A List of Interesting Subjects

I can hardly stand people who feel the need shorten words to simple consonant clusters when it seems it took more energy to make their dribble comprehensible. Case in point: I remember when “LOL” meant “laughing out loud” and not some worthless bullshit added at the end of every text conversation. Or when “sh*t” seems like the nice way to say “shit.” I mean, it’s not a big mystery as to what you want to say, but somehow the asterisk seems like a nice way of replacing the vowel without the repercussions of actually cussing. Hey, remember when words mean something like when you asked, “do you mind if I smoke around you,” meant, “do you mind if I smoke around you,” rather than, “I’m going to ask you if I can smoke but only out of politeness rather than concern for your right to not endure that.” How about this; we start using words and mean exactly what they mean. It’s a revolutionary idea to say what you mean and mean what you say. Holy Shit! Am I the only genius to come to this conclusion? I hope that I’m not. When did complete words of phrases stop becoming useful and help in defining exactly what you mean to say. I say things the way I mean to say them because I want to say it in that particular fashion so that it can be taken with an absolute resolution as to what it is I mean to say. Now, before you feebly attempt to call me a hypocrite with a lengthy explanation, do under that I had to in order for any mindless dumbass to understand it.
It still boggles my craft mind as to how one function in this world with common misspellings and grammatical errors when your run-of-the-mill word processor can correct you idiotic rants about the new Ke$ha single. We get it. You fucking love babbling girls “singing” about getting drunk on whiskey and sleeping with a different dude every night. The least you could to do to retain some sense of self-respect and apparent intelligence is to use words in their entirety. Speaking of Ke$ha, since when do girls start drinking whiskey. That shit is reserved for guys who know that drinking isn’t good for them but they buy it anyway because they’d rather forget their day than get pissed-off every time start work in the morning. Two. Her songs are too catchy to not like them. It’s like musical crack; just a cheap, disposable, and equally depressing.
Not to get sidetracked, words are a wonderful part of the human being because that is the way humans are better than other animals. Our brains are specifically designed for the purpose of communication; they’re purpose built contrary what people my display on their Twitter feed or Facebook or whatever bullshit propaganda companies try to feed the general public.
Unfortunately for me, and the world’s irrational way of determining intellectual value, I work in a customer service industry. The other day, a boy (seven or eight years old) started complaining to his mother about getting a cell phone to which the mother said something to the effect of, “we’ll get you one soon.” In a translation form, this means, “we’ll get you one in a couple of years when you get the acquired taste for girls.” It seems to me that this situation would be better solved if the mother slapped his ass and told him he’s not getting one until he was mature enough. But, by that time, he will unquestionably be using it to text his friends for a booze hook-up and some girls who have no interest in him other than his booze hook-up. My suggestion for this kid is to keep masturbating until college and then hit on all the cute freshmen girls with a condom in your back pocket. Ill sd that info ina txt…

It’s time for me to be a mean bastard because: A) I’m too nice 98% of the time, and B) I’m way too funny to just let shit pass by me.  Okay, to start this shit off, I’m tired of seeing the bullshit advertising for causes which any normal and rational human being would approve of, like, this cutesy campaign for ending child abuse on Facebook.  “All you have to do is change your profile picture to a cartoon character which you love from your childhood.”  Horseshit!  I’m sure all the pictures of Loony Toons is going to stop Jonny’s father for beating him after getting an F on his math test.  Never mind the being a decent person and noticing that Jonny goes to school with bruises on his face which he may claim came from his own doing.  Some people are just too fucking lazy, but not lazy enough to change their picture to let all their friends know that they’re not supporting child abuse.

I see it to every October when NFL players dawn pink gloves and pink shoes to show their support for breast cancer research.  Well, no shit!  Who is this world doesn’t love boobs.  I love them, women love them, lesbians love them, gay guys love them, shit, and even babies know they’re the most powerful object in existence, why do you think they’re always trying to suck on them?  So, why then, do we need an entire month with pink in a sport that obviously doesn’t require a woman’s input, there’s enough estrogen on the field already (I’m talking to you Dwayne Johnson, I mean, Ochocinco).  Really, it should be every month.  There’s something special that happens when you see boobies and it’s not just a guy thing either.  When a person sees a pair of boobies, the room shuts the-fuck-up and looks as though their eyes are being tractor beamed into the nipples (and even more so for a good pair).

