Grade A Turd.

Has anyone ever had more of an identity crisis than the guy to the right? Seriously. I mean look at the photo on the left of the two. I'm sure that it was taken around 1987ish because that's when Ozzy "discovered" Zakk Wylde. Then the other picture was taken around 20 or so years later. I know that people can change who they are a lot over that time span, but seriously; Zakk Wylde is such a poser. First he was a hair metal guy, then he was a southern rock dude, and now he's apparently a biker. Has there ever been someone who buys into to his own image more than this guy? The last time I thought that he was "cool" was when I was like 17; after that I was able to deduce that he is in fact a giant turd. I usually don't wish ill will on people but when he had that blood clot thing a while back; I thought to myself "Good. Serves him right for being such a douche."
Every interview with him he has to be loaded, has to unnecessarily swear, and call Ozzy and Sharon his "mom and dad" (for reals?). I actually read in Guitar Edge from a few years ago an interview with him and here is what he said with almost no paraphrasing

 Guitar Edge: How do you come up with new ideas?
 Zakk Wylde: I listen to music all the time. Like today, I was driving to the studio listening to "Whole Lotta Love" and I thought, "Man I'll just flip the riff around and poof! A new tune!" It's that simple.

Yes, it is that simple. That's how you go from being a good not great guitar player to a hack who plays eleventygillion notes of crap in a pentatonic scale. Oh yeah, and you have to make sure you criticize people who use wah wah when you yourself overuse said pedal.
Then there is the ego on this guy. I know that it's HIS band, but seriously he just let his bass player play on an album. Meanwhile the only time that the other guitar player (Nick Cantanese) has made an "official" appearance on an album was the unnecessary live album Alcohol Fueled Brewtality. That's it. How does that even resemble a band?
Anyways, going back to the image thing. Seriously now he thinks he's a biker...or a lesbian however you want to think about it; but anyways the only thing that more annoying than him sometimes are his fans, or brothers (See post from June regarding my feelings on that!). They also think that they are bikers because they wear stupid leather vests, disregard personal hygiene, overuse swear words, and drink too much. Nothing he does is stupid in their eyes, for real. Honestly, have these people ever read any of his "lyrics"? It's enough to want to punch yourself in the appendix to induce a rupture, so you will have to be sedated.
My last point to bitch about; his name. Zakk Wylde. Is there anymore of an 80s' glam name than that? Seriously, look at the spelling Zakk, has anyone ever spelt their name like that? Then theirs Wylde. Boy that's original. Do you know what his real name is? Jeffery Wielandt. Doesn't get much more bad ass than that eh? Well, now we know why he changed it to something a little less preposterous.
So yeah, I know that this was a bit on the rambling/bitching side but something had to be said. I think that his only appeal is to morons and 17 year olds (which may or may not be the same thing). Sadly he is one of the most influential guitar players of recent times, but is still influential. I don't know, maybe I would dislike him less if he didn't focus so heavily on his ridiculous image and play better. I mean I still own a good  number of his older albums and play them from time to time, but he's not my favorite. That is all.

Self Righteousness 101

There are two types of people that I have grown to realize that I dislike ( I say dislike, because I don't think that I really "hate" anyone). 1) Jazz snobs 2) Hippie/Hipster douchers. I will try in some depth to describe why I loathe these people in the following paragraphs.
     We'll start with the Jazz snobs. They are almost too easy that I should ignore them, but I won't, ney I can't. Oh and before I continue let me say: I enjoy Jazz. Just usually not the people who play it. Remember the scene in High Fidelity where Jack Black won't sell that guy the record he so badly wants? And their friend says that they were the under appreciated geeks in high school and now they can look down on people from their collective music perch? That's Jazz snobs in a quick blurb. If you can't get it, your dumb. If you listen to music that is simple, you have poor taste in music. If it's easily accessible, it's clearly terrible and you should revisit the previous two things mentioned. They also feel that because they have superior music knowledge (usually) they can look down their nose at you for a variety of reasons ranging from: playing in odd time signatures, overall music theory skills, flawlessly sight read, and improvise. It's kind of disgusting. I like listening to Jazz, mostly fusion or guitar based styles, but even those guys are kinda dicks. Some of my favorite players play Jazz and it's so obnoxious to listen to them talk, to the point if I heard them talk anymore than I do, I might not listen to them at all. Now this isn't to say that guys who play other styles of music should get free passes, but at least they don't carry a holier than thou attitude about everything. And you know what? It doesn't stop with just music; they need to be snobs about food, literature, wine/booze, film, and art. Seriously, who took a shit on these people when they were growing up?
     Up next, the Hippie/Hipster douchers. When I lived in North Dakota these people were rare, out in San Francisco they are almost EVERYWHERE! For the life of me I can't understand why someone would want to live a lifestyle like them. It's almost like the opposite of someone who needs to be up to date on the latest trends; they search for the next big obscure thing. Some crappy indie band that only 3 people have heard of, some crappy film that was made for $10,000, HORRIBLE clothes that looked to be in fashion 15 years ago. You name it they look for it, they take pride in it. It's as if they frown their stupid faces upon anything that might have money behind it. What makes them think that just because someone in a second hand t-shirt made a more honest song than a famous singer? Something that was made for $200 has just as much chance to suck as something that cost $200,000. I know a few people like this and it bothers me, more so because they are totally oblivious to the fact that they are like this.  Now, I certainly don't hate these people, but I wouldn't shed a tear if they were suddenly arrested and the deported under mysterious circumstances or anything. My last point on these turds is this: they feel that because they appreciate things that no one gives a shit about they know everything there is to know about art. This offends me as a burgeoning artist. If it came down to everyone hating my stuff or having one person in the world like it and it was a lame ass Hipster; I would rather everyone hate it. To me it seems that the only reason they claim to like art is so that they can seem rounded and cultural and blah, blah, blah. Art is not for everyone and by just pretending to appreciate it is offensive to artists everywhere.*
     One would think that these people should get together and be friends, hell they could become BFF's or something. They have enough in common. They are so bitter and contrived, they could hate everything together and it would make it easier for everyone else to dislike them.

