34_If They Fall, You Pick Em Up

Let me be clear about one thing.  I have no illusions as to what people think of my passionate love for hardcore and metal.  It's something that anyone who truly loves metal has to deal with at some point: realizing that no matter what, no matter where, you will never walk in to a random, non-explicitly "metal" bar and hear Slayer.  You will never be at a random party where someone decides "Ya know what we need to listen to?  Misery Signals."  Yes, you can always listen to it on your iPod.  Yes, you can sneak something in to the bar playlist that maybe won't go noticed, but you'll never find yourself sitting at a bar talking to a random barfly next to you about how you both absolutely love As I Lay Dying because "An Ocean Between" cropped up on the Happy Hour playlist.

So, that out of the way, let me explain a bit why I put up with that crap.  Aside from a profound love of the music, that is.

This past weekend marked the final Atlanta show of the renowned (something)core act, The Chariot.  While I'm not the biggest fan of theirs, my friend Brian is.  Months ago he put it up on Facebook that he was gathering the troops together to drive down and see the Atlanta, Georgia show.  At the time it was their final show ever, although standing in line to get in to The Masquerade right in the ATL, we found out they'd added another final-er show.  I'm going to say that that one doesn't count.

After closing the bar on Friday, I went home, drank a whiskey, packed my bags and got absolutely zero sleep.  The plan was to meet at the 195 park and ride and head from there.  I supposed I could have had Brian pick me up, but the idea of taking a cab to a park and ride at 5:30 in the morning appealed to my sense of adventure.

I met up with Brian and his friend Josh, jumped into the backseat and was asleep in minutes.  Somewhere in Virginia, I woke up and was alive for the rest of the journey down.  We stopped in South Carolina to pick up another of Brian's friends, Dave, who we met at one South Carolina's 218,841 Waffle Houses.  Proceeding down to Atlanta, blasting a variety of our favorite albums, we grew more and more excited, in a bittersweet sort of way, knowing that we were going to go see one of the best The Chariot shows ever, albeit their last.

We parked, shed our cellphones, wallets and other belongings and headed inside.  The venue, The Masquerade, is a massive place (the downstairs holds another, separate venue where an American Idol pop singer was performing that night) and to get to our room, we had to walk up a narrow flight of solid wooden stairs.  Something about walking up those stairs made it seem like we weren't just entering a concert hall.  It was really very cool.

We headed towards the front and waited.  The crowd, the entire time, was convivial, joking with us about the show, trading jokes with us about what was about to happen.  "Oh, there's a show tonight?  I just showed up because I like the bar!" and such.  On a related note, after doing a shot with the bar tender, even though she said she wasn't allowed, I never saw her again that night.  So, Maggie, if I got you fired, I'm really sorry.

There were four opening acts and by the end of the fourth, I was pressed like a sardine against the front railing, holding on with one hand, reaching out to the stage with the other.  The guy next to me talked to me about the Ravens playing the Jets.  The couple in front of me talked about other shows they'd been to.  Brian and the others were somewhere behind me.  I caught a glimpse of Brian and we nodded to each other.  Shit was about to get real.

Not knowing The Chariot that well, I opted to shove my way out of the very front to save it for someone else and headed towards the middle of the crowd.  I wasn't worried about missing out on the action.  When The Chariot came on, it reminded me a bit like the first few moments of Saving Private Ryan, when the doors go down on the landing craft and the front few rows of guys are just goners.

There was no mosh pit.  There was no simple, prescribed area where the show's energy manifested itself in violence.  The entire crowd was a writhing mass of twisting aggression, the words shouted along to the band in between jostling kicks and elbow throws.  "Remember," Dave had told Josh in the car on the way down, "nothing is personal in the pit."  And he's right.

At some point I moved towards the center of the crowd, where the most people were boosting themselves up to crowd surf.  I helped as best as I could, but when someone's foot came down directly onto the bridge of my nose, and then another right on my head, I had to head to the bathroom for a minute and splash water on my face.  I spat blood into the sink and knew that it was one of the best shows I'd ever seen.

How to accurately describe a The Chariot show?  By the end, there was no stage, there was no band and there was no crowd.  There was just a mass of people, some on a platform higher than others.  There was no single band, as members of all the opening acts were also out, stage diving, climbing the rafters or, and this is true, laying on top of the crowd beating a drum.  Oh, your show had a circle in the middle where a few guys jumped around a bit?  How quaint.

Towards the end of the show, about the time the crowd was invading the stage, the atmosphere stirred to something else.  It is times like that (I was in the back observing with a much needed cup of water) that you realize that aggression, the trait that The Chariot is most musically known for, as well as hope, fear, anger and happiness are all simply matters of energy.  Any strong emotion or passion is simply a matter of energy being released.  The screaming stage diver and the hands reaching up to catch him are acting on the same impulse.  At times like those, you begin to think that maybe there are only two states: tension and release.

Standing at the back, watching the show not so much end as taper off into a natural conclusion, I remembered something that Dave and I had told Josh about the mosh pit.  "If someone falls, you pick them up."  End of story.  And that is where the energy collides.  In those moments when someone falls and hands reach out to pull them up, even if they were the same hands that knocked them down, there is a strange sort of bond that you don't get simply by striking up a conversation with the person next to you at the bar when a shared favorite song comes on.

It begs the question:  how many friends do you have who would pick you up, no matter what?  An honest question to ask yourself at any time, it gains new meaning when you know that at that point, during that show, someone would always be there to pick you up to rejoin the pit, no matter what.  Even if it means you're going to jump back in and fall again, there will always be someone to pick you up.  Always.  You'll never find that at a Black Keys' concert.

That is why I put up with the shit that comes with loving metal/(whatever)core music.  Saturday's show just allowed me to put it into words more clearly than I ever had been able to before.

And so, much thanks, and farewell to The Chariot.

Long live.

