In January of 2005, I moved a car load of my crap across the country to finish college. It was my last semester, and I was living and learning at a satellite campus in Los Angeles. In the months prior, just about everything in my life changed, as everything is always completely changing your life somehow at that age. Things were so crazy, in fact, I did just enough research to get myself and my best friend across the country, camping alone for a week.
I did no research, somehow, on the place I was to live for the next however-long. I had already planned to continue living in LA after graduation. No research.
A lot of people love bands from Los Angeles, and they learn of the city that way. Lots of people know about Hollywood just from loving movie history. Even more people than both these groups combined have visited Los Angeles and therefore have first-hand knowledge of the town. Not me. I just moved here.
I like to watch movies without knowing anything about them. I love to read books this way too. I adore surprises. I have let blind shit luck guide big decisions I've made. Nothing bad has ever resulted from this way of living.
But, let me suggest here: RESEARCH A CITY BEFORE YOU MOVE THERE. Or, if you can, visit there, more than once, maybe even a few times and determine if you like it. I'm not saying I "regret" moving here. I learned so much in LA. I have had so many wonderful experiences. While I still live here, I plan to do great things...
Shortly after I moved here, I heard a news report that a young actress had exited her vehicle on the 101 freeway and died. She exited the car going 80 miles an hour, and was hit by no less than nine cars. Her body parts could barely be identified.
I was horrified when I heard this. What could possibly make anyone do this? What a brutal way to end it. I just never wrapped my head around the story.
So this is the city where I live. I have been unemployed for a week, and I guess that isn't that long for a freelancer, but to me it has been a long fucking week. With a lot of friends out of town, I have had a great deal of time alone to ponder, digest, delve. It's so amazing that you can feel a certain way for so so very long and it takes all that time for your brain to wake up to how you feel. And you get this THOUGHT! Your heart rejoices when your brain finally gets the fucking message! And I thought: I know why that woman jumped out of her car!!
BECAUSE THIS CITY IS A STEAMING SHIT HOLE AND LIVING HERE ANOTHER SECOND MAKES ME WANT TO END IT ALL.
This place is hell. I need to leave. I don't want to greet my maker on the freeway, but I have to get the fuck out. I have to leave. I'm going to leave as soon as I have enough money, a job set up wherever I move, and hopefully my boyfriend's company. I have to fucking leave.
Nothing is real here. I don't trust anyone. I can't walk anywhere. I pay too much for gas and a gym membership, when, if I could just fucking walk I wouldn't have to do either! And that's just the beginning of my gripes with Los Angeles...
I feel like this whole time I've been devil's advocate with this shit hole. Every time somebody insults the way of life here, I argue. I point out all the great things like the weather and the West Coast and the cutting edge and the youth, etc. I have finally faced that these things do not fucking matter to me.
If the seasons don't change I will lose my brain. I want to be cold, East Coast cold, it's in my blood. My hair is blonde. What the fuck happened to me.
In the meantime, I'm going write. I won't desert you, blog. The fish are fucking dead you stupid kid, what are you, retarded? Or just raised in Los Angeles?
Good luck to me, or it'll be biting the 101 for sure.
03 September 2006
30 August 2006
Vons on Pico
"Four dollars a bottle, can't beat that. Can't beat that."
"Oh, there's another one there. Should I get it? No."
"Get it, get it, we'll save it."
There are seven bottles of red wine on the belt, two bottles of white. The larger woman in front of me twists her hand through the bars to get that last bottle of four dollar red wine on the rack next to the register.
"I bet some wine connoisseur came in and grabbed it all up!"
They share a laugh. The smaller woman comments on labels and wines I'm already trying to forget. They speak the way I do when I say Charles Shaw rather than Two Buck Chuck, but they're serious. I'm wondering how much they'll drink tonight. I won't be drinking any at all tonight, cause I figure it'd be a bad habit to drink when I don't have work. Feels wrong, wine should be to celebrate, I'll only feel worse. So I stare at my pitiful pile, bread, yogurt, and black beans. I have a five dollar bill, and I'm thrilled I'll have change.
