Seether Concert

***SEETHER CONCERT***

Sometimes I feel like whenever I post a blog announcing my attendance at a concert, all I’m doing is stroking myself. It doesn’t help matters that I pad the text with potential ways in which these concerts could affect my creative life…even though most of the time they don’t. The last time it really did was when I went to the Pain in the Grass festival in 2016 and I wrote a heavy metal song about a drunken fool that sat next to me. Most of the time my concert experiences end up as life events on my Face Book page (now THAT’S what I call stroking myself). To be fair, though, I only post them that way because I don’t have a smart phone to take pictures and I don’t want to bring my digital camera into the mosh pit lest it gets smashed to pieces.

But it’s true, ladies and gentlemen: it’s that time again. This coming Tuesday, Seether is heading to Seattle’s Showbox SoDo and the bands that will open for them are 10 Years and The Dead Deads. I didn’t start listening to Seether until 2012 when they opened for Nickelback at the Tacoma Dome alongside Bush and My Darkest Days. The first Seether album I bought was their greatest hits collection from 2002 to 2013. My favorite songs back then were “Driven Under”, “Fine Again”, and their cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”. I also listened to Seether’s duet with Amy Lee called “Broken” on repeat when I came home from the movie theater after seeing Obselidia. Anyone who’s heard me talk about that movie knows it ripped my heart to shreds, so “Broken” was a more than appropriate song to soothe my feels. Seether has a reputation for soothing sorrowful and angry emotions. My collection of their CD’s is now complete and I’m ready for Tuesday.

I don’t have much else to say except for…I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time! My brain decided to be in zombie mode today, so I don’t feel like doing a great deal of writing. On the positive side, I did get some reading done today. It won’t be long before I write a passing grade review of “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” by Fanny Merkin (real name Andrew Shaffer). One reviewer accurately described this author as the Weird Al Yankovich of erotica. Who am I to disagree with him?

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Whoever said this pain would ever go away didn’t know what it meant to be here without you. Is everything you see reminding you of me? Does it hurt when you breathe too? ‘Cause it does when I do. I hate to feel this way. My days all feel the same. And yesterday was proof that tomorrow will too. No matter what they say, can’t drink it all away, ‘cause all that I do is think about you. When anybody says your name, I want to run away. I keep remembering I can’t forget you. It doesn’t matter what I try, it happens anyways. It’s been forever and I can’t forget you. With every single day, it won’t go away, the way I feel about you. And when it’s said and done, you’re the only one. And I can’t regret you, ‘cause I can’t forget you. Stop haunting my dreams. Please set me free.”

-My Darkest Days singing “Can’t Forget You”-

Obselidia

MOVIE TITLE: Obselidia
DIRECTOR: Diane Bell
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Drama
RATING: PG-13 for language
GRADE: Pass

George is a librarian who moonlights as a cataloguist for obsolete and nostalgic items, all of which he hopes to document for a book he’s putting together. He even goes so far as to believe love is obsolete and therefore leads the lonely life of being single. When he meets a beautiful projectionist named Sophie, she tries to get him to come out of his shell as the two of them venture to Death Valley to interview a climate change scientist for George’s book. The ideas of love and the apocalypse collide in a debate about how we should spend our last minutes on earth if they truly are that. Will George live the rest of his life in isolation or will he believe in the power of love humans can give each other? Does he have anything in his heart for Sophie?

The three major themes of this movie (living life to the fullest, romance, and nostalgia) intertwine perfectly with each other as they try to bring George and Sophie together as a romantic couple. With nostalgia, they bond over how the past used to be a happy and simpler time, when technology wasn’t going berserk and people paid attention to each other. With living life to the fullest, they get hard hitting cynicism from the climate change scientist who believes all happy experiences will be erased because of humankind’s sins against the earth. With romance, it’s the classic tale of a socially awkward guy like George shying away from a flirtatious girl like Sophie. With the scientist feeding him all of this negativity, George has to struggle to believe in the power of love when Sophie tries to get in his social bubble.

Near the end of the movie, we ask ourselves if George’s struggle to suppress his inner negativity is worth it. While he does realize how the power of love can make someone happy, he also realizes how it can break his heart. While I won’t give away any spoilers, I will say that Sophie does break George’s heart in the end and he’s sobbing to himself in the comfort of his own home looking at pictures of their vacation together in Death Valley. That is such a powerful image that the audience watching has no choice but to question their own capacity for romantic love. This may not have been the message the movie was trying to send, but to my way of thinking, in this 50-50 bet between happiness and heartache, I was leaning towards heartache. I was so heartbroken and touched by the movie’s end that I spent the rest of the night listening to Seether’s cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”.

The best part about this movie is that it encourages the audience to ask questions instead of mindlessly conforming to a singular principal. If the world ends tomorrow, how will we spend our last hours on earth? Is romantic love worth all the struggles or does it lead to easy cynicism? Should we all love each other before it truly is indeed too late? Should we have as many experiences as we can despite the huge risk attached to them? Finding the answers to these questions takes a lot of courage and living with the answers is even scarier than that. Some people become so saddened by the answers that they resort to isolation or even worse, suicide. In the end, positivity will save us. It will get us through the hardships whether they’re in a personal relationship or part of a global crisis. If you’re going to attempt to answer these questions, make sure you do it without regret. Otherwise, temporary heartache will feel like permanent torture.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.”

-Flyleaf singing “Again”-

"Careless Whisper" by Seether

I would have never known this song existed if it hadn’t been for Wham’s original version from the 1980’s. But exist it does. There indeed is a hard rock version of “Careless Whisper” and it’s done by Seether. No, Shaun Morgan doesn’t scream his head off like most of the singers in my Windows Media Player do. In fact, Shaun Morgan sounds very pleasant. He reminds me of somebody I used to know from the early 1990’s who put out the albums Never Mind and In Utero. What’s that guy’s name again? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Hint, hint, wink, wink.

