Stunslinger.com Blog

So yesterday I didn’t write a post because I went to see 800 Octane for the last time in a while, since they don’t make a habit of playing shows in Salt Lake City.  It was great to see them one last time, and it was great to hear a bunch of songs they don’t normally play (although I was hoping for some new ones…guess I’ll just wait for the album!)

So anyway, after they played we were standing out front of this little “bubble tea” place in Salem (the show was in the tiny, hot basement of aforementioned bubble tea place).  “The Bite” of Salem was going on a few blocks away, so there were a lot of people milling around aimlessly.  So there we were talking with the guys, standing on the sidewalk and there were maybe another ten kids from the show around us.  All of a sudden this bike cop comes up to us, shines his little bike headlight in our faces and says, “I heard someone say something when I rode past on the street…you wanna back up that statement to my face?!?”  Now, we had been standing there for half an hour and I hadn’t heard anyone say anything about cops, we hadn’t even seen them pedal by.  So everyone says “I have no idea what you’re talking about”, as politely as possible, looking at each other to see if anyone knows what in the world he’s talking about.  Judging by the look he gave us, he obviously didn’t believe that nobody said anything.  Probably just chalked it up to “spineless, troublemaking punk kids on the sidewalk who talk crap but then chicken out when confronted.”  Anyway, he didn’t seem to happy by our nonresponse, so he cleared his throat and informed the whole group that by standing on the sidewalk we were violating a city ordinance preventing the blocking of traffic on the street, and that he gave one warning, so next time he came by if anyone was standing in the middle of the sidewalk he’d give them a ticket.  So basically, because he told us, if an entirely different group of people was standing there an hour later…tickets all around.  Suh-weet.  So we just stared at him and he picked up his bike, spun it around in a huff and trotted off to his bike-riding cronies.  After they left we all made jokes about it, but everybody denied saying anything or hearing anything said to the cop (and usually, after the confrontation someone would speak up if something had been said).

So, it definitely felt like we were singled out because we “looked like ruffians” in our black t-shirts outside a punk rock show.  It definitely felt like the officer was looking for some reason to write us up, and I was just shocked.  I doubt he had us pegged as a high school science teacher, a computer tech, psychology intern, mail carrier, and other productive members of society.

Don’t misconstrue this post, I’m not against cops.  I don’t call them any of the many derogatory terms out there, and I don’t think that they’re out to abuse their power.  I do think that this guy was on a bit of a power trip and looking for a reason to book ‘em Dano.  Then again, perhaps somebody did say something that none of us heard.  I just don’t know…and it certainly felt weird to all of us there.  Welcome back to Salem.

That’s right, I finally got on board with the Red vs Blue “webisodes” or whatever you call them.  I’ve watched the first 16 episodes on Youtube and I find them increasingly funny.  Perhaps it’s because I’m nerdy enough to like situational humor based on the Halo world.  Or maybe they’re just funny.  In order to test this hypothesis I’ll show them to my wife who does not enjoy Halo at all.  Look at me, I’m a scientist!

Yes, I’m kind of phoning this blog post in.  It’s late and I’m tired, but yet I want to keep my momentum going so I don’t have another two week void.  Speaking of the blog, I had to delete 29 spam comments from my site today.  I never know if I should take this as a compliment since it means that some bot found my site and decided to spam the crap out of it, or if it’s just a pain.  Maybe both.  But then again, I’m happy to take anything as a compliment.

Lastly, I can’t say it enough: The new Gym Class Heroes album is amazing.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about…scroll down and listen to the stream.  If you downloaded it, buy it!  Or buy some merch, or go to a show.  In fact, maybe the last two options are better since the money actually goes to the band rather than their label.  I’m not saying you should steal from record labels, but if I was forced at gunpoint to choose between sending money to a record label or directly to the band…well, I’d give the money to the band before the gun even came out!  If you’ve just been stealing music recently, try buying a CD or two.  I’m actually enjoying purchasing the CD rather than downloading (only legally of course…you know, from iTunes and allofmp3.com) music.  Of course that means more CDs I have to move…but there’s something cool about seeing the whole artistic package, reading the insert and then putting it in a binder to be opened again in four months when I’m stuck in the car that doesn’t have an adapter for my iPod.