"No, John."
"But shrimp is nasty."
"No, John, we have chicken."
"Can I get some noodles?"
"No, you are not getting one more thing John."
"Mom?"
"No John! Do you know what no means? What does no mean?"
This mother looks dead at me.
"Sorry baby. You'll get yours. Someday. You got some?"
I laugh, madly, too loudly. Starved. "No. No."
She gives a glare. I retreat to my bones, startled. Even the winos in front of me turn their daze at me, the middle of this pathetic tired worn out woman sandwich. We the life givers, none of us the same at all, ghosts of ourselves.
"Oh, there's another one there. Should I get it? No."
"Get it, get it, we'll save it."
There are seven bottles of red wine on the belt, two bottles of white. The larger woman in front of me twists her hand through the bars to get that last bottle of four dollar red wine on the rack next to the register.
"I bet some wine connoisseur came in and grabbed it all up!"
They share a laugh. The smaller woman comments on labels and wines I'm already trying to forget. They speak the way I do when I say Charles Shaw rather than Two Buck Chuck, but they're serious. I'm wondering how much they'll drink tonight. I won't be drinking any at all tonight, cause I figure it'd be a bad habit to drink when I don't have work. Feels wrong, wine should be to celebrate, I'll only feel worse. So I stare at my pitiful pile, bread, yogurt, and black beans. I have a five dollar bill, and I'm thrilled I'll have change.
"No, John."
"But shrimp is nasty."
"No, John, we have chicken."
"Can I get some noodles?"
"No, you are not getting one more thing John."
"Mom?"
"No John! Do you know what no means? What does no mean?"
This mother looks dead at me.
"Sorry baby. You'll get yours. Someday. You got some?"
I laugh, madly, too loudly. Starved. "No. No."
She gives a glare. I retreat to my bones, startled. Even the winos in front of me turn their daze at me, the middle of this pathetic tired worn out woman sandwich. We the life givers, none of us the same at all, ghosts of ourselves.
28 August 2006
Buy Me a Ruby
money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money $$$$!^%#&^$@^@%$#^%@$# $$ $$ $$ $$$$$$ money money money money money money money money money money, money.. money.. .. gag ugh cough blahrgg spit choke die
Money. You have it, you want it, you need it, you love it. You do sort of need some of it to be happy, unless your version of happiness is starving to death dirty on the street. Which, I daresay, is no one's version of happiness. My version includes being comfortable, being able to eat, and not going to bed at night unable to shut my eyes with worry. Some people have far grander versions, others have far more simple aspirations, but all are equally as difficult to attain.
I want to be a peace with money. I want to cast my money worries away into the fires of Mordor, never to control me again. I'm still somewhere in Hobbiton though, hitting my head on the tiny doorjams of my own design. I still have my money problems, and may always, it's the cross we poor poor Americans bear. Boo hoo.
All at once I'm bitter and thankful and sarcastic. How is it possible?
I have been "poor" my whole life. Not real poor, not going hungry poor, not third world poor, but it's all comparison, right? So in my private school where everyone had money, I was poor. In my New England college where none of my friends had jobs but magically could do everything they wanted, I was poor. That engaged a tiny amount of bitterness. My upbringing, however, invited far larger amounts of gratefulness for the aforementioned blessings of not REALLY being poor. There's something about the struggle (at that point, my mother's struggle on my behalf) that illuminates greater truths. Before I had complex thoughts, I KNEW that I was enjoying all my toys more than my rich friends. Later, I was savoring my vacations, my paychecks, and my savings accounts like no one else I knew. (I still do this.) It also helped, in school, being smarter than some of those rich kids, because then all bets are off. I win. Library books are free motherfuckers!! Ha ha! So.. why do I still want money?
The truth I have come to discover is money CAN buy happiness, but it doesn't HAVE to. It won't necessarily make you happy, and you can be happy without it. It facilitates happiness. Makes it easier to eat, live, create, but not inherently possible.
