Inspired by my triathlete friend Daniel’s Blog where he recounts his big events I’ve decided to write down significant rides on my own though not always through an athletic looking glass. The germination of this particular post stems from a conversation we had the night before the Tour De Palm Springs between Daniel, our friend Sergio (who we recently viciously kidnapped into the world of cycling) and I. The question of what we actually do for multiple hours on a bicycle on these 100 mile rides came up. Obviously we pedal, yes, but our minds are left trapped on this one way train for hours on end. If you stick with a group or are of a friendly disposition then conversations are easy enough to have and those are great to pass the time but if you have a hard time keeping up with groups…let’s say…particularly on climbs or long but gradual inclines like me or if you just prefer riding alone then what do you do?
Daniel and Sergio both agreed that listening to audio books and podcasts is the way to go. I agreed, that’s definitely a great way to live out your masochist fantasies on a bike. Okay I’m being sarcastic, they enjoy this and maybe consider it even more of a “productive” endeavor, a synergy between mind and body where the body is working and the mind is learning. I understand the impulse, it’s the same feeling I get when I used to drive across LA for work, may as well knock out a book or learn some new shit while stuck in traffic, right? May as well learn the secret art of the law of attraction while pedaling for 6 hours straight too then yeah? Hell nah.
I listen to music, it’s a ride enhancer for me. It scoops me out of the lows and it makes the highs higher. My bicycle ride becomes art, a film in my head. Oftentimes the combination of my struggle, the vistas, and the music combine together to form some sort of alchemical concoction greater than the sum of its parts and later on that’s what I remember the most, not the suffering but the grandiose canvas of emotions I felt. I tried to jot down some quick notes to prompt my recounting of the ride so get ready for a deep dive into the intersection between music scores, soundtracks and cycling that you never asked for.
I shot the footage in this video on a Friday I took off back in June. It was the first time I went out into the wild with my filters and lens. My phone looked comically obtuse in my hands and there was no hiding the fact from passerby that I was clearly filming everything around me. Guerrilla filming is not really my thing per se and it feels strange but it’s just something I’ll have to overcome if I ever want to produce anything meaningful.
I bought a variable ND filter because I was being cheap and didn’t want to switch out filters constantly but its limitations were apparent in this film, the bright daylight was just rocking its world and the extreme ends of the filter couldn’t handle it. Seems like I’ll have to get a darker one for my daylight filming. I also had some technical difficulties with my anamorphic lens. Unbeknownst to me the screw was a little loose and you can see it in the video when the image warps a bit. Eventually caught on and fixed it but the damage was done. Still, I like how this turned out.
Sometimes I get remarks from people I know about how I haven’t grown much through the vicissitudes of pleasures, pains, and sneers.
“Some things change but Jairo, he’ll be the same for years”.
I laugh and give them the finger guns, make some clicking noises.
I’ll tell them I just know what I like. Because how could they ever fathom the truth of my foolish choices.
My secret is in plain sight. Sitting right there in the kitchen of my house.
Many moons ago I tampered with forces beyond my understanding, idiocy I did espouse.
I read the books. They were easy to find, most everything is nowadays.
Originally it was only out of curiosity, but as I read my pride erupted into a blaze.
“What do these people know that I do not?!”
“I can do this myself, I’ll put together the ingredients that time forgot.”
So I set about my errand, and had to gather the resources.
There was only one place I could go, the house of sorcerers who dispensed powerful forces.
Bearded men did greet me, and they had all manners of equipment, reagents, and insidious creatures.
I described to them my goal, and if they knew I was a fool, they did not show it on their features.
Happily they sold me the materials I required: dormant ravenous animals, the fluid extracted from living corpses, and grains of sin.
I left there with my hubris on full display, how could I help but grin.
That night was dark and brooding, a gift I thought.
Whether it was my inexperience, naivete, or ego I know not, but ne’er did I get the results I sought.
I spoke the words of power in a hurry, I did not care to keep in mind my quarry, and I haphazardly measured the components.
Worst of all I dropped the final piece into the concoction by accident. No matter I thought, as the liquid dripped from my clothes back into the cauldron. “I have all but bested this opponent”.
I stared into the pot and it bubbled and gurgled as if it was trying to tell me something of great importance in a language I did not understand.
My eyes gleamed with the reflection of my dark victory. But soon I would see the full breadth of what my blunder would command.
The first half of the ritual was over, and the second would take weeks before I could, in my delicious mixture, partake.
