Sonicrusk Blog

I had a chance to go to the Korn concert Friday night.You can’t take a camera into Rabobank arena so I have no pictures to post. So what can I do? It is difficult to describe music without sounding pompous. Riverting, captivating, illustrious. Hell, now that I think about it, I probably always sound pompous.

Anyway, the concert started with a band called 10 Years. I had never heard of them, but they sounded OK. Their light show and stage pizzazz was subdued, but I later surmised that that was probably required by the bigger name bands. The light show got increasingly more extravagant as each band played.

Mudvayne was next. I like this band and the songs of theirs that I know. They were pretty badass.

Korn put on a good show. Great lights and performances. Davis played the bagpipes. They had two drummers playing which is always kind of cool. Some guys in suits and bunny masks played. Freaky. The band played forever, a lot of familiar songs. They ended with “Blind.” Even Davis said that that was the longest they had ever played. Maybe because they were in their hometown and it was the first day of the tour.

California has some pretty strict smoking laws. You can’t even smoke a cigarette after eating pancakes at Denny’s without going outside. But in Rabobank Arena, people were smoking cigarettes like they were watching Led Zeppelin in concert. They were smoking pot the same way. Getting high behind and in front of me. There was a drunk redneck lady behind us. At first, she was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap and propping her nasty feet on the back of my chair. She later moved to her own seat. Her flimsy plastic cup of $6.50 Bud Light kept swaying right above our heads. Luckily, none spilled. Hey lady, if you are reading this, fuck you, you’re rude. And get a pedicure.

During the Korn performance, the arena was dark except for the stadium-style aisles. My attention kept going to an aisle across the building. One blonde girl was dancing sensuously in one of the aisles all alone, holding on to the handrail. She did this for a good half-hour, lit up by herself in the aisle. Tripped me out.

The music was excellent. The last time I had been to Rabobank (it was called the Convention Center at the time. When I was a kid it was called the Civic Auditorium) was for a Condors hockey game four years ago. The seats were pretty comfortable. For this concert, we were packed in worse that any economy plane flight. I had to sit like I was at the Soldier of the Month board, knees together. My feet touched the seat in front of me no matter how much I tried to sit back. Not comfortable. Also, people stand for no reason. You gotta stand too, with zero room to maneuver.

Fun times still. But to that Redneck Lady, dopes that stand all concert, and Rabobank’s crappy seating, a Clarence Boddicker for you.

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Black Dog talks about his son’s burn and some of the idiots he encountered on the way to the pediatrician’s office.

and to top it all off she announced last week that when she’s not in school or working the runway shes a real estate agent. When she told me that she sold real estate I knew she was black hearted sociopath

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I tried to avoid the TV show Lost. I’ve heard that it strings you along, and is quite addictive.

I have a history of getting caught up in television dramas. When I was a kid, my young parents would, like most of America, watch Dallas every Friday night. Dallas ended with a cliffhanger pretty much every week, and I was always disappointed and anxious for the next week’s episode.

A few years later, I developed an odd addiction to the TV show LA Law. I liked the theme music and all of the characters. I watched this show for years, mostly on VHS tape since it was too late for me until the early 1990’s. Maybe my fanship of this show stemmed from the fact that there were no provocative TV dramas in the late 80’s besides LA Law and Quantum Leap, and that indeed is a leap.

I get caught up in shows and want to devour them like a junkie. X-Files, ER, NYPD Blue for a period, The Shield, NipTuck, Medium. I watched four seasons of The Sopranos in eight days. Something like fifty two episodes – in eight days. Later, I watched an entire season of Deadwood in one day. If I had had the second season on DVD, I would’ve watched that too. I’m uncontrollable.

I’ve become addicted to really crappy, braindead TV shows too, I’ll admit. The Mole and American Idol in 2002 come to mind. That’s why I try to stay away from the reality shows too. Not to mention the fact that they are basically shit. Watching a well-written drama is one thing, watching a bunch of narcissists compete for Donald Trump’s hairpiece is another.

So that leads me back to Lost. I vowed to avoid this show. I didn’t need the monkey on my back. I did slip in December, watching the episode where Michelle Rodriquez and the other “tail-end” passengers first arrived on the island. I was in the middle of packing up my old place and needed the distraction. But, that left me unsatisfied and so I felt no need to be on the lookout for the next week’s showing.

Last night, another boring Wednesday night. I was flipping through channels and came upon Lost. I clicked the “info” button on TiVo. The info box popped up – PILOT. Oh shit, there was no reason for me not to watch it. This was the pilot. Of course it would explain everything I needed to know.

