It's the end of the world as we know it....

Today I saw an email from Ron, talking about cancelling his World of Warcraft account.

In a panic I ran outside and looked at the horizon. Hmmm. No images of giant horsemen. No ponies either.
There were no mushroom clouds forming.
The rain was just rainy, there seemed to be no animals mixed in. If there were any animals, how big would they be? Very small. I went back to sleep.
I checked the speeling of "tiger" on the internet. Nope, not spelled with a "y" now.
I looked at the sentence above, but "speeling" was just my typo, not an actual change, nor was I channeling Ron suddenly.
I looked quickly again at my car; it was still a Mustang, not a Prius.
My co-workers were not chanting "Cthulhu ftaghn!"
No one was rushing about frantically screaming "Fuck! Nyarlathotep! Run!" or even just"Fuck! Run!"

Baffled, I looked for more subtle changes. My hair was still long. I still thought Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, all of Homeland Security, and close to half the Congress and Senate were jerks, or highly paid low grade corrupt morons. The Celtic knot on my necklace had not changed to a cross, I was still wearing all black.... oops, the underwear is dark blue, but that was what I put on this morning, so that was OK..... the socks are still black. After checking my DNA, I was still carrying one X and one Y chromosome.

It then occurred to me Ron might be joking. This was, of course, slightly more probable than the end of the world coming. We did, after all, only watch one movie the other night.

Things I should not do

1) Bungee jump. Why subject the remainder of my hair to the yank of gravity at the apex point of the jump? All the rest of the damn things would probably go flying out like feathers off Daffy, and I would look like Telly Savalas. Boy, was that NOT one of the goals I had....

2) Rent movies just because women I think are pretty are in them. "Last Sentinel" is a very good example of this. Forget the fact that Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from "Battlestar Galactica) is not only talented, but pretty. Forget the fact that on the DVD cover she has a gun. This was a bad choice. I should blind myself for having watched it. When the only redeeming factor in a movie is that there is a very drawn-out scene with her body double (shot from behind) taking a topless sponge bath.... I couldn't get my moneys worth even if I looped that and played nothing else for the remaining 60 minutes of the run time. Echhhh. I had to throw the DVD player away afterwards, so there was no chance of the other electronics getting infected.

A note for famous martial arts people. The fact some person holds a national title in martial arts, like the supposed "star" of Last Sentinel, Don The Dragon Wilson, does not mean they can act. Bruce Lee was an exception. Maybe Jackie Chan. The use of the word Artist in the title Martial Artist indicates the dedication and work required; it has no correlation to, say "Performance Artist" or any other acting skill. Don, stick to kicking things. You look very nice when you fight, and your mouth is shut. Steven Segal, please stop. The balding/fat/sensitive/pony-tail/ guy who can also fight is my bailiwick. You make plenty of money already, stop jumping my gig. Jean-Claude, you too. Take roles in things like "Alien vs Predator" where you can hop around in a drippy suit and have ADR add cool growling. First, it's more intelligible than your own accent (Ahnold speaks clearer!) and second won't strain your skills. Chuck, stick to commercials for exercise stuff. Kevin Coster emotes more than you do. OK, maybe not. On a scale of 1 to 10, rocks are a solid 2, you get a 4. Kevin ties with the rocks, only because he is mobile.

Playoffs thoughts

I watched the playoffs Saturday and Sunday. Sort of. It's hard to watch a team that made it to the Wild Card slot behave like they don't believe they should have made it that far; watching two teams you are favoring play like the 49ers staff are coaching them isn't really fun. It's more like some slow weird torture, like having to endlessly file things, only to have them pop back out in some Sisyphean (??? Is that a word??) Maybe Sisyphusean? Funnier if I don't look it up. Besides, it's my blog. I'll make up words when I want to.

Monigamy: completely faithful to more than one person at a time. ( I stole that. )

Frigididity: the condition of being so cold you double parts of words (stole that too.)

Hairsuit: filing charges against your follicles for desertion.

I at least have one team left in contention, since San Diego managed to wake up and play in the third quarter. Sadly, I think they are going to lose to the Colts, unless that game was an eye-opener for the team. Regardless, I think the Colts are the better to choice to beat the Patriots, unless somehow Green Bay takes the Pats down first. After that, I would in all honesty have to choose the Cowboys, simply because T.O. is a match (almost) for Randy Moss, and is playing finally with no BS. Then the Chargers, then the Giants.

Sigh. To think I might have to wind up rooting for Dallas or New York.... guess I might as well vote Republican, cut my hair, and join the Catholic church while I am at it. They say change is good. I wonder if I can trade in all my Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus CD's for Tammy Wynette and Toby Keith?

There's something you don't see every day Chauncey

Barney the dinosaur blundering about in the dark.

Barney the dinosaur tearing his head off. Not that I don't think that was a good thing. Just sort of weird.
"I love you, you love me.... Aggghhh! Goodbye cruel world!" riiiippppp!

Elmo running past muttering "shit shit shit."

Bert running about in a frenzy (OK, that part is typical) yelling "Where is my hat! Where is that god damned cowboy hat! Fuck, I hate that hat!"

Ernie looking at you upside down, because his head is flipped over backward while he stands in front of a fan with cold air blowing down his neck.

Tina Turners legs. Can some one explain to me how she can have a seventy year old face, and seventeen year old legs? Christina Aguilera's legs aren't that nice.

Carlos Santana asking if you want him to grab you anything while he is at Starbucks.

A Stegosaurus staring at you from inside a semi trailer.

Driving with the Disengaged

Hmmm... a theme for my posts. "Blank with Blank". Yeah. That will either get very old very fast, or I will waste hours of my life searching for clever little titles. And/or not.

