27. July 2008 by John Arnold.

The Big Lebowski…  What a movie.  I converted another friend to the genius of the Coen Brothers last night.  While the movie has its share of the surreal, you can’t beat it for memorable quotes, many of which happen to be my favorites are probably unsuitable for repetition here. It does remain a fact though that countless are the times since I first saw The Big Lebowski that I’ve wanted to walk into my boss’ office and say “New shit has come to light, man.”

Now, I’m not a movie critic, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So, if you haven’t seen this movie (which came out in 1998), grab it next time you walk by the Bargain Bin in your local video store or Walmart. If on the other hand, you’re easily offended by a liberal smattering of profanity, you may not make a connection. However, as employed by the Coens, the profanity is not so much gratuitous as it is a defnining characterstic of the central characters - the Dude and Walter. Poor Donnie… Just shut the fuck up Donnie.  ”I am the Walrus?  I am the Walrus.”

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27. July 2008 by John Arnold.

We had our first practice yesterday with our new drummer.  Considering that the band hasn’t practiced together since before our last gig in Waco, things went well - very well.  We were missing two of our singers - one was on vacation with her husband (who’s also our soundman), and I’m not really sure where the other ran off to.  I’ve been in this band for a little over a year now and if there’s one thing I’ve become acccustomed to it’s that it is a very rare occasion when all members of the band show up for practice.

Anyway, our last drummer was good and we were all very sad to see him go.  No doubt.  Luckily for us, with a major show coming up in about 3 weeks, our new drummer, Steve, is a natch.  He fit right in, had a couple of hiccups on a couple of starts, but picks up really quickly on what we want from him and he’s right there. So… for not playing together for about 6 weeks, we’re not as suck as I thought we’d be, but we have a long way to get ready for August 22nd.

Notwithstanding the concerns and the anxieties that precede any gig, it was damn nice to be back together with the guys, pumping out some tunes, getting loud and proud, and downright dirty. Three guitars, a bass, drums, keys, and friends, and a 65,000-freaking-watt sound reinforcement system. What more could you want? Life is good.

Yo Steve Holland! Glad to have you!

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21. July 2008 by John Arnold.

Shit happened.  It’s still happening.  Get over it.

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21. July 2008 by John Arnold.

What an interesting day.  Secluded and isolated in my own little world, I’m clueless about the ongoings of the madness about me.  I can think of many who will sniff in condescension at my lack of awareness of current events, but I stopped caring about current events quite some time ago.  The thing about ‘current events’ is that they’re not current - they’re only the unwelcome repetition of the same bullshit we’ve been seeing for seventy years.  Okay.  Maybe not seventy.  Fifty?  Yeah.  Let’s agree on that.

It doesn’t really matter.  Names have changed along with geographical locations but the game is the same.  If you’re not familiar with the game, open your fucking eyes.  It’s called the military-industrial complex and if you haven’t learned about it in high school, maybe you should put down your cell phone and stop texting your friend two rows over with your massive intellect, voiced in such phrases as ZOMG!!! and ROFL.  LMAO is acceptable in light of the nonsense being spewed by our underpaid, bottom-of-the-barrel-pick public educators. 

Now I know a lot of you educators will take exception to this remark, but hey, if I have to prove one more time that my 4th grade kid’s answer was right on his math exam and you just failed to see it because either 1) you don’t understand the subject material, or 2) you don’t give a shit and are more concerned with the emasculation of the preteen male society, or 3) you’ve been ‘converted’ into believing that your job is no longer to teach, but to coach our kids into passing some standardized achievement test because of performance-based funding, I think I’ll send my child to Zimbabwe with a protractor and an elephant rifle because the drivel he’s learning in public schools is just that.  Drivel.  I work at a college where over 85% of our incoming freshmen students have to take remedial courses in Math, Reading and Writing.  Wow… No child left behind, huh?  It sounded good at the start, but I think the spirit of the idea was lost.  I don’t think ‘no child left behind’ was supposed to mean let’s reduce our entire future generation to the lowest common denominator.

 If you’re out of high school and clueless, maybe all happy and smug with your 1980s wage scale while trying to pay 2008 inflation prices, take a look around.  Obama isn’t the answer.  Neither is John McCain.  Has there ever been more transparency between party lines as what we see today?  I don’t know what either of their platform is.  Do they actually have one?  Do either of them address any issues that concern the average American?  As much as I hate the thought, I’ll have to actually research that.  It’s hard to be excited about that prospect though.  John McCain is about as exciting as a piece of overcooked linguini lying cold and smashed on a kitchen floor.  Obama on the other hand seems to be stirring up quite a bit of excitement as witnessed by all of the absurd spam email chains coming through my inbox.  People who can’t think for themselves should not become electrical-communicative once every four years when they take their fingers out of their noses. ZOMG!!!  It’s a muslim!!!  What the hell is that all about?  Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.  Who cares? So let’s dredge up every despicable act executed by extremist Muslims in the last 80 years and lay them at his feet.  Let’s not stop there, let’s attach religious connotations to it as well and send alarmist emails to all of our hillbillly friends urging them ever more to forward these on to everybody we know!  That’ll show them!  Don’t fuck with us By God (Or Mohammed, Buddha, Menthu-Ra, Peter Griffin, etc - no offense intended by omission).  The ignorance and provincialism of the human mind is staggering.

If you want to get away with something, redirection is a key component to the strategy.  The average American citizen is currently so overwhelmed by the rising costs of energy that the focus of their attention is on how to make it from one payday to the next.  Who, twenty years ago, would have ever guessed that electric bills would be surpassing mortgage payments?  That gasoline costs would riducule car payments?  Ask yourself a very simple question:  Whom does it benefit?  Trace it down, follow the trail.  Where does the money go and what makes it possible for it to go there?  As a friend of mine once said, “It’s not rocket science!  Which is a good thing, because we’re not rocket scientists.”

The really sad thing is that while the rest of the world is producing world-class rocket scientists, we have MySpace!  Fuckin’ A!

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20. July 2008 by John Arnold.

It’s hard being philosophical.  I know many of you simply won’t get this but M&Ms with Almonds and Plain M&Ms just don’t mix. Ponder that and be daunted.

On the other hand, if having to dig to the bottom of the candy bowl to get to the Plain M&Ms because their smaller mass allows them to be gravity-filtered beneath the chocolate-crusted nutty behemoths is my biggest challenge, I have nothing to complain about - unless my main diet has become M&Ms and Miller Lite, which upon reflection… Never mind that.  It’s all behind the curtain.

 It’s been an interesting week.  This being my first blog, I am naturally wondering what you all want to hear about but I find that I don’t really care.  I’m sure this will be a learning experience, and that as I become more proficient at this blogging, I’ll identify better topics.  In the meantime, a good friend of mine who has a very successfull blog suggested I write about big news hot topics - that this will drive the visitors to my  site.  So here goes:  Brittany Spears.  David Allen Coe.  George Bush.  Iran-Contra.  Queensryche.  Dale Earnhardt.  Barak Obama.  Chocolate Bunnies and edible panties.  We’ll see how that does.

 Welcome to my world - it’s kind of twisted.

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