Saul’s first novel “Suffer the Children”. Being that myself and my brother would rather die than to listen to that godawful ‘Europe’ music again, we took it and plugged it in as we were leaving Phoenix. The strange thing is that I am not able to find anywhere on the official John Saul website that there was ever a ‘book on tape’ version of that story…ever… I know that this was the story that I listened to, and I know that it really did sound fresh, but I was also about sixteen, and I didn’t really know anything about anything. Of course that knowledge (the knowledge that you never knew anything in your teens) really only starts to come to you much, much later.

Probably about four years after the previous incident, I realized that I actually wanted to read the works of Saul. It was certainly not an ‘epiphany’, or anything of that sort. I just happened to check out a book at the local library, by Saul, and read it. The book-on-tape versions of the books are either far better, or I have really low standards. At the time I was living with a dear friend, and we would kind of juggle the books to make sure that we were both able to read them before they had to go back to the library. It was during that period that I read every novel that Saul had ever written.

There are certain requisites one must reach before becoming a ‘good author’. Saul, in my opinion, did not meet a single one of those requisites. What Saul did do was keep me reading his books.

So, here we are, many years later. I have read every book that Saul had written, prior to the “blackstone chronicles”, of course I read that all as well. The thing is that some combination of age/experience in life tells you what is going to happen long before the question ever comes up. I, now, have an autographed copy of Saul’s latest novel. I will read it, every page. Not just for the story, but for the fact that a very dear friend bought it for me.

The other question, via email, was regarding the dual watch photos that I placed in yesterday’s update. The question was; “are you sure about the prices you attribute to each watch?”.

The answer is pretty simple, “NO”.

I have never bought a Rolex, ever, and I don’t plan to…

This person’s issue was with my saying that the ‘armitron’ was under a hundred dollars, while the Rolex was over a thousand… Well, it turns out that I chose the wrong ROLEX to pick on. The Armitron watch in the photo is still under a hundred dollars, the ROLEX watch is (prior to my previous beliefs) only about 800. Thank you for clearing that up. So that, the Rolex, watch will keep time only 8 times better than the three-dollar watch that you can get at the local 7-11. To follow that up, your average cheap-ass-watch can keep time, being off by only thousandths of a second, for years. The more expensive watches have to be repaired by ‘jewelers’, the name itself cost money.

Buy the cheap watch and there will be no need to negotiate later,.

Rolex Vs. Armitron; John Saul Vs. Stephen King

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

First off, I just want to go ahead an mention that I only waited until the fourth day of the month to get around to changing the date on my watch. That might be a new record for me. My watch is very often a day off just because I am too lazy to change it. Not that I am necessarily too lazy to take the fraction of a second to actually change the date, more that my watch has a certain issue when I try to do it (or I have an issue with the watch, or both).

The thing about watches is that if you happen to be a man, and not a metrosexual type man, you only really need one. That being the case, you want to have one that is quite durable, yet that looks respectable enough to wear in semi-formal wear; A plastic digital watch doesn’t look very good when you are trying to dress nice. This leads to you (hopefully) having a watch that is much like mine (which is an Armitron. Of course the website does not let you actually browse through the designs, except by category with a representative picture of each, which makes that link all but useless.), for those on a budget, or a much more expensive one that is just as utilitarian (of course the link to Rolex is every bit as useless as it does the same “Flash Navigation” crap that makes it impossible to link to anything within the site.).

For your consideration, I offer the following two photos. I apologize for not being able to get them to the same size, but the Rolex got too blurry when I sized it down, as did the Armitron when I tried to size it up.

Now, I know for a fact that the Armitron is stainless steel, not just the back of it, but the band and everything else as well. I know that because it has been on my left wrist every single day for about three years. The Rolex appears to be damn near identical to the Armitron, so I am going to go ahead and assume that it is also made of stainless steel.

The stainless stell allows me to dip my hands into heavily bleached water without fear of damaging it, makes it quite easy to clean, and also gives it a simple silver and black look that you honestly could not get with your average Swatch. The fact that blood rinses neatly off of it is something that I really adore, but that may be just for people in my chosen profession.