*A lot of artists can fall in to this group. I might touch upon this at a later date.

Oh Canada

Canada sucks. I'm sorry but that's the truth, it has nothing to do with racism or any other type of ism, the fact of the matter is that that nation is filled with the dumbest people per square mile. What makes me qualified to say that you may ask? Well, living in North Dakota for a little over a dozen years and taking a 4 day trip up to America's hat qualifies me. For the longest time, I thought that only people in my (former) neck of the woods understood what makes these people so dumb, then when I was in middle school a little show called South Park came along and hit the nail right on the head. Also upon my last two trips back home it really hit me how dumb these people are. So what I decided I would do is list some of my "favorite" run ins with the few, the proud, the Canadian; in no particular order also. These close encounters take place everywhere from my day to day life, at work, on the phone, and even a fireworks store!

*Christmas 2008: This Canadian lady calls my work, I answer the phone and she asks if we carry a specific guitar pedal (I worked at a music store). I said yes and that it was about $350. She then asks if I could sell it to her for only $300. My manager agrees since it was a dog (an older product that hasn't been selling and just sits on the shelf). She gives me her credit card information and I ring it up for her, she then asks if someone at the store would be able to deliver it to her at her hotel. I told her that I would be able to since I was leaving the store in a bit and headed in the direction of her hotel. I drop it off, end of story right? Nope. I get to work the next day and what do I see? Yep, the pedal. Instantly I ask "What the hell is that doing back here?" My manager tells me that the lady returned it because she got a better deal on it from our cross town rivals. How much of a better deal you might ask? $10.

*Summer 2005: My friend Ray and I are at this fireworks outlet mall called Generous Jerry's (rip off!). We are minding our own business looking at explosives to buy. Then all of a sudden some Canadian guy walks past me and calls me a fag. We were both perplexed and then I looked down and realized that I was wearing my t-shirt that said INVADE CANADA! Harsh reaction, no?

*Fall 2007: Again, I was working at the music store, when these shenanigans happen. A guy decked from head to toe in a Canadian Tuxedo comes in, he asks me if we carried a particular microphone. I say no and he says okay. He then went into the bathroom and I thought that was it. Two minutes later; a guy calls and asks me the same exact question in the same way. Again I say no, then a few seconds later Super Canuck rolls out of the bathroom and is putting his phone away. Coincidence, I think not.

*Spring 2008: This is a shorty but a goodie. Mandi and I were on the way home from a dinner at my moms house when we come up to a red light. The only other car belongs to a dirty Canadian and he stops before the railroad tracks when there is clearly another spot after that. So I did what any normal person would do and I cut him off and got that spot. Stupid Canadian.

*Fall 2006: This one is a little different. A friend of mine at UND was Canadian and he was cool enough to let us rip on Canada to his face (for the most part); well, we were in a figure drawing class and  the jokes were flowing pretty good and he started to make some as well. Eventually this old bitch that most of didn't like chimed in and here was the conversation.

