Finally Warped

Yesterday was the end of a four-year odyssey of sorts... I finally saw the Warped Tour.

For those who don't know, the Warped Tour is an annual traveling festival of punk/emo/hardcore bands. 60-plus bands criss-crossing the country, along with an army of marketers selling the punk lifestyle... skateboards, funny T-shirts, causes that most young people who like this type of music would support. By most, I of course mean "not me". Suffice to say, I wasn't going to wear a "McCain '08" shirt at this gathering.

Anyway, I had tickets and VIP passes to the Warped Tour four years ago while I was still living in PA, and unfortunate circumstances prevented me from going. Last year, a co-worker asked me if I wanted to take his extra ticket and go, but I was about to leave my job and I didn't think it would be good form to ask for my second-to-last day off to go to a music festival. This year, I ordered my own ticket, swore I was going... and then the ticket never arrived in the mail. After working that out with Ticketmaster so I could get one at the box office, I was on my way... but what about the weather? True, the seats for the main stages are covered at Darien Lake, but there was no doubt that I would want to see acts on the other stages, and unlike some who think a typical concert experience includes getting soaked and muddy, I do not think that way. Turns out the weather was going to be iffy, and on the way there, I drove through a nasty storm on the Thruway, but sure enough I got there and the weather was pretty nice.

I couldn't get out there until 3 or so, and the bands started playing at 11:30. Here's the problem with that... they don't post the schedule of who is playing until the day of the show, I presume this is so they can make it random so the same bands don't "close" every night. While that's fair and equitable, it makes it tough to plan on seeing bands at specific times, not until you're there. As a result, by the time I got to Darien Lake, I'd already missed Cobra Starship, Relient K, and Story of the Year and the signing times for a couple bands who would be playing later.

As a result, I also had a good amount of time on my hands, so I went to see a band I had been told about by a co-worker, Forever the Sickest Kids. They're from Buffalo so this was a home gig for them, and they were pretty good. As I watched various other indie bands, I noticed a trend... the synthesizer has become a huge part of indie rock. Some bands have a keyboardist up front with the lead guitarist (thankfully they left the keytar in the 80s), others have a guy on the side doing his thing, playing the melody or background. I'm a melody freak so I find this all pretty sweet... it's like they took all that pop music from the 80s that I previously noted as guilty pleasures and found a way to do it even better.

While I was wandering around, I noticed that there is indeed a certain atmosphere to the Warped Tour. You've got all the bands' merchandise tents, various vendors, even the Marines have a tent... then a random girl will walk by with a sign advertising "Free Hugs". And then of course there's the overpriced concessions... I got a bottle of water, that's it. Also there is the fact that despite the beer and alcohol being sold, the percentage of Warped Tour patrons who are of legal drinking age isn't overly large. And much as their favorite bands will sing lyrics like "F*** authority", they behave themselves... aside from the occasional flying water bottle, the most "anti-authority" thing they do is stand on their chairs, get told to get off the chairs by security, then get right back on the chairs when the security guy goes over to the next section. Compare this to a hard rock/metal show like K-Rockathon where debauchery and depravity is a way of life...

Anyway, the biggest name of the moment on the Warped Tour right now is Katy "I Kissed a Girl" Perry, holder of the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100... and she has to play a side stage. Sorry, your first single shooting straight to the top of the charts does not get you a free pass to the main stages. Anyway, while I cannot stand "I Kissed a Girl" (I find it slickly overproduced, like most pop candy), she is worth seeing live because you will get an actual ROCK show, and that is what rock desperately needs... a rock chick with attitude. This rounds out the female resurgence in rock perfectly, you have Hayley Williams from Paramore if you want feel-good emo rock, you have the lead singer of Flyleaf if you want something with some edge (albeit a preachy one), but if you just want to rawk... Katy's your girl. Oh by the way, 93Q (the pop station here in the 'Cuse) plays all 3, K-Rock (the supposed "alternative rock" station) plays none of them.

Next up was Angels & Airwaves, and I was pleasantly surprised with their performance. The last couple of "live" performances I've taken in (a live shot on Fuse and an acoustic version of a couple songs on their last album) were not that good... Tom DeLonge's voice sounded horrible. This time, however, they clicked on all cylinders, played all their hits, a nice little tight performance. Since you only have a half-hour for your set at Warped Tour, you kinda have to hit all the highlights. While one band plays on their stage, another band is setting up right next to them, ready to go as soon as the first band is done. This keeps things moving pretty quickly, with no downtime.

