punk bands don't like Jesus

I was present at the Raleigh stop of the Warped Tour today. I must say that despite the rain, I had a good time. I was a little miffed by a couple of the bands though. First, I was checking out The Casualties, a sort of gutter punk band, ie dayglow mohawks and liberties and yelling over melodic three chord riffs. You get the idea. At any rate, towards the end of their set, they pointed over to the other main stage, where Underoath (a Christian screamo band) was preparing to go on next and said something to the affect of, "When you leave here, let's go give those Christians hell." Then, an hour after Underoath finished, NOFX played. I wasn't there for the beginning of the set, but, according to my roommate, they said all the Christians could leave when they started. I was there later on when Fat Mike, the lead singer, said the following (again, it's a paraphrase):
"You know North Carolina is the best state in the country, right? Haha. I'm just saying that to get you to buy our cd's...actually, dont' buy our cd's. Buy the Underoath cd because you get to go to Heaven. Our cd's won't get you anything."
He was joking obviously and I laughed. But the fact that two bands took shots at their tourmates just for being Christian bothered me. I don't know a lot about the Casualties, but I'm assuming they're at least somewhat political. And I know the guys in NOFX are political. Fat Mike founded punkvoter.org and released two anti-bush compliation albums on his label, Fat Wreck Chords. So here's my question: aren't liberals supposed to be all about tolerance and diversity? I mean, I understand that most of them hate Bush and feel like he's brought his faith into the job too much. That's fine. I'm not a Bush fan either and I have no desire to live in a theocracy. And I realize that the majority of practicing Christians are conservatives also. I'm not saying I don't understand why they're at odds sometimes. But how does juvenile humor and unprovoked attacks solve anything? Every other band I saw today had nothing but nice things to say about the other bands on the tour. They spent their limited time complimenting the other bands and encouraging the crowd to check out their friends and heroes. And NOFX did some of that too. But for some reason they felt the need to take shots at the Christians in attendance while they were at it. That's okay though. They/we can take it. I just think it's silly and immature and I wish I could expect better from men in their thirties with a bunch of impressionable kids listening to them. Most of all, I just think it's another symptom of the fact that, while no one's allowed to make fun of any other political, social, or racial group in the country, Christians are fair game. I'm usually up for any time of humor and I rarely get offended. I just hate that there's such a double-standard. I'll stop ranting now though.

Beware.

it's theoretical, not personal

I wanted to clarify my last blog entry since the elder Miss Crosswhite seems to have been upset by it.

I didn't mean to say that I think girls are evil. I didn't mean that I don't believe in love or happiness. The entry wasn't even about me at all really. I just think that instead of one special person and only one person that you are destined for, there could be multiple people out there that you're compatible with and that you'd be equally happy dating or married to. I don't see that as a negative thing.

While we're on the subject though, it bothers me when people tell me that they know I'm going to find someone. I realize they're just trying to be encouraging, but I don't agree. After years of watching movies and reading fairytales, Americans have developed this nothing that everyone has someone out there waiting for them. The Christian community has co-opted that idea, turning it into a faith issue. "Don't worry. God has someone special for you." I guess that's a nice thought, but I don't remember the passage of the Bible where God promises everyone a mate. Lots of wonderful people, both Christian and nonChristian, go their whole lives without ever finding someone. I'm not saying that I'll neccessarily be one of those people, but I don't think you or anyone else has any evidence to the contrary. I may meet some amazing girl and fall in love tomorrow. And I may die at eighty-five without ever having been married. I don't think there's anything pessimistic about considering both possibilities.

there is no Neo, said the spoon

I don't believe in "the one." I didn't before my last relationship and I certainly don't now. I guess I've never been a big believer in fate or determinism or predestination or whatever you want to call it. Our lives are, without a doubt, influenced by outside forces, but we're still logical creatures that make decisions and choices. You can certainly find a one, but the? That one person you were meant to be with from birth? The only person you could ever truly be happy with? I don't think that exists.

That's not to say you shouldn't believe the one you're with is "the one," if that makes you happy. But I'm against the concept for a few major reasons:

1) It gives to much credit to fate. So many girls think they can just sit back and wait for their prince to come, for some guy to fall into their lap. They don't want any guy who doesn't come out swinging, who doesn't attempt to woo them. And too many of them won't give a guy a chance if he doesn't fit that ideal in their head.

