Wee, At Least One Person Likes Me! (Also, Monument Part 1)

Well balls, forgot to post yesterday.  Means we gonna have two posts today!  Seriously this time.  Gaahhh.  My life. (EDIT: Guess not.  Oop.)  Yeah, Story Week stuff happened on monday and tuesday, which I'll write about in a bit, (reminder to self, tuesday is when I worked as a volunteer) but that's not what's currently taking my attention.  ...If you studied Fiction at Columbia College, you'll get the joke.  It probably still won't be funny, but you'll get it.

So during Story Week, I realized I wasn't exactly used to doing stuff outside my apartment other than class every day.  My energy would dwindle around mid-day and I went into crazy-deep sleep-debt (that I'm still paying off).  I also had trouble getting up, and after the first couple days, I'd show up to events some 10+ minutes late in the name of "I will die if I don't sleep in just these next few minutes".  This turned out to be kind of a kick in my own teeth.

Wednesday was more or less "Playwriting Day".  There were readings of student plays in the morning and a panel with playwrights later on.  I was running a bit late to the readings, by about ten minutes, and I ran into a couple volunteers outside the room, the people who give you the surveys and programs and stuff.  I knew them from volunteering at an earlier event, something something here's how the exchange went, more or less:

Not-Head-Volunteer: Hey, are you here to volunteer?

Me: Uhh...

Head Volunteer: Oh wait, you're in the event, aren't you?

Me: Uhh...? [pause] I don't...

Not-Head-Volunteer: You're reading, aren't you?

Me: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... [flopsweat]

Head Volunteer: Why is this confusing?

Not-Head-Volunteer: Oh!  You must not know.

Me: Not know what?

At this point, the not-head volunteer pulls out a program for the event currently in session.  And there, the second entry on the program, was "A-Muse-Ment by Thomas Gumbel".  Jaw was dropped, eyes were wide, shit was flipped.  I couldn't believe it.  I rushed as quietly as possible into the little theater and...

I'd just missed it.  Son of a poop.  Son of a great, big, festering, motherless turd.

But hey!  I had my motherfucking play featured in Story Week without even knowing it.  And apparently people liked it.  So that's pretty great.  And I've decided that it's okay, because I don't want my writing to just be for me, you know?  That's not why I write.  I mean, yeah, a big part of it's for me, something about expression and saying things I can't say as a person through the page, bla bla bla who cares, but I write because I want to tell stories.  I write because I want to amuse, inspire, tickle the fancy of every inner child that can pick up what I'm putting down.

So without further ado, here is: not that play!  No, this is a different play, called "Monument".  IT'S ABOUT MUSICIANS.  IT'S RELEVANT DAMMIT.  It's a one-act, about twenty pages, which is why I'll be posting it in pieces, tagging the next part to the end of the next few posts.  I'll be posting some other music-related fiction things too later on, so stay tuned!

Scene One:

[Lights up on a semi-furnished basement.  There are several outlets and power strips.  There’s a drum set in one corner and a couch in the other.  There is an amp between the couch and the drum set.  Bang is sitting behind the drum set.  Slap is sitting on the amp.]

 [Bang is tuning his drum set as Slap lights up a cigarette.  Bang stops playing and stares at him.  After a few seconds, Slap notices and looks at him.]

Slap: Oh, right!

[Slap is about to drop the cigarette on the floor.]

Bang: Dude!

Slap: Sorry!  Sorry! [accidentally drops the cigarette] Oh.

Bang: FUCK!  Stomp the thing, god damn you!

[Bang throws a drumstick at the still-lit cigarette, almost hitting Slap’s foot as he stomps it out.  Bang glares at Slap.]

Slap: What?

Bang: More burns.  More burns on my goddamn carpet.

Slap: Hey, first, it’s your mom’s carpet…

Bang: So silly of me!  Cool, I just have to explain the burns to my mom.

Slap: Oh, calm down. [picks up the cigarette butt] See?  They’re minor.

[Bang rolls his eyes; Slap tosses the butt away when he’s not looking.]

Bang: You’re a dick.

Slap: So you tell me.

[They laugh.  Silence.  They’re not looking at each other.]

Bang: I still don’t forgive you.

Slap: Come on man!  I’ve done it twice!

Bang: Dude.  A threesome is something you do twice.  Throwing your-

Slap: You haven’t had a threesome once.

