JFK, other dead Kennedys, and a young punk in school

Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK.  It is also the 14th anniversary of my getting in trouble in 8th grade for wearing the Dead Kennedys shirt posted above.  I had no idea what day it was, and despite the reprimanding I got, I don't think my brain ever associated this date with JFK.  Thanks to social media, and now this blog post, November 22nd is now cemented in my brain as the date of the (first) Kennedy assassination, which remains unsolved despite what our government keeps telling us.  I think Oliver Stone might've been the second shooter.

John F Kennedy Jr. died the summer before 8th grade.  I remember hearing about it on the radio while I was doing yard work for a neighbor.  Being a young punk, I was sort of tickled that there was another Kennedy to add to the lengthy list of dead Kennedys.  Just as America was finally getting over the drunken  tragic death of Princess Diana, John-John crashed his plane into the ocean and the country entered the throes of despair once again.  My father likes to point out that when rich people have a fatal accident, it's usually while doing some leisure activity.  Flying your own plane, skiing, and so on.  The luckier Kennedys have managed to kill other people rather than themselves.

"When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police."  IE: I was blackout drunk when I drove my car into a lake and the passenger died.

The Kennedys were the closest thing to royalty we had in America (especially in Massachusetts, and ESPECIALLY on Cape Cod), although I think their culturual significance has diminished and been replaced with an even sicker obsession with reality TV.  Kardashian is the new Kennedy.

Rest in Power, John F Kennedy, you Marilyn Monroe-banging, Rat Pack hanging president.  And let's not forget his brother Robert whose life was also ended with a bullet.  50 years later and bullets continue to fly and target politicians and civilians alike.  As appropriate as it would be to end this post with "Bullet" by the Misfits, I think I've been irreverent enough for one day, so I'm going to go a different route.  Expect a post in the next day or two to talk about about the Culture & Caring fundraising event that took place last night, where one of my paintings was showcased and raffled.  Once I get more pictures together I will do a good write-up about it.  Until next time....

DRI - Full Speed Ahead

Funny Boyfriend Arm Soft Throw Pillow Body Hug Washable Girlfriend Cushion Bed

A few weeks ago, I got a "Welcome to eBay!" email, for an account I did not create.  Well, that's weird, but I wasn't too alarmed since I regularly change my email/banking passwords and did not expect any fraudulent activity of that nature.  Since contacting ebay is such a pain in the ass, I just let it be and kept an eye out for any emails about transactions.  Today ebay since me an order confirmation for the product pictured above.  It turns out there is a dude with my name who lives in the United Kingdom who must've typed his email address incorrectly or something, and I'm getting his ebay emails.  I called ebay to have them fix this because I do not want to be implicated in any way if this guy turns out to be some kind of scam artist or just a shitty ebayer and I have to incur the wrath of an angry seller.  Until then I will continue to enjoy reviewing his future purchases.

In the meantime, I want to talk about the DRI's final album, 1995's Full Speed Ahead.  There are people who criticize later DRI.  In many fans' eyes they became too metal, too polished and slick, and punks everywhere cursed the band for allegedly abandoning their hardcore roots.  I think some of those criticisms are warranted to a degree, but it would be foolish to completely dismiss everything after "Dealing With It."  For Christ's sake, their crossover masterpiece was called CROSSOVER.  And no matter how metal or "slick" they got, the vocals retained their hardcore punk approach, no heavy metal falsettos or ballads to be found.  You can download the record from mediafire here and I will include the download link again at the end of the post.

I was going to say this cover art sucks, then I noticed the DRI guy on the ship.  Still....

In 2013, we don't think twice about how long bands like Bane or Converge  have been around (hell, even Terror is over 10 years old now).  I think since most of the early punk and hardcore bands had shorter life spans, it's easy to look at a band like DRI and laugh at the idea that they put out an album in 1995.  But it is a fitting swan song for the band, combining the speed of their early records and the metallic riffing of their crossover/thrash records and adding new found heaviness.  Full Speed Ahead is very much a product of its time: there is a lot of Pantera-esque groove on this record, and guitars are way down-tuned, making the slow parts heavier, the fast parts meaner, and everything in between just nasty.  Listen to this and try not to bang head:

Another drive-by, everyone stares

What it comes down to is nobody cares

The opening riff would not sound out of place on a Crowbar or Pantera record.  The tempo picks up with a gnarly riff before settling back into the opening riff; the tempo & riff alternates like this for the verses, in between a chuggy, double-bass filled chorus.  Check out that great drumfill and awesome dueling guitar slides around 1:03.  That brings up one of this album's major strong points: the production.  While the guitar has sounded thin at times on previous records, it is thick and beefy here, but not overproduced.  The bass is clear and present, working nicely alongside the guitar and underpinned by tight, powerful drumming.  The drums are the production highlight, reminding me very much of the drums on Carnivore's "Retaliation": very high in the mix, lots of emphasis on the kick, drums that don't just become a blur when the band plays fast.  Listen to the final minute of "Syringes in the Sandbox" to hear some great solo drum fills to get an idea of how good these drums sound, and enjoy a most devastating buildup to a truly mind-numbing outro.

"Syringes in the Sandbox" is an example of how brutal and heavy this album can get, but there are quite a few songs with tempos more akin to DRI's early thrash (thrash as it originally meant in hardcore punk, not thrash metal).  The opening track is one such song:

Been on my best behavior/You are not my savior/You are just another vice
Was I this week's flavor?/Just do me a favor/And stay the fuck out of my life

This song sounds like it's about a crazy girl that he finally kicked to the curb.  Good for him!  I wonder if this girl inspired this next song, one of my favorites on the record.