I realized yesterday, in this great de-lidding of doves and butterflies and ribbons, I am one of the only people I know who is DOING IT. I am doing it, and by "it" I mean going off into the world on my own- financially independent- and doing what I set out to do. Key words: financially independent. The great revelation came while discussing a friend who is clearly wealthy but refrains from activities for monetary reasons. For some reason it never occurred to me how wealthy she actually is, not only because of her family, but also, she has a great job! I don't fault her for this, or any of the people on the mental list I promptly made, but I do single them out and judge them. In finishing the list it became crystal clear that virtually all of the young ladies and gentlemen I graduated with are financially backed. It's like my eyes went into Twilight Zone spirals and I woke up hours later, feeling reborn. I was also drunk at a street fair in the middle of the day.
Roughly two people I know besides myself would be entirely fucked if the money ran out. Our families wouldn't be able to help us that much, we would never ask, and it's been this way since we left home. Or possibly before. It is these people that are closest to me. It's hard to be fully involved with friends who are experiencing every event in a different way, without the struggle. One my best friends recently said, while discussing the newness of being a real adult, with adult bills and demands, to make money and somehow to feed his soul, "But the struggle is good."
The struggle IS good. I can not imagine life any other way. Maybe I would be happy, in the short run. But in the long run, assuming we all succeed at our individual aims, I will have the satisfaction of knowing the success is mine. All mine. My own. My precious. Read it in my memoirs, bitches.
In the meantime, I will drink two dollar wine with my boyfriend, and be happy.
Money. You have it, you want it, you need it, you love it. You do sort of need some of it to be happy, unless your version of happiness is starving to death dirty on the street. Which, I daresay, is no one's version of happiness. My version includes being comfortable, being able to eat, and not going to bed at night unable to shut my eyes with worry. Some people have far grander versions, others have far more simple aspirations, but all are equally as difficult to attain.
I want to be a peace with money. I want to cast my money worries away into the fires of Mordor, never to control me again. I'm still somewhere in Hobbiton though, hitting my head on the tiny doorjams of my own design. I still have my money problems, and may always, it's the cross we poor poor Americans bear. Boo hoo.
All at once I'm bitter and thankful and sarcastic. How is it possible?
I have been "poor" my whole life. Not real poor, not going hungry poor, not third world poor, but it's all comparison, right? So in my private school where everyone had money, I was poor. In my New England college where none of my friends had jobs but magically could do everything they wanted, I was poor. That engaged a tiny amount of bitterness. My upbringing, however, invited far larger amounts of gratefulness for the aforementioned blessings of not REALLY being poor. There's something about the struggle (at that point, my mother's struggle on my behalf) that illuminates greater truths. Before I had complex thoughts, I KNEW that I was enjoying all my toys more than my rich friends. Later, I was savoring my vacations, my paychecks, and my savings accounts like no one else I knew. (I still do this.) It also helped, in school, being smarter than some of those rich kids, because then all bets are off. I win. Library books are free motherfuckers!! Ha ha! So.. why do I still want money?
The truth I have come to discover is money CAN buy happiness, but it doesn't HAVE to. It won't necessarily make you happy, and you can be happy without it. It facilitates happiness. Makes it easier to eat, live, create, but not inherently possible.
I realized yesterday, in this great de-lidding of doves and butterflies and ribbons, I am one of the only people I know who is DOING IT. I am doing it, and by "it" I mean going off into the world on my own- financially independent- and doing what I set out to do. Key words: financially independent. The great revelation came while discussing a friend who is clearly wealthy but refrains from activities for monetary reasons. For some reason it never occurred to me how wealthy she actually is, not only because of her family, but also, she has a great job! I don't fault her for this, or any of the people on the mental list I promptly made, but I do single them out and judge them. In finishing the list it became crystal clear that virtually all of the young ladies and gentlemen I graduated with are financially backed. It's like my eyes went into Twilight Zone spirals and I woke up hours later, feeling reborn. I was also drunk at a street fair in the middle of the day.