But I never would. Perhaps it was the pieces of my dead skin that the brew did take.
But I found myself robbed of my agency, despondent, and lethargic. A sorry state.
I should have opened the vessel soon thereafter, but dear reader, it’s been years since that day and I don’t remember laughter.
It sits in my kitchen still, collecting my worries, anxieties, and fears.
It has imparted on me something I could not foresee. My nails have stopped growing, my hair stays at the same length, even my bowels do not move.
Hunger is but a memory, thirst seems like an old dream. I have long ago decided this calamity I could not disprove.
The truth is I am trapped in this body, in this state, unable to move on, to realize my fate.
The potion that I tried to make took something from me on that night, I realized too late.
A piece of me, one of the most important. My soul, my humanity. It’s robbed me of living but gifted me an eternity.
And still, I dare not open the lid to that ethereal beverage. Will the years of pause suddenly come rushing to my unsuspecting body?
Sometimes, on sleepless nights I can hear a hum emanating from the receptacle and my dreams turn to waking nightmares as I feel the severance of heart and mind.
I have visions of what I think may be lurking inside, a horrible mixture of magicks, spirits, and flesh that I did enshrine.
To look upon it myself would be too much to bear, and so it sits in my kitchen, never to be drunk by mortal hands.
But instead it has imbibed mine own psyche. My body now is but a puppet and my true self swims in the golden dark depths of the beer I brewed then neglected due to life’s demands.
Dual twin guitar attacks blast out of my stereo as I politely turn my blinker on to slowly switch lanes on the 405. “Today is a good night!”, I yell loudly at myself as I barrel down the highway at 5 miles per hour. The passenger in the front seat thinks I was talking to them, so be it.
“Dude, what are you on about”, they say.
I answer and tell them I can taste the adventure in the air is all. It’s a lie though because all I taste is the salty, wheaty remnants of the sesame sticks I was snacking on. I greedily thrust my fingers into small container that held them, finding none. As my fingers flail deeper into the container, they hit pay dirt. The accumulated loose grains of salt have all collected together forming a concentrated package of pure saltstruction that my mouth is ready to receive. An amateur would try to pinch the grains together but I, an intellectual, lick my fingers to make sure the moistness covers the maximum surface area for optimal salt delivery. I slide my fingers into my mouth and the familiar feeling of my tongue dehydrating is there to meet me.
“Awwww YEAAAAH”, I burst out like a salt shaker kool-aid man.
My passenger looks at me oddly never knowing the sheer ecstasy radiating from body.
My voice cracks as I say “So what did you do this summer?” As they start explaining the ins and outs of their job, I take a mental sigh of relief. Good I have them talking for a while, I immediately stop paying attention and let my social verbal cues manage the conversation. My mind has business to attend to.
I need to merge right now but the speed differential between the lanes is drastic. The cars to the right blend together into one color as they warp through the highway at unfathomable speeds. I do the mental calculations in my head, not only do I have to make sure I don’t get rammed by a car, but I need enough time to accelerate to their speed so the car behind doesn’t slam into me. I do some quick finger math and decide I’ll need approximately 2 years to perform the maneuver. It’s those 105 bastards with their dedicated lanes that have put me in this position. They think they’re above us for traveling through the parts of LA no one likes. We 405ers never catch a break, but I’ll have the last laugh yet. They’ll rue the day they underestimated the tenacity and patience of the 405er. The time for politeness is over, I don’t turn my blinker on because I’ve never met a 105er that would actually slow down to give me the chance needed to get over, I’m on to those conniving jerks, I see through their plans to speed up instead of giving me a shot. I stalk my side view mirror for the perfect gap as the cars zoom by. Like a predator cat I slow to a crawl, waiting…biding my time. I try to stop the larger trucks and trailers, they are slower and less quick to react leaving me ample time to cut in. I spot a huge long distance bus and a smile curls around my face, I smell the kill. The gap in cars is approaching like an unsuspecting deer, and my hands on the steering wheel tense up ready to strike. Before the metallic taste of victory washes over me, I am rudely reminded of the laws of this concrete jungle. Another car somewhere behind me goes in for the kill and succeeds.
The gap is closed, the prey is lost and I silently mutter to myself the rule I forgot, “There’s always another car ready to merge”.
“What?” says my passenger.
“Never mind, uh, sounds rough”, I tell them hoping that the general feeling of struggle my subconscious picked up from the out of focus conversation was right.
