HELLO VIETNAM!!!

I hope you all have been enjoying this gorgeous sunny, summer weather. I know that, at least here on Long Island, it is really starting to warm up. Finally that comfortable outdoor weather that everyone longs for all year!! Anyway, if you’re like me, warm weather means it’s beach time!! It’s time to load up the woody with inner tubes, shave the snow cone ice and oil up those biceps… we’re going to the beach!!!

Sun, Sun, Sun!!!

Now while at the beach it’s imperative that you have everything set up so you are ready to relax to the max. That means proper attire: wet suit, flippers, goggles, snorkel, swimmies and peg-leg. It also means proper snacks: hot pretzels, fondu, fresca, grape twizzler pull-n-peels, a bottle of ether and a rag. But most importantly it means having the right music to listen to while you relax to the max.

And if you still haven’t found the right songs for the summer, you have come to the right place. I have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to music and I have found the perfect beach album for the summer: Mastodon’s 2004 release “Leviathan.” I picked up this vinyl last week and did not hesitate to put it on during my ride to the shore this past weekend. It was the most fun I’ve had next to the ocean in years, let me tell you why:

If your day at the beach isn’t this exciting you are fucking it up.

I woke up early Saturday morning (I wanted to beat the beach rush). The cooler was loaded to the brim with Bud Light Red Onion and, of course, grape Twizzler Pull-n-Peels. I unwrapped the “Leviathan” vinyl, the sun shining on my skin, and set it gently on my car’s record player. I did a quick preliminary squirt of sun-screen, stepped into my flip-flops, set the needle on the record and listened to the happy-go-lucky sounds of the first track ring out as I drove off for a day of fun in the sun:

I think that someone is trying to kill me
Infecting my blood and destroying my mind

Now I realize this is not your typical beach music (let’s say that Jack Johnson or Red Hot Chili Pepper singles are typical beach music), but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. I mean if you really listen to the album you’ll see that it’s about fishing, and what is more nautical than fishing? Answer: nothing. Better answer: the ocean. I know that “Leviathan” and Mastodon in general can be a little, let’s say…sandy?…but that did not stop them from making a terrific album for metal-heads, surfer dudes and sea critters alike. Also I know whales aren’t fish, but please – I’m just trying to relax here.

It was a little after nine in the morning, but already the sun was glaring. I opted to just roll down the windows, rather than use the A/C. It was totally worth it. The fresh air, the sweet smell of hibiscus in bloom and the sun, the shining glorious sun!! The lyrics, “I am completely immersed in darkness As I turn my body away from the sun” blazed just as brightly from the stereo and my face was all smiles.

I arrived at the beach in exactly three minutes and forty-nine seconds, removed my portable record player and carried it to the beach as the second track of the album came on “I Am Ahab.” Another fishing reference!!! So beachy!!! The first lyrics are so, so true: there is “a magic in the water that attracts all men”…the magic of boogie boarding!!!  Yay!! In a full wet-suit and with a mouth full of grape Twizzler Pull-n-Peel, I grabbed my boogie board and hit the surf.. The water was cool and refreshing and the next song, “Seabeast,” was the perfect soundtrack for when I started to drown.

This is what DJ looks like during the groove in “The Last Baron“

An undertow was pulling me, my boogie board and my purple-colored Twizzler-tongue down to Davy Jones’ locker. I was a little scared, but also kind of just digging the song. The gentle lap of the guitar, the pitter-patter of the kick drum. So beach-y, so aqua-rific. Within inches of my life I started to think about how great the word “aqua-rific” is and made a mental note to include the made-up word in my next blog post. Mission accomplished.

With my last breath extinguishing itself in my lungs, I was somewhat saddened that I would soon be no more, but I was also fairly content that I died after having such a great day at the beach. Also, one of my favorite tracks on the album, “Island,” was coming on next….but wait at these depths the music was fading away?! I needed to hear the next song!! I thought, “Oh well, I guess I should at least try to survive…” And so I did. With the giggling tom-toms a-poundin’ and the wavy screams a-screamin’ I made it to the surface and washed ashore beside an orange Italian eating an orange Italian ice. I raised my head to comment on the hilarity, but then I passed out because I had almost drowned.

I woke up around noon, half buried in the sand, and burnt to a crisp. Not from the sun, but because tracks 5, 6, 7 and 8 had melted my face. I crawled my way over to my blanket just as the summerjam tune “Hearts Alive” came on. Glad to be alive myself, I looked around the now-crowded beach and thought about just how terrific this album was for the sand-swept scene. I started to relax on my towel, but had trouble moving my newly burnt arms. I felt almost as immobile as Brent Hinds did after his brain hemorrhaged. ZING!!! As the song began to soar as high as the seagulls and banner-trailing planes, I looked at the children digging in the sand and thought of drummer Brann Dailor trying to dig up his dead sister while tripping on acid. ZING!!! I looked at the lifeguard stand and could imagine Queequeg climbing it like a crow’s nest. NOT REALLY A JOKE!!! I saw a young lady sucking on a popsicle like it was a harpoon. JOKE?? I saw a young albino boy devour a man’s leg.  LIKE MOBY DICK!!! Yes, I thought, “Leviathan” is the perfect album for the summer.

