Steve's 600th Post Extravaganza

Yay... I have been doing this blog thing nearly 4 years now. Well... over 3 1/2. Started over me bitching about some headaches.

I just trimmed all the plants in the front yard and the back yard and made my big pile in the street like everyone else does down the street on the weekends. Left hand and arm is shaking like crazy while I am typing this. What the hell? I don't know what it is to this day why I have been hurting and in pain so much. All started after that wicked concussion I had in 2002 but every doctor says it is unrelated. I guess they are right with all those MRI's and spinal tap. What 3 MRI's... 2 Cat Scans.

Some days I would like to forget pain and for parts of the day, I can. It could be when I am out driving the Porsche, playing with Elijah or just simply going for a walk.

Hmmm... I'll change the subject... all of you regulars I see on my statcounter that visit each week know about this stuff anyway. I had some dude come from Iran the other day. I am banned in China but not Iran. Righteous!

When I was in college I had to take choir to get my degree. It was kind of interesting. I wasn't singer at all. I couldn't do much with it. And I was shy about it. So getting up and belting it out wasn't easy for me. But I needed to do it to complete my degree in music. So I grew the balls and went for my tryout. There were two choirs. The good one with all the opera types and the one where they put the rest of the crap. I, of course, went for the rest the of the crap. And of course, I made it. I sat with the bass singers when I was probably a baritone at best. Lowest note I can hit on a good day was a #g (g sharp) when I was really required to get to the d below that. But fuck it...

So my first year was a great experience. We did the Ave Maria for the holidays. But was cool is was that we did it as a historical thing. We started way back in Gregorian Chant... all the way through to like Mozart style stuff. And we also got to perform with Dave Brubeck which was quite cool. I had such a great time that year, hiding in the back of the choir, I said fuck it, and reloaded for my senior for a second tour.

This year our small little school with like a 100 students took on something big and pulled it off. Beethoven's 9th. We rocked the house. I was so lucky to be part of something like that. I could not believe the hours we put in to pull that off. We merged the two choirs and had the full symphony at the school. It involved all but like 5 or 6 students in the school and if I hadn't of signed up, I would have never have done it. I would have been one of those out casts. All the German diction we had to do. I had taken a lot of German so it was easy but man... Singing Beethoven's greatest piece of music... if not the greatest piece of music ever was just awesome. We performed it I think 3 times that year. It was a blast.

Manners

Doesn't anyone have any manners anymore?

I fired up the Porsche tonight to enjoy the warm, smokey air through what is left of my hair. I drove around looking for a place simple to get something to eat and a beer. It was a rough week. I worked hard. I wanted a freaking beer.

So after driving by a few places and waiting for the commuter trains at the light, I decided to head back near the house and get a crepe.

So I park in front, head inside and right to the counter to order. This older guy is behind me and I only notice because I can feel his glare on me. So I turn around and give him the "what hell are you looking at?" look. Something about him just irked me. I ordered my crepe and beer and they filled the pint there and gave me a number to wait for my food. So I go turn around and the dude is right there. Nice big restaurant... plenty of places to stand and he is right there... there was no one else except for a table in way back with like 6 people and the workers. Plenty of places to stand.

Well... I walk on and go to the recycle bin they have and look for today's paper and proceeded to sit down and the dude comes my way like I took his chair. Just glaring at me. Still wondering what his problem was. He sat in the table behind me. I could still feel his presence.

So I am sitting at the corner of the restaurant with my beer, today's paper and a number. And like, there was 6 or 7 open tables around me (plus the one with the dude). In the center of this cluster was a hexagon table that could seat six. This group came and wanted to sit there. I have my paper up... my beer... I see the group coming. Plenty of room, no biggy. Suddenly this lady grabs my paper and with a whiny annoying voice she goes... "EXCUSE ME!! BUT IS ANYONE SITTING HERE"

I just stared like a deaf person and raised paper back up. I felt like being a dick for some reason. But again she grabs my paper.... "EXCUSE ME... I ASKED IF ANYONE WAS SITTING HERE!" This time she is rattling the chair across from me. My mind worked quickly... I fold my paper down and sit up... take a sip of my beer and do a 180 degree gaze from left to right, silently counting all the unoccupied chairs from all the other empty tables around me...including those that were more convenient for her to grab. This all happens in 3 seconds. Quickly... but probably an eternity for her... and I go... "Um... are you sure you want this one?"

She just grabs it and goes... I pull my paper up and I can hear her go... "That was rude!" to her friends. I smile and sigh real loud as my food came to the table.

I was just thinking, have you ever experienced Goat Trauma?

California: Scorched Earth Society

845 Fires have or are still burning in No Cal.

The valley is a gray cesspool of smoke right now. It sucks. I can't freaking breathe. I feel like a nerd hiding in the basement with an inhaler.

Stupid lightning. We never get lightning in California. Apparently they recorded 5000 strikes up and down the state.

Here is the state wide fire map:

http://www.news10.net/news/pdf/StatewideFireMap_062308.pdf

Here is Mike Ness singing our theme song:

R.I.P. George Carlin

Warning: The most bad words you'll ever hear in ten minutes

The original can be heard here. I have a story from my warped childhood when I lived in the suburbia south of San Francisco in one of the box houses:



I was 6 or maybe 7. My brother used to record stupid comedy stuff and play them back to us with his mini Panasonic ghetto blaster. One of the recordings he played back was George Carlin's 7 Bad Words You Can't Say on Television. The funny thing about... it was recorded off the radio so it was all bleeps for the bad words. And we'd hear these bleeps and laugh and laugh.

