I have so much to tell you, dear reader, and what seems like so little time.  So much writing to do.

So (for now) I’ll just give you the short version.  Inasmuch as that’s possible for this blogger with a penchant for verbosity.

Excellent weekend.  Long one.  I took last Wednesday through Friday off from work so that I could get some hiking done in the Adirondacks.  Peakbagging, really.  I left NJ Wednesday morning, drove up to the ‘dacks and hiked in to the lean-to by 5:30PM.  The lean-to is about 3.5 miles from the parking area (Garden).  On Thursday I climbed Mount Marcy, Mount Haystack (via Little Haystack), Basin and Saddleback.  The hike was about 14 miles long and kicked my ass.  I think the overall elevation gain was about 6,000′.  Here’s the map over at my EveryTrail page.

Friday I woke up a bit late and hit the trail around 10:30AM, still sore from Thursday.  I climbed Yard and Big Slide, then packed up my stuff and hiked out.  I was planning to meet SoloJoe on Saturday morning for his 46er finish, but that got canceled, so I grabbed a burger at the Noonmark Diner in Keene Valley and headed home.  Here’s Friday’s hike on EveryTrail.

I showered most of the muck off of me from W-F that night and woke up on Saturday morning to climb Table Mountain in the Catskills with Scott.  Here’s that hike over at EveryTrail.

I slept in a bit on Sunday, did some chores and headed over to Whole Foods for lunch, where I serendipitously met my cousin Julia.  We had a nice conversation back at my place for a bit and I loaned her World War Z and Wicked.  Both are excellent books.  I ended up getting to my parents’ house a bit late for my sister’s bbq, but that’s ok because I ended up being early (relative to the other guests).  We all had a great time; I left around 1:30AM.

I don’t think I did sh*t on Monday but have lunch with Scott and pick up my laundry after the laundromat had closed.

Last night Katie, Scott and I went to see The Rockin’ Denny & Brad at the Village Lantern in . . . um . . . the village.  I didn’t get to bed until about 2:30, so I’m kinda shot right now.

So that’s it for now – more later, I’m sure.  I still have a handful of emails to send out and a couple of trip reports to put together for the hiking forum – but not tonight.  Tonight is for sleeping.

What’s that, you ask (dear reader)?  Why, the awesomeness, of course.  Neither my sister Katie nor I forgot to bring the awesomeness to the Apocalyptica show last night.  Which was very important, because whoever put the show together did just that.  Forget to bring the awesomeness, that is.

Oh, Apocalyptica rocked the house in a typically bodacious manner – starting off with covers of Master of Puppets and Seek and Destroy.  When Katie and I saw them last year, there were a helluva lot more people taking care of the James Hetfield parts of the song.  This year, it seemed like we were two of a very few who knew the words to these Metallica songs.  We were also in the minority insofar as we also own the new Apocalyptica album (7th Symphony), which was released yesterday.

After the two covers, they went right into the stuff from the new album – which is pretty good; I need another few listens, but I can say at this point with confidence that the album overall is worth listening to, and a couple of the songs thereon truly rock.  It’s not ridiculously different from their last album, but that’s not a bad thing – Worlds Collide is an excellent album.

But back to my point:  Apocalyptica played for just an hour – from 10:30 to 11:30 (doors were at 8).  The last time we saw them, they played for at least two hours (which, in my humble opinion, is about average for a headlining band).  I think what happened was that the opening act Dir En Grey stayed on the stage longer than they were supposed to.  They were a decent choice for an opener, but listening to them for two hours was not why I bought tickets.

Dir En Grey is a five “man” Japanese group – two guitars, drums, bass and lead singer.  I think they sung in Japanese and I’m not really sure that they played their own instruments.  Katie remarked that one of the guitarists was only in the band because of his pretty hair.  I can’t really say that I found any one of them to be particularly talented.  As a band, their music was relatively cohesive and I’d say they have a certain “rock star” quality to them, but the music was a bit disjointed for my tastes.  And having to watch them for two hours of it was bullshit.  Needless to say, I felt free to go pee and smoke a cigarette while they were on stage.