Roughly two people I know besides myself would be entirely fucked if the money ran out. Our families wouldn't be able to help us that much, we would never ask, and it's been this way since we left home. Or possibly before. It is these people that are closest to me. It's hard to be fully involved with friends who are experiencing every event in a different way, without the struggle. One my best friends recently said, while discussing the newness of being a real adult, with adult bills and demands, to make money and somehow to feed his soul, "But the struggle is good."
The struggle IS good. I can not imagine life any other way. Maybe I would be happy, in the short run. But in the long run, assuming we all succeed at our individual aims, I will have the satisfaction of knowing the success is mine. All mine. My own. My precious. Read it in my memoirs, bitches.
In the meantime, I will drink two dollar wine with my boyfriend, and be happy.
25 August 2006
No One Cares About Pitchfork Reviews (But Us)
I read THIS on losanjealous.com:
"On paper, it would have been so easy for you to not like them, another bloghyped Canadian band and another one with “wolf” in the name, at that. The early band pics revealed some irony, a few tatoos and a couple of muschaches. So, right out of the gate, before you even heard a single song, you’re not having it. Then, the whole Modest Mouse connection was not something you were sold on either. Next, this relatively-unknown band wrecks their hotel room at the Queen Mary at ATP like they’re Led fuckin’ Zeppelin. This was the final straw, as you loved the Queen Mary and it’s rich history. No one fucks with the Queen Mary. And so finally, the LP drops and it has many of the same songs from their pair of e.p.s. The camel’s back is broken when it gets the infamous 9.2 score handed out by the Russian judge. Surely the fix was in, and you were having none of it."
My question: WHY were you having none of it.
I am not attacking this article, this site, or this author. It is true, this does reflect what probably happened when Wolf Parade's target audience discovered its music. Jaded indiephiles yawning over Modest Mouse, feigning interest in a boat hotel. I agree with this article, but somehow it seems like they are allowing and encouraging this mindset which I find gross.
What is WITH all the aloof, non-committed cynical snobbery of this music scene. I can't even type a question mark here. I am baffled, period. Why are we immeditely turned off by the things that define us. Are we that stubborn. My message to hipsters: YOU HAVE NOWHERE LEFT TO GO. You are making fun of what you love, shunning good bands because it might be TOO cool to like them, you evade your own scene because clearly you are part of some OTHER scene, some UNbearded UNtattooed UNfashionable scene that lives in a hole, reading dead languages and drinking absynthe, or leading some equally inaccessible lifestyle that no blog could describe.
From time to time I do exactly what I'm describing. I'm wearing one of those caps right now, you know those caps? I listen to this music and I am part of this scene, yet I recently wrote about spotting one B-list actor at a Mountain Goats show, and I may or may not have sneered at aspects of her attire and haircut. Okay, I did. Because certain things are just absurd, and I won't tolerate retarded ensembles under the guise of some alternative style, have some pride!
Look, I may no better than the apathetic slack jaws this article portrays. But even though her clothing was atrocious, I DID embrace and give thanks for the fact that a young actress from the best television series ever to grace Fox came to a FREE show, that she had taste, that there existed this parallel... When I heard Wolf Parade I thought, oh god damn, this is good music. And when I heard Arctic Monkeys, I thought, mmm heard it before, I'll pass. (Well, there might have been a slight fuck this lame shit in there also.) Of course there will always be cheap imitations, in any arena of music, art, literature, etc. But if a band is getting great reviews, and you LIKED the EPs, and you like Modest Mouse, and CLAIM to like music, why not embrace Wolf Parade? Because once you start policing your niche to the point of discrediting it, you have nowhere else to go.
Wasn't that the whole point? That we would have some place to go? What are qualifications of this club?
