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!