"I can see the chaos just fine from here, thanks!"

“I can see the chaos just fine from here, thanks ”



This is well charted territory. What I am about to scribble on this machine has been well worn, sold and bought back many a times. But I don’t care. I’ve never written about it so just shut your clam hole and enjoy.

OK. This came up in conversation quite recently. A buddy of mine just left his band of five years. Not so much of creative differences but more of “I just can’t take the b.s. anymore”. It happens. We hear about it all the time with big acts but it also trickles down to the little guy struggling to get studio time and gigs.

He mentioned that something that has ceased to exist, oddly, was the always present mosh pit.

“It’s like they don’t care anymore,” he said. “Their either too cool, too high or too drunk to get into it. Why is that?”

I then pressed my observation to him saying that the last decent metal show I attended was wrought with pit violence.

“It wouldn’t end,” I explained. “I got shoes to the head on several occasions. Rampant flailing and stage diving. So I had to leave.”

Now, I didn’t leave the show, just merely stepped aside and watched the action on stage and on the floor in relative safety. I’ve never been a big pit guy anyway. Pain hurts and why did I just pay $20 to get my head stepped on and shirt ripped?

But my friend’s cognizance on the usual pit frenzy being abandoned for standing with one hand in pocket the other on a beer, lazily gazing at the band as they sweat blood for their supper, made me nostalgic on the origin and the essence of what is and was the mosh pit. A bruised trip down memory lane if you like.

First off, I am not a punk and metal historian in any account. Just a longtime fan. In the 20+ years of going to shows on a fairly regular basis, I too have seen a change in club floor regalement. So I’m gonna take you on my personal journey with my affection and apprehension with ‘The Pit”.

The first time I had ever heard of an audience bashing and jumping around like lunatics was as a little boy. Growing up in suburban LA, I was privy to a radio station, KROQ, that often promoted and aired bands such as the Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, etc. At the time my dad was really into the station seeing that, in the 80s, they played the best selection of one hit wonder New Wave and modern rock. At night though, it could switch to the grittier end of things. I remember listening to a Crime and Dead Boys concert live on this little transistor radio I had. Under the covers and pretending to sleep, I extended the silvery antennae towards my open window to get the best reception. With the volume as low as possible and the cool metal speaker pressed to my ear, I was soon listening to my first punk rock show. I couldn’t understand a thing. The lyrics were squalky and mumbled at best. Drums crashed in the distance. Guitars went in and out of tune and harmony. But, for some reason, I loved it. I had no idea what was going on but I was absolutely in awe of that noise. At one point a guy got on the microphone and said “Keep the slamdancing to just jumping up and down ok?”

Slamdancing? What the heck was that?

A few weeks later the movie channel we had, SelecTV, showed a movie called Suburbia, which was, strangely enough, about young runaway punk rock kids in LA. If you watch it now, that’s Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers as the weird guy with the rat. Anyway, the film was really low budget and kind of boring...BUT I finally got to see what this slamdancing was all about.

There, as TSOL commanded the stage, the crowd whipped itself into such a frenzy that they were literally slamming against each other. Ah HA I get it now. Slamdancing. Yes. It all makes sense.

My new found curiosity with punk and slamdancing came at the same time I was a card carrying member of the KISS Army. KISS was rock and roll right? They’re pretty loud and fast, right? So...how come no one was slamming at their shows? I just see a bunch of guys pounding their fists in the air and girls lifting their shirts up.

Let’s move forward 5 or 6 years. My dad and I moved from LA to a small town called Salinas, a central California city known for it’s farms and rodeos. It was also the first place I heard the word “nigger” that wasn’t in a movie but rather a classmate, as the township was a big division between blacks and whites with Latinos being the major “minority”. Very strange city. It was also the place where I met Jason Williams, a kid who got me full on into hardcore punk. At the time punk and metal were still two very different worlds. Mid to late 80s we’re talking about here. As I skateboarded through the parking lot at my high school, I would see all of these flannel wearing, mullet headed stoners blasting Slayer and Metallica from their beat up cars. And I loved Slayer and Metallica. Still do. Well, their older stuff. So as I tried to hang out with them just because I loved the music, I’d get chased off and teased because I had more of a skate punk look rather than a headbanger.

I didn’t get it. Sure I love punk but I also love metal. What gives?

The summer of ‘86 brought a special gift to Salinas; a concert featuring Slayer and DRI.

