We are the vacuous, harmless, mindless masses. We have little to offer and expect little in return. I work incredibly hard to maintain the safe, comfortable, false reality which I wrap myself in like a pox infected blanket. Please do not challenge me. I wish for nothing new. Mainline my entertainment. Nothing of substance please. Thinking is a slippery slope. Should I turn on the TV one day and find myself watching programming which insists that I use my brain I may wake up one morning using that brain to think about war, death of innocents, the raping of the environment or any number of things I would much rather not think about. I would much prefer to shut my brain off entirely and watch C grade celebrities’ dance to bad music. Please don’t make me look for ways to spend my money. I certainly do not want to waste time searching for ways to occupy my mind. Drop my complacency off at my front door. In return I promise to never ask questions. I vow to spend massive amounts of my minimal income on products I don’t need and what I don’t spend you can take away from me. Use it fuel the machines of war. Use it to line your pockets. Use it to discover new and exciting ways to kill strange and frightening peoples. I will never question why. Stoke the flames of my fear so that you may use it to your own ends. Tell me delicious lies. Tell me you will keep me safe. Tell me you NEED to keep me safe. Show me the horrors that lie just outside my door and I promise I will never open it.

  I will wake up and go to work. I will come home and watch the “news” and reality TV and I will go to bed. I will do it over and over again. I will not vote to elect my political representatives but I will vote for the next American Idol. I have my priorities in order you see. When I sit down in my living room to watch reality television I expect no true reality. Reality makes me uncomfortable and that is not something I can live with. You have taught me well to live in fear and I have grown to feel quite comfortable in its grip. I wish for nothing more than to be a good American and I know quite well what that entails:  A sound lack of knowledge and no desire to inform myself, a strong fear of my neighbors and the rest of the world, and an unquenchable desire for new products with names I recognize. I have listened well, careful not to think outside of the box.

I now have a healthy and irrational fear of brown people and box cutters.

So after that last post I figured I put up something a little more uplifting. It’s not for you, it’s for me.
Sacramento is lucky to have almost always had an incredibly lively punk rock scene. There are tons of bands playing tons of shows at tons of venues… Well, tons of bars. Look at it this way; you could live in Santa Cruz, which at any given moment has only a handful of viable punk bands. Granted there are problems with the scene in Sac. A painful lack of venues where anyone under 21 can go see a show and the city’s seemingly complete unwillingness to support the creation of said venues. I guess they would rather have their kids doing drugs and fucking rather than going to see live music… and doing drugs and fucking. The other thing which I believe holds us back as a scene is the disparate sects within our scene. We’re all friends we all see each other at shows, buy each other drinks and talk about what’s going on and what’s coming up. However, there is an unspoken and nearly unacknowledged gap between all of us. Nobody hates each other… I don’t think… but it’s still there. I think part of that comes from a lack of a central venue for everyone to rally around… The other part… I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s that as musicians/artists a lot of us are socially inept creatures who (albeit unwittingly) make themselves somewhat unapproachable. I know that it’s something that I do and its something that I’m always working on.
Now, regarding The Wu-Tang Clan. Here is rap group which set the standard for hip-hop for years to come. They worked as a unit. However, they were still very much individuals. They had a game plan and it worked incredibly well for them. They “formed like Voltron” and once the group had established their popularity they were free (and encouraged) to work individually. Then there was The Killer Bees. Again , once Wu Tang was at the peak of there popularity they were able to help their friends up the ladder.

Now I’m not saying that we don’t help each other out I know that it happens. What I’m saying is we’re lacking focus in regard success of the scene itself…. Maybe I’m just saying I’M lacking focus… Just thinking aloud here.

Or

Who Invited God To The Party?

Warning! Parentheses heavy post.

I get older and I hate things more. That seems to be the general rule. I’ve always been a bit a bit on the “You and your friends can go fuck yourself” side of the fence. However, much to my surprise as I get older I seem to get more crotchety, more impatient and climb up way higher on my soapbox. Yet ironically I also seem to be far less willing to do anything to affect change in regard to the things that bother me so deeply. Ahhh, the sweet fucking stinging embrace of our lady of ironic justice.

Things that have climbed deep inside of my craw and laid festering eggs:

1) When the fuck did rock shows get so safe and therefore FUCKING BOOOORING!? Allow me to clarify. I am not talking about the various hardcore shows that go on at the uncountable bars in the area. I’m talking about all ages shows. The shows where kids are in attendance and get the opportunity to witness how visceral and dangerous rock and roll can really be. There was once a time when a punk rock show was NOT the kind of place where parents were comfortable dropping off their kids. It was this kind of environment which helped to ensure that the bulk of the attendees were tenacious little fucks who were going to see live music no matter what kind of bodily risk was involved.
2) Who invited god to the party? Cause it sure as shit wasn’t me. God does not rock. Christianity is not edgy. In fact, organized religion is as close as it comes to an antithesis to rock and roll. IF rock and roll had tenants (which it certainly doesn’t because it’s NOT an organized religion) one of the top on the list would be; “thou shall not worship ANY idols within the church of rock and roll (unless its Lemmy)”. Anytime religion becomes involved in rock and roll in ANY way it should be immediately recognized for what it is (a slick recruitment campaign) and dismissed.
3) Drummers who break down their drums on stage… Fuck me… Look douche bag, I know you’re desperate for attention and you need to milk that stage time so that every lonely insecure woman in the venue will have plenty of time to recognize that you the drummer (and a shitty one at that). But get your fucking shit off the stage. There are other bands here and all we want to do is set up, play, break down and go home so we can watch TV/read comic books/get high/play video games et. all.
4) Ok, here’s the deal; rock and roll has been milked fucking dry. There is nothing new for you to do so stop acting like the horrible little bands you listen to are part of something new. Stop trying to emulate all those shitty musical outfits you love who spend more time applying eyeliner than they do actually listening to (or even playing) music. Just because you have hair in your face does not make you entertaining or worth watching.