“Yeah”, they say and continue.
Time is running out, if I don’t merge now I’ll be cast into the fiery pits of staying on the 405. I watch the lane I need to get on with renewed focus when I see another chance. I quickly turn on my blinker as a legal formality, never actually expecting that it would give anyone notice. My arms spin the steering wheel until I’m met with the haptic feedback of hitting the maximum turn radius and as I grit my teeth I push down on the accelerator. The leap forward startles me for a second, but I quickly have to negotiate settling into my lane so I don’t cut across the highway like a redirected missile. I let the wheel spin from under my hands as my car corrects it’s own course. Finally I’m reaching the dizzying speeds of the dedicated 105 lane. I watch my odometer climb to new heights…10 mph, 15 mph, and settling on 20 mph, the cars in the 405 lanes are now dashes of color. As I climb up the 105 ramp I look back at the 405ers. Bottom dwellers, the lot of them, tax them I say. Those 405ers think they’re better than us because they have the worst commute at any time of day. Weak. Deplorable. If I ever meet one in person I’ll have some choice words.
The conversation bubbles back up to my consciousnesses “…and that’s why you can’t feed dogs chocolate”, they finish saying.
“Yeah…CLASSIC DOGS”, I sputter.
“Yeah, I guess”, they say.
“So what about cats?” I say trying to incite a tangent. They take the bait just as I notice something.
There’s a truck next to me I thought I had left behind ages ago. How is this possible, I zoomed past it miles back and here it is again, in spite of me. I thought I made the smart choices, zigged when I had to, zagged when it was right. Even in traffic the gap between me and this god damned truck should have been ever widened. Did it take another route I didn’t know about? Has google betrayed me. Imagine having the entirety of Los Angeles ask you for directions, hinging on your every word for guidance. The freeways are the veins of the city and Google maps literally has power over the flow of the blood. Who’s to say they don’t keep the nice and empty routes hidden from the masses. Maybe they set them apart for their VIPs, persons in power, people with money, the government? With a push of a button they can misdirect thousands of vehicles to make a side street empty for Jeff Bezos to get McDonalds coffee. Is this truck evidence of that? Maybe, because if not what am I to believe. The choices I’ve made don’t matter? Every smart decision I thought I made driving on this highway, every driver I’ve cut off, every time I switched lanes only to notice that it got slower and immediately switched back, every motorcyclist I spooked….did it all not matter? All the split second decisions shaving off minutes of my life in stress. I’ve literally given my life to get ahead and here this truck is nonchalantly caught up, taunting me with it’s hideous message of consumption. EAT FRESH. The tortoise to my hare, a sign that in the end everything I’ve done is meaningless, the universe doesn’t care about me or the risks I’ve taken, the decisions I’ve made or even my morality because it will just let this giant, lumbering beast of a truck catch up to me…..this fucking truck…..this MOTHERFUCKING TRUCK! I grunt audibly.
“That truck is the WORST, fuck Subway!”, I interrupt my passenger.
“Damn, I didn’t know you hated them like that?”, they say.
“Yeah man, they have trash sandwiches. Never eating there again.”, I say.
My passenger pauses reflectively, almost as if to question whether Subway is even worth defending then lets it go.
“Are we almost there?”, they ask.
I look up into the sky while the blast beats thump out of my speakers. Still even now, faced by the indifference of the universe, I feel a sense of defiance, my spirit won’t roll over and accept death, It will die a warrior’s death traveling a low speeds on the 105.
“No”, I say, “We’re not. Give me like 10 minutes”. I turn my blinkers on.
It’s 8 a.m. and you wake up. You grab your phone and pause for a second before turning off the alarm. You thought about snoozing it but you know that traffic will only get worse. You’re committed now, no turning back, if you fall asleep again you won’t wake up.
You lift yourself up, breaking free from the remaining strands of sleep. Your bones protest the sudden movement, and the gelatinous mass of flesh that hangs onto your frame pulls you down. Fuck, you’re out of shape for 27. Time to get ready for work.
You make the mistake of turning your computer on. The horrors of the world proceed to walk through, filtered through the opinions of morons. There is a small window of seconds where you begin to react before the kill switch in your mind numbs you to the news. Another mass shooting, a hero’s death, the betrayal of a species, the doomsday clock strikes 11:59:59, the confederacy of dunces meets, fires engulf the world. Which one will be your first talking point of the day?
