“If you don’t say what you want, what’s the sense of writing?” – Jack Kerouac “Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.” – Henry David Thoreau
My mom was the third youngest of nine children – seven girls and two boys. Fourteen years separates the oldest from the youngest. All of her siblings were married at least once, and four of her sisters gave birth to sixteen children over the course of approximately twenty years, with one uncle contributing two children of his own. The result of this mathematical clusterfuck is a confounding multi-generational group of aunts, uncles, and first cousins (plus a bunch of once-removeds). I’m the second-youngest of the first cousins, and my oldest first cousin is nearing seventy. Her oldest daughter is less than one year younger than me, which is perilously close to fifty. It’s all very confusing, and the only reason I’m sharing this information is to provide you with some background with regard to the poem I’m gonna share shortly.
Here’s some more poem-related context : my mom was raised in a very backward-thinking fundamentalist church in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. When I say “backward-thinking,” I mean that the women aren’t allowed to speak for themselves unless their husband1 says they can. When I say “fundamentalist church,” I mean that they think the creation story is a factual account of a literal event, and it doesn’t even occur to them to wonder what “King James Version” might actually mean. When I say “tiny town,” I mean that there are still fewer than seven hundred people living in the just under four-and-a-half square mile “unincorporated community” and “census-designated place.” And when I say “in the middle of nowhere,” I mean that it takes twenty minutes to drive to the downtown square of the nearest city-by-definition, and driving to the closest bigger city will set you back an hour,2 and who wants to drive for an hour just to end up in Indianapolis?
“Right now my future’s in the hands of them boys down at Firestone, stuck in Indianapolis, feelin all alone.”
I thank every god anyone ever thought up that Mom left the church when she was pregnant with me, but since she didn’t sever ties with any of her family, and since my older sister continued to attend that church, I was still raised very church-adjacent.3 I know some things about that church, and nearly all of those things are not good. Here’s one of the things I know about that church, by way of example: way back when I was a baby, one of my aunts filed for divorce because her husband was a physically and verbally abusive piece of shit, and the church’s response was to ask her to leave, because divorce is only okay in cases of infidelity. You’ll learn a little bit about one of the other not-good things shortly, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you weren’t surprised to learn it.
This is a “new and improved” version of a poem I posted on my Substack back in October4, and so far it’s the only thing I’ve posted there exclusively, as everything else thither has also been posted hither. I was afraid that someone in my family would see it, since this blog gets way more views than my Substack, but today I realized I truly don’t give a shit if anyone in my family sees it. Only like five of them even talk to me anymore, anyway. I suppose that number might decrease after this, which frankly would make me a sad, but fuck it. Let me just say this: if you have reason to believe you know who I’m talking about, you are correct. Fuck both of those sacks of shit and that bullshit church.
Anyway, after I decided to publish it here, I made some changes from the original published version, mostly stylistic. I prefer this version. It’s different, but it’s still kinda the same poem, like how the two versions of “Don’t Cry” are different, but they’re still the same song. I’m not saying this is as good as “Don’t Cry,” and it’s actually more different from the original version than the two versions of “Don’t Cry” are from each other, but I will say I can think of at least one Guns N’ Roses song that it’s definitely better than. See if you can guess which one I’m thinking of!5
Here’s the original version, if you wanna compare for some reason. I’m gonna stop now. Thanks for reading.
I Got These Two Sack of Shit Uncles
I got these two Sack of shit uncles Both by marriage Both molested children In their own family
Nieces Stepsons Sisters-in-law Etcetera
It’s a big family I’m sure there are Plenty more Who never Spoke up
Neither of those Sacks of shit Ever faced Any consequences
They both asked The Church For Forgiveness and The Church Forgave them and Everyone went About their business Like there weren’t two Sack of shit Child predators Among them
One of those Sacks of shit is Four years dead and People say that He was a Good Man But they either Don’t know Or they Don’t care About what he did To my mom and My cousins and My aunts and Probably more and Either way They are all mistaken He was not a Good Man
There are Good Men And there child molesters And never the twain shall meet
My sister believes That sack of shit Is in Heaven
With Jesus And Grandma
Because he told The Church He was sorry
My sister believes That our mother And our sister Are suffering in Hell Because they both Stopped attending That fucked-up church Of their own volition And Died in Sin
But I tell you what
If either of those Sacks of shit Will ever be in heaven I’d rather spend eternity In Indianapolis
Or their father, if they aren’t old enough to marry off yet. ↩︎
In days of yore, it could easily take ninety minutes to get to Indianapolis if you hit the lights wrong. Now we’ve got an interstate runnin through our front yard, and we think we’ve got it so good. ↩︎
This church adjacency also caused me to be terrified of Slayer, King Diamond, and all kinds of other cool shit for way too long. ↩︎
I wrote it on my mom’s birthday. I know she would appreciate it. I also know she would never understand why I had to write it. ↩︎
It’s “My World” from Use Your Illusion II (1991). ↩︎
I hung out with my cousin Nate a lot when we were kids, but mostly only during summer vacation. If I had a weekday off school before I was old enough to stay home alone, I was most likely spending the day at my grandma’s house, which was located in the tiny town five miles north of the tiny town I lived in. Both towns were very much in the middle of nowhere,1 and both were tiny, but Grandma’s town was more of “town” in the sense that the population was mostly centrally located, even though both towns are still officially considered “unincorporated communities.” Nate lived one block away from my grandma, so when I spent my summer days there, I hung out with him (after Grandma and I ate lunch and watched Days of Our Lives), and the two of us often hung out with our cousin A.J., who lived down the hill from our grandma. When I got into my early teens, I didn’t have to go to Grandma’s house anymore, but I still went at least a couple days a week over the summer (pretty much whenever I could catch a ride from someone) because I still liked hangin out with Nate.
In the summer of 1991, he had access to a space where we could hang out and play his cheap guitar through his even cheaper practice amp without having to worry about disturbing anyone. We set up there and made a lot of noise at least one day a week that entire summer. On one of those days we recorded what I suppose one might refer to as a demo tape, if one were feeling especially generous, and had maybe never heard another demo before. Most of it is Nate on guitar and me on drums, in the sense that we turned two 44-gallon Rubbermaid trash cans upside down so we’d have something to beat on with Nate’s drumsticks. We also took turns shouting random things in our most metal voices, which really weren’t very metal at all. I played some of the guitar you can hear on the tape, in the literal sense of the word “play” as a verb, and when I was beating on the guitar, Nate was beating on the trash cans.
A time machine to the twentieth century.
Nate’s mom walked in the room while we were listening to our tape at his house for the first time, and Nate asked her what she thought. Without hesitation, she responded “sounds like some kinda mental illness,” which we thought was awesome, and so we decided to name our band Mental Illness. Around this same time, I was reading Metal Maniacs magazine every chance I got, and they had been writing a lot about this scary new thing called “death metal,” which was really only “scary” in the sense that I was scared of everything, and “new” in the sense that I lived in the middle of nowhere, and the news was finally just getting to me. While I was scared of it, I was also fascinated by these bands with names like Carcass and Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse and Entombed and Pungent Stench, and I eventually talked Nate into changing our name to Vomit, which I thought sounded much cooler and more death-metal.
I thought the title was hilarious in a way that only a fourteen-year-old dingus could.
I suspect my inability to create a proper logo for Mental Illness also played into my desire to change the name, at least a little bit. It contains way too many letters for my novice-level art skills.
This is the only surviving evidence of my aforementioned inability to create a proper logo for Mental Illness, but I think it does a pretty good job of confirming my suspicions. It also serves as evidence of my lifelong tendency to give up when things get difficult, as mentioned previously in these pages.
