Well, I obviously didn’t get a chance to post yesterday, and unfortunately, I won’t be able to post music until I get home tonight from work. Actually, this’ll probably become a lot more common in the future thanks to issues with my computer at work. I’ll still post my crappy lunchtime thoughts, though, so at least you’ll get that out of me.
It was a nice, long weekend. I got to spend some time with my family (including my brother’s family, who was in from Atlanta), see Man Man (more on that in a second) and enjoy the a nice day out on the porch yesterday watching birds and eating sausage. All in all it was a great time. My dad starts his chemotherapy today, so tensions are running pretty high for me. It’s such a strange treatment, and one rarely if ever knows how any particular patient is going to react to it. And it’s gotten much better in recent years, but still, it’s enough to really get you down. On Friday night he pulled all of us, his children and grandchildren, into the living room in Maryland and sat us down and said something along the lines of “I’m sick, and I know you’re all concerned about me, but I don’t want this to be the theme every time I’m around. I want to tell you what we know and then let you ask whatever questions you have now, so that I can get this all out of the way”. And we did just that. There was some crying, and some general concern as far as defining a line between general concern and smothering him with worry. In the end I think we all felt a little more prepared to deal with this thing and a little more closely knit as a family. I was impressed with how well we were holding together, and even moreso with my dad, who is the strongest man I’ve ever known. When my sister asked him if he was scared he pointed out that the doctors told him that he’d never live to see me born, and since then he’s felt like every single hour he gets is a gift from god. So no, he wasn’t really scared, but he wasn’t skipping through this either. He’s going through with the best possible outlook he can have, and that is one of concern without worry, acknowledgement without fear, and an all-encompassing belief that nothing is finished yet and that we’re not going anywhere. It sounds strange, but I think we all needed that. Because these things are rarely easy to deal with, and Cancer has never been easy to deal with. We were unsure and afraid. But we have the perfect role model in the man in front of us. And once again we find ourselves taking his lead and getting ready to walk through this. Thanks Pop.
So yeah, we saw Man Man the other night. I’d been looking forward to seeing these guys play for the longest time, l and they didn’t disappoint. Their performance was the circus that I was half-expecting, and they sounded great. I can say with complete honesty though that I was ready to punch every other person in the audience in the face. Seriously, it was mind-boggling how frustrating it was. I’m growing to realize that I complain about the crown more and more with every show I see (this might reflect my growing older, or my aversion to all-ages shows, or that I might just be an asshole), but seriously within 15 minutes of the show starting there was at least 15 kids with their shirts off trying to crowd surf and pull off some sort of hippie mosh pit. When I say kids, mind you, I mean kids. They couldn’t have been older than 17. and while I guess a 17 year old’s back sweat might be better than a 65 year olds, it’s not by much. The point is it’s fucking disgusting and I want it nowhere near me. Also, I have a strange aversion to getting kicked in the face. When I would go to hardcore shows back when I’d hate getting kicked in the face, too. But the difference is that I knew that was gonna happen at those kinds of shows. It’s the sort of thing you’d come to expect there. This was not a hardcore show and it wasn’t really necessary to start that shit up. Especially when you come perilously close to knocking over a stack of amps every 4 seconds. We all want to appreciate the music, and plenty of us want to dance, but seriously the difference is that the rest of us are completely aware that there are several hundred other people in the venue that are just trying to watch the show.
So yeah, I guess the point is keep your shirt on and save the crowd surfing for the warped tour or some shit. Listen, I know it gets hot, especially in unventilated warehouses. And as guys, we believe we have the unalienable right to take off our shirts in public. But the thing is, we don’t. You wanna sit around your yard drinking a can of beer and mowing the lawn with no shirt on? Awesome. Sleep naked on the couch all day? Great. But if you’re going somewhere that you’re more than likely to be rubbing up against a lot of other people that aren’t your friends or fellow orgy-participants, there’s really no reason to whip your shirt off. Shit, girls can keep their shirts on, so can you.
That’s all for now. I’m tired and looking out at the rain and listening to Lucero’s third album, which is treating me exactly how it should on a day like this. I’ll put up a song or two tonight.
NOTE: I just walked down the street to get a candy bar and totally didn't realize it, but my white pants are completely see-through when they're wet. Now it looks like I'm wearing underwear over my pants.
PS Oh and as always, Banksy is the motherfuckin' man.
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