- Kid

33_Rowan Atkinson and My Feelings about Football

Ah, Mondays.  While the rest of you all slave away at that work thing you do, I get to relax and enjoy a beautiful fall day to myself.  What makes it so great?  It's simple really:  no football.

Now don't get me wrong, I like to watch football as much as anyone else.  It's a great sport.  But after this weekend, I just do not care anymore how awesome it is.  Having to work both the post-Maryland/West Virginia game and both sides of the Raven's game the next day, I'm over it.

I don't care if you're celebrating the victory or mourning your loss.  You're drunk, annoying and immature and I just do not care why they won/lost because next time they do the opposite, you'll be saying the exact opposite.  Also, keep it down in here, there are families trying to eat dinner in peace.

I could go on, but instead, I'll let Rowan Atkinson say it, because this clip is so spot on perfect, there's no sense in me trying to out do it:

- Kid

32_Warning: Feels.

The other night, I shared a link that was meant to be a list of things that us Generation Y kids should understand.  It didn't take long for a few of us to realize how pathetic and misogynistic this list was.  As much as we are going to create a counter list, there was one point that threw me into a rage:

#90:  You're most likely to be the cause of your own depression.

The implication being that if I were to not cause my own depression, I could be OK.  So all that I need to do is not be depressed.

Guess what.

As much as your article is categorically wrong about so many things, it is without a doubt, and offensively, wrong about this.  The depression that I deal with is not a matter of my mindset, but rather a matter of my brain chemistry.  It is not something that I can will away by simply wanting to be happy.  It is a part of who I am and it is a part of how I will be for the rest of my life.

Here's a story for you.  Once, when I was a sophomore in college, I went to get some chicken tenders and french fries for lunch.  I also grabbed some barbecue sauce packets.  But I grabbed too many.  And in that moment, I thought the worst things possible.  I thought about doing terrible things to myself because I took too many barbecue sauce packets.  No, there was no reason for me to consider those things.  But I did.

And that's what you don't get.  It's not about being sad once in a while.  It's not about terrible things happening.  It's about stupid shit that happens to you every day and the strange guilt, shame and hopelessness you feel making those decisions.  EVERY. DAY.  It's about seeing that extra packet of barbecue sauce and wanting to give up.

What people don't realize is that depression is not a weekend warrior.  It is not you just being sad.  It is a something that you deal with EVERY. DAMN. DAY.  All day.  Every day.  It's something that is a part of you.

So to hear things like this that imply that all I need to do to cure my depression is to simply not be depressed anymore is just...insulting.  To say the least.  I have built a life out of fighting my depression and I will not give up anytime soon.  It is something that I struggle with EVERY DAY. EVERY DAMN FUCKING DAY.  End of story.  But I will win.  Because, least of all, I refuse to let assholes tell me that all I need to do is smile more.

And I smile a lot.  Because I get it.  Because I have to.

- Kid

31_Anniversary

I wrote this piece of flash fiction about five years ago.  Maybe six.  I'm not too sure, but that's sort of the point.  The point is, and always will be, that some things stick in your mind and stay there.  No matter what year it is, what time of year it is, what day of the week it is, an hour or a millennium after it happened, you're always back there in that singular moment.  A part of me is kicking myself for not posting this on yesterday's calendar day.

The greater part of me knows that this is not about that day, but about every day after it.  It is about the anniversary of every day after, compared to that singular moment.  For a while that made sense, it seemed to fit.  Until, after a while, you start to wonder why you aren't comparing yourself back to other times, to other things.  And still, we don't have a good answer to that question.

Without further ado:

Anniversary

He lays behind her on the bed and pulls at her remaining feathers, whispering softly to himself with each pluck: “She loves me she loves me not...” She is brushing her hair, vaguely looking out the slits between the blinds into the morning sun. It is the day of the Anniversary and he can feel the tension in her shoulders, the apprehension in her spine.

“Are you alright?” he asks. She shrugs. Her face falls into a confused sort of frown. She stops brushing and looks down at her hands, unsure of what to do with them.

“Are you going out today or staying in?” she asks.

“Probably staying in. At least until it's over,” he says. She nods.

Outside the window the city is caught in morning gridlock. Cars snarl in the hot September air, spitting fumes out at the masses of pedestrians that weave between them. He has not been to the window to see, but he can imagine the same tension that is in her shoulders gripping the city, preparing to tighten and immobilize it.

“I hate watching the clock like this, waiting for it to happen,” she says with a sigh. He plucks another feather, twirls it between his fingers and then sits up.

“You'd rather be blissfully ignorant?” he asks.

“I'd rather go back to how thing were before it all happened,” she says.

“Blissfully ignorant,” he says.

“That was so long ago I don't remember what it was like,” she says.

“All you did was sit around with wings you never used singing songs you didn't believe,” he says.

She is about to speak as the clock strikes 8:45. In unison, the city's ten thousand church bells ring once, sending a deep shudder through the streets that echoes in every alley and every foundation.

The population stops in its tracks, the tension clamping down on every leg, every lung, pressing down on every shoulder. It is the Anniversary of the day the tallest buildings in the city tumbled down. It is the Anniversary of the day the angels started to lose their feathers.

She sits rigidly on the bed, staring out the window, waiting for a breath of movement in the stifling stillness of the city. He picks at his nails. Finally he sighs and plucks out one of her last two feathers.

“What are you doing?” she hisses.

“What?” he asks innocently.

“We're supposed to stay still,” she says.

He shrugs. “And you're supposed to stay quiet.” She glares at him. He rolls his eyes and walks over to the window. He pulls the blinds up, jerks the window open and leans his head out the window.

“Hey you all down there,” he shouts, “You're dead already, you just don't know it yet.” He pulls his head back in and turns around. She is staring at him, shocked and speechless. She opens her mouth but does not know whether to speak or scream. He walks back across the room and lays down beside her on the bed. He pulls out the last of her feathers.