Bang: True, but it’s coming.  On average, every man has-

Slap: I know what you’re about to say, and that’s the most bullshit statistic-

Bang: No! NO!  Liar!

Slap: Okay, okay, whatever!  You’re… destined to have a threesome, whatever.

Bang: …Really?

Slap: No, no you’re not.  But continue.

Bang: Shit like threesomes, and bungee jumping, and the Malaysian Giraffe Position-

Slap: [to himself] The Malaysian Giraffe Position?!

Bang: That is shit you do twice.  Not tossing burny things on another man’s carpet.

Slap: Fine, yeah, I’m sorry; but the Malaysian Giraffe Position?

Bang: Well, you kinda do like this Spider-Man thing- [starts to demonstrate]

Slap: No, no, forget it.  I’m – I’m suddenly terrified.

Bang: Wuss.

Slap: Deviant monster.

[Bang nods.  They promptly space out.   Silence.]

Bang: So uh…  I smell an elephant.

[Slap looks at Bang, befuddled.]

Bang: Like…in the room?

Slap: [slow realization] Ohhhhhh.  That’s actually pretty good.

Bang: You think so?
Slap: Actually, yeah.  That from something?

Bang: Nope.

Slap: Nice.  So yeah, elephant.  Elephant in the room.

[Bang gestures for him to continue.]

Slap: [takes a deep breath] I kind of want to break up.

Bang: I fucking knew it.

Slap: Please don’t take it personally, man.  I knew this is your baby, but it’s not about you.

Bang: It’s Screech, isn’t it?

Slap: [starts, hesitates, starts again] Among other things, yes.

[Bang starts to speak, but stops and puts his chin in his hands.  Slap looks away.]

Slap: Look man…  What if we just give Screech the boot?

Bang: Gee, wonder who’s gonna do that.

Slap: Dude – fine, fine, I’ll do it if you want, I barely know the guy beside the fact that I hate him, I’ll fucking fire him!

Bang: Great. [goes back to fiddling with the drum set]

Slap: What?  What is it?

Bang: Look, we lose Screech, we lose Shred.

Slap: So?  I mean, how?

Bang: Shred knows Screech.

Slap: She knows-

Bang: Did you say-?

Slap: She knows us too.

Bang: Did you say ‘so’?

Slap: …No.

Bang: You fucking did.

Slap: …So?

Bang: [levels a drumstick at Slap] Say ‘so’ one more time and I end you.

Slap: Look man.  I like Shred too, she’s cool, but she, like Screech, is replaceable.

Bang: Awesome, I’ve been playing with Josef Stalin for two years.

Slap: Stalin never had a band and you know it.

Bang: Well no shit dude.  He’s like the Axl Rose of dictators.  Definitely would’ve been a solo act.

Slap: More like the Idi Amin of rock stars.

Bang: [levels the drumstick again] Do not call Axl Rose a rock star in my presence.  He is a ginger.

Slap: Really?  Your biggest problem with him is that he’s a fire-crotch?

Bang: How do you know what his crotch looks like?

Slap: You called him a ginger, implying the carpet matches the drapes.

Bang: I implied no such thing!  You just like imagining crotches!

Slap: Do you ever think before words travel from your brain to your mouth?

Bang: You shut your mouth when you’re talking to me.

Slap: As I said-

[Without warning, Bang hits a cymbal wildly, making Slap jump.]

Bang: Enough!  We’re off-track as it is!

Slap: Which reminds me: why did you call me Stalin?

Bang: Hey man, that’s just where my brain went.

[Brief silence.]

Slap: What if Shred’s in on it?

Bang: What, it’s a conspiracy now?

Slap: No, you goon.  Here: we bring this to her, see if she’s on our side.  If so, hey, we’re only down by one.

Bang: [beat] And if she’s not?

Slap: Well…

[Silence.]

Bang: Hell no.

Slap: Dude…

Bang: I mean…  Fuck, no.  We’re not losing Shred.  Screech, fine.  I’ll give him the axe if you want.  But we’re keeping Shred.

Slap: Dude.  Re-place-a-bull.

Bang: [scoffs] Doctor Frankenstein.

Slap: Excuse me?

Bang: Geppetto!

Slap: Make sense!  Make… sense!

Bang: You’re replacing things!  Replacer! [Slap tries to interject] How do I know your family’s real,  huh?! [keeps ranting]

Slap: Okay, okay, shut up!