I want to meet the asshat that stood-up in a meeting and said, “excuse me, but I think people don’t know just how devastating breast cancer is on women.  Let’s make sure everybody knows by designating an entire month to it.”  When I meet this clown I will cut-out his eyes and then paralyze him so that he couldn’t feel or see another boob in his life.  Which brings me to another point: Didn’t anybody know that yesterday was the 30^th anniversary of John Lennon’s death?  You know, that guy who wrote all those songs which inspired millions across the world into a cultural revolution changing the very foundation of modernity.  Yeah, that guy.  Where’s his fucking month?  We ought to smoke weed, study Indian culture (the country, not native Americans you ass), and fuck every other day for a month.  I would have said fuck every day, but that’s too much sex and drugs unless you’re a Charlie Sheen identical twin, in which case you’re probably doing that already without the month designation.

Here comes another tangent; brace yourself.  I hate everyday between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Here are the reasons:

• People start being cheery and it’s annoying when you have to deal with people who always have a shit-eating grin on their face.
• Christmas trees start going-up the day after Thanksgiving so they die half-way to Christmas and then these assholes have to buy another at $40 a pop.  Oh shit, aren’t we trying to stop the needless waste of trees in this country since humans have depleted nearly 60% of the forests, worldwide?  Go for it.  “One tree won’t hurt,” says the 50 million households across the country.
• Some people get into shopping and drives me bonkers when I have to wait fifteen minutes in the check-out line so Gracie, the loving mother who buys shit for her spoiled kids who then will throw it in the trash before the next holiday, needs a price check on the Barbie Dreamhouse which doesn’t include a snorting mirror or a meth lab.  What a rip.
• Around this same time, we put up all sorts of colored lights and the neighborhood looks like a goddamn nuclear power plant at night.  Nice lights, dude.  Do any of them say “fuck-off” because that’s what I’m getting.  I hope a plane mistakes your house for a landing strip and tries to land on your roof like Santa.
• Tis’ the season for giving, or so the Salvation Army tells me.  It’s not like they need funds year-round.  Wait!  They do, you fuckers!  Why do we need to have a holiday to give to charities?  I guess we only have hungry people around the holidays too.  I know those bums like waiting in the street for some heartless bastard to deny them change again, but since it’s the holidays, you get a quarter.  Thanks bro.

On the lighter side, five days after Christmas is New Year’s Eve and that’s the time to get drunk and general tom foolery, unless you’re me.  I like to go to an area with a heavy population of college students and bars and just wait to see all the idiots pass by at two in the morning puking and falling into snow drifts.  Maybe this year, I’ll scare some assholes when they can hardly stand and make them shit their pants.  Life’s tough: quit being a pussy or get out of the way.  That’s it.  I’m done.

I’m going to talk about a subject that is very close to my heart and is often misunderstood as far as the general populous is concerned.  The subject I plan on approaching is that of the meaning of Metal as the musical genre.  More specifically, the meaning for the existence of Metal: how did it come to be?  Why is it around?  What is the attraction for so many people?

Many “professors” of Metal claim the origins of Metal came about in many different ways.  Often, it is the emergence of a single band that was unlike anything before such as Stepenwolf being the first band because it was the first band to feature, “heavy metal thunder” in a song.  Others believe that Led Zeppelin is the first Metal band because of their outlandish style.  A majority of Metal listeners claim that Black Sabbath is the first because they featured darker and more serious themes.  For me, personally, Metal sprang from in many different directions.  Heavy Metal gains it’s almost satanic subjects from Black Sabbath of the ‘60s but different from that is current Metal which focuses on violence and the overwhelming feeling of dissidence and being an outsider which has roots with the early punk scene.  To put it simply, there is no single event that solidified the genre, rather, completely different sects of events which led to the genre, hence the division of music within the genre.  A true Metalhead would never equate Iron Maiden with a band like All That Remains; it’s not that one is better than the other, but because they are different takes of the same vein of thought.  It’s like comparing a left arm with a right arm.