Oh my god Are you joking? Both of them, together? Here? Wow
DRI back then, as I knew them, was the absolutely fastest band on the planet. Beyond speed metal and beyond punk, those four guys thrashed into a whole new realm of oblivion...and I WORSHIPED them Sure I liked Slayer but back then they were still into wearing goofy makeup and leather spiked outfits. DRI were like us. Goofy suburban skate punks wearing ripped jeans and Discharge t-shirts. It was also music I could relate to, more along the lines of being a bored suburban skate punk rather than singing about Satan and human sacrifice. Two things I had very limited experience with.

The show was about ten bucks so after a night of bussing tables at the local VFW with a buddy of mine, I had the cash to get one and maybe buy a shirt. Telling my dad that I was spending the night at Jason’s (which I did so it wasn’t a full lie as my dad was adamantly against me going to the show) we raced over to the venue and I was soon engaging in my first hardcore and metal show.

All I can say is this...I really don’t remember much. DRI was the first to go on and the place erupted into one massive pit. It was funny because the metalheads were on the outskirts literally “corralling” the thrashing punks into their pit. The headbangers had nothing to do with slamming. They were there to see Slayer, nod their head quickly up and down and drink beer.

But not us. The DRI faction wanted chaos and blood and, by gum, they were gonna get it. I got caught right up in it as a tall long haired doofus pushed me in. It was there that I was literally baptized into the realm of slamdancing. It wasn’t just slamming though. Oh no. It was leaping and crushing and pummeling and diving and falling and stomping and...and... Oh dear lord, what the heck am I doing here, I thought.

In the center of the maelstrom, it quickly dawned on me that I was pretty much a wimp. This kind of bonding with your fellow thrashers wasn’t my idea of a good time. I could barely hear the band, let alone see them, so I made my way out of the maze of sweaty bodies to safety.

Towards the back and to the side I finally got to see my favorite band and witness the jumbled terror of that pit. When Slayer came on the pit turned to a swirling sea of shaggy heads dancing up and down. I got into it too. Headbanging is much more my style.

The thrashers tried to start a pit but were always usurped by leather jacketed gorillas higher and drunker than any hardcore punk could deal with. But I didn’t care. Slayer blasted on in silly speed metal demonics and I was finally having a good time.

A year later both bands released an album that would bring the two worlds together. DRI offered up Crossover, taking them from hardcore punk into the thrash metal arena, and Slayer released Reign In Blood, still, to this day, one of the greatest metal albums I have ever encountered.

That’s when things changed. That’s when “slam dancing” became “moshing”.

Moshing caught on so hard and so fast that it even made the news a few times and was a feature on MTV news. The two musical alliances I had loved for so long were finally united in a blistering hatesphere of boots, fists and pent up suburban tomfoolery. Bands like Exodus, Corrosion of Conformity, Cryptic Slaughter, Suicidal Tendencies, Anthrax and, yes, Slayer were now playing for a wider and wilder crowd. Even Metallica hooked up with Glenn Danzig and often wore Misfits t-shirts on stage.

It was a glorious time to be a metal thrashing dork!

Cut to the early 90's or as I like to refer to it as “The Death of Metal”. Sure the music was taking on different forms like death, doom, stoner, industrial and even gridncore but Grunge was in the forefront of music and I allowed myself to get caught up in it. Hair bands that once packed stadiums were now playing small clubs again if not completely breaking up. Metal went back underground to reform itself in the various blocs listed above, and beyond, waiting to pounce once the Grunge shtick wore off.

So I waited it out. Until then, I bought Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgraden, Screaming Trees, Tad, Melvins and Dinosaur Jr. records. Seeing as Grunge was basically a flanneled mixture of punk and metal of course there were mosh pits at the shows. And let me tell you this, those things were out of control! It was really bizarre.

Sure at the big Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers new years show at the Cow Palace back in, what, 90?, 91?, I expected to see a big pit. In fact, there were several. Same thing went for Lollapalooza. That first one was such an eclectic mix of bands that people didn’t know when to start or stop the moshing. It got out of control when Ice T’s set turned into a Body Count show as I was front and center on the fence up on the lawn at Shoreline in Palo Alto, CA. The slope of the lawn area caused crowd surfers to move my way then fall down to the concrete a few feet below. Again, I could barely see of hear the band. Instead I was holding on for dear life.