Oh, I could go on forever but its time to close up the shop, go home and watch TV/read comic books/get high/play video games et. all.

Discuss.

(addendumB)

I just reread this and… Wow! Thats a spicy meatball. I swear I’m not really that/this angry. I am not going to take this down or edit it in anyway (that would really make Kerouac mad). I wrote it so I must have meant it in some shape or form. However, I would like to make it clear that this was NOT intended to be an indictment  of ANY band in the area. The only bands that I actually see and hang out with I know and like. Otherwise I wouldnt be around them… That does not mean that their arent bands or venues in the area that fit the bill.

So it wasn’t until just recently (this year in fact) that I finally jumped on the cellular telephone bandwagon. I had been reticent for a long time to join the cellular fold for a multitude of reasons. I have always felt that if I need to make or receive a phone call I will make sure I am by a phone. I value my time alone highly and I don’t need any of my douche bag friends interrupting a nice relaxing drive on the freeway. No offense to my douche bag friends of course. Above all I absolutely hate being “that guy”. You know the one I’m talking about. The guy in the gas station, super market, dildo supply warehouse, liquor store, et all who is SO damn important, whose time is SO valuable that he cant hang up the phone for two minutes so he can pay for his fourteen inch black rubber phallus. However the one piece of cell phone related culture that drives me up a wall faster than any other is the dreaded fucking headset. It makes me want to knock out every one of your blue teeth with a fucking hammer. It takes a very special kind of self absorbed vapid asshole to walk around with one of those things strapped to your head. If you hold your finger up to me one more time with the intent to inform me that I must wait a moment so that I may blessed with your attention I will break the fucker off and choke you with it. As truly horrifying and nauseating as it can be I choose to walk the earth fully immersed in the world around me. I suggest you try doing the same.

I have come to realize that a precious few things actually inspire and spur me to write. Rain, rage and women. I had two out of three today so I sat down at the ole typin’ machine to do some damage. You see the problem is I can’t just sit down and think, “What really pisses me off?” and let it flow. The blind and burning rage needs to be fresh and organic. It just so happens I was served some free range, cage free, farm fresh rage today while I was at work.

            She came in first. One of the few things that actually makes me like my job… No not a woman. I work at a comic book store. women don’t go to comic book stores, unless they are there because of a guy. Kids are one of the few things that actually make this job enjoyable and I’m not talking about teenagers. Teenagers are horrible loud and mindless automatons who bug the shit out of me. And I’m not talking about babies either. Babies are disgusting, parasitic, eating, shitting, screaming machines. However when it comes down to it I don’t like all kids either. I like the shy ones, the quiet ones who are glad to be there and want to see something different, something that might change their lives, even if they don’t know it. Kids that remind me of a young Jaz Brown make me want to stop and share everything cool that I know and tell them it’s not going to suck forever… Just most of the time. This girl fit the bill. Her father however was blind heartless cock who had know idea that he was raising a little girl who would do anything to get the attention of the opposite sex just because he couldn’t be bothered to get off the fucking phone and act like she was worth it. He was a loud talking dick with a headset jammed in his ear.

            “Yeah well if they don’t get it together down there in administration some heads are going to roll… yeah well, that’s what I told her… Well I cant wait to lay off that little Russian fuck in the mail room.”

            They were in the store for about a half and hour and he was on the phone the whole time. Something would strike the young girl, excite her, light the flame under her heart and he just couldn’t be bothered. It made me want to tell her that it was going to be ok, that she could come live at the store. I did not do that however. What I did do was walk over and talk to her because her father was obviously talking to someone FAR more important about things that just absolutely COULD NOT WAIT. It took her a few moments but soon enough we were talking about what kind of art she liked, what sort of covers looked interesting and what a horrible douche her father was… Well maybe not that last part.

            I suppose the moral here is: HANG UP THE FUCKING PHONE and show some interest in your daughters life otherwise Ill be seeing her in “Tight Young Virgins 12” in ten years.

From the lofty position atop my soapbox I stand before you today to declare a new mandate. If you don’t know how to use an ATM card you are not allowed to have one. ATM cards piss me off all on their own. If you have plans to make a purchase you should consider this; get some fucking money. However, the only thing that makes ATM cards worse is when they are wielded by the elderly. If  grandma needs to have the cashier enter her PIN number for her then give her a hearty bitch slap and send her home to watch her stories or tend to the kitties.

Which brings me to the greater issue… Old people. We should kill them. If you don’t have any means to contribute to the community then you are a drain. More pressing than that is the fact that I have shit to do so you and your ridiculous little cart need to get the fuck out of my way. Plenty of other cultures who are allegedly less advanced than we have the common sense to load the old and useless onto a fucking ice flow and send them off to sea. So why is it that we insist on keeping ours around to get in the way? We certainly don’t have one of those societies where the elderly are given an opportunity to contribute by keeping oral history alive or to impart wisdom. At this point the bulk of our elderly are around simply to burn up my social security and generally slow things down. Whether they are standing at the check stand staring glassy eyed at the ATM machine or cruising at 45 miles an hour in a 70 the solution is always the same… Gas em.

I know what you’re thinking…

“But Jaz, what if it was your own father who had nothing to offer society?”

Great question.

I would sit down with him and we would decide upon his preferred method. Then we would go out in the back yard and handle it… And I don’t doubt that he would thank me for it.