Why I'm not going out this New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is a night of celebration. Of frivolity. Of rebirth. It's a time to get rid of the grime and garbage of the previous 365 days (366 in leap years). It's no longer for me. It's not that I don't care about the holiday, I like being hungover on the couch as much as the next guy, I just have gotten over it.

2016 was a shit year. By almost every account, it was terrible. Know what the first thing I did in 2016 was? I had a panic attack. At 12:30 AM, at the bar, in the middle of a crowd of people, 75% of which I knew, I had a massive panic attack and had to flee. Luckily I lived close enough where I could just walk home and be quiet for a while.

The rest of the year wasn't much better. Through jobs, splits, moving, anxiety, depression, a breakdown of my self confidence, this year was the worst. 2016 can suck it.

So, after reflecting on the last year, okay, decade, I realized that I have to change the narrative of my life. To start this, I am not going to the bar this New Year's Eve. It's a young man's game out there on that night. I don't need to deal with that shit anymore.

I don't need that social merit badge. I've earned it a dozen times over, and every time, it's more and more difficult to navigate. I don't have to prove myself anymore to you people, and frankly, I don't want to. I don't want to fight through a crowd to take a piss because I know a bunch of people in the same place.

Speaking of a bunch of people being in the same place, fuck going to bars on nights like this one. I don't want to stand four people deep in front of a bar with a stressed out bartender frantically running around pouring drinks to the zombies groaning and reaching for nourishment.

If I wanted to go to a bar, which I don't, that would require a certain amount of pregaming. I don't want to drink until I'm almost drunk, then drive to the bar, finish the job, and drive home at 3 in the morning. That, my friends, is a recipe for danger. I don't want to have to deal with the police in that situation, and I don't trust other people's driving enough to feel safe on a cold night with a drunken mafia blasting around the streets. Fuck that noise.

In light of all the grumpy old man-ness that my life has devolved into, I'm staying in this year. I just don't see the allure in doing the same things that I have done so many damn times with the same results. Especially when the ensuing 364 days (365 in leap years) haven't gone that well.

So I'm going to change it up. I'm going to stay in, or if I do go somewhere, it'll be somewhere quiet, safe, and without a goddamn bartender fucking up a beer order. Also, if I really want a dance party, my neighbors play REALLY bad music at absurd levels at all times, so I can just live for a while and I'll be subjected to pulsing beats and trite laser sounds over the top of said beats.

2017 is going to be a year in which we are going to be responsible for cleaning up the mess that 2016 was and trying to better ourselves despite of that mess. So I'm going to change it up. Start by doing something different this year.

Like I said, I don't need to prove myself to you people.
SD

Fuck This List.

This is easy.I'm mad at a lot of stuff, some of which has no logic, some has all of the logic. If you disagree with me, good. Bring it on. I want to hear about it. So here is a list of shit I've had about enough of (in literally no particular order):

Fuck Donald Trump
Fuck Mike Pence to death
Fuck Rudy Giuliani
Fuck Chris Christie
Fuck a Republican Controlled Congress and their desire to turn back all civil liberties
Fuck a Republican Controlled Supreme Court and their potential for dooming a generation
Fuck Roger Goodell (Commissioner of the NFL)
Fuck Joe Buck (Professional sportscaster/goober)
Fuck Gary Bettman (Commissioner of the NHL/twit)
Fuck Troy Aikman (Sportscaster who's brain has been made into jelly by large sportsdudes)
Fuck Budweiser and all its bullshit varieties
Fuck The Christian Right
Fuck White Supremacy
Fuck Nonviolent Protest (It doesn't do anything other than get in people's way)
Fuck Driving in Boston
Fuck Constantly being worried about money despite my best efforts to work more and save
Fuck Shitty Beer. Life is too short to indulge in garbage
Fuck Domestic Violence. In fact, Double Fuck Domestic Violence, and the human trash who commit it.
Fuck The Democratic Party for fucking us normal folks.
Fuck The Electoral College
Fuck Shitty Cell Service
Fuck Winter Business Hours
Fuck The Confederate Flag. Seriously, how is that still a thing?
Fuck Bigotry and Racism
Fuck Anyone who Thinks Gay People Shouldn't Marry
Fuck Our Societal Inequalities and those who want to keep them intact
Fuck Anti-Vaxxers!
Fuck Misogyny
Fuck Sexism
Fuck Xenophobia
Fuck Nationalism
Fuck Myopic Worldviews
Fuck Tom Brady (Football man/Chin Dimple model)
Fuck Russell Wilson (Football man/Sanctimonious cockbag)
Fuck Dwight Howard (Basketball Man/human unable to learn about basketball, somehow)
Fuck Peter Theil
Fuck Lost
Fuck Hulk Hogan for everything after 1995
Fuck Alarm Clocks 
Fuck Global Warming
Fuck Climate Change Deniers
Fuck Cronyism
Fuck Student Loans
Fuck Medical Debt
Fuck Useless Public Works Projects
Fuck Bats (why would God make those things, WHY?)
Fuck Mail-In Rebates
Fuck Pop Music for it's lack of balls
Fuck Toby Keith
Fuck Marlins Man (Look it up, I'll wait)
Fuck Boring Food
Fuck Being Complacent
Fuck NOT Reading Books
Fuck Shitty TV
Fuck Shitty Movies
Fuck Shitty Music
Fuck Shitty Art
Fuck Family Circus
Fuck People who Think Hot Dogs are Sandwiches
Fuck Creationists
Fuck Algebra
Fuck Flat Tires
Fuck Driving Behind 18-Wheelers in the Rain
Fuck 9/11 Truthers
Fuck George Bush (pick one, I say fuck 'em both)
Fuck Ronald Reagan
Fuck Zealots
Fuck Sudoku
Fuck ESPN
Fuck My Reliance on ESPN
FUCK CANDY CORN BACK TO HELL WHERE IT BELONGS
Fuck Black Licorice
Fuck People Who Give Raisins for Halloween
Fuck Paying for Laundry
Fuck Plain Hummus
Fuck Slinkys
Fuck Not Getting A Fudgie The Whale for My Birthday Cake, MOM (it's been 30 years, get it together)
Fuck Insects in my Apartment (not anymore, that shit got taken care of quick)
Fuck A Million Other Things.