That time took a strange step when I went to see (now, don’t hate me on this) the Lemonheads and Veruca Salt play a show in LA. This show was supposed to be pure pop schmaltz. It was, but the fact that Grunge and moshing were making national headlines and featured in mags like Time and Newsweek sent the scene and bands into a whole new level of acceptance and popularity. It was so common to mosh that at almost any show a pit could start up. Guess what happened when Evan Dando and the boys started playing? Yep. The pit was so stupid crazy tempestuous that all I did was laugh. It’s the Lemonheads you idiots! How can you even think of moshing to songs like “Into Your Arms” and “Mrs. Robinson”? But they did. Oh how they did.

On the drive back to my then home in Santa Barbara I knew “Grunge” had come to a full head. I was done with it.

Then Kurt Cobain shot himself and that was that. It was also the year I discovered a band called Kyuss and re-fell in love with metal. Everything was back to normal.

For 12 years I lived in San Francisco and for a big majority of those years I wrote for a slew of glossy and completely obscure music mags. So, to say the least, I’ve been to a lot of shows and have seen a lot of bands. One thing that remained and changed was, of course, “the Pit”. It didn’t have the same relevancy than it used to. In fact, on most hip fronts, it was totally passe. Sure a Napalm Death show was wrought with them, but that belonged to the younger and coked up lot. Maybe the pit hadn’t changed at all. I was just older and fully aware that I was done with it. Maybe it was because most of the concert goers in San Francisco were so obscenely high that all they could do was stand there with one hand in their pocket, the other on the red cup of beer.

Yet with the infusion of “metalcore” and the vile “nu metal” a new addition to the pit was added. The “wall of death” has two teams, them and they, the right side and the left. Both teams split up making a big open space between them. When the music starts or gets seriously fast, the two teams then run toward each other at full speed, bashing hard into one another, making it look like rival tribes of barbarians going into war. That’s where I drew the line. Let ‘em go at it. The music has taken such a splintered route that now any dopey bored white kid angry at their mom because they wont drive them to the mall can get out their aggression and show off their bruises to like minded classmates the next day at school.

Not me though. I’ll be in the back by the beer shed. I can see the chaos just fine from there, thank you.

Point is, I love metal. And I still love punk. Usually, for my favorite bands I will make the nervous jump to the front so I can bang my head against the pick up amps knowing that I will have to fight for my position and take a few lumps. Moshing is hard work though. You have to be fit to deal with it. It takes a certain stamina and attitude. A lot of people, obviously, have it, yet at the same time a lot don’t. Perhaps in this age of immediate downloads of your favorite bands and clubs now instilling “No Pit” rules because of insurance, the whole notion to start moshing has to be taken into consideration first. Do I want to take the chance of slipping and falling? Do I want to get my shirt ripped and wallet possibly stolen? Is the band even worth the sweat? Am I drunk enough? These are things I’m sure go through the minds of some aging pit enthusiasts.

Or I could be wrong here. I’m sure it’s just “Aaaaaaugh! SLAYER!!!” and off they go. The world will always be filled with testosterone filled morons looking to prove their toughness. The pit is now left for just that.

Still, my friends seemed upset at the lack of passion in his band’s fans. I then told him to read Get In The Van by Henry Rollins where he spins tales of doing shows with Black Flag, completely trashing the venue and having to pay the club owner for damages, leaving them completely penniless.

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I quit the band anyway.”

Oh yeah. Right...



-Mark Whittaker

Tucson is closed.



For me, I guess it all started when the Home Den went shut. It was our neighborhood pub, a place where the barstaff and owners knew us by name, where we wrote on the wall next to the place we always sat, usually at the end of the left side bar, behind the Guns N Roses pinball machine where we would play Monkey Bash on the touch screen video game console, drinking cheap beer and listening to the strange mix of music coming from the jukebox. It was also the place where we went to on Wednesday nights to watch “Top Chef”, or Mondays to watch “Flavor Of Love” because the place was usually empty enough where we could convince one of the bartenders to turn one of the TVs to those shows and turn the volume up a bit. Or at least click on the ‘subtitles’ option and read about the impending reality show drama. The Home Den is where my buddy and I had regular DJ gigs. Every other Saturday night we would play an eclectic mix of rock and metal, filling the place up with our fog machine and banging our heads with the patrons and fans.

But that all came to an end.