I watched the repeat of the two-hour pilot episode of Lost. I was desperately curious for what happened next. I logged on to Amazon, knowing that the first season had been released. The first season was selling for forty bucks. Naw, didn’t want to wait that long. How about Blockbuster? They had that first season of Deadwood in its entirety. They would definitely carry the first season’s episodes of Lost. Nope, I don’t have time to watch 20-30 episodes. Plus, the second season is not out on DVD.

So what did my TV junkie brain do? I went to Wikipedia and spent hours reading the synopses of over thirty episodes of Lost – for three hours, until two in the morning. I took the Wikipedia information and smeared it all over my gums. Ah yes, euphoric satisfaction.

I then added Lost to my TiVo’s Season Pass Manager.

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Added two favorites to my Big Time Links: Black Dog and Shadow of Diogenes. Both totally different yet entertaining blogs.

Paul is more refined in what he posts. Black Dog cracks me up. For instance, read his thoughts on Portgate.

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Four years in the army. The first 1 ½ was fun, engrossing, and full of intellectual delight. It was during this time that I met my best friends, many of whom read and comment on this blog.

All of this dropped off the edge in the last 2 ½ years. Maybe it was because I went to a permanent unit. I wasn’t studying for anything anymore with a group of people doing the same thing. There was no common goal. My permanent unit was full of arrogant, angry, vapid jerks. I remember thinking to myself when I first arrived, and this is the truth, “Only two-and-a-half more years.” Jesus, I must’ve been patient back then.

My final year in the army was 2000. I had calculated that, factoring in my leave (vacation) time, I would get out of the army on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, I had a family emergency in 2000 that required me to take a week of leave. Still, that left me “flying out” as it were on December 31, 2000.

Two-and-a-half years did eventually pass. My unit tried to dick me over until the end, requiring me to work on days that I went to ACAP. For most units, ACAP is your day of work. But since I didn’t buy into the extend-your-time/reenlist game, the army was not very compassionate.

The time came for outprocessing. For anyone that has ever left an army unit, he or she knows the drill. You receive this packet of paperwork with a bunch of signature boxes. You spend a week traveling around the post getting arcane signatures from various organizations. The Px, Sprint Barracks Phone Service, Child Care, Commissary. I stopped by one place where I knocked on a door inside of the division headquarters. A soldier opened the door, took my paperwork, signed it, and closed the door. Ten seconds of interaction. Bureaucracy at work. Luckily, my squad leader let me use his bicycle to ride around Scofiled Barracks and Wheeler Army Air Field , with the labyrinthine road system of one-ways and odd veering turns. The fun part was getting the bike across that highway that separates Schofield and Wheeler.

December 31, 2000 was on a Sunday. The Thursday or Friday before, I went to some building to fill out my DD-214 (military discharge) and turn in my paperwork.

The day before I flew out I spent packing my stuff in my barracks room. It mostly consisted of clothing as the army had sent movers in to pack up the larger stuff ten days or so before. One of my squad mates was a guy named Perry. He agreed to take me to the airport the following day. So, I packed up my gigantic civilian duffle bag that you could fit a dead body in, threw my room keycard on my absent roommate’s bed, and waited for Perry by the barracks smoke shack.

Perry was a married father of three kids. I spent my third consecutive Christmas at his house, getting drunk with he and the missus and helping him to put together a basketball set for his kids (Santa). He picked me up from the smoke shack, which was basically a small covered area where motorcycles could park, and we headed to his place.

I don’t remember if we drank that night. We probably did. I do know that since I had an early morning flight out of Honolulu International Airport, we planned on staying up all night.

We drank some coffee, and watched Tombstone on VHS. The time came to head to the airport. Perry lent me a sweater since it was a little chilly. I had that sweater until last year when it became too small and I gave it to Goodwill. We got in the car and headed to Honolulu.

At the airport, Perry helped me to carry in my bags and check them in. When it came time for me to head to the gate, he shook my hand and wished me good luck.

And that was it. The end to my four years of army service. A handshake.

I went through the gate, got on the plane and flew to the piddly terminal at LAX where I smoked a cigarette with a sexy black lady that spoke with a British accent. Who knows if it was fake? At that point, the army had spent four years destroying my mack.

Back in Bakersfield, my whole family was there to greet me at the airport terminal. This was during peacetime, so there wasn’t any big fanfare or television news coverage. My dad and uncle then drove me directly across town to pick up my truck that I hadn’t seen in months. Then, I drove back across town to my mom’s house, befuddled by my civilianhood and in awe that the army was finally behind me. At her house, my family threw me a party and dinner, complete with pleated paper streamers across the ceiling.

At this point, I had forgotten that it was a holiday. My brother took me to an old buddy’s house to see the ball drop on TV. A fitting end.

