Nothing More

Last night, I went to Seattle’s Neptune Theater to see Nothing More in concert with Crown the Empire and Thousand Below opening for them. I hadn’t heard the openers prior to that night, but I wouldn’t mind owning every CD they’ve got. They were energetic, they were badass, and they very much deserved to share a stage with Nothing More. Speaking of which, Nothing More put on a kick-ass show just like I expected them to. I blew my vocal cords out screaming along with “Go to War” and “Turn It Up Like”. I’ll always get a kick out of Jonny Hawkins using the Scorpion Tail machine to enhance the sound and just generally go nuts with it. Going nuts is the only way Nothing More does things, especially during the song “This Is the Time” and Jonny’s subsequent drumming afterwards. All in all, I’m glad I went to the concert, sore back and legs be damned. At the same time, I couldn’t wait to get home so that I could chug an entire pitcher of iced tea to soothe my throat. On a side note, I appreciate the fact that the Neptune Theater has an ocean mythology gimmick in its designs, with the tridents on the doors, the merfolk art on the stained glass windows, and so much more. I think concert venues in general should have creative gimmicks more often. I wouldn’t mind going to a place called the Barbarian Amphitheater if somebody built it. That would be the perfect venue for Jonny Hawkins to use the Scorpion Tail! But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Fuck Your Truck

I’ve got all of my tools on the shelf

I’m doing all of this shit for myself

Going to work on your oversized truck

Is this illegal? Who gives a flying fuck?

Splash paint on your precious machine

Take my keys and write something mean

Smash the windows with a baseball bat

Stab your tires until they’re fucking flat

Rip off your Trump-supporting stickers

Is this enough to make you feel triggered?

Piss in your gas tank, fill it to the top

Cover your seats with sewage and slop

Punch out your side-view mirrors

In case the message doesn’t get clearer

Flip the heavy motherfucker on its side

There goes your final symbol of pride

I can hear your CD’s crunch and crack

Every Kyle anthem and bonus track

Come see the work of art I created

This is what happens when you’re hated

Tears in your eyes, my ultimate prize

Watching you cry in front of your guys

You can throw a punch or grab your gun

You’re still the biggest pussy under the sun

All the macho madness was an act

All the bad karma finally came back

The fights you’ve started, slurs you’ve said

Other people’s girlfriends in your bed

Showing your ass and flashing your dick

Telling ordinary women to suck your prick

Catcalling out on the streets at night

Destroying your truck only felt right

You didn’t need a vehicle any damn way

You’d drunk drive that shit into the bay

Be thankful for what I’ve done, my man

Go back inside and be Trapt’s favorite Stan

Valley of Meat

VERSE 1

All of you demons look the same to me

When you’re ground into chunks of meat

Bloody morsels underneath my two feet

I think this calls for a heavy metal beat

Sausage strands for bass guitar strings

Deathly growls as you go through the machine

Banging the drums with your lovely bones

Ligament guitar strings to bring us all home

CHORUS

Welcome to the Valley of Meat

Welcome to your violent defeat

Prepare to become a monstrous treat

Prepare to be served rare, let’s fucking eat!

VERSE 2

This is not a garden of vegetables and fruits

This is a modicum of my bloody roots

This is not candy; I don’t sugarcoat shit

I don’t get hyperactive; I get fucking pissed

Feed all my enemies through the machine

Shred them into nothing, watch them bleed

All of them now void of individuality

Pulled down to hell with vicious gravity

CHORUS

Welcome to the Valley of Meat

Welcome to your violent defeat

Prepare to become a monstrous treat

Prepare to be served rare, let’s fucking eat!

VERSE 3

All you killers have been erased from history

All you bastards have become a cold mystery

All you thieves are gone from my mind

All your loved ones have been left behind

But how could they love such evil people

Who don’t see their own friends as equals?

Only the hungriest of wolves will love you

You shall all provide them with enough food

EXTENDED CHORUS

Welcome to the Valley of Meat

Welcome to your violent defeat

Prepare to become a monstrous treat

Prepare to be served rare, let’s fucking eat!

I’m hungry as hell, let the dinner bell ring

I’m starving for metal, let the front man sing

Clogged arteries are just a mere flesh wound

You’re ground up meat; you’re already doomed!

I Don't Have To

VERSE 1

Just because I won’t join the fucking army

Doesn’t mean I wear the clothes of Barbie

There is no shame in staying right at home

It’s better than being dead and buried alone

The drill instructors are too damn loud

The abusive authority is too damn proud

I won’t die for some rightwing agenda

Or have visions of war burned into my retina

CHORUS 1

I don’t have to and I don’t want to

I don’t care if “Uncle Sam wants you!”

They can do just fine without me

The war machine will not devour me

VERSE 2

Blaming a whole generation of people

Is just as bigoted and just as evil

Millennials figured out a long time ago

If you step on a land mine, it’s going to blow

Body parts are strewn across the desert

Staying at home sounds so much better

We’re not the cowards you make us out to be

We’re just like you; we were born to be free

CHORUS 1

I don’t have to and I don’t want to

I don’t care if “Uncle Sam wants you!”