</rant>

Apocalyptica was pretty excellent, as usual.  For one of the last songs, they even brought up Adam Grontier of Three Days Grace to sing I Don’t Care (from Worlds Collide) – and he did a splendid enough job that I was prompted to spontaneously yell “don’t kill yourself, emo scum” after the song ended.  [Yes, I'm wondering if something spontaneous could be prompted too, dear reader.]  In any case, I really dig that song.

The other dude they had up on stage to sing two songs from 7th Symphony really needs that metal surgery – and I’m not talking about adamantium, dear reader:  I mean the kind where he actually gets some metal in his blood, like maybe mercury or something.  I had a hard time even throwing up short horns for that queer.  And now I feel bad for associating his wussy-ass with all my homosexual friends.  Please forgive me this transgression, but I’m pretty sure he likes it in the pooper.

Anyway, anybody like Flyleaf?  After hearing the chick on one of the 7th Symphony tracks, I’m thinking about picking up an album.  Any suggestions?

This was a helluva weekend, dear reader. 

Friday night I blew everyone off and read 150 pages of a new book.  Saturday morning, Scott and I hiked Doubletop and Graham.  Graham did not, this time, take a chunk out of my eye.  Yay.  Here’s the link to the full trip report on this site (which is, actually, the last post).

After the hike, we got home in time to shower and meet up with Jeanne and Heather and head down to Brighton Bar in Long Branch NJ to see four metal bands.  The headliners were Black Water Rising and Cycle of Pain.  Both played excellent shows, as did the two bands before them (KillCode & Diablo Royale). 

I danced around and headbanged like a maniac for all four bands – I must have sweat through my shirt at least three times.  I can’t believe I’m in good enough shape to do that after Saturday’s hike.  I spent as much time eating and drinking water as I could this weekend, and although I stayed tolerably/well hydrated, I don’t think I consumed anywhere near the number of calories I burned on Saturday.

Sunday was spent on the golf course (Apple Greens near New Paltz NY) with John, Katie and Dad.  Afterward we returned to mom & dad’s house for zuppa di pesce a la mom.  I got home around 8PM and promptly fell asleep.  Woke up around 11PM to turn the lights off, shower off the various chemicals sticking to me from the day, and go back to sleep.  I did not do laundry, bake a cake or clean ANY of my apartment this weekend.

Next weekend I’ll be at Minis On Top with a few friends from the internet (Brandy, Alora and Don the un-google-able), and I’m wicked glad that (fingers crossed) this week will be slow at work so that I can catch up on my prep for that and other general interwebz stuff.

I need to plan a retreat so that I can gather my thoughts (no jokes, please) before the summer is over.  I can’t believe how quickly 2010 is passing.

Ok, we’re live at The Red Fish (158 Bleecker St NY NY) – for those of you who speak French, that’s “Le Poisson Rouge”. Greg “Cosmo D” Heffernan of Smoothe Moose Lanoratories & Recordings fame is kicking it on his cello & Mac and a couple of DJs are mixing shit up on their Macs and . . . er, mix machines. The sound is overall pretty mixed.

I wish I had a real keyboard, but this is the price I must pay to be this effin mobile.

Greg’s off now and the DJs are getting more beers; they lef the volume up on a pretty decent beat. Now they’re back and messing around again. Every minute or two I think I can hear Justice or Daft Punk – yeah, that’s definitely DP’s “Human After All” they’re playing around with now. These guys should continue to play other people’s music.

There are four Macs on the table with sundry other equipment. I really gotta think one Mac could get the job done just as well.

Holy shit, did Daft Punk know what the fuck they were doing!

Two turntables and a Macintosh: I think the turnies are just there to support the Mac stand. And I don’t mean emotionally.

I’m not sure if this is good or not:  it’s Monday evening and my weekend is booking out pretty quickly.  I think I’m going to make an appointment with myself on Sunday to do “not a damned thing.”  Better pencil that in to the ole Outlook.  Or MobileMe.  Or whatever.  Just try not to forget, asshole.

No, not you dear reader, I’m the asshole I was talking to.  It’s cool though:  I’m not nuts.  Crazy people have conversations with one another – dialogues, if you will.  Me, I don’t do any such thing.  They’re more discussions – very one-sided – like when my dad and I had (have) a “talk” about something.  Except now I usually just get up and walk away if it starts going on too long.  Either way – if it’s me or my dad starting to lecture me, I’m outta there.