One day I get an email saying that our Saturday show would be cancelled because the Home Den had to close it’s doors. Something about liquor taxes or underage drinking or back rent not being paid or whatever. We tried hanging out at the next door bar, the Golden Nugget, but that place usually attracted a wider range of collegiate ruffian, pool hall marauder, biker thug and un-ironic barflies. Plus it didn’t have the poorly inked in messages of love and marriage proposals that myself and fiancee had scribbled on the wall at our usual place at the bar.

An end of an era had come. But it was only the beginning.

Having lived in California my whole life and 12 years in San Francisco before moving to Tucson, the idea of real raw and vibrant dive bars has always been a big boon to my enjoyment of living in the Old Pueblo. Back in San Francisco, we had to go out of our way to find a good and dank drinking hole. But here? You have to go out of your way to NOT find one. It’s a blessing in a beer scented, sticky floored and rude graffiti in the restroom disguise.

So another favorite watering hole was the Deadwood down on Fort Lowell street. It had all the accouterments of a decent dive. Big red booths, Johnny Cash on the juke, ever present mumbling drunk guy stumbling around and jell-O shots. Yes, the Deadwood sold jell-O shots for one dollar a pop. They were gloriously hideous.

One night my lady and I decide to knock a few back at the Deadwood and play some Mad Libs where we were met with a large sign on the door.

“Come celebrate the closing of the Deadwood next week. Pot luck and dollar beers. That’s right, we’re closing for good ”

Oh man, I thought. All the good bars in our neighborhood are shutting down. What’s going on?

It all came to a head one day when we woke up and were craving some Shari’s cheeseburgers. So we got in the car drove to the place only to find the long standing Tucson institution boarded up. You have got to be kidding me? Shari’s? That place is always packed and getting the Bets Of’s the city. What gives?

But that’s not half of it. Sure Tucson has it’s fair share of dive bars and greasy spoons, all the more reason to totally love this town, but it also holds a collection of upscale restaurants that can rival any in a more metropolitan and savvy hamlet. What? I like fine cuisine just like the next guy. It’s not always burgers and beers with me. C’mon.

One of our favorite places was Terra Cotta, a popular and well reviewed establishment that has been in Tucson for over 30 years. It’s Spanish flavors fused with the subtlety of Italian cuisine has always been a treat. Now, after over three decades of serving up sumptuous food for Southern Arizona, it has somehow and quite quickly shut it’s large oak doors. This came as a complete shock. That place was always packed, always seeming to do well.

What about Cuvee? Sure it’s location was always curious, in a strip mall next to a record store and across the street from an independent movie theater and divey bar, but it’s menu was exquisite. Talk about fusion, Cuvee managed to incorporate flavors from all across the globe in a fresh and innovative way along with boasting an intimidating yet inviting wine selection. Just got word that it was closing. Why?

Then there was Red Sky, a casual yet pristine restaurant serving up fairly traditional American cuisine with a novel European twist with nightly dinner specials for those that enjoy a high end meal yet can’t afford them on a regular basis. We’ve been there at least once a month. Gone. The doors are locked, the kitchen is cold and we don’t understand why.

It’s not that we or I am stupid. Oh no. The restaurant and bar industry is a killer. I know, I’ve worked in them on and off for most of my career in jobs. I’ve seen the looks on the owners faces when bills come in and customers don’t. I’ve seen the faces of chefs having to send back prime cuts and exotic fish because it’s too risky at this stage of the budget. It’s a fierce and unpredictable industry, where innovated concepts are often shot down while others thrive for unknown reasons. But it all comes down to the food, and the three places I mentioned were all top notch in my opinion.

Is it because of the gaining population and broader shift of income coming into Tucson? One thing I have noticed in my three years of being an Arizonan, is that folks from LA go to Phoenix to golf and purchase large yet affordable property. That’s all changed now. The Phoenix / Scottsdale area is now a hot bed of multi million dollar property and catering to those who can afford such excess. Well, for those that can’t yet still want to be a part of the Southwest lifestyle, those who were once prosperous in Phoenix are now making and exodus to Tucson. This town is nothing but a construction site. Our quiet and unassuming neighborhood, once littered with vacant lots and For Sale signs has been transformed into a bevy of men in hard hats and large drums mixing cement. In a dirt lot where my dog could roam free to, um, do his business, is now site to a half built apartment complex. It’s both superlative and super-lame at the same time. We are now holding on to our tiny rent controlled garden townhouse for dear life

Because of the obvious change here in Tucson, are the big corporate meatgrinders going to be the de rigeur for us? Can it be the mom and pop restaurants and bars will be gobbled up by the Olive Gardens, the Applebees and whatever bland sterile fare that seems to sprout up every ten minutes? This is disheartening. In a town that I thought was a rough and tumble town, a once thoroughfare for western bound settlers and cowboys bent on survival and making a life out of dust and heat, has now bowed down to the antics of greedy cookie cutter establishments. Or has it?