It’s 11 a.m. and your work is piling up. The system works against you, challenging you to be productive in the face of bureaucratic sloth. Still, you toil against the machinations of the corporate agenda if only to prove even in uncertain odds you can still get shit done.
It’s noon and you give up. You position yourself next to trays of food. You know that if you open your mouth at just the right angle, and activate your black hole generator 5000 you can consume the maximum amount of matter in the shortest amount of time. Did you get all the nutrition you needed? It’s in there somewhere I suppose. You take a brisk walk around the parking lot to make sure the meal is packed into the bottom of your stomach as densely as possible, there will be more to come. You bring up the mass shooting.
It’s 6 p.m. and where has the day gone. You quipped, bantered, and sauntered it away with your co-workers. In the process, somewhere in the muck of the day, work got done. You’re not really sure how or why. Forces conspired in your favor, but only now at the tail-end of the day does a spark of real inspiration strike. Now, your real masterpiece comes forth, unfettered by the system – the beast sleeps at 5 – you can breathe life into your creation.
It’s 8 p.m. and you’re dead. There is but a thread of life left and its only function is to make sure your corpse alternates between pushing the gas and the brake pedals. It strives to reach the promised land, the home it was promised after the day has ended. The voices coming from the radio remind you that perhaps you are not as deceased as you thought, or perhaps they are the only thing keeping you from doing so.
It’s 10 p.m. and you’re exhausted. Still there’s time for one last tv show. You try to guess at the relevancy of the episode. What part of society will it deconstruct, and will you have seen it before? Perhaps it will be a character study, or an educative romp. You’ll watch it and let your dreams digest it. It shall become part of your ethos in due time. After it is done, you take one last breath as you prepare for tomorrow’s marathon of existence.
12 a.m. and your eyes dart open. There sitting in the darkness of the room, there is complete silence, and yet… you hear it. The call. The beckoning song of the night. Your body extends out into the domain of the moon. There is a pull, gentle at first, chaotic at best. You start to hear the frenzy build in you head, a manic saxophone, and bearing it no longer you leap out of bed. You gather your nocturnal instruments and depart into the realm of shadow. The air is cold and you need a drink. You walk down the block and all you hear is the shuffling of your boots on the cracked asphalt. Sometimes you skip a beat to dodge a root bursting forth through the concrete in defiance of the masters who have asked it to remain low. Slowly you approach life. The city is alive at this hour and the dim thumping of the bass guides you, sandworms in the night.
You order your favorite drink, who cares what it is, do you even know? As the tentacles of the alcohol creep into the edges of your vision you start to ruminate. What do the words that come to you even mean: horrible, tragedy, worst, history, terrible, despicable, disgusting, fascist. The words are worn hammers, and we’ve been using them too long. If you throw a piece of shit into a cesspool you just have a bigger cesspool. Have you ever tried to yell into a hurricane? Your words get ripped out of your throat, flung to the far reaches of the universe, drowned out forever by the cries of the infinite and after you’re done your voice is gone.
Your melancholy thoughts don’t stop you from hearing the music. It’s not your style though, so you walk out. You’re on the hunt for the self-expression you desperately crave, expressed by another. You cut through the darkness, pausing at the entrances of temples to hear the oracles produce their visions. The musicians tap into the collective consciousness of the city and produce an interpretation of the impossible. A trumpet here, an electric guitar there, drums, synth, beats. The music scores your movement, are you the puppet or the puppet master? Whoever you are it feels great. The people around you seem to enjoy it too, and perhaps you feel a sense of kinship but it’s false. Your muse is a reflection of your soul and they have different ones.
The whole world around you is vibrating on the same frequency. You try stand perfectly still so as to not get caught up in the motion. You didn’t sign up for this, so you finish your drink and slip back into the nothing. Still feeling the need to escape deeper, you do, down into the earth past the fossilized remains of the city that was. A man at the piano is explaining humanity in 88 keys or less. You exhale deeply and sacrifice a bit of yourself to this night.
As the notes on the piano fade away, so too do the last vestiges of the call. The moon’s fingers retreat across the sky, signaling the beginning of the end. Thoughts start creeping into your head that you’d rather not have. The dread sinks in, did you stay up too long? You look at your watch and it’s almost 4 a.m…4 hours of sleep will do you suppose.
2016, what can say about it that hasn’t been beaten into our collective consciousness already. It sucked for the world. On like a scale of things I didn’t think could happen, 2016 hit a pretty high note. Legendary musicians and actors dying left and right, a bitter and embattled election, more mass shootings, civil strife around the globe, Harambe. But it’s not all bad, Leo finally got an Oscar. But I think everyone is well aware of that part of the year.