Fuck My Hypocrisy

And...Most importantly...

FUCK YOU, 2016. FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK. YOU.
Fuck this year. Just...Fuck you, 2016. Enough is enough, you motherfucker. Fuck 2016 more than anything else on this ridiculous list. Fuck 2016. It can't end quickly enough.

Fuck.




 

When It's All Said and Done

We, as a people, have done something remarkable. The United States elected Donald Trump, a misogynist, xenophobic, hypocritical, blowhard to the most important position on this planet. This has caused a great deal of anxiety for myself, along with a vast majority of the people I know. Granted, there are some of my friends or acquaintances that aren't dismayed by this event, and although I don't understand why, I guess it's nice for them to get some satisfaction in this world.

This world is forever changed. The vote was a referendum on the status quo. Hillary Clinton forgot about the rust belt, the farmers, the no collar white men that have been disenfranchised for the last eight years under President Obama. And that neglect has thrown a tidal wave across our collective landscapes.

So. What do we do? How do we handle this new world? People who think like me, who have respect and love for women, the LGBTQ+ members of our society, minorities, immigrants, and the paycheck to paycheck people who thought one day it will all be better, have to regroup. We have to dust ourselves off and move forward. We were all in shock. Some of us cried, and some of us held the criers and offered some modicum of support. "We are all in this together." "Maybe it won't be that bad." "At least we still have our friends."

We drank a lot. We drank first out of anxiety and trepidation. We then drank out of hope and desecration. We then drank out of sadness. We texted, and posted statuses and tweets. We sat at the bar, or at home, and watched with fear and amazement as the events of November 8, 2016 played out. We wondered what citizens of other countries thought about what was going on. We played scenarios out together with the hope of an outcome that we wanted. We wondered what our people who weren't with us were doing, and what they were drinking. We stayed up late with like minded folks, trying to do the societal math of what happened, and trying to distract ourselves from what we had witnessed.

We did those things. And they are done. And it's all over. And we are forced to deal with a world that has a tenuous future. My generation is scared. We are scared because there have been a great many institutions that have tried to build fairness and goodness and health and prosperity for us, and we fear that so many of them will be taken away because one unhinged lunatic, and an even more dangerous second, is now the most powerful person in the world.

But we can't dwell on all this. We can't dwell on it because the potential for disaster will only cause us to become reactionary and paranoid. We don't want to revert to the base level monsters that we all want to be when we are alone with our thoughts, fantasizing about what we SHOULD have done rather than what we actually did. We can't dwell on what could possibly happen, because dwelling on hypothetical situations is unhealthy for our minds, and we all need to stay sharp now.

As a generation, my people, the 25-40 year old people, are more tuned into social issues than previous ones, and the children behind us are blowing out awareness out of the water. That's good. That's a start. Personally, I think the current backlash against the election, the protests, the absurd and unnecessary violence that I have seen online, needs to end. We need to stop being emotional and start being rational.

Being rational will ensure that nobody flies off the handle and gets in trouble. We need to use our minds now. We need to be the smart, tough people that we are. That all of us are. You can't survive in today's world without being a tough bastard. Weakness has been, to a degree, bred out of us. So we as strong, smart people have to act, but we have to act within our skill set and within the boundaries of our opportunities.

What I mean is: Do what you can. Don't go off and try to change the world in one fell swoop. It won't work. Take small steps to accomplish great things. Don't live your life with resentment over what happened on November 8th. Take that negativity and turn it into something positive. Make art. Write. Create music. Play sports. Open a business. Get involved. Recirculate that negative energy into something that moves your community forward in some way. Rise above the vitriol and make something you can take pride in.

