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When I say, “me,” I mean my brain
And when I say, “Give me the cure,” I mean to kill the pain
And when I say, “Kill the pain,” I mean to get the devil out
And when I say, “Devil,” I mean all manifestation of doubt

– Ted Leo

It’s amazing how much better I feel after I ride my bike. Even on days when I’m totally worn out from working on the computer all day. Or horribly hormonally depressed from PMS. If I can get out for 30-60 minutes on my bike, everything’s good.

I think maybe the days when I ride and work up a bit of a sweat are the best days, though. I mentioned this to Daniel and he said, “Oh yeah, you’ve gotta sweat. It gets the demons out.”

I ride really lazily. If I work up a sweat, it’s not because I’m riding really hard. It’s because it’s hot out. That’s what’s nice about a beach cruiser—you just cruise.

I have to laugh every time some really old person passes me on their bike, though.

One thing that surprised me about my bike rides is how completely empty my brain seems. I mean, if I were to go for a walk, I’d be thinking and pondering all kinds of things. I guess riding a bike takes too much of my attention (maneuvering around stuff, looking out for cars that might kill me), because my thoughts during a bike ride are completely scattered. Often I find myself with just a lyric from a song I’d been listening to running through my brain over and over.

One day it’s Sam Cooke, “You Were Made For Me.”

The next day, Ted Leo.

Anyway, here are a couple videos from my bike ride today with Nathaniel. I purposely waited till late in the day to film so we’d have long shadows. The first is of us starting at a small park near the kids’ high school and going down McFadden St:

Soundtrack: Admantium “Electric Chill”

In the second, I turned the camera towards the street, so you could see my shadow as I rode. It came out kinda cool:

Soundtrack: RJD2 - “Ghostwriter”

Dang, the youtube compression looks horrible!

I love this song by Current Pop Sensation Chris Brown:

(Here’s the actual music video–unable to embed it.)

My favorite line is just after the 1:50 mark, when he says, “Look what I can do with my feet!”

It reminds me of my sister Jenny who died. She was schizophrenic and would often say the craziest things. Once she called my dad up at 10pm to tell him she’d learned how to tap dance. She put the phone on the floor so he could hear her dance.

She was wearing socks.

I love syrupy pop. I wasn’t sure when David Archuleta was on American Idol if I’d actually like anything he released after the show. So far he’s only released one single, but I love it. It’s such cheesy, teenyboppery music (and I swear it had to originally have been written for a girl to sing), but I just love his voice so much I don’t care.

Edit: The official video won’t embed, so above is a fan video for it. Here’s the official video.

Haha, I hadn’t actually seen the video until now. It’s almost like a church movie. (He’s Mormon.)

The other day Elijah said he couldn’t imagine me and his dad as grandparents. I asked why, is it because we’re just like big teenagers, ourselves? Nathaniel said something about me still going to metal shows when I’m a granny.

I just caught a minute of some countdown show Nathaniel was watching, 100 funniest movies, or something. Whoever was commenting said all you care about when you’re a teenager is music, TV, and videogames.

That’s all I care about too. Did you know the new Rock Band came out this week?

Sometimes people really suck. They steal. They cheat. They hurt themselves and others. It’s so easy to get down about it. Cat’s bike got stolen the other day. She didn’t want it anymore and had planned to get rid of it, but it still sucks. We’ve had our car stolen. Once—or was it twice?—my sister-in-law had Christmas presents stolen out of her car. Christmas presents.

People can really suck.

But then I think about the golden people I know. I’ve known a few. But thinking about one person in particular always restores my confidence in people. I’ve blogged about her before, I know. She was an email friend of mine who died of diabetes. I got to know her from an online group for diabetics. We used to email each other everyday. Big long email discussions. She was the nicest person.

She found out I hadn’t had a diabetic eye exam for a long time and didn’t have insurance or money for one, and she sent me a check to cover the cost. She didn’t want to be paid back. She told me to pay it forward.

I could talk to her about anything and she’d understand. And even more amazing, she’d be genuinely interested.