However, with 3 different bands playing at any one time, this can cause some conflicts for people who want to see two bands at once. For me, this was the case when Katy Perry and Angels & Airwaves overlapped (so I don't know if "I Kissed a Girl" sounds any better live... sorry), and then Reel Big Fish and Ludo were playing at the SAME TIME. So I gambled, hoping Reel Big Fish would play their hits at the beginning of their set and that Ludo would close with "Love Me Dead", their debut hit song. Good move... most bands close with their biggest hit, but luckily Reel Big Fish opened with "Sell Out". I also got to hear two of their lesser-known hits, "Everything Sucks" and "Where Have You Been", as well as a just-plain-wrong cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman".

I only got to see the last 10 minutes of Ludo's set, but it was well worth it. This band has fun; you can tell they love what they do and are loving the ride that comes with breaking out on the alt-rock scene. Their hit song is the ultimate kiss-off to an ex-lover, with lines like "How's your new boy? Does he know about me? You've got the mark of the beast." The video for this song takes artistic visual license with every line in the song as the bespectacled lead singer/guitarist, Andrew Volpe hams it up and gets attacked by the very things he's singing about. On stage, he is no different; he sings a line then grins and poses. They did another breakup song called "Now I Can Watch 'Good Will Hunting' By Myself." And Andrew said that after the show, he would "lead a parade to the merch table." He meant it literally... donning a drum major's hat and preceded by a girl with a boom box playing a fanfare. Then he personally sold us all $5 copies of Ludo's CD. The highlight of the day... and few saw it because most of the crowd was watching Reel Big Fish. Hope they get better luck as far as show times at the other stops.

Back at the main stages, the day ended with back-to-back-to-back home run performances by Say Anything, Anberlin, and Against Me. Say Anything and Anberlin haven't quite broken through yet, but they have loyal cult followings, and they back it up with great emo rock that will stick in your head long after the show is over. Against Me closed with a set of what I can only describe as hard rock that you can dance to. They mix power-punk chords with a driving beat that doesn't sound like it should go together, but it works.

In all, it was a great experience, one I'm glad I was finally able to view firsthand, especially since I'm sure once I pass that 30th birthday in a few months, I'll probably be officially too old to go to another Warped Tour. Mark one off on the list of things I've always wanted to do...

Mac Is Back (Again)

You may have missed this when you were either waiting in line for your new iPhone or fuming over your inability to activate it... John McCain's presidential campaign is alive and well.

Despite the media’s attempts this past week to bury McCain by portraying his campaign as struggling, retooling, dead in the water... despite all the stories about how we’d rather have a BBQ with Barack Obama and how people without pets prefer Obama and how McCain equals “old” in the minds of Americans... McCain has made this a race. In the last week, he went from 7 points behind Obama to dead even in the Rasmussen poll. But by now we should be used to McCain comebacks; after all, he was dead in the water 9 months ago but here he is, the presumptive GOP nominee.

The major reason for the latest McCain comeback? Backlash from Congress (with its 9% approval rating) doing nothing to fix our gas price problem… and Obama is part of that problem. While the country screams, “DRILL!” Congressional Democrats continue to tell us we’re wrong to want that. We continue to hear diatribes from Democrat leaders and their willing army of letter-writers about how Republicans only want to drill. America is seeing through that smokescreen. The only major supply difference between the Democrats' energy plan and the Republicans' plan is that the Republicans want to drill offshore and in ANWR. That's it. They're for supporting all the alternative energy production that Democrats want, but they want to be able to do BOTH alternative energy and drilling. And like I said a couple weeks ago, WHY CAN'T WE DO BOTH? Oh, because the oil companies will make more money... but these are some of the major players in creating our alternative energy of the future. Let's face it, they have to know that when we run out of oil or the cost to obtain it becomes prohibitive, they're out of business, so why wouldn't they be trying to hitch their wagon to green energy?

Since Congress is locked in a stalemate (and this being an election year, I doubt that will break any time soon), we have to rely on ourselves to fix the problems in the short term. You may have heard the ads this week on radio stations across the country by oilman T. Boone Pickens; he has a plan that is essentially the "moon shot" I referred to in my previous entry. And notice on his page he has a quote from the head of the friggin' Sierra Club! This guy is looking to do what no politician seems able to do, unite environmentalists and energy providers to make sure we can keep the country going in a clean, green manner. Sadly, there are still the radical environmentalists who are anti-wind power because the turbines endanger birds and they are aesthetically ugly, but hopefully enough people will get behind Pickens that we can make some serious strides. And if McCain jumps onboard, he can say hello to the White House, so hopefully he will, and soon.