Getting involved in local politics, local issues. Make your voices heard, but do it in a productive way. Say what you want, but frame it in a fashion that doesn't equate you with the hateful and hurtful diatribes of Donald Trump. Be better than him. If we all get better, get wiser, get more active, we will get a better future. Get involved in things you can stand for without second guessing yourself. If you believe in something, act upon it. If you want to see change, do what you can to make that change.

Voting in the Midterm Elections is hugely important. We have two years until those occur, and sweeping changes in the House of Representatives and Senate need to happen so that the potential policies of President Trump can be either negated or dulled so they won't cut so deeply into the fabric of the society we have gotten to so far. The really dangerous aspect of the next two years is the controlling Republican majority, and the Supreme Court seat they are going to fill with a small minded man who is willing to repeal so many many things that we hold dear.

But that's all on the macro scale. For real change to occur, we have to think small. Local politics, our daily lives. These are the places where we can see real, honest, change. So we need to do little things. We need to eat better, we need to go to the gym more frequently, we need to read some damn books instead of watching dumb shit on television. We need to get a hobby and fall in love with it. We need to find people and fall in love with them. We need to find a better life and fall in love with everything.

I joked about moving to Denmark if Trump got elected. I can't actually do that. It's just too damn expensive. It's not a risk that I am willing to take, simply because of the logistics of it all. I am curious about the population numbers in Canada, Europe, Australia, over the next 18 months or so. I don't think it will change much, honestly. So I think we are all going to still be here in the future, and I think that we are all going to be better, eventually. But I think that we all need to get better on a small scale, and then we see the domino effect of small scale change.

The world isn't over. As a culture, America has suffered a huge setback, but it's not over. Not yet. We have to stand together, we have to unite. We have to be the type of people we wish we had been in our worst moments. We have to get stronger, get smarter, get better. We have to realize that this is just a temporary setback.

The world is darker, but it isn't over. We have to make our individual lives better, because by doing that, we are going to make the lives around us better. We have to do things that are positive, because that will make the things around us more positive. And I know this call for a more positive outlook is weird coming from me, the more negative man in the world. But I'm right. We need to change everything about this world from here on out.

We need to be better. At everything. All of us. Only then will the disaster of November 8, 2016, be rectified, and we can go back to being the nation on the hill, welcoming the sick, the tired, the poor, the scared, the persecuted, the lonely, the ones wanting a change, the ones wanting a better life, the one wanting more. We all want more. We all need more, and we all deserve more. So we need to be better, so we get what we deserve.

Because I think we got what we deserved, because our collective hubris and greed and ego led to this new world.

I want us all to be better, and live in a better world. SO LET'S FUCKING WORK FOR IT.

SD

Timing is everything

I am not a huge believer in luck. I think luck is fabricated by circumstance and decision making, and whatever you decide determines the circumstances, thus breeding what we call luck.
That being said, I think I want to rethink this stance. I’ve been working on the edge of my passion, beer, and brewing, for about a year now. I had a brewing company that never got off the ground, because one person wasn’t as into doing work as I was led to believe. I interned at Outer Light Brewing Company, making beer, and helping them out when I could, and that was awesome in a lot of ways. I had to stop doing that, however, because I got a job that took up my time and paid me in money, rather than growlers of tasty beer.
I worked at a vineyard, and that sucked. I wasn’t built to be a farmer. I worked at a beer garden, but that fell away when the Summer ended. I’ve been applying to breweries and distributors for over a year, and nothing came of it.
Then I got a phone call yesterday.
I was at work, and my phone goes off. I look at the caller ID, and it says that Georgia is calling me. I know no one in Georgia, so I ignore it and the call goes to voicemail. I am sure that it is some solicitor or otherwise useless call that won’t leave a message, but I was wrong. One new voicemail. Like I said, I was at work, so I couldn’t check it at the time, but I was intrigued. I never get voicemail, hell I rarely get actual phone calls. Everyone texts now, it’s 2016 for Christ’s sake.
On my way to my car, after my shift ended, I (obviously) checked my message. Here’s is a pretty accurate representation of how it went:
“Hello, this message is for Sean Derby. My name is [redacted for safety] and I’m a recruiter for [also redacted]. One of our clients, located in Sjoisehdkfjda (unintelligible parts will be written in jibberish from here on out), has seen your resume and wants to talk to you about the skdfjaskldj position they have open. They skdjflksdj jioerupioawjsk, and iirjheoiajfoksdfn knasjkdha. Please call us back at [redacted] if you are interested, and I will email you these details as well.”
Well, at least they’ll email me.
This morning, before I wrote this, I checked my email. Sure enough, there is an email sitting there from the recruiter with the subject line “Seeking a distiller in Milton, Delaware.”
Who is it, Dogfish Head? They distill. I’ve had several of their offerings, the gin is delicious.
“Our client is located in Milton, Delaware…” It’s gotta be Dogfish Head, right? “They are a reputed Brewing Company founded in 1995…” Yep, Dogfish Head. “who has a brewery, inn, and 2 restaurants.” Yea, this is Dogfish Head. Not even a question about it.
They are currently looking for a distiller, something I have absolutely no experience in, although I could learn pretty quickly. The shitty thing about this is that I signed a lease a month ago, so the timing of this couldn’t be worse. If they would have sent me that email 6 weeks ago, I’d be living in Delaware right now and working in a distillery, probably cleaning vats once filled with rum. I’d have done it, too.
If the timing was right. But I can’t break the lease, and that sucks. I would have jumped at the opportunity, but the timing wasn’t right. I think the universe looks at me and giggles maniacally sometimes. I’d have gone down there just to interview. I was ready to uproot everything for a decent job out of town. I thought my time was up here, and I just needed a job to take me away from this place. But I got a job. I like my job. Circumstance and decisions. What a bitch.
Maybe luck is a thing, and maybe I just have rotten luck.