I have all of our emails backed up. I keep thinking someday I’ll be able to read back through them and reminisce. It’s been years. I still can’t bring myself to do it. I miss her too much.

Ever known someone who could only be described as golden?

Nathaniel’s friend Dillon mentioned once that the things people think about but will never actually say out loud are things that interest him. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. I kind of feel like that’s what blogging is all about. Things you think about but won’t necessarily actually talk about in person.

Take my recent post on moving cannonballs and shopping carts. When I first thought about moving shopping carts and compared it in my mind to the photographer who may or may not have moved cannonballs around, I knew it was something completely silly that I’d never actually tell anyone about. But posting it on my blog? Of course. I actually posted it as a way of poking fun at myself.

(Which I do a lot. Poke fun at myself, I mean, in ways that other people don’t necessarily realize that’s what I’m doing. They (you) probably just think I’m stupid.)

The fact that I post things on my blog I wouldn’t normally tell people about in person is one reason I don’t really want people I know in person to read my blog. It weirded me out at first when I realized Dillon was reading my blog. Meeting someone in person who only knows you from your blog—that’s different. They’re geeky enough to have found it and read it all on their own (no offense). But other than family I’ve never told anyone I know in person about my blog.

Have you?

So…things I think about but would never really say:

• I wish I had her hair.
• This person is talking to me and I have no idea what they’re saying. Just nod and say yeah.
• I want to start a punk band when I’m a grandma.
• Make that a doom metal band.
• If I practice really hard, could I get so good at crossword puzzles that I could be the National Champion?
• I’m going to make it on the leaderboard for this stupid game on Facebook if I have to spend weeks trying.
• (After being kissed by a drunk guy at a show:) Maybe beards aren’t so bad, after all.

And so on.

You?

I’ve always loved break up songs. Not sure why, probably because they can be so sad, and I love sad music. But this post isn’t just about break up songs. It’s about a subset of break up songs: I’m leaving you songs.

I’ve been on a bit of a Chris Brown kick lately. I actually only know him from his music being used on So You Think You Can Dance, but I assume he’s all over the radio. Probably sickeningly so. But since I don’t listen to the radio I’m not sick of him.

He’s got this song that cracks me up. It’s all sweet and I’m sure girls go gaga over it. But it’s all about how he has to break up with his girlfriend, because, you know, if he doesn’t, she’ll end up hating him. And stuff.

Awesome, right? It actually sounds like a sweet romantic love song. But it’s all about how he’s dumping her.

Now, Cat Power knows how to do an I’m leaving you song. Chris Brown says, “It’s not you, it’s me”—like anyone ever buys that. But Cat Power knows how to sell it. This is “Good Woman:”

I want to be a good woman
And I want for you to be a good man
And this is why I am leaving
This is why I can’t see you no more

Can you think of any other I’m leaving you songs? I want to make a mix.

Man, where did the summer go? I still can’t believe school has started up already.

These are some pics I took back in June, I think it was? When Daniel’s sister’s family visited.

My nephew Isaak:

My niece Audra-Maggie:

Daniel:

Faceless me:

Our summer was fun. Daniel had to work too much, though. Same old story.

Did you have a good summer?

Yesterday I took Cat and her boyfriend to Magic Mountain. They went because it was his birthday. I dropped them off and went hiking around Vasquez Rocks.

It’s a rock formation named for an outlaw who hid out there. The rocks are on a faultline and some ancient earthquake made them shoot up out of the ground.

See the people up on the rocks? They took their dogs up there.

There are lots of crevices you can hike up into, it’s neat. But it was SO HOT.

I’ll have more pictures when I develop the film I took. And if this place looks familiar, it’s probably because I’ve been there before and posted pictures of it already.