Goddamn!  I love me some J. S . Bach.  I really don’t know dick about classical music, but I know I dig some Bach.  There’s this thing called a Badinerie – about a minute and a half of some hardcore badass flute-playing at the end of Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor (BVW 1067) (yes, I know that’s exactly what the Wikipedia article says, but that’s also what I’m listening to) that totally gets me hard.  Maybe not literally, but I’m sure I’d have a tough time staying calm if you combined pretty much any part of BVW 1067 with naked breasts.  Srsly, bro:  it rocks.

So yeah, I don’t necessarily know that I dig Badineries and Bourrees unless they’re Bach’s.  Anyone have any suggestions as to whom I should check out and give a listen to?

This past New Year’s Eve I spent at my aunt and uncle’s house in Montclair.  Attending dinner were Maestro Delta David Grier and his wife – frig, I can’t remember her first name, and she was such a sweetheart.  I had to do some hardcore Googling to get David’s last name, anyway.

I picked up the Alastair Reynolds novels on David’s suggestion – he was “reading” the first novel on tape for a book club, I believe.

So, yeah:  the point of this long-ass digression is an anecdote that my aunt passed along to me yesterday (I’m pretty sure it was about David).  They were engaged in a discussion about various composers (and I’m going to simplify and paraphrase this to get straight to the point).  David said that Bach composed by looking at the notes on the page and finding patterns and balance, while Mozart was continually scribbling on every piece of paper at hand, writing and re-writing, and Beethoven, well, Beethoven took dictation directly from God.

At least, I think that’s how it went.  I may have mixed up Mozart and Beethoven.  Which is fine, because I’m a Bach guy.  I can just about see the balance and patterns of the notes on the page as I listen to Bach.  It’s pretty fly.

487 words worth of a digression, how do you like that, dear reader?

The point to the title and first sentence of this post (and I very rarely write the title first) is that I need to get my ass in gear this week (literally and figuratively) during the hours when I’m not working:  I just spoke with SoloJoe an hour or two ago and I’m going to be meeting him Friday night at one of the lean-tos up in the Adirondacks, for to go hiking on Saturday.  Peakbagging, actually.  In order to meet him at said lean-to on Friday night, I’m going to have to find myself a nice big pack that will hold my sleeping bag, day pack, food and probably something warm to wear at night.  I’ve been eyeballing and pricing out bigger packs for the past few days, but now it’s go-time:  I need to pick one up and figure my shiz out lickety-split.  No more time for dissembling.

Luckily, I’m pretty sure I know which pack I’m going to get – if it’s still on sale at Ramsey Outdoor Store when I get there tomorrow evening.

Oh, and did I mention that I need to be off Table Top and Phelps mountains and in my car by the early afternoon on Saturday so that I can be at my sister’s birthday party in Astoria in the evening?  Yeah, this weekend is going to be a pretty fine one.  Katie, try to line up a couple of hot chicks for me.  At your birthday party.  =D

And there’s a mystery package waiting for me at the post office.  So I need to get my ass in bed and try (again) to wake up early so that I can get there before work.

Check out BVW 1067 if you get a chance and imagine playing the flute solo yourself – I swear it’ll melt your face.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) I’ll be at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC to see Flogging Molly.  I’m going to guess that this will be the sixth or so show of theirs I’ve attended.  I haven’t listened to any of their albums in pretty much forever, though.  I’m not even sure if I can tell you which one is the most recent.  Float?

What do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros?

Elephino.

So yeah.  I’m pretty psyched, but mostly because I enjoy attending dance-your-face-off concerts with my sister Katie (who never fails to bring the awesomeness).  Our cousin Danny (excuse me, Dan or Daniel) will be attending as well; our brother John bailed because he’s a poopyhead.

As long as they play “If I Ever Leave This World Alive”, I’ll be happy.  Here’s the album version (crappy video, though):

And here’s a live video:

That song rarely fails to bring a tear to my eye.  Happily, as it rolls down my cheek, that tear generally mixes with the sweat from the rest of my face, and I’m generally too smiling and out of breath from screaming the lyrics to notice.