I can wash the blood of of the watch once the day is over (much like washing your hands) and wear the same watch out to dinner in semi-formal wear. In fact, I am pretty sure that I was actually wearing this watch while I was at my Wedding. As for the fact that the Armitron watch in the photo is under a hundred dollars, while the rolex in the photo is over a thousand, I got nothing. Some People (idiots) will simply pay more for the name. I am glad that I am not one of them.

I have gone way, way off topic here, I will try to get it back into focus now. I don’t like to change the date on the watch because (on any watch that is a chronograph) you have to pull the winder (or what used to be a winder) out about half way to get to the part that changes the date alone. Nearly half of the times I try, I pull the damn thing out too far and end up messing the minute hand on the watch up. That is really not that big of a deal, but I do like to keep my watch as close as possible to three minutes ahead of actual time. I suppose that is yet another one of my weird obsessions, but it does pretty much gurantee that I am to work a minute or two early, and since I never leave work until at least five minutes after (as a precaution), I am guranteed to never arrive late or leave early.

• I sent an email to Flux over at BlackChampagne.com a couple of days ago. It was a pretty simple, short email, in which I just pretty much ripped on John Saul. Of course, as luck would have it, he went ahead and posted my email, then linked to my site. I am not opposed to that in any way, I mean you don’t really start typing on your own site if you aren’t looking to have people read it. Posting your thoughts in such a (potentially) public venue will make it so that a lot of people read it.

In case anyone out there actually reads both his site and my site, I want to make one point clear. I have read over 20 John Saul books, the most recent was the 6 book series called The Blackstone Chronicles (I do apologize for not linking to the amazon.com or other sellers of the books, but those reviews are pretty harsh…Albeit deservingly so). Most every book that Saul wrote I read before I had come out of my teen years. I read the “blackstone chronicles” only because I felt an obligation to read the rest of his work. I knew then, as I know now, that the ‘Blackstone Chronicles’ was a direct attempt to rip off the Green Mile serial series that Stephen King did.

I would likely not even be reading this latest Saul novel were it not for the fact that a friend took the time to buy a copy of the book (in hardcover) and got the author himself to autograph it, with my name in the message. It is not even formulaic crap, no, to call it formulaic would imply that he uses a formula. He doesn’t seem to use a formula at all, instead he just writes the same damn story, over and over again, changing names where necessary. But, that is why I actually quit reading Saul in the first place.

I don’t have it in me to bitch any more about this subject, but trust me, I stand behind my decision that Saul is not a real author.

Concerts

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The wife came through with the Megadeth Tickets I mentioned last time. We will be in the 16th row to the left of center stage. These tickets are not going to put us in quite the prime location that we got when we attened all of the concerts that she got tickets from at her work, but honestly being a bit away from center stage might just make it so that the high-frequency noises don’t hit me straight on and deafen me. Sixteen rows is also not that far back to be, I think that the little caged VIP area that we had at the other venue was just behind the 13th or 15th row, from that vantage point you can see (and certainly hear) everything perfectly.

This is, of course, all academic anyway. You can hear these type of concerts from a couple of blocks away (probably better on your ears that way also), and it is not like a band like Megadeth really has much of a stage show. The only reason that I can think of for going to see a concert is just for the energy of it. It may sound foolish, especially as I am now in my thirties, but you just can not mimic the energy of a live concert regardless of how loud your stereo happens to be.

One of the concerts that we saw, which really illustrates that fact was at the Cricket Pavilion (in the aforementioned VIP seating), with the bands Motorhead, Dio and Iron Maiden. While the concert was pretty lackluster until Iron Maiden hit the stage, after that it was pretty much chaos. There was one point during the concert where a guy jumped the rail from the upper level, charged into our little box (which was dead-center stage) and was trying to make it over the front rail to rush the stage. Security tackled him, knocked over our table and took him away. I am not entirely sure 1) Why they actually bother to put a table in these little boxes in the first place. 2) Why the security guy, one guards the entrance to each of the VIP boxes, didn’t catch him before he made it in. 3) Why they don’t stop selling you beer when you are as drunk as this guy was. What I am absolutely sure of is that there was an energy there, something that you felt, and while it might not make it through in your description of the event the next day, you still told everyone about it. It is certainly something that you really have to experience to understand.

