The Zombieslayer

I’ve been trying to avoid politics, but enough’s enough. George W Bush is the worst President we’ve ever had. He’s a traitor, and an America-hater. He’s sold out America to his corporate interests.

I’m so fucking sick of his “if you’re not with me, you’re against me” bullshit. That’s something a tyrant will say. Oh wait, never mind.

This amnesty thing will be the death of this country. A lot of fellow bloggers have been rallying hard against it. I’ve been rallying hard against it. And I never will forgive what he did to some of our finest Border Patrol agents. Those guys should get medals, not jail.

Bush’s H1-Bs have destroyed my profession. Very few people I know are doing better now than they were when Clinton was President in my profession, because Bush likes Indians better than Americans. Yes, I know, H1-Bs were around before Bush. But Bush expanded them to the point where the software industry sucks. I’ll elaborate more on this point later.

And gun control - the one issue I expect Bush to be on the right side of. 2004, he gave me a real bad scare when he said he’d sign the Clinton Gun Ban if it landed on his desk. Thankfully, it didn’t.

The environment’s going to take decades to recover from his Presidency. I won’t even bother to elaborate here.

This country will take decades to recover from the economic mess he’ll leave us. Clinton gave us a surplus. It’s because Clinton was an economic conservative. He understood that you need to cut spending. And look what happened. Best economy in my lifetime under Clinton. Now we owe China, fucking China, billions of dollars and we’re heavily in debt. Your kids will be paying China for a long time. Bush makes Carter look like a conservative.

And you might notice I didn’t even need to bring up Iraq.

Fuck Bush. I’ve had enough. Is it 2009 yet?

P.S. Thanks to all those who have been fighting amnesty for illegals. I wish I could see you at that rally (you all know who you are), but will be busy this weekend.

P.P.S. I know most of you hate her, but she’s finally right on.  Read Ann Coulter’s column.  She finally disagrees with Bush on something.  It’s about time, Ann.

Some folks say time equals money.  I’d rather have more time.

So, you want a review of the BFD festival? Fine, I’ll give it to you. Let me first disclose my prejudices. I’m a Metal-head, and have always been one. Hate Top-40 with a passion. Despise it. The last thing I want to listen to is some overused melody singing songs that the “artist” didn’t even write about their boyfriend/girlfriend. Jeez, speaking of putting one’s brain on cruise control.

Anyways, the Badman’s date called in and couldn’t get the day off work, so he called me last week and asked if I wanted to go to an all-day alternative music festival. Being the stud he is, I assume she’s probably hot, so bummer for him having to take me instead.

When we got there, a young lady with a bone in her nose tried to get me to buy a magazine about having a revolution. I’m sorry, but as bad as the current regime is, it’s probably better than something led by a lady with a bone in her nose.

The festival had the usual malcontents for an alternative musical festival - Emos, Punks, LUGs, Goths, Grunge and Post-Grunge folks, etc. Badman brought smokes, which was cool. I enjoyed two that day, the first time I had one since Vegas, but didn’t drink even a single beer. Just out of general principle, I’m not spending $7 for a beer, especially something like Rocky Mountain Piss-water. Real beer was $12.

Live 105 is the big Modern Rock radio station in the San Francisco area, and they sponsored the event. They bill it as Live 105’s BFD - Northern California’s Biggest Alternative Music Festival. Profits go to the Lymphoma Research Foundation, a great cause, especially considering we know a wonderful young woman who’s currently going through Chemo with Lymphoma.

With my prejudices previously disclosed, I’ll rate the bands I saw. With 25 bands and three stages, keep in mind we only saw the following…

Sum 41 - I hate Scooby Doo punk. Kind of like Blink 182, I should have brought some tomatoes. They spent too much time trying to work the crowd and not enough time actually playing decent music. Yuck.

Cold War Kids - We only caught one song of them because we were busy stuffing our faces at the restaurant while they played. From what I remember, it wasn’t too bad, but nothing I’d go out and buy.

The Bravery - Very “New Wavish,” with guitars, a synthesizer, and pop melodies. Reminded me of The Killers. They played their heart out, and it reflected in the music.

Silversun Pickups - Badman really looked forward to seeing them, comparing them to Sonic Youth, his 2nd fave band. They have the same heavily distorted music and a chick bass player, but other than that, the comparisons die out. Silversun Pickups use more layering with the delay effects. Their drummer really gets into it too, and the bass player smiled a lot and waved to the crowd constantly. They put on a really good show, and looked like they were enjoying themselves up there in the hot sun. I was pleasantly surprised, and they stole the show of all the bands on the 2nd stage.

