“I’ve been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I’m no dummy.” So sayeth Charles De Mar, best friend to Lane Meyer, the hero of Savage Steve Holland’s batshit crazy, impossibly hilarious absurdist comedic masterpiece, 1985’s Better Off Dead. The movie is probably best known for the paperboy character who chases Lane all over town, eventually following him to the top of a mountain, just to collect his two dollars. If you haven’t seen Better Off Dead, you should change that ASAP. Unless you don’t enjoy laughing. I read somewhere that John Cusack doesn’t like it, but pobody’s nerfect.
Not even in Australia.
I didn’t go to any high school for as long as Charles De Mar (just the standard 4 years for me), but I did attend classes at Indiana University for somewhere in the neighborhood of eight years, and unlike Mr. De Mar, I was something of a dummy. I skipped lot of classes to dick around online in computer labs (this was the mid-90’s, so the internet was still new and exciting), and I also spent a significant amount of my time playing the Star Wars pinball machine they used to have in the billiards room in the student union (IMU). I had lots of false starts and part-time semesters and dropping out for the semester only to re-enroll the following semester only to drop out again the next semester after that, and I never really had any interest in going to college anyway.
The thing with me and higher learning is that I was a smart kid, and I did relatively well in high school, and everyone in the family (myself included) just assumed I’d go to college. I didn’t plan for it, and I only even requested an application to one other place, that being Pepperdine in Malibu, CA. I saw a picture of the campus and decided I wanted to see that every day, so I got an application in the mail, and then I didn’t fill it out because I knew I’d never be able to afford the place. I didn’t know how to study, because I never really had to up until then. I might’ve performed better if I’d taken a gap year first, but it’s more likely that I just would’ve never gone at all.
Anyway, after 8 years of fartin around, I finished my last semester at IU and moved to Austin, TX in mid-2003. About a month after I arrived in Austin, I received a letter of congratulations and acceptance from the College of Arts and Sciences at IU. The letter went on to invite me to attend a reception and get a free t-shirt, and I was pretty pissed that I couldn’t afford to come back up and visit and get the free t-shirt and light appetizers that were rightfully mine.
I went to Austin with this vague plan to transfer to the University of Texas after I’d lived there long enough to get the in-state tuition rate, as I was starting to mostly enjoy the experience of attending classes at the collegiate level. Instead, I made the brilliant decision to attend culinary school (mostly out of boredom), and now I’ve forgotten how to do all but the simplest of math, and the only foreign language I know is some Spanish cuss words, and a few Spanish words for food items.
Anyway, plot twist, motherfucker! I’m not here to talk about all that shit today. I’m here today to share some photos I took recently that I kind of enjoy, and – for the most part – didn’t bother editing. A couple of weeks ago I knocked off work a couple hours early and walked around the IU campus with my camera (Lumix GX-85), my cheapo zoom lens, and my new to me, previously untested, cheapo fish-eye lens. It was spring break, so campus was pretty deserted, though I did encounter a few other people walking around. I didn’t care much for that, but I suppose it was fine in the long run. I saw more squirrels and birds than I did people, which is the way I prefer things. I also made pals with a very cute chipmunk toward the end of my walk, but there’ll be more about that later.
I started my adventure by making my way up the stairs between the IMU and Beck Chapel. I’d been to Beck Chapel for a wedding somewhere in the last 12 or so years, but otherwise, I hadn’t really been on campus since I took my last classes in April 2003. The majority of my classes were in Ballantine Hall, so I figured I’d go there first.
Beck Chapel, with Ballantine Hall in the background
Outside Ballantine Hall, facing south-southwest. That’s part of the Chemistry Building on the right.
Outside Ballantine Hall, facing up
I like the way the blue in the windows turned out.
This one, along with a couple of others, reminds me of a photo from a skateboarding magazine, only without the skaters.
Ballantine Hall, facing east
Curvature
Self-Portrait in Limestone
Next I headed south toward the Biology Building (f.k.a. Jordan Hall). The majority of my experience in that building came from working for my friend Kai’s catering company, where we catered the biology department holiday party, and even though I don’t like cooking for a living or interacting with most other people, those events were really, really fun, and we cranked out an impressive amount of high-quality food every year that we did the event. At any rate, I think it’s a pretty cool looking building.
I can imagine a skater getting some sick air off that rail, or however they talk. I’ve never been able to skate or sound cool, but I’ve always had an appreciation for the sport/art.
My next stop was the area in between Memorial, Goodbody, Morrison, and Sycamore Halls. A very vivid (and very mundane) memory from my first day of classes happened in that space, and I wanted to be there again, briefly.
Memorial Hall is real real neat. Don’t let the fish-eye lens fool you, it’s much straighter than it appears here.
This engraving is back in the far left corner of the entryway in the picture above.
Some of the other people I encountered started to walk into the top of the frame right when I snapped this pic, so I had to crop their feet out, and I’m a little bummed about that.
After that, I walked over to the Chemistry Building, where I got some cool pics from inside the li’l courtyard on the southeast corner of the building.
I’m pretty sure I only had one class in this building, but apparently I used this entrance to get inside, because I definitely remembered its existence.
I always liked the arched doorways in this courtyard.
I really like this one.
I wandered around through Dunn’s Woods, watching birds bobble and squirrels scamper, then made my way back toward the IMU, passing by the Student Building, where I captured another self-portrait.
Self-Portrait in Bricks
This is the Student Building. It’s where I used to go when the computer lab in the IMU was full and I wanted to dick around on the internet between/instead of going to classes. Apparently it also houses the School of Geology, and possibly even some other stuff.
I somehow had no memory of ever seeing Owen Hall before this adventure, but apparently it’s been sitting in the same place since 1884,so I guess there goes any credibility I might’ve had.
Ye Olde Rose Well House, site of Dave getting slapped by Katherine in Breaking Away
Ye Olde Indiana Memorial Union, from the shadow of Owen Hall
And then, on the walk back to my car, down the hill from Beck Chapel and the li’l cemetery, I met my new chipmunk friend, who you may recall from back toward the beginning of this thing.
This would call for a heart-eye emoji, if only I knew how to add one on my Chromebook.
It squeaked right after I snapped this shot! I died! I’m dead now! (Just kidding.)
SO GODDAMN CUTE!
I don’t really have much else to add here. It was pretty surreal checking out places I haven’t seen in 21 years. I’m looking forward to the end of the semester, when most everybody on campus fucks off for a few months, and I’ll be able to explore even more. Maybe I’ll post a dumb thing about it then, too. You’ll just have to wait and see.
I started writing this thing on November 24 of last year. I’m gonna be completely honest here and say that I’m most likely never gonna get around to writing about the rest of Louder Than Life 2023. Sorry if you were looking forward to that for whatever reason. Speaking of Louder Than Life, this year’s lineup has some real duds, but overall, it’s pretty amazing, and I’ll probably write about something at least adjacent to LTL2024 sometime before we actually attend the festival, but for now, I’m doing something else. I don’t really understand it, either.
I’m only super stoked on one headliner, but that undercard is stacked.
Highlights of Days 3 and 4 last year include Run the Jewels, Turnstile, Green Day (those dudes know how to close out a motherfucking festival!), The Bronx, Jehnny Beth, and the delightful couple from Australia who chatted us up before that Pantera thing. That Pantera thing sounded good, by the way, and it was cool to hear those songs live again, as they were part of the soundtrack to my angry youth, but we didn’t stay for the whole thing. Sheila said Viagra Boys were great, and I’m really bummed I missed them, but they were overlapping with both Run the Jewels and Turnstile, and I couldn’t not see all that. They were both transcendent, by the way. Another highlight was talking to a younger dude who traveled from New Zealand just to see Turnstile. He got to experience them from the center of the rail, and I was very happy for him.
Anyhoo, I deleted the part where I mentioned how I don’t write enough, and the part where said I was still gonna write about the last two days of LTL2023, and the part where I promised I would do so before the 2024 lineup dropped, and I updated the first part, and lightly edited the whole thing for clarity, spelling, and grammatical errors. Not that any of it matters.
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My friend Chris and I made a book! He drew comics out of three of my dumb/mostly true/pretty funny stories based on my childhood, and he made them so much funnier. It’s called Speaking of…, and it’s a Certified Hoot.* 50 hardcover copies of were made for No Dice Books, and they’re beautiful, if I do say so myself. They’re also sold out. This is one of the things I had to update. If I’d gotten this post up in a timely fashion, you probably could’ve snagged one. Apologies for my delinquency. I was really unhappy at my job at the time, and I just didn’t feel like doing a final edit.
We had a softcover second edition printed too, and at it’s also beautiful, and with only 50 copies in existence, it’s technically just as rare. Its available over at the website, and I also have a few copies available for purchase directly from me. They cost 10 American smackers, plus an extra 5 bones for shipping (unless you buy one directly from me – duh).
My God, it’s full of stars!
If you bought a copy of Speaking of…, THANK YOU! If you’ve read it and enjoyed it, you should 100% check out Chris’ other stuff. It’s all so fucking good. Witch Shit! is on its own plane. It’s so goddamn funny and silly, and I think about it all the time.
One of my favorite things in the whole world.
The nostalgia that has accompanied the publication of Speaking of… has got me thinking about my childhood lately – like more than usual, even. My childhood seems “normal” to me, but what can that really mean? Alls I really know is it’s the only childhood I had, and it’s been on my mind lately. There was an episode of Bob’s Burgers a couple of months ago about bullying, and it’s one of those very sweet episodes of Bob’s Burgers that they do so very well. The result of all this is that I was thinking about bullying, and how fucked up bullying is, and then I realized that I was relatively lucky in that I wasn’t really bullied much as a kid. There were a few exceptions, though…
The first kid that tried to give me the business was staying at his dad’s house across the road for a few days over the summer. One day we were talking in the front yard, and he threw grass in my hair. I’d just had my bath and gotten dressed to go to kindergarten registration, and I did not appreciate his turd-like behavior. I related this information to him, and asked him to stop. He advised me that he intended to continue with the grass-in-the-hair bullshit, and punctuated this statement with more grass in the hair. I asked him again, nicely, to cease with his fool-acting. He once again did the thing with the grass. I indicated one final time, in a more forceful manner, that I would tolerate no more of his nonsense.