Much on the same topic, you only have one life to live. Sure you could spend that life living inside a little box, eating healthy, excercising daily, not doing anything that is truly fun. When it comes down to it, though, do you really want to live forever? Go to the concerts, blow out your eardrums, you aren’t going to have a chance to do it again.

In yet more really loud, angry music talk, the local radio station 98KUPD, who were the first to offer tickets for the Megadeth show, have another show on the books as well. The radio station is billing it as the “Big Red Night of the Dead”, though that makes no sense, and neither of the artists are performing on the same night. The artist, the one that is not Megadeth, is playing the day before Megadeth at the same venue. There must be some sort of a bi-lateral partnership between the artist and the station though, as the station is being allowed to bill the show as such and is giving away cd’s all month to that end. If you are only going to see one show in your life, it should definitely be the that band.

The band in question is Marilyn Manson (the link is to tour dates). I really don’t like Marilyn Manson at all, yet I have to say that he is a great as a theatrical showman. I mentioned that in my May 23, 2004 post. I will just quote myself from that post to save myself from writing any more about it, and save you from reading it:

I was absolutely blown away by Marilyn Manson. I do not care for their music, but won’t turn it off if it is on the radio, it is just the kind of thing that I don’t actively hate, or like. His (their) theatrics really stole the show. To the point that I was a bit disappointed when I finally got to see Ozzy (for the first time in my life). Manson certainly took care to stage a show that would shock and entertain you for his full set. The rest of the bands, Ozzy included, just did their songs. I will give ozzy a bit of lee-way on this one, since he is no spring chicken, but the other bands, like Korn, couldn’t they have done something other than just play their songs?
Manson had choreographed marionettes (they were actually people behaving as such) that did things for his entire set. He had a little tiered stage kind of thing that they would climb. It is difficult to describe, but it was an experience. The other bands just played their songs. If you want to hear the song, you have the cd, the sound quality is going to be a lot better, just listen to the damn cd. Marilyn Manson, on the other hand, really sold me the experience. Even though I do not like Marilyn Manson, I would be more likely to buy tickets to his next concert than I would be to buy tickets for the next, say, Korn concert…Even though I like Korn a lot more than I like Manson.

That is why you have to buy a ticket and see the show. It is just that, a show, it is never going to be the same twice. While I can remember most of the songs that I have listened to repeatedly over the years, most of them don’t bring up images of a guy trying to stick a microphone into a marionette’s vagina. I doubt you will ever relate trying to stick a microphone into a marionette’s vagina to Marilyn Manson if you never watch the show. Hell that was also over a year ago so I am sure that the stage set has changed as much as the music has. Manson seems to be out to shock you, and it works. Much like a car wreck, you don’t really want to look, but at the same time you can’t look away. I wonder if P.T. Barnum might be a relative of Brian Hugh Warner (aka Marilyn Manson) I apologize for that link, but it was the best I could come up with.

That will be about all for today. I still don’t understand why I continue to defend people like Marilyn Manson and Howard Stern when I really don’t like them. I guess it all comes down to the belief that you are free to say/do what you want, and that liberty can not be bought or sold. I suppose that is why the politicians spend so much time and money trying to get into an office that really doesn’t pay all that well (in their eyes). This land is supposed to be about freedom, and if you are not free to let your children play in the streets then we need some gun laws. If you are not free to speak your mind in opposition of the idiot in office, then we need freedom of speech (without repercussion). If the press won’t talk about the idiocy of the actions of the current administration, then we need to do it ourselves and get rid of the riff-raff. A democracy is not run by one idiot with more money than brains, it is run by the power of the people…Now if the people would just vote…