Scissors for Lefty - They came up on the stage preceded by cardboard cutout black 1940s cars. When the approached the stage, they were donning 1940s prison garbs, then later dressed into red outfits. They relied heavily on their highly gay (gay as in happy cheese, not Boy George) stage show, and their New Wavish music and pop melodies also worked. If I wasn’t busy this weekend, I’d go to their CD release party in San Francisco, I liked them that much.

Kaiser Chiefs - Bad Brit pop. The crowd loved them. The Zombieslayer couldn’t wait for them to get off the stage.

Interpol - I didn’t expect to like this band, but they weren’t bad. The singer had almost a boring, monotone voice, but it worked. He never moved (like Robert Smith of The Cure), and rarely looked up. Musically - early 80s Goth. I wouldn’t rush out and buy their CDs, but live, they were moderately enjoyable.

Queens of the Stone Age - This is the only band I wanted to see in the whole set. I wondered what they were doing here in an “alternative” music festival. Queens is more a metal band. I expected them to put on a decent show, and they definitely spent the most money on their stage props, with weird, futuristic lighting. But they sucked, big time. Their bass was way too loud, with the whump whumping glaring over everything else. They simply had horrible sound, and their sound engineer should have been taken out and shot. Both Badman and Yours Truly couldn’t wait for them to get off the stage.

Social Distortion - Straight up Blue Collar music. No frills, no fluff. Mike and the band stole the show for the main stage. Mike Ness may not have a beautiful voice, but he’s got charisma, something a lot of today’s musicians lack. No, their music wasn’t great, it simply did what you expected it to do - it moved you. Hats off to Social D, for although I’ll never buy one of their albums (not my cup of tea), I’d definitely see them again. Classified as punk, I saw it more as white folk playing black music. Unlike some other white bands I won’t mention, Mike Ness admits it.

On the lighter side, La Cremiere has a post on Prince Charming vs Shrek.  Who would make a better lover? As someone who has been both, I find it an interesting read.  I especially find it an interesting read because I love reading a woman’s perspective on things.

On a serious note, Neal wrote an excellent piece on a way The Man screws over hard-working Americans by bringing in lowly paid employees from Third World countries to undercut American workers.  I guess tech workers were getting too much money and The Man didn’t like that.  So, here comes the H1-B visa and outsourcing, and to top it off, corporations get tax breaks while outsourcing American jobs.  And we wonder why Americans are so pissed off.  Read the article here.  It’s an excellent piece.

Have an excellent weekend my friends.  Tomorrow, I’m spending the whole day in San Francisco with The Badman to check out over a dozen bands.  Sunday, have a surprise for Mrs. Z and Junior.

You hear me all the time railing the Left for political correctness. I hate political correctness for obvious reasons, being a Freedom lover. Sometimes, the most stupid p.c. crap comes from the Right.

The firing of Joycelyn Elders

For example, the firing of Joycelyn Elders. Whether you loved her or hated her, she got canned for about the most stupid firing I’ve seen in politics. At a U.N. AIDS conference, someone asked if with AIDS around, should we promote teaching masturbation. She simply answered affirmitively.

Now, teaching masturbation is silly, because if someone can’t figure out how to masturbate, I think there are seriously deeper issues involved there. However, you don’t fire someone for answering a simple question. The blame for this falls 100% on the Right, for it was their bitching and whining that led to her dismissal for that simple reply.

John Ashcroft covering a statue’s breast

Then there’s John Ashcroft. I loved him when it came to guns. I hated him when it comes to Puritanism. What immediately comes to mind is his covering of Lady Liberty’s exposed breast.

It’s a freaking statue. When I first heard about that, I thought it was a joke. What scared me is that it wasn’t a joke. No wonder Ashcroft lost an election to a dead guy. Heck, if I weren’t such a gun nut, I would have voted for a dead guy over Ashcroft.

Breasts are some of God’s greatest creations. Your mother’s breasts fed you, and gave you immunity to all the diseases she built up immunity to. Imagine all the millions of people who would be dead today if it weren’t for breasts. Breasts are not sex organs, and America’s backwards beliefs about breasts frankly disturb me. If I were running the show, if a man could take his shirt off at a beach, so should a woman. Sure folks would stare at first, but we’ll get used to it sooner than you realize.

Movie ratings

The whole movie rating system is completely out of whack, and I’ll put more blame on the Right than the Left for this one. You can see someone get decapitated and have their head roll by your feet (Indiana Jones 3 - PG-13), blow tons of people away (just about every action movie in Hollywood), and even see someone explode into a mass of blood (Mission to Mars - which was PG, not even PG-13) and not get an R rating. Throw a naked body in there, you get an R rating.

In real life, what do you think would screw up a kid more? Seeing someone’s head get sliced off or seeing someone naked? I think we got this one backwards.