So why exactly would I pay tribute to Seether for doing a cover version of a song originated by a pop duo named Wham? Because Seether’s version is not only more energetic and depressing, but it was there for me when I walked out of the Grand Cinema in Tacoma after watching the movie “Obsoledia“. When I got in the car with my mom and step-dad Dale, it was the first song I listened to on my MP3 player. George will never dance with Sophie again, not like they did when they were out in Death Valley speculating the fate of the earth post-climate change.

“Careless Whisper” and “Obsoledia” are both mediums that will rip your heart to pieces. By the end of both of them, the beautiful relationships are over. It’s true that “Careless Whisper” wasn’t sung by Shaun Morgan with Amy Lee from Evanescence in mind. The two of them used to date and they don’t anymore. Judging from the fact the two of them wrote breakup songs about each other, the separation was pretty fucking brutal.

There was nothing ugly about the way “Obsoledia” ended. George was a lonely librarian who didn’t believe in love until he spent a weekend with Sophie. Just when this poor introvert was starting to believe in the power or romance, it was used to break his heart when it turned out Sophie already had a boyfriend. Obsoledia is about things that are obsolete in this world, so maybe Seether’s new and fresh version of “Careless Whisper” wouldn’t have fit with the movie’s theme. If it were any other canon, though, it would have worked to perfection.

Shaun Morgan and George were both people with broken hearts. I made this connection the night I saw Obsoledia and subsequently listened to “Careless Whisper” by Seether. In my short stories and novels, the power of love is a deity in and of itself. It’s worshiped to the fullest extent and executed with beauty. Characters fall in love with each other all the time, sometimes in the most inopportune times. “Not Gonna Die” and “If I Offer You My Soul”, anyone?

I can get away with that in literature, because a good story is better than a cold reality. In the real world, people get divorced and broken up all the time. When those breakups and divorces happen, they often involve a power struggle that may or may not involve violence or monetary possessiveness. We all want to believe in the power of love. But is it really there? Can it last a lifetime? Can it endure so many hardships that it becomes indestructible? The answers vary from person to person. But as long as Seether is singing “Careless Whisper” on my MP3 player, the jury will always be out on this one.

　

***FACE BOOK MEME OF THE DAY***

“If Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games were Hollywood celebrities, their super couple nickname would either be Kat-Pee or Pee-Niss.”

Love Stories

Being lonely sucks. Being in a dysfunctional relationship sucks. Breaking up sucks. And yet despite all of these aspects of relationships sucking, we continue to seek love in the strangest places. For me, I look for them in the stories I soak in whether they’re from books, movies, or songs. But when I choose a romantic medium to hold near and dear to my heart, I don’t want it to be cheesier than a Domino’s Pizza. Step down and shake it off, Harlequin, you don’t belong here. I hate to say this, but Fifty Shades of Grey and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty don’t belong here either despite having their own posts on this blog. To my way of thinking, stories where two star-crossed lovers run in each other’s arms and fuck passionately in a perfect agreement is fake romance. I can’t relate to anything that’s perfect because I am not a perfect person. On the contrary, I’m a shy recluse who wants a relationship with a woman, but can’t ask for one because of my social barriers. Those are the stories I want to involve myself with: the shy guy or shy girl being wooed by someone who sees through their social awkwardness. Pretty much every movie I’ve seen at the art theater in Tacoma called The Grand Cinema has this premise from Safety Not Guaranteed to Mud to The Silver Linings Playbook to my absolute favorite so far, Obselidia. The latter of these four movies really yanked at my heart strings. In case you’re not familiar with this independent masterpiece, it’s about a lonely librarian named George who thinks love is obsolete since babies can be made artificially and sex is disposable. And then he meets a cinema projectionist named Sophie, who shows him that loving each other is what makes the world work. Sounds like a perfect premise, right? Not so fast, pacho. By the movie’s end, George visits Sophie’s house to deliver flowers and there’s a male voice in the background that says, “Who is it, sweetie?” Needless to say, George was heartbroken. I’d even dare say that he cried relentlessly over this turn of events. Mere moments after walking out of that movie theater with my parents, I got in the car and started listening to a cover of “Careless Whisper” by Seether on my MP3 player. When you combine Obselidia with Seether, your heartstrings will not only be tugged at, but it’ll be done with the force of a tow truck. Want some other combinations? How about The Sessions and Toto? A Late Quartet and The Moody Blues? The possibilities are endless when it comes to looking for ways to break your own heart. Even Harry Potter has elements of realistic romance, which is more than anybody can say about the Twilight series, as long as we’re continuing the war between those two canons. Hehe! War and cannons. I swear that was an accident. The point I’m trying to make is that if you’re looking for cheese, go to an Italian restaurant and order a pizza. If you want real romance that actually inspires and saddens at the same time, look for media that doesn’t have a Mary-Sue identity. To close this out with a bang, even Five Finger Death Punch is capable of realistic romance with the song “Walk Away”. Suck on that, Harlequin! Actually, don’t do that, it’ll just turn into a cheesy sex scene if you do.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor. As the music dies, something in your eyes calls to mind the silver screen and all its sad goodbyes. I’m never gonna dance again, ‘cause guilty feet have got no rhythm. Though it’s easy to pretend, I know you’re not a fool. I should have known better than the cheat a friend and waste the chance that I’ve been given. So I’m never gonna dance again the way I danced with you.”

-Seether singing “Careless Whisper” by Wham!-