That’s not true.  I always notice that tear – right around “…hey if I never…” and “…she says: I’m ok, I’m alright…”

No, I’m not getting all choked up right now.  I’m not.  At all.

Other than that, not much is going on.  At this point, I’m trying to come up with something that qualifies as “among others” so that the title of this post isn’t a total lie.

I had a good meeting with my friend Ed Pirone this evening, talking about copywriting, web design, CMSs, social media crap, iPhone apps and other computer/internet related stuff.  Ed’s got good energy and I dig being around it.

Thievery Corporation is on my playlist right now (big time).  I downloaded their album The Richest Man in Babylon last night and I’m really digging it so far.

My fucking Trails iPhone app is still effing with me (big time).  I have six or seven hikes to upload, but they don’t seem to be going through.  I hit “Export to EveryTrail” and get the “Export to EveryTrail Successful!” notification, but it doesn’t actually show up on my EveryTrail page.  Vly uploaded last night, and I was able to upload Windham High Peak this evening, but I haven’t been able to get anything else to upload.  If anybody’s interested, I can send the .gpx or Google Earth files to you via email for any of my winter hikes so far.  Just email me at QuixoticJedi[at]gmail[dot]com and I’ll shoot them over to you.

One of these days I’ll get some free time and figure out what exactly is going on with that.  I’ve also found a cool site called GPS Visualizer (via CatskillHiker.com) that will enable me to embed Google Maps with my hikes plotted out on them.  That’s going to take some finagling:  I’ll need to expand my Google account and copy & paste some code during the embedding process, but it shouldn’t be too hard.

One of these days I’ll also figure out how to upload some fucking images to this blog.  I’ve tried several times and spent quite a bit of time bouncing around the WordPress Codex/support forum, but for whatever reason, it just hasn’t been working for me.  I’ve tried both from here at my dashboard and from my cPanel on BlueHost, but no joy.  WTF.  Seriously, WordPress is one of the most user-friendly platforms (dare I say CMS?) out there, and it’s just not working.  It’s got to be something I’m doing wrong.

But I’ll tell ya, dear reader, when the day comes that I can upload images and other files, it’ll be pretty sweet.  I have a shit-ton of pics on my AyePhone just waiting for your eyes.

I need a new bass.  I just spent about a hundred bucks getting the one I have tuned up a few months ago.  I think I bought the damned thing (close to 10 years ago) for $120 (amp included).  It’s a total piece of crap, but it’s a Johnson, strung lefty.  I’ve always enjoyed looking people in the eye and saying “I have a left-handed Johnson” with a straight face.

Oh well, I suppose I’ll still have one, even though I can’t play it anymore.  I’m pretty sure the neck’s all bent.

So I need to get onto the interwebz to see if I can find an inexpensive (but good) left-handed bass.  Don’t ask me why I play lefty – I shoot pool lefty too (and something else, but I’m not going to say what, because c’mon, this is a family blog) – I suppose it’s because I always played air-guitar lefty.  The reason for that?  I dunno, probably because I was just mirroring the people on tv.

It seems to make sense to me, though:  my left hand is attached to my right-brain, which is the holistic side; and vice versa (sequential).  That means that I feel the beat and keep rhythm with my right-brain, while the more specific things (what notes to play and how to finger them) are done with my right hand (left-brain).  I suppose what I should be saying is that it makes a kind of sense to me.   I’m sure this isn’t necessarily an Intro-to-Psych compatible theory.

I’m not really any good on the bass, and I don’t practice nearly enough, but it’s a lot of fun and I really dig bass.  I’d love to learn how to play the double-bass (“standup”) – playing the double bass in a jazz band would be sweet.  I once saw a dude on the double-bass playing jazz with a dude on the grand piano and almost wet myself.  The steak was good at that place, too.  Why I don’t live there, I have no idea.

So yeah, it’s time for me to purchase a new bass to collect dust in the corner of my apartment and get played every once in a while.  Any suggestions?

My writing this evening has already been completed:  I spent myself in a long-ish email to Didi.  Sorry, dear reader, there isn’t much left for you.  “Tomorrow, tomorrow,” as Annie sez.