“How in hell did you just do that?” she asks, her voice trembling between terror, hatred and fascination.

“You're like all of them, above and below. You're immobilized by your fear. You traded in your wings for this stillness and it killed you. You just don't know it yet. I'm too angry to be held down by that sort of fear, too angry at everyone else for falling into it.”

“You're a monster,” she says.

“And you wish you could be one,” he says. She looks down at him and then stands up without saying a word. She walks across the room and slams the door behind her as she leaves. He lays back in the bed with the very last of her feathers resting on his chest.

She walks back through the city to her own apartment. She packs only what she can carry and puts a note and a check on the kitchen counter for the landlord. She walks out into the September sun, past the frozen mobs, past the rumbling, idle cars and buses. She walks to the river and, when the city timidly starts to move again, takes a ferry to the other side, leaving behind the island fortress of skyscrapers.

On the mainland, she finds a bus station and buys a one-way ticket. She decides to head south, where the air is warmer, where things move slower and where people revel in their fear of God, death and change.

* * * * *

He does not watch her go but can imagine her storming through the silent streets, propelled by her anger. He picks up the last of her feathers off his chest and says to himself: “She loves me.” He smiles and rolls over, away from the window.

God might, but he does not blame her for being afraid, for being angry or for walking out on him. “She is,” he says to himself, looking at the pile of discarded feathers on his bed, “only human.”

- Kid

30_A True Story

The other day, actually the past two weeks or so, I was in a bit of a slump.  I blame the heat for the most part, but it just happened to be the kind of day that I was content to not even get dressed and instead just order take out while watching Netflix shows that I don't even care much about.

It happens.

So, to get out of it, on Wednesday, I decided to play a game with myself.  I started listing all of the interesting things that have happened in my life.  My thought was that if I'm the kind of person who would lay around in bed all day doing fokol (yes, this is a post about South Africa, so we're getting right in to it), it would be a short list.  It was not.  It was rather extensive and rather, well, interesting.  I was kind of impressed with myself.

It lead me to realize that I haven't talked much about South Africa in specific terms.  I mostly talk in general terms to customers on the other side of the bar.  "Hey Pete, how was South Africa?  What's it like?" "Well...[launches in to a fairly standard speech about the political/social issues]."  But I don't talk much about what I did.  In the interest of explaining how interesting I am, here is the story of (simultaneously) one of the coolest and worst jobs I ever had.

(A disclaimer:  I'm feeling long-winded tonight and I figure I owe you something on the longer side after my summer vacation.)

The Time I was a Driver for a Liquor Store in South Africa

I've mentioned this fact before, but like most of what happened in SA, not in detail.  It was something of a passing curiosity and I think the reason I never talked too much about it was because I chalked it down to the long list of odd jobs I've had.  Food service, retail, whatever category being a carny falls into and lots of others, I've had a lot of interesting jobs.  So I think I glossed over it.

29_The April Challenge: Day 33: Small Victories

Tomorrow I run my first half marathon.  To explain how weird of a feeling this is, I have to go way back.  In December, before running my first ever race, I felt like I used to feel when competing.  It was that laying awake at night, trying to calm down feeling, the anxiety bubbling up no matter how much I'd trained or how prepared I felt.  And I used the word anxiety, not panic, because anxiety works both ways.  It can freak you out, and it can make you want something more.  People forget that, this day and age.

Still I have to go back way further than December.  Three years ago, almost to the day, I was graduating from college, the realization that I had nowhere to go in life about twelve hours away from crashing down on me.  Two years ago, I was in South Africa, a four month old puppy in hand and nine months of trying to hold a crumbling relationship together ahead of me.  A year ago, I was back in the States, the idea that I needed to do something to improve myself floating vaguely through my head.

So here I am, trying to calm down, realizing that all of my disappointments with myself this past month - still too much drinking (despite a considerable cut back), not enough running, etc - pale in comparison to the past.  Have I really reached my goal this month?  No.  But what I've come to realize is that I can't call myself any sort of failure.  I plan on keeping this up.  I don't plan on stopping after this one month.  Every pound I've lost, every one I will lose, is another small victory for myself.

And apparently people are noticing too.  Which is cool.

Day 33 Stats:
Weight:  167 lbs
BMI:  27.0
Fat %:  21.0

Not As Embarrassing No-Shirt "After" Photo:


Current Crossfit Rating:


Wish me luck!

- Kid

28_The April Challenge (Day 2)

I was going to post this yesterday, but then you jokers would have assumed that it was an April Fool's prank and I assure you, it is not.

This month (well, a little more than a month actually.  From now until the Frederick Half Marathon on May 5th), I'm embarking on a fitness challenge including daily exercise, lots of running, a lower fat, low dairy, high protein diet and absolutely no booze.  I started back at the gym today and boy was it a doozey.  Thing is though, no matter how hard you push yourself, it's still a lot easier when you're not hungover.

So, some baseline stats:
Weight:  172 lbs.
BMI:  27.7
Fat %:  21.4

Embarrassing No Shirt "Before" Picture:



Current Crossfit rating:


Weekly updates to come.

Wish me luck!  Or, ya know, you could also do this and then we can complain about it together.  Either one.