Christmas lights; John Kerry, Concert tickets

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Yes, as the date clearly states, we are now officially in October. All site-related musings aside, time still seems to be moving at rather a rapid pace. The decorative Christmas lights that I put up on the house last year, and have been thinking of taking down every weekend, now seem to be less of a nuisance, as it now seems that I am just horribly well prepared, as opposed to horribly lazy, as they seemed just yesterday. The local radio stations are already talking about ‘shopping days before Christmas’, completely disreagarding the fact that it is still so unbearably hot that no one really ever leaves the house, unless forced. Of course that is sort of a trade off that one must make to live where I do; We have unusually warm winters, extremely hot summers, and the other two seasons seem to last about three days each. That is not an exaggeration either, last year there was one day that we were running the cooler (in the store) and the next morning it was the heater. So I am going to go ahead and blame the rapid passage of time on having only two seasons, regardless of the fact that winter goes about two months, while summer lasts the other ten.

Attempting to use the weather where you live as an excuse (like I just did) is a pretty poor argument. Everyone, everywhere, has different atmospheric conditions that they have to tolerate. While I really wish I would have made it to take care of the weeds in front of the house (and I mean once and for all, as opposed to using a weedeater every third weekend), at least I have the house, with the weeds in front of it, to bitch about. Practically half of the state of Florida is in ruins, and I am bitching about it being to hot to shoot a bit of RoundUp on them. I suppose that is why there are benfits and drawbacks to living in any environment. And those weeds had better watch out, I may just get off my lazy duff and take care of them next year!

• Now that the small talk about the weather is out of the way… I want to mention briefly that I may have completely underestimated John Kerry’s performance in the first presidential debate. All of the surveys that have been released so far show Kerry winning the debate handily. I would agree with that point, Kerry did win the thing, hands down, in my eyes, but I was actually disappointed in both his, and President Bush’s, handling of the questions. The entire debate seemed to be more of a press conference, each man responded to the question that they were given, but neither were ever allowed to actually ask direct questions of the other.

I may not be much of a pundit on politics, but I do know how to debate. When you do not allow the persons in the debate to ask each other specific questions related to the subject, the persons are not debating -they are ranting- much as I am now. The key to finding out someone’s stance on anything is to not listen to the stuff that they have prepared and memorized over time, you need to see what they say when they don’t have any more notes. While neither candidiate came in with notes, they surely knew the points that they wanted to make, and had likely practiced saying them in front of a mirror. I am not even sure that what I witnessed last night could be called a debate, at least not in the literal term of the word. Bush did his best to spin everything into his (obviously pre-rehearsed) ‘War on Terror’ shtick, while Kerry did his best to have good hair and answer questions that were never asked.

Am I the only person in the whole of the ‘United States of America’ that wants to see what the actual people, the ones that we are actually going to vote for on the second of November, actually think? I sure hope that there are a lot more people like me, people who are disappointed by the fact that the debate was no more than a staged media circus. Even though I really want Kerry to win this election (or even Nader, hell anyone but Bush) I still think that the people are getting the short end of the stick when the debate is all but staged. What the American people need is factual information, not rhetoric. Yet, It seems that facts are no longer the driving factor when we are letting the ‘Leader of the free world’ send our children to war.

• Now to really make you all drool.

It is hard to have a bad day, even though mine was horrible, when you come home to find the following email:

If I bought tickets to this would you be able to work early on Saturday or get the day off so you could go??

The link is now dead, but the concert in question is Megadeth at the Dodge Theatre (in the Phoenix area). If you know anything about me at all, hell, even you know nothing about me at all, you should know that I kind of Worship Megadeth. There is no force in the world strong enough to keep me from making it to see a new Megadeth show, well, I guess death would qualify, but I don’t think that death is really a force. You should all now just bow before me and hope/pray that your wife will ever be so cool as to offer you treats to such an event. Of course not all wives are built the same, so when I am watching Megadeth, you might be trimming hedges…which I would do, that is I would do it if I actually had a hedge to trim.
Not all wives are built the same, choose accordingly.