[Bang stops talking and glares at Slap.]

Slap: I think… you’re accusing me of cloning people.

Bang: [defiantly] Yes.

Slap: You’re insane.  You know that, right?

Bang: Look man, my point is, like Philip K. Dick taught us through his cautionary tales, you can’t replace everyone.  Not like Geppetto.  Not like Dr. Frankenstein.

Slap: I take that back.  You’re illiterate.

Bang: Bullshit I’m illiterate!  I just referenced Philip K. Dick!

Slap: Yes, very badly.  I don’t even think he wrote a story about cloning.  And what the hell do Frankenstein or Pinocchio have to do with this?

Bang: See, there ya go, it’s simple really.  They both… created life… to replace their dead sons.  …Like you.  [Slap is staring at him, slack-jawed and incredulous] See-

Slap: NO!  No, that never happened!  In either book!

Bang: What about the movies?

Slap: No.

Bang: Damn.

Slap: You didn’t read either.

Bang: I’m right about the Philip K. Dick though!  Mark my words, I’ll find the story I’m thinking of.  There will be dead sons and clones galore and I will paste it to your eyeballs so you view my validation firsthand!

Slap: Can’t I just read it?

Bang: Fine.

[Silence.]

Slap: I’ll fire Screech if you want. But-

Bang: But nothing; I don’t want you to, because I don’t want to lose Shred.

Slap: Why is this-

[Slap’s phone starts to vibrate.  He pulls it out and looks at it.]

Slap: Speak of the devil.  Wait a tic.

Bang: Wait, which devil?

[Slap gets up as he answers the phone, strolling a few feet away.]

Slap: Hello?

Bang: Which one, dude?  Hey!

Slap: What’s up, Shred?

Bang: There we go.  Was that so hard?

[Brief silence as Slap is listening to Shred.]

Slap: Oh wow.  Great, great. [beat] Yeah, we’re just tuning up here.

Bang: [“whispering” loudly] What’s she saying?

Slap: …You do?  That’s… [glances at Bang] Interesting.  Yeah, yeah, totally.

Bang: [sticks out his arm, still whispering loudly] Can I talk to her?

Slap: Yeah, no problem!  See you soon. [hangs up]

Bang: Dickbastard!

Slap: …What and why?

Bang: I asked to talk to her!

Slap: So?

[Bang tackles Slap, smacking him on the back with a drumstick.]

Slap: He’s crazy!  He’s crazy HELP MEEEE!

Bang: So?  SO?  SO?!  How’s the word sound now, Slap?!  Sososososososo-

Slap: FUUUUCCCKKK!

[Bang stops hitting Slap.]

Slap: I’m fucking sorry, okay?  I’m sorry for saying ‘so’!

Bang: …Thank you. [sits down on the amp]

Slap: [dusting himself off] I swear to God you were dropped at birth.

Bang: Well… [clears throat and looks away]

Slap: Wait, you were?

Bang: No!  I just… while I was…

[A long silence follows.  Slap stares at Bang.  A doorbell sounds.  Bang rushes to sit behind his drum set.]

Bang: Could you get that?

Slap: No dude, it’s your house!

Bang: So?  You’re closer.

Slap: So? SO?  Do I get to beat you with a drumstick now, huh?!

Bang: Get the door, Slap.

[Doorbell chimes again.]

Slap: Fine; fine! [starts walking out] God damn, you’re impossible.

[Bang watches Slap walk out.  Once he does, he starts to re-tune his drum set while whistling to himself.]

#ThatOffspringSongAboutHangovers

Here's the skinny-gritty, folks.  I have been slackin' on this here blog.  However, this week is a little something called Story Week at my school.  Kind of an Industry Week for writers, set in Chicago.  So rekindle this baby, I'm going to write a thing-a-day about various Story Week experiences, somehow tying them back to the subject I founded this blog on.  Also, putting up any other material I can think of.  So expect a couple two-a-day occasions.