- Kid

27_An Excerpt

The other week, I read at the Seltzer Zine's monthly reading series, hosted by Midtown Barbecue and Brew.  (Still the Yachtclub in my mind).  The first time I read with them, I forgot that you're only supposed to read for a few minutes and got politely cut off.  So, this time around, I decided to read something much shorter, much more to the point.  The following excerpt is an even longer version of what I read, reflecting on the progress I've made since.  For now, the piece is untitled, but divided into three parts, which explains the ridiculous title you see immediately below:

Part 2 (So Far)

Overcome by the crushing desire to escape the clutter and wreck of another wasted day, Bond asks Pratt to wake her up early on his way to work. He nudges her awake on his way out of the shower, water dripping on to her shoulder from his hair. She rubs the drops in to her skin and pulls the sheets around her as she stands. Pratt leads the way into the kitchen where the smell of breakfast cooking reminds Bond that this is the way that things begin. She falls into a chair at the kitchen table and smiles as she refuses a plate of bacon and eggs. It is enough for her to be awake with the entire day in front of her, marveling at the strange way that morning light is discernible from that of the afternoon. She looks away from the small kitchen window to Pratt. They lock eyes over their coffee mugs. For all the tenderness of Pratt's smile, the messy comfort of his hair and the stubble on his chin, all that Bond can see inside his eyes are closed doors. He finishes his coffee, dumps the breakfast plates in the sink, kisses Bond on the cheek and leaves.

Bond listens for the door to close and then walks into the unused second bedroom. She turns the blinds until the room is filled with the soft mid-March morning light. She drops the sheet to her ankles and crosses her arms in front of her breasts. She walks into the bedroom, removes the full-length mirror from its hook and places it against a wall in the empty room. There, naked in the prospect of another day, she feels like the skin she sees in the mirror is not a reflection of her, but rather a simple portrait of a blank canvass, waiting to be filled in. It is a study of plainness; that smoothness of clear skin she left behind with Eastern.

Now image upon image floods through her head. She sees dancing skeletons and vibrant flowers. She sees bold oceans and brilliant skies. Tigers bare their teeth at her. She smiles to herself at them. Vivid as they are, none of them seem real.

Finally she remembers the looming darkness of the windows in Eastern's office, looking out on nothing but a tangled wall of vegetation separating them from a darker unknown. She sees herself in the rooms of his house as a bird caged, always looking up and out at a world so much larger than herself, forbidden to enter in to it for fear of being swallowed by it. An image comes to her mind that finally feels solid.

Looking at her figure, its emptiness filled only by the pale freckles beneath her eyes, a mole on her

ribcage and the soft shadows where her limbs curve around themselves, she knows how she will start her day. She wants her body to feel real, without only her shadow to prove to the sun that it is.

She showers and dresses hurriedly and steps out into the warm, damp morning. Her feet, energetic, excited and over-caffeinated, carry her towards the waterfront. Only blocks away from Pratt's apartment, close to the harbor, sits a green-roofed tattoo parlor.

Bond steps inside and breathes deep, taking in for the first time the heady, anti-septic smell of soap and balm hiding raw skin and blood. There is the subtle static of loud music turned down low and the steady chatter of the needles in the background, like the voices of old friends whispering secrets to each other behind drawn curtains.

Behind the counter, a bearded man with his hands held in front of himself watches her.

“I need a tattoo,” she says.

“You're in the right place. I'm Reed. Do you know what you want or have a picture of anything you'd like?”

“I just escaped from something. So I would like something to reflect that.”

“How about a bird in flight?”

“How about an empty cage?”

“Interesting,” Reed says, picking up a pencil and a piece of paper, “You're not focused on the entrapped escaping, but rather the jail that is left behind.” He starts to draw and does not see the blush on Bond's face bring out the green of her eyes. She is silent, unsure of how to voice her approval. He asks her where she wants it and she points to her shoulder blade. He turns her around to measure a piece of paper on her back.

“Sorry,” he tells her, “I like to analyze people's tattoos too much sometimes. Most people ignore me, but it bothers some.”

“I don't mind at all,” Bond says, knowing for certain that she is in the right place.

As Reed draws the transfer sketch, Bond asks her questions, feeling foolish in her excitement, like a schoolgirl again. Reed answers patiently, if a little bored, the way that people get when they have to explain the most basic aspects of a skill they've mastered.

“It's OK if you're nervous,” Reed says, now sitting in his booth, pulling on rubber gloves and removing the needles from their packaging. “You're about to permanently alter your skin. If you weren't nervous about that, I'd say you weren't thinking about it hard enough.”

Bond considers this, takes a deep breath and steels herself, determined not to let herself down. She takes off her shirt, pulls her bra strap down and sits with her back to Reed. As the needle vibrates to life, she looks to her side to the mirror hanging on the wall of Reed's booth, but she cannot see him fully. She only sees his hands and the tattoo gun lowering towards her.

As the tattoo gun chatters into Bond's skin, she tells him the beginnings of her story, her words chopped up into quick phrases, the pressure of the line work acting as punctuation.

“His name is Eastern,” she says, her face twisting into the sneer reserved for parents, teachers or lovers who do not understand. Reed, concentrating, does not ask which he is.

“This is the whole reason I finally left,” Bond says, nodding to where Reed is busy with the bird cage, “and the first one I get is about him. I think that's funny, I guess.”

As Reed finishes and cleans her shoulder blade, Bond comforts herself against the pain. The raw, burning feeling, she tells herself, means that that part of her body, at least, is very real.

26_A Gentleman's Guide to Tattoos

The other day, a friend of mine was telling me about a time a few weeks ago when she was waiting for an elevator with another woman and a man.  When the elevator came, the man held the door for the two of them, pressed the buttons for them once inside and held the door on the way out.  She was impressed by how gentlemanly the man acted.  That lead me to think of matters of etiquette and outdated they are.  A few years back, my dad bought me and my brothers a book called "How to be a Gentleman" for Christmas.  It is a nice book, but it deals mostly with dinner parties and high society.

Now I do not know a lot about proper etiquette, but there is one area that I do know about:  tattoos.  And so, I offer to you:

The Gentleman's Guide to Tattoos

For Those Who Do Not Have Tattoos:

- A gentleman never asks to see someone else's tattoos unless he is genuinely interested in viewing the artwork.

- A gentleman never asks to read the writing on a woman's tattoos.

