perpetual memory loss

Last night I finally got to see Jimmy Eat World live in concert.  After all these years of being a fan of them, and constantly missing out on their shows, I finally made one.  First off I will always be grateful to neverbesocial for introducing me to Jimmy Eat World back in those halcyon Phoenix days.  (Actually I have to thank him for introducing me to quite a few of my favorite bands.  He has been a sort of musical Gandalf guiding me through the perilous path of new music.  Although I still can’t stand Mates of State or Portugal the Man, but hey whatever I can’t be expected to like everything he does.)  Anyways I got to the show earlier than I did for The Black Keys a few weeks ago, but despite that, there was still a huge line–over a block long–by the time I got there.  The people at Terminal 5, however, kept the line moving quickly and I was able to get inside before I froze completely to death.

Once inside I went back up to my spot on the third floor railing, grabbed an empanada, a couple beers, and got ready for the show.  I can’t tell you how excited I was for this show.  I have been looking forward to seeing JEW for a long time now and the fact that my first concert was going to be the Clarity tour only added to my exhilaration–as Clarity is one of my all-time favorite albums.  So I suffered through the opening act–they actually were not that bad, but I just didn’t feel like waiting any longer to see JEW.  A little bit after 9:00 JEW came out to the rousing cheers of the crowd and commenced to playing Clarity in it’s entirety–including Goodbye Sky Harbor.  It was a fantastic show and they sounded great, and considering this was their first show on the tour, I expect that as the tour rolls on they will tighten up their sound even more.  After they finished playing Clarity they left so they could take part in the obligatory encore–bands really need to stop doing that as it’s pretty contrived–and then they came back out and played some of their b-sides and then finished off the show with Work, Pain, The Middle, and Sweetness.  The crowd went absolutely ape-shit for Sweetness and it really is the best song to finish the show to as everyone left completely pumped after that song.  Well there is not really much more for me to say that the pics and videos can’t say on their own.  So enjoy the pics and videos.  (By the way Jimmy Eat World if you all are upset about me posting these pics and videos online just twitter me to take it down.  No need to release the hounds.)

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Yesterday turned out to be quite the adventure.  It was supposed to be just an easy night out on the town watching The Black Keys.  I left my apartment and after a long train ride and a long walk I made it to Terminal 5 at about 7:30.  As I stood in line waiting to get frisked I pulled out all the crap in my pockets so the process would go quicker.  Of course I get frisked by a beast of a women (how come it’s socially ok for a female to frisk a male but not vice-versa?) who decided to take some liberties with her frisking by grabbing my ass a few times. Wtf is up with shit like this happening to me (if you are new refer to this post here)?

Immediately after that weirdness I went to the bar and started crushing beers like my life depended on it.  I milled around for a bit and then decided that since I had my camera on me I would stake out a good spot upstairs to watch the show.  I ended up on the third floor railing with a good view of the stage, and bonus I was spitting distance from the bar.  My plan was to get nice and loaded during the opening bands and then to slow down or quit drinking once the Keys came on stage.  As usually plans went awry and I kept pounding all night long.  (I really think it was the last four Sierra Nevadas that did me in.)  This was the third time I have seen them live and as always the show was epic.  (No show will ever be as good as the first time I saw them in Cali at Brick by Brick just because of the extraordinary lengths I went through to go to that show, and because of the amount of laws–military and civilian–that I broke just by going to it.)  Since I took a bunch of pictures and videos of the show I will let them speak for the epicness of the show instead of babbling on and on.

After the show I hooked myself up with a new t-shirt and I got it for $10 instead of the usual $20.  I think that was because I was incredibly drunk and the dude who was running the counter just wanted to get rid of me.  Once I left Terminal 5 it took me forever to get home as I was chatting on the phone and ended up walking a few miles past my subway stop, then I fell asleep on the E-train (again), and it wasn’t until after 4 that I ended up stumbling home.  All in all it was a good night with all the mandatory ingredients for a good night: live music, beer, stumbling around NYC, and falling asleep on the train.  Anytime that happens it is definitely good night.  Pictures and videos (sorry they are a bit wobbly, I blame the beer) after the fold, enjoy.