2) If someone's "perfect for you," then you expect things to be perfect. Successful relationships take a lot of work and a lot of right choices and it's easy to forget that when you're caught up in emotion. It's easy to rest on your laurels, confident that you've finally found that special someone and let things fall apart right in front of your eyes. And when things aren't perfect, when there are problems and work that has to be done, too many people cut and run, secure in the knowledge that it must have not been "meant to be" if things were so hard.

3) On the other side of things, people sometimes cling to a relationship that's obviously not working because they had some feeling, some premonition that this one was going to last and they don't want to let that go. We've all seen it, that friend who puts up with constant abuse, who soldiers on through fight after fight, through numerous metaphorical or literal slaps in the face because their emotions tell them that they have to. Because, from the beginning, they knew. They "just knew."

So call me a cynic if you want to. Tell me I don't have enough experience to make statements like that. Tell me that I'll find her someday and then understand. That's fine. I know I can't change anyone's mind about something they've probably believed their whole life. Just promise me you'll be careful.

there goes the sun

For those of you that don't know, I work part time at Toys [backwards]R Us. It doesn't pay hardly anything and it gets insane around Christmas and boring the rest of the year, but it's not a horrible job to have, all things considered.

When I first started working there, I immediately hated the music. It was Christmas time, so, of course all the songs were Christmas songs. I hate most Christmas songs anyway and the fact that all of them were Disneyfied didn't help. There was even (horror of horrors) a Macarena Christmas mix. I wanted to shoot myself.

Things got better after Christmas ended though. The songs were still mostly really bad, but they would rotate every day, so it was bearable. Then, after I'd been there a while, the satellite music system we used broke somehow. The first day, there was weird static coming through the speakers periodically and we couldn't use the intercom at all. Then, it stopped working completely and we went without music for a while. It was peaceful and I have to say I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, we all knew it couldn't last. The music would return. Instead of getting the satellite system fixed, the managers simply switched back to the old system, a tape player that only plays special tapes we get from corporate. So now, instead of the music rotating and being different every day, the same songs play day after day until we get a new tape. The tapes are longer than normal tapes, but short enough that you can hear the same songs at least five or six times, if not more, in an average shift. It doesn't take long to get sick of songs when you hear them that often and it doesn't help when they're stuff like the "Tail Spin" theme or a Kids Bop version of a Hillary Duff song.

I provided all this back story just to say that we got a new tape yesterday. Along with the usual annoying crap (much of it repeats from earlier tapes that I already loathe), there's a couple of decent songs on there. Only I never know how to feel about good songs being on the tapes. On the one hand, it's better than the tape being full of all kids songs, but, on the other hand, I know I'm going to wind up hating songs that I previously enjoyed. I've already gotten sick of such classics as Modern English's "I Melt With You," The Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville," and Lisa Loeb's, "I Do." Now, "Here Comes the Sun," which is an excellent Beatles song is doomed to follow the same path. After a two or three months of hearing it fifteen to twenty times per week, I'll never be able to hear it again without thinking of Bratz Dolls and The Nintendo DS. Sad.

I'm frackin' obsessed!

I've always seen myself on the fringes of nerdom. In my opinion, to be an actual nerd, one needs to be obsessed with something. I have a lot of nerdy friends and I know enough about most nerdy subjects to keep up in a conversation, but I've never been a fanboy. I've watched some "Star Trek," but only "The Next Generation" and none of the original movies. I've seen the Lord of the Rings movies, but never read the books. I enjoy Star Wars, but I've never bought anything related to it. I watch some comic book movies and TV shows, but I've never really owned any actual comic books. I used to be sort of a computer nerd, but I kicked my chat room habit years ago and I don't know anything more than basic html and how to get around Windows. I like to stay on the fringes. I've never found an obsession: until now. I think I'm officially a "Battlestar Galactica" nerd.