I’m still amazed at the dichotomy of that day. Starting out with Perry in his dilapidated military house and ending in Bakersfield watching the ball drop on 2000. I consider it to be one of the most prominent milestones of my life so far. With a handshake, it was all over with and behind me – four years. I would never have to deal with the army again. And, on a personal level, I never have.

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During this recent work span, I had the opportunity to work with a couple of nurses that I have had shifts with numerous times. I’m talking about at least a dozen. These ladies have sat and had conversations with me, telling me about their hobbies, vacations, homelands, and histories. I have worked with these chicks off and on for six months. But Saturday, the day in question, after all of this…

Neither one remembered my name.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and the epitome of rude. Fewer things can set me off. My name, whether you use my true legal or more common middle, is not that hard to remember, and especially at work. I have it stitched in yellow on my uniform. I also wear an ID badge with my name on it. Hell, my name is written on the board in the nurse’s station.

I am actually pretty damn good with names. I’m not perfect, but gotta be in the 90% percentile. I know the names of all 65 people in my class. Names and faces go together for me. I don’t buy into the whole “I’m good with faces, horrible with names” bullshit. That has become a cliché that, to me, signals laziness and inconsideration, especially when you’ve had some significant interaction with someone.

A couple of years ago, I went with my buddy John to visit one of his myriad friends, a young married couple that lived in an apartment complex. The husband was a little off his nut, maybe a little ADHD. On two consecutive nights, John and I went to their place to swim in the complex’s pool (it was one of those 105-degree summer weeks). This guy, the husband, talked my ear off. He played the guitar, talked about music, his old dog that would walk him to school and meet him afterwards. He talked about his and his wife’s pet rabbit that left little shit pellets all over the apartment. He told me about all of his juvenile delinquency and youthful thuggery.

On the second consecutive night, all four of us were swimming when some strange lowlife showed up and talked to the husband. The husband was introducing everyone to this lowlife. When he got to me, I got one of these, “What was your name again?” I was kind of streamed.

Anyway, when this type of stuff happens, I never forget it. I’m a grudgeholder.

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I worked 12.5 hrs today, which I will repeat tomorrow and Monday. On Sunday, my day off, I have to work on two different projects for class. So please forgive me if the blog goes cold for awhile.

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This is something I have been wondering about ever since I wrote a post on Tookie Williams. In that entry, I stated that I was, if anything, indifferent to the use of the death penalty. If it is used, fine. If it is commuted to life without parole for whatever reason, that’s fine too. I tried to show why some inmates are executed – ghastly crimes.

Support for the death penalty should go against the standard liberal beliefs. I am a liberal, and support the liberal stance on most issues. My friend Adjanc, who often comments on this blog, is pro death penalty as well. He is so liberal that he sometimes thinks that Barbara Boxer is not liberal enough.

I have another friend that is against the War in Iraq and a number of foreign policy issues. He has spent many years outside of the US and is concerned with how we appear to the rest of the world. He is pro-choice. He considers himself a moderate Republican.

I know a man that parallels me on just about every social issue, judging from my conversations with him. But he is a Republican, and I assume he votes for the Republican candidate for every election. The only thing that I can think that makes him a true Republican is that he is tough on crime. Well, I’m tough on crime too, and I’m a Democrat. We agree on most other things.

Are we all moderates and just don’t know it? What makes a moderate, to buck the trend in one area? I’ve met Republicans who are conservative on many issues but pro-choice. Is party affiliation or political ideology that capricious, more of a gut feeling?

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I try to stay away from political talk on my blog as there are folks out there that are much better than me. But as I was perusing one of my favorite blogs The Left Coaster, I found this magnificent article that sums up how it feels to be a liberal in 2006. Whether you agree with it or not, I certainly can put myself in the writer’s shoes.

“All of this harm has come to our nation and to its image, and still a cluster of supporters insist on tarring anyone who might question this ruinous administration. One of the ignorant nimrods who regularly write to this paper to call me a Marxist argues that those who disagree with the president are delighted to see America fail, that people like me take pleasure in anything that gives comfort to our enemies. He argues that people who question the reckless use of the military are “pacifist military haters.” There is no truth to such baseless and childish nonsense, but he seems to think it sounds persuasive, or perhaps he thinks it’s a kind of logical argument.

That’s one of the reasons it’s difficult not to think some of these Bush supporters are just willfully stupid.

These people grow more tiresome as they have less and less with which to argue. Their recourse, it seems, is to tag people they disagree with by calling them “leftists” and “liberals,” as if those words cancel out all arguments. These people exploit the nation’s soldiers to bolster their arguments. “

Link to the rest of the story.

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