Here’s is a quick pan of the area, taken from the other side of the rocks:

Daniel conked out early and I couldn’t sleep so I went out to the living room and kicked Elijah off the XBox to watch TV. After watching Project Runway, Elijah and I stayed up for another hour talking. Here’s some of what we covered:

• Why people want to talk about and remember 9/11, when more people died in World War II
• Why we invaded Iraq
• Why the Black Plague was called the Black Plague
• Has any disease ever been cured, or just eradicated and prevented via vaccinations?
• What exactly is a virus, anyway?
• Why the world will end in 2012

I know there was more than that, but my brain is fuzzy today. I’m sure metal or music came up in there at some point. It always does.

–

For instance, the next day, I was giving Elijah a ride to band practice. (His friend has a drum kit in their garage and some amps, they have a band going.) I asked him how school was. He’s just started high school and has met some new friends, a group of metalheads.

He said, “I found out one of the people I’ve been hanging out with had never heard Iron Maiden before.”

Me: “How does that happen?!”

Elijah: “I don’t know!”

Me: “So what’d you do?”

Elijah: “I had him listen to two songs. Can you guess which two? And they’re NOT going to be the ones you think.”

Me: “The one about the execution?”

Elijah: “Yeah.”

Hallowed Be Thy Name. The other song? Phantom of the Opera.

–

Here’s Friday’s bike ride:

Soundtrack: Brant Bjork - “Defender of the Oleander”

Extra points if you can spot:

1. The LDS church
2. The old guy with his butt sticking up in the air in his driveway
3. The stop light I miss when it changes green because I was spacing out
4. Me going to the ATM
5. The flock of school kids that pass by me

And don’t miss the surprise ending.

There was someone driving by when I was stopped on the corner who totally gave me a big smile like she recognized me. She did look sorta like someone I know, but I couldn’t see her clearly. I felt kinda stupid. Is she smiling at me because I look like a dork on a bike on a street corner, or because she knows me? Or is she listening to something funny on the radio? How to react? I just curved my mouth and left it at that.

My first attempt at videotaping a bike ride. It starts in Central Park (in Huntington Beach) and ends a about a block away from my apartments. (My memory card ran out of room, which is why it stops so abruptly.)

The original video was about 30 minutes long but I sped it up and shrunk it down to 3.

Any guesses as to the soundtrack?

August 30, 2008

As we were leaving after the show, my youngest son asked me, “Who is the greatest front man of all time? Freddie Mercury, or Rob Halford?” Some guy walking near us said, “Did you just ask who the *gayest* front man of all time is?”

I mainly went to this for my youngest son, Elijah, the thrash-metalhead. We took his friend Tom as well as my oldest son, Nathaniel, and his friend Dillon. Four teenage boys stuffed into a Toyota Corolla always makes for a fun car ride.

We got there right about 5pm, and the show started at 5:30. Once we got done being molested by security we went right up to the lawn. The venue is large and the lawn is huge. The sun hadn`t gone down yet so it was hard to see anything—the sun sets right behind the stage. I found a spot to sit and didn`t move through all of Testament.

I`ve seen them recently at a small venue as headliners and much preferred that show. I basically sat and stared at people for their set because the sun was glaring if I looked toward the stage. At least this time the singer didn`t mouth off as much as he did before. What is it with metal bands and the constant talking? There were a lot of older people there. Always fun to see gray-haired men and fat old ladies rocking out.

Nathaniel and Dillon went over to a mosh pit that formed as soon as the band started playing, but it was really hot still so they didn`t join in for long.

After Testament Elijah, Tom and I decided to brave the merch line. It took forever, people cutting in line, etc. A woman next to me spilled her Rock Star energy drink all over my foot. Fortunately I was wearing rubber flip flops and could go rinse off in the bathroom. (I swear I`m a magnet for liquid at shows. I`ve had beer both spilled on me and spit all over me at different times.) Motorhead started playing while we were still in line. But we stuck it out and got Elijah a t-shirt and I got Tom a wristband.

During Motorhead the crowd had filled in a bit more so I went way back on the lawn where there were only a few people sitting and sat on the grass. The sun hadn`t quite gone down yet so I still couldn`t see anything. Lemmy was sort of talkative and introduced the band at one point. The drummer did a big long drum solo which my boys said was the best drum solo of the night (oh yes, there were more in store, never doubt).