There is still a chance our fair city can stay independent and hardy. Now, I’m not going to preach about how we should all boycott the big cheeses and support only the local markets (although that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all) it’s just that Tucson is such a rustic and unique town that I’d hate to see it change too much. Change is always good, but that won’t bring back the Home Den and our little corner wall with our devotional words and doodles.

So let’s concentrate on another factor of the imminent closing of Tucson:

Why is it that nothing stays open past 10pm?

This is a town gleaming with students who party all night, tweekers needing lamps for whatever reason at 4am, insomniacs roaming the streets in search of a late night snack or gun range and folks like me that enjoy doing their laundry when everyone else is asleep or grabbing a bite that isn’t fast food or a greasy burrito. Tucson has over a million people calling this place home, so why isn’t it catering to the obviously wide range of needs and trades?

One big boon is the fact that Wal-y World (a.k.a. Wal-Mart) is open all hours. Now, coming from California and living in San Francisco for 12 years before moving here, I have never been to a Wal-Mart. The idea always scared me. I was witness to nothing but scathing documentaries about how awful the company is, how it moves in on lowly territory and eats up the ma and pa stands and devouring the countryside with it’s mammoth girth and blue trimmed amplitude. It seemed, well, evil to me.

So the first time I stepped foot in that gapping threshold of low priced tackle I was really nervous and very apprehensive. Turns out it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I ended up buying loads of crap for cheap, in every capacity, and even found a DVD with “Footloose” and “Flashdance” for $5. Not bad.

One thing that did give me the willies and force me to go home and take a second shower was the other people shopping at Wal-Mart.

Holy balls of Odin, if there wasn’t a drooling selection of half dead shufflers, obese women yanking their wailing brood, toothless bandits rummaging through troughs of potted meat cans and lobotomy eyed teenagers listening to thudding violent hip hop while playing a video game that entails eviscerating zombies until they are nothing but rotted chunks dripping from the monitor. “The Fear” as it is called in many circles, and, yes, I full on gave into that beast. Luckily my lady held my hand and got me through it. So I trudged on with the promise of a great deal on kitchen ware and a bright sun waiting for me outside.

Now, imagine that terror times ten. THAT, my friend, is what Wal-Mart is like at 2am here in Tucson. That’s when the retail juggernaut becomes, literally, gang territory. I was convinced that at any moment, the Latin Kings and East Side Crips were going to battle it out near the juniors area. From that I knew I was safe from. It was the methed out crazies that were, again literally, stalking me as I half beer goggled my way towards the holiday decorations. Remember that “should have been pretty good but wasn’t” movie “I Am Legend”? Remember what those undead ghouls looked like? Yeah, I am not joking here. They were behind me, foaming at the mouth and asking for spare change.

If I wasn’t already half in the bag with some friends and really wanting (well, ‘pressured into’ is a better term) to experience the place after hours while still needing to do last minute Xmas shopping, I would have high tailed it out of there and ran screaming all the way home until I was safe under the sheets, shaking uncontrollably from the knowing that horrors such as Wal-Mart at 2am exists.

The fact that most places close up around 10pm on most nights is something I can deal with. Sure bars stay open, you can still get three star food for one star prices at Kingfisher or grubby happy hour fare at Old Chicago and even manage to catch a decent show or band on 4th Ave or Congress, yet needful things and home effects still have to wait till the next day.

That’s fine.

But what’s with everything being closed on Sunday? I had no idea Tucson was part of the Bible belt. Just recently She-Ra and I were out shopping only to find more than half of the places we needed to go were closed. Why? Because of God? I think the big presence in the sky would like us to contribute to the local economy. Maybe it’s because Arizona is pretty much a red state which means we are at the whims of those wielding a gavel that dictates if we are not working we are praying, so unless you go to the big corporate establishments you’re poop outta luck kid. I don’t know. Usually I have Sundays free so that’s when I have time to go shopping. Is it just me? Am I being a reactionary jerk here? Or maybe I’m one of thee few to pull up a chair, click on the machine and type up what needs to be said.

