Breaking Benjamin

***BREAKING BENJAMIN***

It’s been about twenty days since my last blog and at this point I’m just reaching for topics like Luke Skywalker reaching for his lost lightsaber in the heat of battle. Just like that same Jedi warrior, I used the force to come up with this next topic. And by use the force, I mean exactly that: I had to force myself to come up with this topic because nothing else of immediate importance came to mind.

This coming September, Breaking Benjamin is coming to Auburn, Washington’s White River Amphitheater to put on a fucking rock and roll show. Their opening acts in order of appearance are Diamante, Dorothy, Three Days Grace, and finally Chevelle. The only opener that I listen to on a frequent basis is Three Days Grace.

Prior to this upcoming Breaking Benjamin show, I’ve seen Three Days Grace twice in concert. The first time was in 2013 at the Showbox SoDo in Seattle, where I was introduced to their opening band at the time, Otherwise. If you follow my progress with rewriting Beautiful Monster, you’ll understand how Otherwise became as important to me as they are. The other time I’ve seen Three Days Grace live is at the Pain in the Grass festival in 2015, where they were the third to last band to appear onstage behind Lamb of God and the headliner Slipknot.

Three Days Grace has been a part of my life since 2003 when I was attending school at Olympic College. I don’t remember much of the early 2000’s due to the onset of my schizophrenia, but I’ll never forget how Three Days Grace’s music made me feel. Their song “Home” perfectly described my state of mind at the time and “I Hate Everything (About You)” could have been a descriptor for my mom’s terrible ex-boyfriend Art. Seeing Three Days Grace live twice was psychological medicine for me and seeing them a third time in 2019 will be no exception.

Breaking Benjamin is the only other band in that lineup that I listen to on a regular basis, which is why I’m going to the concert in the first place. I don’t go to concerts unless I recognize the headliner. Prior to this concert, I’ve seen Breaking Benjamin on three separate occasions. The first was in 2004 when they opened for Korn. Like I said earlier, I have minimal recollection of the early 2000’s due to my ongoing battle with schizophrenia. When Breaking Benjamin opened for Disturbed as part of the Pain in the Grass festival in 2016, my senses were wide awake. Unfortunately, that show was marred by me having to sit next to a drunken lunatic who wouldn’t leave well enough alone. That’s okay, because in 2018, Breaking Benjamin came back to that same venue with Five Finger Death Punch and Bad Wolves as their openers. Much better experience!

I didn’t fully appreciate the music of Breaking Benjamin until 2006 when I first heard “So Cold”. From there, getting hooked on the music was easy. I listened to a lot of their fourth album Dear Agony in 2009 when I was taking the bus to and from my final college class. Coincidentally, I also started listening to “Life Starts Now” by Three Days Grace. We intersect once again! Who knew two sad-ass metal bands would make the perfect soundtrack for resorting to forced extroversion in a college class environment? I still don’t understand why college classes put introverts at a disadvantage like that by having public conversations in the grading rubric. It’s almost like there’s a bias going on here.

Breaking Benjamin’s upcoming show won’t be until September 22^nd of this year, which is a country mile ahead of the current date. Like I said before, I was reaching for a topic this whole time. I don’t like going for a long time without writing a blog entry because I consider those to be just as important as my poems, short stories, and chapters of Beautiful Monster. Speaking of which…

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

Chapter sixteen will feature the fruits of Windham’s traumatizing labor in action. Shadow Asylum along with King Lars Stonewall and his troops will perform a raid on Shelly Atwood’s castle in an attempt to put an end to her sex trafficking business once and for all. Windham did a phenomenal job of exposing the castle’s weaknesses in his blueprints, so this should be an open and shut case, right? Sure, you can believe that if you want. You can also believe that monkeys will come flying out of my ass. After dining on Pizza Hut food tonight, monkeys are the last thing you should worry about flying out of my ass. Hehe!

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

HUTCH MORGAN: Eat me!

PAIGE: No thanks, I’m trying to bulk up.

-Fighting With My Family-

Steamboat Springs Vacation

***STEAMBOAT SPRINGS VACATION***

This coming Wednesday (September 9^th), I’m headed to the airport to begin my family vacation in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I come home from vacation on the 14^th of that same month. That means I’ll spend five days in a place that has been described as “beautiful” and “dog friendly” by my mother. I’ve been in lots of places that were beautiful and dog friendly from Monterey Bay, California to Long Beach, Washington to Seaside, Oregon to Victoria, BC, Canada. If Steamboat Springs promises the same thing as those places, I’m in for a relaxing and stress-free vacation, which is the only kind of vacation I’ll do these days.

For all of you internet folk, it means the same thing as every other time I go on vacation: limited internet access and an inability to create new pieces of art whether it’s writing, photography, or drawing. For Deviant Art and Face Book, this means the most activity you’ll get out of me is replying to messages and nothing more. For Good Reads, particularly the WSS Contest, it means I won’t be able to participate in that week’s competition. For Read Together, Blog Together, don’t worry about a thing, because as soon as I get back from vacation, the first thing I’m going to do is read and review “So…I Met a Vampire” by Paul McAvoy. Last and sure as hell not least, Mr. Andy Peloquin, you don’t need to worry about a thing either, because your September 8^th guest blog post about music and creativity will go live at midnight that day. Blogger.com allows for delayed posting, so I’m not scrambling to put things together at the last minute.

Just like with all vacations past, present, and future, I will return to the internet and I will get settled back into my daily routine. Try not to laugh when I say “daily routine”. I may be jobless, but that doesn’t mean I sit around with my thumbs in my ass all day long. Hehe! We’ve got ears, say cheers!

　

***AMERICAN DARKNESS***

If you’re on Deviant Art, you would have noticed several messages in your inbox that are updated short stories from this series. Those recent four stories have been completed and American Darkness is now fully repaired. All I have to do now is put together the .DOC files for Smash Words and Create Space and it’ll be ready to go. Despite the overwhelming numbers of crybaby male characters and bitchy female characters in these short stories, I can say with undying confidence that this version of American Darkness is ten times better than the one currently holding a 2.75 star rating on Good Reads. A big thanks goes to Marie Krepps for being there for me throughout all 50 of those stories. I pay a lot of lip service to that woman, but that goes to show how important a good beta reader is. Hell, I’d build a religious temple with her likeness on it if I wasn’t too lazy for manual labor. Hehe!

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

KRAMER: Things are going pretty well for me here in Hollywood. I met a girl.
JERRY: Kramer, she was murdered.
KRAMER: Yeah, well, I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship anyways.

-Seinfeld-