Unfortunately (for him), he’d gone too far to turn back now. He picked one more handful of grass and threw it at me, and I completely snapped. I started yelling and slapping and kicking at him, and he tried to fight back, but aspiring bully or no, he was only six years old, so he was not equipped to understand what was happening to him, and he didn’t let it go on for long before he ran back across the road crying. He told me he was gonna tell his dad, and I think I told him to shut up, then my mom made me come back inside. I honestly don’t recall ever seeing that kid again after that summer. I’m not saying he left town because he was scared of me or anything, but if one of my neighbors freaked out on me the way I freaked out on him, I’d do whatever it took to make sure they didn’t see me again. He definitely had no idea how scared I was about the whole thing.
Once I started kindergarten, there was a kid at my table who insisted on having his box of crayons on top of the stack, and he seemed like he might’ve been up to 23 years old, so I let that one go. I have no memories of him after that, so I have to assume it was an isolated incident, but we never came to blows, and I’m fine with that. I’m a lover, not a fighter.
My third experience with an aspiring bully was this kid who lived next door to us for a while when I was in second grade. He had an older sister, and I’m not sure what his parents did for a living, but I have a vague memory of them moving in, and a very distinct memory of the dad pulling in the driveway in his new Chevette, and grinning at me with a comically large overbite as he asked me “does the neighbors like it?” in the most southern Kentucky accent I can imagine (which happens to be one of my favorite accents, by the way). I do remember that the kid was a bit of shithead, and also that I sometimes hung out with him on account of his age and proximity, and because he had this really cool book about TheEmpire Strikes Back that had some exclusive behind-the-scenes photos. I’m not made of stone.
Basically, he was just kind of a turd to me most of the time in general, and then one day he kept trying to run me off the road while we were riding bikes. I complained about that during supper, and my dad quickly told me to whip his ass. My mom was not on board with that, but Dad insisted that if I didn’t make a stand now, I’d be dealing with so much worse later. With regards to my aforementioned “lover not a fighter”-ness, my friend Jeff and I decided the element of surprise would favor me, so Jeff called him over to some other dude’s house around the corner and told him I wanted to talk to him.
We started to walk away toward the house, and I grabbed him, made one wild punch that I’m pretty sure didn’t land (I figure I’d remember if it did), then I freaked out and started yelling and slapping and kicking at him until he ran crying toward the house. The only visible physical injury he sustained was a cut next to his eye from running into the tailgate of the truck in the driveway while he was crying. I have no memories of him after that, although I’m positive that they didn’t move away that night.
Apparently there’s something to be said for losing your shit and yelling and slapping and kicking at someone who is bullying you. It’s obviously not gonna work on everyone, and it’ll likely get you severely injured (or worse) if you try it on the wrong person, but I have to imagine it would end a lot of dumb, avoidable fights early. I went 2-0 with it, and retired a champion. And my overall bully average was .666, which, in addition to being metal as fuck, would be an impressive average for any baseball player. Maybe I should make a series of training videos teaching my patented technique. I’ll call it Freakout!: How to Prevent Fights by Making Your Agressor Think You’re Off Your Nut. Order in the next hour and get a free bonus video, Thanks, You Too: How to Make Any Conversation Awkward in 15 Seconds or Less.
That’s all I got for now. Thanks for reading. And seriously, if you haven’t ordered a copy of Speaking of…, or any of Chris’s other stuff, do that now.
* Hoot certification by the Clockwise Circle Pit Hoot Certification Institute of America, est. 2019.
Welcome, chums, to the second installment of my long-winded thing about my experiences at this year’s Louder Than Life, which is generally billed as North America’s Largest Music Festival. If you haven’t already, you can read about Day One here.
Day Two was less crucial to us than days One and Four, but there were still a few bands we needed to see, Megadeth being most important to both of us. Tool was the Day Two headliner, and while I do not reside near the neighborhood of capital “F” Tool-Fandom, I do like the Tool songs I know, and I’d never seen them before, so I was looking forward to ticking them off the big list of Bands I Ain’t Seen Live Yet. Godsmack offered direct support, and they’re not really my thing, but they are very good at what they do, and their drummer (Shannon Larkin) is badass, so I wasn’t opposed to hearing at least some of their set. Limp Bizkit was scheduled to go on before Godsmack, and you may have already read or heard about the shitshow that was their set, but suffice to say we were not looking forward to hearing them.
There were some other bands we were interested in checking out if time allowed, namely Gnome, Hanabie., Kittie, and Fever 333, but none of them were dealmakers/breakers. That said, let’s get on with the day.
We made it into the gates just in time to catch the end of Gnome’s first song. We were both unfamiliar with them prior to the lineup announcement, but we always make it a point to check out at least one song from each band/artist on the lineup, because what’s the point of going to four-day music festival with over 100 bands if all you’re gonna do is take up three chairs in the VIP section and watch the headliner? (Y’all know who you are.) Gnome made our shortlist for Friday, and we definitely made the right choice. There was a much larger crowd in front of the Disruptor Stage than we were expecting, but they deserved that crowd and more.
Gnome are a 3-piece (mostly instrumental) band from Antwerp, Belgium, and the members all dress in completely regular clothes, except for the big red pointy gnome hats they wear while they play. They are much heavier than their appearance suggests; they would not be out of place on a bill with Clutch, Red Fang, Baroness, Big Business, or any other big-riffed band with grooves thicker than honey mixed with molasses. They are worth your time. At one point, a very long single-file row pit broke out. I’d never seen one of those before, and it was a hoot. Eventually, it grew too long to sustain itself, and a second line started up right next to the first one. I can find no evidence of this particular row pit on the internet, although it’s apparently a pretty common occurence at shows in Europe, and seems to have been popularized by Amon Amarth fans. (It also happened during Flogging Molly’s set on Sunday, but I’m pretty sure the Gnome rowpit was bigger.)
This is Gnome. They were awesome.And dig those apparent superfans up there.
Hanbie. was up next over on the Revolver Stage, straight outta Japan, and we didn’t stick around for all of their set, but what we saw was pretty fun. They were kinda like Babymetal (i.e., J-pop + metal), but with harsher vocals, and without the choreography. I’d see them again if I got the chance. I was unable to get any good pictures of them, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they are indeed a real band.
The sun was hotter than a bastard on Day Two, so we went from the Revolver Stage directly to the Top Shelf VIP tent to cool off for a bit, and we caught some of Wage War‘s set from the Space Zebra Stage on the screens inside the tent. We saw them briefly in 2021, and they sounded just like I remembered them, which is to say, competent. My notes from this year’s Lineup Research simply say “LTL band”, which in my notes means metalcore with the standard screamed vocals, and clean vocals on a big singalong chorus (I’ve heard at least one song each day at LTL from several bands that, while inoffensive and not completely unenjoyable, are pretty interchangable to my middle-aged ears).
There’s a stretch of time I can’t account for, from around 4:00 pm until 4:45 pm, but I’ll assume we were in the tent drinking, eating spring rolls, and soaking up the sweet, sweet A/C. Corey Taylor went on the Space Zebra Stage at 4:45, and I know we were in the tent for at least part of his set, because I distinctly recall these four dumb-looking kids in their early teens, all with real dumb matching haircuts, who were dropping food and trash all over the ground inside the tent, and who told some dude they were excited about seeing Limp Bizkit. Those kids sucked.
We did duck out of there briefly to check out Headbanger’s Hall, which is a big tent near the entrance that has different music playing, plus video games/pinball machines, and sometimes celebrity bartenders (Corey Taylor himself has been a guest bartender two years in a row), but it was smaller, louder, and more crowded than last year, so we just walked back to the TSVIP tent and got some more drinks before we made our way over to the regular VIP section to get closer to Megadeth on the Loudmouth Stage (fitting for Dave Mustaine)(haha).
I’ve written some about Megadeth before (mostly for my old blog), and I stand by pretty much all of it, but I’ll be goddamned if Dave Mustaine isn’t a consummate musician and performer, and I’ll also be goddamned if I’m gonna miss a chance to hear “Tornado of Souls” live.
We made our way into VIP to the sounds of Corey Taylor and his band playing a real tight cover of “Ace of Spades”, and soon discovered that we were too late to get any kind of decent view of the stage. No matter, though, we were close, and I could still see the big screen. They kicked off with “Hangar 18”, and it was amazing, then they played “Dread and the Fugitive Mind”, from 2009’s pretty okay The World Needs a Hero, then they blasted into motherfucking “Hook in Mouth”, and I turned to Sheila and said “holy shit, I can’t believe they’re playing this song!” (turns out that was the first time they’d played it in 13 years!), and by the time I finished screaming “HOOK! IN! MOUTH!” along with Dave and my fellow true believers, the people directly in front of us offered us their spots on the rail (“these are your people”, the guy said, and I wasted no time taking him up on his gracious offer). As with Deafheaven’s set the day before, my headbanging was fierce and mighty, and as I’ve mentioned previously, our drinks were included with our tickets, so having the rail to hold onto gave me the confidence I needed to go all out.