I’m just sayin’...

Anyway, in my now 3 years of being a Tucsonan I am relegating the notion of a slower pace, a quieter lifestyle, a laid back approach to being a consumer and urban dweller. For those reasons, and the cheap ass rent, I like living here. The hustle and bustle of big cities in California is, for now, behind me, and I like that.

I just wish Plaza Liquors on Campbell was open on Sundays. That place rules.

Just stay away from Wal-Mart after midnight. You have been warned!

-Mark Whittaker

The year that was...2008!

For me anyway. Last night I somehow managed to change the calendar in the kitchen. It’s one of those dry erase numbers so all you hafta do is clear off the poorly inked in dates of last month and scribble in the new one. Thing is, it’s not just a new month but a whole new YEAR. What the heck happened? I think my post traumatic holiday separation came on when I finished up DJing some new years get together for a group of older folks in this hideaway community way out in BF Tucson. Not only did I have to drive over a mountain on a tiny two way, what should I call it...a “road” is what it technically was, while being closely followed by a van with their highbeams on the whole way in pitch blackness but when I finally found the place (Foothills Estates is what it was called, blah) I couldn’t find the address of where I was supposed to play. Luckily the tech guy for the DJ company, Ian, was there setting up so he came and rescued me with only 20 minutes to spare till showtime. That’s not the worst of it. For 5 hours I played a melange of oldies, Beatles, country, more Beatles, swing, classic rock, ballads and did I mention the Beatles? Yeah, these wealthy crusters loved them some Fab Four so luckily I had brought some greatest hits and just let that sucker ride. At 1am, after dancing and doing announcements and playing almost all of their requests I went to check my tip jar only to find the three lonely ones I had put in there to remind them to kindly tip your DJ. Bastards On the way back home, taking a different route, I got lost once again. Thanks to the ever present freeway construction going on here in Tucson I had to go MILES out of my way to get to a place I recognized and make it home. Thankfully I had the cell phone and have poor She-Ra who was bleary and half asleep seeing that she had to work in the morning, Google map and guide me home. I was pretty upset, tired and frustrated so the conversation was more her asking what street I was on and me freaking out and cursing the almighty for inventing the money trade system and the calendar year which includes the always obnoxious New Years eve. Sorry about that darlin’... When I woke up the next day, after cups of dark strong coffee and some Food Network (my porn channel) I started to realize that I freaked out for no good reason. Then it dawned on me. As Bobby Flay turned some jerk chicken on his grill, I came to the conclusion that I was not ready for the holidays to end. In fact, 2008 was a blur. So much had happened. Good, bad, awesome, blecch...that year that was was now a memory. So I grabbed my notebook and made a few observations on what went right and what went wrong in 2008. Here’s what I came up with. First something good. And this is an obvious one. For those that know me I silently campaigned for Obama through internet stuff, meaning I did not want to knock on doors or attend rallies. In fact I started a semi-decent page called “Headbangers for Barack” which got a few supporters but was mainly a place for me to interact with other volunteers and inform them of the wonderment that is the new High On Fire album. When B-Rock got it I was supposed to go to a party for volunteers but was so overcome with emotions I just sat in the house drinking cheap beer and flipping through the channels. Someone outside was shooting off a gun. Was he supporting or upset? Either way, we ushered in the holiday season pretty gosh darn well. Sorry to all my Republican pals. Better luck next time... On a low point my grandfather (mom’s dad) died in November. This came as a complete shock seeing as he was fine, got a cold and then passed away. My mom and that side of the family living in Delaware, She-Ra and I unfortunately couldn’t make it to the funeral due to work overload. Which sucked. Turns out everyone was there but us and my cousin Skip cooked an amazing Thanksgiving feast. Not that She-Ra and I didn’t cook up a great dinner for her family but we had to bland it down due to the kids and her sister who put a microwave lasagne in the oven and wondered why the sides were so crunchy. Um...that’s plastic dear. Another case for the existence of God was the fact that we finally got proper air conditioning right before the summer swelter hit. Two years with fans and a swamp cooler? Done with that noise So the new landlord got the brass cajones and installed some new works. Summer went by in a cool wave of comfort rather than a teeming sweat box with an overly shedding dog and us lazying around in our underwear. Which we do anyway but the