In the meantime, I invite you to check out the recent Free Music Monday Post over at Mashable:  my buddies over at Smoothe Moose Laboratories & Recordings are featured this week.  Check out their stuff; it’s pretty fly.

This post has nothing to do with fruitcakes, cheese-monkey.

Ok, so it’s totally 2AM on Monday morning and I have to be at work in just about no time at all.  I skipped the second day of WordCamp NYC today so that I could clean, do laundry, and finish up writing the copy for the website I started on Tuesday.  The former and mesne I took care of, but the latter I did not finish.  I also got to sleep in a bit and be in tolerably good shape for the Metallica show tonight.

I was not particularly impressed.

They played on Saturday night as well, and we totally got the B-side set list.  They played about four songs from Death Magnetic, three from …And Justice for All, one from Ride the Lightning, one from Master of Puppets, one from Kill ‘Em All, one from Garage, Inc.,  and three from the black album.  Of them all, Master of Puppets, Nothing Else Matters, and Sad But True sounded the best.

Either the guy on the boards was asleep at the switch or the sound system in Madison Square Garden sucks balls.

They also did this thing where the system would play the intro to the song from the album and they’d come in and play the rest live.  I don’t know if Metallica is getting so old that they can’t remember how to start their songs or what, but I didn’t think it worked out all that well.  Maybe they thought they were being artistic or something.

Again:  not impressed.

I did, however, have a good time hanging out with my sister Katie, who (obviously) didn’t forget to bring the awesomeness yet again.

My AyePhone crapped out on me on the subway ride to the show.  I have no idea why, but basically it just shut off.  I didn’t even know it was possible to shut it off.  I plugged it in to my car charger afterward, and it registered no charge.  It was at 100% when I arrived at Katie’s apartment, and there’s no way it could have run through a charge that quickly.  It’s charging now, but I’m kinda pissed.  I would have enjoyed facebooking and tweeting some pictures and video, not to mention checking in at MSG for my FourSquare account.

I hope this doesn’t become a habit for the AyePhone, because if it does, I’ll be having meself a Droid in no time at all.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 1:45, and I’m looking forward to getting some antibiotics to help my body fight off this sinus infection that’s been hanging around for the past week and a half.  I hope to complete the website copy tomorrow afterward.  I’d really like to finish it off tonight, but I think that would just about kill me, energy-wise.  I’m off to bed.  More to come; stay tuned.

YAY TINITUS!!

I saw Steel Panther tonight with my cousin Dan and his cousin David – Katie couldn’t make it because she had a fever.
There was, sadly, a definite lack of awesomeness at the show as a result of my sister not being there.  Such a dearth, I might add, that I can’t help but add a manual emoticon to display my disappointment:

=(

Hey, at least it isn’t one of those stupid yellow faces.

Overall, I’d have to give the show two thumbs up.  And maybe even some snaps in a z-formation.  It was extremely entertaining.  More f-bombs dropped than I can even begin to relate.

I’m not going to try to describe the show – partly because it’s 1:35AM, and partly because it kind of defies explanation.  It was very much a show – not just a bunch of guys playing 80s and early 90s hair metal.  I was expecting more covers (I think they only played one), but wasn’t in the least bit disappointed with their original stuff.  Their ‘original stuff’ was basically cobbled-together cover licks, riffs and beats anyway.  But very well done.  Simple, simple lyrics that even I was singing along with by the second verse.

Lots of talking:  the band spent quite a bit of time making fun of each other and the audience.  Lots of references to sex (specifically of the oral variety), especially with other dude’s girls.  The show was rife with puerile humor; which, in this case, was not a bad thing.  Though it seemed ad-libbed, it was quite obvious that these guys knew what they were doing.  The were excellent entertainers.

I was really surprised by (and impressed with) the number of people who were singing along right from the first chords.  Steel Panther is much bigger than I expected.  Hits such as “Asian Hooker” were played early on:

Check out the videos (of slightly better quality) on SteelPantherRocks.com (click here).  If you’re a MySpace cadet, here’s a link to their page in that forum.  And here’s the link to the ‘official’ Steel Panther page on YouTube.