“Sweating Bullets” gave way to “Trust”, which gave way to “We’ll Be Back” (from their most recent album, which I have yet to listen to), which gave way to “Tornado of Souls”. During “Tornado”, I noticed a young longhair (prolly 15-ish years old) hesitantly approach on my left and kinda look my way, as if seeking permission to stand next to me. I looked at him and nodded, and he banged his head along with me, and when “Tornado of Souls” ended, he looked at me and held up his hand for a high five. I reciprocated, and he said “dude, you’re awesome” in a hushed tone, and I probably blushed, and I told him he’s awesome, and we banged our heads to “Symphony of Destruction” and “Peace Sells”, and then Dave took a break to introduce the band, and the kid said “they still have to play ‘Holy Wars’ and ‘Wake Up Dead’!”, and I said “I know, I’m so fuckin stoked!”, and then they played “Holy Wars…the Punishment Due”, and then, just like that, they were done.
The kid said “do you think they’ll play ‘Wake Up Dead’?”, and I had to be the one to break his heart and tell him they were definitely finished. We chatted a little bit about Megadeth, and he sheepishly told me he hadn’t really listened to much of anything past 1994, and I told him that if he stopped listening to Megadeth after Youthanasia, that he was doing just fine, and we bumped fists, and I never saw him again, but I take some pride in knowing that he told his friends about the kick-ass old guy he watched Megadeth with. Never stop rockin, anonymous kid, and I hope I get to bang heads with you again next year.
At one point during “Holy Wars”, I was goin at it so fast and furious that my big dumb sun hat and bandana flew clean off my head. Here’s a picture Sheila secretly took of me – you can tell by the blur on my right leg that I’m unable to stand still
Headbang stance activated. That’s my young friend’s shoe on the left edge of the frame, there.
Dig that motion.
As we headed back out of VIP, I told Sheila that while I wish they would’ve played “Wake Up Dead”, I’m pretty sure my head would’ve fallen right off my shoulders if they had. We parted ways briefly at this point; Sheila needed a pee break and a shade break, and I decided to check out the line at the merch tent, hoping to take advantage of Limp Bizkit’s set time. The line was the shortest I’d seen it so far, so I decided to get all up in it. As an added bonus, I was close enough to the back stages that I got to hear the last 10 minutes of Kittie’s set and the beginning of Fever 333’s set instead of Limp Bizkit.
While I was in line, the dude behind me was tryin to chat me up about bands I had no interest in, so I was relieved when he finally took off toward the Space Zebra Stage, his Bizkit FOMO too strong to ignore. When I finally got to pick out shirts, I asked about a Deafheaven shirt, and the guy told me they were already sold out. I picked out a Turnstile shirt, then I asked about Jesus Piece. The guy said “oh shit, are they playing?!”, and I said “yeah, tomorrow at 6:30 on that li’l stage over there by the portapotties”, and he said “fuuuuuck”, and I said “yeah, I’m real pumped for it”, and he said “we don’t have any of their shirts…maybe check back tomorrow?”, and so I picked out a Run the Jewels shirt instead, and he said “the man has taste”, and I was like
…and then I reluctantly headed back toward the main stage area to meet up with Sheila, because I also needed to sit down. The one positive thing I’ll say about Limp Bizkit is this: their stage backdrop said “Live, Laugh, Limp Bizkit”, and that made me laugh.
I know taste is subjective, but Limp Bizkit was objectively not good. If you didn’t bother to click the link way up at the beginning of this thing, Fred Durst insisted that the cameras be turned off after the second song because “we didn’t come here to be on TV”, and for some reason the camera crew obliged, leaving the vast majority of people unable to see them at all. I still had to hear them, though, and that was less enjoyable than I’d imagined. And between songs, when DJ Lethal (who, along with guitarist Wes Borland, really should know better) was spinning and doin DJ thangs and whatnot, Fred Turdst just talked and talked and talked, and he really seems to think that his whole schitck from the late 90’s is still cute and funny, as if it ever was cute or funny in the first place.
Apparently we missed out on an amazing set from Fever 333, but ultimately that’s okay, because they’ve been at LTL before, and almost certainly will be there again, and we got to rest, and rest is important at a marathon slog like Louder Than Life.
Godsmack were next, over on the Loudmouth Stage, and as I mentioned before, they’re not really my thing, but they are very good at what they do, and they sounded great, and the crowd was into them, and just about anything was preferable to what we’d just experienced. We posted up in the TSVIP viewing tent so we’d have a decent spot for Tool. I took these pictures of the crowd just before Godsmack…
Nothin much to say about this one…
Sure is a lot of people.
After Godsmack brought the house down with a rousing rendition of “I Stand Alone” (which happens to be the only Godsmack song I know), Sheila struck up a conversation with a lovely couple from New Zealand (!) who were nice enough to let us use some of their table space for our beverages. They’ve been attending Louder Than Life the same number of years we have, and like us, they make it their vacation every year (although theirs is obviously quite a bit more expensive).
Anway, Tool hit the stage promptly at 8:55 PM, and as expected, they sounded great and their visuals were top notch, but the more time passes (thereby allowing me to reflect on it more), the more I realize I found their set to be fairly boring. It might’ve been the festival setting, or it might’ve been my post-Megadeth exhaustion, or it might’ve been a combination of the two, or maybe I just find them boring live. At any rate, after “Forty Six & 2”, I found my mind wandering quite a bit during their set, and I was kinda relieved when it was over, until I realized they stopped playing 10 minutes early and didn’t play “Ænema”, “Sober”, or “Prison Sex”, and since guitarist Adam Jones said in an interview that they “might dig a couple oldies out” on their fall tour, that’s just dumb (especially when you consider the fact that they played “Ænema” at their Aftershock performance last night). Poor form, Tool. Not everybody watching you at a festival is a Tool superfan…some of us wanna hear the “hits”.
This is the best picture of Tool’s set I could manage.
After they were finished, we made our way back to the shuttle pickup spot just as a bus was pulling away, and we settled in to wait with a quickly growing crowd. A man and a woman who work for Pegasus Transportation were standing by, and they both assured us that another bus was en route, and would be there “shortly”. After a fair amount of time passed with absolutely no sign of a bus anywhere, the crowd began to express some dissatisfaction with the situation. We were assured that a bus would be there “soon”, and were told that police were re-routing traffic a different way. Long story short, the next bus didn’t arrive for over an hour, well after the last cars were out of the parking lot, and when it did finally arrive, there were enough people waiting behind us to fill up at least another bus-and-a-half.
The man (who we found out was the GM) and the woman (who we found out was their primary customer service liason) did their best to calm the crowd down, but ultimately, the fact that they weren’t just honest with us about our wait time from the outset made us angrier than we would’ve otherwise been. People were resorting to urinating (and probably more) behind bushes next to the Kentucky Exposition Center, and the possibility of a Lord of the Flies-type situation didn’t seem too far-fetched toward the end. They did better the rest of the fest, but if there’d been a repeat of that situation either of the next two nights, I would’ve quit my job to make Bringing Down Pegasus Transportation my life’s work. Luckily that didn’t happen, and I’m able to continue having a job that actually pays me.
That’s all for this installment. Check back soon(ish) for Part Three, a.k.a. the day we finally got back early enough to relax in the hotel room and turn in early. And if you like what you’ve read, why not tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit? I know I would, if I had any friends.
Welcome party people. And if there are any party poopers reading this, welcome to you, too. Maybe you’ll have some fun in spite of yourself. Before we continue, a disclaimer: if you’re looking for a straight-up review of the festival itself, you’ll prolly wanna look elsewhere. This is, as the title indicates, sort of a review of Day One, but it’s also a review of my day. Of course, I’d be thrilled if you decided to read on anyway, but I don’t wanna waste your time. Onward…
I’m here today (finally) to start writing about Louder Than Life 2023. It was the third year in a row that Sheila and I attended, plus we were there for one day in 2019, on Guns ‘n’ Roses Day (which I prefer to think of as Ice Cube/Suicidal Tendencies/Andrew WK/Anti-Flag day, but that’s beside the point), and we already bought our tickets for next year, because despite all the annoyances and the fact that there are always gonna be some real stinkers in the lineup, we always have a good time at the fest, and in the city of Louisville.
Quick side track: I didn’t write about last year’s LTL, but it was a mostly amazing time as well, aside from the fact that my father passed away the morning of the first day, after a long bout with various maladies and a broken heart. I saw some amazing performances, and had a ton of fun with Sheila and a couple of good friends of ours, and the live music helped me process all the feelings I was feeling during the weekend, and singing along with however-many-thousand fans while Alice in Chains played “Rooster” on the last night was one of the most incredible and cathartic experiences of my life. There was also a dark cloud hanging over this year’s fest for us, but I’m not gonna write about that yet, because this thing is already long enough. I did write about LTL2021, and if you’re so inclined, you can check those posts out here and here (Part 1 also includes a little about our one-day experience that first year).
We went all out this year and got Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP tickets, because we decided last year that this festival is likely just gonna be our vacation every year from now on. I can say for certain that there is absolutely no going back from Top Shelf VIP (TSVIP). There was a large air-conditioned tent with screens showing the main stage goings on, food catered by an award-winning (apparently celebrity) Louisville chef, no charge for drinks in the tent (or on the large elevated viewing platform in front of the tent), air-conditioned restrooms with flushable toilets/urinals, and just the absolute nicest fucking people working inside the area, from the people picking up trash, wiping off tables, and cleaing the restrooms to the bartenders to the catering folks to the guys at the gate who said “welcome back” everytime we came back into Top Shelf after the first time.
A kindly stranger took this photo of us inside the Top Shelf VIP area one of the nights (Friday, I think). It’s not a great pic, but it’s a pretty accurate representation of our expereince.
