Spooooooooky

I have always been a big fan of horror-punk. It is a genre that I think is largely underrated and under-appreciated, in part because of the overall silliness of the lyrics, costumes and videos. Nevertheless I think there is some great talent hiding in this not-so-little and quickly expanding scene. Web sites like the World Horror Network have helped turn widely held love for the Misfits, horror movies and music into a tight knit yet thriving culture.

One of the better horror punk bands out there is Calabrese. To be honest, I don't know much about these guys other than that they are probably the best recording band this scene has. The thing that sets Calabrese apart from the rest of the horror crop is their obvious emphasis on making good music. Most horror-punk bands, like the local Diemonsterdie, spend most of their time and energy trying to look the part and seem to put songwriting and production on the back burner. Its a shame because there is a lot of talent that will never reach its potential being trapped in such a limiting and fashion conscious scene.

Here is one of my favorite Calabrese songs. Its called Voices of the Dead

Music, music, music

I know my entries lately have been half-assed and really weak. Its crazy how busy life gets when you have a family. Not only do I not have time to sit down and write anymore, I don't even have time to sit down and think about what to write.

"You Can't Stop The Underground..."
There is one thing I can always blab about though: music. This summer I spent a lot of time listening to music and discovering new bands. I listened to hundreds of songs and became a fan of dozens of young, underground groups. Chaser, Antagen, the Willkills, One Big Lie and Skyline Collapse are just a few of my new favorites. I didn't realize how starved I was for new, good music.

I came to realize that - contrary to what I originally thought - the underground punk scene as we knew it in the 90's has experienced a rebirth. There are many people out there who, like me, feel incredibly disconnected from and abandonned by many of the bands and figures who were integral parts of what was once punk rock. People are angry at the utter lack of concern and the emphasis on vanity. Fortunately these people have joined, in a total DIY spirit, to re-form the scene and the lifestyle that they once held so close to their hearts. It is very refreshing.

What was once underground has exploded into a grotesque, mainstream caricature of its former self, where closely held ideals have become fashion accessories and where once incorruptable figures like Davey Havok now sport their newest hairstyle on the cover of Rolling Stone. Thankfully there will always be those who have a natural attraction to counter culture movements. There will always be the underground.

The Best of the Best?
I've been thinking lately about my all time favorite albums. It is an incredibly difficult list to narrow down but I'm going to give it a try and get it down to 10. These are in no particular order and there is no doubt in my mind that there are probably dozens that I just didn't remember off the top of my head. If I think of any more later on (which in inevitable, I'm sure) I will make sure to add them. In the meantime, here are my top 10 favorite albums:


Bad Religion - Suffer
It was a toss up between this and No Control. Suffer gets the edge because it has more of a "classic" element that I just can't seem to put my finger on. This was Bad Religion's triumphant return after disbanding years before and nothing they would record after would be better than this ablum. Suffer set the tone for what would be 90's punk rock: fast, melodic yet agressive music blended immaculately with harmonic vocals. "Do What You Want" is still one of my all time favorite songs.

Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
Quite possibly the best metal band off all time. I had a hard time deciding between VDP or The Great Southern Trendkill but I've loved this album for so long that it is hard to top. There are so many good songs on this album like Walk, By Demons Be Driven, Hollow and This Love, but my favorite has to be Fucking Hostile.

The Vandals - Live Fast, Diarrhea
The thing I love about the Vandals is that they don't pretend to be something they are not. They classify their music as comedy and don't try to be some preachy band condemning society's corruptibility or advocating the fall of the government. They leave that to the Propaghandi's of the world (who's album How to Clean Everything could have easily made this list). LF,D is just fast, fun punk rock. It was one of the first real punk rock albums I ever bought and it will always be near the top of my list of favorites. The best songs are Let the Bad Times Roll, And Now We Dance, Johnny Twobags and Kick Me.

Misfits - Collection II
Ok, I know this is kind of cheating because its really a compilation of old Misfits material, but from start to finish this is one of the greatest cds you can buy. The Misfits of old (before Glenn Danzig's departure) is one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time. The pioneers of horror punk kicked a lot of ass in their day and Collection II keeps that tradition alive over three decades since the Fiends first started playing together. Its hard to single out the best songs since each and every one is classic, but I'll give it a go: Attitude, Demonomania, Braineaters, Children in Heat and, of course Last Caress

Bob Marley & the Wailers - Uprising
Picking out a favorite Bob Marley album is like trying to choose your favorite child, its impossible. I went with Uprising because it contains my 2 favorite reggae songs of ever: Coming In From the Cold and Pimper's Paradise and it would be criminal not to mention Redemption Song. The only way this album could be any better would be if it had a studio version of Punky Reggae Party.