I went to one yesterday, a kind of kickoff event at Buddy Guy's Legends with a reception beforehand.  I was hung over.  Piss off, it was St. Patrick's Day.  Also, I'm not the most social creature, something only made worse upon realizing that the reception was very much not for freshly-21-year-olds that aren't actually working the event.  These variables resulted in the following journal entry, written in order to have something to do with my hands:

"Here I am, back against the world.  Jesus Christ, I am out of my depth here.  I don't know where to begin, where to go, anything.  I must look crazy arrogant or psychotic or something in that general field of negativity.  I could order a drink, but I don't want a drink, not after last night.  Is that Mr. Bungle over the speakers?  Mr. Bungle in a blues club?  The hell?  I'm probably completely wrong.  So those are my options.  Order a drink, sit here and write, sit here and nothing, creepily, or try to talk to people and inevitably vomit forth my skeleton.  Brilliant idea, come with nobody.  I pick the most remote seat possible without literally sitting in the corner, and I'm still all the fuck in the way.  I'm gonna melt, I swear."

Ouch.

So that shit got me thinking about hangovers and, incidentally, the Offspring song "Worst Hangover Ever".  That above was not the worst hangover ever, not even second-worst in the history of me.  Worst wasn't even in this country.  I was Costa Rica last year, for spring break.  Second night in, my sister and I hit the town with some people we've met at our hotel.  I didn't actually get too blasted, I didn't black out or puke.  However, we had to be up the next morning, and I had to get some sleep.  So no time to reinforce the "one glass of water to every alcoholic drink" rule/best-advice-ever, just come home and flop dizzily into bed.

To this day, I'm shocked I never once yakked.  What did we have on the agenda starting early that morning?  A goddamn boat tour.  A goddamn boat tour that required like a 2-hour drive to get to, in the hot sun, 40 minutes of that being over a road bumpier than, I don't know, the bumpiest thing on the planet that isn't that road.  Seriously, you think we've got bumpy roads up in Chicago (I'm looking at you, North Avenue)?  Take every road-bump in Chicago and put it on this one goddamn shitty road and you've got a pretty clear picture.

So once again, that's:
Lots of alcohol + minimal sleep - food - water + 90-degree, sunny/muggy weather + all-day trip x stupidly bumpy road, throw in a double-shot of IBS = a solid case of Horrible.
Seriously, I don't recommend it.

Dead-Trend Friends

Well, this is probably gonna be a pretty short one, at least compared to the other posts so far, just some observations on the people I know on a more personal level in the Chicago area music scene (Chicago area I say ah say because a bunch of them are from the Summit/Stickney area, but play shows throughout Chicagoland).

Long story made short, I just recently joined a band.  They're called Lian Paranoia.  Probably about a year ago this time, a friend of mine joined these peeps as main guitarist.  I tagged along to some (a lot of) practices, went to many of their shows, became friends with them, they broke up a while later, stuff happened, I ended up joining as bassist when they got back together like three weeks ago.

I noticed recently that this band I'm now a part of, along with the other bands we're friends with, all represent a different facet of 90s-ish music, certain scenes you don't really see anymore.

Lian Paranoia, I'm not sure what to call besides "nu metal" without mashing together a bunch of terms to try to invent a genre.  Yeah it's not metal per se, but it's too heavy to be just "rock" or "alternative" (sorry, I think those terms are pretty outdated; the music world's just grown too large), and I'm personally against the term "alternative metal" existing, simply because just about every single band under that unfortunate label can be considered either nu metal or post-grunge, which are actual things.  To paint a better picture, I'd describe them (I still have trouble referring to LP as "us", as I've yet to write any material with them) as Alice Cooper meets Tool.  The theatricality, personality, subject matter, and heavy metaphor of the former with the raw emotion (thanks to our singer, Rob), heaviness, progressitivity (made up a word, deal with it), and time-changey polyrhythmic goodness of the latter.

Second band of this wee scene I befriended are a group called Short Story Inc.  They're a bit harder to define in a sense of where they fit into my bring-back-the-90s fever-vision, but they give me a distinctly out-of-time feel even if I could technically see their music thriving in today's day and age (which good God, just like the rest of the bands on here, I hope it does).  Think the thrashy skate-punk that only the 90s could properly deliver meets emo (bear with me a second here) back when it was still a type of hardcore.  And I mean REAL hardcore, not Warped-Tour-core.  Uber-personal lyrics, hard-edged yet strangely melodic guitars, heavy emphasis on vocal play.

