Thursday, May 31, 2012

Please Don't Shit In The Pool

Welcome to our ool. You will notice there is no shit in it. Please help us keep it that way.

Due to recent tightening of government restrictions on public facility cleanliness, we must ask that you no longer defecate in the swimming pool; instead, please make use of one of our two "toilets" that are available in the locker room area. We understand that this may seem like an unreasonable request.

If it were up to us, you could shit just about anywhere you liked, within the walls of this institution. To us, the managerial staff, it harkens back to a time of the "Old New York City" of the 70s and 80s.

Things were a lot better then, in our opinion - no yuppies wandering around with golden retrievers, an "authentic" "urban" feel of "real danger" that was present anytime you were outside. Shit was king. But, sadly, those days are gone. Gentrification, and its resultant scrutiny of Our Neighborhoods by government health and safety officials, has arrived.

Time was, you could drop your trunks at the edge of the pool and shit right on someone's head while they were swimming. Of course, most people swam with weapons on their person in those days, so you ran the risk of being stabbed or shot. But whatever happened to being able to just take a dump in the pool, then hopping in and maybe sliding a knife between someone's ribs before busting out some breaststroke?

In any event, we further and totally apologize for any potential inconvenience. We understand if you want to hurt us - the staff of this facility - personally. This is a natural reaction to such a restrictive government clampdown. We submit that it would not be out of order in this situation to murder one or two staff members when you come down to the pool next time. Totally understandable.

Also, Adult Coed Lap Swim will be canceled this Thursday.

Thanks,

Management    

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Nightmare Journal Part 1 of ????

Here's the nightmare I had last night. Gonna start writing these up whenever I have them.

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You are in a sprawling 1-floor apartment, trying to hang out with someone and play a board game in an unused room. You notice a set of wooden stairs, going down, in the corner of the room. Looking over the edge, you see that the stairs descend for hundreds of feet, crisscrossing with landings every ten steps or so. There is someone/thing coming up the stairs.

The thing is human-looking but is not human. It moves stiffly and its jaw is fixed open, its eyes white. It is male, wears work clothes and has a short haircut. You run with your friend to a living room where a couple of other people are hanging out - one female, one child. The thing jerkily pursues you, grabbing and lunging. Looking for an axe or something to kill it with, all you can find is a butcher knife. You make do; you chop repeatedly at the thing's neck and open a ragged hole, but no blood comes out, all you see is dark reddish-purple meat. It groans and collapses, but won't stop moving or grasping at everyone. It needs to be completely dismembered.

Everyone helps, and the thing is finally cut into many pieces, but the pieces still won't stop moving. Someone has trimmed off the thing's fingernails, and when you go to collect them, they dig into your hand. The thing needs to be completely destroyed. You gather the pieces and take them in the kitchen, and dump them in the blender. There is no liquid aspect to this thing at all - grinding up its parts yields a crimson sawdust.

The child is helping you with carrying parts into the kitchen and dumping out the blender. Both of you are covered in the dusty remains, and as the child is walking toward you with an armload of limbs, it begins speaking in a man's voice. It says "I cannot be killed by grinding." The child has become infected by the dust; its eyes turn white as particles enter its bloodstream.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

This Weekend - MIB3, and Rorshach/Converge/Indecision/Xaddax

This blog is starting to be about me revisiting stuff I was into 14 years ago, and seeing how it all holds up. That's fine with me I guess. I really liked Men In Black, which came out in 1997 (the year I graduated high school), and was really into Converge from about 1998-2001 or so. Well, I should qualify those statements - I didn't like MIB 2, and I didn't like Converge's When Forever Comes Crashing (I might like it now; at the time I thought there like wasn't enough snare drum or something). So I'm not the hugest fan. Not a huge fan. There are huger fans than me.

I went to see MIB3 in an actual movie theater, paid actual money that I don't have, to see it (paying money to see movies is becoming more and more anathema to me). I wasn't disappointed, and I got to be that annoying guy who is always pointing out when his neighborhood appears in a movie (the diner is really close to where I live; in fact, it had been closed for a while, and I walked by it one night and it appeared to be suddenly open for business, and I walked in, and stood there for a minute waiting for a table or whatever, until a guy with a headset came up from behind the counter and informed me that it was a set [for MIB3], and I should leave).

Will Smith? Yeah, I know. Tommy Lee Jones (TLJ) though. Plus Josh Brolin as Tommy Lee Jones. I wonder how much Motley Crue fan mail TLJ accidentally received when Tommy Lee and co. were in their heyday? It makes me a little sad to picture him opening what was probably the rare piece of correspondence (it being the mid-80's/early nineties...I suppose I'm discounting the possible existence of a lot of elementary-school-age [or residual middle-age] Coal Miner's Daughter fans), only to be disappointed, or maybe excited at the occasional boobs pic. Maybe it could have been a great thing for him, I don't know.

The abovementioned hardcore show was weird. I missed Xaddax and Indecision, got there halfway through Converge, and it was pretty boring. Granted, I only really liked two or so songs off of their most recent album (whatever it was called) and I liked Jane Doe but haven't listened to it in a while. Anyway they played like 4 new songs, and everything was just that d-beat stuff with single-guitar riffing that's a little too spare for me. I mean, Converge haven't been doing the dual-guitar supermosh in like ten years, so don't know what I was expecting. My favorite time seeing them was at the University of Hartford in 1999, I believe? They played on the floor in some multipurpose room, and there were like 45 kids there. Oh well. 

Rorschach were good - this was a reunion show, just FYI. I have an LP of theirs that I never really liked, but they sounded totally different on it (especially the vocals - strange hoarse vocals were absent, high-pitched non-shredding scream vocals were present). However, other than some old heads, it seemed like no one really knew them, so they were sick and heavy and I felt like the show should have been insane, but nobody was reacting to the songs, so it was kind of like it was their first show and it was going really well.

I think I need to get into some new stuff.   

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Meshuggah 5/24/12

Saw Meshuggah at Terminal 5 last night, great show, cool lights. Very confusing pit. Actually the lights had some part in that, since during the most insane parts there was usually a strobe light going, and everyone's afraid to dance when the strobe light is on. You got your headbanging guy whipping you with his hair, you got your muscle dudes, you got your free-range dirtbags, you got me. I haven't been to a metal show in a while.

Meshuggah are whatever at this point to whoever, seems like: They're not stonery or black; they're too complicated to attract dedicated mosh meatheads, they're not blasty enough for extreme heads. They have their dedicated people, I guess. It's cool to see a bunch of kids pounding polyrhythms on their chests while banging their heads in 4/4.

I alternated between being down in it and being high above it all on Terminal 5's 3rd-story balcony (where you basically have the same view as the HDTV that's hanging right above your head). I enjoyed it. I fucking enjoyed it, OK? I don't know why I'm being so defensive about it. It was a really cool show. The musicianship of course was way above par, the theatrics were tasteful, the atmosphere was appropriately insane. Definitely a punishing experience, cathartic.