Being a professional touring band, they also have music videos of much higher production quality, like this one for “Fat Girls (Thar She Blows)“:

Because I’m somewhat of a sensitive kind of guy, I have to say that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the over-the-top objectification of women that permeated every bit of the show.  Which isn’t to say that I was unable to set my sensitivities aside and rock out like the effin animal I am at a show (when they were actually playing music).

#NSFW Disclaimer:  None of the foregoing videos or links have been, are, or will be endorsed by The Quixotic Jedi as “safe for work”.

I can’t blog to friggin’ Bob Marley.  I have no idea why, but I can’t seem to keep to a line of thought when I’m listening to the guy.  I’ve got nothing against Bob – hell, like three or four of his discs in a row are in my regular cd queue (which is my endless soundtrack at home – thank goodness for a 60 – or something – disc stereo).  Or rather, thank Jim Fordham, one of my buddies from DC who gave me the stereo when he moved to CA like five years ago.

I *really* need to clean out the cat’s litter box.  Not a task I’m a big fan of, but I’m not a very good human if I don’t do it.  Speaking of cats being people too, Laila Jo may not be my cat for very much longer.  Christine left me a voicemail last night saying that she “may have found a home” for Laila Jo.  I’m skeptical and pessimistic.

She also said that she’d probably be picking up Laila Jo today, but the dear sweet kitty was stretching on the carpet and yowling at me to rub her belly and head (at the same time, dammit!), as per our usual *sigh* routine.  Christine’s voicemail said that she hopes this news makes me feel relieved – that I haven’t grown too attached to Laila Jo.  Sheesh.  When the chicks on my (now cancelled) eHarmony account ask if I prefer cats or dogs (or neither) in one of those stupid multiple choice questions, I always pick the open-ended answer, which is “I’m ‘all things warm and fuzzy’ kind of guy”.  Of course I’m attached to her.

I tried not to be at first, but quickly realized that I wouldn’t be a very good human if I wasn’t actually giving her *love* while she’s sitting in my lap.  There’s a big difference between petting a cat (or dog or whatever) and actually transmitting a loving vibe when doing so.  They can tell.  So can I – whether I’m the giver or the receiver.

So I made a conscious decision to dissolve that little barrier around my heart that would keep me from feeling sad when she (eventually and inevitably) left, in order to be the best human for her while I was her human.

At the end of the day, I think it probably would have been easier on me if Christine had just picked Laila Jo up today before I got home.  Like the correct way to take off a band-aid.

Instead, I find myself enjoying the sweet part of the bittersweet knowledge that the day is soon when she won’t be yowling at me when I return home or sitting in my lap, complaining that I’m blogging and not giving her my full attention.

Ah, well.

It’s about midnight here in the QJ portion of NNJ, and I’m exhausted.  I got home at about 2AM last night and went straight off to bed, in a (unfortunately futile) attempt to make it to work at 8:30.  Katie and I had a pretty awesome time at the Stratovarius show last night, though I will say that we definitely brought most of the awesomeness with us.  Instead of being heavy metal with violins (as we thought it would be), the show was more of an 80s hair metal show.  High voices singing about stuff that wasn’t really all that depressing or scary.  Blech.  At this point, I think every dude from a Scandanavian country has a lisp – or at least the ones who play music.

The first opening band was probably local guys, and I won’t waste the pixels, neurons, or keystrokes telling you how cheesy/crappy they were.

The second opening band was Pagan’s Mind, and despite the high voice and homo-erotic microphone gestures of the lead singer (seriously, dude, this isn’t a gay porn tryout session), they pretty much rocked our evening.  But W. T. F. :  what is the world coming to when a band can have the word “Pagan” in its name and not one single song mentioned the dark lord??  Demons?  No.  Horrible, unwinnable battles against unseeable evil enemies?  Nope.  Magic?  Not even that.  Nothing even remotely fantasy novel, legend, or myth related.

I say again:

W.

T.

F.

You fuckers really should be singing dark versions of your homeland’s fairy tales.  Stuff about vikings and sea monsters and Thor and thunder and lightning.  And for goodness’ sake, find a guy with a deeper voice!  I miss Pantera.