temperature was nice. The case against the existence of God came when She-Ra and I were forced to drink Bud Lite Lime because that was the only thing at her parents house. “You’re sister and Jay just love it,” informed her mom after discovering the vile juice in their fridge. “So we thought that you would too.” What tasted slightly less offensive then chilled ostrich piss, Bud Lite Lime has the afterburn tongue smack of a citrus glazed turd left for dead and pounded into liquid form. Then bottled and shipped out for the mentally and palate challenged. She-Ra couldn’t even do it. She switched to her mom’s selection of white wine while I powered on forth with the cold bottles of potable hate. Why? Because A) I’m stupid, you know this and B) it was late and I just wanted a beer or three to unwind after driving all day. I think after bottle #2 I was so enraged that Anheuser-Busch could invent such a gurgling foulness that I stormed out, got a 12er of PBR and relaxed in full heavy metal bliss. I think I fell asleep watching a Steven Segal movie. The one where he squints, has a ponytail and kicks everyone’s ass. That one. Here’s something that I noticed. The curious differences between the summer and Christmas movies. Usually the summer flicks are geared towards the kids; you know, big blow ‘em up movies with boobs and robots and Yodas and such. Well, they didn’t disappoint that year In fact, the summer movies were far better (in my opinion, don’t get all huffy with me man) than the ones released around Xmas. The winter films are usually Oscar worthy fare with an occasional sprinkling of action noise and debauchery. I didn’t see ONE Christmas released movie. And don’t even ask me why. They all sucked Ed McMahon’s balls, that’s why. They sucked them hard. They sucked them long. Are you kidding me? “Valkyrie”? You want me to spend Christmas watching a Nazi flick with Tom Cruise wearing an eye patch? Or how about “Four Christmases”? That flop looked lame on the commercials. I would rather stick a flaming rod infected with SARS and Fran Drescher’s face up my bum hole than watch a “comedy” with a phone-it-in performance by Reese Witherspoon and the you’re-done-you’re-boring-you’re-not-funny-anymore Vince Vaughn. Ugh. Or how about “The Day The Earth Stood Still”? I love the original movie, love it. But why in the name of all that is Ozzy is Keanu Fxxking Reeves still being offered movie roles? He looks and acts like one of my old roommates from years ago. The guy that ate my leftover pizza, walks around shirtless and stoned and knocked up my ex girlfriend. Him No way pal, done with you. Done with you, Vince Vaughn, Dane Cook and Hollywood remaking decent sci-fi films from the past into overdone schlock. “War of The Worlds”? Are you joking? And Tom Cruise was in that one too. Ka-blammo. But the summer of ‘08: Ah ha! It was one of the best and most fun I think in quite a while. For geeks like me it was real easy to geek out all summer long and huddle deep in the dark air cooled confines of the local cinemaplex and watch comic books and heros from the past blast on the big screen. “Iron Man”, “The Dark Knight” and Hellboy II” were so super awesome I actually went back and wasted another ten bucks to see them again. “Kung Fu Panda”? Awesome. “Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Crystal Skull”? Had it’s moments but was still awesome. “Step Brothers” looked lame but was actually really funny. As was “Pineapple Express” and “Tropic Thunder”. Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. owned the summer of ‘08. Let’s hope the summer of ‘09 is just as amazing and exuberant. Although “Speed Racer” and “Get Smart” stunk up the place like no ones business. It takes a lot to make an action film reeeeeeeeally boring. Thanks guys! Two small yet annoying things happened in 2008 which will end my negative side of the year. #1: I got my hair cut a little too short making me look like a Dutch boy for about a month. See, one night She-Ra and I were watching a bit too much VH1 and having a bit too much fun with shots and beers. At the time my hair was shoulder length and quite bushy. If you know me, you know I have quite the mop. Unruly and homeless looking at times. Anyway, after watching some Best of the 90's thing, She-Ra makes the suggestion to bust out the shears and shave the underside of my hair giving me that seminal 90's Neds Atomic Dustbin look. It was actually quite lovely to have half of my hair gone yet still enough to properly bang my head with. I’ve thrashed with short hair before...doesn’t work. But when the holidays were arriving I decided to get my hair cut nicely and even up the now grown in underside with the mangled top. My stylist, Cherie, suggested that I cut off at least 3 to 4 inches so the end meets with the beginning of the underside. All was fine and dandy seeing as I still had wet hair when she was done, but when it dried it wove up and expanded into this poofy tussle of a sort of upscale bowl cut. So for a few weeks I was really insecure about my looks. Not that the argyle socks in skateboard