The odd thing about my desire to lean into more of a death metal aesthetic is that I hadn’t even listened to any of those bands at that point, I just thought their names were cool. Aside from its existence as a concept, death metal played no part in the music we made. In fact, music played pretty much no part in the music we made. I suppose it’s possible that we made an experimental noise masterpiece, but I’m not familiar enough with the noise genre to know for sure.
I didn’t actually get around to designing and making the cover for this tape until the following spring, which is why the copyright is 1992.
“Ballad of Tipper Gore”was inspired by the PMRC, which was our mortal enemy back then. “Brain Damage” is our most progressive song, in the sense that it goes on quite a bit longer than the others. “Natas” is our fastest song, and was definitely inspired by our shared love for Anthrax and Nuclear Assault. “B.N.L./Nuke” is a very percussion heavy song, and was inspired by my high school. Also, not a single one of these songs could actually be considered actual songs, in the sense that they have a structure, or a beginning, or an ending, or would warrant a track number.
I got a lot of mileage outta that Vomit logo design.
This is from 1994.
There is actually some evidence of musical influence on the tape, if you know where to listen, but I would never blame anyone for not listening long enough to pick out those influences. We were both fans of Van Halen, and their hit “Poundcake” inspired us to run a drill over the guitar pickups a few different times. We also dipped our toes into the blues in a couple of spots, but that was really just a rip-off of Blind Melon Chitlin’, who we’d both heard on a Cheech & Chong tape that Nate swiped from his older brother Kent.2
So ridiculous.
There also exists an undercurrent of Satanism-as-shock-tactic, even though that scared me at the time. Nate was raised in (and I was raised on the edges of) a pretty backward-thinking church, but that’s a topic for another time. What’s pertinent to our demo tape is that Nate was definitely using it as an opportunity to rage against his upbringing, and I was going along for the ride so my cousin would continue to think I was cool. Today, Nate is one of a handful of cousins3 who still talks to me, so I guess it worked.
“Natas” = “Satan” spelled backwards. See how clever we were?
Our cousin A.J. is credited in the liner notes as “backing vocals” and “drum tech,” the latter of which makes me think maybe he’s the one who had the idea to turn the trash cans upside down. A.J. definitely brought a video camera to our jam space one time. If that tape still exists, it contains footage of my first (and last) stage dive, directly off the two-foot-high stage and onto some thin-ass carpet on top of a concrete slab. Not my smartest idea, but also not my dumbest.
The summer of ’91 ended up being our last hurrah, in a way, even though we didn’t realize it at the time. Nate is a year older than me, so when I turned fifteen a month before summer vacation the next year, he was already driving, and his dad made him get a job. Chalk it up as another victory for the crushing wheel of existence over the fleeting nature of youthful innocence.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this lil trip down memory lane with me.
As far as I know, the town I grew up in never got cable television. If it wasn’t for satellites, those people would still only have three or four channels, and then only when the sun and the wind and the clouds are just right. ↩︎
Nate also swiped the tape we recorded our demo on from my cousin Kent, who also happened to be the person who got us into Van Halen. He likely still has no idea how influential he was to a couple of teenage dipshits. ↩︎
Out of nineteen first cousins across both sides of my family. ↩︎
I shared a version of this story on my facebook page thirty-four million years ago, so if you’re reading this now and we were facebook friends back in the Eocene Epoch, you may already have read it, though I suppose it’s more of an anecdote, as most of my stories are. Anyway, I’m gonna tell it again now because regardless of whether it’s a story or an anecdote, I think it’s funny and absurd and just a little bit tragic. You can read it again if you want, I’m not the boss of you.
When I was in kindergarten, we sat in a sort of alphabetical fashion at five or six hexagon-shaped tables placed round the large, well-lit room. In theory, I shared my table space with up to five other kids my age or thereabouts. In reality, I shared my table with four other kids my age and one kid who seemed somehow older.
I was one of the youngest people in my class, so most of the other kids were actually older than me, but “Timmy” must’ve been at least thirty years old.
One fateful day, we were instructed to stack our crayons in the center of the table so the assigned helpers for that week could collect them and put them away in the cabinet before we all went to lunch.
Timmy turned to the hapless chump on his right and said “stack em.”
Eons passed, then Timmy spoke again.
“Stack em.”
The woebegone wretch let out a sigh, then placed his crayons in the center of the table and stared at the box. Timmy grew a foot taller, then turned to his left.
“Stack em.”
This hopeless boob was smaller than me, and he was already stackin em before the words even got all the way out of Timmy’s mouth. Timmy’s shoulders spread, a condor taking flight. The first kid was still staring silently at the growing stack, but everyone else followed Timmy’s glare to the next unfortunate lummox, second from his right, and also, as it happened, my immediate left.
“Stack em.”
She paused briefly, then stacked em before Timmy had to repeat himself. Next, the star-crossed doofus to my right. He hesitated a hair too long, and suddenly Timmy was eighteen years old, and his voice was a one-eyed possum climbing out of a storm drain after a flash flood.
“Stack em.”
The forlorn dolt stacked em dutifully, and I suddenly became aware that everyone was looking at me. Well, not the first kid, he was still stuck in the swamp of his very first existential crisis. Everyone else was looking at me, though. My short life flashed before my eyes. It was mostly Tom & Jerry cartoons, Peanuts comics, Kool-Aid, Count Chocula, and my favorite song.
It’s still one of my favorites.
I’d lived a pretty good life, right up until that exact moment, when a twenty-five-year-old man named Timmy was staring dead-eyed into the depths of my soul from across that table. His nose was caked with snot.
“Stack em.”
Fighting every instinct, I met his eyes and mustered my meanest glare. For the first time, I noticed a scar across the bridge of his nose.
“I said stack em.”
I began to sweat through my shirt. Timmy had grown bigger than my dad, who was the second biggest thing I had been aware of up to that point. His eyes were razors. His gritted teeth, rusty barbed wire.
“Hey bud! I said to stack em!”
I wallowed in my defeat for a single moment before admitting it to Timmy, or to my fellow travelers on the Miserable Doofus Express. I took a deep breath, I swallowed my pride (along with about three gallons of throw-up), I looked Timmy in his coal black eyes, and I stacked em with enough force to level the maple tree in our front yard, which was the biggest thing I was aware of up to that point.
Timmy was now ten feet tall. He triumphantly placed his crayons on top of the stack and croaked “I told ya to stack em,” and then he died of old age.
I made up that last part, but it’s a peculiar fact that forty-four years later, my sole memory of Timmy is “stack em.” I’m not sure how that’s possible, but it seems he was only in my class for one day, which happened to also be picture day, as he appears in my kindergarten yearbook. Thing is, I scribbled his picture out pretty bad with a red magic marker, so I have to assume that he was in my life for more than the three minutes it took him to establish stacking dominance over a gang of luckless goobers.
Look at this monster.
When I shared this story on facebook, I decided to see if I could find Timmy, and brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you that I found Timmy. Suffice to say that while he may have been victorious when it came to stackin crayons, all signs indicate that I ended up above Timmy on the big stack that we call life, so suck it, Timmy.
I’m officially seeing a therapist for the first time in my life. I’m pretty annoyed with myself for waiting so long, but better late than never, I suppose. I saw a counselor for a brief time in my early twenties, toward the end of a mild-to-moderate depressive phase. Talking to someone who hadn’t already heard all my complaints a million times helped a lot, so after three or four sessions, I started to feel a little better and more hopeful, and then my dumb 22 year old brain was all like “I’m cured!” and then I stopped going. Next thing I know more than a quarter-of-a-century has passed, but much to my surprise, life never stopped happening that whole time.
