I keep forgetting about this journal. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about the lack of response to it. It's like a shitty zine that comes out sporadically and only covers bands that still play ska. Ooooh, take that, ska!
A friend/former supervisor I hadn't seen in a while rang me on Friday and made a bizarre request.
"This is going to seem like a bizarre request but, do you want to go with me and some friends to Stateline tomorrow to see Brad Paisley?"
After noting my general distaste for both modern country music and Stateline (or "that shitty place before you get to Vegas that has the rollercoaster," which I believe is the town's motto), I immediately accepted the invitation. I figured that doing something completely out of the ordinary might help me break out of a funk that has lasted in some form for at least a year. Plans were made, schedules were synchronized and on Saturday morning I piled my garbage bag/suitcase (a "manly" substitute for the duffle bag I couldn't find) into my friends car bound for Primm, Nevada. This was to be the whitest thing I'd ever done.
My friend's other friends were all nice enough people, if a little bland. Okay, they were a lot bland. I don't neccesarily think that I'm the most interesting person on the planet but these people...oy. They were like the personification of celery crossed with wet bread and they could not have been more stoked for the show. I was looking forward to it mainly to people watch. I wondered what sorts of people trek out to Nevada's chode to check out a man with the last name Paisley.
The show itself was endurable and surprisingly short. The opening act, a fellow I can't recall the name of, played for like 20 minutes. He also had the requisite songs referencing being from the South, trucks, and lovin' Jaaayzus. The Paisley, so dubbed because I needed some way to entertain myself during his set of songs that all sounded exactly like I expected them to sound. There were a bunch of up tempo numbers, a jam session, and a sing-along paean to alcohol. Couched in between these was a ballad about love featuring a breathtaking display of corpse-fuckery playing out on the giant screen behind the drum riser as pictures of dead celebrities clicked by. The pics tended to skew toward the right-wing of the spectrum featuring Reagan and Dale Earnhart (twice!). The applause that met each picture skewed similarly with giant ovations for Reagan and near silence for John Lennon. All in all the show was not nearly as interesting as I was hoping with the crowd being neither stereotypical enough to entertain the snob in me, nor attractive enough to entertain the dirtbag in me.
After the show we all mulled around with my compatriots discussing the greatness of the show as I stared at the woman in the oxygen mask yanking incessantly at the arm of a slot machine, despite there being a "spin" button right in front of her. She was old school. One-armed Bandit indeed. After a night of no-sleep and a breakfast buffet, we were headed back to Southern California where I could go back to ignoring contemporary country music.
The drive was a bit of a bummer as I realized why I hadn't talked to my friend/former supervisor in a while. Turns out I forgot that he's a really judgementally abrasive person and a total homophobe (with some racism sprinkles on top). We can talk about movies forever but beyond that, we really have very little in common. As we parted, I knew it would probably be a while before we talked again.
In hindsight I'm not exactly sure what I expected to gain from this trip. I was not touched by the redemptive powers of Brad Paisley, didn't hit some sort of fated "hey let me stick this quarter in this machine and see what happens" jackpot, and by the end of the drive home, didn't even really like the person I had gone to hang out with. I just ended up depressed. After contemplating it all and spending most of today at work locked in an existential daze, the load sort of just lifted itself from me. While reflecting, I had the liberating notion that my afformentioned funk was not merely one that required a momentary change of scenery, but something deeper that I need to figure out. I'm not sure why this thought was liberating but I honestly felt better right after I had it.
So, yeah. How was your weekend?
A friend/former supervisor I hadn't seen in a while rang me on Friday and made a bizarre request.
"This is going to seem like a bizarre request but, do you want to go with me and some friends to Stateline tomorrow to see Brad Paisley?"
After noting my general distaste for both modern country music and Stateline (or "that shitty place before you get to Vegas that has the rollercoaster," which I believe is the town's motto), I immediately accepted the invitation. I figured that doing something completely out of the ordinary might help me break out of a funk that has lasted in some form for at least a year. Plans were made, schedules were synchronized and on Saturday morning I piled my garbage bag/suitcase (a "manly" substitute for the duffle bag I couldn't find) into my friends car bound for Primm, Nevada. This was to be the whitest thing I'd ever done.
My friend's other friends were all nice enough people, if a little bland. Okay, they were a lot bland. I don't neccesarily think that I'm the most interesting person on the planet but these people...oy. They were like the personification of celery crossed with wet bread and they could not have been more stoked for the show. I was looking forward to it mainly to people watch. I wondered what sorts of people trek out to Nevada's chode to check out a man with the last name Paisley.
The show itself was endurable and surprisingly short. The opening act, a fellow I can't recall the name of, played for like 20 minutes. He also had the requisite songs referencing being from the South, trucks, and lovin' Jaaayzus. The Paisley, so dubbed because I needed some way to entertain myself during his set of songs that all sounded exactly like I expected them to sound. There were a bunch of up tempo numbers, a jam session, and a sing-along paean to alcohol. Couched in between these was a ballad about love featuring a breathtaking display of corpse-fuckery playing out on the giant screen behind the drum riser as pictures of dead celebrities clicked by. The pics tended to skew toward the right-wing of the spectrum featuring Reagan and Dale Earnhart (twice!). The applause that met each picture skewed similarly with giant ovations for Reagan and near silence for John Lennon. All in all the show was not nearly as interesting as I was hoping with the crowd being neither stereotypical enough to entertain the snob in me, nor attractive enough to entertain the dirtbag in me.
After the show we all mulled around with my compatriots discussing the greatness of the show as I stared at the woman in the oxygen mask yanking incessantly at the arm of a slot machine, despite there being a "spin" button right in front of her. She was old school. One-armed Bandit indeed. After a night of no-sleep and a breakfast buffet, we were headed back to Southern California where I could go back to ignoring contemporary country music.
The drive was a bit of a bummer as I realized why I hadn't talked to my friend/former supervisor in a while. Turns out I forgot that he's a really judgementally abrasive person and a total homophobe (with some racism sprinkles on top). We can talk about movies forever but beyond that, we really have very little in common. As we parted, I knew it would probably be a while before we talked again.
In hindsight I'm not exactly sure what I expected to gain from this trip. I was not touched by the redemptive powers of Brad Paisley, didn't hit some sort of fated "hey let me stick this quarter in this machine and see what happens" jackpot, and by the end of the drive home, didn't even really like the person I had gone to hang out with. I just ended up depressed. After contemplating it all and spending most of today at work locked in an existential daze, the load sort of just lifted itself from me. While reflecting, I had the liberating notion that my afformentioned funk was not merely one that required a momentary change of scenery, but something deeper that I need to figure out. I'm not sure why this thought was liberating but I honestly felt better right after I had it.
So, yeah. How was your weekend?