Once, while working with a fellow Metalhead, we were discussing sub-genres and elderly customer overheard us and felt it was necessary that to tell us that, “that music will rot your head.”  We waited until the customer left and then giggled the comment away.  It seems that there is still a misnomer within society that Metal has the power to turn a normal adolescent boy into a godless, violent, berserking person.  For the most part, when a person says, “I’m going to kill you,” it depends on a couple of factors; the context and the tone.  Saying, “I’m going to kill you,” is taken differently if it’s said with a pistol to your temple.  The same rule applies here; the lyrics in most Metal songs do not dictate to the audience, but rather, it is the reflection of a particular feeling or emotion that people want to hear.

Oh, and there’s documentation that states that Metal has no effect on the actions of adolescent people, but rather, adolescent teens are drawn to Metal.  During a study completed by the Center for Youth Studies, of those tested (which were 121 ten to twelfth graders, 37% male and 63% female, and 90% of which were Caucasian), this statement was made:

Patterns in the findings suggest that heavy metal primarily attracts troubled teens rather than produces them. If pro-suicide messages in the music were influencing teens, it would be expected that heavy metal listeners would have shown lower scores than others on the Fear of Social Disapproval, Fear of Suicide, and Moral Objection scales. Only males on the Moral Objection scale scored lower than other listeners.

It seems that young people who listen to Metal chose to do so (imagine that).  The next question that a non-Metalhead might ask is why.  Why would a person want to listen to songs about murder, death, wars, disfigurement, and mutilation when there is music out there that sings about happy times, rainbows, and fuzzy bunnies?  That is the very reason that Metal exists; it’s because there are numerous songs about comforting subjects.  Metalheads listen to it because Metal wishes to destabilize the status quo and add chaos to the system.  It is a personal and public manner.  As stated above, Metal attracts individuals who come from troubled pasts because it is a release of emotions.  It is also the public airing of injustice among the people who say that everything is ‘okay.’

Bands of Metal very publically oppose the dominating force and attract individuals of society that are marginalized and underestimated.  They put the intense feelings into music and physical presents by the Mecca of the Metal universe; the concert.  Metalhead’s expression of this is showing-up at these shows and starting mosh pits.  Mosh pits are not about violence because, while people are being violent, if someone should fall down in one, fellow attendees help them to their feet so that he/she is not hurt, thus the goal is put the emotional pain into a tangible form.  Some bands, including W.A.S.P. and Alice Cooper, stage elaborate shows which include faux beheadings, torture, blood, and on occasion, the killing of animals (reference Alice Cooper and the Chicken incident where he was charged with animal cruelty).  It is the manifestation of the soul’s passion of the Metalhead on stage.  Paradoxically, the basis of Metal is the one thing that comes into question when a Metal band hits it big.  As soon as a Metal band becomes popular among the population, they are axed from multiple Metalhead’s top favorite lists because they feel that the band isn’t the underground, or the true representation of what the listeners.  Metal reinforces the idea that listening to the music makes you a powerful person on a personal level and when the band becomes big, the personal level disintegrates.  This is also the reason why Metal seems to gravitate and circle around ancient mythology, particularly Greek and Nordic.  They were gods with flaws and they made mistakes much like Metalheads.