Enough rambling.  To bed.

Ok, so this post is in reaction to comments I heard yesterday on the radio about Andrea Yates.  She was originally found guilty of drowning her five children, then was found Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity on appeal.  The radio DJs were talking about how ridiculous it is that she can just claim to have hallucinations and “get off scot free” for murder.  Now, I’m not even going to bother going into the long documented history of Yates’s psychotic depression, nor am I going to blab about how difficult it is to prove you committed a crime while “insane.”  Especially to prove it so thoroughly that the jury only takes one hour to deliberate!

What I do want to talk about is the misconception that Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity (NGRI) is like being acquitted.  According to comments I hear at parties and in popular commentaries, people really think that NGRI is just a way to walk out of court a free person.  “Oops, I hallucinated and killed my kids.  Well, anyone want to come over for dinner tonight?”  First of all, would people prefer that we don’t have different punishments based on your mental state?  Should a 4 year old child be locked up for pushing another child off a bunk bed that results in the death of the other child?  Certainly we agree that the 4 year old doesn’t understand what he/she is doing and most likely didn’t intend to end the life of another child.  What about someone who is profoundly mentally retarded and also doesn’t understand the consequences of his/her actions?

Some people suffer from hallucinations that are as real to them as this computer is to me.  Because of neurological processes in the brain they see/hear things that others do not, and are not able to distinguish between the hallucinations and reality.  We give them anti-psychotic medications and they are able to “reality-test” again.  I have heard countless stories of people living with delusions and hallucinations who injure themselves in the most severe ways, because they don’t know what they’re doing.  I’ve seen a brain scan of one patient who apparently placed a ball point pen in his nose and slammed his face into the table repeatedly, driving the ball point pen straight into his brain.  These are not the actions of people who are aware of the impact of their actions, these people cannot simply “know” that the devil is not really actively attempting to take their children.  This is not an option.

So, when someone is able to prove that they suffer from an illness severe enough to remove their responsibility for a crime, are they just sent home with a “well, don’t do it again?”  No.  Have you ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? This movie takes place in a state mental hospital.  Granted, it’s a movie so it’s not the most accurate depiction of life in a state mental hospital, but you get the point (plus, it was filmed in the town where I grew up).  So when someone is found NGRI (or the related and, I believe, better labelled Guilty But Insane) they are sent to a mental hospital where they are treated and returned to a state of “normalcy”.  Sometimes, once they are stabalized and are deemed no longer a threat to society, they are released.  Sometimes they remain in custody.  Either way, doesn’t this seem like a more humane way to treat someone who suffers from mental illness?

I know that I’m a psychologist-to-be so you can write this off as a bleeding heart, liberal letting people walk for crimes they committed.  And I know that in general there is not a huge swelling of empathy for people who suffer from mental illness.  But if you can take a step outside yourself and imagine being told that your understanding of what’s real is wrong.  That your closest family member doesn’t exist, or that you really don’t go to a real job each day.  Imagine that, only in the realm of something that you were willing to kill for, and maybe you’ll begin to get the picture.

Ok, this is a rant.  Yesterday I purchased the new Spin mag and I saw an article about the UK’s most extreme musical export.  I believe it was titled Punk and Disorderly.  The article was mainly about how hardcore they are…they get in fights even, ooh.  Maybe 20% of the article was about their music, the rest about their image and their wild and out of control behavior.  I didn’t think too much about it, except that I couldn’t figure out why I bothered to read it (or, for that matter, why I bothered to buy a mag with Thom Yorke on the cover…yawn).  Then today I happened to see a couple advertisements for this crazy, out of control band from the UK.  Oh my.  The commercial basically was them “beating up” somebody on the street and then throwing a bottle at some other dude.  Wow, they can beat someone up on a commercial…they must really be hardcore.  Especially since that’s the image their record label is pushing.  They couldn’t be anything but wild and crazy, could they?