On a positive note, the bass player from Pagan’s Mind was pretty awesome.  He was this semi-chubby, dude with a blonde goatee, short but thinning on top blonde hair and a big smile.  He was really digging being on stage – and this is a dude who plays music for a living.  After Pagan’s Mind was done and Stratovarius was playing, the dudes from Pagan’s Mind ended up standing right behind Katie and me.  I think she recognized them first.  Though it was my idea to get their autographs, it was Katie’s to get them to sign our tickets.  But the bass player wasn’t there.  Katie and I came to the conclusion that he was definitely getting laid.  After a while, we figured he was probably doing a Viagra commercial as well.  Both of us told the dudes from Pagan’s Mind that we did meet that we liked them better than Stratovarius.  Their discs were sold out – I suppose we’ll have to hit up Amazon to get them now.

And one last thing – I know this is getting long (which was totally not my intention) – there was this big soft black dude standing behind and to the side of Katie and me for the whole show.  Yes, a black dude at a metal show.  Put your prejudices aside, dear reader, it happens.

Anyway, during the Pagan’s Mind show, he just kind of stood there with an expressionless face and thousand-yard stare.  I was absolutely convinced that he was either a real-life zombie or on of the extras from Shaun of the Dead.  But when Stratovarius started playing, this guy totally leapt to life!  He knew all the words and was singing and gesticulating like he was center stage of the opera.  It was awesome.  And weird.  One of the ‘hands came around and gave him a backstage pass.  That was some of the sweetest karma I’ve seen in a long time.

I won’t get into the emo haircut on the guitar player for Pagan’s Mind, the fact that *none* of the bands had an effin rhythm guitarist, or the dude from Bayshore who kept trying to hit on my sister.   And I definitely won’t get into my cold, clear homicidal thoughts about the dude.  I really should have been a serial killer.

A positive note:  read Lauren Flax’s blog, especially her WWA submissions.  She has a wonderfully positive outlook on pretty much everything.

The end.

For some reason, I’ve always associated the music of Radiohead with sociopaths.  I couldn’t tell you why – probably something to do with my ex-wife, but that’s a long story for another post.

I own a Kid Rock (and the Twisted Brown Trucker Band) live album that has a line that goes “…f*ck Clay Aiken and Radiohead…”, and I’ve always made a fist and gone ‘yeah!’ upon hearing it.

So I was noteably skeptical when my friend Fernando suggested that I listen to Radiohead.  Fernando, however, is in my opinion one of the smartest people I’ve come across in a long time.  So when he makes a suggestion, I listen.  His suggestion was to obtain and listen to Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001) first.  I hit up Amazon.com and purchased both albums – which arrived surprisingly early, I might add (must be their slow season).

I popped Kid A into my car stereo a couple of days ago and have listened to the album through about 4 or 5 times.  I’m pretty sure this album was in the jukebox of a few bars I’d spent some time in, as well as the stereos of some of the heavy-stoners I’ve spent some time with.  It was not unfamiliar.  Amnesiac went into my stereo at home.  Totally different experiences for me this time, as I have been listening to this album for the last couple of days sans drug-, crowd, and/or booze-induced retardation.  Under those circumstances, I really didn’t like Radiohead.

There are parts of Kid A that I kind of dig, notably Track 3 (The National Anthem).  Something about Radiohead reminds me of Medesky, Martin & Wood – but Radiohead at least has consistent beats.  I’ve turned the volume way up, in the hopes that I can get into a kind of club-mentality, but I don’t think it’s really that kind of music.  It’s like a very diluted version of the kind of techno I enjoy – slower and softer. 

I’ve been through Amnesiac twice at home and can’t really say anything good or bad about it – it just hasn’t been memorable one way or the other for me.  Yet.  I’ll keep listening and try to acquire a taste for it.

For now, all I can say is that I’m keeping an open mind and that the jury’s still out on both albums.  Hail to the Thief (2003) and In Rainbows (2007) are next on the docket, and I may get those sooner rather than later, in the hopes that they’re more to my (albeit relatively eclectic) taste than what I’ve heard so far.  Maybe I should read the Wikipedia articles in this post as well.

All that said, I’m also (at the moment) listening to A Metal Tribute to Metallica – specifically the rendition of Battery by Pagandom (here’s another link).  Holy shiznit, it’s incredible.  Probably one of the best covers of any song I’ve ever heard.  Really tight and to the point.