- A gentleman never asks to see a tattoo simply as a pickup line, and he certainly does not ask to see a tattoo as a means of making a woman expose herself.

- If a gentleman is interested in the meaning behind a tattoo or the reason for getting the tattoo, the gentleman first asks if there is a reason.  If the answer is no, the gentleman drops the subject.  If the answer is yes, the gentleman waits for the tattooed party to offer their story.  If the story is not offered, the gentleman does not pry.

- A gentleman does his best not to ask questions that he probably already knows the answer to.  For example, he does not ask someone "Don't tattoos hurt?", knowing full well that anything that involves needles probably hurts.

- A gentleman never judges another by the quantity or quality of another's tattoos.  Although, if someone is prominently displaying tattoos that contain racist, homophobic or profane images, the gentleman would probably do best to avoid their company.

- A gentleman does not rant on over the reasons that he does not have a tattoo.

When Getting a Tattoo:

- A gentleman is discerning about where he goes for his tattoos and makes sure that the shop is well-organized and follows the appropriate steps to ensure the safety of its clients.

- No matter how many tattoos the gentleman plans on getting, he starts small to ensure that he can actually stand the tattooing process.

- A gentleman understands that the more reference materials he brings, the more say he has in the artwork.  If he does not have any reference materials, but just a vague idea of what he wants, he understands that it is in the hands of the artist.
- A gentleman understands that the artist knows better than he does in terms of placement, size and content.  If the artist suggests something different than what the gentleman had in mind, he does not argue, but rather works on a fair compromise.

- A gentleman does not get tattoos that have racist or homophobic meanings and he only gets tattoos with profanity or nudity when there is clear artistic merit, such as a faithful reproduction of a famous piece of art.

- A gentleman is extremely reluctant to get someone else's name tattooed on his body, unless he is related to that person by blood, married to them or is memorializing that person.
- A gentleman does not jeopardize his job prospects or his career with the placement of a tattoo and, should his job require it, he is happy to cover them at all times.  If the gentleman is not happy with those restrictions, he does not complain or try and force the issue.  Instead he looks for a different job.

- A gentleman always tips his tattoo artist, the standard rate being about 20%, especially if the gentleman wishes to maintain a relationship with that artist.

- A gentleman may give a personal gift to his artist as a tip (such as a bottle of wine instead of cash), but only with the following conditions:  the artist owns their own shop or works out of a private studio; and never before the second session, or without a prior agreement having been made.

For Those With Tattoos:

- A gentleman never exposes himself in public to show off a tattoo.

- A gentleman never shows his tattoos to someone who has not expressed interest in them.

- A gentleman never brags about how long he sat for his tattoos or how well he handled the pain.

- If a gentleman is asked about the reasons for his tattoos and he does not wish to tell the interested party, he is polite in his dismissal:  "There is a reason, but I don't want to talk about it right now."

- A gentleman never criticizes the quality of another's tattoos.  If the tattooed party admits that it was a mistake ("I shouldn't have gotten this tramp stamp, but I was young and stupid.") then the gentleman may offer his own artist or shop to fix or cover up the offending tattoo, but he does not bring the subject up again.

- If someone expresses interest in the gentleman's tattoos, he may give out the name of his shop and artist, but only if that artist is currently taking on new work.

- Kid

25_A Bit of Humor: The Politics of Cats and Dogs

I'm surprised something like this hasn't already popped up on my Facebook newsfeed.  It's possible that it did, but I simply ignored it or overlooked it because there wasn't a cute picture accompanying it.

I started to think about the two most popular things that do happen to pop up on my Facebook newsfeed:  political rants and funny/cute pictures involving cats and dogs.  That got me thinking:  "if cats and dogs had politics, which would be the democrat and which would be the republican?"  After about ten seconds of thought, it was clear that the cat would be on the side of the GOP and the dog would be barking "Yes we can" over and over again.

I share with you my findings below to illustrate how that would be:

Appearance:
Dogs:  Come in all shapes and sizes from a multiplicity of different breeds and different socio-economic backgrounds.
Cats:  Much more uniform, except for color and length of hair.  Black ones are the subject of much superstition.

Work Ethic:
Dogs:  Eager to get things done, but usually end up chasing their own tails.
Cats:  Once in the house, they're really not big fans of accomplishing much of anything.

The War on Drugs:
Dogs:  Love the grass, man.
Cats:  Don't even care for catnip.

Immigration:
Dogs:  Welcome everyone in, including criminals, sometimes.
Cats:  Extremely wary of any visitor from the outside.

Entitlements:
Dogs:  Try to give you gifts, even when that just creates more of a mess.
Cats:  Have their place on the down comforter and don't care where or how well you sleep.

The Economy:
Dogs:  BIG fans of the auto industry.  (Especially the people who make the windows go down.)
Cats:  Tend to exploit people for their personal comfort.

Gay Rights:
Dogs:  Believe all should be able to hump all.
Cats:  Not even comfortable with petting, sometimes.

The War on Terror/Foreign Policy:
Dogs:  Can bark the bark, but rarely bite the bite.
Cats:  BIG fans of going out into the world and acting aggressive towards the locals.

Gun Control:
Dogs:  Always willing to bring gun victims to the attention of gun owners.
Cats:  LOVE hunting.

Compromise:
Dogs:  Willing to eat whatever the cat spits out.
Cat:  Don't understand why we need the dog in the first place.

Working With Each Other:
Dogs:  "Maybe that cat will be my friend!"
Cat:  *Hits dog on the nose*
- 5 minutes later -
Dogs:  "Maybe that cat will be my friend!"
Cat:  *Hits dog on the nose*
(ad infinitum)

So there you have it.  I'm sorry to my staunchly Democratic parents, but it looks like you've been shacked up with two hardcore right wingers all this time.  Next time maybe get a poodle.

Join me next time on A Bit of Humore, where we discuss the extreme Libertarian leanings of the honey badger.