At this point I started wondering if they aren’t a step back towards the whole glam metal scene.  (It’s just rather helpful that they happen to look like glam metal throwbacks)  I mean, whenever I see a VH1 documentary about hair metal, it mainly focuses on the drug use, alcohol abuse, and overall debauchery.  Sure, they talk some about the music, but it seems to be entirely secondary to the story about Nikki Sixx dying 37 times in a row or whatever.  Even they weren’t marketed solely as “wild and crazy guys” back in the day.  I mean this new band, whose name is Towers of London by the way, didn’t even have the music as the forefront of the commercial…if it was even in the commercial.  Maybe it makes sense because they’re another second-rate “Class of ‘77″ punk band.  Makes even more sense when you see that they’re on the same label as Lil’ Jon and the Ying Yang Twins.

The really sad thing is there’s a whole crop of impressionable teenagers who are going to eat this junk up like it’s a free shrimp buffet at Sizzler.  They’re going to be so impressed with the new “extreme” “punk” band they found and are going to look at the article in Spin to find out how to dress just like them (seriously…it shows how to dress like them…ugh).  I know that bands make money for themselves and their labels, and as such are a commodity of sorts.  But it just ticks me off to see a band blatantly profiteering off a genre of music that is supposed to be about being an individual, thinking for yourself and fighting the world corporate America wants to cram down our throats.

For all their crazy antics and stove-pipe pants, I am more punk rock than they are.  And I’m not punk rock.

Yep, I don’t know why it took this stupid thing for it to sink in, but the four liquor boxes full of books sitting in my living room drove home the point: I have a very limited time left here.  In less than a month I will be living in Salt Lake City and working full time at a new job I will hopefully love.  Somehow it didn’t seem very real when I got the email at 5:45am in February that I was placed in Utah, nor did the whole trip where we signed a lease on an apartment drive it home.  It wasn’t until tonight, after my wife went to bed and I was watching a Law and Order: SVU that I missed the first 15 minutes of, that I looked over at the Jack Daniels box and … I knew it was happening and I had that fleeting feeling that I wish I could somehow check out and just freeze life like it’s been this last year.

But, really, my whole life has been leading up to this point: I’ve finished my academic life and am beginning my career.  It’s sink or swim now, and the comfortable life that I’ve created in the midst of the craziness that is graduate school is disappearing.  On the one hand I finally am “competent” and get to put all of my experiences into full time practice and help some people, but on the other hand it’s another “grow up” milestone.  I’m very excited that I’ll be working with these veterans at a really great Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, and I’ll finally be able to come home from work and be able to spend time with my wife without worrying about when I’ll have time to finish my paper.  A 40 hour work week?  That’ll be awesome.  Salt Lake seems like a great city, it even has a Major League Soccer team!  But I’m leaving my friends behind, and I’m leaving a comfortable life that gave me the flexibility to go to punk shows and do web design…and sometimes watch movies on a Thursday afternoon.

Wow, listen to me waxing poetic about my life and the change I’m facing.  No, I’m not depressed, I’m excited.  I just have a hard time dealing with change, even though every big change in my life has been for the best (even though I was scared spitless each time).  Well, I think that’s about enough heart-on-my-sleeve late night blogging for now.  I’m learning to embrace change while being thankful for what I have.  Too often I take everything around me for granted.