Pennywise - Full Circle
Pennywise is one of my favorite bands but I'll just come out and say it anyway, most of their albums sound exactly the same. It makes distinguishing between them difficult at times unless you have track listings in front of you and it makes is incredibly hard to pick a favorite. Since I can't put all of them on here I picked Full Circle because it undoubtedly has the most heart and is the one I can relate with the most. This album was Pennywise's first effort after the suicide of their bassist and founding member Jason Thirsk. It has a lot of personal material that tugs at my heart strings. Whenever I hear the remake of Bro Hymn Tribute I get chills.

Snoop Dogg - Tha Last Meal
A lot of people might be surprised to find this on my list of favorite albums. I like hip hop only when it is done well. Snoop Dogg is really the only mainstream hip hop that I can stomach these days. While I was tempted to put on Heiruspecs' A Tiger Dancing or even Snoop's classic Doggystyle neither of them could top Tha Last Meal. The best songs on it is Hennesey N' Buddah, Ready 2 Ryde and Set It Off.

Buju Banton - Til' Shiloh
This is just damn good reggae. Despite Buju's character flaws and reported bigotry against homosexuals, he still knows how to make a great roots reggae album. I discovered this record in college and it, along with Black Uhuru's unification, always puts me in a good mood. The highlights include Champion, Murderer, Wanna Be Loved and Not an Easy Road.

H2O - Nothing to Prove
Its going to be hard for me to limit what I write about Nothing to Prove because I could go on and on about how great it is. H2O has always been a great band, but they finally reached their potential with this album. It came out in May and is their first record in eight years. I've always felt that H2O, while being very well respected in the punk and hardcore communities, was a band that was stuck between two scenes. They have hardcore roots yet play melodic punk and seemed to have a hard time solidifying their identity. Well they certainly hit their stride with Nothing to Prove; it is their best album and could be one of the best hardcore/punk album EVER. My favorite songs are 1995, Heart on My Sleeve, Sunday and What Happened?

The Descendents - Milo Goes to College

The way it is

I've overheard some debate over whether Utah is the best team in the conference, of if BYU is. To answer this question you need only compare the wins of each team. Week 1: Utah plays Michigan in The Big House. Utes win by 2. BYU plays the equivalent of Connecticut Community College. BYU wins by not nearly enough. Week 2: Utah plays conference rival UNLV. It takes a half to get it together but Utes win by 21. BYU plays a terrible Washington team. It takes a atrocious call by the official in the closing seconds for the Cougars to cling to a 1 point victory (in other words, BYU wins in typical fashion: cheap and undeserved).

At this point I don't see how anyone can argue that anyone but the Utes are the best in the conference. I would put TCU ahead of BYU right now. Its a long season and anything can happen, but in the first two weeks of the season no one in the Mountain West has out played the Utes.
The last thing I've got to say is to BYU fans: stop trying to justify that bogus call in that whiny, arrogant, self righteous little tone of yours. You didn't deserve to win, you shouldn't have won, and if the roles were reversed you'd be bitching louder and more obnoxiously than Washington fans are (because, lets face it, you are the kings of bitching)

Rooting for BYU is like competing in the special olympics; even if you win you're still retarded.

The Utes beat Michigan last week. Stoked. Honestly, I was worried about whether they were going to pull out the win. I knew they could, but the Utes have a history of choking down the stretch (lets not go into details, particularly about a certain 4th and 28).

Tomorrow UNLV is in town. It should be a cake walk for the Utes, but that's what I said last year, just before the Rebels shut them out.

I love this time of year.

Title

7/31/08: I wrote this over a month ago, I just never finished it. Its still incomplete:

I have so much to say that I don't know where to start.

I couldn't be happier that the Lakers got beat down by a Celtics team that really isn't as good as they seemed to be in the Finals. I am really happy for Kevin Garnett, too. He was stuck with a D-League caliber team for most of the time he was in Minnesota and, considering how hard he competes year in and year out, its good to finally see him rewarded for all his effort. The guy has more heart than everyone else in the league put together.

During these Finals I found myself liking Paul Pierce more and more. I always thought he was a typical NBA star; an arrogant, selfish, rich imbecile who cared more about getting his shots then the overall success of his team. Well, if that was the case then he seems to have changed his tune. Danny Ainge really screwed the Celtics up over the last few years and Pierce had to put up with it. So it is good to see him be an integral part of a championship squad after all the lean years he experienced in Boston.

I've written about Ray Allen before so its no secret that I like his game a lot. I never fully realized how much of a professional he is, though. Win or lose, Allen had the same expression, same body language, same attitude. I always got a sense that he knew exactly what it would take to win and that it was never an option for him to do any less. And when the Celtics won game 6 and finished the series, Allen sported a big smile but refrained from screaming, yelling and publicly thanking God. The consummate professional.