Let's take a trip to the Boston of five years ago, me at a Milemarker show at TT's, wearing no social uniform: no chucks, no black rubber bracelets, no waxy hair, nada. I believe I had black eyeliner on, as I had done since age 14, but that wasn't getting me far. I showed up with an anticipation for live tunes and left with a new vocab word I have since used to describe the music scene goers in Boston: ttude. The ttude of vicious boys and girls dead set on perserving a culture they created. I used to really hate them.
But at least these scenesters had BALLS. Believe me I have welcomed the evolution of the freak folk, space rock, fusion of music of the last four years(you could argue longer)! I truly like having a community of people who dig Iron and Wine! That's rad! I am simply not willing to stab them in the heart for liking a "trendy" indie rock band, or disliking Sufjan Stevens!
All I see/read/hear about the all encompassing indie rock scene of Los Angeles is wimpy judgement based on fashion and timing. Cause not only do you have NOWHERE TO GO with these snide, seemingly astute rulings- I just want to point out- NO ONE CARES. I don't think you understand what a minority of people listen to this music in America, or the world, no matter how many songs Zach Braff can jam on a movie soundtrack. Our trends are but tributaries off the great river of music! Ask ten people on the street who Joanna Newsom is and do the math.
And doesn't it feel good? It feels good to be in this little collective, like a musical family.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just assumed back there that you loved music. Maybe I assumed there was a club, when really, we're on our own. But that's not true, is it? You love music and you want to protect it. Take a note from the ttude in Boston and OWN IT. Don't act like you'd stab the members and fans of Wolf Parade in the heart and leave for dead before you'd hear the music.
"On paper, it would have been so easy for you to not like them, another bloghyped Canadian band and another one with “wolf” in the name, at that. The early band pics revealed some irony, a few tatoos and a couple of muschaches. So, right out of the gate, before you even heard a single song, you’re not having it. Then, the whole Modest Mouse connection was not something you were sold on either. Next, this relatively-unknown band wrecks their hotel room at the Queen Mary at ATP like they’re Led fuckin’ Zeppelin. This was the final straw, as you loved the Queen Mary and it’s rich history. No one fucks with the Queen Mary. And so finally, the LP drops and it has many of the same songs from their pair of e.p.s. The camel’s back is broken when it gets the infamous 9.2 score handed out by the Russian judge. Surely the fix was in, and you were having none of it."
My question: WHY were you having none of it.
I am not attacking this article, this site, or this author. It is true, this does reflect what probably happened when Wolf Parade's target audience discovered its music. Jaded indiephiles yawning over Modest Mouse, feigning interest in a boat hotel. I agree with this article, but somehow it seems like they are allowing and encouraging this mindset which I find gross.
What is WITH all the aloof, non-committed cynical snobbery of this music scene. I can't even type a question mark here. I am baffled, period. Why are we immeditely turned off by the things that define us. Are we that stubborn. My message to hipsters: YOU HAVE NOWHERE LEFT TO GO. You are making fun of what you love, shunning good bands because it might be TOO cool to like them, you evade your own scene because clearly you are part of some OTHER scene, some UNbearded UNtattooed UNfashionable scene that lives in a hole, reading dead languages and drinking absynthe, or leading some equally inaccessible lifestyle that no blog could describe.
From time to time I do exactly what I'm describing. I'm wearing one of those caps right now, you know those caps? I listen to this music and I am part of this scene, yet I recently wrote about spotting one B-list actor at a Mountain Goats show, and I may or may not have sneered at aspects of her attire and haircut. Okay, I did. Because certain things are just absurd, and I won't tolerate retarded ensembles under the guise of some alternative style, have some pride!
Look, I may no better than the apathetic slack jaws this article portrays. But even though her clothing was atrocious, I DID embrace and give thanks for the fact that a young actress from the best television series ever to grace Fox came to a FREE show, that she had taste, that there existed this parallel... When I heard Wolf Parade I thought, oh god damn, this is good music. And when I heard Arctic Monkeys, I thought, mmm heard it before, I'll pass. (Well, there might have been a slight fuck this lame shit in there also.) Of course there will always be cheap imitations, in any arena of music, art, literature, etc. But if a band is getting great reviews, and you LIKED the EPs, and you like Modest Mouse, and CLAIM to like music, why not embrace Wolf Parade? Because once you start policing your niche to the point of discrediting it, you have nowhere else to go.