Our fancy-pants wristbands also got us into regular VIP, which we took advantage of a few of times to get a little closer to the bands on the “Loudmouth” stage (the two main stages are side-by-side, and are called “Loudmouth” and “Space Zebra”; one band plays while the next one sets up, back and forth, throughout the day), and of course we had access to all the General Admission areas, which include most of the food vendors, the merchandise tent, and the other three (!) stages. The “Revolver” and “Disruptor” stages replaced the single second stage last year, and another, smaller stage (“Road Hounds”) was also added last year. The idea is to allow more bands to play, as well as to help keep the crowd a bit spread out throughout the day, which are both great ideas, but the downside is the extra stages also make it completely impossible for people to see all the bands they wanna see.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. We got into town Wednesday afternoon after stopping for pizza and beer at New Albanian Brewing Company Pizzeria & Public House across the river (excellent pizza and beer, by the way), and after checking in to the hotel, we walked over to Bluegrass Brewing Company for another beer, then crossed the street and visited Down One Bourbon Bar, both of which are worth checking out if you enjoy human alcohol beverages (the food at BBC is great, too, but I can’t speak to the food at Down One). After Down One, we went up three (see what I did there) to Al J’s at the Conservatory (formerly known (to us, anyway) as “Fishbar”), a cool bar in the enclosed walkway between the Galt House East Tower (where we stayed) and the Galt House West Tower, for what was going to be a nightcap. There we struck up conversation with a very nice lady named Ashley who was in town from New Orleans for the festival. After she left, we decided to go down to the second floor for a for-real-this-time nightcap at Jockey Silks, the bourbon bar in see the West Tower.
While sitting at the bar there, a lady in a very fancy looking floral-print dress approached Sheila and said “who are you most excited about seeing tomorrow? I know y’all are going to the festival.” There were a couple of different business functions going on at the hotel that weekend, as well, and generally speaking, the two different types of people in the hotel common areas (“business types” and “festival types”) were pretty easy to tell apart, but I have to say, this lady surprised me. We ended up hanging out with her and her two male companions (311 superfans one and all), who were also all from Louisiana (she and the taller guy made it a point to let us know that they were from New Orleans, and the other guy was “just a Cajun”). Turns out they were dressed up because they’d just gone to dinner at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, and they just wanted to look fancy for their fancy dinner.
While chatting with them at Jockey Silks, one of them asked us if we knew of any “cool underground bars” nearby, to which Sheila replied “as a matter of fact, there is a really cool bar two blocks from here that is literally underground. It’s called Troll Pub, and it’s built into the ground and has secret rooms and everything.” They were immediately on board, and I had to text a buddy of mine from New Orleans for advice on how to hang with his people (his response: “lol Throwing up makes room for more alcohol. Just roll with it. BTW if they are from the wank (westbank), run.” Then he shared a video.)
For the record, our one-night pals were not like Popeye.
Anway, we woke up pretty hungover from partying with those lunatics, and were very nearly late for our breakfast reservation at Wild Eggs (which never disappoints). We made it just in time, though, and everything was delicious and perfect, and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for Day One. Side note: I wore my bitchin Bifocal Media ALL shirt to breakfast, and as we sat down, a lady a few tables over said “I love your shirt! I always see Descendents shirts, and ALL doesn’t get enough respect!” and I told her I agreed.
It’s this shirt, but in a dark gray. ALL!
Holy shit, I haven’t even really talked about the festival yet. Onward!
We caught the shuttle from the hotel to the gate and made it inside the grounds while Pinkshift was playing on the Loudmouth Stage. We wanted to try and catch their set, but we only got the last two songs. They sounded good. We checked out the TSVIP area, got some drinks, and went up to the viewing platform to check it out while Call Me Karizma played the Space Zebra stage. They were not for us, but luckily they only played for 30 mintues. The highlight of their set was seeing their frontman (who seemed to be trying really hard to look cool) accidentally spit on his own chest. We went over to regular VIP to be closer for Mannequin Pussy, which was the first band from Day One that Sheila was adamant about checking out. They sounded great, and they deserved a bigger audience, but they layed it all out for the crowd that was there.
My phone camera does not take very good pictures, but this is Mannequin Pussy. They were dope.
Toward the end of their set we began the long journey to the opposite end of the grounds to hopefelly catch some of Guerilla Warfare over on the Disruptor Stage. They’re a super high energy three-piece from Louisville who blast out a cool mix of hip-hop and metal, with some hardcore-style backing vocals thrown in for good measure. The drummer, Garrett Hood, does most of the vocals (singing drummers always fascinate me), but the bassist and the guitarist get in there and scream a bunch, too. They were tight as hell and super passionate. I’d love to see them in a more intimate setting.
I’m 99% sure the guitar player is wearing houndstooth chef pants.
We went back to TSVIP after Guerilla Warfare for a pee break and some more drinks while White Reaper (also from Louisville) played the Loudmouth Stage. They were good, but we were on a mission to get back to the Disruptor Stage in time to see Starcrawler, and we were successful. They’re kinda hard to describe, but they’re dirty and sleazy and fun as fuck, and frontwoman Arrow De Wilde absolutely commanded that crowd while jumping and writhing around, shaking her hips, simulating masturbation, spitting, cursing, and swinging the microphone around like it was her dick. Sheila said that De Wilde reminded her of a female Iggy Pop, and that’s about as good a description as any. It was a wild show (no pun intended).
It’s a very “First World” thing to complain about, but I envy people who have a good camera on their phone.
We had some time to kill, so we got some delicious iced coffees with oatmilk, had some more TSVIP snacks, and then I tried to find my friend Maggy, who I just found out that morning was coming for the day. We kept just missing each other, but I wasn’t about to miss Coheed & Cambria on the Loudmouth Stage at 4:40. I told Maggy we’d be in the VIP section watching them, then I’d try to find her. I’m not super familiar with their discography, but I’ve heard them a lot, because I always seem to have at least one co-worker who is really into them. More specifically, I’m very familiar with two of their songs, and they happen to be the band’s biggest “hits”. Anyway, I wasn’t there to pretend to be a superfan, I just wanted to catch what I’d heard was an impeccable stage show. We secured our spots just in time for the band to kick off their phenomenal (albeit too brief) 10-song set, and the weather was perfect, and the sound was perfect, and for 45 minutes, everything was perfect (except for my shitty phone camera), and they only played one of the two songs I know (“Welcome Home”), but I didn’t even care that I didn’t get to hear “The Suffering”, because I’ll definitely go see them next time they’re anywhere near me on tour, and you should, too.
Thank the gods for the big screens.
This one has some elements of a pretty cool shot, at least.
Here’s one that I like.
After Coheed’s set, I finally found Maggy, and we got to talk for a few minutes, but then as 311 began I had to haul ass back over to the Disruptor Stage for L7, because fuckin duh. I don’t really know any 311 songs, but I probably would’ve watched some of their set if there wasn’t a band I’d rather see going on simultaneously (although the little bit I heard did sound very good, and I hope those maniacs from New Orleans and their Cajun friend had a blast).
Long story short, L7 was fuckin great (duh). They haven’t lost a step, and the crowd was very into them, and I’ll tell you hwat, when they played “Shitlist” and then flowed straight into “Pretend We’re Dead”, I thought I was gonna lose my mind. Like Coheed & Cambria before them, their set was only 10 songs, but it was flawless.
For some reason, Suzi Gardner is absent from every photo I took of L7, but I swear she was there. She even sang lead on the first song.
San Francisco, CA “blackgaze” legends Deafheaven immediately followed L7 on the adjacent Revolver Stage, and I was pretty pumped about seeing them. I’ve been aware of Deafheaven since 2013, when they released their divisive second album, Sunbather, but I never really bothered to listen to them until I saw that they were gonna be at LTL this year. I don’t really get into black metal all that much, with a few exceptions, but I still wanted to check them out, as I wasn’t sure when I might get a chance to see them again. I listened to a few songs and I was into it enough to wanna check them out. Then a couple of weeks before the fest, the October issue of Decibel Magazine arrived in my mailbox, and featured Sunbather as its (then) newest inductee into their hallowed Hall of Fame. I played the album while I read the HOF piece, then I played it again, and I was officially stoked to see Deafheaven.
Anyway, as soon as L7 finished up, I took about 10 steps the right, secured a spot on the rail, and waited patiently along with what seemed like not nearly enough people. Then I rememberd that it was Thursday, and a lot of people probably still had to work and whatnot, then I remembered that Rancid had started playing on the Space Zebra Stage 10 minutes prior. I wanted to see Rancid, even though Tim Armstrong sounds and purposely looks like brain-damaged hobo (especially when he’s not actively playing his guitar – seriously, I always expect his pants to just fall around his ankles when I see him on stage). Rancid played an important role in my musical development when I was in my late teens-early twenties, and while I haven’t really listened to anything from them sincetheir second self-titled album (from 2000), it would’ve been cool to hear “Ruby Soho” and “Old Friend” and “Olympia WA” and a lot of their other old bangers, but I saw them a couple of times back in the good old days of the Warped Tour, so I opted to stay put for Deafheaven while Sheila went to check out Rancid (but not before snapping some pics of Deafheaven for me, with her superior camera).
See?
Deafheaven came out to the strains of Jimmy Scott singing “Sycamore Trees” from the final episode of the original run of Twin Peaks, which was very fucking cool, and the band started in with some feeback, and frontman George Clarke came out and held his microphone stand up in the air, then the riffs began, and for the next 50 minutes, I was transported away from all my cares and worries and anxieties (although I was very glad I had that rail to hold onto, because I definitely would’ve ended up on the ground from the sheer force of my head bangery). One of the security dudes in front of the stage was lowkey into the sounds that were coming from behind him, and I couldn’t tell whether he was already a fan or if he was becoming one, but either way, it was kinda cool to see.
Fucking beautiful.
After Deafheaven I high-tailed it back over to Top Shelf to meet up with Sheila for Weezer and found her with “My Name is Jonas” already in progress. I have mixed feelings about Weezer, and rightfully so. It’s kind of a cliche at this point to say that they peaked with their first two albums, but it’s also not incorrect. Their second self-titled album has some good songs on it, and I bought Maladroit at K-Mart the day it came out in 2002 and didn’t hate it, although I’m pretty sure I haven’t listened to any of it in about 15 years, and “Dope Nose” is the only song I can remember at all.