I don't trust that girl with a gun/There's something about a girl with a gun
The way they fly off the handle/Someone's gonna get hurt

I've been very fortunate that guns never entered the hands of some girls I've dated, or else the blog you're reading would have been written by a ghost, and that would be very spooky.  Anyway, this song starts off with a great intro driven by a killer bassline, building nicely before blasting into a riff that if it had a face, it would belong on Mt. Rushmore.  This song gets 6 out of 6 .357 magnum rounds.

Some more disgusting riffage:
The sum of all you are is all in your mind From slow to fast to midtempo, complete with mid-riff harmonics (although not at a Fury of Five level,stay tuned for the Fury of Five Harmonics/Falsetto Scream Megamix).   DRI does something on this record that typically comes out like garbage for most bands: they re-recorded one of their early, classic songs.  DRI manages to avoid the song becoming a paradoxical plea for both relevance and reverence, simply because it sounds so damn good.  There is an authenticity to the re-recording, no trace of self-consciousness that tends to plague re-recordings.  For the hell of it, here are the two versions of the song in question, "Who Am I?" Dirty Rotten LP (1984) Full Speed Ahead (1995) Well, I think I've given a pretty decent overview of the record.  I could post more songs, but I will simply post one more video, which is the full album, so you can listen to more, skip around, and if you decide you like it, download it here.  I am one of those people who tends to like bands' questionable later albums, so feel free to leave a comment and share your opinion of this record or anything you've seen in this post.  As I'm wrapping up this post, I get an email from Levi's customer service (I'd emailed them earlier in the day about an order).  The guy's name is Dan Tanner, so I signed my thank you email "Uncle Jesse," and now Full House has been referenced on my blog.  Time to wrap it up.  Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the tunes and maybe you can add another record to your playlist.  Take it easy.

Pickle, rioting (the unbeatable high), dead siblings

The final game of the 2013 World Series will forever be remembered for the absolutely ridiculous game of pickle shown above.  In a game filled with highlights, this hilarious, 3-on-1 spectacle is burned into my brain forever.  I think that Jacoby Ellsbury looks like the Native American woman from Seinfeld.

A sports celebration isn't complete without a couple flipped cars and other by-the-books rioting.  I can't help but think back Red Sox celebration in 2004 where police murdered a classmate of mine, Victoria Snelgrove, by firing a pepper spray projectile that hit her right in the eye.  The officer who fired the "non-lethal" weapon was put on paid leave, and the former police commissioner stated that while she "firmly and emphatically accept[s] responsibilities for any errors, I also condemn the actions of the punks...who turned our city's victory into an opportunity for violence and mindless destruction."  I do not sympathize with idiots who want to riot after a sports victory, but she should have been honest and recongize that the opportunity for violence was not ignored by the police, whose sole function to serve and protect is often undermined by a deadly combination of authority, ego, and firepower.  With that in mind, I wish those drunken sports fans would take a moment to reflect on what exactly they are accomplishing and the danger they invite not just on themselves, but everyone.

They club your head, kick your teeth Police can riot all they please
I don't think I've given a real update on my health in a while, so I guess I'll bring you guys up to date. In my "Dreams" post from September 2nd, I talk about experiencing symptoms of graft versus host disease.  My doctor was never 100% certain that it was GVHD, though, since although the timing and organs affected (liver and skin) were typical of GVHD, the actual appearance of the irritated skin was unusual to GVHD.  (I only use that abbreviation one more in this post, I promise.)  So a month or so ago my doctor made me an appointment with an oncological dermatlogist to determine what exactly was going on with my skin.  They took a biopsy and at the end of the week my doctor called me to let me know it was a reaction to a drug he had taken me off of a few weeks earlier  in case it had any role in what was going on with my skin.  He said that he has no reason to think that I have GVHD, which is a huge relief, because although it can indicate a healthy and effective donor system, it is a real bitch.  So I am in good shape for now.
A couple of weeks ago I had a follow up appointment with my dermatologist.  The waiting room was packed and I'm the only one in a mask and gloves.  No surprise there.  I sat down near a middle-aged woman and I just knew that she was going to start talking to me.  She does.  At some point I mentioned I grew up on Cape Cod, she asks which part, and I give my standard, "Truro, way out there."  She says, "Oh yes, next to Provincetown."  I tell her yes.  She then mouths silently, "Lot of fags down there."  I nod.  She then goes on to tell me that her brother was gay and died of AIDS.  Except she didn't use any of those words.  She managed to convey that to me in a manner that was at once cryptic and direct. He lived down there, got sick, and died, "when the drugs weren't as good as they are today."  
We talk a little more. She surprises me with her progressive views on the healthcare system and pharmaceutical companies.  She started getting personal again, confiding that her sister died of lung cancer and she felt guilty for not taking care of her.  She clearly had unresolved issues with her dead siblings.  When she told me she wasn't religious, but she believes there's something out there, and that things happen for a reason, I told her, "Yeah.  But some things happen for no reason."  She agreed with me and a few moments later the nurse called my name.  We said a polite goodbye and she wished me luck.  It was a very nice ending to a conversation that covered a lot of bases (hey, baseball term). So thankfuly I didn't see her on my way out.
That about wraps things up.  I have yet to muster the energy to work on my Hardline retrospective, but I promise that will come.  I have a few other ideas to for records to showcase and offer for download.  Until then, take it easy.  One thing I know for sure is we all need to stay upbeat.