But even larger than this issue is the musicality of Metal, or the musicianship of Metal.  Metal is unlike anything in music but has many different possible roots.  Metal takes the passion of destabilizing the normative in punk, speeds it up, and adds technicality to.  As far as form is concerned, there are tons of different methods of compositions but a common technique is the muting of strings.  Metal also steals heavy distortion from punk music.  Metal also has a great sense of timing in songs, that is, there are points when it must be silent and times when the music must be overwhelming.  The basis for the aural elements is the mighty, mighty power chord which was also stolen from punk.  Without a doubt, the power chord is used in almost every Metal song as a method of creating melody during the verse.  More intricate guitar work is done at the beginning of the song and the pinnacle of guitar mastery comes during the guitar solo (which is not required but almost always makes an appearance).  Commonly, the solo is a guitarist ripping (or shredding) through a scale, but, it is not a limiting factor as can be seen with Synister Gates of Avenged Sevenfold.  As far as drums are concerned, they are prominent for syncopated beat and excitement and this is done with double bass petals.  Drum rolls are also popular as well as tons of crash symbols.  Singers are in different classes of methods; screamers (either cookie monster growl, or the higher pitched stuff similar to emo hard core) and singers.  Many bands have both a screamer and a singer, and at times have one person do both.  Back-up vocals are important to add volume to the singer’s voice.  Sadly, the bassist fills in the girth of the track and gives it real balls with heavy bass which can be sustained longer than drums.  A bassist doesn’t get out front much unless you’re a badass like Cliff Burton of old school Metallica.

The greatest rift in Metal (yes, even larger than the origins) is Metallica’s Black Album.  Some even say it started with …And Justice for All.  I was talking about the subject with a different co-worker one day and this subject came-up.  I think he explained it well.  In Metallica’s early career, they billed themselves as the working class hero, that is, the band that you would go see after a 12 hour shift.  They were the band who empathized with you.  With the Black Album, things started to change and Metallica worked with Bob Rock on the album and the album appeared to be strangely tamer than the preceding ones.  This prompted their followers to start using the term “sell-outs” after that album.  To drop a nuke on the situation, the Napster incident started to form with Metallica at the forefront.  Since Metallica was known for their apparent empathy for the working man, a couple free albums that the working downloaded prompted them to attack Napster and regain the money they lost and this drove the workingman to feel betrayed.  To make it worse, they released Load which was even more of a departure from the Master of Puppets album.  The lesson here is that Metalheads have strong loyalty and connections to their music and they are willing to crucify anything that’s against them.  That is the worth of Metal in our society; Metal brings to light things which we wish we could forget.

In this sense, Metal is an entire societal shift from the normal.  It is social, political, psychological, and economic on the most personal scale of the soul within its followers.  It is the clear representation and uniting force of people who are pre-programmed to be on the outskirts of normality.  It gains no respect nor does it need it but paradoxically, it always tries to gain it by approaching technicality at the highest level.  It has been my experience that people who swear their life to Metal are intelligent and well educated but deny the idea of ‘I’m okay, you’re okay.’  They decree that things are not ‘okay’ and cite the deepest and darkest elements within the human soul as their proof.  Genocide, murder, torture, auto-mutilation, and wars are a staple of the human condition, what Metal does is to bring these uncomfortable issues to light in vivid lyrics and jarring melodies rather than insight them and this is why Metal is somewhat of a modern invention.  Metalheads want the unabashed truth no matter how grating the issue is because the truth is they probably want to know they are not alone in their pain.

And now I present to you a list of Metal moments.

• Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath worked in a Liverpool steel mill.  During his last day of work, before touring with Black Sabbath, cut off the tips of his fingers of his left hand.  To play guitar, he has to tune his guitar down a 1/2 step and wear metal caps.
• During a concert in Toronto, James Hatfield of Metallica stood in a 1,100 degree flame for a few seconds causing 3rd degree burns on his  left arm.  He returned touring two weeks later and allowed a roadie to play his guitar parts until he recovered.
• Iron Maiden features and character on every album named Eddy.
• Ozzy Osbourn bit the head off of two doves while in a meeting with record executives.
• Dio throws up the bull/devil horns during a concert.  It’s meant to symbolize the Italian “evil eye.”  It catches like wildfire.
• This is Spinal Tap is made and it’s hilarious!
• Dee Snider takes on the PMRC and gives Tipper Gore a (metaphoric) tongue lashing even if he did lose.  The little parental warning sticker makes millions for the music industry.
• Gene Simmons passes a lie detector test where this question was prompted: “have you had sex with thousands of women?”
• Rob Halford comes out of the closet and Metalheads still adore him (even if they’re not homosexual).
• 

  Look at these guys. They mean business.