Airplane Sweats

“I don’t know man,” said Andre. “I’m nervous about the flight.”
“Where are you going, again?” I asked, barely paying attention anymore. We were at work, and I had things to do. Working in a kitchen is inherently distracting. There are thousands of things going on at once. People are bustling around, and even though the bistro I work in is small, a three man line, Andre was an intern, still in culinary school, working with French cuisine for college credit. I am a bastard, working with French cuisine because they hired me. I have no experience in this world. It’s really high end, the kind of place where you see a $23 burger and think “Yea, that’s about right.”
Either way, I’m here now, at this bistro, an hour into my second shift. “Cincinnati,” Andre says.
“Dude, that’s like a 90 minute flight, that’s nothing. When I was a kid, I had a 12 hour flight from Germany to South Africa. That was a motherfucker for a 10 year old.”
“I’ve never been on a plane before. You went to Africa?”
“Yea, man, I went on safari. I saw a lion in the wild. It was dope as hell. Wait, you’ve never flown before? What?”
“Never had to. All my family lives around here or in Massachusetts. We drive everywhere.”
“Dude, that’s crazy. I’ve been flying my entire life, it seems. I flew across country, alone, when I was 7. But that was in like, 1988, when kids could be unattended in the sky. Way before 9/11 when shit changed.”
“I was 8 when that happened.”
“Goddammit,” I sighed.
We kept on working, getting ready for service. We were tag teaming Garde Manger, or simple shit for morons not good enough to deal with real cooking. I’m comfortable here, even though it’s just my second shift. The other staff has embraced me, welcomed me as a kind of savior. I’m taking Andre’s place, as he is back to school, and, apparently, is quite the dummy. As I am a thinking person with a functionally useless Bachelor’s Degree, I might be some sort of improvement over this kid.
“Don’t be nervous about the flight, it’s nothing.”
“I don’t like it. Never been off the ground like that.”
“I had my first panic attack on a plane,” I blurted. I didn’t need to say this. I just did, it just popped out of my mouth.

