July 26, 2004

• So, I’m back.

  But you allready knew that.  What have I been doing since I’ve been back?

  Well,

  

  Something I could not do too much of in Montana… going to
  concerts.  Last weekend I went to the Vans Warped Tour, which was
  awesome.  I saw:

  

  The Bouncing Souls,

  

  NoFX, which is my favorite group still alive.  NoFX is just so
  awesome.  They came out on stage, just fucking around and said,
  “OK, this is our last song” to start the show.

  

  Bad Religion, that’s lead singer Greg Graffin, former UCLA Bruin
  anthropolgist and geologist.  Got his Master’s w/ Ted Reed in
  paleo.  He also just finnished a PhD at Cornell in evol bio.

  

  Flogging Molly, who put on the best show, as they always do,

  

  and the Vandals.  At this point it was raining and the show was ended 10 min early.

  I also saw an evening show of my favorite live band, the Reverend
  Horton Heat, on this past Thursday.  It was a short show, but
  nonetheless, awesome.  Plus, I think I got my roommate Ben into
  them now.

  So, tomorrow, I leave for Ashland, OR to see my grandma and ma.  I may have pictures from that to show in a week’s time.

  And now, from the makers of “Touch the Stove”, it’s time for:

  Matt’s Semi-diurnal Rant!

  Topic #1

  I used to laugh at those commercials saying “If you smoke pot, you’ll
  drown a baby in a pool” or “tell your friend about their problem with
  pot, they need your help.”  I have always believed that alcohol
  was 10x worse than pot, becuase it is far more damaging to yourself and
  the people around you.  There are no broken homes and battered
  spouses/children because someone is stoned out of their mind.  Far
  less often do people die in Marijuana related car crashes.  But
  alcohol is OK relative to pot because it’s the drug of choice of
  America and the world (ecept for me and a lot of other people in my new
  state).  Well, not pot has hurt me in a way I can not describe.

  

  Say it ain’t so, Ricky, say it ain’t so.

  By the way, on Saturday, I bought tickets to a Dolphin game.  Now
  that my former Montana nextdoor officemate Jeremy is living in Miami, I
  could finally go to a game.  So, thanks Ricky.  And thanks
  for announcing it on Sunday.

  Topic #2

  I’m not sure how many of you know this, but there is a very strange
  behavioral phenomenon in the punk rock community.  Fernando coined
  the term I use for it- Punker Than Thou.

  Punker than thou is a emotional problem that effects many people in
  many genres of music.  It basically is a rebellion against all
  things popular, which is inherent to punk rock, but this is even
  deeper.  Any group you like can not be popular, and if they are,
  then you knew about them “before they were ‘pop’ “.  Basically,
  you can follow a band and love them, but if they are liked by other
  and/or they become successful, then you can not like them
  anymore.  And your worth, as a punk rocker, is determined (at
  least in the mind of the induvidual) by how raw, or obscure, your taste
  is and/or how long you have been following a band.

  It boggles the mind how deep this can run.  People can be very
  irrational because of punker than thou, and it can lead to bad
  situations.

  NoFX has always somewhat made fun of this (He’s more punk than
  me).  They did something very funny to me at the last show
  regarding this condition.  They asked the crowd, “Do you want to
  hear the better song, or the popular song?”  Of course, a crowd of
  punkers didn’t want the popular song, so they all screamed
  “better”.  So NoFX played “Rico”, a good song of the end of their
  album Punk in Drublic.  After the song, Fat Mike (the singer)
  says, “you guys missed ‘Bob’, that was the popular song.”  “Bob”
  is a very well liked song by NoFX, and the crowd was pissed that they
  did not choose it.  I just laughed.

  • 2:36 pm
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