Things for me personally though have gone pretty well…for the most part. The first couple of months were rocky at best, but it led to great new opportunities, mainly my new job. My health is still a concern as well, though it certainly doesn’t seem like it. I’m not a fool, I know I’m pushing the “youth invincibility” thing too far already and I’m getting ready to take steps towards a healthier me again. Anyways people love lists at the end of the year right? (I’m people too I think). So here you go:
Top 10 things Jairo did in 2016 (In a particular order):
1. Landed a new job
Code Conf
Yep, you get number 1 right away. It’s awesome because it was finally a step in the direction of the career I always wanted when I was programming on those sleepless nights in college. My coworkers are great and they are very much focused not just on squeezing out great automated testing, but improving quality of all code and fostering a culture of testing. Having that shared focus really drives my inspiration and lets me get into that groove on a day-to-day basis. I’ve also been able to attend my first industry conference and a couple of meetups. Not to mention Silicon Beach perks are top notch 😉
10. Bought a House
Yeah that’s right you got the best good thing and the worst good thing right next to each other, this list doesn’t give a FUCK. Buying a house is painful. Half the time I wasn’t really sure what I was doing but you have to do your research as with all things in life. I can say I think I got the property at a good value, low enough interest rate on my mortgage, and Lancaster while being kind of on the wrong side of nowhere is an up and coming city that I think will propel the property value. So let’s avoid crashing the market again for a another century or so please. The house itself is great: 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a nice living room with a fireplace and chimney, lots of open space in the backyard, and the neighborhood is nice. Oh god…why am I talking like this.
3. Bought A New Car
https://youtu.be/JQRZVbsAMrk?t=20s
I think I got really lucky here. For a long time my car of choice was a Dodge Challenger. I wanted it now while I’m still counted as being young because when I get it later I don’t want to hear any mid-life crisis BS. I wanted the blacktop edition, I had notions of putting a giant Punisher logo on the back or that Immortan Joe skull from Mad Max: Fury Road. I had dreams of driving it down desert highways, blasting Space Truckin’. Alas, it was not meant to be because in the end my sensibilities won over. There is no reason to drop a fortune on a base model Challenger when I can get a tricked out Chrysler 300c for an even lower price. Seriously, I’m still looking over my shoulder every day trying to figure how this baby was so cheap but so awesome. Leather interiors, heated seats, rear shades, rear cameras, media center, premium audio, all the bells and whistles. It’s such a comfortable car, makes the commute from Long Beach to Marina Del Rey a pleasure. And honestly anything was an upgrade from my 2000 Toyota Corolla with the broken stereo, broken indoor handles, and chronic oil problems.
4. Attended Riot Fest and The Misfits Reunion
Jerry, Glenn, and Doyle
Never thought I would have a reason to go to Denver, but when I woke up one faithful morning to find out the classic Misfits lineup was getting back together I had a choice to make. Denver or Chicago? When you factored in housing and airplane tickets the choice was easy. Besides the Misfits the lineup was different for both dates and I’m still not entirely show which one was better but there was plenty to enjoy in Denver: Suicidal Tendencies, Chevy Metal, Jane’s Addiction, Bad Religion. We even managed to get out into the city a teensy bit for metal beers and food. But for sure the highlight was the Misfits themselves, they were on FIRE. It was like the lackluster Glenn Danzig covering his own misfits songs at the Legacy shows became someone who actually cared to put energy back into his performance. Doyle and Jerry crushed it and the set was and hour and a half of non-stop singing along. For sure it will probably be a highlight of my life not only this year.
9. Played Overwatch
That’s right, no thought being put into this ordering at all. I know what you’re thinking: wtf is a video game doing on this list. I would be straight up doing a disservice to the honesty of this blog if I didn’t put this on here because honestly…a huge chunk of 2016 was spent playing this game. I was a little turned off at the thought of an only-online, only-multiplayer game because Titanfall kinda ruined that concept for me years earlier. But through great peer pressure I purchased the game and never looked back. Blizzard’s steady stream of free new content and seasonal events keeps me coming for more. Now when me and my friends would usually be blowing money at the bars we tend to stay in and play instead. I know it sounds super lame but damn is it a money saver, the game has probably paid for itself a couple times over at this point.
8. Saw Bob Dylan Live
Best photo I was able to get.