They can do just fine without me

The war machine will not devour me

VERSE 3

Coming home in a wooden casket

Flowers on your grave in a woven basket

Going insane with the trauma of war

Held prisoner behind padded cell doors

Financially crippled, forever homeless

Forever damaged, forever hopeless

This is far from being the American Dream

It’s the American Nightmare, time to scream

CHORUS 2

I don’t have to and I don’t want to

Death and blood will forever haunt you

I don’t belong in a body freezer

It’s not betrayal, I’m not stabbing Caesar

The Matrix

MOVIE TITLE: The Matrix

DIRECTOR: The Wichowski Siblings

YEAR: 1999

GENRE: Cyberpunk

RATING: R for violence, language, and disturbing moments

GRADE: Pass

Thomas Anderson is an everyday guy who works a nine-to-five job and pays his taxes like a good little worker bee. Neo, on the other hand, knows there’s more out there than what his five senses will tell him. Neo comes into contact with a hacker named Morpheus, who tells him that the world he knows is nothing more than a dreamscape used to disguise the ugly dystopian future that the world really is, where machines control everything and humanity is fighting to survive. Neo wants to be a part of this war against the machines, but has to deal with Agent Smith, a virus in the matrix who wants to keep the sheepish people in their dreamlike states. The sooner Neo becomes accustomed to the matrix being one big lie to the world, the sooner he can achieve the greatness he was destined for.

One of the many interesting things about this movie is that it was published in 1999, when computer hacking and the internet were both in their infancy. For all we know, Neo could have been using America Online this whole time, where all he has to do is point and click. The cell phone he receives to contact Morpheus is a huge dinosaur that looks like a tumor growing out of his ear. Imagine if The Matrix was published in today’s world with Twitter, Face Book, smart phones, tablets, and all that crazy stuff. Hacking would be a lot easier to get away with, that’s for sure. Maybe Neo could be a member of Anonymous, you never know. Maybe he IS a member of Anonymous, which would make Agent Smith quiver in his Gucci shoes. The anachronistic nature of The Matrix back then and today makes for an interesting debate among scholars or those who have just smoked a bowl of marijuana.

Another thing I enjoyed about this movie was the message it sent of questioning everything around you and not seeing the world in black and white. Chances are good that in the real world, we’re not being controlled by gigantic machines and no FBI agents are going to take away our mouths anytime soon. But some would argue that we are living in a dreamlike state 24/7. We live paycheck to paycheck, we do everything we’re told to do, we try our best to live up to everyone else’s standards of what the American Dream should be, and nobody questions it, because questioning it would make you a bad member of a society that thrives on blindness. When you lose the ability to think for yourself, you’ll never break out of the cycle and live up to your potential.

And of course, I’d be remised if I didn’t mention the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to The Matrix: special effects. The freezing of time while circling the camera around, the slow motion dodging, the convincing fight scenes despite the actors having no martial arts training, these are all things you can thank The Matrix for revolutionizing. What I don’t understand is why every comedy movie that was made after 1999 feels the need to parody this style of cinema. Shrek did it during a fight sequence with Princess Fiona, there was a Scary Movie scene where the masked killer bent backwards to dodge a projectile, and I’m pretty sure there’s a WWE videogame somewhere that parodies Trinity’s freeze-frame crane kick. Parodying The Matrix’s special effects is not funny. It’s cliché. Leave the fancy martial arts madness to the directors of this film.

If you take the blue pill, you will go back into your dreamlike state and you’ll never have to deal with dystopia again. If you take the red pill, you’d better fasten your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye. If you need a more convincing argument to take the red pill, the blue one is in suppository form and is the size of a tennis ball. It’s time to wake up, people, and you can do it by spending a little quality time with The Matrix.

Pre-Paid Rollercoaster Dream

Dreams say a lot about people, even if the message isn’t readily available. For the first time in a while, I had a dream that could actually be explained. It used to be I had weird ass dreams about going back to school or losing my teeth. But this one was something worthy enough for a Garrison’s Library post. I’m dreaming of being at a theme park and wanting to ride a pre-paid rollercoaster. The more money you put in the machine, the faster it will go. Not knowing about this stipulation ahead of time, I put in a quarter and I might as well have been riding on the back of a turtle. When the ride was over, I fished through my wallet for a twenty dollar bill. By the time I found it, the theme park was closed and I didn’t get to go on a fast ride. I told this dream to my sister-in-law Susan and she actually had a good interpretation of what it could mean. The rollercoaster is a representation of my life and the money I put into the machine is the effort I put into improving my life. I put in a quarter and got minimal results. I wanted to put in a twenty dollar bill, but it was too late. Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me that it’s too late to improve my situation beyond selling 99 cent books on Smash Words. Truth is, I can put any amount of effort into improving my life, it’s all a matter of having the right amount of energy and tolerance for the negatives. But let’s say I didn’t have a twenty dollar bill. I could have just as easily had a hundred dollar bill. A hundred dollars will go a long way in making a rollercoaster ride fast and furious. At the same time, spending a hundred dollars in one place is recklessly wasteful. If I put too much effort into improving my life, I could end up getting hurt. A lot of self-published authors go around the country selling paperbacks out of the trunk of their car. Some of them relentlessly submit their books to traditional publishing houses until they say yes. That would be an example of me spending a hundred dollars on a rollercoaster ride. I don’t have a car, so I have no trunk to sell paperbacks out of. The nearest publishing house that would be remotely interested in looking at my works is in Seattle and I live in Port Orchard. Do I really need to spend a hundred dollars on a rollercoaster ride if it goes so fast I fall out of my seat? If someone would like to tell me what else is there besides shilling my e-books on Good Reads, I’m happy to listen. Until then, I’ve got a whole bunch of quarters burning a hole in my pocket. Maybe some pennies. I might even go full-on crazy and put a wing nut in the machine.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“It may seem a million miles away, but it gets a little closer everyday. One world is enough for all of us.”

-The Police singing “One World (Not Three)”