Okay, let me rewind. For the last couple of years, I’ve suffered panic attacks. Sweats, shakes, feeling faint, the whole shebang. I’ve lost weight because of anxiety (more of a stress drinker than eater, so there’s that). I fully understand the white noise and running commentary of desperation that winds through the mind as you lay in bed, awake, for the third consecutive night. When all you want is sleep, but the negativity and worry is so loud that you can’t escape. You are a prisoner of your own over analysis, even though you know you shouldn’t care, or even be thinking about those things anymore. I know what it’s like to not understand why you are so concerned, but not having the ability to stop.
I know what it’s like to have the darkest ideas pop into your mind at the worst times. Sometimes that happens on the tarmac.
I was working in Alaska, on a campaign for some tool who I couldn’t possibly care less about. It was a job that paid me $900 a week to ask strangers questions. I hate strangers, but I was out of work and had never been to Alaska before, so I signed up. It was a bizarre three weeks, and I’m sure that I’ll get more into it later, but this is about my last hours in the Last Frontier.
At the end of the campaign, there was a party in Anchorage for the staff and some donors and supporters and whoever else was lucky enough to get in. I put on a nice shirt and pants and a jacket and was told, at the outset of the job, that there would be an open bar.
That was a lie. I wasn’t going to let something so small as a cash bar stop me from getting hammered. Also, some of my coworkers and I pregamed at the hotel so we went in a little warm already. A slew of us left the party early because it was terrible, and we were all upset about the lack of free booze.
We were all flying out the next morning, with the van heading to the airport at 6 AM. It was about 10 when a few of us decided to say “fuck it,” and just stay up all night drinking and hanging out. The idea was to drink enough to enjoy the night one last time in a place we’ll probably never see again, but not enough to keep us off the plane to take us away from that frozen hellscape.
This worked. We all thought we would just sleep on the plane for a few hours until we stop in Seattle and the lower 48, where God and Verizon pay attention. I just wanted to have my data back. Where I was stationed in the great white North, Verizon hadn’t gotten to yet. It was amazing how spotty cell service was. First world problem, I know, but it’s nice to text your mom when you are 5000 miles away.
Like I said, our grand idea for the last night worked. For most of us. We all boarded without problem, I’m sitting next to a girl who was part of a different team than I was, but doing the same job. She was cute, and if I hadn’t been seeing someone back in Connecticut, where I belong, I might have tried something with her. Alas, I didn’t do anything.
I had a window seat, she had the middle, and some random had the isle. I was pumped for the window. I didn’t have one on any of the three flights out there, including the initial flight from Hartford to Cincinnati, where I was one of 11 people on the entire flight.
She started to doze as I put on my headphones. I was jealous. I was also getting warm. Thoughts started to creep in. I turned the volume up to drown them out. They started to yell. “WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO THE PLANE? WHAT IF A BIRD FLYS INTO IT? SULLY AIN’T ON THIS FLIGHT. YOU’LL JUST PLUNGE TO AN ICY DEATH IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN.”
I started to sweat a little, just around the collar. I put the air on, blowing directly into my face. Sweat dripped down my back. My leg started to go nuts, bouncing up and down like I’m playing a kick drum. I stopped hearing my music, just the thoughts. “You’ll never see your family again, not when the plane ends up in the ocean. Your mom will cry. Your friends will get wasted and cry for a while. They’ll forget you, though. In a couple weeks, you’re going to be a sad afterthought.”
My hands shook, I couldn’t see what I was looking at. My mouth was dry. Her head slumped onto my shoulder.
I was breathing heavily, like I was asleep. I was wide awake. I couldn’t have been more awake. Or more sober. I felt like all the drink of the night before was magically shipped out of my body. I had never been so sober.
“There’s nothing you can do here, man. Just accept the potential for terror in your life. How shitty is this end going to be?”
Why was I thinking like this? Why were my thoughts talking to me like they were a different, terrible, person? What the hell is going on?
I was now clearly uncomfortable. Apparently visibly so. The flight attendant stopped by my row. She saw my state. Wide eyed, sweaty, shaking. She gave me some water, which I promptly drank. She gave me another one. The act of taking the water had an added benefit. The act of reaching jostled the sleeping lady next to me off of my shoulder.
I thanked the flight attendant quietly, as most of the others on the plane were sleeping. Partly hydrated, I took a deep breath, and I could finally hear some music. I was happy to hear Smokey Robinson, happy it wasn’t my aggressively negative brain screaming at me. Then I looked out the window at the expanse of ocean below me.
“Hey dummy,” my brain interrupted, “better hope for a soft landing, otherwise…done.”
It started again. I couldn’t get it to stop. Shaking, sweating, everything was wrong. My chest was tight. My lungs struggled. I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep. Flash cards showing images of crashes zoomed through my vision. Fire, debris, blood. I saw it all. It was all fiction, I think. I think it was fiction because it all happened in my thoughts. Sure some of it was based on news footage, but that reality was emulsified with scenes from Lost, which is ludicrous in every way.
Eventually, we landed in Seattle. I settled down when I got into that airport. I could get a coffee, pop on my laptop for a while, check in with family and friends. My heart stopped racing. My sleepy row buddy and I had neighboring gates for our next flight. Mine took off first, but it was after a two hour layover. So we chatted a bit with coffee, sitting in uncomfortable chairs. We didn’t stay in touch after I took off.

“You had a panic attack in the air?” said Andre, nervously.
“Yea, it passed. Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine,” I said.
I hope he made it okay.

Fuck The Red Hot Chili Peppers

There are certain things that are inevitable in this life. Death. Taxes. Dummies getting lucky and failing upwards. And, of course, never getting away from terrible songs. This last one has been something that I have noticed for the last few weeks with more and more frequency. When bad songs exist, they live in a sphere that orbits our lives in such a way that they come in and out intermittently, like phases of the moon. When they are originally released, we, as humans with good taste, recognize the horrid nature of these tunes and figure them for a shelf life of  untenable length. Ear worms that get on the radio, Pandora, satellite, or whatever music listening product we are going to use. Then it shows up in commercials, because a terrible song is going to sell cars.

The problem with most terrible songs, other than the fact that they are terrible, is that my taste is different than that of the popular gentry. So is my knowledge of musical history. I am versed in the pop, rock, and whatever else of the last 60 years. It's just something I do. So when I hear some crappy song I can instantly recognize it as crappy and think of a dozen better versions of said song. Not that all pop songs are bad. There are plenty of contemporary pop artists that have skills and songwriters good enough to make quality music that is digestible for the masses.