Celebrated American author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) liked to draw tombstones with profound and/or funny epitaphs. Based on my exhaustive research (which consisted of googling “Kurt Vonnegut tattoos” and perusing the first page), this one from 1969’s Slaughterhouse Five is probably the most well-known of his tombstones, which makes sense, as Slaughterhouse Five is his most well-known novel.
Poo-tee-weet.
This tombstone drawing is my favorite. It’s from Breakfast of Champions (1973), which is the first Vonnegut book I read, and which remains my favorite. His drawings helped me feel more confident about drawing whatever I feel like drawing, and about not getting hung up on my lack of artistic abilities.
So it goes.
Thing is, when I look back on my life, I see a lot of examples of me simply not trying, and if I may use the parlance of my childhood, that’s dumber’n hell. I’ll get interested in something until it gets difficult, and then I’ll just quit.
One Example: my homeboy Travis taught me how to play an E-minor chord on my first guitar, and later he managed to both figure out a slower version of the opening riff from Helmet’s “In the Meantime” and pass his knowledge on to me, but eventually my hands started to hurt, so I stopped trying.
“Earth tone suits you.”
Another example: Travis got a set of drums, and I got a bass, along with a practice amp and a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal.1 We made a hell of a racket in my parents’ garage for a while, and we had a couple of our buddies jam with us on guitar while we tried to build a complete band that could maintain a tune for at least a couple of minutes. At some point I heard “Maxwell Murder” by Rancid, and then I decided I didn’t wanna play bass anymore because there was no possible way I’d ever be as good as Matt Freeman.
“He ain’t Jack the Ripper, he’s your ordinary crook.“
A third example: I owned an electric keyboard/synthesizer the whole time I owned my guitar and my bass. I figured out how to play “Hot Cross Buns” all up and down the keyboard by jabbing one key at a time, like when Schroeder is fed up with Lucy’s nonsense.
I could never figure out how to jab out “Jingle Bells,” sadly.
I was able to morph “Hot Cross Buns” into “Mary Had a Little Lamb” pretty easily. I fucked around with the presets every now and then (“Bossa Nova” was my favorite), but after a while I always got tired of not knowing how to play it, so back under the bed or into the closet it would go, until I finally gave it away about ten years ago.
One more example: learning how to deal with life in healthy ways takes effort, and so I quit trying to learn. Fuck that. I’m learning now. And I’m gonna crack the nut that is my anxiety if it’s the last thing I do.
Speaking of non sequiturs, the state of this cursed timeline we inhabit has got me feelin some ways lately that I’ve been unable to put into words, so I’ve been sketching, doodling, and kind-of drawing more these past few months. I’ve always been a picture doodler, and later, when I got into heavy metal, I became a band logo doodler as well. My journals are full of doodles, dating back to the one I had to keep as an assignment in fifth grade, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been more artsy than fartsy in my journals. When it comes to drawing, I very much do not consider myself an artist, but I’ve definitely gotten better over the years, just like I would’ve gotten better at the guitar, the bass, the piano/keyboards, the trumpet, and all the other shit I’ve given up on due either to lack of natural aptitude or lack of positive attitude.2
What I’m trying to say is that I’m tired of not trying, and I’m tired of acting like I have to be good at something to bother with doing it.
“Ya just go out, and ya give’r.”
Speaking of which, I’m gonna share some of my drawings and doodles from the past few months. Maybe you’ll like them, maybe you won’t. All I know is I’m gonna keep making them for as long as I enjoy it, and I’ll probably share more of them here at some point, but maybe I won’t.
What a man, what a man, what a man. What a mighty good man.
Without further ado…
I made this lil ghoul buddy on a shopping list the day before Valentine’s Day. He’s supposed to be wearing a hood, like on a robe, Grim Reaper-style, but as I mentioned already, I’m not an artist.
I did this one night while Sheila and I were drinking bourbon and watching music videos. I was only half paying attention, and I accidentally kinda made a spiral effect, which I thought was pretty cool. A couple of them are self-portraits.
I’m a big fan of whatever this is.
I call this one “Oracle.” All eyez on me.
This one’s called “Flower Power.” The censored parts are not for your eyes.
This one is also a self-portrait. The beard is an indicator, but the sweat flying off the bulbous noggin is the real tell. I have no idea what I’m so goddamn smug about.
My blog doesn’t really look like that (most of the time).
I started writing this thing on January 24, with the Vonnegut stuff, and I had no idea where I was gonna go with it. I’ve opened the file a few times over the past nine days and revised and rewritten and added and deleted and cut and pasted and proofread and almost published, but today, right now, I’ve decided to quit fuckin around and just mash that “Publish” button already. It’s not like more than a handful of people are gonna read it anyway.
I still don’t really know where I’m going with it, but I’m gonna call it finished. I’m sorry if you were expecting a tidy conclusion, or an obvious unifying theme. You’re rarely gonna get either of those with me. If there’s a takeaway, I suppose it might be that five decades in, I’m finally ready to start really facing my fears. I intend to document the process here as much as possible. If you wanna check back in and follow along, that’d be cool. I’ll be here either way. Thanks for reading.
I thought playing bass would be easier, because I wouldn’t have to learn chords. I’ve always been something of a dingus. ↩︎
Bonus example: two completely different times in my life, I’ve started painting and then quit almost immediately because I don’t know how to recreate the things exactly the way I see them in my head. ↩︎
There’s no sense in keepin this thing around if I’m not gonna write, right? So here I am, and maybe there you are, too. Let’s find out where this goes together, why don’t we?
I’m currently spending 85-92% of my time hyper-focusing on how unbelievably goddamn weird existence is, and I’ve written quite a bit about how just unbelievablygoddamnweird existence is, but there’s nothing there to share yet, so I decided to throw together a thing where I talk about some trivial bullshit instead. What’s important is that I’m writing.
I grew up scared of everything, including/especially horror movies. Example: the trailer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge scared the everlovin bejeezus out of eight-year-old me, and I still haven’t watched that movie to this day. The scene at the end of the trailer where Freddy jumps up outta the ground at the pool party? Fuckin forget about it.
It honestly scared me again when I watched it just now.
I’d like to point out that the only reason I haven’t watched A Nightmare of Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge yet is that by the time I finally got around to watching horror movies, the backlog of classics was already enormous (insert joke about how I’ve been known to create an enormous backlog or two, myself) and it’s gotten so much bigger since (so have mine!). Basically, there are only so many hours in a day, and there are a lot of great movies to watch, horror or otherwise. I know the basics of the movie, and I’ve heard things both good and bad from trusted friends. I’ll probably get around to watching it at some point, if only to impress myself circa 1985.
But this isn’t about A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. It’s about the classic 1982 slasher The Slumber Party Massacre. I’ve been aware of this movie for most of my life (the poster, pictured below, also haunted my tiny early 80’s brain), but due to the aforementioned phenomenon that is time slippin slippin slippin into the future, I never got around to watching it, until recently.
The movie is actually not nearly as scandalous as the poster makes it out to be.
I found myself with some time to kill on a rainy day off a lil while back, and I decided to dig into that enormous backlog – really get in there and get my hands dirty – and watch something I woulda been too scared to watch in my juvenescence. I wish I had an interesting anecdote about why I chose The Slumber Party Massacre, maybe some kinda weird synchronicity behind the decision or some such, but the fact is, I chose it because it’s only 76 minutes long, and I’d already spent like 20 minutes tryna pick out a movie.1
Long story short, I’m glad I fished around my gore-soaked enormous backlog until I pulled out The Slumber Party Massacre.