Wasn't that the whole point? That we would have some place to go? What are qualifications of this club?
Let's take a trip to the Boston of five years ago, me at a Milemarker show at TT's, wearing no social uniform: no chucks, no black rubber bracelets, no waxy hair, nada. I believe I had black eyeliner on, as I had done since age 14, but that wasn't getting me far. I showed up with an anticipation for live tunes and left with a new vocab word I have since used to describe the music scene goers in Boston: ttude. The ttude of vicious boys and girls dead set on perserving a culture they created. I used to really hate them.
But at least these scenesters had BALLS. Believe me I have welcomed the evolution of the freak folk, space rock, fusion of music of the last four years(you could argue longer)! I truly like having a community of people who dig Iron and Wine! That's rad! I am simply not willing to stab them in the heart for liking a "trendy" indie rock band, or disliking Sufjan Stevens!
All I see/read/hear about the all encompassing indie rock scene of Los Angeles is wimpy judgement based on fashion and timing. Cause not only do you have NOWHERE TO GO with these snide, seemingly astute rulings- I just want to point out- NO ONE CARES. I don't think you understand what a minority of people listen to this music in America, or the world, no matter how many songs Zach Braff can jam on a movie soundtrack. Our trends are but tributaries off the great river of music! Ask ten people on the street who Joanna Newsom is and do the math.
And doesn't it feel good? It feels good to be in this little collective, like a musical family.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just assumed back there that you loved music. Maybe I assumed there was a club, when really, we're on our own. But that's not true, is it? You love music and you want to protect it. Take a note from the ttude in Boston and OWN IT. Don't act like you'd stab the members and fans of Wolf Parade in the heart and leave for dead before you'd hear the music.
09 May 2006
Hardcore Hit List
I had forgotten, until last night, just how long it has been since I went to a hardcore show. The Bronx played a free show at the Spaceland last night, the first of their month long Monday night residency there.
After an all-too satisfying dinner at the Thai place next door, I and two others made our way to the show. Unfortunately we didn't miss the opener, a band that I thought was the embodiment of Rockstar Energy drink, all sweaty and synthetic with a gross aftertaste... Then, the Bronx.
They did well to open with their LA song.
I miss my hearing. Those ear hairs will never grow back, but under the submerged fuzziness of the world that I COULD hear, was the warm nostalgic ringing of nights in Boston sans earplugs.
What is it about hardcore? Why do I know a good hardcore band from a bad one? Why is there something overtly homoerotic about every moshpit ever? My mind is all questions, people.
All this queries aside. My real reason for commenting was to talk about Mosh Pit VIPs. Now, I am no expert on hardcore, I admit I have merely dated boys who consistently introduce me to more tunes I enjoy and subsequently take me to shows where I stand on the sides watching, going deaf, loving it. So I get to observe the mosh pit politics and the VIPs.
1. Older Bad Ass. This guy loves hardcore more than the folks of fewer years. His middle name might in fact be Moshpit. He is taller than everyone, but this might be an optical illusion. He has sweat in his blood, tattoos on his ass, and fat encasing every inch of his hardcore loving being. He will put up with NO BULLSHIT in the pit. (At this show, his girlfriend followed him around the moshpit unscathed, fearlessly assured that her Older Bad Ass would keep her safe. She was drinking a beer, she was the eye of storm. It was incredible.)
2. Crazy Fuck. The dude is on drugs. Multiple drugs. He should be dead. But he's too tweaked out to die. He pisses people off. He swings, he misses. He may or may not even know he is at a hardcore show, or in LA, or alive. He definitely has no shirt on.
3. Gang of Five or Six. This collection of music lovers is front and center. They are in a perpetual whirling football huddle, occasionally throwing up a fist or a shaved head. They keep the fire going.