Side note: in a fun twist, Sheila was actually the cashier who rang me up that day (before we were married, obviously).We were acquainted on account of her sister worked with me at Burger King, and also because her best friend Chris and I were cool with each other. Our friend Amy once said that we were “shadows of each other’s lives for so long, it only made sense that we’d end up together”, and as is often the case, Amy is not wrong.
Anway, I was talking about Weezer, and how they have no business sounding so goddamn good in 2023. When I found Sheila, she tried to get me to come closer, but I declined, not wanting to get in front of the group of people who were already packed in behind her. Next thing I know, the group had made a path for me, and one of the dudes yelled “Joel! Get the fuck up here, goddamnit!” and who am I to refuse such an enthusiasitc invitation? We got to sing along together to the final refrain of “Jonas”, then we spontaneously began to dance and sing along with “Beverly Hills”, much to my self-disappointment. They followed that up with two songs I didn’t know, but which still had enough of a groove to dance to, then their breakout hit “Undone – The Sweater Song” began, and we temporarily lost our minds, then they flowed directly into “Only in Dreams”, which was just incredible, then another newer song, then “Island in the Sun” from their mostly-okay-but-not-nearly-as-good-as-the-first-two third album, which is also their second self-titled album (out of, if I’m not mistaken, six self-titled albums), and around that point we began to be consumed by hunger.
“Island in the Sun” faded into another newer song, so I decided to take that opportunity to empty my bladder and go find us some pizza. I got about 50 yards outside of Top Shelf just as “Say It Ain’t So” began, and that was a stone cold bummer. That’s been my favorite Weezer song since the first time I heard it, but at least I could still hear it loud and clear for the entirety of my walkabout, and I got to sing along to it with a bunch of enthusiastic strangers as I walked through the crowd. I got us some pizza from a place long since forgotten and made my way back as the band played another song I didn’t know. We scarfed down our pizza and enjoyed the absolute hell outta “Surf Wax America” and “Buddy Holly”, then got super amped for Foo Fighters.
I saw Foo Fighters once before, when they were touring for 2005’s In Your Honor (Weezer was actually the opening band then, oddly enough), and they were just brilliant. It was the first time I’d been to a show in a venue that big (the former Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX) in a lot of years, and the sheer volume of the band and the crowd together solidified me as a legit fan. Subsequent less-than albums caused me to walk back a bit of my fandom (I’ll never forget the proufound sense of disappointment we experienced while watching them perform “Shame, Shame” on Saturday Night Live in 2021 – shame, shame, indeed), but I was still pumped to see them again, because while every song may not be a home run (or even a sacrifice bunt), when Foo Fighters play a kickass song, they make that song kick some serious motherfucking ass.
They started off with “All My Life”, and the crowd was real into it. They followed up with two newer songs, but I didn’t know those songs, and I’d had several drinks by that point, therefore I do not remember those songs. “Learn to Fly” was next, and it was glorious, and then there were two more newer songs (including one from their newest album), and then “Times Like These” (which is one of my favorites) then “Generator” and “Breakout”, and then band introductions (and what a band!) coupled with snippets of cover songs, and then “My Hero”, which I have to assume made nearly everyone in attendance cry along with me, and that rolled right into “This is a Call”, which caused to me to lose my mind for approximately the 15th time that day, then another newer song started, and Sheila said “I’m really sad about this, but I have to go.” I responded “but they haven’t played “Best of You” or “Everlong”!”, to which she replied “you can stay if you want, but I have to go. I’m so tired.”
And while I very much wanted to stay, I left with her, because truth be told, I was also tired as fuck, plus I didn’t wanna risk having to sit next to a stranger on the shuttle back to the hotel. By the time we got out of the restrooms and began our walk toward the gates, the band had started to play “Shame, Shame” for some reason, and what seemed like about half the crowd suddenly decided they also had to go. That song really is a turd. So we ended up missing “Monkey Wrench”, “Best of You”, “Everlong”, and a couple of others, but that was okay, because it was only the first day, and while the next two days were overall less exciting for us than the last day, and while we’re pretty well seasoned at the festival thing at this point, we still needed to rest up. A four day music festival is a marathon, goddamnit, not a sprint – especially for a couple of middle-aged goobers like us.
Besides, someone was obviously gonna record the songs we missed and post them on youtube.
That’s all for Day One. Keep an eye out for Part Two, which will hopefully be finished in a day or two, and may end up including Day Two and Day Three together, although knowing me, it might only include half of Day Two (I’m starting to confuse myself), because as you almost certainly know by now, I can be a bit long-winded. Thanks for reading, and if you wanted to tell a friend about my nonsense, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I’ll close out with a few pictures from Day One that didn’t really fit anywhere else.
Those are the main stages in the middle there, “Loudmouth” on the left and “Space Zebra” on the right, and the Top Shelf VIP viewing platform just to the right of the stages.
The festival grounds are enormous. The li’l black box just left of center, to the right of the big tent, is the “Road Hounds” stage, where I found Jesus (Piece).
If you squint and use your imagination, you can kind of make out the “Disruptor” and “Revolver” stages toward the left side of the frame, way in the back, there.
I like how the Running Man in the bottom left corner appeared between this picture and the one before. I’m not sure where he was hurrying off to, but I hope he made it in time.
God afton, reader(s). That’s Swedish for “good evening”. I apologize if it’s not evening where you are as you read these words. Either way, howdy.
I haven’t written anything in a long while, and I always bother to mention that every time I do finally write something, so I suppose it’s a meaningless thing to mention, but does anything really have meaning?
Anyway, I’m here to write, and you’re here to read (presumably), so let’s get to it.
If you’ve read more than 3-4 of the things I’ve written for this blog, you should, at the very least, know these two Things About Me:
I love music (live music in particular) more than anything on this planet/simulation other than family and friends. Music is my religion, and live music is my praise and worship service, my tent revival, my communion, my High Holidays, and every other significant religious thing I don’t know anything about rolled into one. Being in a like-minded crowd experiencing a band I love is what saves me. It keeps me from giving up, it keeps me (relatively) sane, and it keeps me from, for example, losing my shit on the kid with the dumb haircut who kept dropping, spilling, and throwing stuff all over the ground, all while flipping his dumb bangs out of his dumb face, even though his dumb hair wasn’t long enough to impede his dumb vision in any kind of way. But that’s a story for later, although its inclusion to the #1 Thing About Me is a perfect transition into the second Thing About Me…
I can be long-winded as shit, especially in my writing, and sometimes the point I reach at the end of a thing is not exactly the point I set out to make, but remember: it’s about the journey, not the destination, or something like that.
I say all that to say this:
Mrs. Circlepit and I recently attended our third full (fourth partial) Louder Than Life weekend in our home-away-from home, Louisville, KY, and it was an overall positive-to-amazing experience peppered with some disappointing-to-really-shitty moments, and I intend to write an in-depth thing (it’ll more likely be multiple things, given the #2 up above)(heh, “#2”) about all that very soon (keep an eye out for the kid with the dumb haircut!), but that’s not why I’m here today.
I’m here today to mention one performance from one band that I haven’t really seen mentioned in any of the reviews I’ve read of the weekend, and that band is metallic hardcore juggernaut and pride of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jesus Piece.
For some reason, Jesus Piece was given the headlining slot on a dinky li’l stage off to the side of the festival grounds (the “Road Hounds” stage, in LTL parlance) rather than an earlier slot on a bigger stage in front of a bigger crowd, which they absolutely deserve. And while I was bummed that it overlapped with Whitechapel on the “Disruptor” stage, I wasn’t gonna miss Jesus Piece for anything once I made it inside that gate. We booked over to the stage, arriving at 6:23 pm and were delighted to be in the shade (shade is hard to come by in the General Admission area of the Highland Festival Grounds). I have to believe the shadow cast at that time of day (at that time of year, in that part of the country, localized entirely in front of that stage) worked in the band’s favor, as there was a sizeable crowd sitting in that shade, which gave the band a larger audience that they likely would’ve otherwise had, going up against Pierce the Veil and Whitechapel as they were.
I digress.
We waited patienly along with 50-or-so other people while the band finished up their soundcheck, then they exited the stage as the crowd steadly grew larger, including the requisite disphits who somehow always manage to find their way in front of me to have a conversation while the band is playing (I recently learned that in concert-goer parlance, those people are known as “chompers”, a term that, when searched, results in far more results including the band Phish than I’m comfortable with), and at 6:30 on the dot, the band came back out, frontman Aaron Heard said something along the lines of “what’s up everyone? Thanks for checking us out”, and then he encouraged everyone to move closer, and then one of the most breath-taking and chaotic things I’ve ever experienced played out over the next 30 minutes, and I am a better person for having been a part of it.
I’ll admit I was wary of getting too close to the stage, as all the footage I’ve watched of Jesus Piece performing live has been…”intense” kinda works, but it’s not really strong enough to capture it properly. People are moshing across the stage and diving off it from the beginning of the first note until the end, and everything happening around those people is fuckin wild, y’all!
To the uninitiated, the pit might resemble a level from the SNES classic beat em up Final Fight.
This is an actual photo taken at a Jesus Piece show. (Just kidding, it’s really a screengrab from the arcade version of Final Fight. Please don’t sue me, Capcom.)
These guys were there, too, sans knife.(Thx Capcom.)
And aside from the number of people involved, that’s a fairly accurate representation. Here’s one of my favorite videos of the band doing what they do best.
There are lots of great live Jesus Piece sets available on youtube. Hate5six has a shitload of them, and they’re all amazing. You should watch more Jesus Piece videos, and more hate5six videos.
