there's a time to live… and a time to die… when it's time to meet your maker

the bastard did the math over a whiskey before.

after making tomorrow's lunch.

it's been 25 years since I last saw iron maiden perform.

it was the 7th son of a 7th son tour.

and I was in general admission at Nassau coliseum.

it was a great night.

we were all young gods then. waiting to drink from life's cup.

now we sit in the dark with the wind in my face waiting to drink whiskey.

I wanted to go so that I could take the boy to his first rock concert.

I've missed so many firsts and while I never felt cheated, I always felt I missed out.

so I did this not knowing that tonight, the boys from leyton did me the kindness of taking me back to that night so I could share this piece of me with him.

and I almost thought it was a mistake.

he didn't feel so hot.

it was louder than he thought it would be.

too many assholes smoking pot around him except he doesn't know what pot smells like yet.

but then he rallied.

and we had a great time.

however,

it was during their performance of wasted years, that the boy and I were standing there.

he was on a chair with his arm around me I realized…

…a few weeks ago when Adam Yauch died I wrote a love letter to the past about my last concert as a young man.

and

…tonight was my first concert as an old man.

and it's a little bittersweet.

or perhaps life used to taste sweet but now it just tastes like whiskey to me.

that said, it still tastes pretty damn good to me.

up the irons… because a bastard still can.

—the bastard

PS: Alice cooper may be an old assed man but, when he hits the stage, he comes correct. a little something for the oldsters to take to heart.

the devil went down to...jersey? pt3

so upon arriving, and we did arrive arrive with time to spare for the main event. however, we did manage to miss the opener , which was okay. you've seen one whiney gothic looking emo band, you've seen them all. no muss, no fuss. but then the main event hit. and boy did it hit.

at this point, the bastard had texted to scoop and the chairman that he had died and gone to mook heaven. the chairman asks how many mullets. i fail to take the mullet toll. sometimes, it's just too much to take in.

now, it's been a long, long time since the bastard has been to an arena show. and i must admit, i AM a music snob. the last show i went to was to see mastadon. the last show before that was to see the gorillaz. i've seen scraping foetus off the wheel, i've seen sick of it all close the superbowl of hardcore. i've seen stuff that was considered "better" than this band by alot of my circle of friends. but after seeing this band, i have to say they are the fucking kings of parking lot jock rock. which is NOT to be confused with cock rock. on my way to the bathroom, i text to the hockey fan that i see a boy with a sgt pepper jacket dancing around with fingerless gloves and old women dancing around like strippers in the aisles. the fan texts back that it sounded like an average night at the bastard's house.

granted, arena rock is alot to take in. but, i've never seen so many people older than me, so drunk unless it was a wedding. and so many mooktastic mooks. guys with buzzcuts, glazed over with the kind of drunk that only exists in parking lots of concert arenas, with their drunken wives who are wearing so much makeup that you need to apply it with a putty knife and take it off with a chisel, they stride obliviously throught the arena spilling their miller lite on them selves and spilling others on themselves as they struggle to not have the courtesy to make eye contact or even to watch where the hell they were going. but, it's to be expected. after all was said and done, all things considered, the bastard had a good time. it was a good show. bands that stay together for this long can only get better with time. and it's also a time and place for thousands of mooks and rock and roll sluts to re-live their salad days of rocking with their cocks out.

i've seen a million faces...and i've mocked them all. sure that's cheesy but, you can go to hell. this is my world. life without me is like cornflakes without the milk. yeah and i fart ambrosia too.

—the bastard

the devil went down to...jersey? again?

so the bastard and his ladyfriend took a little trip to jersey last night to see a certain band that jersey really loves. yeah...that one. what can i say? i like to do nice things for my girlfriend. the bastard is a saint that way. then again by wrote of last phrase, how can a bastard BE a saint? hell, i'm trying for sainthood. go to hell.

anyway, we get a little sidetracked en route. wait let me back up:

FLASHBACK (re: the office): "this is fucking confusing?"

"what is?"

"the transit in jersey. you know lobster, i fucking hate your state sometimes"

(cue dirty look)"excuse me"

"sorry, i mean the state you live in." (lobster johnson is a native pennsylvanian and don't you forget it shiteyes)

"well it is what it is" ok back to real rime

CUE PRESENT: so the ladyfriend and i get a little sidetracked on the way to the prudential center to see that band and we ended up getting off at the wrong stop to transfer.

"we should ask someone", she suggests.

"i wish we had a map to refer to", i reply.

taking the initiative, she asks an african american gentleman if we could pick up the connecting train to newark. he suggested that we should have stayed on the train we were on, shaking his head.

"i was watching you you guys. you shoulda stayed on that train. you wanna get to newark, just follow all the white people"

just follow all the white people? that's classic, squire. fucking classic.

—the bastard

...on the band

...or was it the hood?

Well tell me baby how does it feel
I know you like the roll of the limousine wheel

And they all get them out for
(they all get them out)
The boys in the band
(only for the boys in the band)
They scream and they shout for
(twist and scream and shout)
For the boys in the band
(only for the boys in the band)

so this is the magic of fucking myspace. it starts out like this. about 3 or 4 years ago, malibu lou, a guitarist i was in a band with aske dme to join so i could listen to his tunes. yes the bastard was in a band. three bands actually. four if you count the band i auditioned for, got hired and never came back to practice with before i started up with malibu. anyway, the myspace lays dormant for years and periodically, i log on, maintain and log off. then one day i get in touch with johnny long hair. long hair was a good friend of mine in high school who taped footage of the first two acts a played with and he sent me this awful clip of the bastard performing "anarchy in the uk", to which i laughed my ass off over, but either way, we became myspace friends. now, i'm well on my way to being friends with guys i was in a band with 20 years ago. god dam the bastard feels old. older than dirt. or at least older than 80's metal bands.

