BahnderBlog

Did you know I had a blog?

…

Yah, me either. Whoops.

Who gets the job of picking the frames out for the big-ass press conference photos of dead terrorists?

Do they just have on big frame designated for that sort of stuff, and swap out the pictures for press releases?

Did they just send it out to Hobby Lobby for a quickie frame and matting? How much did it cost us? Because it’s huge.

What do they do with those pictures after the press conference is over? Do they pull names out of a hat to see who takes it home? Does Dubya hang it over his bed? I think it’d look superb in the Lincoln room, personally.

Oh, in other news, yay, dead terrorist.

Alas, there were no free minority children on Page 2. Only restaurant reviews.

Only restaurant reviews.

*cry*

Henry Rollins: ‘I get angry about stuff’

Noooooooo.

You don’t say?

Modern Drunkard Magazine really doesn’t get enough love. Great writing, I can really relate to it.

Holding the napkin (or mapkin as I now called it) it in front of my face and cursing like a myopic pirate struggling with a treasure map drawn by a dyslexic mongoloid, I lucked upon my next destination, the Leaning Tower of Pizza.

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Speaking of Irish, Friday is St. Patrick’s Day. I had the thought yesterday about the whole Catholic/St. Patrick/Meat/Fish/Friday ordeal. Them cunning Catholics have their shit covered though, and have created a sort of meat comp-time system.

Burke encouraged those who take advantage (of the dispensation) to abstain from meat on another day of the second week of Lent.

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So, last night I wound up heading out with some friends to check out the Flogging Molly show at Pop’s, in beautiful East St. Louis. Having never heard anything by them, only that “they rock”, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into. I knew that they were Irish, and rocked. I liked The Dropkick Murphys, so I figured it was close enough.

Anyway, we get to the show, buy our $5 plastic bottles of beer, and start with the people-watching prior to the show. Punk shows are always great for people gawking. This was a little different though, because it wasn’t the purple-mohawk-wearing dudes with the spike-bedazzle’d jean jacket that caught my eye, it was the family of 5 standing in front of us. Normal looking suburban white-folk family. Mom, Dad, and 3 gangly awkward 12-14 year old sons. Of course, this was an all-ages show, so sure, I guess. Normally, I think of 16-18 year olds at an all-ages, but hey, cool. We debated who’s idea in the family it was to come to the show. I put money on the dad. At one point he was giving the youngest son tips on concert-crowd etiquette, “Watch your elbows”. Odd.

But, it got better from there. A 30-something tattoo’d dude came walking through the bar with a kid who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old. He was carrying him around. Kid in one had, can of Guinness in the other. At the end of the night, he had the kid holding his CDs.

But, it got better from there. At some point, I saw a lady coming through the club with a 1 year old in her arms, and a 3 year old tagging along. Right in the midst of this drunken spiky-haired, sweaty, drunk, 100db mass of humanity. Just surreal.

Aside from the odd bringings of children, there was the 60-something year-old lady in the balcony, the flannel-clad white-bearded grandpas, the drunken Irish “hooligans”, the drunken frat boys, the drunken gay and lesbian circle of folks, etc. Just a weird, cool mass of people.

As far as the music, a local band called Steer Jockey opened up, with a speed-punk rambling set that sorta rocked, but was too angsty-screamy for my tastes, and had lulls of suck.

The next warm-up bad was The Dead Pets, who didn’t disappoint. Though, I’m always a sucker for a drunken gravely punk scream from a Brit. Very good set of ska-punk, lots of hopping about and a brass section and stage-diving. Great crowd pumper, especially for an opener.

After that, was The Briggs, who honestly had a pretty forgettable set. Nothing amazing there.

So, this all happened within the course of 2 hours. That’s the one great thing about punk, it’s good for those with a short attention span.

Finally, Flogging Molly took the stage around 10:30 or so. They came out swinging, with mandolin, accordion, fiddle and guitars thrashing. Focking right, oi! The easiest way to explain these folks is, if you take your traditional Irish Folk band playing at the pub, lock them in a room with a pallet of 8 ball, then throw in a couple guitarists, you have Flogging Molly. Pretty freaking incredible. Of course, being Irish, they covered all the standard Irish issues in song. Drinking, politics, religion, drinking, and drinking.

The best part of the night came about halfway through, when our group decided to make our way down into the mosh pit. Energy down there was great, very few assholes, and as always, “the pit provides.” It’s like a separate little world with its own law, and organized mayhem. So the few assholes that were there were readily put in check. Surfing was all over the place, I had many a sweaty white guy slam into the back of my head. Just awesome.

Now remember, this is basically an Irish folk band (on crack). And we’re moshing. And there’s someone playing an irish flute-thingy. And we’re moshing. And there’s accordions. The whole thing was just very, very surreal and cool.

That pretty much summed it up. We left the moshpit a sweaty mess, and stood on the sidelines for the rest of the show. We wound up by the aforementioned drunken frat dudes, who were entertaining in their own little way. One particularly plowed one asked me if I came to kick ass. Told him I didn’t, and then he explained that I obviously looked like I came here to kick ass, so he was curious. So, I’m a hardass to drunken frat dudes. Good to know.

The show ended with a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, and a kickass post-moshing meal of Waffle House hash browns and eggs and grits at 12:30am.

I gotta say, it made me proud to be partially Irish (Scott/Irish/Swede actually, which nets me great drinking ability, anger, blond hair, and a red beard)

I hate that I have to work today. I’m somewhat hungover, my legs are sore as shit, and I’m tired as a motherfucker. I’m apparently old. I wonder how long until I’m actually too old for moshing. That will make me sad. But, I’ve already had one E.R. visit in my life due to moshing the (The Local H Incident), so I should probably start taking that into consideration.

Damn.

So, I was playing some Halo2, as I’m still a loser who can’t justify spending $400+ on a new Xbox. In between 14 year olds throwing around racial slurs and screaming NOOB at people, I actually heard someone say “I want to grow a moustache in this thing.”

For some reason, I think that’s the best idea ever. We should all grow moustaches in Halo. Duh.

This guy is my fucking hero. Seriously. He’s probably the happiest guy on Earth. He probably woke up that day and said, “Shit yah, I’m gonna eat me that goddamn old-ass chicken today.” He waited 50 years to eat that can of half-assed meat. He probably didn’t sleep well the night before just due to the excitement.

My wife and I have issues waiting until anywhere remotely near Christmas to exchange gifts. I open packages on the way home from Best Buy.

This fucker waited 50 YEARS to eat some chicken. I salute you, Mr. Old-Ass-Chicken-Eating-Motherfucker !

On a similar note, I still want to buy a bottle/case of Crystal Pepsi off eBay sometime. Seriously. That’s the only way I’ll ever get the thrill of consuming any sort of old-ass product.