Enter The Red Hot Chili Peppers. A once mighty rock outfit that played interesting and dangerous songs. They were adept showmen and stellar musicians who used varied influences to mesh together a funky rock sound that was both interesting and commercially appealing. That last part being the least important, they focused on making the best songs that they could. They were jazzy, heavy, and most of all, different. For about a decade spanning the mid 1980's into the middle 90's, whatever they did was anticipated and, for the most part, delighted at by anyone with an FM radio or MTV (and fuck MTV, by the way).

Then, in the summer of 1999, it all fell apart. They released Californication in June, and for the next year we were bombarded by shitty song after shitty song. Our ears were tortured as a once exciting act was transformed into the worlds worst Adult Contemporary band. They were as toothless as John Mayer, and as boring as brown carpet. The title track being the worst of them all. It speaks about the dark side of the film industry with crappy pop culture references and the most banal set of musicianship I have ever heard from people so accomplished.

It's not that they sold out, it's not that. It's that they just stopped writing good songs. This particular song is everywhere and it FUCKING SUCKS. Fuck this song, and fuck this band for writing it. If Matchbox 20 wrote it, fine, I would expect that. But for a band that used to be dangerous and interesting, this has all the power of wet bread. I would rather listed to Gary Cherone era Van Halen. I was never a huge fan of The Red Hot Chili Peppers to begin with, but this was the final nail.

And this audible garbage is what I have been constantly hearing for about 2 months now. Everywhere I am, this song is playing. At work, someone puts on a perfectly fine Pandora station. This shit shows up. Watching some television. Boom, slapped in the brain with this shit. In the liquor store searching for something tasty. This shit smashes a bottle of disappointment over my skull.

Fuck this song. I hate a lot of things, especially in music. But this....this is the worst fucking song. This is worse than St. Anger by Metallica, and that was so comically bad I thought it was a joke at first. This is worse than anything off of Be a Man by Macho Man Randy Savage (may he rest in peace) which is a rap-metal album by an over the hill professional wrestler. "Californication" is this bad because of history.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers used to be something that was at the very least interesting. At this turn in their career, they have become bland. Their once revered live act, when I saw it, was so dull that I left. I LEFT! This is still the only show I have left due to anger. I was so pissed about how flat bad they were that me and my friend, after we spent $40 in college freshman money (which is about $500 in adult money, adjusted for inflation) left because we were so bored with the show. I have seen Supergrass in concert, on purpose, and they were terrible. At least they had the decency to get drunk before going out on stage and not playing any of their good song. Yea, Supergrass only had the one good song and they didn't fucking play it. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had some really good songs early in their career, and they just played soul crushing bullshit for at least 45 minutes. I have no idea how much more they played, because that show had no business being finished.

It was the last season of Dexter. Completely stupid and a massive waste of my time. And they played that fucking song as I was walking out. As if they were taunting me with their new shitty outlook. I don't suggest getting back on heroin, but maybe they should go back to when doing heroin was a good idea and write songs like that again. Because fuck this band, and fuck that song. That fucking song had been out of my life for a while, and life was okay. I was moving forward, day by day, not thinking about this fucking song.

Then it showed up. Out of nowhere. And it hasn't gone away for weeks. It's the worst chest cold I have ever had. Hanging around, coughing up phlegm, blowing snot rockets. That's what this song is. It's a big phlegmy pile of bullshit that you hear over and over and over.

Until you are so pissed off that you pound 1000 words on your keyboard and force people to read about it.

Sorry. Blame that shitty band and their shitty songs. They haven't gotten any better, by the way. Still shit.

Fuck The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

SD

The Flickerstick Game

I haven't written about music in a while. Hell, I haven't written about anything in a while, but that's not the point. But sometimes I feel compelled to get off my ass and actually write about something that I was once passionate about. My love of music hasn't died, but it has become complacent. I don't have the energy to go and find the new bands, new styles, new sounds that I did when I was a kid. Even as little as a decade ago I was up on the hip jams.

Now I say hip jams and know exactly how terrible it sounds. I don't care. I never wanted to be that old guy at the shows who can't bop his head to the music because of the constant neck pain. I felt bad for that guy when I was 19, and I feel worse for him now. Mostly because I recognize that that guy was my future, and I had to change it up. So I still listen to the songs of my youth. The songs that got me through the original hard times and challenges. They are comfort food. Jimmy Eat World may not be that relevant anymore, but Clarity is still a landmark album in my life. Or maybe Jimmy Eat World is still wildly popular, I honestly don't know. And frankly, I don't care. I like what I like.