Another major reason for McCain pulling even in the polls, one that is being well-chronicled right now (especially by upset liberals) is Barack Obama's flip-flopping. Obama voted for the latest intelligence surveillance bill after being against it. He's backed off his anti-NAFTA stance. He signaled his support for faith-based initiatives and got his own talking points about "supporting Bush's failed policies" thrown right back at him by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Obama slams Wesley Clark for swift-boating McCain, MoveOn.org comes to Clark’s defense and Obama dismisses McCain's call for an apology. Obama knows where his bread is buttered and with his fundraising well below projections ($30M in June when they were predicting $100M), he has to count on the MoveOn money. Meanwhile, Phil Gramm sticks his foot in it, McCain distances himself from Gramm… and sticks to it, despite the predictable outrage from conservative talk radio hosts who were just looking for another reason to attack McCain.

Meanwhile, Obama now says that we need another government handout, errr… stimulus package. All this will do, of course, is push the budget deficit (already at record levels from the first stimulus package) to even more astronomical levels and bring the government's finances that much closer to an IndyMac-style implosion. But of course then Obama and his fellow Democrats can attack Bush for the size of the deficit (they'll say the war caused it). Expect him to push back HARD on the liberal mantras of “Obama will fix the wagon of the evil oil companies if you elect him president” and “Obama supports government helping all you suffering people who can’t afford groceries or were too stupid to read the fine print on your mortgage applications.”

Of course, this can quickly be blunted by serendipitous news out of Iraq... today comes word that we may start withdrawing troops from Iraq even faster than anticipated. Democrats will be quick to call this a political maneuver designed to bolster support for McCain, but to them, EVERYTHING is a political maneuver. The fact is the Iraqis feel they are ready to take over, and the decision of when we pull troops out of Iraq has ALWAYS rested with the Iraqi government, not our Congress. That may piss the Democrats off more than anything.

Meanwhile, going from the politically sublime to the politically ridiculous... Lou Dobbs wants Bush impeached over the salmonella outbreak. I’m pretty sure that when the founders described “high crimes and misdemeanors”, they weren’t describing an inability to figure out what gave 1000 people salmonella. I get that people always want to blame the guy at the top... they blamed Bush for FEMA's response to Katrina, they blame Bush for the IndyMac failure, but if heads should roll for this bungled salmonella investigation, the SENSIBLE thing to do would be to whack the head of the FDA. Of course, I know that common sense is something that is often in short supply these days... especially in the media...

The 200th Entry Spectacular

Since I resumed doing this blog nearly two years ago, I haven’t been numbering these entries like I did in the olden days, but I have been keeping track of how many I’ve written and with this entry, I have hit 200. I’ve found enough to say enough different ways to fill 200 editions of “This Just In!!!” And this being our nation’s birthday, I can’t think of a better occasion to hit the big two-oh-oh and do some reflection.

When I started doing this blog (before they called these things blogs, I called it an “Internet column”), I was much younger and felt I could represent the views of the disgruntled young person very well. Now, I’m pushing 30 and the things I like are increasingly out of style, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still comment, so I do. Some of the things I ranted about back in 2000 (ahem, “boy bands”, ahem) are a thing of the past, and some of them (reality shows) are still around. During the original run of this “column” (2000-2002, or “The Yahoo Years”), I used the anniversary date of the column in early August to pick out some of the more clever things I’d said during the previous year. And since I haven’t done that since I resurrected this blog, and because let’s face it, a milestone like this on television would just be an excuse to churn out a “clip show”, I’m going to treat you to some of the more witty things I’ve said in Cyberspace over the past 8 years. Self-congratulatory? You bet. This whole damn blog is self-congratulatory…

I’ve noticed there are certain themes I have in my entries; these things start to just come to you naturally when you’ve done enough academic data analysis. For one thing, I love my baseball (and thankfully I was wrong when I repeatedly predicted a sport-destroying players strike in 2002), and I love my Mets…

“I've seen Vince Coleman throw firecrackers at little kids, seen the Mets become the butt of every late night comedian's jokes, seen one strike, one lockout… and worst of all, I lived through two and a half years of Greg McMichael blowing games out of the Mets bullpen. After all that, I think I can safely say that I love my teams and will always stick by them.” (9/25/2000)

“The baseball season is finally upon us, and I once again have the unique thrill and pleasure to be able to turn on my TV, watch my beloved New York Mets, and scream, ‘WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING SWINGING AT THAT PITCH, ORDONEZ???’" (4/6/2001)

“In fact, Steve Phillips is still trying to perfect the team, making a couple of deals in the past week involving unknown relievers in an apparent effort to find the perfect 25th man. He may be the most anal-retentive GM in baseball” (4/8/2002)

“By ‘we’, I of course refer to my New York Mets, defending champions of the National League East, and almost-champions of the National League but for Yadier F*@#ing Molina and a home run ball that even Endy Chavez couldn't catch.” (3/28/2007)