Both are my roommates are pretty nerdy. Not the kind that don't have social skills and only date fat, ugly girls, but they're still pretty high on the nerd continuim. One of them, Bryan, tends to watch the Sci-Fi channel quite a bit. Ocassionally, when I'm bored enough, I've been known to watch a few minutes of one of the "Stargates" with him, but only to mock it and laugh at how bad it is. For me, the Sci-Fi channel was an object of scorn, not somewhere I would ever stop for more than a minute when the remote was in my power. But all that changed a few months ago. Bryan started watching the Sci-Fi channel's "re-imagining" of the cheesey 70's Star Wars cash-in "Battlestar Galactica." I knew, like everything else on Sci-Fi, it would be horrible, but as a caught a few minutes here and there, it actually seemed watchable. The acting wasn't laughable and the effects looked realistic. When Bryan bought the first season on DVD, I decided to have a go at it. He'd already almost finished watching the first season before I started, but I quickly caught up with him and months before the second season was to be released on DVD, I was bugging him to buy it. Now, through the magic of DVD, I've seen every episode of seasons one and two.

And, believe it or not, it's actually a really great show. The acting is great. The characters are richly developed and not at all static. The plots are exciting and intricate. The special effects are always seemless and the sci-fi aspects of the show never seem silly. Time and Rolling Stone have both done articles proclaiming it one of the best shows on TV and those are just two of the many critical raves that the new "Battlestar" has recieved. A week ago Tuesday, Bryan and I finished up the Season 2 dvd's together. Of course, it ended on a cliff-hanger. I knew that the Sci-Fi Channel was already several episodes into Season 3 and that I'd probably have to wait months before it would be released on DVD and I could watch the show again without missing anything or ruining the first few episodes for myself. When I found out they were showing a marathon of all the third season episodes on Tuesday, my heart leapt, to use the cliche. That's when I realize that I couldn't deny it anymore. "My life can continue," I said to Bryan, forever claiming my place in the annals of nerdiness. I'm no longer on the fringe. I'm officially a "Battlestar Galactica" nerd. And I think I'm okay with that.

don't talk about this entry

At one point I guess I didn't really have a favorite movie. I liked a lot, but couldn't narrow it down to one. It finally dawned on me though, that Fight Club was and is without a doubt, my favorite. See, I'm not one of those people that watches movies over and over again. I'll watch a good movie in the theater and again when it comes out on DVD, but then I don't want to watch it for a while. In fact, even with movies I really like a lot, it sometimes takes me months or years before I want to watch them again. That's not the case with Fight Club though. Every time someone suggest we watch it, I'm always in. I'm sure there are limits. I wouldn't watch it every day or anything. But I could watch it a lot. Why? Because it's just so good.

I had a writing professor who said she hated Fight Club. She predicted the twist ending early on in the movie, thought it was stupid, and cut it off. And actually, I predicted the ending of Fight Club the first time I saw it as well. About halfway through I said to my friend, "Hey...maybe Edward Norton is actually _________." As the movie went on and I kept getting more and more clues that I was right, instead of being disappointed, I thought it was great. Since then, I've seen several other movies with a similar ending, but at the time it was really fresh and original.

But Fight Club is much more than just a clever twist. The acting is tremendous. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt are most definitely two of the most under-rated actors in Hollywood. Norton plays the unassuming, slightly nerdy guy perfectly here and he plays him in a way that's three dimensional. The shift he makes towards the end of the movie is believable because you can see hints of it in his character throughout. Brad Pitt, while not quite as consistent as Norton in all his roles, is very adept at playing a character who is slightly off his rocker. See 12 Monkeys for another great example. Add a fine performance by classically trained actress Helena Bonham Carter and a fun supporting role by the man who calls himself Meat Loaf and you have quite an excellent cast.

My favorite part about Fight Club, however, is the dialogue. I've always been a fan of movies where a character narrates the movie by speaking directly to the audience. Maybe it has something to do with my love for post-modern literature, but whatever the case it works for me. And the lines that Norton speaks are just so great. Most of them, from what I can tell, are taken directly from the book the movie is based on and they're quite beautifully written as is the rest of ChuckPalahniuk's prose. "I ran until my veins pumped battery acid. And then I ran some more." You can't beat that. And there's dozens more where that came from. How can you not love a movie that's endlessly quotable? I'm convinced that that's why so many people love Napoloen Dynamite. Some movies are great when you watch them. Some movies are more fun when you quote them later. And some movies are chocked full of fun no matter which way you slice them. Did I mention Fight Club contains some powerful social statements, has plenty of action and dramatic tension, and features some stunning cinematography? Yeah...it's that good.