Music is the soundtrack to an era. Sure there are plenty of people who revere the songs of yore, which is why The Beatles and the Rolling Stones are still considered among the best bands of all time, even though they were putting out their best product before 99% of the people that are going to read this were born (thanks for fucking up the perfect score, mom). So in that light, I use the music of my gentler years as the score of my life today. It's the music that kept me going through the original travails and triumphs. We all remember what song was playing when we had our first (insert event here), or which CD was in when we got pulled over. We all have those songs firmly planted in our minds, and you, dear reader, are thinking about some of them right now.

Back in those days, discovering new music was easy. At least I thought it was. I would go to shows at the local venues. They weren't big, but there was usually something interesting there. My friends and I would walk up and pay the door charge, the entire time speculating about the set list of the headliner. Often times, though, it was the opening acts that opened our ears. Generally, there was some local band that would grace the stage first. They were pretty shit, almost all the time. We wouldn't care or pay much attention, unless they happen to be really good, which was nearly never, and then we would just befriend them and move on with our lives. The real show began when the travelling acts would go on. We would listen, judge, and either bounce around with approval or stand in the back, arms crossed, in disgust.

We would buy new music at these shows. Record labels would release samplers for $2 and sell them at the merch booth. Here is the first place we would get to hear a lot of music. One, maybe two songs at a time from some new act. If we liked them, we would hustle to the record store at the next possible moment to get the CD. Or special order it if they didn't have it or we were so ahead of the game that the record store nerd hadn't heard of it yet. This was a rare occurrence, but when it did happen, you felt like a God.

For a few years, it was very common for these sampler discs to have a folded paper catalog inside. There you could see some of the cover art and a brief description of the music you were thinking about buying. These were like small treasure maps wrapped up in a riddle. It was a musical Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Pick the wrong one, you are stuck with crap and down $12 after shipping and handling. Choose the right one, however, and you discover something incredible, and you cherish that disc until you play it to death and have to get another one. At this point the record store nerds know you and wonder why you hadn't already had Punk in Drublic, when you have most of NOFX's current discography.

Then I became a record store nerd. I became the one who was on the front lines of new music, and I was getting paid for it. I was the one who was judging you. And I wasn't quiet about it. I was Jack Black in High Fidelity and I basked in it. I was a dick. I dressed like a dick, I acted like a dick, and I treated other people dickishly. Sorry about that...

One of the perks of being the record store nerd was seeing everything that was coming out. We would scour the new release lists to see which of our favorite bands were putting out something, anything, to quench our thirst. The best part of it all, through my entire tenure as a record store nerd, was finding the hidden gem. The band that no one, not even us nerds, had heard of, that was awesome. Something that we could listen to and support and feel like the superior dicks that we truly were.

Of course, popping in those discs and listening to the songs was most often a tragedy for the ears, but occasionally something would stick out. One song on an otherwise horrible album would catch our ears. Then it became a challenge to find that one song. These bands and albums never did well. No matter how many consecutive months "Graduation (Friends Forever)" by Vitamin C was on the in store playlist, I don't think we ever sold a copy.

Sometimes we would purposely play songs over and over again because they were awesome. "Tangerine Speedo" by Caviar was so weird yet undeniable. A bossanova rock song about a Eurotrash dude? Fuck yes. That song was a diamond in a pile of music garbage. I still love it and it's on as many playlists as I can muster.

Most of the time, these songs were not by one hit wonders, or great bands with a dud album that contained one catchy single. These were no hit wonders. Bands that crashed and burned in the early 2000's with nothing to show for it other than a job at Guitar Center and some cool stories about being on tour with Semisonic. Not that there is anything wrong with having an album pushed so hard by a major label that it ends up on record store play discs. Good for them.

Unfortunately, in that era, the late 90's and early 2000's, music was in a dark place. Glossy pop acts, the Boy Bands and Disney girl singers, ruled the day. If you weren't aligned with 50 Cent, your rap record might struggle on the East Coast. Rock was no different. The post grunge sounds were fading away, and even bands like Weezer, who were dominant in just a few years earlier, were nowhere to be found. Underground is where you had to go for good new songs. If you wanted bad new songs, you always had Nickleback and the like to murder your brains. The people I knew went underground, and I went with them.

As a record store nerd, I had the inside track. I knew what was coming out when, and who to look for on a label that we enjoyed. Nowadays, I don't do that. I still listen to those same songs, those same underground acts that I enjoyed 15 years ago. If I had entrance music, it would still be "Apocalypse WOW!" by Reggie and the Full Effect. I still know plenty of people who are early adopters of the new music. I frequent a bar that proudly plays bands I have never heard of, and sometimes even brings them in to play live. And that's fine. I still like hearing new music, I just don't want to do the work myself. I don't have it in me anymore.

Now I just reminisce. Now we say to each other: "Know who you haven't thought about in a while?" and then list off bands. Thousands of bands. We call it The Flickerstick Game. Flickerstick was a band from that era who won some shitty tour competition show on VH1 called "Band on the Run." The beat the musical juggernauts Soulcracker, The Josh Dodes Band, and Harlow (who were immortalized in a David Cross bit with the line "Wait a minute...I HATE Harlow"). They were on the fast track to being good. A full band who was not bad and won a game show? Sure. I was into it. They had an indie release. I bought it. Then came the major label re-release. I bought that, too. I was terrible. Turns out, they were more terrible than I was, as I am still around, and they are not.