Seeing the main man Dylan in concert was….interesting. Bob Dylan is one of, if not, the greatest musicians of our time. His songs have influenced other musicians and the very culture of America for decades. So of course I wanted to see the maestro live. Especially since I had utterly failed at getting Oldchella( Desert Trip?) tickets. I definitely enjoyed the concert but I knew almost none of the songs and the ones I did manage to recognize had been vastly reworked by Dylan into completely different tunes. I guess there’s no reason to expect an artist to play what you want to hear but man I really would have grooved along to Positively 4th street. Regardless, it was definitely a bucket list item of mine and I would probably see him again if given the chance.
6. Saw The Who Live
That-what’s-it-now?
Speaking of Oldchella acts I watched solo, I also had the opportunity to see The Who tear up the Staples Center earlier in the year. It was so great, the old Englishmen have not lost their energy. Pete Townshend can still rip through the guitar licks like no one’s business. I wish I could have seen them with Keith Moon on the drums but in this day and age I’ll take The Who any way they come. Their music has always stood apart for me in the realm of classic rock greatness. They have the ability to construct really epic songs out of devastatingly simple riffs or can get complex as hell with several layers of synth and effects, and there’s so much energy in each member’s playing, it’s infectious. It was great to see them and I would jump on the chance to do it again. Another bucket list item checked.
7. Attended Punk Rock Bowling
Flag
What do you do when you’re in between jobs and have a week off. Go to Vegas. I wouldn’t consider myself Punk by any means but I do listen to a lot of hardcore punk and crossover. The genetic identity of punk and metal really isn’t so different and the anti-establishment culture of Punk sits mostly well with me too. A lot of my friends were going to this too so why the hell not. It turned out to be awesome and a great way to relieve some of the stress that had built in the first quarter of the year. Going to Vegas is usually okay but being there with a bunch of punks and (I suspect) metalheads is what makes it next level great. It was like a little counter-culture takeover of the most mainstream party destination. Didn’t feel like I was surrounded by frat guys and old rich people anymore. I only attended one day of the festival itself and got to see the ‘Black Flag’ offshoot ‘Flag’ play their set and I could dig it.The icing on the cake was finally being able to see Rock Of Ages the musical.
5. Had a Rocktober Birthday
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This year I had one of the best birthdays in recent memories. Lots of bands were coming through L.A. on tour in the month of October, three concerts alone on my birthday week. 6 in total that month and I went to all of them. Devin Townsend Project co-headlining with Between the Buried and Me, Meshuggah with support by High On Fire, Opeth playing a monstrous double set, Ghost, Tiger Army’s Octoberflame, and Tenacious D’s Festival Supreme where I finally saw Weird Al and Flight of the Conchords amongst other acts. Maybe you’ve noticed a pattern here but I love going to live music especially bands I like that I’ve never seen before or bands that put on a great show and having all these great bands tour in October was a great birthday present. I also had the most birthday-ish party in recent memory at the new house in Lancaster with good friends and family.
…and drum roll please, the second best thing I did this year was…
2. Visited the Pacific Northwest
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Took a trip to Portland and Seattle. My cousin lives in Portland so I got a nice little insider tour of the coolest neighborhoods and bars, But I think what we really explored in Oregon was the nature. We drove along the Historic Columbia River Highway and it was breathtaking. We ended up at Multnomah Falls and we climbed up the stairs a bit to see the waterfall then we retreated to the lodge for some drinks and appetizers. We had a rental car on hand so we drove from Oregon to Seattle (like a 3 hour drive) and just seeing the forests and rivers on the way was awesome, you really get a sense of the life people lead up there. Seattle probably deserves it’s own post here because we did a lot but the highlight for me was the EMP museum. They had so many exhibits that were so relevant to my interests I had a hard time seeing it all. There was a sci-fi wing, horror, fantasy, a dedicated Star Trek exhibit. There was an exhibit on the grunge movement, Jimi Hendrix, Indie video games, the history of the electric guitar. There was so much to see, I will probably have to go back if I ever travel to Seattle again. Seattle the city itself was great too, we stayed on a tugboat that our host graciously took out onto Washington Lake for us one day. We also visited the Public Market, the Aquarium, took a boat tour around the city, visited the space needle, and the Starbucks Roastery. It was a great experience.
Honorable Mentions:
Iron Maiden: finally the show I deserved after seeing them the last time where they played almost none of their hits 🙁
Watching Cannibal Corpse twice in a year: brutal.