Award-winning author and feminist activist Rita Mae Brown wrote the screenplay as a parody of the slasher films that had become so popular in the early 1980’s. The producers tried to repurpose her script into a more traditional/serious slasher film, and she disapproved of their scheme, which is perfectly understandable, but I feel like it still plays out like a parody in a lot of ways, and the dialogue is damn funny. I’ll bet the screenplay is a great read.
Film editor Amy Holden Jones turned down a job working on E.T. the Extra -Terrestrial so she could direct the The Slumber Party Massacre, and I don’t know how she feels about that decision, but I think she made the right choice. Incidentally, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is the second movie I saw in the theater as a kid (the re-release of Disney’s Robin Hood predates it by about 3 months), and it scared me, too, but not in the same way that the trailer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge would go on to scare me a mere three years later.
Your intrepid blogger on Christmas Eve 1982, doing his impression of E.T the Extra-Terrestrial’s first appearance in the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, whilewearing his brand new E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial shirt.
But this isn’t about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it’s about The Slumber Party Massacre.
The movie never gets boring or drags at all. It should be difficult for a movie with a runtime of one hour and sixteen minutes to even get boring, but I’ve seen plenty of sub-85 minute horror movies that I thought would never end.
Example: I once bought this movie called Wrestlemaniac on DVD at my local Half Price Books Outlet, figuring:
I love low-budget horror movies,
I love classic professional wrestling (the late, great Rey Misterio (Sr.) plays the titular Wrestlemaniac),
Wrestlemaniac is a pretty clever name for a movie, and
it only cost three American dollars,
so it couldn’t be that bad, right? Oh, sweet summer child. It was such a festering turd that I shut that 75 minute movie off before it was over and placed the DVD directly into the garbage can so that no one else would have to suffer. It’s been almost three years, and I sometimes feel like I’m still watching that pile of shit.
But this isn’t about the enormous backlog that is Wrestlemaniac, it’s about The Slumber Party Massacre. The acting is better-than-average for a low-budget horror movie with a bunch of no-name actors, the score works extremely well within the context of the scenes, it’s super funny, the kills are clever and cleverly framed, and the killer (escaped mass murderer Russ Thorne) is creepy as fuck. Here’s the trailer.
I didn’t realize it was gonna be age-restricted, but I suppose it makes sense.
I don’t really have much else to say about the movie. I liked it. It’s free to watch (with commercials) on Tubi. Tubi fuckin rules. To sum up, The Slumber Party Massacre is a hoot-and-a-half (out of a possible two hoots). If you’re a fan of fun, violent, creepy, well-paced, low-budget horror movies, you could find a much worse way to spend 76 minutes of your time.2
Speaking of your time, I appreciate you giving me some of it. If you don’t feel like it was wasted, why not tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit? It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
To paraphrase something I once said on Facebook, if I had until the end of time to do nothing but watch movies, time would go ahead and end before I picked out the first one. ↩︎
Watching Wrestlemaniac with a one-minute long intermission, for example. ↩︎
Hello! In case you’re new here, there’s this band called Drug Church that I’ve been obsessed with for somewhere in the neighborhood of two years now. I’ve written about them quite a bit before, and I suspect I’ll continue to do so, because I assume they’ll continue to kick copious amounts of ass. What follows is something I started writing back in May, when I was on the eve of attending my first Drug Church headlining show. I took a break from writing to eat dinner, and before I got back to it, the show was cancelled.1 I didn’t bother to go back and edit the post at all because I was so bummed, and it sat abandoned ever since, lowering the neighborhood property values and scaring the neighborhood kids (“that old abandoned blog post gives me the creeps!”, they’d say), but no more!
My therapist wants me to set goals, and one of my goals is to write more, and to finish things, and that’s why I’m here right now. This old haunted house of a blog post has some good bones, and I didn’t want it to crumble to dust without at least givin it the old college try, whatever the fuck that means. They rescheduled the show a while back, and it’s coming up in a few days,2 so this seems like as good a time as any to HGTV that shit back into some kind of existence. Add some curb appeal, if you will.
Everything I said about the upcoming show in May holds true in December, and then some. The slow grind and boilin kettle of work is still bubblin away, and some shitty stuff has happened to some people I love, and I’ve really been leaning hard back into Drug Church lately. I never stopped listening to them, but I’d eased up a bit.3 I even went almost 36 hours without listening to them at one point back in October. My Spotify Wrapped 2025 informed me that only five other Spotify users on the entire planet listened to Drug Church more than I did this year.4
I listened to them a lot on CD and watched a lot of stuff on YouTube as well.
I’m listening to them right now, and there’s a good chance that I’ll listen to them a lot tomorrow, too.
I am actually quite surprised with the order here, but you can’t go wrong with any of em.
But I was talking about this old abandoned post from six-and-a-half months ago. The Penzeys Spices part isn’t relevant anymore, in that those spices are no longer new to me. In fact, I ran out of those Indian Special Blend Peppercorns months ago. The company still rules, and their spices are still great.
Anyway, here’s the original post, from May 22, 2025.
👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾
Real quick, full disclosure: the title of this piece is a line from a song by Drug Church. I often (usually) use lines from songs for the titles of my blog posts, but I’ve never before bothered with overt attribution. Lately I’ve been including a video from the band or artist I’m quoting in the title, but it occurs to me now that I should probably give credit where it’s due, lest anyone accuse me of being particularly clever.
I got my order from Penzeys today. I’m very excited. They consistently offer the best spices, herbs, dried chiles, spice mixes, and what have you that I’ve ever paid for. They were havin a “Get a $50 Gift Card for $35” sale, and when I received my card, they were havin a sale on everything that started with the letter “S” or the letter “B”, in honor of small businesses, and also in honor of Bruce Springsteen using his platform to speak truth to power. I took some pictures of my haul, because that seems to just be what we do these days, and because I’m excited about all the stuff I got for thirty-five bucks. Plus I wanna give them a shout-out.
Penzeys is a great company, and they offer a great selection of cooking ingredients, fairly priced. They always have something on sale, they always include at least one free sample, and they often include coffee mugs, magnets, stickers, buttons, and the like for free. If you or a loved one enjoys cooking, you should order some stuff from Penzeys! Unless you live near a storefront location, then you should go buy some stuff from Penzeys!
These pictures aren’t good, but I’m too tired to care.
I’m especially pumped about those India Special Extra Bold peppercorns. 😍
To clarify: I’m too tired to care enough to take better pictures. I definitely care about that horrendous reflection on the bags from the stove hood light that I didn’t notice until I’d already put the tea towel away, but I am way too tired to get the tea towel back out of the drawer and arrange everything again.
I’ve decided I’m gonna start using dried chiles more often. We’ll see how that goes.5
I’m also too tired to care that the Sunny Spain Seasoning and the Bavarian Seasoning aren’t turned slightly to the left (their right).
I’m stoked to try them all. I’ve had the Bavarian Seasoning before, and it’s great. According to the back label, it’s “excellent for all cuts of pork, veal, or lamb,” and if you like to eat those things, it’s almost certainly true, but I haven’t eaten meat in something like 8 years, so I use it on vegetables and whatnot, and it’s never let me down. Tonight I’m gonna use it in a mushroom stroganoff, and I am very much looking forward to eating some of it later. Maybe I’ll report back, but probably not.
I’m too pooped to care enough to take a less blurry picture of this, but I sure do hate how out of focus the letters are.