So yeah, the idea of being in a crowd like this, while still thrilling, is also intimidating as fuck for a chubby out-of-shape dude in his mid-forties. I’ll admit the karate kicks and wild punches going on in the crowd seem a bit much, but the people partaking in it are all the fuck about it. Everyone involved is a willing participant, and I guarantee you every one of them felt better after this show, even if they couldn’t walk as fast. Plus, according to a statistic I just made up, but which is probably accurate, crowds like this are approximately 80% less likely to erupt into actual violence than any roughly equal-sized segment of the audience at your average bro-country arena concert.
I’ve gotten a bit off track here again. I was trying to talk about how much Jesus Piece fucking ruled. It was a lot. I’m not great with crowd sizes, but I figure the number of people actively watching them at least tripled during their performance. And bonus for me: the chatty Cathys in front of me fucked off somewhere else about halfway into the set, and I finally had an unfettered view of the carnage that is Jesus Piece live. Well, as unfettered as it could be given the small but mighty dust storm whipped up by karate pit.
Mostly clear eyes, completely full heart, can’t lose.
Anywise, I’ll be writing more about Jesus Piece another time as well, but I couldn’t let another moment pass without at least attempting to share the good news.
This is the third meme I’ve ever made. They’re all pretty excellent, if I do say so myself.
I told you I could be long-winded. The point is, you should check out Jesus Piece, and you should check back here for more about Louder Than Life 2023, coming as soon as I’m not too tired to start writing about it. Thanks for reading.
A couple days before Thanksgiving I was in the grocery store waiting in one of two lines that wasn’t self-checkout (on account of I don’t work there), and the old guy in front of me (I’d estimate him to be around 80) kept looking at my Napalm Death shirt.
Who could blame him? It’s a bitchin shirt!
I kept trying to pretend like I didn’t notice, and then I accidentally made eye contact, and then the following exchange happened:
Old Guy: I was lookin at your shirt. Me: Yep. (A beat.) Me (assuming he wouldn’t understand what I meant by “grindcore”): It’s a heavy metal band. OG: Current? Me: Yeah, since the early-to-mid 80’s. OG: Well, as long as nobody’s gettin hurt and everybody’s havin fun, I don’t see any harm in it. Me: That’s how I feel about pretty much everything. OG: (placing his items on the belt): It was really nice talking to you, young man. Thank you for being so open. Me: Thank you for not being judgy. OG: The way I see it, there’s 8 billion of us on this planet, and all any of us really wants is to be heard. Me: That’s a good way to look at things. OG: I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving. Me: Thank you very much, I hope you do, too.
Speaking as a man who hates small talk, and conservations in general, this small-talk conversation made me aware of two things:
First, not everyone is awful. It really seems like most everyone is, most of the time, but every now and then, someone will provide an exception to the rule, and I like that.
2. All any of us really wants is to be heard. I often forget that this is true. I spend so much time trying to not-talk-so-no-one-will-look-at-me that I forget that being looked at and being heard are two different things. I wanna be heard, too, just not looked at, which I suppose is why I’m a blogger and not a youtuberizer or tikkitytocker.
“Hey Joel, what the fuck does any of this have to do with your Top 10 Albums of 2022?” That’s a fair question, and I’m getting to it.
I don’t usually read anyone’s Top 10 Albums of (insert year here) unless it’s in a publication I already read, like Decibel, or if it’s written by someone I know in some capacity. I mean, I don’t care what some asshole I don’t know thinks about what music I should be listening to, y’know? But on the other hand, all that asshole really wants is to be heard, and besides, maybe that asshole isn’t so awful anyway. Also, I’m sometimes an asshole, even though I mostly try real hard not to be.
Having said that, I decided (for I think the first time ever) to make an Official Official Top 10 Albums of (insert year here)(specifically this year), in no particular order. I don’t expect anyone to give a hoot, but I figure I’m paying for the bandwidth, and I still have the physical and mental capacity to write, so why not write something, even if no one but me reads it? That’s a rhetorical question. Also, please don’t look at me while you’re reading this. That (along with being heard) is all I’ve ever really wanted.
And awaaay we go!
MY TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2022:
Clutch – Sunrise on Slaughter Beach – My love of Clutch is not a secret. How every person on this miserable planet doesn’t also love them is a conundrum that shall haunt me for the rest of my days, but if you really know me, you know I love Clutch. Anyway, Sunrise on Slaughter Beach is an instant classic, right up there in The Elephant RidersBlast Tyrant territory. It’s a bit on the short side, and I wouldn’t be sad if it went on for another song or two, but it doesn’t really need anymore songs. It’s great. It has big, burly riffs, fat-ass grooves, and Neil Fallon’s voice hittin’ you upside the head like a velvet bag filled with crushed gravel. And a theremin!
Standout Tracks: “Nosferatu Madre”, “Skeletons on Mars”, “Slaughter Beach”
Goatwhore – Angels Hung from the Arches of Heaven – To be perfectly honest, this is the first (and so far only) Goatwhore album I’ve listened to in it’s entirety, but I read positive things about it in Decibel magazine, and as and Acid Bath fan I already knew that I was a fan of Sammy Duet’s guitar. So anyway, I went into Landlocked Music one day with no agenda, and they had it for 13 bucks, so I bought it, along with another album on this list, and it was a good day. I know I need to check out more of this band, but for now, I can’t stop listening to this album. Which Goatwhore album should I check out next?
Standout Tracks: “The Bestowal of Abomination”, “Death from Above”, “Voracious Blood Fixation”
Voivod – Synchro Anarchy – My love of Voivod is only more of a secret than my love of Clutch because, generally speaking, more people have heard of Clutch. I love Voivod just as much as I love Clutch, and sometimes more. I’m not gonna talk about Voivod right now (I think I’ve talked about them plenty). [Just kidding, I’ll talk about Voivod any time (other than now).]
Now, I’m here to talk about Voivod’s newest album, Synchro Anarchy. This album continues building on the foundation this lineup laid with The Wake, which is sometimes my favorite Voivod album. That said, so far I like The Wake a bit more, but I haven’t listened to Synchro Anarchy quite as much, plus it’s completely fucking amazing, so that’s no knock on Synchro Anarchy at all. If you’re interested in digging into some heavy music that makes you think, I can’t recommend Voivod’s catalog enough. This album is as good a place to start as any.
Sigh – Shiki – Like Goatwhore, I just started listening to Sigh this year, but unlike Goatwhore, I’ve listened to more than just the newest release.I don’t know how to begin to describe what Sigh does, but it’s fucking weird and heavy and cool, and I like it a lot. They started out in 1989 as a black metal band, but they’ve grown to eclipse any single genre of music other than “Sigh” (they’ve had a full-time saxophone player in the band since 2007, for chrissake). Shiki finds founder/bandleader/mastermind Mirai Kawashima ruminating on aging and death. All the lyrics are in Japanese, but that doesn’t matter. Music is the universal language. I recommend this one.
Standout Tracks – Just listen to the whole thing. Use headphones if possible.
Racebannon – Satan’s Kickin’ Yr Dick In (2022 Re-Issue) – I wrote about Racebannon, and Satan’s Kickin’ Yr Dick In particularly, on my old blog Stay Heavy, which still gets more views than this blog, even though I haven’t posted anything there since November 2019. I pre-ordered this without hesitation up learning of its impending release. As I already own the album on CD and vinyl, the big draw for me on this release is the second disc, which consists of remastered alternate versions of Parts I-V, plus live versions of Parts I, II, and V, and instrumental practice sessions of Parts I, II, IV, and V. (None of that likely means anything to you, but if you wanna know more about that, why not read my old post about it?)
The remastered alternate versions are dope, and are worth the price of admission on their own, but the live versions are very cool, and the instrumental stuff is cool, although I likely won’t listen to those versions as often. The original album is as great as ever.
Fun Bonus: I was surprised and super-stoked to find an excerpt from my old write-up of the album included in the liner notes to the second disc, nestled in there among quotes from Pitchfork, All Music Guide, Alternative Press, and others. I’m beyond honored to be a part of Official Racebannon Canon.
Charley Crockett– Li’l G.L. Presents: Jukebox Charley – I bought four Charley Crockett albums this year, and I got to kind of see him live, albeit from all the way in the back of an oversold venue. My friend Chris recommended him, and like many recommendations I receive, I ignored it for a while, then one day at work I decided to listen to his newest album, The Man From Waco, which also came out this year. It’s also great, but I didn’t want to have two albums from the same artist on the list, and Jukebox Charley is the one I’ve listened to more out of the two. So anyway, I went into Landlocked Music one day with no agenda, and they had a used copy for 6 bucks, so I bought it, along with 2020’s Welcome to Hard Times and another album on this list, and it was a good day.
This is the fourth album Crockett has released under the “Li’l G.L.” line, and like the first three, these are all covers. All of them are fantastic, as Charley Crockett is great at what he does. He’s just about the only person I’d wanna hear sing a Tom T. Hall song other than Tom T. Hall himself (may be rest in peace), although an exception will always be made for Alan Jackson’s cover of “Little Bitty”.
Standout Tracks: “Where Have All the Honest People Gone”, “I Hope it Rains at My Funeral”, “Make Way for a Better Man”
A Vulture Wake – One. Kingdom. Animal – Not enough people know about this band, and that’s silly. They began as a sort-of “melodic hardcore supergroup” of sorts, if your definition of “supergroup” consists of members of bands that most people haven’t heard of. That is meant as no slight to the members of A Vulture Wake – there is an impressive punk rock pedigree on display with this band, from from the beginning until now. The only consistent member is singer/guitarist Chad Price, perhaps best know for his time as singer for ALL (perhaps best known for not being the Descendents) and/or his time as singer/guitarist of Drag the River (both are among my favorite bands, even when Chad’s not singin, and both very occasionally play live still, but I digress).