By the way, I’m just kidding…Twizzler never made a grape flavored pull-n-peel.

STAYED TUNED FOR MY NEXT SUMMER MUSIC REVIEWS:
“Blood Mountain” the Perfect Album for a Day of Family-Hiking!!
AND
“Crack the Skye” the Perfect Album for Your Flight to Disney!!

There is a ton of evidence stacking up against me and it’s high time I acknowledge it. I’m becoming a piece of white trash human garbage. In the four years since I’ve left High School, I have absolutely let the semi-freedom of college destroy me as a person. While, I’m very comfortable with the latest incarnation of me, I think it’s important to look back at where I came from.

Here’s the earliest picture of me on Facebook:

Look at this sweet boy with his girlfriend enjoying a delicious lollipop after a day at the mall. Oh, look he has a Metallica cap on. You bought it where? Hot Topic? Precious.

I dare you to follow the jump and keep reading.

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Recently the world has become all a twitter over the latest internet social-networking site to wow the web. I am of course talking about the Netscape Forum Center Twitter. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the site, you may even be members. If you are a member I would encourage you to follow SmartassRadio (DJ) and myself, if you are so inclined. Twitter is a bit of an enigma for me: I don’t know why I like it, yet I do. I have a problem with most everything on the site, specifically the jargon that it has developed. For example, DJ now tweets more often than he roars and I (someone who I have always thought of as independent) am guilty of being a follower in 27 cases. Also, the idea that anyone is actually “networking,” rather than “self-promoting” is a little suspect. Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that the reason I like twitter is because I like to communicate with the world at large. I enjoy the reassurance I feel knowing that someone can know how I feel. The stain of the whole system is that I have to be inside on a computer procrastinating to really be compelled to tweet.

Well, not anymore. Unlike the webmaster of the Netscape Forum Center, when I am presented with a flawed system I try to fix it. And fix it I have. Today, I would like to introduce the latest venue for social networking: Chirpper ™.

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I just made my first transaction on Live Nation, which is trying to merge with ticket sales overlord TicketMaster (CEO: Money grubbing Guns N’ Roses, Van Halen, Steely Dan and NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK manager Irving Azoff). Remember like a year or so ago when you would go to buy a ticket it would sometimes bring you to the old school order and if it was a pre-sale you would go to LiveNation? Fucking stupid, now they’ll be the same company. Anyway, I just bought a pair of tickets to see Protest the Hero (rawk!) in May. I have to say the Live Nation site was pretty intuitive. When I searched for the tickets I was able to easily find them and, much to my surprise, they were only sixteen bucks! That fuckin’ rules – I would have shelled out 25 if I was asked to do so. What follows is a harrowing tale of trivial amounts of money, deciet and a broken (and just fucking broke) young man.

Bag of shit.

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I like to dance, so sue me!!!!!!

Hahaha, I’m sorry, that first line just cracked me up. But seriously folks, I do; I do love to dance. Dancing is my natural passion. In fact, if I were to have my own Vitamin Water it would have only two ingredients: passion fruit and dancing…and water. It wouldn’t taste very good, but it would sum up my feelings on dancing very well. When I hear music, my body naturally wants to move. I wiggle and jiggle, I bop and be. Do I follow many dancing conventions? No, of course not. Do I flail, air-hump and turn my body into a human gyroscope? Yes. Yes, I do. I know I busted a move (or two, LOL) this weekend, but I’m beginning to think my techniques are being subtly mocked. Are those fun-loving party people laughing with me? Or are those ugly, prudish, boneheads laughing at me? Let’s figure it out:

Working at 12% of my dancing potential.

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Roy and I get a few magazines delivered to our house that neither of us has a subscription for: Us Weekly, OK! Weekly, Vibe, Entrepreneur and the occasional J&R Cigar catalog. We’ve been living in our current place for almost two months and I had thought I’d seen it all. I was so fucking wrong. Last week I opened the mailbox to discover the following visual travesty:

I don’t know if it’s more shocking that we will now receive this magazine for god knows how
long or that someone who once lived in our relatively shitty apartment had a job AND kids.

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DJ just told me about this guy, Josh Freese. He’s releasing an album and has set up different tiers of purchasing deals. The cheapest and most basic level gets you a digital copy of the album for $7.  The prices and prizes increase from there, until the $75,000 level where you get Mr. Freese as a personal assistant for a couple weeks, an EP written about your life, the chance to take shrooms and cruise Hollywood and much more. I thought to myself, “I should do the same stuff. I have things people might want, don’t I?” I don’t have too much to offer up, but why not offer it up all the same:

Let the games begin!

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