Speaking of looking forward to something, tomorrow night is the Drug Church show at Turntable up in Indianapolis (unofficial city motto: “If you don’t get lost at least once, were you really even here?”), and I’m fuckin stoked. The slow grind of work has been extra gritty lately, and my kettle is near to boilin, friends. For approximately 45 minutes tomorrow night, I’m gonna sing and dance and holler and sweat and smile and laugh, and I’m gonna forget I even have a job. I’ll definitely write about that at some point.
I’ve shared this video before, but that’s okay. Here it is again.
Here’s a live version, because we could all use it, whether we realize it or not.
This song doesn’t seem to be in their current setlist rotation, but it should be. Holy moly, what a corker!
For now, I’m gonna relax with a can of black cherry Waterloo and read some David Sedaris. I hope something beautiful happens to you today. Thanks for reading.
👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾
Thus endeth the old part of this entry. For the record:
the mushroom stroganoff was delicious,
the black cherry Waterloo was refreshing,
the David Sedaris was hilarious,
I still hope something beautiful happens to you today, and
I still thank you for reading.
PS: If you wanted to mash that like button and tell some friends about Clockwise Circle Pit, I wouldn’t be upset. 😘
The reason for the cancellation was 100% understandable, but it was still a fuckin bummer. ↩︎
I’m planning on writing about some of the things that pulled me away from Drug Church, but who knows when that’ll happen. ↩︎
I know Spotify sucks balls, but I don’t pay for it, and I also still purchase physical media and merchandise from bands. Also, it would be irresponsible of me to not tell you that WordPress suggested that I change “sucks balls” to “suckles.” ↩︎
Message from the future: I used one of those Sanaam India Chile Peppers for the first time yesterday, so I guess the answer to the question “how did that go?” is “it did not go well.” ↩︎
I’ve been dealing with some work-related nonsense for the past few weeks, and some allergy-related nonsense for the past few days, and as such I haven’t really been in the headspace to write anything worth sharing with anyone, but I have to pop in quickly to mention that Louder Than motherfucking Life is LESS THAN ONE MOTHERFUCKING WEEK AMOTHERFUCKINGWAY. To say I’m excited would be like saying that Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes make a kinda cute couple, or like saying that a few parts of Blazing Saddles are sorta funny. To paraphrase my cousin Jeff, if I was any more excited, there’d be two of me. I’m already sad about going back to work after it’s over.
This world’s fucking so fucked up.
I’m lookin at seven-and-a-half glorious days off work, four-and-a-half of them spent with good friends, kick-ass music, delicious food and drinks, and some of the best people-watching this side of an Insane Clown Posse show. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Day One is unbelievably stacked from start to finish, and I’m gonna have to make several difficult decisions, beginning at the beginning: are we really gonna make it through that gate in time for me to see Fulci’s entire set without having to run in public? We haven’t been able to get inside the gates before the first band of the day started playing yet, though we came close with Soul Glo last year. I really wanna see Fulci, though, so I’m gonna try my goddamndest. I pretty much wanna stay camped out at the main stage(s) all day, aside from Marilyn Manson’s set (*insert barfing emoji*), but there’s also a ton of stuff I wanna see on the second stage(s)(Decibel/Reverb), which are way back on the other end of the newly enlarged festival grounds. Not to mention the stuff I wanna see inside the Big Bourbon Bar and inside Kentucky Kingdom. Luckily there’s nothing on the third stage (Loudmouth) that floats my boat at all on Day One. My brain would probably shut down if I had to factor that in as well.
What kind of sociopath decides that Exodus should overlap with both Drain and Sanguisugabogg?
Day Two is the weakest overall as far as I’m concerned, and I’m glad I’ll have a day of relative rest right after a day of full steam ahead. Looking forward to finally seeing Hatebreed (I’ll tell the story of the time I almost got to see them sometime soon/soon-ish) and Whitechapel (they overlapped with Jesus Piece two years ago, and they were part of Hurricane Day last year), plus Insane Clown Posse is playing that day (at 4:20 PM, natch), and I’m real pumped about seeing juggalos doin their juggalo thing. It’s gonna be off the hook.1
I’m unironically looking forward to Insane Clown Posse, even though I only know like three of their songs. Their entire mythos fascinates me.
Day Three promises to be an excellent day for several reasons, most notably that I finally get to see Acid Bath. I’ve been purposely avoiding live footage lately so I can go in fresher, but when I was still watching new live footage, the band was only getting better. Gotta remember to pack a clean pair of underwear for everyone in attendance that day. SpiritWorld, Deftones, Cypress Hill, Stone Temple Pilots, Failure, and hopefully Disembodied Tyrant will also be seen and heard and celebrated by me.
This is the first time I’ve seen any band scheduled at the same time as the main headliner. I daresay DWP rounded up too many bands this year.
Day Four – lotsa cool stuff, more tough decisions. Chained Saint plays at 11:40 AM. Deftones don’t finish until 11:25 PM on Day Three, so odds are I won’t be seeing Chained Saint (or Gates to Hell immediately following). Hopefully we can make it in time to see Accept. Sebastian Bach and Tech N9ne overlap way too much for my comfort, and Bruce Dickinson and The Dillinger Escape Plan overlap completely, and on opposite ends of the festival grounds.
Rrreeeaaalll pumped about Testament.
As of right now, I plan on leaving during $uicideboy$’s set to try and beat traffic. I enjoy what I’ve heard from them more than I ever thought possible (based solely on their appearance), but I figure I’ll be too tired to care about seeing their whole set. It’s like they say, never judge a book by its cover, even if the book has a really dumb looking cover.
Here’s the song the title of this post came from. It’s my favorite Acid Bath song, and I’m so unbelievably stoked about hearing it live. If it doesn’t happen before, the shitting of the pants will definitely commence when they start playin this one.
You’re screaming because there’s nothing left for you to say.
As usual, I’ll be writing something about the experience at some point after it’s over, so be sure to check in for that, if you’re interested. As always, thanks for reading.
I’m sorry I said “natch”, and I’m sorry I said it again just now. I’m not sorry I said “off the hook” though. ↩︎
In the interest of posting somewhat regularly, I’m gonna share a thing here that was previously published on my old blog, Stay Heavy. I think it’s pretty funny, and maybe you will too. I did some light editing before I mashed that “Publish” button, on account of I’m a better writer now than I was eight years ago. I also added some YouTube clips and a few footnotes.
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The second time I met Henry Rollins was embarrassing for me, but only in retrospect. I somehow experienced very little embarrassment while it was happening, and frankly, the fact that I wasn’t too embarrassed from the first meeting to even try to talk to him a second time is very out of character, but depression can lead to poor decision making. I was definitely nervous, but I was also uncharacteristically confident in the moment, and that confidence is responsible for the better part of my retrospective embarrassment.
I went with my buddy Owen to see Rollins Band in Cincinnati in the summer of 1999, and afterward, we hung around the bus because I wanted to give Mr. Rollins a copy of this self-printed collection of poems and journal entries I’d put together. I wish that last part wasn’t true.
My writing back then was heavily influenced by Rollinses writing, especially his earlier writings, and I put the book together during a real big sad time in my life.1 As if all the words inside the book weren’t embarrassing enough, I also included a hand-written note inside, encouraging him to contact me with any thoughts or feedback he might have. I wish that wasn’t true.
For E—– You are the devil You are evil In its purest form You crushed my pitiful heart You left it bleeding and Bruised and Destroyed and I hope You have a Merry Christmas
That’s actually one of the few that I don’t hate, although I think it’d be funnier if the last line was “Happy birthday” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Dig how I capitalized “You” in the penultimate line. Only a true Poet could come up with something so profound.