So now we play this game when we are bored. There is a mountain of bands and singers to choose from, and I think we might have run out. This is sad. The end of the game is going to be a sad day, but how many 15 year old bands that didn't have a hit no matter how hard they tried or how many shows they played with American Hi-Fi.

It's okay though. I lived through those days, I saw some of those bands, and some of them were better than you might think. Not Moth though. They were just...bad.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeYwB1LI_4

SD

A Random Act

Recently, things haven't been going so great for me. Events, feelings, and other bits of randomness have left me in a nasty hole. In order to combat some of this darkness, I have tried to conjure up the memories that I like and focus on them instead of the stuff that brings me down.

Here's one that stands out in particular:

In the late 1980's, I don't remember the exact summer it was, I was sent out to spend some time with an aunt that was living in San Francisco. I remember having a good time overall, but one event has left a lasting impression. A baseball game.

We crossed the Bay Bridge into Oakland, because the A's were playing at home and her beloved San Francisco Giants were elsewhere. I can't remember who the A's were playing, but that detail is minor, and who cares, it's not the point anyway. Our seats were incredible. Best I've ever had. First row of the upper deck, directly behind home plate. I could see everything, and as a 9 year old, everything was immaculate.

At some point during the middle of the game, my aunt and her boyfriend at the time left to go get food and beers. This might seem odd today, as leaving a small child who lives 3500 miles away alone at a ballgame in Oakland is probably the worst idea of all time. But it happened. So I'm there, alone, with two seats open to my left and a bunch of strangers around me. I can only imagine that these strangers were generally good people, baseball fans, and cool with being a crowd of babysitters for 15 minutes. I know that I would be protective of a child in that situation, but that's because I have goodness locked away in this husk of a soul.

Anyway, Rickey Henderson came to bat. He is still one of my favorite players of all time. I'm leaning against the railing, trying to see everything as well as my tiny eyes can manage. Then it happens. The moment every fan dreams about. The crack of the bat, the groan of the crowd. The ball popping up straight back into foul territory. Hands reach out. My arm stretches to my left as far as it can. My arms were short, and I had no glove, so when the ball landed in my aunt's boyfriends seat, literally two seats away from me, I came up empty and it bounded away. A few minutes later, as the disappointment of not catching the closest foul ball I have ever seen (to this day, mind you) faded, a tap came on my shoulder. I turned to see an older man, probably in his 60's, with a ball in his hand.

He held it out. "Here you go, bud. Take it!" And I did. He just...GAVE me the ball! I held it, examined it, searched every inch, every stitch, and felt every scuff. It was so bright, so smooth. The seams were rich red and the printing so clean. Nothing like the crap baseballs I played Little League with or used to toss around with my friends. This was art. I was in love with this baseball. On top of that, it was hit by my favorite player. I was on top of the world. My aunt and her boyfriend came back with hot dogs, beers, and other baseball game snacks, but my focus was on the ball.

I must have smiled so big that people thought I was some weird foreign kid who had no idea what this small sphere was, but liked it anyway. I remember thinking that nothing would top that. That older man had no reason to give me the ball. He could have kept it, given it to his family, or sold it as memorabilia. Instead, he thought it would have been good to give it to me. For no good reason.

That random act of generosity has stuck with me ever since. It was a truly kind moment, from a stranger to a child. Nowadays, it might be tinted with a creepy oddness that would make you wonder about the motivations of that man. Nowadays, I wouldn't have been left alone in those seats. Nowadays, we are far more cynical than we were back then.

Random acts of goodness, no matter how pure the motive, are always seen with a more pessimistic lens today, and it really makes me sad. Why can't we just be good to one another? Baseball provided me a moment of true goodness. Maybe it was the innocence of being a child, or maybe I just hadn't gotten my ass kicked enough yet to see bad things. In the moment, there were none of those notions, nothing dirty, or mean, or antagonistic about the situation at all. To me, and in my memory, that man just did something nice for a kid who really liked baseball.

Maybe he just wanted to enhance my game experience. Maybe he wanted to ensure that my love of baseball was cemented with a ball. Maybe he just didn't want to carry the thing around with him for the rest of the day. I didn't care, and I didn't think about it. I just thanked him, and stared at it with that youthful glee that has been scraped off by the passing years.

No matter how disappointed I have gotten with things, and no matter how low I might sink into my own head, I can pull up this memory and realize that not everything is crap. Sometimes a random act of goodness occurs. Sometimes the bad stuff can subside when we remember the kind old man who gives us a baseball.

A Rickey Henderson baseball.

SD