“It's done. It's over. The New York media and ‘Joe from Long Island’ on the Fan got their pound of flesh. The Mets organization handled it in about the most unprofessional way imaginable, and this life-long Mets fan is just ashamed right now.” (6/17/2008)

I rant about the well-intentioned but horribly conceived “zero tolerance” policies that schools have…

“Whoever thought a kid would be suspended for pointing a chicken finger at a teacher? The most ridiculous thing of all of this is the principal's quote: ‘People saw real threats to the safety and security of their students.’ What do you mean, were you afraid the kid was going to throw the thing at the teacher and leave a stain on his/her clothing? OH THE AGONY!!!” (3/2/2001)

“Now there had been rumors of a food fight at Laramie Junior High, and the principal had warned of consequences if anyone got caught throwing food. The girls were suspended for three days. Okay, that's fine. But having the police charge them with ‘hurling missiles’?” (3/6/2008)

And I wax poetic on the way things work (or don’t work) in this world…

"I tried skiing when I was younger, and the thought of going at high speeds downhill on two rail-thin pieces of fiberglass doesn't exactly strike me as fun. You show me a happy skier, and I'll show you Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono. I'll betcha they were happy too just before they hit the tree." (10/6/2000)

"I am proud to be an American, and therefore, I am proud to buy something I know will not work 100% of the time and yet do absolutely nothing to make sure that it will work 100% of the time... However, I also have the right to bitch and moan all I want about THE FACT that it does not work 100% of the time." (10/13/2000)

"Common rational thought to the single male apartment dweller is very rare; the thing that usually takes precedence is common rational laziness." (1/5/2001)

"...the proper procedure is to just to go into your motion, roll the ball down the lane and then meditate on it some. OMMMMMMMM... unless of course, this doesn't work out so hot, and your ball winds up in the gutter, in which case it's more like OMMMMMOTHERF#$%ER!!!" (7/5/2001)

"Have any of you ever actually given or received a Chia Pet? How do these people make any money? The same goes for the Clapper. I have never met anyone who actually has one of these things. Maybe it's because I'm a little too culturally enlightened, perhaps it may be that I just haven't met enough people in my life. Perhaps it's the fact that I've never hated someone or had them hate me enough to actually consider this as a present to give or get." (11/30/2001)

“They're going to have ‘Punxsutawney Phil’ pick the winner of the (S**** B***)... So, tomorrow, they're going to apparently listen for a grunt or squeak that sounds like either ‘Patriots’ or ‘Rams’, I guess; more likely, ‘Phil’ will be saying the groundhog equivalent of ‘PUT ME DOWN, YOU TOP-HATTED BASTARD!!! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS TO ME EVERY YEAR?!? I JUST WANT TO GO FORAGE FOR SOME FOOD!!!’" (2/1/2002)

“You may have recently heard of New York City's attempt to ban so-called ‘trans-fats’. I'm not quite sure what makes them ‘trans-fats’; maybe they are she-fats that used to be he-fats, I dunno.” (11/2/2006)

“Next thing you know, you may have reached zen... or at least as close to zen as you can get on a golf course. Mind you, I'm still just chipping balls with a 7-iron, so don't try hoping for inner peace when you're in the middle of an intense round of 18; I'm sure it doesn't work the same.” (6/25/2007)

“When I turned 29, my friends and I joked that leaves only one more year to mess up, do stupid things, act without thinking, that sort of thing that you can blame on being ‘young and stupid.’ While for the most part, I'm not really LOOKING to do stupid things between now and November, I still like having the excuse.” (3/22/2008)

Yeah, I talk about politics a lot, and it seems like my entries in the LJ/Blogger era are more serious than the ones during the Yahoo years, but more than anything, this blog has always been about the crazy thoughts in my head being spread to the masses. That and trying to be right about as many things as possible. Incidentally, with the whole Tim Donaghy blowing-the-theoretical-whistle-on-the-NBA situation, let us revisit my thoughts after the suspicious Kings-Lakers playoff game in ’02…

“Now, Sacramento loses Game 6 tonight to the Lakers because, among other things, Mike Bibby was called for a foul for getting run over by Kobe Bryant and almost getting his nose broken in the process. Regular season-- foul on Kobe, maybe even a flagrant. Game 6 with the Lakers trailing in the series-- Bibby's nose got in the way. Kings coach Rick Adelman has claimed there was something fishy about the officiating tonight, and for that he'll lose a sizable portion of his next paycheck.” (5/31/2002)

Hey, it may take 6 years for me to prove to be right about something but that doesn’t mean I won’t still gloat about it…