- Kid

24_Beneath The Fire: An Original Story

After a very fruitful discussion about writing with a good friend of mine tonight, I decided it was time to post a story.  This one in particular I feel is timely as some of my favorite bands are either in the middle of their farewell tours, or on indefinite hiatus, most likely never to return.  Please enjoy:

Beneath The Fire

I remember telling Allan: “This isn't a band, it's merchandise with a soundtrack.” He laughed and agreed and ordered us another round. We were standing at the back of the Ottobar, waiting for the opening sets to finish. The first band, a local act that was filling in for the last two shows of our tour, was good, but unrefined. They were all fire and passion and loud noise with no structure beneath it. They relied too much on gimmicks, but then again, we did too, when we were younger.

Even as I say this, I feel like my voice is cracking, but I need to say it. Even if it sounds hollow, I need to say it.

It was still early, but the crowd was beginning to fill out. It was a mix of everyone who had ever heard our music, from young and excited to old and jaded. I recognized a couple that I'd met on one of our very first East Coast tours. They had a child with them. I pointed this out to Allan.

“If we keep going, we'll have an entirely new fan base in ten years,” he said. We laughed, but it wasn't funny.

“Let's get backstage,” I said. We moved slowly through the crowd, taking our time, pausing to listen to a few more songs. The band on stage played their last song and for that song at least, they sounded truly together. If they'd played like that all night, they would have impressed me.

As the band left the stage, the crowd began to shift around and I felt their attention turn to us. A teenage girl who couldn't have been older than fifteen, bopped over to meet us. She stood in front of us for a second, silent and smiling.

“I'm Jack,” I said when it was clear hat she was too shell-shocked to speak, “and this is Allan.”

“I know! My name's Kelly and I've been looking forward to meeting you for so long,” she blurted out.

“It's nice to meet you too, Kelly,” Allan said. She turned to him and started to give the normal excited fan speech; how she has all our albums, how she waited outside all day to get in first, how she wants our autographs. I felt the energy in her voice, but that didn't have an affect on me any more.

As Allan and Kelly talked small, I looked up at the couple with the kid. The man nodded to me and I waved back. He said something to his wife and she waved too. He had a look on his face and I knew they wouldn't come over and say hello. In their smiles I saw a tiredness that was verging on bitterness. They weren't here just to listen to our show or see us perform, they were here to act as witnesses to our final moments as a band. They wanted finality. They would only be convinced that we were done once we played our hearts out and left them dying on the stage to be swept up with the rest of the dusty, cluttered remains of a dead show. I'd seen that look before, a hundred times on your face as you looked at me and your eyes begged me to convince you that what we had was finally real and would continue after we went our separate ways.

In Kelly I saw nothing but dumb, wasted sincerity. She suddenly seemed repulsive.

I waved back to the couple and grabbed Allan by the arm.

“Kelly, it was lovely meeting you, but we have to go backstage. Enjoy the show,” I said, pulling Allan with me.

“Are you OK?” Allan asked.

“I'm fine. Just got reminded of something I didn't want to think about.”

Allan nodded and kept quiet. These days, there's so much that him and I don't want to be reminded of. We headed back stage to get our shit together.

* * * * *

23_I Met The Internet

This past Brunchday (Sunday for the rest of you, but once you start working the 10 - 6 brunch shift, brunch just takes over), I had dinner with Kristen.  Visiting the vibrant locales south of Baltimore for work, she found a day off and made the trip up from Jessup, where the government contracting sprawl begins it's long, business park stretch down to the capital, to Baltimore proper, where we have mimosas.

It was a nice visit.  We went to one of my favorite local spots and shared a delightful bottle of California zin.  We caught up and talked about the fascinating way that virtual reality commerce has monetized itself in to an actual industry - so much so that Blizzard Entertainment built a marketplace feature in to their latest release, Diablo 3.  We had some amazing mac n cheese.  The Ravens won a very, very sloppy win.  (I'm not a football fan but FOURTH AND 29?)

All in all, it was a wonderful way to unwind from the torture of a long, drawn-out and relatively slow brunch shift.  It was remarkable only for the fact  that even though Kristen and I have known each other for well over five years, this was the first time we'd ever met.

Kristen is the first of my internet friends that I've ever actually met in real life.  I'm not bothered by the fact that I have internet-exclusive friends who I've never met. In fact, quite the opposite is true.  What if I meet one of them and they turn out to be complete bores, or insufferably annoying?  What if they get drunk off of expensive wine, are rude to the waiter and leave me with the bill?  What if the internet is the only place they have any personality?

Of course, seeing Kristen was nothing but pleasant, to the point where I would have been happy to order another bottle of wine and continue discussing the blurred lines between virtual reality and actually reality.  After all, that is what we were doing; a fact not so much hanging over our heads, but sitting in the back of my mind as an interesting point, a breaking of some sort of virtual fourth wall.  Amidst discussing our friends by their internet handles and not by their real names, were we to bring it up, we probably would have just laughed.

Upon recounting the story to a friend of mine, she looked, if not aghast, at least shocked that Kristen and I had never met before.  I shrugged it off and carried on, not wanting to interrupt the flow of my current train of thought to explain the length of time I've known Kristen and recite the standard criteria for considering yourself truly friends with someone; discussing exes, having deep conversations, having silly conversations, and all the other things that friends do when they begin to see themselves as such.

Perhaps I am a product of my generation, but it has never really occurred to me that having internet-exclusive friends is a strange thing.  Now that Facebook and social media has stripped away much of the danger, allowing us to double-check how "real" our friends are depending on how many pictures they have, the quality of their status updates, etc, I certainly advocate it.  After all, we spend an exorbitant amount of time contacting each other electronically anyway.

But I have always been one to blur the lines when it comes to traditional views on relationships.  Rigidity never interested me and why it would interest others is beyond me.