—the bastard

...on the old school

...or on that fat sound

the email went around last month asking if anyone wanted to go see mastadon. i had never heard nor heard of mastadon up until january. chicago jerkface described them as old school epic heavy metal. so the bastard went in. so did the k. unfortunately, the k couldn't come out last night. you see, he's a werewolf. to more more precise he has what is known as porphria. which is a disorder that accounts for a great deal of the lore associated with lycanthropy. in essence, it mucks with his stomach and he's kind of paralyzed for a day or two. it really sucks for him. i i feel bad for him. however, ready to take that golden ticket, was my good friend stevus christus.

the bastard has to say that hipsters make better behaved metalheads than i remember metalheads being from when i was youngerl. jerkface came out of the pit at the end of the show saying,

"i think i got caught in the pit"

"you think?"

"yeah, it wasn't so bad"

so i have to give kudos to those lithe looking fashion forward thick framed glasses wearing jerkpieces for making the show a genuine pleasure. last nights winner for best tee shirt was the little samoan guy wearing the misfits legacy of brutaility t-shirt and the loser of the selfsame contest was the girl wearing the dream theatre cut off. and the biggest loser of the evening had to be the dumpy bleach blond who had the words bombshell tattoed across her chest. well she was a bomb something else perhaps but, definately NOT a bombshell.

—the bastard

upon viewing the body...

...it was total gentrification, in the study, with the candlestick...

...or was it colonel mustard in the kitchen with the handgun? or maybe it was real estate profiteers with the rope in the billiard room? either way, gentrification put a bullet in the brain of pop culture in this town and i'm sure the bastard had something to do with it. i mean i go to starbucks, not because i'm a shill for corporations but because the "local places" i would buy coffee from were filled with ill mannered goth girls that would never give me the time of day if that was my thing at the time and more importantly, the coffee sucked ass. like 5 day old diner coffee sucked. so at a place like starbucks, i still get ill mannered service but the coffee is good. jz, the bastard's brother in law (or is it former brother in law, i'm still trying to work out all these post divorce semantics) hates all things corporate and goes out of his way to avoid them to the point that i would percieve it as inconveniencing yourself to "stick it" to a corporate entity that doesn't know you exist anyway. but people equate this sort of behavior as a contribution towards the end times. but in the case of cbgb, i make an exception. cb's is a crappy, filthy, dirty, hole in the wall that lowers property values and should stay in the bowery forever. and it won't because after 30 some odd years, the birthplace of punk rock is closing forever.

stevus christus invited me out to see his guitar teacher's band play so i turned out to view the body. i hadn't been to cb's since december so i wanted to one last visit in. the teacher's band went on after the generic fallout boy sounding rock act. i think they were called "insert clever name here". anyway, i meet the members of the band at different times and they are all very nice enough people. the teacher who sang and played gits was drunk and that is a special kind of way to be before a show. the fact that he missed my hand on the initial handshake and then apologized for missing made him alright in my book.

alright, i won't go into length about the band, or their sound or any of that crap because, it wasn't my taste. one of stevus' friends said they used to sound like blink 182 but now they sound different. more like some other band that sounds like some other band. i mean hell, blink 182 is a band that sounds like "all", who sounds like "the descendants" which sounds pretty much like all punk bands from berkeley who sound like the "stiff little fingers". so i'm seeing a band that sounds like a band that sounds like a band that sounds lie a band. hell, one of the songs did sound like a living color song that i used to like so i have to give them props. oh...wait...i said i wasn't going to get into this. don't get me wrong, these guys are incredibly talented. the rhythm sections was goddam incredible. one of the best i've heard in years this guitarist has incredible chops and i dig on his voice but, he's very safe. like alot of bands out there that are safe. cintra wilson one time lamented the fact that there are no cock rockers out there anymore and she was right. a guy like iggy pop wouldn't get up between songs and say, "this next song is about...this next song is about...this next song is about". no, he'd spit at the crowd, tell me to go fuck myself, kick some chick in the head, then cut him and perform "now i wann be your dog". sorry, this is just how i feel about music these days.

after the show, i was talking about the bad brains to stevus' friends and one of them left dismissing the conversation as the two of us rehashing the past. it wasn't a rehash, it was a lesson, shiteyes. recognize!!! anyway the singer came out and those who stayed told him how much they loved the show and while it lacked the energy of the blah blah blah show 3 months ago, it was still really good. i said they were pretty good in and amongst that exchange and the teacher paused and asked me,

"waitaminute, did you just say we were pretty good"

"yeah, i said you were pretty good"

"stevus..? what the fuck"

"well you remember that thing you said earlier about the discerning tastes of new yorkers?" piped up stevus

"they're all fucking posers"

yeah, i left that part out. during the show he had something to say about how new york audiences are all a bunch of stiffs. oh yeah, and we're all fucking posers. (the phrase poser has a special meaning for me since i got the shit kicked out of me over that very term but that's another story). talking crap about my town especially with reference to how your music failed to blow me away always wins points with me. iggy?

—the bastard