That Moment When It All Hits...

I'll try to keep this as out of the bummer realm as possible. That being said, this post is inspired by the passing of my Grandma. It happened a week ago. I've been doing pretty alright with it. But today I saw the exhausted and overly stressed faces of my dad and Grandpa and I heard the quivering in my Grandpa's voice as he jokingly scolded the new ink that has appeared on my arm since the last time I saw him. I'm working away from home and I took an hour to Skype with a house full of relatives; some I haven't seen for way too many years. It was a happy group. Grandma would've been elated. The thing that I was having a difficult time with, was the fact that Grandma wasn't there. I wasn't using my, now famous among the family, jackassery to make her laugh hysterically. I didn't realize how much that would impact me.

Like I said though: keep it out of bummer town.

My Grandma was unreal. Such a hip lady. I remember her talking about how "rad" things like my comic book collection were when I was a kid. She overly emphasized the word but somehow, that made her a million times cooler. When my Grandpa would get fed up with my shenanigans, he wouldn't be able to even come close to giving me shit for fear of the wrath of that little spark plug of a woman. I once saw her scream a couple Jehova's Witnesses down the entire driveway. I wouldn't be surprised if they went home and decided Atheism was probably a good new life choice. Teach those bastards to try to tell my Grandma she probably isn't a good person because she finds that screwy religion... screwy. I think I've made my point that the lady was a total badass.

She may have been one tough cookie, as they say but she was also very sweet. She was always on my side. It probably played a role in turning me into the incredibly vain shit disturber that I am today. She always told me how proud she was of me; even if it was just for tying my shoes properly...at 17. Maybe she was mocking me. That would be the best! If my Grandma had that great of a sense of humour and I just never caught on... Never mind. She was a sweetheart. She was there for a good chunk of those big moments. My college grad comes to mind. I even mentioned her and Grumpy in my presentation that we all had to do as part of our final mark. All the girls in the class let out an, "Awwwwweeeee" in unison. Needless to say I had that crowd in the bag and I aced the final presentation. So, there she was, telling me she was so proud of me again. I was insanely proud to have her there. I made people meet my Grandparents because, well, obviously they're cool as shit!

Grandpa is still a total dude and I will always remember Grandma as a very kind and far tougher than me woman. She was an Okanagan farm girl after all. As hard as something like this is, I know she had a good life. I'm so grateful for being able to be her Grandson and of course I'm grateful for her having my back at every Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving... etc. dinner when somebody would get a little too sensitive about my comedic stylings and she would step in to bust up some heads for me. It feels a little like I lost someone that completely understood my goofball antics and never got sick of them but hey, at least I had that with her for as long as I did. All the great things have to come to an end. Those solid memorable, quirky moments will be with me, at least until my mind falls apart. I'm sure that's a ways off though.

Some of these idiots...

I can't help but wonder how all the occupy protests would've turned out if the people who actually understood what they were mad about had the drive and firepower of the anti Mubarak protestors in Egypt and all the useless hippies stayed in their acid induced fantasy worlds. The only thing retard protesters, and I don't mean all protesters, in North America have ever been good for is helping the cause they're trying to destroy. Thinking you can fix anything with sit ins and not so clever signage is naive and embarrassing to watch. But the signs are pretty gosh darn cute!

It's amazing to observe how the focus shifts from reason and understanding to "hey, look at how ridiculous this spectacle is becoming". This is the point when the boring people with some sort of insight get pushed to the side by a guy riding a 9 foot high unicycle while juggling and chanting something negative about guys in suits shows up. It's pretty obvious who's going to be getting the attention here. And nobody in their right mind wants to be associated with moron hippies. The only reason hippies haven't figured out that they're the laughing stock of the world is because of some misguided form of self righteousness and that makes it even more fun to piss all over them. Who doesn't enjoy watching a righteous prick fail while trying very hard to force their views on everyone around them?

The point here is this: I'd say most reasonable people would agree that there is some seedy shit going on in Wall Street and it would be nice to see something like commodities trading go away but when you have massive groups of people attaching themselves to the "99%" cause who are on board with their own agendas i.e. "more free bus passes", "lower tuition", "kill the rich because they have money", then you will alienate and annoy the masses and they'll stop giving a shit about you. I feel pretty confident in saying that about 1% of the 99% actually understand economics and were at those protests with reasonable views and demands on government and banking institutions. How boring is that though? You aren't going to be on the news wearing khakis and talking facts. I've got a plan for you reasonable people: Get yourself some flamethrowers and head over to Wall Street. I'm sure your message will be heard.

Metal Vs. Dubstep

I have never really been that crazy about any electro music. That being said, I understand its allure and contrary to the not so clever title of this post I'm not trying to start a pissing match. I'm a pretty severe music geek. It's upsetting to everyone around me. I'm aware of this but I'm okay with it. Before this gets to sounding like some drugged out manifesto tirade I'll stop the deviation...Alright, we are all aware that heavy metal has always relied musically on a very heavy and dark low end sound. Most experts on the subject start going into detail about the "Tritone" "Diabolus in Musica" (The Devil in Music (Also a Slayer album (All Hail the Mighty Slayer))).Quick history about the Tritone: The Catholic church outlawed it at one point because they thought it would summon the dark lord (typical), it's common in our daily lives from every metal, blues, rock composition to the Simpsons theme song and all the excellent classical songs use it. It's safe to say that the Tritone gives a scary and epic sound to music. My brother made the simple yet perfect point that it sounds like going into battle. There's a trend here; epic dark sounds and battle go together and people who are attracted to metal usually like the helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now. No, wait, that's not it. Back to the point. Metal vs. Dubstep. So, why was I attracted to dubstep when I first heard it? At first I couldn't really figure it out but it became apparent pretty quickly that the drops and wubs were very similar to the stuff that some of my favourite thrash metal bands do in a lot of my favourite songs. Start off with some melody, then blow shit apart with an insane drop and double bass kick and continue mixing the clashing sounds throughout the song. You could also say that the sound is similar to a power metal saga about oh, let's say an "Angel's Holocaust". There's the connection: the dubstep that I find myself wanting to listen to has that perfect juxtaposition of a dreamy and melodic poppy or epic sounding intro that builds and builds but then all the sudden something happens and it goes very low and dark and of course it sounds like a robot on acid is trying to speak to you, or, if you're into Skrillex it sounds like a robot going through a wood chipper. The sound of Dubstep is definitely weirder and darker than any other electro music I've heard. This is thanks in part to the Tritone and in part to the fractured bass lines which sound nightmare inducing. The videos are usually way more fucked up too.The weird will attract. There's definitely some Id related, primal animal psychology thing happening here but that is a LOT of reading, so I'll leave it alone for now.