          Brandon: It's exciting, we just got guns up in Canada.
          Deb (old bitch): Really? You just got guns?
          Brandon: Yep, it's pretty cool.
          Deb: Well what's it like?
          Brandon: I don't know, we haven't got the bullets yet.
          Deb: Wow, really?

Normally I would say something about how dumb a Canadian is but, man that old bitch was dumb. I mean who falls for that shit? Jesus H man.

*Summer 2010: I'm at home hanging out with my mom and we had just come from Petco. We are driving down 32nd Avenue when something catches my eye. What is it you may ask? Well it was a Canadian PARKED in the middle of one of those little turn lanes to get into a restaurant. And what was he doing? Eating. That's right eating, essentially in the middle of a busy road.

These are just some my more notable run ins with the residents of America's hat aka America Jr. aka Canada. There are also all the incidents were they would just come down for the weekend and park their campers in some store's parking lot instead of checking into a hotel or camp ground or how they just sound boarder line retarded.

What's That Smell? Part Three: The Smelling

So, I thought that my interesting flying adventures were going to cool off for awhile, but I was wrong. Now I present the third installment of "What's That Smell?"

On the Thursday before I was to leave, I was enjoying a hamburger with my mom and our dogs. Then I got a call from a random ass phone number, I wasn't going to answer but for some reason I did; good thing too. It was an automated message telling me that my flight had been canceled and moved from Friday at 7a.m. to Friday at 5:15 a.m.; shitty but hey what could I do? So we changed plans to leave earlier and I just decided to stay up and hang out with one of my dogs, The Dude and watch The Godfather Part II since we were going to be leaving at like 2:30 a.m. Well, we left and arrived at the Fargo airport and discovered that the terminal doesn't open until 4 a.m. so we had to drive around for about 45 minutes with nothing but a few gas stations open. After we got in, I tried to check in and here's what happens. It says that my flight was at 5:15 p.m. I was totally pissed off because I knew that I hadn't heard wrong or written it down wrong, my flight was in the morning. So after standing around for like 15 minutes with no one coming to help me, I notice a piece of paper that was face down saying if you need help call this number. I did and the guy who I talked to sounded exactly like Matthew McConaughey.
So I'm talking to McConaughey and surprisingly he was helpful, he even said "alright, alright, alright" when he was trying to get me on an earlier flight. He even said that since it was their fault for the mix up I was going to get a voucher for a meal in the Chicago airport. Well, after that we left Fargo and went home. I slept for like three hours before we headed back so I could fly out at noon. It was awesome.
The flight from Fargo to Chicago was pretty good, except I was sitting next to a guy who had no real urge to get off the plane and the flight attendant said that my flight to Chicago would board in the wrong section of the airport. Once I got off the plane, I was first in search of my gate. Then I was in search of my meal voucher. I found the gate and then proceeded to talk to a guy named Darwood. He told me that there was no record of a voucher and couldn't figure out what I was talking about. So after about 10 minutes of this back and forth, he "finds" it. The total? $5.  Wow, just enough to buy nothing in an airport. Plus he gives me a seat in the last row AGAIN, only this time in the aisle. A few hours later I was all set to board the plane and was stopped by the lady checking me in.
  
     Lady: "Are you traveling alone?"
     Me: "Yeah..."
     Lady: "Well, lets get you a better seat than!"
     Me: "Okay."
     Lady: "Here you go. More leg room, have a nice flight!"

I was bumped up 16 rows and I got a window seat, only it was next to the emergency exit (For some reason, I felt the urge to just pull the leaver, just to see what happens, messed up I know). Now for the tie into the title. Some butch lesbo had some nasty smelling/looking veggie platter and then I smelt what could pass off as a used diaper, only it turned out to be BBQ that someone was eating two rows behind me. Yummy? Plus the in flight movie was The Bounty Hunter. It was so bad that I could notice the lady sitting next to me watching my movie on my Mac without sound, it was the rest of The Godfather Part II, so who could blame her?
Well, that's all for right now. My next travels won't be until around Christmas/New Years, so we'll see what happens then.

What's That Smell? Part Two: Not As Smelly, But Still!