And that California zin really was great.

- Kid

22_Intelligence Is Sexy: Part 1: The Startening

NOTE:  This post was written Friday morning.  Being on vacation for a few days rocks, but not in terms of updating the blog accordingly.

I have to say that I'm feeling fairly stereotypical today. Sporting a Travis Bickle mohawk, I'm sitting in a diner in Pottstown, Pennsylvania waiting for a tattoo appointment. I understand that I'm not nearly punk enough to call myself as such, but for the God-fearing, camo-jacket wearing denizens of this particular wood-paneled, egg-slinging establishment, I might as well be Sid Vicious's ghost come back to haunt them with my inability to play the bass guitar.

However, a thought occurred to me. Shortly after writing this, I intend on jumping on the HuffPo or finding a newspaper and reading about some current events. Does that make me punk? It's true that the punk movement cannot be separated from strong political leanings. Not that the Sex Pistols were paragons of political awareness, but it has been a long standing staple of punk music that you must know at least enough about politics to be pissed off about it.

In that sense, many, many (too many) Americans are punk. Too many Americans know only enough to be pissed off (thanks a lot, Fox news), but far too few know enough to in any way turn that anger into anything that could be useful. It's enough, I suppose to scream and shout and get it off your chest. It's not useful when that screaming and shouting and getting it off your chest turns in to an actual political movement that has divorced itself of facts, reasoning, logic or understanding of the current political climate and instead focuses on a ridiculous feeling of victimization somehow felt by many, many white Christians (translation: the largest demographic in the country) that stems from the fact that they have to pay taxes like everyone else.

And here's where intelligence comes in to it. Because, I believe in this day and age, if you want to be a punk in the rebellious sort of sense, the best thing you can do is to become intelligent. And not just “Hey man, I read this one article one time about how much a bomb costs and now I'm a military bureaucracy hating anarchopunk freegan with horrible, horrible white-boy dreadlocks!” sort of bettering yourself. I mean reading lots about lots.

For instance, did you know that Thomas Paine himself was all for Social Security, public schools and Medicare? Ya know, those things that the standard Tea Party member would burst a few veins getting upset about. And the real problem isn't that they're being told an endless, factually desolate narrative by Fox news and Drudge report, the real problem is that they simply don't know. Honestly, how many people have ever really read “Common Sense”? Or can name another one of Paine's works? I can't, but that's my point, isn't it? Here I am using it against the Tea Party when I don't really know much about it myself. And that, folks, is not Sexy.

And so I'm starting a new segment: Intelligence Is Sexy. Now, there are limits to this. It's not like we"re going to learn quantum physics (or even anything approaching Pre-Calc). We can, however, try our best to learn at least one valuable, proven, intelligent thing in a time period of a week or so. That's where you all come in. I am now accepting ideas for areas that we should all brush up on. Obviously we're not going to be able to read Bolano's 2666, nor are we going to become world-class horticulturists in one week, but we can at least start.

So now it begins: Tell me things I need to find out about and let's do it together. If we can't, we'll say why. Because, it's not necessarily about knowing that much, but also about being able to find out, should we need to.

And by the way, this diner, the Ice House, does a surprisingly excellent Eggs Benedict. If you ever find yourself here in Pottstown and need breakfast, come here.  And they also make their own donuts which, I'm not a guy with a sweet tooth but HOLY GOD they are GOOD.  Like, worth a trip good.

- Kid

21_Losing It

As part of the Fall of Awesome, my monthly goal in this, the tenth month of the year, is to lose ten pounds.  That seems entirely realistic, which means that I am going to, very unrealistically, aim to lose more.  Because I can be an over-achiever when I want to be.

So far I've lost one pound.  Winning.

And regardless of the marginal loss, I do feel lighter.  I know that there have been varying reports on whether exercise actually improves your mental health (most sources say yes, Vice magazine says no, so in my sphere of influence, this is a hotly contested debate), but it's certainly helped me.  The Orioles still being in the series also helps.

There's something about the chill in the air as well.  The temperature in Baltimore at the end of October tend to represent the coldest it ever gets in South Africa.   Yes, it can snow there, but it is rare (you should have seen my facebook feed when it snowed in Johannesburg earlier this year) and the temperatures don't stay cold for long.  But here, once that October breeze starts to blow, you can kiss your air conditioning goodbye, because it's not going to be needed again for at least six months.

It's a reminder that I am here, not there.  That that was before, not now.  It's another reason I feel lighter.  That happened, and I helped it happen, but it is in the past now for me to look back on, think on, and hopefully gain something from, but it is, primarily, in the past.

Now I can concentrate on my new love:  a new writing project involving dissent against a military bureaucracy that aims to take control of all facets of American life, a doomed love affair and, of course, robots using car batteries to get high.  Duh.

- Kid

20_Wish Me Luck

Tonight, I embark on an epic adventure.  Sure, I'm only physically traveling to Station North, but that's not the point.  The point is that I'm going Off the Map in terms of things I've ever done before.  New bar?  No.  Strip club?  God no.  Something that doesn't involve alcohol on a Saturday night off?  Now you're just being silly.

I'm going to pitch a rock opera.

Now, I've written lots of music in my life time (some of it alright, even) and I've written lots of stories before, but I've never written a play, much less a rock opera.  Epic journey to uncharted territory indeed.

Tonight I'm off to the Baltimore Rock Opera Society's Pitch Party the Second.  While my initial pitch did not actually make it in to the round that will be judged at the party itself, I have been assured by the heads of the BROS that it won't be hard to find interested people at said party.

So off I go with little to no experience in the intended medium, to act like I know what I'm doing to people I've never even laid eyes on before, armed only with my own confidence and the fact that once I pay $10 at the door, the promise free beer.  Sounds like an epic quest to me.

Too bad I don't have a giant cardboard battleaxe or a viking helmet or something.  They love that kinda shit.