Third would be Adisent, from Stickney.  Less hard to define but no less awesome, Adisent are a post-grunge WHERE THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING.  You will sit the fuck back down and read about my friends' bands.  Okay, they're post-grunge, but not in the way you might first think of.  They have catchy riffs instead of four-guitar-thick Howard-Bensoned power chord progressions, a tight three-piece dynamic, and, get this: good, intelligent lyrics.  Seriously, this guy sings me gravelly poetry.

Lastly and not leastly, unless by "least" you mean "youngest", we have the high-school-age heavy-hitters, Uptown Mayhem.  Pop-punk before it all sounded THE GODDAMN SAME.  Healthy blend of early, non-suck Green Day and Blink-182 with a hearty dose of All-American Rejects.

So there you have it, the Dead-Trend Friends.  Hopefully they'll read this (hmm... should probably start actually telling people about this blog), and it'll catch on and it'll be the name of an awesome tour.  Am I totally plugging the band I just joined plus the other local acts I like?  Totally.  Should you check them the fuck out?  Abso-tota-lutely.

TL;DR:
Listen to Lian Paranoia, Short Story Inc., Adisent, and Uptown Mayhem.  Like now.
Or I might cut you.

Did Linkin Park Kill Nu-Metal?

This is an entry I've been meaning to do for a while, alternately pecking at it and letting it sit because I really, really, really want to do right by what's in my head, not just write the usual drivel like "Uhhhhhh yeahhhh maannn totally, like, stuff, opinion".

But short answer: yes.  They did.

Admittedly, yeah, a lot of nu metal's either silly (Limp Bizkit) or alienating (Korn).  However, we did get some seriously legit music out of the movement, whether it be rife with hooks and poetic lyrics (SOAD and Deftones), some stuff that, despite its harshness, has an artistic and proggy color to its sallow cheeks (Mudvayne, Soulfly).  By the end of the 90s and early 2000s, we're getting some crossover; bands like Disturbed on the radio, Deftones wins a Grammy, little victories like that.  It seems like this stuff could be a lot less niche, like if more artistic minds dabbled into the grungy, oily ore that is the sound I've come to love, then it could be a more appreciated, more established... I don't know, thing.

So we come to the genre's apex, the tipping point before it could be re-upped for the next decade, it's making or breaking point, right before half the bands watered themselves down into post-grunge and the other half flat-out disappeared or stopped caring about gaining new fans.  Hybrid Theory hits it big.

I should've made an outline for this stupid article... argh.  Anyways, soldier on!

So Hybrid Theory does a couple things.  One, it does arguably give the genre a little jolt of life.  By dominating the alternative airwaves, they allowed other such bands (like some of the ones I named above) to stay the "cool thing" for a couple years longer.  Two, it takes the Promethean fire of nu metal and gives it to the Future Scene Kids of America, a big chunk of America's youth that really doesn't get the zeitgeist that this music comes from, something I'm not sure how to feel about, being part of the sub-generation born only a couple short years before Cobain ate gunsmoke, a totally separate chunk of youth that may not be able to call themselves 90s kids, but certainly aren't 2000s kids.  Three, they broadened the definition of "nu metal" (which, in itself, was a broadening of metal), perhaps a bit too much.  What do I mean by that?  Well... I honestly have a really hard time calling them any kind of metal, let alone nu metal.  They're certainly not anymore, but even then...  I mean, you had the attitude, the imagery, harsh + clean vocals, the heavyish guitar, but...  I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it.  Maybe it's the fact that in place of aggression, they whine and blame, maybe it's the lack of emphasis on riff that their contemporaries have.  Woah now, think about it!  Pretty much all their hooks lie in either Chester's vocals or some electronic trick.  Both are things they do well, but the guitar, more specifically the riff, has always been an integral part of the genre that people associate Linkin Park with, and honestly with them it just sounds a little... thin.  Where the hell was I?

Right, nu metal, dead.  Got it.  So how exactly did Linkin Park derail this once-proud musical mutation?  Not exactly sure...  Shit, maybe it was a death of natural causes and perhaps I'm just blaming LP cuz they're the last and most popular act of a scene they were arguably part of; maybe I'm blaming them because they had the ball and they dropped it, showing everyone that "hey, if Linkin Park can't even (or don't want to) keep this up then why should/could anyone else?"  Maybe they paved the way for half the post-nineties aggro acts to undergo the horrible transformation into post-grunge.  Well, whatever it was, that tipping point I was talking about earlier?  I can't help but feel like they pushed it back the other way.