I love A Vulture Wake’s first album, 2018’s The Appropriate Level of Outrage, and quite frankly it made a direct impact in my decision to stop eating meat (almost 6 years ago now). I enjoyed 2019’s Fall Prey EP, and the Kingdom EP from June of this year, a bit less, but it’s still great.
Then in September, the band released a second new EP entitled Animal, and released both of this year’s EPs as a CD called One.Kingdom.Animal, and hearing the Kingdom songs in the context of the Animal songs really makes them make sense to me. It’s heavy, it’s melodic, it’s catchy, it’s fucking excellent.
Standout Tracks: “Virus”, “Moths”, “We Are Living in a Dream”
Morgue Supplier – Inevitability – This band has been on my radar for a few years, and I’d heard and enjoyed some Morgue Supplier songs before purchasing Inevitability, but I decided to pull the trigger on this one, and I’m so glad I did. Inevitability picks up where Brutal Truth left off. That’s not to say that Invevitability sounds like Brutal Truth, but it does feel like a spiritual successor to that band’s very best albums. It’s not for the faint of heart (or ear), but if you’re itching for some music that’s heavy, noisy, chaotic, apocalyptic, and terrifying, Invetiability will scratch that itch.
Cave In – Heavy Pendulum – Volumes have been written about Cave In by any number of writers better than yours truly, but the Big Deal surrounding this album is that it wasn’t supposed to happen. Longtime bassist Caleb Scofield passed away in a horrific car accident in 2018, the band released Final Transmission a year later, which featured the final recordings with Caleb. Then Converge bassist/backing vocalist Nate Newton joined up with the surviving members of Cave In in 2021, and they recorded this cracking motherfucker of an album. I haven’t listened to a lot of Cave In’s music, but Landlocked had this in a beautiful 180 gm 2xLP gatefold set and it wasn’t expensive, so I bought it, and I love it. Stephen Brodsky writes and plays some absolutely God-Tier Riffs, and this album delivers on those in spades.
The Tragically Hip – Live at the Roxy, a.k.a. Live at the Roxy May 3 91 – I love The Tragically Hip as much as I love Clutch and Voivod, even though I discovered The Hip much more recently. In 2021 they released a really solid 30th anniversary box set of their brilliant 1991 sophomore LP Road Apples on the heels of Saskadelphia, an EP of unreleased songs from the Road Apples era. Live at the Roxy was part of that box set, but it got a standalone release this year, which qualifies it for this list. This is The Tragically Hip at the beginning of the peak of their live powers, and if you’re a fan of blues-inflected, slightly jammy rock ‘n’ roll (but good), I can’t imagine you wouldn’t enjoy Live at the Roxy.
Standout Tracks: “Twist My Arm”, “Three Pistols”, “Blow at High Dough”
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
I’ll write about both of these soon. One I just received in the mail a few days ago, and the other I’ve only listened to once, on account of I don’t listen to that type of music that often, but both came out this year, and both deserve a mention.
Specimen Box – Remote Communion
Noah Nordman – SHIPWRECKED! PT. I
That’s all I got for now. Look for more soon (but not too soon), and also check out these albums. They all rule.
I started writing a thing about the Deftones on my old blog a couple hundred years ago (August 2017, more specifically), with the goal of listening to their entire discography in order and writing about that. A recurring theme in my writing, both public and private, is the reality of my utter laziness when it comes to actually sitting down to write, so (*SPOILER ALERT*) I never got around to actually starting that, let alone coming anywhere near finishing it. The fact that I’m currently using a rapidly failing six-year-old Chromebook as my primary means of writing doesn’t help matters. “Why haven’t [you] simply purchased a new laptop of some sort?”, you might ask. That’s a fair question, and the best answer is that in addition to being fairly lazy, I’m also weirdly cheap about things I shouldn’t be cheap about. I’ll drop 40 bucks on a concert t-shirt without so much as a second thought (though there will be a lot of grumbling about the price while I do so), but when it comes to things like upgrading an ancient piece of technology that sends me into fits of rage pretty much every time I use it, which is pretty much daily, well now hold on just a second there mister – I don’t need a new laptop, I already own one! Plus it has cool stickers on it!
See?
Side note: I know a Chromebook is not the same as a laptop, but I also know that’s not relevant to this, and that I don’t actually care.
Anyway, I’m not here today in an attempt to revive that old corpse, because that ship sailed a long time ago, plus a bunch of other metaphors. I’ve since listenened to all their albums several times (including the one that came out four years after I first had the idea to listen to them and write about them) and I didn’t bother to write about any of them, mostly because in the long run, it doesn’t really matter what I think about the Deftones discography (it’s pretty fuckin incredible though, for the record), but also because my laptop is one of the Top 3 Biggest Assholes I’ve Ever Known (Non-Human Edition).
Did I mention that I’m also lazy?
What I am here today in an attempt to do, whatever the fuck that means, is mention that, thanks to my amazing wife and her knack for picking out kickass birthday presents, I’m finally gonna see the Deftoness live tomorrow night (with Gojira!), and I’m beyond stoked!
Mrs. Circlepit mistakenly assumed that I’d seen them live before, not realizing that I had in fact missed two opportunites to see them. My first time missing them was in 1996 when they opened for Pantera and White Zombie (Eyehategod made an unscheduled appearance that day as well), and later (circa 1999) I missed them headlining with Snapcase and Quicksand as support. Can you imagine how fucking incredible both of those shows must’ve been?! I know at least two people who attended at least one of them each, and I missed both because of work-related nonsense, but now I make the schedule, and I’m finally gonna see the motherfucking Deftones live!
Careful reader(s) of this “esteemed” blog might recall that I kinda saw Gojira live last year at Louder Than Life, but really that it was more of a “heard them live while they played behind me while I stood in the Slowest Line in History of Lines while I waited to purchase a couple of 40 dollar t-shirts” type of situation, so clearly that doesn’t count. I’m very much looking forward to righting that wrong tomorrow night as well, even though I’m not nearly as familiar with Gojira. There’s another band called Vowws opening the night, and I checked out one of their songs last night, and they seem alright (probably better live), but we might not make it in time to see them anyway, so I’ll not mention them for now except for this sentence.
And speaking of Louder Than Life, this will be second time we’ve attended a live show since then (the first was Gwar/Napalm Death/Eyehategod back in early November), and I’m jonesing for it real hard. This past week at work was a total bitch for a lot of reasons, and I’m ready to blow off some major steam tomorrow. And continuing for just a moment to speak of Louder Than Life, tickets have long since been procured for this years’ festivities, and as always, the lineup is a mixed bag, but overall it’s much more solid than last year. I’ll surely write more about that eventually. Maybe I’ll even have a new Chromebook/laptop on which to do so. I’ll most definitely have at least a few more 40 dollar t-shirts by then.
Hey, look everybody, I’m finally following through on something. Here’s Volume 2 of this thing I started working on over two-and-a-half years ago. Please hold your applause until the end.
I planned to stop by Bloomingfoods on my way home from work today and buy a couple of big ‘ol baking potatoes for dinner. Big ‘Ol Baked Potatoes with Broccoli and Whatnot is a shared favorite meal of Mrs. Circlepit and myself. It’s super satisfying, super filling, super delicious, and super easy, and since my job and the general state of things are not-so-slowly killing me, both physically and mentally, I wanted dinner to be as easy as possible without ordering takeout or delivery.
After a drive across downtown that was significantly more dangerous and time-consuming than it should’ve been, I arrived in front of the co-op to find their tiny parking lot absolutely lousy with parked cars and people trying to park and people trying to pull out of spaces, and I don’t wanna paint with too broad of a brush here, but most of the people who shop at the co-op drive like dumbfucks and can’t park for shit. My only other option was parking on the street, but I won’t give the City of Bloomington a penny more than I absolutely have to, so I said “fuck that, I’ll figure out something else for dinner” and drove home, wherein I quickly devised a plan for a soup that I think will be delicious.
At first I was figuring on Veggie Chili, which is one of my favorite things to both cook and eat (and which will probably be featured within this feature some day), but I arrived home to discover that we didn’t have any hominy or any canned pinto beans, and as you may recall, I was looking for ease of preparation above all else, so I decided to put on Inlet by HUM and make a soup up as I went along, and now, some 55 minutes later, I have a batch of Zucchini, Tomato, and Cannelini Soup (ZTC Soup) simmering lightly on the stove.
Here’s the list of ingredients in this soup:
2 medium zucchini 2 small-ish carrots about 1/4 of an onion 1 15 oz can of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed (see Notes) 1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes 1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes 1 1/2 cups of leftover basmati rice 1 28 oz crushed tomato can’s worth of vegetable broth (see Notes) 1-2 tsp of lemon juice dried thyme dried basil dried oregano granulated garlic granulated onion kosher salt (to taste) fresh ground black pepper 2-ish Tbsp of olive oil
Notes:
Cannelini beans are basically white kidney beans. I used them because it’s what I had in the pantry. I think this is my first time using them, and I’m pretty sure I bought the can just to try something different. You could certainly use Great Northern or navy beans instead, just be more gentle when stirring – those beans are especially tender li’l guys.
I forgot to check the actual liquid volume of the can before I put it in recycyling. Regarding broth, I like Better Than Bullion brand No Chicken Base. I use that shit in so many things. It’s a galdern miracle of modern innovation. You can certainly make your own broth or stock. It’s very easy, but BTB is easier, and remember: I wanted this soup to be easy like Sunday morning.
I cut everything except the onion to roughly the same size as a cannelini bean, and I minced the onion. Mrs. Circle Pit doesn’t like the texture of onions, so if I wanna cook with them I have to either cut them small enough to essentially hide them or cut them large enough that she can see them and pick them out and give them to me.