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My bags are packed and I am ready to go.  Tomorrow I will board one of those crazy Chinese buses and begin my last free weekend off before school starts.  I’m off to Washington D.C. to hang out with an ol’ friend who just happens to have a head the size of Mr. Met.  Don’t know how he walks without toppling over.  Anyways on the agenda for the weekend is hitting up the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and to get seriously fucked up.  Hopefully I will have some crazy story to relate back to you all on my return.  If not I will be taking my handy-dandy notebook camera with me so regardless I should have some pics to post.  But for now with my bags packs and a big tall glass of Beam & Coke down the gullet I am ready to get to sleep.  I will be basically off the grid all weekend but I should be updating randomly on twitter so if you aren’t already following me now is the time.  C-ya all on the flip side.

I know I’ve been MIA lately but there is a good reason which I am going to explain.  I have been drinking a shit-ton of alcohol lately while I have been working through some notions that have been rolling through my dome-piece.  You see I have been feeling the itch lately (no not the VD itch) but the life itch.  Every once in awhile I start getting restless and where I feel like I am in need of a drastic change in life.  The last time I had this feeling I decided to join the Marine Corps and spent the next four years moving around the country and the world.  Additionally, over the past ten years I have lived in four different states and over ten different apartments.  I am just really restless and I am not sure why.

So why am I boring you with this?  I don’t actually know, but I do know that I haven’t been able to work the problem out via alcohol so I figured what the shit I’ll blog about it.  After writing up this blog though I decided to scrap it and not publish it as I felt it was maybe a bit too personal, and then I came back to it and decided to write it differently and to hell with it being to personal.  It doesn’t really matter anyways since most of you all don’t know me, and I figure maybe if I write it out this way–as a dialogue between the warring factions of my grape a la Fight Club–then maybe the issue will work itself out.  So here it goes this is basically the conversation that has been taking place, on a regular basis, in my alcohol fueled head over the last few months–and increasingly so lately:

“Self.”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Oh don’t give me that ‘I’m fine’ crap.  Why you being such a sour Sally lately?”

“Why you being such an asshole?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Well, self, I dunno what’s wrong.  I just feel like I have to get out of here, you know, move on to greener pastures.”

“What’s wrong with where you’re at? school’s going good, you have a dope new TV, a good apartment, enough money.  From where I’m sitting (same place where you’re sitting btw) things look pretty damn sweet.”

“In a sense that is true, but I also feel the need to move on and do something with my life.  I’m starting to feel a little too comfortable here, and a big drastic change could be just what I need.”

“It could also be just what you don’t need; ever think of that?  Look you’ve been moving around quite a bit lately and it seems to me that every time you start to put down some roots somewhere you just decide to get up and leave starting the whole damn process over again.  Maybe what you really need is no change; just try to enjoy life.”

“I do enjoy life but I’m starting to feel that ol’ adventurous streak flare up again.  My life has become pretty normal and boring.  I thought I was done adventuring and maybe I am, but then again, maybe I’m not.”

“You know you’re fucking retarded right?”

“No need to get snippy.”

“Well you are.  What more do you need to do?  I mean look in just a bit over four years time you have gotten and BA and a Masters.  What else you need?  Is that not enough of an accomplishment for you?”

“No it’s not.  I need more.  I don’t feel like this is accomplishing anything.  Do you know how many people get degrees?  The unemployment lines are full of assholes who have degrees.  They don’t really mean that much.  I want to put my stamp on the world.”

“Jesus delusions of grandeur.  Here we go again, and I thought you were done with all that bs.  But no, you just can’t leave well enough alone can you?  Instead you get all these ideas floating around in your head and then you go and throw a monkey in the wrench.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.  How does one throw a monkey in a wrench?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Well you know what I’m thinking because, well, you’re me.”

“Still want to hear your dumb ass say it aloud.”

“Ok, look dick wad I just think about stuff a lot.  I think about where I’m going in this life and where I’ve been and I want to try and figure out which is the best avenue that I should pursue in the next section of my life.”

“I can’t believe that you are actually thinking that thought.”

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Some things are just meant to be together, like peanut butter & jelly or peanut butter & chocolate (damn why is peanut butter so darn good).  I have always been a big fan of drinking profusely and I have always been a big fan of history, and even though at times I have mixed the two, I have never actually thought of recording said conversations.  So a big thank you to Sara for texting me to inform me of these skits, which combine two of my favorite things, and also fits in perfectly with the theme of  this blog.  This is just one more great combo in life that was meant to be.  Maybe one of these days I’ll get my own episode and I’ll give them a drunken lecture on some random historical event (seriously Pacificus/Helvidius debates are still fresh in my mind and I could wax about it drunk no problem).  Now enjoy Drunk History.