Both Testament and Motorhead kept their sets pretty short. By the time Heaven and Hell came on, the sun had set and the large viewing screens were on. I remained sitting for most of their set and just watched the show on the screens. I couldn`t see the stage without standing up, which might block the view of the screens for people behind me, and besides, they looked like ants.

They did:

Mob Rules
Children of the Sea
I
The Sign of the Southern Cross
Drum solo
Time Machine
Falling Off The Edge of the World
Die Young
Heaven and Hell
–
Neon Nights

Dio is kind of funny. He seems so polite and proper (”Don`t do this, but the title is—Die Young”) and then he opens his mouth to sing and out comes all this metal. He likes to introduce songs by mentioning what album they`re from. He called their album Dehumanizer one of the most underrated albums of all time. He said they discovered the words “Southern Cross” when they were in Australia and someone suggested they write a song called that, so they did. (I guess they`ve never heard of CSNY?)

The drum kit was so big the drummer had to get up and walk around during his drum solo to access all of it. The gong was my favorite part.

“Whenever we do this one, we expect you to sing along, and you always do, and you`re magnificent. This one is—HEAVEN AND HELL!”

They did an encore. My kids were surprised but I was expecting it. “We`ll do this one because this is what you are to us: NEON KNIGHTS!”

There were at least three mosh pits going on the lawn. Two on either side and one in the middle. The two on either side had fires going in the center. At one point I saw someone hauling a tree limb through the crowd, heading towards one of the mosh pits. There were smoke bombs and firecrackers as well. At another point I saw security wheeling an empty wheelchair across the lawn. Then a minute later they came back, with someone in it.

From where I was way back in the lawn it seemed like the crowd thinned out just a little after Heaven and Hell.

Judas Priest had a cool set. There were risers in the back, with the drum set on the middle platform. To each side of the drum set were platforms with stairs leading up to them. When the show opened with “Prophecy,” Rob Halford was on the left platform dressed in a silver metallic hooded wizard robe. He sang the entire song from up there, then the platform lowered into the floor and he disappeared. Only to reappear from behind doors in the space under the drumset.

Set list:

Prophecy
Metal Gods
Eat Me Alive
Between the Hammer and the Anvil
Devil`s Child
Breaking the Law
Dissident Agressor
Angel of Retribution
(I went to the restroom here and missed a song)
Rock Hard Ride Free
Painkiller
–
Hellbent For Leather
–
Vocal gymnastics
You Got Another Thing Comin`

I appreciated that Halford wasn`t very chatty. He kept referring to the crowd as metalheads. Throughout the show his costume slowly changed as he kept removing things. He introduced “Breaking the Law” by spitting out repeatedly, “Breaking the WHAT?” and the crowd would yell “LAW!” At one point he took some big red flags up onto each platform and after swinging them around a bit he posted them there. Probably the gayest thing he did all night.

I have to say, if I could ever find an old beer-bellied bald gay guy sexy, it`d be Halford.

“Painkiller” is a sick song. They left the stage after it, and then all you heard was a motorcycle engine revving. Halford appeared in the space under the drumset on his bike and rode it out onto the stage and they launched into “Hellbent For Leather.” The band left the stage again and then Halford did a bunch of vocal phrases for the crowd to repeat. “Yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah” and stuff like that. At the end he said “You guys win.”

They closed with my favorite song, “You Got Another Thing Comin.” It was rad.

We started filing out with the crowd and as we were on the hill heading down to the parking lot someone in the lot lit off some big ol` fireworks, which was cool.

Unfortunately we had to wait about an hour for the lot to clear of cars before our car could even move.

Fortunately some drunk people parked next to us decided to alleviate our boredom by getting into a fight.

Then I took a wrong turn heading home and we ended up in Moreno Valley before I realized we were heading the wrong way. Didn`t get home until 2:30 or so. I`m happy I went though. I mean, it`s Judas Priest.