I started out sauteeing the onions and carrots in the olive oil. After a couple-few minutes, I added the zucchini and let it all cook for about 5 minutes before adding all the seasonings. Another minute or so and in go the tomatoes and broth. I added the beans just before it began to simmer, brought ‘er to a full-ass boil, stirred well, and then lowered back down to a light simmer (just a few bubbles). It’s been barely simmering for almost two hours now, and I gotta tell you, friends, the flavor on this soup is real dang good.
This is the point where I added the beans. Look at allathem li’l bubbles.
I’m gonna put some rice in it right before serving it, because fuck it, why not? We’re all gonna die someday, might as well enjoy as much rice as possible before our numbers are up. Brown rice would be dope, but I happen to have some leftover basmati rice from last night’s pretty damn delicous Coconut Curried Vegetables with Chickpeas, which is another thing I love to cook and eat, and which may also make an appearance here one day.
I thought about putting some bulghur wheat in it, just for something different, but I decided to use up the rice instead. Bulghur wheat would probably be really fucking good in it, though. You should try that and tell me about it. Just add it before adding the liquid, and be prepared to probably have to add more liquid as it sits, because bulghur wheat is a thirsty li’l sumbitch.
Aw, hell, I haven’t even talked about HUM yet. HUM are a band from Champaign, Illinois. They’re amazing. They’re sometimes referred to as a “shoegaze” band, and they contain elements of that, but they’re more than that. I’ve read the term “space rock” as well, and that could work in a pinch, but it’s still not quite right. The best word I can think of to describe them is “HUM”. You’d probably recognize their song “Stars” if you heard it. It was an “alternative rock” hit in 1995, and was later used in a Cadillac commercial.
Anway, here’s “Stars”…
There are some incredible live performances of this song from the era, as well. You should watch all of them. Just never stop listening to HUM, basically.
They released three great albums from 1991-1995 (Filet Show, Electra 2000, and You’d Prefer an Astronaut), then one perfect album in 1998 (Downward is Heavenward), then they broke up, and I was sad. They’d reunite occasionally to play a show which would inevitably sell out before I even knew it was happening, but otherwise the members stayed busy with other projects. Then on June 23, 2020, they suprise-released a brand new album, Inlet, which defies all possible logic and comprehension by being even better than Downward is Heavenward. Their drummer died last year, so I don’t really know the current status of the band, but their current status in my heart is among my Top Ten All-Time Favorite Bands.
“Waves” is the first song off the album. It’s perfect. It’s all perfect. Inlet is a perfect album.Listen to it.
“In the Den” is the second song off the album. It’s perfect. It’s all perfect. Inlet is a perfect album.Listen to it.
“Desert Rambler” is the third song off the album. It’s perfect. You see where I’m going with this, right?
I seriously love everything about HUM. The vocals sound like they’re being broadcast from inside your very consciousness. The rhythm section is tighter than a hibernating frog’s butthole. The lyrics are always intelligent and poetic, and often profound. And perhaps most important to this guy right here, the riffs are so heavy you need a Tractomas TR 10×10 D100 to drive them around.
Actual footage of HUM riffs on their way to your brain.I love that “ABNORMAL” sign on the front.
It’s all just so goddamn heavy, and I don’t understand how everyone on Earth doesn’t love them.
ADDENDUM: It’s been nearly 24 hours since I started writing this. I had to stop last night, on account of eating some of that delicious soup we were talking about and then winding my brain down to eventually get ready for bed so I could wake up bright and early and feed the slavering masses. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the concept of “jobs”? I’m lucky to have a job I enjoy, but man, jobs are for suckers. But that’s a discussion for another post.
I’m now listening to Shadows in the Deep by Unleashed (which fucking rules by the way) and proofreading/updating this thing. Here’s a fun dumb game: see if you can figure out which things I added today. Your prize is doing something on the toilet that doesn’t involve reading terrible news. Unless you consider learning about my love for Hum ‘n’ Beans to be a terrible thing. That would be weird though. Perhaps abnormal, even.
Speaking of abnormal, thanks for reading this the whole way through, ya weirdo. If you enjoyed it, why not tell a friend? If you hated it, why not tell a friend? If you don’t have any friends, you can tell me, I suppose.
“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.” – from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
I could be a bit off base here, but I feel like it’s become something of a cliche to say The Catcher in the Rye is one of you favorite books, but damned if it isn’t still one of my favorite books. I’ve read other Salinger, and I’ve enjoyed all of it. I also know that he has stories that are perhaps regarded with more esteem than The Catcher in the Rye, but damned if I don’t love that book more than almost every other book I’ve read. J.D. Salinger knew how to tell a story, and his style is absolutely one of a kind. He’s probably my number one influence as a writer, and, along with Kurt Vonnegut, is the reason I decided I wanted to write in the first place, even though I can’t tell a story for shit.
Re-reading The Catcher in the Rye as an adult, Holden Caulfield comes off more petulant than he used to, but unlike some other books and movies I used to love, I still find myself identifying with him – often more than maybe any other fictional character I’m familiar with. That’s certainly a testament to Salinger’s gift as a writer, but it also offers evidence of my continued arrested development.
I rewatched High Fidelity for the first time in years during The Shutdown, and I did not find Rob Gordon as relateable (or likeable) as I once did. I used to really identify with Rob, and I liked him in spite of his flaws (without which there’d be no story), but last time I watched High Fidelity I mostly wanted him to shut up, and I sometimes found myself really disliking him. At any rate, I don’t know when (or if) I can watch High Fidelity again. The soundtrack is still great, and I’m thinking about giving the book another shot soon, but probably not before I read The Catcher in the Rye again.
Garden State is another movie I used to just adore, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin last time I watched it somewhere between 2 and 5 years ago. I still like the way the movie looks, and there are parts I still enjoyed, but Andrew Largeman is insufferable, and there were some scenes where I just felt embarrassed for the people in them. That soundtrack is still pretty alright.
“Hey Joel, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Sorry, I got a little carried away. I was just tryin to say that not all things stand the test of time. That’s obviously a well-established truism, but I mean it more like some things are only supposed to be with us during a specific point in our existence. Take Garfield, for example. I laughed myself stupid over Garfield comics when I was a kid, but somewhere in my teens, I tried to re-read Garfield Takes the Cake: His Fourth Book, and I wondered for a minute if maybe I was dead, because I didn’t even smile. It was like reading The Famliy Circus, or Cathy. What I finally came to realize is that Garfield didn’t need to still be funny to me to continue being a part of my life. That helped me come to terms later on in life with my new(er)found disdain for Rob Gordon and Andrew Largeman.
I’m digressing hard here, sorry. I will get to my point, I promise. Onward!
Futurama is coming back (again)! Hulu ordered 20 new episodes, and I’m just fuckin ecstatic. If you give a shit about Futurama, you almost certainly already know this; if you don’t give a shit about Futurama, thanks for reading anway, I guess.
They made 140 episodes over the show’s original stretch (it’s been cancelled at least twice before, and probably thrice, but possibly frice four times), and there was only one episode in the entire run that I found to be completely unfunny. The most recent seasons were mostly less “good overall” than the “classic” seasons, but it never stopped being a hilarious, intelligent, highly watchable show (except for that one episode). So even though technically the potential exists for 20 clunkers, the odds are in my favor.
Anyhoo, Mrs. Circlepit tagged me in the comments of some facebook post about the news, and I decided to read the comments, because I’m filled with self-loathing.
This meme will always be one of my greatest accomplishments.
Sure enough, some know-it-all named Joe had to show up in the comments and fart in everybody’s salad. Joe said a lot of things, but he finished with “Besides, Fry and Leela essentially went back to the beginning of the series, how are they possibly going to move forward from that?” and I was all like “IT’S A FUCKING CARTOON ABOUT TRAVELING THROUGH TIME AND OUTER SPACE, JOE. IT HAS ALIENS AND SEWER MUTANTS AND SENTIENT ROBOTS IN IT, JOE. REMEMBER THE LAST TIME THEY REVIVED THE SERIES, JOE?”
“Say, I’m not sure I can take this show seriously anymore.” – that Joe guy the first time he saw this, probably
“HOW COULD THEY EVER REBOOT A SHOW LIKE THAT, JOE? HOW COULD I POSSIBLY SUSPEND MY DISBELIEF TO ACCEPT THAT THIS TELEVISION PROGRAM SET ONE THOUSAND YEARS IN THE FUTURE MIGHT BE ABLE TO EXIST AGAIN, JOE?”
Only I didn’t say any of that to Joe, because I don’t think I’d like him, and I don’t wanna waste any of my precious remaining time on this plane of existence interacting with people I don’t like. Instead, I decided to share the contents of my jumbled-ass brain with you gentle, genteel souls. (Not to be confused with my jumbled ass-brain. I’m not ready to share that with anyone just yet.)
Here’s my point, though, because ain’t nobody got all day to put up with my jibber-jabber: some stranger’s comments on a facebook post made me think of that quote from Holden Caulfield up at the top of this mess, and I wanted to share it with people. In other words, Joe got to the comments first, and he basically wrote “fuck you” there, and I wish people were capable of not being such dumb-dumbs.
On an unrelated note, you should proably be listening to Neil Diamond. He rules. Duh.
Neil Diamond is not a dumb-dumb.
Thanks for reading. And try not to be a Joe, From the Comments.
In the interest of self-preservation and maintaining some semblance of relevance, here’s a quick thing that most of the people reading this probably won’t care about.
French-Canadian mind-bogglers Voivod are set to release their new album, Synchro Anarchy, next Friday, February 11, and I gotta tell ya, friends, I’m am ex-cited.
Here are some videos, all of them songs contained within my impending Lord and Savior, Synchro Anarchy:
And here is my sort-of review of their last album, 2014’s absolutely superlative The Wake. This is from my old blog, Stay Heavy, which I use even less than this one, which is no easy feat. I get way more views on that one than on this one, even though I haven’t put anything new there in like 3 or 4 years.
Clockwise Circle Pit 