  Gwar appears on the Jerry Springer Show claiming they are intergalactic aliens sent here to enslave the human race and have sex with all the females.  In full costume.

• The Decline of Western Civilization: Part II is filmed and the debauchery is astounding and frightening.
• The Kiss Coffin. Does this need an explanation?

I’ve stayed away from this subject for a very, very long time because I want to be coherent when discussing Glenn Beck.  To preview this, I have never agreed with Glenn Beck and will never agree with him on many different issues, even though he is a fellow Libertarian.  Now that I have stated that, it should come as no surprise that I’m going to criticize him in a negative way.  I’m just going to lead-off with this video which showcases some of his finest moments as a journalist.

Okay, to be fair, his surgery video predates his strong opposition to the helthcare bill.  The video didn’t really make that clear.  Now, anybody who’s ever been to logic and critical thinking class will say that hypocrisy doesn’t make  an argument illogical, but it doesn’t really say much about the person being the hypocrite.  Glenn Beck is a showman, a magician, the poor man’s Jon Stewart (that’s right, I said it).  Glenn Beck (and Fox News Network as a whole) will tell you that their network is the most watched 24-hour news network on TV.  It may be correct information, but it’s because they are the only network with an openly conservative bias as opposed to CNN who has two networks on basic cable or MSNBC who also has to share the liberals with CNBC and ABC News.  They may be the most watched but the numbers are inflated to make it seem as though only ‘smart’ people watch Fox.

Anyway, Beck continues to spew hate an defy logic in every way possible by implementing stage devices and appealing to his audience’s pathos.  I don’t understand this, but Beck always wears tennis shoes on his show.  Not intending to speak for others, but, if somebody is going to give me the news, some information which may be a keystone as to how I intend to live my life, I want that man or woman to be formal.  It gives the speaker some authority as to what is being said because the way they dress displays this; wearing a suit says, “I mean what I say because I’m taking extra special care of how I appear.”  You also have to know that every time he has a chance to whip out his reading glasses, he wants to make sure you can see them.  ’Hi!  I’m Glenn Beck.  I’m just like you except I sell books (which I don’t really write), I have my own hour long TV show, and I have a radio show, but I’m just like you.”  Sorry Beck, I’m not buying.  Beck is a salesman no different than a used car dealer, but rather than selling cars, he sells ideas.   Poorly crafted, logical, nearly weed induced coma ideas.  In other words, he’s a philosopher.

If you ever go to place where there are mature people talking about policies, you might be surprised that democrats and republicans actually agree on the same policy.  That is because everybody agrees as to how a problem should be fixed.  The main arguments that people have is largely based in different philosophies and that is why Beck sells his philosophy.  I’m going to set-up a hypothetical conversation where this happens:

Person 1: Person X killed somebody.  We must doing something about it.

Person 2: I agree, something must be done.  The problem is that person X is soulless and must be put to death for punishment.

Person 1: Not so fast.  Maybe person X killed somebody because the culture he was raised in trained him to kill.  Let’s re-invest in similar communities to prevent this from happening again.

Person 2: But person 2 must disciplined and the only hope is execution.