The only part of the entire experience that does not currently embarrass me is the fact that he liked the title (All Aboard the Joel Train), which, as it happens, is the only part of the entire book (aside from the poem above) that does not currently embarrass me. Putting the book together helped me work through some shit, but I definitely wish I hadn’t given out so many copies so freely.
Watching this live on TV was a transformative experience. Immediately after the song ended, I went into my bedroom and called a girl up and asked her to prom and I didn’t even throw up once.
But we were talking about the first time I met Henry Rollins. That was embarrassing then and now, but it’s also pretty hilarious, and hilarity is why we’re here today.
A whole mess of us (Travis, Darin, Casey, and Casey’s cousin Stacey3) drove up to Indianapolis to see Rollins Band on their tour for 1997’s supremely underrated Come in and Burn. Skunk Anansie opened, and none of us knew what to make of them, although I never forgot their song “Yes It’s Fucking Political”. I’ve listened to them since, and they’re great. I’d definitely like to see them live again, with my more sophisticated middle-aged musical palette.
Still relevant.
Rollins Band was amazing. The crowd was great. Melvin Gibbses bass is still causing my insides to jiggle thirty years on. When the show ended, everyone (Travis and myself excluded) wanted to hang around the bus to try and meet the band, and especially Rollins.
Touch your fear, don’t be afraid.
I should point out that it’s not like Travis and I didn’t wanna meet Henry Rollins. Shit, we wanted to be his best friends. But as voracious readers of his writing and listeners to his music and spoken word performances, we knew that he wasn’t into the whole shaking hands/small talk thing (which I totally get – small talk is the fucking worst), and he wanted people to be happy with the band pouring their hearts and souls and guts out all over the stage (which I also totally get), and we didn’t wanna look foolish in front of Henry.
In short, we thought we were pretty fucking cool.
Anyway, we’re all hangin around the bus, along with some other like-minded fans, and the entire band comes out (sans Rollins), and they’re extremely friendly and more than happy to chat with us for a bit. I told Melvin he was a “bass god”, which embarrassed him, but I stand by that assertion. They all signed stuff for us, and it was cool, and then Rollins came out and began to make the rounds.
Casey showed him his driver’s license, which indicated that they have the same birthday (2.13), and Rollins said “cool, are you a genius too?” and we all laughed, and then everybody else talked to him, one after the other, and I made Travis let me go last to give me as much time as possible to think of something cool and memorable to say to the man who was, at the time, one of my idols, and frankly is one of the reasons I’m still here today.4
It finally comes down to me.
Go time.
My Brain: Don’t be nervous. You’re cool. Say something cool.
My Voice: That was a really great show.
Rollins: Thanks very much, I appreciate that.
My Brain:You’re doin great. Just keep it cool.
My Voice: I really loved your part in The Chase. It’s like, the greatest movie of all time.
A lonesome train horn sounds in the distance. Otherwise, silence.
Rollins: Whoa.
My Brain:Jesus fuckin CHRIST.
My Voice: Um.
Rollins: Thank you, but you really should see more movies. Maybe check out A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s a lot better than The Chase.
My Brain:Jesusfuckinchrist.
My Voice: Um.
And, scene!
I swear upon all that is sacred and holy in the multiverse, I DID NOT EVER think The Chase was the greatest movie of all time, or even “like” the greatest movie of all time. Why did I tell Henry Rollins I thought that? Why did those words come out of my mouth?!
WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME?!?!
In case you are unfamiliar with the “greatest movie of all time”, here’s the synopsis from Wikipedia: “The Chase is a 1994 American action film directed by Adam Rifkin and starring Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson, depicting a wrongfully-convicted man who kidnaps a wealthy heiress and leads police on a lengthy car chase in an attempt to escape prison. It features Henry Rollins, Josh Mostel, and Ray Wise in supporting roles, with cameo appearances by pornographic film actor Ron Jeremy and Anthony Kiedis and Flea of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
Why yes, they do have sex while speeding down the freeway during the chase. That’s not even the dumbest part of the movie.
Rollins and Mostel play the cops who are in primary pursuit throughout the titular chase, and they have a Cops-style camera crew in the car with them. Rollins enthusiastically plays the role of Over-the-Top Asshole Tough Guy Cop, and is easily the most consistently entertaining part of the entire movie, which I have to say again, I have never once almost though it to be the greatest movie of all time, even though I told Henry Rollins I thought that.
If The Chase sounds like it could be a pretty fun and/or really dumb movie, that’s because it is in fact both,5 but I have to make sure I’m being crystal clear about this: as much I used to enjoy watching TheChase, and as much as I thoroughly enjoyed Henry Rollins’ performance as an over-the-top asshole cop, I have never once even considered considering The Chase to be anywhere near even the bottom of any list of “Greatest Movies of All Time”, past or present, but for some reason, I told Henry Rollins I thought that.
I’m sure Travis talked to him about John Coltrane or something cool like that, but Henry Rollins definitely left that encounter thinking I was an idiot, and I can’t say that he was wrong to think that.
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This concludes the previously published content of today’s post. Thanks for reading. Why not tell a friend? I’ll leave you with a live performance of my favorite song from Come in and Burn. Put on some headphones and let that rumbling groove help you get your shit correct.
You’ll always say you hate me, but you’ll watch me anyway. It’s a pain you can’t resist.
I’ve already kinda started, but I’m almost ready to really dig into my wilderness years. I can’t promise it’ll be exciting, but I assure you it will be awkward. ↩︎
This poem was previously published in a poetry anthology called In-between Days, which is also a story for another time. ↩︎
Darin, Casey, and Stacey were in a pretty badass band called Circle of Illusions, and Travis and I were their unofficial sometimes roadies and Number One Fans. I have something brewing in my brain about Circle of Illusions, too. When it rains it pours, eh? ↩︎
At this point in my life, I was less than one year away from my discovery of The Bouncing Souls, which I wrote about previously. ↩︎
The Bouncing Souls saved my life. I’ll just go ahead and get that outta the way right now. They are one of the top three or four reasons I survived the second half of 1999 and the entirety of the year 2000, and I’ve been tryna write about them for a couple of months now, but I’ve been struggling to figure out how to approach it. I’m still not sure if I solved it, but this is something, at least.
The thing about sweet potatoes is that they’re extremely versatile, but I feel like most people only encounter them around Thanksgiving, when they’re covered with maplesyrupandbrownsugarandmarshmallows and sometimes nuts, and therefore do not resemble anything that was ever called a sweet potato. And I know lots of people love sweet potato casserole, and I’m not here to fart on your salad1, but I really believe with my whole heart that if you’ve only eaten your sweet potatoes extra sweet, you should taste a savory sweet potato dish and marvel at the difference, and I guess that’s where I’m goin with this right now.
This recipe doesn’t really have a name – it’s kind of like a veggie chili, and I’ve been known to use leftovers to jazz up a batch of veggie chili, but when I make veggie chili, it’s different from this. This is its own thang.
I’M DAVID PUMPKINS, MAN!
And since I haven’t been able to come up with a suitable way to distinguish it from my chili without overexplaining, I end up just calling it “that black bean sweet potato thing” as in “hey Sheila, I’m gonna make that black bean sweet potato thing for dinner tonight”, and so I’ve decided here and now to just call it That Black Bean Sweet Potato Thing.
It’s a good thing I didn’t overexplain anything, right? Jesus.