It is so rare these days to find three NBA superstars whom I actually like. It is even rarer to find them all on the same team. In my eyes, these three guys each emulate (in their own very unique ways) how athletes should approach the game.

When the Celtics lost games 3 and 5 you didn't hear them blame the referees like Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant and the rest of the detestable Lakers did. They took responsibility and credited the other team. That, in a nutshell, perfectly illustrates the difference between these two teams. The Lakers seem to have a sense of entitlement that stems right from their head coach. Their arrogance, along with the league's love affair for them, give the impression that they are supposed to win, like its preordained.

That's what lost them the title. The Lakers have a better team then the Celtics and there is no excuse for L.A. not winning this series. The two elements that buried them before they even played Boston were their arrogance and their lack of respect for the Celtics. Those are the same things that cost them the series against Detroit a few years back.

You expect Jackson and Bryant to be arrogant and disrespectful, that's just given. But for guys like Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol to walk with their noses in the air is inexcusable. Both of those guys have not won anything in their careers. They have been on largely unsuccessful teams and you would think that they would go into this series hungry and ready. Instead I think that both of them bought into the hype. With all the "experts" saying that they were going to win they probably started to believe it and took the Celtics lightly.

And then there's Vujacic. He is the epitome of unjustified arrogance. If he couldn't shoot there is no way he would be playing in this league. He doesn't run plays, he can't dribble, he can't pass and he takes incredibly stupid shots.

And we can't forget about his atrocious defense. Let's hope that he was knocked down a peg or ten when he gave up arguably the biggest basket of the series to Ray Allen. With Vujacic guarding him near half court, Ray Allen waved off a screen from Kevin Garnett. For those of you who don't know, that is a huge insult. If a guy you are guarding waves off a screen he is telling the whole world that he owns your ass. When Allen did that you would think that Vujacic would play the best defense anyone has ever seen. Instead, the 24 year old Slovenian basically stepped aside and let Allen drive for an easy layup.

I, literally, almost laughed my ass right off.

Inked

I finally got my tattoo, it is a memorial tattoo for Austin. Its about two years overdue but I must say it was worth the wait and I am quite proud of it. Saturday I had big plans to drink beer and watch the final four but something inside me said "Get off your ass and have a stranger stick ink-filled needles in your arm for multiple hours." So I did.

For a long time I knew what I wanted to get done but I just kept putting it off; the biggest reason probably being I was scared of the pain (don't laugh at me just because I am a pussy). But finally I just decided to suck it up and get it done.

Since I decided last minute to do it I didn't have an appointment anywhere. I first went to 11th Street Electric Gallery and asked the rude, grungy, and smelly guy, who was missing quite a few teeth, at the front desk if there was any chance I could get inked up that day. After a few seconds of looking me up and down and no doubt judging my clean cut, tattoo-less look he said "What are you gonna' have done?" So I handed him the sloppy sketch I had done before leaving the house. He glanced at it and said "No way we can do that on a walk-in. Make an appointment, the soonest I can get you in is Monday."

I thought about making an appointment for a moment and then came to the realization that there was no guarantee I wouldn't chicken out before Monday. I had put this off for almost two years because I'm a little girl when it comes to needles, the chances of me not psyching myself out before my appointment were probably slim to none. So I abruptly walked out of the shop.

The next stop was Lost Art Tattoo on about State and 4th. The people here were much more friendly and accommodating. The girl at the front told me that one of the owners, Dean, had a couple cancellations that day and that if I came back in an hour or so he would do it. So I drove home, made Ashley cancel the plans she previously made with her sister and drove us both back to Lost Art just in time to wait for an hour and a half for Dean to finish tattooing someone else.

To say that I was nervous would be the understatement of the century. The whole time we were there waiting my arms and legs shook uncontrollably. I stood up, I sat down, I paced the length of the waiting area repeatedly, I even went outside in the freezing cold a few times. Nothing could settle my nerves. My internal dialog was not helping the matter, either: "How bad is it going to hurt?", "I hope I don't make him stop halfway through because its so painful", "Will everyone here make fun of me if I cry?", "Maybe I should just walk out now", etc., etc.

Finally he came to the waiting area and told me it was time. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit..." I thought.

The area in which they actually do the tattooing is one big room; there aren't individual studios or anything. This means there is no privacy which means any noises, faces or movements I might make while a needle is cutting into three layers of my skin will be witnessed by every single person in that room. Not only was I intimidated but my state of mind went from nervous to almost a full blown anxiety attack.

Dean shaved all the fuzz off the upper part of my arm, stuck on the blue stencil ink and loaded up the electric needle. When he turned it on I just about crushed Ashley's hand with how hard I squeezed it. Then he started...