4. Lead singer. If the lead singer is worth his hardcore salt he will join in the mosh pit frequently, and really "get it going".
5. Padded Walls. These guys form the outer edge. They just move people along, protecting people like me.
6. Skinny Virgins. I call anyone in the crowd who clearly didn't know what they were in for a Skinny Virgin. These people are inevitably near the front when the show starts and within seconds are behind the Padded Walls. They had no idea. They might still pretend to be hardcore, but their cover is b-l-o-w-n. If this describes you, don't worry. Even the Older Bad Ass was a Skinny Virgin once. There is still time to get a tooth knocked out, just go home and do some push ups first.
Situation: The stage is a flowering bruise, tunes are pumping. The Lead Singer gets right down in there and the Gang of Five or Six goes nuts. This sends the Crazy Fuck over the edge, an eye pops out, an artery bursts, and just before he does some serious damage, the Older Bad Ass (enemies, bound eternally, surviving only by the other's existence) sends him flying back against the Padded Walls. Beside me, Skinny Virgins shudder almost imperceptibly, and the music pounds.
After an all-too satisfying dinner at the Thai place next door, I and two others made our way to the show. Unfortunately we didn't miss the opener, a band that I thought was the embodiment of Rockstar Energy drink, all sweaty and synthetic with a gross aftertaste... Then, the Bronx.
They did well to open with their LA song.
I miss my hearing. Those ear hairs will never grow back, but under the submerged fuzziness of the world that I COULD hear, was the warm nostalgic ringing of nights in Boston sans earplugs.
What is it about hardcore? Why do I know a good hardcore band from a bad one? Why is there something overtly homoerotic about every moshpit ever? My mind is all questions, people.
All this queries aside. My real reason for commenting was to talk about Mosh Pit VIPs. Now, I am no expert on hardcore, I admit I have merely dated boys who consistently introduce me to more tunes I enjoy and subsequently take me to shows where I stand on the sides watching, going deaf, loving it. So I get to observe the mosh pit politics and the VIPs.
1. Older Bad Ass. This guy loves hardcore more than the folks of fewer years. His middle name might in fact be Moshpit. He is taller than everyone, but this might be an optical illusion. He has sweat in his blood, tattoos on his ass, and fat encasing every inch of his hardcore loving being. He will put up with NO BULLSHIT in the pit. (At this show, his girlfriend followed him around the moshpit unscathed, fearlessly assured that her Older Bad Ass would keep her safe. She was drinking a beer, she was the eye of storm. It was incredible.)
2. Crazy Fuck. The dude is on drugs. Multiple drugs. He should be dead. But he's too tweaked out to die. He pisses people off. He swings, he misses. He may or may not even know he is at a hardcore show, or in LA, or alive. He definitely has no shirt on.
3. Gang of Five or Six. This collection of music lovers is front and center. They are in a perpetual whirling football huddle, occasionally throwing up a fist or a shaved head. They keep the fire going.
4. Lead singer. If the lead singer is worth his hardcore salt he will join in the mosh pit frequently, and really "get it going".
5. Padded Walls. These guys form the outer edge. They just move people along, protecting people like me.
6. Skinny Virgins. I call anyone in the crowd who clearly didn't know what they were in for a Skinny Virgin. These people are inevitably near the front when the show starts and within seconds are behind the Padded Walls. They had no idea. They might still pretend to be hardcore, but their cover is b-l-o-w-n. If this describes you, don't worry. Even the Older Bad Ass was a Skinny Virgin once. There is still time to get a tooth knocked out, just go home and do some push ups first.
Situation: The stage is a flowering bruise, tunes are pumping. The Lead Singer gets right down in there and the Gang of Five or Six goes nuts. This sends the Crazy Fuck over the edge, an eye pops out, an artery bursts, and just before he does some serious damage, the Older Bad Ass (enemies, bound eternally, surviving only by the other's existence) sends him flying back against the Padded Walls. Beside me, Skinny Virgins shudder almost imperceptibly, and the music pounds.
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