Finally launching this website: I toyed with the idea of writing my own code from scratch for a long time but I got over it. I just need to write.
Camping at Catalina Island: I kind of hated it but it was an experience I needed to have.
Destination wedding at San Luis Obispo: The wedding party stayed in such a nice little estate in the hills, and the reception was in a barn on someone’s farm land. It was good times.
Black Sabbath: I saw the godfathers of metal on their last tour and I kind of regret not seeing them again on the second leg but oh well. they still sound so evil.
Bachelor Party at Lake Tahoe: It was awesome, and that’s all I’m allowed to say.
The Adicts Show: Probably one of the best shows I’ve seen and I was not prepared for it at all.
I want to expand on my previous post and reflect a bit more on V for Vendetta, I thought it would be a good exercise given the current political climate. Perhaps some underlying truth can be gleaned from the things I write, or perhaps I’m just nerding out. V for Vendetta is many things but at it’s heart it’s a story of revolution. V’s play is to strengthen the people to take back the power of government into their own hands. So the most important thing he does is wear the mask, and it could have been any mask. But by doing so you remove the man from the idea. Who is V? who cares? Everyone can be V (as Natalie Portman points out), the people need to band together under an idea to take back the power.
This notion is kind of paradoxical though because V’s plan would have never worked if he didn’t take matters into his own hands as someone willing to do things that an average person wouldn’t; he had to be the superman while all the while convincing the people that he was no different from them. Maybe something else would have sparked the revolution although from the way future Britain was portrayed everyone was happy just complacently existing. So what really triggered it is what created V and empowered him to take action and that is personal tragedy. Whoever V was is gone: imprisoned, experimented on, and baptized in fire V literally had his identity burned away. All that remains is rage and hatred, and this is tempered over time into what becomes his purpose, a Vendetta against those who destroyed him. V perhaps correctly comes to the conclusion that simply dispensing “justice” to those who wronged him, while personally satisfying, will not fix the real reason he was persecuted: The government, or more specifically the Norsefire party that manipulated these events to ensure a fascist victory. So he has to ensure the downfall of the party as part of his Vendetta or his work will not be done.
So what’s the take-a-way from this? There are no supermen in the real world. No one’s going to swoop in and inspire us to take back the power. Instead we got Anonymous who much like V himself has suspect motivations at best. These groups who have sprung up around us act more like world police acting in spite of the people as opposed to on their behalf and by their will. The symbolic gesture of Evey pulling the lever that would explode parliament needed to happen, if V himself had done it then he would be no different from the fascist dictator he was trying to overthrow. But even Evey wasn’t a total representation of the people because V himself stripped her of her identity and fear in the jail cell, and was baptized by rain washing away the doubt that remained.
But do we need a revolution? It’s easy to take arms when you’re being unequivocally oppressed. When your liberties have been taken away, your freedom of expression is gone, and there are no checks and balances among those in power. You could say V only had but to suggest the idea of a revolution to get the people on his side. But society today is a little more complicated, it’s hard to have conviction unless you have personally suffered at the hands of injustice. So now we hit on the theme again, personal tragedy leads to revolution, but not as easily as is portrayed in the film. The hard part in today’s society is convincing those unaffected by an issue to make a stand in favor or against it. In the movie every citizen was being actively oppressed and that led everyone to revolt. In the world today there are different areas of oppression and they overlap in confusing ways. Are you more oppressed for being black or gay or is being both worse than the sum of its parts? So instead we have movements and those movements are revolutions in and of themselves. These movements seek to bring awareness to issues and to convince the people outside of those directly affected to join their ranks.
So ask yourself this: Are you trying to enact change or are you resisting it? Is that change trying to oppress a section of the population who has no control over the issue? Do your feelings come from a place of fear? Are you letting the fascists win? Don’t vote for a politician, vote for the issues they represent. Don’t vote out of fear, vote out of conviction. Attain that conviction by burning away all the layers of yourself and exposing nothing but the raw core of your humanity underneath. You may feel your vote doesn’t count but you can’t be part of a revolution by staying on the sidelines.
It’s the 5th of November and as is pretty much tradition now everyone who’s seen V for Vendetta or read the graphic novel is imploring social media to remember the date. The ironic thing here is that we only remember the 5th of November on….the 5th of November.