Alright, if you don’t know who Gym Class Heroes is, that’s ok.  Just check them out, because they’re pretty sweet.  The cheesy thing I read about them says “Mix the bands from the Up In Smoke and Warped Tours, add MySpace references, and you end up with this hot album.”  Well, ok.  Um, they are definitely a hip-hop band who seem to listen to a lot of the bands I do (in fact, at Warped Tour a week ago one of them was wearing an Every Time I Die sweatshirt), and they do have a song called New Friend Request on the new album.  Anyway, give them a listen… (it’s a stream of their new album, As Cruel As School Children)

Ok, so I’ve blogged about this a few times now…and I’m following up to say that I think I found a better solution.  The reason Wordpress is so handy as a web designer is the interface, which is provided mainly by TinyMCE.  Somehow it had never occured to me that I could run TinyMCE on websites that I create, but now it has and I am happy.  You see, TinyMCE takes a regular textarea and converts it into the spiffy word processor like WYSIWYG interface that allows HTML illiterate folks to write good code.

So, basically, using TinyMCE I can write my own basic content management system that gives me ultimate control over the editable elements, and still provide a nice user interface for my clients.  Brilliant!  Now, I just need to pick a good image upload plugin (I’m leaning towards one called iBrowser right now) for TinyMCE and everything will be super dandy.  I’m really hoping to find one that works like the inline image uploader Wordpress has.  I know some people hate it, but I really think it’s handy.

Lastly, I’d like to say that I’ve been a little uneasy with using Wordpress as a CMS.  It’s mainly on a philosophical tip, but still it’s something to write about.  You see, in my mind one of the best revolutions in web design (granted, in such a young field it’s not like there have been a ton of revolutions) was the move to separate content from design.  The movement is about more than how to achieve neat designs through CSS, it’s about returning to the original intent of the markup.  Under the old standard, individual markup elements were heavily abused (tables, tables, and more tables) to make a design appear as desired.  More than making bloated code that was difficult to understand, this practice made the labels obsolete.  What’s the point of calling it a table element if we’re not using it to generate a table of data?  Anyway, using Wordpress to build a website felt like going against this philosophy of using the right tool for the right job.  If Wordpress was designed as a blogging tool, should I be picking out individual elements because it makes maintaining the website a bit easier?  Not to mention that Wordpress has so much more code and so many more options than are necessary for most websites!  It reminds me of the saying, “when all you have is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail.”  Perhaps it’s my job as a designer to work a bit harder to find a tool that provides the options I want without the unnecessary features that Wordpress provides.

This trend shows up everywhere, whenever the new technology comes out it is used nearly everywhere, when there’s often no reason for it.  AJAX falls into the category, same as flash did (and I even blogged about this already)!  Yes, AJAX is a wonderful tool that gives functionality to websites that was not previously available, but it’s not the be-all end-all, use on every website for every button click that some designers seem to want it to be.  Ok, enough complaining.

That’s right, this old man went rocking this weekend.  After our visiting SLC and then immediately going camping, it felt good to do something a bit more… rock.  Had to make sure after having a great time camping that I haven’t become a hippy.  :shudder:

Anyway, I drove out to my friend Eric’s house in Portland and we headed out to a field in St. Helens.  This was going to be the first year where I was there on time… but it was not to be.  In previous years I have suffered the horrible feeling of walking through the gates and hearing one of the bands I was excited to see (Rise Against, for instance) already playing.  Well, we would have been there on time this year, but traffic got in our way.  On the road in, there was over a mile’s worth of stopped cars waiting to turn in.  So, after driving past all those cars, Eric used some brain cells I wouldn’t have used (who said college wasn’t worth it?!) and bypassed most of the cars.  But still, we arrived half an hour into the show…enough for the mighty Against Me! to already be playing one of their first songs (From Her Lips to God’s Ears, if your interested in that sort of thing).  Nothing like trying to find the bathrooms and hearing the word “Condoleeza…..” coming from the stage.  “I’m sorry bladder, you’ll have to wait.”