I really do enjoy driving. Especially now. I also enjoy the people whose world is always sunny and clear, those die-hard optimists who bring joy to the world about them. They are easy to spot; they are the ones driving with no lights in pouring rain. Today I had several opportunities to meet some of them, and to let them know I wanted to join their ranks, if even for a moment, by turning my own lights off and on. Sadly, most of them wanted to remain aloof and ignore my pleas. A few were kind enough to let me know they were friendly, by joining my gloomy world and turning their lights on too. There were even two who stopped to ask me what I wanted:
"Is there something wrong Scott?"
"No, you just don't have your lights on."
"Well, it's daytime..."
"I know, but it's raining. Like, really hard."
"Oh, is it? I hadn't noticed. Thanks so much for telling me!" vrooooom, and off they go. Goodbye, little happy person..... BOOM.

Oops. They blew up. How sad. But the light was pretty; I hope they thought so too.

I shall enshrine them, along with those remarkable people who can either see in the dark, or are able to use echo-location to drive at night.
"Ma'am, your lights are off!"
"Really? I didn't notice!"
"Yeah. That's why you had to drive so slow, and the world seemed so black, and you couldn't see anything inside the car, like your dashboard.... glad I could be of help."

That Boy Scout training really does stick with you. Well, time to go; I'm going to see if I can find some drivers I can demonstrate the pretty blinking dash lights for, that go left or right. That should be really easy, I'll just look for BMW's.

Handy obscure terms

For those who read this stuff ( all five of you so far...) a few terms to make future post less impenetrable; like all specific jobs, there is a lot of jargon associated with rock and theatre.

Roadbox: A (usually) wheeled container, made of some combination of wood/steel/plastic/aluminum/fiberglass. Designed to hold cables, lights, speakers, guitars, tools, or anything else you might need.

Loader: People who stay inside a truck and do nothing but stack or arrange the roadboxes as they come back in, or unstack and shove them out when they come out.

Load in / Load out: Load in is bringing all the stuff in for the show and assembling it; load out is (duh) the reverse.

Back Line: The musical gear for bands such as keyboards, drum kits, guitars, hollow logs, trash can lids.... whatever. Can also include an odd assortment of stuff, such as stuffed animals, music stands, and portable bars...

Steel: All the wire rope cable used in rigging. Why not call it wire rope? Who knows...

Rigging: Hanging of pretty much anything above the ground. Next time at a show, look up. See the two or three tons of truss, lights, sound and video dangling above you? Thats rigging.

Gakk: Pretty much anything that is pointless/icky/unidentified or a pain in the ass. It covers things like the stuff you find stuck to your shoes (mostly tape bits and confetti) during and after a show, to the assorted stuff some bands have on the stage, like stuffed toys, underwear thrown from the audience, and Britney Spears talent. (oops).

You might have noticed these are not in alphabetical order. Tough. You want a dictionary, or a blog page? I'll probably add to this list periodically. Or not. Whichever I find funnier. What the hell does a cheeseburger have to do with building a stage or scaffold? Tune in tomorrow! (hint; it ain't food...)

Silly rock bands

OK, right off I am going to deny this has anything to do with age; I think I would have thought this was silly when I was 18. I can't really remember back that far, I admit, but........ whatever.

Over the last six months I have worked on a lot of shows with newer bands, like Maroon 5 and All American Rejects, as well as some of the older bands, like Clapton and Dave Matthews. Recently I worked on two bands I like but had not yet seen; Evanessence and Fall Out Boy. The second guitar player for Evanessence was the first one that made me think "ummm, that looks dumb...".

For starters, I don't think dreads are really a good option on anything except scary Sci-fi monsters; they are definitely a poor choice for heavyset, short, cherub-faced white guys. The heavy goth eyeliner really was not enough of an offset, IMO. (gr) What made him look extra dippy was that on every single song he would reach a bridge or a solo, and he would stop moving aimlessly about in small arcs, then flip all his hair forward so it was hanging over the guitar, and play bent over like a limp marionette, while flailing at the guitar. Once he finished his little bit, back would go the hair, and he would once again move slowly back and forth like a manatee on reds. Ever so often he would wander back to the speaker stack and lean his head against it. What, like, you can't hear the music?

The next night it was the lead guitar for Fall Out Boy. Again, I think perhaps not the best look for white guys is the white guy Afro; then again I thought they looked pretty silly on black people too, sooooo.......

(oh, and I get special dispensation on criticizing other peoples hair choices folks; those of us who have traitor-bastard-wimp follicles spend a LOT of time looking at those more hirsute, and thinking "well, at least its HAIR.... we are trained observers)

Now this guy was tall, skinny, and actually fairly muscular. While he probably weighed 60 lbs less than Mr. goshifiwasapredatorandsevenfeettallwouldIlookcoolorwhat, I think he could have taken him easily. Whatever. So here is Mr. Puffball, hopping about frenetically and racing about on the stage. Think of what would happen if a dark brown Q-Tip went nuts. Made Pete Townsend look sedentary. That part was fine. However at various points in songs he would reach a crescendo of energy, and begin snapping his head up and down at about twice the tempo of the music. It was so fast I was surprised I didn't hear sounds, like a sheet snapping in the wind. "whapwhapwhapwhap....". Visually, all I could think of was what one of those little drinking ducks would look like if its water had been laced with speed or crystal meth at the very moment it became possesed by a demon who discovered it had no ability to walk..... "THE CUP IS MINE!!!!!! WAIT! I HAVE NO LEGS!!!!!! GRRRRRRRR"

So after this long dissertration, here is the question: Did our guitar heroes look this dippy when they were younger? I just don't remember any of the bands, even during the big-hair band era, looking that silly. Except for maybe Twisted Sister and Poison who would all head-bob together. But did they do it every song? Guess I'll have to pull out a bunch of old concert footage and see......