So to continue with the tale of "What's That Smell?", I'm going to do something different.  Since nothing of real interest happened on the way back from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Minneapolis to Grand Forks; I'm going to fast forward to my most recent (as of me writing this July 2010) air travels. This trip went from San Francisco to Chicago to Fargo. Not as exciting as the first tale, but still it's my blog thing so deal with.
Alrighty, so I start by going riding the B.A.R.T. to the airport by myself, which was kinda nerve wracking just because I felt I was cutting things close with time and I was also afraid I might have gotten on the wrong train. Obviously that didn't happen (duh). I get to the airport and ride the air train thing with no idea where my terminal is, because on the air train all it says that Terminal 1 is for international flights, Terminal 2 is under construction, and Terminal 3 was for domestic flights. Guess which one I chose. If you guessed Terminal 3, you're right and you're also a dumb ass like me. Terminal 3 was not the correct answer, so I went to ask some random employee at the airport where I could find the American Airlines terminal(s); she points in some arbitrary direction. Awesome. Just what you need when you're strapped for time. Lucky for me some guy at Delta was nice enough to tell me that I had to go to Terminal 1 and it was only like a 2 minute walk.
Finally I get into the American Airlines terminal and what do I see? A line. A big ass line. While I was waiting to get checked in I notice that the ladies working at the counter were older, about middle aged and they were smaller. This meant that they were not strong enough to properly pick up and set down the luggage so what do they do? They just chuck that shit on there as hard as they can, almost in a competitive manner. Then laugh about in front of the people who gave them the bags. Also I notice/overheard a conversation between an airlines lady and some chick who acted like her shit didn't stink. It was to the extent of the airlines lady ruining this woman's day by telling her that she can't board the plane because it was going to take off in about 3 minutes. That's right this lady got mad at the airlines lady because she was just now checking in 3 minutes before the plane, you know, flies away.
After the fun of checking in, I get to go through security. These people were total DICKS! They were belittling every person who came through there, including me. The best was a guy who went through the metal detector and sets it off. He then takes off all of the metal stuff and puts it in a little bucket and tries to walk through the metal detector AGAIN, with the METAL. Some peoples kids. Plus there were quite a few random people cutting through the line. There were two really ugly sticks with big nasty fake boobs who thought that because they were showing up fashionably late for their flight, they could cut to the head of the line. Then there was a mom with what seemed like an army of small annoying children who cut in front of everyone. And my personal favorite, A family whose daughter forgot her passport and had her friend scan it in and email it to her so they could show security and guess what. IT WORKED! Once I pass through this hell hole, I race down to find my gate and discover that I didn't have an actual seat yet and that they had been calling my name for like 30 minutes. Just before I board the flight I realize that I am hungry in the wrong place. I bought 1 sandwich and 1 small bottle of water for $11. And that sandwich sucked balls!
Finally I'm on the plane and my seat is in the very last row in by the window in front of the bathrooms. Yey. This flight didn't suck that bad, I mean I watched Predator on my Mac, which attracted a lot of viewing by guys who were waiting for the bathroom. Plus there were about 3 screaming babies around me and the girl who was next to me slept pretty much the whole way and would wake up to yawn and would fill the air with stink ass breath, other than that it was okay. We land and it takes what seems like 3.5 hours to get off the plane. It seemed like people were just standing around chatting instead of getting off the plane. Once I managed to actually get off of the plane, I had to rush to find a bathroom or I was going to pee all over the place. As I was racing through the airport, I ran into the guy who took my spot as one of the guitar instructors at my old job. Small world. Even smaller was that he was on the same flight to Fargo as me.

So before the last leg of this journey began, I had to go to the bathroom (again!) and while I was in the bathroom right next to my gate, the power hungry turd at the gate had apparently been calling my name a lot in the 3 minutes that I was in there. I go up to the counter and he asks me if I'm some name that doesn't sound like mine. He then deduces that I am the same person whose name he was calling. Then he tells me "Where were you? I've been calling your name for 10 minutes?! I was about to give your seat away." No joke. Well I get on the plane and I am greeted by a woman who looked like Olivia Munn, if she gained about 15 pounds, and was Russian, and was a bitch. Oh and I am also greeted by the stink of ass on the plane (There's the tie in to the first one!!!).
I'm totally sure that I will have more crazy flight stories, I mean I'm due to fly back to San Francisco from my mom's house in a week or so (again as of this writing). Plus I plan on coming home to visit twice a year and who knows how much I'll have to as real adult, versus the one that I am now!