Vans, baggy shorts and Hawaiian shirts doesn’t make me look like I suffered a massive head wound, but still... All is fine now and back to it’s original glory. Although the gray is really starting to come in. The streak in front, my “Bonnie Raitt” as it’s been dubbed, is quite apparent now. See some recent pics of me and you’ll notice. #2: Our car was almost stolen. “Almost”, I say. One of our Sunday traditions is stopping by a local place here in Tucson, the Boondocks, for beers and hot wings while we play a rousing game of Battleship. Like most nights there’s some dopey blues band cavorting on stage much to the delight of mullet haired midlifers swaying drunkenly to and fro in what I like to call the “Boondock Shuffle”, so it’s kinda packed. There is a security guy walking around but the parking lot is right across the street from a dilapidated shopping area and is not in the greatest part of town. Whatever, the food is amazing, the beers are cold and they never charge us if there’s a cover because we could give two poops about the music. I’m there to sink my lady’s boats and claim victory over the blue plastic sea. Well, one night we come out to discover the car door unlatched. That’s odd, we think. She-Ra is pretty anal about securing the car before we go anywhere. Once we get inside we find that the middle arm rest is open and all of the papers inside have been strewn around. Ah-ha! Someone was trying to steal this thing and luckily got startled and stopped. The ignition had been jimmied, they took an old crappy wristwatch that is worth about a buck seventy-five and her Alanis Morrisette greatest hits CD (whew!). I later find that the passenger key hole is missing, so the would be thieves obviously knocked out the lock, got in, didn’t find anything of any great value, tried to pop the ignition but somehow managed to not do it leaving us with some minor repair work. They took Alanis Morrisette but left the new The Sword CD. Idiots! On a super bright note, I finished my first novel in November. It was a long 5 months of writing and a bit of a harrowing journey but it’s done. It’s now being edited and this year, soon if fact, I plan on getting an agent and getting it published. Book 2 is underway and 3 more are to follow. Wish me luck everyone! And thank you Hillary for being a badass editor. On a High / Low scale, one big event that shaped this year was She-Ra being gone for a full month. Sure I got a lot of writing done and, yeah, she is now being considered for a corporate position for the company, while at the same time I got little to no sleep and she was stuck in Merrilville Indiana for 5 weeks. It was good and bad, sour and sweet, up and down, left and right, big and...oh never mind. You get the idea. Thing is the company wants her to open up more stores this year which means more time apart. I’ve lived here in Tucson for 3 years now and the longest we’ve ever been separated was a long weekend when she had to go to Phoenix and I had to stay here because at the time I was co-directing that kids museum and couldn’t leave. That was also the weekend I got drunk and busted out the fog machine while playing doom metal and the dog tried to chew his way to freedom through the front wood gate. Sorry buddy. 2008 was also the year I decided that anything with the word “crow” in it is on my list of crap. Counting Crows, Black Crows and Sheryl Crow are about as lame as it gets for this aging headbanger and all the sequels to the movie “The Crow” licked donkey taint. There was even one with Kirsten Dunst. Done with her too. Her and her little rat teeth. “Bring It On” is her sole redemption. Oh wait, she was in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” wasn’t she? That was okay too... I’d give you my top 10 albums of 2008 but really that year was my discovery of a lot of old music I had shunned. I got really into old school shoegaze music like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Mazzy Star and The Sundays. I’ve always been a huge Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance fan and 2008 it expanded further. Oh and I started listening to a lot of Joy Division as well. Maybe because I saw that great film about the lead singer Ian Curtis, “Control”, that I started listening more and downloading tunes. Totally amazing. Let’s see. The new Portishead “3” was good. Ufomammut (Italian psychedelic metal band) came out with “Idolum” which was incredible. As was Elder, consisting of three young guys from Massachusetts playing HEAVY doom metal. The Sword’s “Gods of the Earth” was great but not as good as their first album. Um...oh! Scorn finally released a new CD, “Stealth”, that pounds and moans with equal aplomb to their other bass terror beats from the past. What else...what else...? Ah, it doesn’t matter. You’re not listening anyway. So all in all 2008 was great! Lots of big events and big changes happened. Not all good but most for the best. Now I look forward to this year, 2009, like a little kid waiting for Christmas to come. By the way, it’s 360 days till next Xmas. Cheers!