Here’s the ingredient list for the thing:
1/2 cup yellow or white onion, small diced (see Notes)
1 medium to large sweet potato, peeled and medium diced (see Notes)
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of hominy, drained and rinsed
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 cups of your preferred broth (see Notes)
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 Tablespoon ground cumin
1 Tablespoon ground ancho chile powder
1 Tablespoon Penzey’s adobo seasoning (see Notes)
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
Salt and black pepper to taste
Notes:
Small dice is approximately 1/4 in (6.35 mm) square. Here’s a decent tutorial on the various types of basic culinary knife cuts.
It would be perfectly fine if you just scrubbed and diced your sweet potato, leaving the skin on. In fact, it would be even healthier.
I use Better Than Bullion brand “No Chicken Base” almost every time I need a broth. It’s one of my secret weapons, except I just told you about it.
Penzey’s adobo seasoning is salt-free. Many adobo seasonings include salt as a main ingredient. If you substitute a different brand of adobo seasoning, be sure to taste it before you begin adding additional salt.
Feel free to add other things, as well. I’ve added diced bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, and spinach. One time I added all of those things, plus some pinto beans and more liquid, and accidentally made veggie chili. You could certainly add some kind of meat. I imagine some kind of venison or stewing beef would be pretty baller, and all manner of poultry and pork can certainly participate in the Thing. The only real limit is your imagination.
Milhouse contains multitudes, yo.
So what you do, see, is you add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to a medium-hot saute pan, then add the diced onions and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring often, until the onion starts to turn translucent, then add the peeled diced sweet potatoes. BEWARE OF SPLASHING OIL!
It should look something like this.
Lower the heat to medium and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until those sweetie pooteeties start to soften, just a lil bit. Next, add the seasonings and the tomato paste, and stir to combine. Cook for another minute or two, then stir in the broth and the can of diced tomatoes, juice and all. Maybe even give the can a li’l rinsiedoodle and pour that tomato water in, too. It’s not rocket science.
Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat back to medium and cook for like 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. The sweet potatoes should be softer, but still kinda firm, and the liquid should’ve reduced by approximately one-quarter to one-third of the beginning volume.
Like this, more or less.
At this point, add the beans (and hominy, if using). Stir to combine again, then lower the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Stir it a couple-few times. Adjust the heat as necessary.
This is after stirring in black beans and hominy, but before it started simmering again.
After ten minutes, pop a lid on the pan and put it in a 250° F (120° C) oven until you’re ready to eat. It keeps getting better the longer you cook it. I recommend using this time to make some rice and/or quinoa, because that really ties things together. Follow basic rice/quinoa instructions or the packaging instructions, if your rice/quinoa came in a package with cooking instructions. When your grain of choice is ready, put some of it in your favorite bowl and top it with your delicious black bean sweet potato thing. I like to top the whole shebang with some diced avocado and just get after it, but it’s also great with any combination of sour cream, shredded cheese, cilantro, pickled jalapenos, and Cholula, and if you like raw diced onions, that’s probably pretty great too, but it’s not really my scene. A side of tortilla chips is optional, and is also recommended.
Here’s an example of what your Black Bean Sweet Potato Thing might look like by the time your rice and/or quinoa is and/or are ready to eat:
So saucy. So delicious.
I suppose it’d probably serve four. I usually cook for two, and it serves two twice in our house. I’ll be the first to tell you that I’ve never understood most mathematics, but I do know that two twice equals four.
Jackprot! Let’s hit the tables!
But I was talking about The Bouncing Souls.
The Bouncing Souls have been making punk rock ‘n’ roll for the freaks, nerds, and romantics since they formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 1989. I first heard them in 1998, a little under a year after the release of their self-titled third album. I love their entire discography from the beginning up to and including 2003’s Anchors Aweigh. I haven’t listened to much of anything since The Gold Album, which I recall thinking was just fine, and is certainly better than no The Bouncing Souls. Even if they don’t necessarily light my f-i-r-e, it feels like newer Souls albums and songs are still connecting with a lot of people, and that makes me very happy, because any amount of The Bouncing Souls in your life is a good amount.
Anyhow, the stretch from Hopeless Romantic (1999) into How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2001) is the sweet spot for me. Hopeless Romantic was the first album they released after I discovered them, and it was the one I listened to most often during the darkest days of my wilderness years. The title track is one of my favorites.
I’m kinda lazy, and I kinda stink, but I’d clean myself up for you.
I could easily sit here and show you 11 or 12 of the 13 songs from the album, but ain’t nobody got time for that, so here’s a quick sampling of some of my very most favorites.
All we had was our dreams, that’s all we needed to be free.
Some of these songs still instantly transport me to moments in time and space from the summer of 1999, aka “Sad Sack Summer”. “Night On Earth” is one of those.
I’ll miss you, but now I’ll know better next time, ’cause I found me.
People probably called the ‘Souls sellouts for making songs like these, but people have always been pretty stupid, so I wouldn’t put much stock into what they have to say about much of anything. Enjoy what you like and if they got somethin to say, tell em to cram it.
Now I know I’m gonna try, and I know this will pass by and by.
This was also around the first time I got to see the band live, on the 1999 Vans Warped Tour in scenichistoricbeautiful Tinley Park, Illinois (town motto: “Where the Allman Brothers Band plays when they play in ‘Chicago'”).
I felt compelled to draw this visual aid for some reason. Dig that butterfly effect emanating outward.
But I kid the good people of Tinley Park, Illinois [town motto: “You might be thinking of the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Noblesville, Indiana (town motto: “Where the Allman Brothers Band plays when they play ‘Indianapolis'”)”]. That first time seeing The Bouncing Souls live was magical, and I even have two washed out pictures from right near the rail, which I am going to include here. The less good one was captured by me, and the other was straight tooken by my old pal Rasma, from atop my old pal Owen’s shoulders.
I sure don’t miss disposable cameras.
That security fella in the red shirt instructed Rasma to get down immediately following this snapshot.
This is the same Warped Tour where Scott and I walked past Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies while he lifted weights in the parking lot. That was pretty surreal.
I was significantly less sad, generally speaking, by the time How I Spent My Summer Vacation was released in May 2001, but I did still seem to still be on a real similar wavelength with the band.
Forget about the things I said, I make no excuse for them.
Like its predecessor, this album could be presented pretty much in its entirety, but for the sake of time, I’m just gonna include three more songs.
Tomorrow’s a lifetime away, she’s all I want today.
I saw them live for the second time while they were touring for this album. It was July 12, 2001, just two days shy of exactly two years since the first time I saw them live, up yonder in Tinley Park, Illinois, back in the twentieth century.
I’m no good, you’re no better, wouldn’t we be perfect together?
I feel like if you’re gonna know one song from The Bouncing Souls, there’s a decent chance it’ll be “Gone”. It’s a good’n.
I needed strength to change my mind, but those ghosts stuck to me like glue.
Here’s the part about when I saw them live in 2001, when the Vans Warped Tour stopped at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Deer Creek Music Center in scenichistoricbeautiful Noblesville, Indiana.
The $ in “music” is an accident, but a happy one.
I got a spot on the rail just to the right of stage left (which still seems to be my preferred spot), and they played “Quick Chek Girl” and “East Coast! Fuck You!”,2 and that’s pretty much all I remember about that set, because I was absolutely blissed out. I got to meet the band that day! I accidentally cut in front of a large section of the line and didn’t become fully cognizant of that fact until about three years later, but whatever, I got to meet The Bouncing motherfucking Souls!
The manager said “she quit, she isn’t here. Do you want me to help you count the papers?”
I told them their music saved my life, and Brian said “that’s awesome, us too”, and when I produced my “Gone” CD single, for autographical purposes, Greg said “man, he’s got all the cool stuff”, on account of I was also wearing my A-Team replica t-shirt (as pictured below – also, it’s the same shirt that my ex-wife later turned pink the one time she ever did laundry) and they also thought that was pretty cool. It was a Top Three moment for me at that point in my life, and if I’m being totally honest, it’s still probably in my top twenty. Here’s a self-portrait I made the day after I met them, when I was working at the music store in the mall.