Whereas the original intention of the poem/rhyme was to celebrate the failure of Guy Fawkes and co-conspirators to blow up parliament and effigies of him are burned yearly on this date. The people rejoiced that the plot was foiled, the king was saved, and parliament remained intact. What V does in the story is take this idea and embodies Guy Fawkes to take up his original mission of destroying parliament but really by extension toppling the government. It’s a perversion of the rhyme: he says “remember, remember because I’m going to finish what he started” and now because of the cultural impact of V for Vendetta we parrot this rhyme (which I’m totally guilty of too no judgement here) on this date too.
So now we live in this strange world where we are simultaneously celebrating the real world defeat of Guy Fawkes but also the fictional anarchistic success of V both of which are tied to the 5th of November. Let’s remove the historical implications of the 5th of November though and focus on the use the gunpowder treason plot in V for Vendetta. V weaponizes this simple rhyme by creating real world stakes around the usage of it. He says “In one year I will blow up parliament on this date”. In context he wants people to remember the date as it will be the last spark in the coming revolution that he will engineer. Seen through a more figurative lens though it’s used in a cautionary way: “Remember, Remember the 5th of November because if you don’t we’re going to end up here again with our civil liberties removed and a government in place that runs the country via fear”. So I think we need to “remember, remember” constantly lest we end up where Britain does in the late 2020s. Perhaps a good time to remember will be this November 8th…
I know what you’re thinking: “NO fucking way Jairo, a Slayer pit is the most BRUTAL.” That wasn’t what you were thinking? okay uh… is it “Cannibal Corpse pit bro, I lost a hand in one.” Still not it? Okay you must be thinking “Metal?! PSH you’ll get fatal diseases from just standing near a punk pit”
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Alright man I’m not a damn mind reader what do you want from me? Oh right, this post.
I saw Meshuggah recently (hours ago actually at the time of this writing) and I know there’s this ongoing joke within the community “lol you can’t headbang or mosh to a Meshuggah song, it’s too weird”. There is a whole world of videos trying to mash Meshuggah’s songs to different dances. Just to give you a timely taste:
But it’s not true, these pits are so fucking dangerous. You have people trying to mosh without rhythm….like they’re trying to avoid giant sandworms. I had the “fortune” of having the pit open up right on top of me while at the concert. I got pushed to the back wall, and I didn’t want to move because I had a good view damnit. I’m used to standing next to pit, and just shoving along anyone who gets too close. But this time I was getting hurt all over the place and found myself flinching like a little mitch almost the entire show. Before I lose whatever small pittance of cred I’ve developed though let me explain the shit I was seeing. In a regular ass circle pit, all you have to worry about is moving in a circle, it can get varying degrees of rough but no one is gonna surprise with a punch to the gut or a foot in your ribs. but here..man…here I was seeing people get weird with it. Every time Fredrik and co. shifted grooves people reacted by violently launching their limbs in separate directions. It was like the band was playing QWOP and the dancers in the pit were the character on the screen:
like this but faster, and more violent
So that in of itself is kind of a weird way to mosh but it’s definitely not the worst. You can safeguard yourself by keeping track of the shifting bodies, making sure you catch the moshers and send them along. But where this enters nightmare territory is with the strobe lights. Meshuggah have an AWESOME stage show, and it involves tons of lasers and lights. They particularly love to use the strobe. Have you ever danced in a strobe light? it’s like you’re seeing little freeze frames of people moving around. Now imagine those people are moshing, coming at you unpredictably while you’re temporarily blinded. It’s like in call of duty where the military force throws a flash grenade, breaches a room and instead of shooting everyone in the head proceeds to mosh with the blinded enemy. Now imagine me getting blinded by the strobe lights while I try to daredevil the crap out of the darkened bodies and limbs rocketing around me. I got slammed into, stepped on, and hit so many times. I had to assume the emergency protection position: one hand firmly cupped over my genitals and the other arm raised against whatever may ram into me from the front.
Cup your hand and cover up. NWH say, grab. your. stuff.
The Coup De Grace to the whole thing is the bane of any indoor mosh pit: The spilt beer. Oh yeah, all these poor guys trying to get the other side of the pit only to have Meshuggah start the strobing, blinding death dance in the middle of their jouney means that the beer they so desperately were trying to save was spilled all over the floor of the pit. This only exacerbated the problem. All the dancers were now slip and sliding into my shins while I sat there trying to Mr. Magoo my way through the song. At this point I probably should have just left the pit for safe zone but I was in too deep, I could show no signs of weakness! War is hell man, but damn…it was a good show.