The other day I got a comment on this site from Emily who maintains her own blog at emlocke.com.  So I went to check out her site, and she had this post about her earliest memories, and it got me thinking about my earliest memories.  So here is the story of my earliest memory (I’m serious too, this is the absolute truth).  It’s amazing how well my first memory fits in with the overriding concept for this blog.

I was between 3-4 years old at the time and it was a night like any other night: my mom was keeping dinner warm on the stove whilst we waited for my dad to get home from work so that we could eat together as a family.  It was dark outside so it was fairly late, and my brother and I were running around the house wreaking havoc.  I’m sure my brother, five years my senior, was probably torturing me.  He loved messing with me as a kid, that is until I grew into my strength and shifted the balance of power between us.

Anyways my dad finally burst through the door, after a long day of work, and my brother and I ran over to say hello.  I grabbed onto my dad’s knee and he plopped a kiss on my head and tussled my hair on the way over to the fridge.  When he got to the fridge he pulled out a beer–either MGD or a German beer–and then pulled a mug out of the freezer.  He then executed the most perfect pour ever.  This pour is seriously burned into my brain.  He emptied out the complete bottle of beer and I watched with anticipation as it filled the mug.  The head on the beer rose and mushroomed slightly over the rim of the mug, without any spillage, and then stopped.  It was a legendary pour.  At that moment before he had a chance to take a triumphant swig the phone rang.

My dad placed the mug on the counter, and my eyes never left the mug, and walked over to answer the phone.  It was something work related, because he started to walk back into his room for some paperwork.  Mind you this was back in the day before cordless phones so we had one of those 100ft cables attached to the phone.  So as he was untangling the cord and working his way to the back of the house I began to implement my plan.  I walked into the bathroom and grabbed the stool that I used to brush my teeth and carried in into the kitchen.  I can still remember how I struggled to carry the stool down the hallway into the kitchen.  It was an indication of the herculean strength I would end up developing.  My brother quickly figured out what I was doing and started to tell me no, and my mom was finishing up setting the table and also checking out the news on TV, so she never noticed what I was doing.  I, meanwhile, placed the stool underneath the beer and began to climb up it.  By this time my brother was hysterically laughing and trying to tell me no at the same time.  It didn’t work as his laughing only encouraged me to continue.

Almost there.

As I reached the top of the stool I teetered, steadied myself, and then grabbed my prize (a bit reminiscent of Indy in the beginning of Raiders).  I was careful not to spill it and proceeded to slowly climb down my stool sans the use of my hands.  When I got to the bottom my brother was beside himself and was anxiously waiting to see how this would turn out.  I remember taking that humongous mug and bringing it up to my mouth and drinking the whole entire mug in one shot.  This, once again, presaged my later abilities to drink mass quantities of beer quickly. When I finished I stumbled over to the kitchen table and put the mug on the corner of the table.

My brother by this time was rolling on the ground laughing, and I ran into the living room and promptly fell down.  I got up and ran around in circles, but I think I was trying to run in a straight line.  After getting up and falling down a few more times I decided to stay on the ground.  My dad came back and started to inquire where the hell his beer was.  My brother was more than willing to turn state’s evidence and, in between laughing fits, he pointed to the empty mug on the kitchen table.  My dad quickly realized what happened–it wasn’t hard I mean I was rolling around on the ground making noises (much like I do now when I get drunk)–and shook his head in disbelief.  He poured himself a new beer, and then went over to the living room to help me up to the kitchen to eat dinner.  I don’t believe I was ever punished for this, I guess my dad figured that my hangover would be punishment enough, and to this day they still are.

Well there you have it, that is my earliest memory.  Stealing a beer from my dad at the tender age of 3.  Since that day I have embarked on a life long love affair with beer.  There have been many ups, and quite a few downs, but overall me and beer have made a good team.  We have created plenty of great memories, and along the way we have lost even more.  Thankfully my first memory of beer remains as intact today as it did when I was a kid.

On January 16, 1919 the 36th State ratified the 18th Amendment and Prohibition became the law of the land.  The movement to prohibition was a long one and started in the 1780′s when physician Benjamin Rush warned of the dangers of alcohol.  The real push towards prohibition began after the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840) with the rise of evangelical Protestantism.  What a shock a bunch of religious zealots tried to stop other people from having fun because they were incapable of enjoying themselves.  Although the reasons for the temperance movement–and eventually prohibition–were not entirely religious, those beliefs did play a pivotal role in pushing for the legislation.  Anyways this evangelical movement spawned a plethora of temperance movements throughout the 19th Century.  There was the Washingtonian Movement, the American Temperance Society, the Sons of Temperance, and later in the century the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Anti-Saloon League.