My brother had a paper route so he always seemed to have an extra couple of bucks for stuff. So he had gone out and bought the album with the routine on it, totally uncut. I remember the album cover and everything. This bearded man on a chair with what appears to be his middle finger up his nose. Any how, later on... I heard all those bad words... My parents had no idea.

So my brother tapes this thing and I went around the neighborhood the next day. I remember getting all my friends...like 7 or 8 of them down to our house on their Huffys. My parents were cheap and got me a purple Montegomery Wards bike with a banana seat so I looked like a fruitcake riding down the street.

I remember collecting all the kids. We all sat on our bikes while my brother sat on the bumper of my mom's 1974 Malibu Grocery Getter. I remember listening to all those bad words, not knowing what any of them meant to the point we were all repeating to each other at the park 15 minutes later. For days... We did this... Shit, piss, f---...... on and on and on.

28 years later... it's amazing the profound effect someone's comedy had on your life. Someone says, "Steve what are the 7 bad words you can't say on TV" and I will rattle them off without thinking about it.

So I guess this means no more HBO specials?

A Not So Accurate Reflection Of My Musical Tastes

I think it is interesting what our iPods can say about ourselves. I found this little application that can pull lists off your iPod and create little text files for whatever. I tried creating a list of all 4490 songs now on my iPod (which is for sale at the bargain price of $2500, I figure I can take $500 of that and buy a new iPod touch and be totally in the black $2000 and you would not only have an iPod with every Led Zepplin, U2, Green Day, Beatles, Social D, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Rage Against The Machine, Metallica, Dave Matthews, etc. song on it, but you would have it for under 50 cents on the dollar. Fucking cool if you ask me. If you are serious, I will strip the DRM off every song in one weekend for a $2000 profit.) I digress... must be the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder the psychologists are warning me about.... When I tried creating the list of 4490 songs, it crashed my Mac. Shitty G4 processor. I need a new Mac.

Anyhow... this list is misleading. One... I listen to a lot of albums so I don't target one song. And when I am gone on planes I shuffle a lot which makes me wonder where all of my Elvis and Buddy Holly music is because that never seems to come up here. No idea when Ben Fold's version of Tiny Dancer is on here but I posted the video at the bottom for your enjoyment.

Two... My favorite Bad Religion song is "I want to conquer the world". I must fast forward the end of the song a lot because it has only been played 7 full times. I put it on when I am pissed a lot. Surprised none of my other punk stuff is prevalent either. Where is MxPX? The Ramones? The Clash? Samiam (which is now up to 100 songs)? Jawbreaker? At least Greg Graffin appears first. I must love that song.

Three...where is Johnny Cash?????

Here is the list...


Songs in Playlist Top 25 Most Played

1. Don't Be Afraid to Run
Track Length: 4:12
Sung by: Greg Graffin

2. Tiny Dancer (Newport Ri 7/6/02 Newport Music Festival)
Track Length: 5:23
Sung by: Ben Folds

3. Jesus Of Suburbia / City Of The Damned / I Don't Care / Dearly Beloved / Tales Of Another Broken Home
Track Length: 9:08
Sung by: Green Day

4. Sing
Track Length: 3:49
Sung by: Travis

5. House of Gold
Track Length: 2:46
Sung by: Mike Ness

6. Red Dirt Girl
Track Length: 4:16
Sung by: Emmylou Harris

7. Incomplete
Track Length: 2:29
Sung by: Bad Religion

8. Fix You
Track Length: 4:54
Sung by: Coldplay

9. Six More Miles
Track Length: 2:40
Sung by: Mike Ness

10. Reach for the Sky
Track Length: 3:31
Sung by: Social Distortion

11. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Track Length: 4:20
Sung by: Green Day

12. Are We The Waiting
Track Length: 2:42
Sung by: Green Day

13. Miracle Drug
Track Length: 3:59
Sung by: U2

14. The Saints Are Coming
Track Length: 3:22
Sung by: U2 & Green Day

15. Letterbomb
Track Length: 4:06
Sung by: Green Day

16. Original Of The Species
Track Length: 4:41
Sung by: U2

17. American Idiot
Track Length: 2:54
Sung by: Green Day

18. Holiday
Track Length: 3:52
Sung by: Green Day

19. All These Things That I've Done
Track Length: 5:01
Sung by: The Killers

20. Don't Think Twice
Track Length: 3:47
Sung by: Mike Ness

21. Rockin' The Suburbs
Track Length: 4:58
Sung by: Ben Folds

22. When She Begins
Track Length: 5:03
Sung by: Social Distortion

23. The Scientist
Track Length: 5:09
Sung by: Coldplay

24. Somebody Told Me
Track Length: 3:17
Sung by: The Killers

25. Cheating At Solitaire
Track Length: 3:53
Sung by: Mike Ness

I lied... No Ben Folds:



Greg Graffin has looked like a middle aged man the last 20 years...LOL!!