- Kid

19_Fall of Awesome

Hey!  Lady Trivia!  Are you watching this?  I'm blogging about you!  Yeah!  You!

We win.

So what's the title about anyway?  What is the Fall of Awesome?  This is!  And you can be a part of it too.  Yesterday, I woke up to the most pleasant surprise I've had in a good few weeks:  when I walked outside, I was not instantly hot.  After this summer, that was a wonderful thing.

So this fall, I've decided, will be the Fall of Awesome.  Every day I'm going to do one thing that I think is Awesome.  This could be running before work or doing laundry, or it could be catching up with an old friend I haven't seen or talked to in a while.

Which is sorta what I'm doing now.  Except Lady Trivia is busy blogging about me blogging about her, so we're not doing a lot of catching up at the moment.  So stop reading this and talk to me, dammit!

- Kid

18_Super Lyrics Time! (Part 1: The Fourth Wall)

These are some lyrics I wrote years ago for a song called "The Fourth Wall", which was part of a concept album I was working on:

"Your voice is fading
Drying like the ink that's on this page
As your memory bends at the corners
And doubles over
Into the double space"

They're pretty damn good, but the music never was.  The melody was cute, but it was a shameless attempt to copy Deathcab's Tiny Vessels.  (Still one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard, and worth trying to imitate, so give me some credit.)

I'm saying this because for a long time tonight, I stared at this page, writer's block consuming me.  (NOTE: You have to understand, the reason writers are so good at conveying emotion is because writer's block is the same problem that many non-writers have:  the inability to truly understand what it is you are really trying to say.  People do it every day, they sit and get angry or frustrated not because of something someone else has done, but because they don't know how to really put in to words what they are feeling.  Even if that something is a good thing.  Us writers, however, are used to it.  We're practiced at not having any idea of how to put into words what we are feeling.  So we are also practiced at breaking through those blocks.  Take that, world.)

And so, it took me a while to break through, until I remembered a conversation I had earlier tonight with one of my South African friends.  He broke up with his girlfriend (another close friend of mine down there) two months ago.  And I just found out about it tonight.

Faded voices.  Memories doubling over into the double space of long-distance communication.

That is how most of my information has come to me these days.  If not second-hand, than over the phone, or over the internet.  Rarely in person, rarely in a timely fashion.  My best friends have become voices on a phone, random oddly timed facebook chats, status updates and emoticon ridden texts.

I suppose it would be fine if it was good news, because there is no distance too great to stop good news from being awesome.  But bad news?  Quite the opposite.  Any distance, even arm's length, seems too great.

Strange that it seems like all the lyrics I wrote four years ago come back now to be relevant.  Maybe I was smarter back then.

- Kid

17_Give It Up Boy

I'm not one to get violent.  I'm not one to lose my cool.  I have before, many times, to my detriment and I learned that losing your cool is not conducive to anything, really.  I learned this in middle school and I've been pretty chill ever since.

So, having definitively realized that over $600 has been stolen from me this past Monday, I have been impressed with my temperament.  Not gonna lie.  Because all sorts of thoughts have crossed my mind.

But that's Baltimore.  We live in a city of disappointment, a city of devastation, a city of hoping for a better tomorrow that may or may not come.  We live in a city of anger.  As I work on my novel, I can't help but think about this fact.  We live in a city trapped in a cycle of anger, a city continuously wrapping itself around its worst parts.  A city unable to look past McCullough and Preston, Butcher's Hill,  Bel Air Eddison.  And those who I hate the most, those who could possibly drive me to violence, are those who fled a long time ago, sharing strange, tacit nods with each other as they understood the need to move North, as, a block South, a black family moved in.

The people who fled.

The people whose offspring flood the city now, but only on the weekends and only in certain neighborhoods.  Because you can't go anywhere else.  It's too dangerous.

And those in the county wonder why a person like my housemate would think it OK to rob me.  They don't want to admit that they did it first, robbing the city of any chance.  They don't want to admit that the anger started with them.

That's when I get violent, these days, when I think like this.  When I really look and see the ruin of this city and how it could become great, were only people to care about it anymore.  And although it's an old song but a good one, I can't help but love Straylight Run's "Hands In The Sky (Big Shot)" in times like these.  It encompasses it all.  The anger, the violence and, most importantly, the obviousness of the problem:  "Tear it out of these open pages" indeed.  It's all there, written clearly on the streets for anyone to read.

- Kid

16_Lifting Weights

Mark your calendars:  Thursday, July 26th, 2012 was the day that I, Kid Brother, signed up for a gym.  I've been involved in the Glitterati's cardio challenge this past week and a half and joining the gym seemed a good way to keep myself on track.  Plus, when you spend $70 ever thirty days on something, you tend to want to use it.

So the past few days I've been gyming hard, lifting weights and running on treadmills and such, trying to undo some of the damage I've done to myself over the past few years of relative inactivity.

And it feels great.  Well.  Sorta.  My legs and my lower back disagree with that statement, but I, in general, feel awesome.  At least I feel like I'm doing something.  Which is a big help.

And hey, if this schedule of willing myself out of bed at 9am continues, I might even find time during the day to get some writing done.  And that would be magnificent.

- Kid

15_Chronic City: Baltimore Edition

I just finished reading Johnathan Lethem's Chronic City and the timing couldn't have been more appropriate.  You see, in that book, among the various other happenings in Manhattan is The Tiger, a mythical beast that destroys buildings in the city seemingly at random.  As the story progresses, the buildings destroyed by the Tiger begin to directly effect the characters.

It seems like something out of a work of fiction, right?

I give you Light Street, just a block north of the Harbor.  A water mane burst yesterday, flooding all the important streets Downtown and making travel through the city almost impossible.  So was it just an accident, a random happenstance, or has the Tiger migrated South to Charm City?  We shall see...

- Kid