This is pretty accurate, although my smile was even bigger in real life.
Incidentally, my first week at that job was the coolest job I’ve ever had, then the company became the property of Trans World Entertainment, and the whole place immediately started to swirl down the shitter. It’s still a real contender for Favorite Job Ever, though; I mean, on the bad days, I still got to listen to music and hang out with my friends. The customers were terrible, but it’s not like the customers aren’t also terrible every other place and all other times. But my days at the music store are a story for another time. This is about The Bouncing Souls.
In September, 2002, The Bouncing Souls released a split EP with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania political punk rockers Anti-Flag. Both bands had some originals, plus some covers, and it was a great, high-energy release that also introduced me to Anti-Flag. Then in 2003, they released their sixth full-length album, Anchors Aweigh. I loved it upon its release, and I still love it today, but back in 2003 my life was headed in a direction that did not require the presence of new songs from The Bouncing Souls to help me get by. Since then, they’ve existed more in my periphery for the most part, and while I do believe that any Bouncing Souls is better than no Bouncing Souls, when I get a hankerin, I go with the classics.
I did see them live once more, on the Anchors Aweigh tour in the fall of 2003, when I lived in Austin. I’m pretty sure that was my only time seeing a headlining set from them. It was great, as expected. Then a bunch of time passed, then in early 2020, they announced a headlining tour with a stop in Indianapolis, Indiana (town motto: “Don’t expect an easy drive to or from your destination”). I got tickets for me and my homeboy Matt, who is one of the other three or four reasons I survived that 18 months in my early 20’s, as mentioned way back in the beginning of this thing. The show was cancelled when our simulation received the hard reset that was 2020, and they have yet to reschedule an Indianapolis show, but I’ll be there when they do, smilin like a little kid on Christmas while I dance my ass off and sing along with every word I know.
Give it to me straight, touch my heart, I’ll sing along forever.
Anyway, I was talking about That Black Bean Sweet Potato3 Thing. Black beans are awesome. Sweet potatoes are awesome. You should cram em together in that taste sensation I told you about up yonder, That Black Bean Sweet Potato Thing. And you should listen to The Bouncing Souls while you’re doing it. If you’re capable of having feelings, they can surely speak to at least one of em.
Thanks for reading. If you wanted to tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit, that wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to me. Until next time…
Tell me about your big “but”, Simone.
I made that myself. Would you believe I’ve had absolutely no graphic design training?
I really did fart on a guy’s salad one time. I didn’t do it on purpose, but he kinda sucked anyway, so I never felt bad about it. ↩︎
“I know we’re not on the east coast, but you can all say ‘fuck you’, right?” – Greg Attonito ↩︎
I spent a very long time tryna decide whether I should spell it “potato” or “potatoe” (in the fashion of former Vice President of the United States of America James Danforth Quayle) but ultimately I decided he should be a footnote and nothing more.
Also I just learned that you can turn a footnote into dang ol poem! ↩︎
I work too much and I don’t write enough. It’s a tale as old as time. To be clear, I don’t work an exorbitant amount, but it’s still too much, because human beings cannot possibly exist to work until we’re dead, and if that is the point of this particular simulation, then I’m ready for a reset any time now, please and thank you. Well, maybe not any time, but I’ll get to that shortly.
I’m fine. Really, I am. It’s just that the world’s got me some kind of down these days, friends, and neighbors, and I’m really struggling to maintain optimism, re: our future in this realm. I mean, a pants-shitting, thieving, tacky pedophile with unusually small hands is the nominal leader of the most powerful nation, militarily, in the history of humanity, y’know? And King Dipshit the Orange has some truly evil scumfucks pulling his strings, which makes it hard to maintain hope, y’know? And there’s still a lot I wanna do before it all ends, y’know? And I’m always so goddamn mentally and physically worn out from working and keeping the house and yard slightly presentable in this infernal heat and humidity that is summer in the Ohio River Valley that I never feel like doing anything when I’m not working. And that’s dumb, y’know?
I really am fine, though, I promise.
Hey, here’s something exciting that makes things better for now: Louder Than Life is quite nigh (35 days, 13 hours, and a little over 4 minutes, according to the app), and this year is gonna be a humdinger. I’m talkin a real live wire, man. I had a lot of intentions, re: writing about LTL more regularly over the past ≈ 11 months, but I also had a lot of intentions, re: getting in better shape in time for this year’s fest, and we see how well that turned out, don’t we? (Spoiler alert: it did not turn out well.)
I did slightly update my in-depth guide to getting the most out of your time at Louder Than Life, and if you haven’t checked that out yet, you can do so here.
Some pretty major news was announced last week, re: LTL, namely that the actual physical location of the festival will be different this year, as the entire fest has been moved to the parking lot adjacent to the Highland Festival Grounds. It’s gonna be weird to learn a new layout, and I’m not sure that I’m 100% stoked about the new location. Mostly the fact that it’s entirely in a parking lot, which means there’ll be pretty much no grass, and the sun will definitely be more intense on the blacktop than it would be on grass/dirt. The total area seems to be spread out a lot more this year as well, which will mean much more walking. Careful readers may recall that I logged 34+ miles over the course of last year’s LTL, and that was with one entire day cancelled!
Speaking of that cancellation, I assume the decision to move the festival is at least partially influenced by the “mud” that occurred last year after Hurricane Helene pushed her way through town, but I can’t say for certain, and the reason doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s how things are gonna be, at least this year. My only realistic choice is to enjoy myself, and frankly, I’ll take standing on asphalt in the summer sun in Kentucky for 9+ hours over working any day of the week. Throw in some great music, great food, great friends, and superlative people-watching, and baby, you got a stew goin! Hopefully not a hurricane stew like last year, though.
Carl Weathers was an American treasure.
Further pros, re: the new layout include shade trees throughout, and access to the air-conditioned Kentucky Exposition Center (“an immersive merch experience…featuring festival gear, additional activations, and lounge seating” – if there’s one thing I appreciate, it’s access to air conditioning and seating), which is pretty fuckin cool. The biggest addition to this year’s setup is the inclusion of Kentucky Kingdom Theme Park in the cost of our admission. The park will be closed to the public all four days of the fest, and per the official website:
Your pass now includes: • FREE access to 18 amusement rides inside Kentucky Kingdom, including the Giant Wheel (ferris wheel), Lightning Run (rollercoaster), Scream Extreme, Skycatcher, and more fan favorites. • Extra shaded areas, picnic spots & restrooms •Select concessions, shopping & air-conditioned indoor dining. • Ride hours run daily from 2PM to 9PM — with the Giant Wheel staying open until 10PM for late-night spins. Please note: Hurricane Bay waterpark will not be in operation during the event for festival goers or the public.
I’ll be surprised if I take advantage of the rides (unless bumper cars are part of it, then you just try and stop me!), but the addition of park access will certainly help keep the crowds spread out a bit more, and if there’s one thing I appreciate, it is a well-distributed crowd.
Meet the new map, different from the old map.
That’s about all the time I’ve got for today. Dinner still hasn’t found a way to cook itself. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back for more Louder Than Life-related stuff (hopefully) leading up to, and certainly following, assuming the simulation doesn’t reset before then. I’ll be so pissed if it does.
Before you see the light, you must die.
Only 35 days, 12 hours, 7 minutes, and 25 seconds to go!
Clockwise Circle Pit 