Anyway, we didn’t really miss any of the bands we really wanted to see, and the day turned out to be the best Warped I’ve yet attended.  I’ll do my best to recap some of the memorable moments from the day:

• Walking in front of us through the gates was a girl with unnaturally black hair, a scarlet dress and flowing gauzy outfit on.  Two girls were walking beside her ceremonially holding corners of her gauzy shawl.  Ok.  I forgot that this is the AFI crowd.  It seemed to be alot of interestingly dressed goth-lite kids and frat-boy looking types who sang along enthusiastically to every song (although sometimes I wonder if they would recognize Cereal Wars or I Wanna Get A Mohawk).  I’ve got to hand it to them for drawing such a diverse crowd.  The band redeemed themselves from the last time I saw them by putting on a good live show.  The last time it was boring and contrived…this weekend it was exciting, and even though they didn’t play older songs, great music.
• Against Me! just ruled.  They also changed the opinion I formed after seeing their last tour.  Maybe I didn’t get it last time, or they weren’t on point, but this time was awesome.  I sang along when I could and made a note to pick up As The Eternal Cowboy, as I hadn’t purchased it yet (I did today).
• I saw a girl with a full-back Nirvana tattoo.  Really?  You want to devote your entire back flesh to Nirvana?  Maybe it’s just because I think 99% of band tattoos are a bad idea, but whatever.  I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt thinking that it was a transcendental thing, but Eric vetoed that idea.
• After initially thinking that I wanted to see the Casualties play (I had mistaken them for the Unseen… thanks to Eric for correcting me from making a huge mistake!) we saw the end of their set, which was memorable for their ability to incite a circle pit around the sound guy tent and then the water guy.  That’s right, at Oregon shows it’s hard enough to get 5 kids to run around in a circle, but the Casualties got a ton of kids to form two separate circle pits in unique locations while they barked along onstage.
• I’ve seen NOFX play several times now, and I can never figure out if it’s really punk rock or really annoying that they don’t put much effort into their shows.  I guess it’s probably both.  I’ve never come away from one of their shows thinking, “Wow, that was great!”  I’m always happy to have seen them, and I love their albums, but their show leaves something to be desired.  Like the song says, I guess they really only do give about 60%.  It’s really obvious when they play right after Rise Against, who manage to rock hard no matter what.  If it ever came down to it, I’d give my money to RA for a show.  Thankfully I haven’t had to make that decision yet.
• Wandering around, finding the different stages I had an odd experience: I saw someone I knew (and 800 Octane wasn’t playing).  Apparently a band from my undergrad was playing the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands stage.  I don’t really like their music, but it was an odd experience to see them playing.
• After listening to rock for hours, we took a breather to go sit against the fence and rest our ears (I forgot to take my fancy ear plugs) and cool down a bit.  After hearing three bands competing with each other we wandered over to this little stage folded out of a tiny truck and heard a band from England called TAT.  They were surprisingly good.  So much so that I bought their EP and I’m very happy with that purchase.  If you’re interested, go to their website and listen to the song Champagne, Cocaine and Strawberries.  Tell me it’s not stuck in your head tomorrow.
• Valient Thorr.  How I love thee.  We left Helmet after a few songs to check out this band that I’ve been reading about online and in magazines.  Holy crap.  Possibly one of the most fun bands I’ve seen.  Their live show is crazy.  Excellent stuff.  If you have a chance to see them on tour, definitely do so.  Never has a beard so defined rock.
• Lastly, I was super impressed with Joan Jett.  She rocked hard, and surprised me.  She gets my vote for best set of the day.  Sure, other bands were more “punk rock” than her, but all of the songs she played were great and they sounded 10x more punk than I remember the recordings.  Not to mention that she was spot on with the melodies, and they sounded perfect.  I’ve heard she may be a diva, but she was just rocking it out with the Blackhearts.  I’ve now had Riddles, the first song on her new album Sinner, stuck in my head (alternating with the TAT song).

Wow.  I wrote a lot.  Does that make up for neglecting my faithful blog audience for a few extra days after my vacation?  Well, no.  But then again, I don’t have much of a faithful blog audience anyway!  I do have a wicked sunburn, despite slathering on the sunscreen before the show.  Next time I’ll just take a bath in it before I go outdoors.