It sucked...really bad. Its a really weird pain and some areas hurt worse than others. The closer he got to my shoulder the harder I gritted my teeth.

When he was less than half way done with the initial outline I started to feel light headed. I lost all the color in my face and I started to sweat profusely. I was seconds away from losing consciousness when he stopped and had the front desk girl get me some water. I downed about three cups and started to feel a little better. When I was all the way back to normal he told me that people pass out all the time right at the beginning. He said the girl who he tattooed before me went out when he turned on the needle, before he even touched her with it. He has seen people go out when he put on the stencil. That made me feel a lot better and much less embarrassed.

About forty-five minutes into it, some kid who couldn't have been more than 19 or 20 years old sat down facing me on the other side of the room. He was getting a sun or a Chinese symbol or a tribal sign or some stupid, generic, trendy thing that he will regret in ten years. Anyway, less than ten minutes into his tattoo he started to get pale and light headed. Instead of not making it worse by not making a big deal about it, his tattoo artist started fanning him with his hand and asking him repeatedly if he was ok. So his friends who were there immediately circled around him and made a big spectacle. They asked him if he was going to pass out and snickered at him; even his girlfriend laughed. The entire room was fixated on him. I am so glad that wasn't me. That would have made me lose consciousness immediately.

He got a bit of revenge on his girlfriend, however. Later on when she was getting her tramp stamp she started puking violently and couldn't stop. After a while I was surprised that she had anything left to throw up but she kept going. While all her friends laughed in her face her boyfriend shouted at her "And YOU were making fun of ME! Hahahahahaha!"

My tattoo took about two hours. Dean said the outline would be the worst part but he was wrong. The outline was a cake walk compared to the coloring and shading. By the time he got to coloring it in my arm had already been cut up by the outline so it was like drilling through an already open wound.

Even though it was very painful and I was a nervous wreck beforehand, the final product was well worth it. Dean did an amazing job. Not only does it look great but it has a lot of meaning for me. And I like that it is not generic and it is not something that will be duplicated. I came up with it and it actually means something to me. I couldn't be happier about it.

For those who are wondering, there is a shamrock because Austin's birthday is one day after St. Patrick's day. He always used to joke that St. Patty's was really an excuse for the world to celebrate his birthday. The quote at the top ("A Bond That Will Never Die") is from one of my favorite Bouncing Souls songs called "Manthem". The song is a tribute to those people who are more than merely friends, they are more like family.

Everybody take out your rulers

It has been a long time since I've written anything so you'll have to excuse me if this is a bit choppy and unpolished.

The NBA's Western Conference playoff race seems to get more and more interesting by the day. When the playoffs finally get here basketball fans are in for a scrappy, emotional and intense post season. This could be the most entertaining and competative playoffs of all time.

Remember a month ago when the NBA was turned into a game of musical chairs? The Lakers received a donation of Pau Gasol from the Grizzlies and it was like someone fired a gun signifying the start of a trading frenzy:

The Suns traded their best defender and most well-rounded player for an old and sometimes over weight Shaquille O'Neal who has not made a consistent significant impact on a team in almost two years. I told G-Money that this trade would drop the Suns down to the 5th or 6th seed when the playoffs start. He told me I was crazy. How ya like me now?

Mark Cuban and the Mavericks became hell-bent on getting in on basketball's version of a penis measuring contest by giving up their future for Jason Kidd. Keep in mind Kidd can't shoot, is old, and has choked in his two Finals appearances (at least he'll fit in well with his new team in this respect). The Mavs are now fighting to keep a playoff spot and meanwhile Devin Harris is tearing it up with the Nets and helping them try to earn a suprise trip to the postseason.

After that I lost interest. Two of the top four teams made trades that were giant steps backwards without offering any upside of promising futures. I began to wonder if there was any intelligence left in the front offices across the Association. Looking back I seem to remember Mike Bibby going to Atlanta, Cleveland making a trade for the sake of trading, and something to do with the Hornets. When it was all said and done, something like 40 or 50 different players changed teams (don't quote me on those numbers but I'm pretty sure it was close to that).

After all that no one stands a chance of beating the new and improved Lakers. I hate the Lakers. Why couldn't Steve Kerr and Mike D'Antoni keep Shawn Marion and try and out run Los Angeles? Why couldn't Mark Cuban keep his member in his pants? Why couldn't God step down and guide Kevin O'Connor and Larry Miller to making the trade of the century ensuring the Jazz's domination for years to come? Instead the goddamned Lakers are going to win the next five titles, leading pompous, annoying media fascists like Stephen A. Smith to declare them the best franchise of all time.

I think I'll become a hockey fan.