Now, in this argument, Person 1 and 2 agree as to the sparking interest, ie. that person X did committed murder and to stop it from happening again, person 1 and 2 must take an action.  The true argument is between the proposed solutions, and thus, the philosophies behind them.  What beck does is bring emotion into the argument rather than logic.  I really do wish I could count all the times I’ve watched this man cry on his own TV show.  Bill O’Reilly never cries on his show, not even so much as a whimper.  Search the internet some and you’ll discover that time and time again contradicts himself about nearly everything.  I think Jon Stewart did a fairly good job at imitating Beck on the Daily Show a couple weeks ago because Stewart is using the same kind of shitty logic that Beck uses, only Stewart has no issue with referring to the Daily Show as the fake news and being for comedy while Beck contends that his show exists to educate the people.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘all of those clips are collected and fit together to make him sound like an idiot.’  And I’d have to agree with you, he is an idiot and no it’s not unfair to cut and clip them together because the truth is that it would not exist if Beck, himself, didn’t do and say those things.  Nobody forced Beck to claim that our President hates white people or hates white culture.  Beck wasn’t fooled into thinking that he was having a candid conversation with a close friend, he was sitting on a stage with cameras on him and yet, he still said those things.  Things Beck has claimed in recent years:

• President Obama is racist.
• President Obama is communist/socialist.
• America has the worst helthcare system in the world.
• America has the best helthcare system in the world.
• America is a Christian Nation (even though Beck is a Mormon).  This claim leads to an idea of theocracy.
• FEMA camps for relocated people from the Gulf Oil Spill are similar to Nazi Concentration Camps.
• It is wrong to criticize former President Bush but perfectly fine to mock President Obama’s daughter, Malia.
• Empathy and social justice leads to dictatorship.

If I really wanted to, I could seek-out every logical fallacy in every one of his shows, but that would take far too long and I would ask for a colt 45 with a single bullet by the end of the third show.  I’ll admit it, I sometimes use logical fallacies in arguments, but hey, I’m an antonymous guy on the internet, not a published author, talk-radio host, nor do I have my own TV show.  Now, I present to you, journalistic excellence.

So, after attending a concert a few days ago, it has come to my attention that there are people out there in the world who don’t understand what a moshpit is.  Let’s start with the big question: what is a moshpit?  Just to simplify the idea, a moshpit is a group of people who enjoy jostling and crashing into each other during concerts (mainly metal, punk, or combination of the two).  The next question is why?  After thinking for awhile about why, I can only conclude that it is because we, the moshpitters, enjoy being wild and aggressive without repercussions.  It is the supreme enjoyment of community.  With that being said, there are a few rules which should be followed for a proper experience.

1. Go with the flow.

The whole point of the pit is to crash into one another in a chaos filled environment and while the idea is to lose order, paradoxically, there must be an order to things.  While it might be fun to fling your arms about like a walking seizure, it can hurt people, thus, negating the entire experience.  Also, the surrounding people won’t dig this much, causing them to become hostile towards you by body-checking, a forceful shove, or a physical fight and rest assured that anybody who wants to fight will probably win.  They fight dick-bags like you because you pissed them off and they know they can whip your shit.

1. Be aware of girls

We’ve all seen this; some girl wandered into the wrong part of the crowd and then find themselves smack dab in the middle of a forming pit.  Generally, they have a terrorized face.  It’s not good that they stay in such an environment.  They really don’t want to be there, so, be a nice guy and let them escape from the pit because that’s not why they came to concert.  On the other hand, there are girls who jump in the pit willingly and should be treated the same as guys.

1. Do the right thing

It’s a simple concept, but the breakdown occurs as to what the ‘right’ thing is.  When I use the concept here, I’m specifically talking about you (on the pit boarder or in the pit) seeing a person fall in-front of you and then you not making an attempt to help this person up.  That is a real danger and a d-bag thing to do because there have been people who were trampled to death in this very situation.  Most of the time, if you stop some people in the pit to help another up, they won’t get pissed because they know it’s a dangerous place to be.

1. Watch for surfers

If there’s a mosh happening at a concert, it’s pretty likely that there will be crowd-surfers.  This is fine and well when done the right way.  Launching people onto another group of people is the dumbest thing you can do.  Not only do the people in-front of you not know that there’s a surfer about, but the surfer can be hurt by cracking a skull or being dropped (both of which happened to me recently).  It’s just stupid.  The best way to handle surfers is to control exactly where they will go in a slow manner so that people know they are coming and the weight can be dealt with appropriately.

There.  Now that you know proper etiquette, the final rule is have a good time, I mean, that’s why you went in the first place, right?