Well, the wife and I just returned from a house-hunting trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, since we’ll be moving there in a little over a month. After looking at quite a few places and calling over 30 possibilities, we finally found a place…so that’s a huge relief! It’s in a four-plex and is pretty centrally located, while still being on the South East side of town. The weather was amazing, in the 90’s every day with blue skies, so we’re looking forward to nice weather when we move.

When we were waiting to fly home last night there was actually a double rainbow that was on the tarmac…pretty amazing. The wife got a picture of it, so you can see for yourself: the pot of gold must be out there with the planes.

Speaking of the airport, while we were sitting in the terminal minding our own business, we were assaulted by a loud cellphone talker. She was standing behind us and carrying on in her outside voice about how she only had a certain amount of time to call and was going to split it up between then and the next morning “so I can wake you up!” This was slightly annoying, but we could ignore her. Then things went sideways. She started crying and telling this guy [presumably] that she knows that she screwed up and that he has “moved on” and no longer loves her. Ok. Then she starts saying things like “I’ll wait for you 5 or 10 years”, “Now I just might not wake up”, and “No, there really are guys interested in me…I just am not interested in them! Really, there are!” This is punctuated by crying and the occasional phrase in another language. Now, if they both speak this other language, wouldn’t it be better to carry on the whole conversation in that language so that random travellers like myself won’t hear and understand everything you’re saying? But no sooner than she spoke in this other language was she back to American English. So we sat there, trying to ignore her (which was impossible) for nearly half an hour while she alternated between crying, bartering with this guy seemingly to convince him to love her back, and sudden bursts of normal friendlike conversations about weather or places to vacation. All of this with occasional veiled references to ending her life. Suh-weet.

So, if you’re psychologically inclined you probably are thinking of a certain diagnosis, and I really think you might be on to something. But because I was on vacation, I just turned away and walked on the plane.

Well, the wife and I are headed out to go camping today, so I will again be incommunicado until this weekend, when I will attend Warped Tour hopefully!

Today I went to the store and… wait for it… purchased a CD!  So strange in this instant gratification world of iTunes, allofmp3.com, and bittorrent, I know!  But you know what I remembered?  There’s something gratifying about purchasing a CD, opening the jewel case, admiring the layout, and reading the CD insert while you slide the CD into your player.

The CD I purchased, Rise Against’s the Sufferer and the Witness.  The place I enjoyed it, gas station while getting gas and riding through the car wash.  My thoughts so far?  Well, I really like the CD, although it is not as good as Revolutions Per Minute, whose songs I still get stuck in my head, even though I’ve been listening to them for several years now.  But even so, this CD is definitely more quality than their previous one, more of a return to form if you will.  Many people have pointed out that they returned to Bill Stevenson’s Blasting Room for the recording, and that apparently enabled them to get back to “their sound.”  I think that must have something to do with it, plus the fact that they didn’t lose their guitarist mid album, as happened during Siren Song of the Counter Culture.  No matter what, I’m happy to hear this album, and look forward to seeing them on Warped Tour in a couple of weeks.

I’ve been on a bit of a melodic hardcore punk trip recently, listening to No Trigger, Good Riddance, and Ryan’s Hope.  If you happen to like music along the Rise Against / Good Riddance spectrum, definitely check out Ryan’s Hope.  Since I found their album, Apocalypse in Increments, it has been in heavy rotation on my iPod.  Very impressed with Nitro Records’ roster overall right now.  They were off my radar for a long time, but have come back with two excellent releases recently (No Trigger and Ryan’s Hope), plus Much The Same’s new album is due out on the label soon (and I’m even thinking I might like A Wilhelm Scream’s album).  I’m still undecided about Hit The Switch.  I can’t tell yet if they’re more than a Sum 41 soundalike without as many hooky choruses.  I’ll need to listen to more than the 2 songs I’ve heard.