Although these movements preached temperance towards the end of the 19th Century they started to work towards a complete prohibition of alcohol.  By 1919 the 18th Amendment was ratified and in 1920 the Volstead Act was passed to reinforce prohibition.  The grand hope of prohibition was that by forcing people to stop drinking the country would enter a golden age of peace and prosperity.  The truth was much different however:

Prohibition did not alleviate the problems of alcohol—instead it just exacerbated the problems. It created a black market where none had existed before, Americans drank stronger, more lethal alcohol, the purity of which was unregulated, the dosages higher, and violence and alcohol related deaths increased dramatically. Furthermore, criminal organizations were able to take advantage of this new market and rise to prominence. Their rise brought corruption into politics and law enforcement in many American cities…

Once Prohibition went into effect prohibitionists in America lauded the amendment and prophesied that a new and better day was beginning in America. One of those people was the minister Billy Sunday who proclaimed, “the reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.” Unfortunately it was quite the opposite. Prostitution and gambling had always been a staple of organized crime; but once the Eighteenth Amendment took effect organized crime found a new and much more profitable industry. As a result of completely prohibiting alcohol the prohibitionists unwittingly created a vast market; bootlegging became the order of the day and with it came an increase in violence and corruption. Organized crime was able to take advantage of high demands by the populace; and by supplying liquor and beer to citizens of all social standings criminal organizations became rich and powerful. They were able to influence everyone from judges to politicians.

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I want to relate a story to you all that really pissed me off the other day.  I was in class getting ready to be bored out of my mind, and I was talking to some of the other students.  We were talking about how we had to turn in our paper on Nov. 11th.  It struck me that Nov. 11th is Veterans Day, and I thought aloud,

“You mean we get Columbus Day off, but we have to come in on Veterans Day?”

Everyone nodded that my assertion was right, and I kept talking about how messed up it was that we get a day off for a guy who paved the way for the genocide of countless Native Americans, but we don’t get the day off in remembrance of the many Veterans who have died in defense of our Country.

Now about half way through this rant, my teacher walked in listened a bit, then said,

“So what’s the big deal that you have to come in that day?”

I re-explained my argument, and said that on Veterans Day I usually like to drink.  She informed me I could still get drunk after class.

“Of course that’s true,” I said “but usually I like to get up fairly early, and start drinking some whiskey whilst listening to Johnny Cash.”

Ok so she rolls her eyes and makes some backhanded comment about me and alcohol, and like the reformed person I am, I let the shit roll off my back.  Before class finished, however, she dropped a couple more demeaning comments, basically saying that I’m an out-of-control alcoholic.  I left class irked, and went home and killed some people (video game people that is).  I figured that would be that, but a couple days ago in class she made, unprovoked, a few more comments about me and drinking; as a bonus she also took a shot at my paper topic (video games), and made a crack about my writing style.

(What I don’t get is: how does me having a tradition of drinking on one particular day make me an alcoholic? if it did does that give someone the right to talk smack?  I’m just trying to figure out where the logic is in her assault on me.  I don’t get it, but back to the story.)

By that time my blood pressure was boiling, and I channeled my inner Bruce Banner and quelled the hulk that lies within.  I guess this is all part of me trying to be less confrontational, and all that shit, but goddamn I would really like to rail into this biotch.  The other problem is that she is the vindictive sort, and I know she would use her ‘power’ as a teacher to knock my grade down.  Right now I’m sporting a 3.97 GPA, and I would like to keep it there, and not have it knocked down on a technicality.  Now I’m not going to take this laying down, I’ve already rounded up a few troops, and most likely after the semester a few of us will make a complaint to the department.  Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I’m not the only one she talks down to.  I think this chic has major confidence issues or something.

Via Ball Hype.  Check out this dude that passed out during the second game of the Mets, Braves double header.  Reminds me of that Dave Chappelle skit where he talks about how you don’t ever want to pass out around white people because they will do all kinds of fucked up shit to you while you’re passed out.  Check it.

I’m about to leave to go pick up neverbesocial from the airport.  What follows will be a drunken weekend of baseball, beer gardens, and, well, more beer.  Since crazy shit always happens to me I’m sure I will have some good stories of random drunken encounters to relay to you all next week.  My liver is going to look like a dried up cat turd by the end of the weekend, but it will all be worth it.