What's That Smell? Part One

Flying is something that I haven't done much of in my life. The most I flew was when I was a child, when my family would move from air base to air base, and this only happened a few times at most. So when I was able to attend the NAMM show in January of 2009, it marked the first time that I was going to be flying in like 15 years or so. I didn't remember much about it from when I was a kid, except for the fact that when the plane was taking off it felt as though I was going to fall out of my seat. So I thought that it would be interesting how different of an experience it would be as an adult. Well, here is that tale.
So the first flight was from Grand Forks to Minneapolis and the flight left at something like 5 A.M. and it was 456 degrees below zero when I left. I said goodbye to Mandi, as my boss Matt and I went through the fantastic security.  After that I was sitting in the terminal waiting to board the plane and trying not to fall asleep even though I was nervous as to how the flight would be, I then remembered something; I forgot my god damn sunglasses. This was a big deal because when I was in high school I had scratched my Corneas by sleeping with my contacts in and as a result I have become somewhat light sensitive, even to the point that I have to wear them outside on overcast days. But anyways, this was just what I needed to start this epic god damn journey off.
Eventually we make it into this state of the art vehicle, and I was let down by its size. Eventually the plane starts moving and then we take off. I closed my eyes and thought I was going to feel the same thing I felt as a kid, but to my surprise nope. Nothing. So far so good. Then we get to Minneapolis and eventually board the flight to Los Angeles, this is a whole other ball of wax. It seemed like a ton of people were on the flight and I assumed that I was gonna be squished in. Well, it couldn't have started out better.
I'm sitting in the second row right by a bathroom AND there is no one sitting between me and the other guy. The plane took off and again no problems, I was thinking that this was gonna be an okay experience; I'd just sit back listen to my Zune and play some Mario on DS. Well, that's how like 3 hours of the flight went. Then all of a sudden it smelt like someone took the nastiest shit in the long smelly history of smelly shits, and this is were sitting right by the bathroom started to backfire on me.
I plugged my nose, but it was no use. This abomination was weaving through the fibers in my sweatshirt and going right for my nose. Next thing I know, one of the bathrooms is closed and a line is forming for the open one. I'm sitting there trying not to pass out form the deadly gas on the plane, when I happen to look up and see this guy who is looking around and he just happens to look at me. Who was this mysterious stranger you might ask yourself? Two words: Shia. Labeouf. That's right Shia Labeouf was not only on this flight but he was standing in line to use the head because of some selfish asshole (I later confirmed this with Matt, to make sure he saw the same guy and we both agreed that it was him).
After Shiagate, the next horrible event happened. That empty space in the middle was filled up. The guy sits down obviously bummed that he had to be moved to ground zero. He then tells us something interesting. There was no shitter on the plane, instead what it was, was that an old lady had thrown up all over the place. By all over the place I mean; herself, the chair, the chair in front of her, then the floor, and finally she ANNIHILATED the bathroom. Upon hearing this I noticed that they kept opening the door a bit to check on her and I saw that it was all over the walls. Gross. Even worse, they didn't clean it up on the floor; they just threw a towel on the ground.


We land in Los Angeles and it is 80 degrees and smells like vomit.

To be continued...

Nicolas Cage Is Totally A Prostitute!!!

I say that in the nicest way possible, I mean for all I know he doesn't charge money to do the hibbidy dibbidy, but with the amount of terrible movies he does he sure fits the bill. To be fair though, before I labeled him a hooker, I checked all the definitions from Dictionary.com and guess what? Here is the #3 definition in the noun form: A person who willingly uses his or her talent or ability in a base and unworthy way, usually for money. So there you go, Nicolas Cage is in fact a prostitute. What separates him from other actors and actresses you may ask? Well if you do some simple sleuthing on Google or any similar search engine, you can type in something like "Nicolas Cage broke" or something like that and you will be taken to links that have these stories about how much money he owes and all the redonkulous crap that he has spent his money on!
If you stop and think about it, honestly how many movies has he done that are actually any good? I would say Raising Arizona and The Rock (and that's really no thanks to him!). Also if you go back like 15 years ago, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in Leaving Las Vegas. Then as the years go by he starts doing all kinds of terrible shitty movies; that if you were unfortunate enough to see, you just can't unsee. Now granted that every actor/actress does work that is below their normal output but c'mon. C'mon. Look at some of these steaming piles of rhino turds!  Snake Eyes, The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing, Next, and Lord of War. I mean seriously why would anyone do these "films" if they weren't hard up for cash, like $40 million dollars worth of cash!
 Speaking of $40 million, what kinda crap do you have to buy in order to blow that much money? Well here is a list of some of the stuff that he just had to have: 22 cars (which includes 9 Rolls Royce's), 1 dinosaur skull that cost $276,000, a castle in Germany, an island, plus like 6 loans in excess of $18 million! If you make like $40 million a year, why do you need to take out a loan, much less SIX!?
So because he never took any money management classes we as the general public are forced to put up with these shenanigans on a yearly basis. And for anyone who pays to see his movies aside from the previously mentioned passable ones a) shame on you, and b) you have essentially engaged in prostitution and should be fined or thrown in jail. These films look so bad (I say look because aside from The Rock and Raising Arizona and maybe 1 or 2 others I haven't seen any of his "films") I wouldn't even watch them on television for free.