Haiku Monday - Halloween!

 Halloween

All hallows eve, YAR!

A pirate and a clone say

More candy please, Dad

From soil-net.com (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Punk Rock Friday - New Direction by the Gorilla Biscuits

By Andy McKay [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

What do you mean it's time
Time for me to grow up?
I don't want any part
It's right to follow my heart
The new kids ran
Ran out the back door fast
And the bands that came before
They had their noses in the air
Pretending that they cared about our scene
Just because our money's green
I'll tell you stage dives
Make me feel more alive
Than coded messages in slowed down songs

Now you're so ashamed
Now I'm so ashamed of you
We believed the same things
You stand to the side
Rebirth of hardcore pride
It all came true
Too bad you can't see
All the good things that I see

Back in, back in the days
when I'd wait tosee the old bands play
It didn't seem like wasted days
I was so sincere, but now I see more clearly
Music's only work to them. It's not to me
So I say, hats off to bands that change
Good luck, go your own way 
Why play for us, if your heart's not in it? 
Cause what might seem dumb to you
is pounding in my heart.

Now you're so ashamed,
Now you're so ashamed of you
We believed the same things.
You stand to the side
Rebirth of hardcore pride
It all came true
Too bad you can't see
No, you just can't fucking see it.

Now you just turn your back
You said I don't want it anymore
Old friends you attack
Our pain out of touch. You don't get it do you?
New stage, new ideas.
You don't have to make excuses for us
Sitting there looking back, I'm scared
Don't spoil memories of the way things

Haiku Monday - Wrong Age

Picture Credit: James Vaughan, CC BY-SA 2.0

Wrong Age

Simple life for me

Kids are better than adults

Gray is for the weak

Good luck deciphering this one people... well it is really not all that deep, I am just sort of mentally slow and prone to thinking much too highly of myself.

Stupid People

One of my favorite things in life is the whole notion of the Darwin Awards.  The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it...

Taken from their website:

In the spirit of Charles Darwin, the Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival. 

 They were started by Wendy Northcutt and have evolved into an annual book.  There are some real gems out there - like the one where two professional racecar mechanics put methanol in a 55 gallon drum and tried to ride it like Wile E. Coyote.

But, I bring to you today someone who just missed the cut for the Darwin Awards:

Haiku Monday - No Coffee?

No Coffee?

Truly horrible event

No work coffee on Monday? 

 Brain weeps like fall leaves

Cancer and the Sword of Damocles

PreScript - buy this shirt - band back together is a great website and cause. 
Plus, Aunt Becky rules.

Let me just say, cancer is bullshit.

My wife is a cancer survivor.  You can read more about it on my first blog (re)post here: Horror Show.  The short(ish) story of it is thus: 8 months or so after we were married, my wife was diagnosed with malignant melanoma (a typically deadly form of skin cancer), the same cancer her father died of 6 months before.  Very scary. She had surgery and has been cancer free for 5 years now.  Unlike cancer, being a cancer survivor is awesome.

Sword of Damocles, 1812, oil painting on canvas. Richard Westall

But, the trauma of having cancer takes it toll.  I liken it to the parable of the Sword of Damocles.   Damocles was a bit of a brown noser back in Greece in the day, and was sucking up to his king, saying how lucky the king was to be surrounded with so much beauty, wealth, and wisdom.  His king asked him if he wanted to change places and Damocles jumped at it.  The king gave up his royal throne to Damocles.  The catch was that the wise king hung a sword above the throne, suspended point down by only a thin hair.  Damocles soon begged the king to trade back.

So, kicking cancer's ass is great.  But that nagging feeling is always with my wife that it will come back.  That sword is always hanging over her.  Every day.  Anything that is out of the ordinary for her body results in an evening of worry and a trip to the doctor the next morning.  She is worried about leaving me to raise 2 kids alone.  Leaving her kids motherless.  It is hard on her.  Really hard on her.

For me, it is stress.  She gets worked up, I try to remain calm, try not to worry.  Just last night, she found a lump in her shoulder.  It was like a big, inflamed lymph node on top of her shoulder.  Crazy lymph nodes is a sign of cancer.  My wife was freaking out.  All last night.  I was freaking out, but I couldn't show it.  Plus I have to be the voice of reason and try and tell her not to worry, we don't know what the hell it could be.  Also, I usually need time to digest things and understand where I fall with them and how I want to deal with them.  When things are sprung on me, I typically am not very comforting.  I usually need to sleep on them, let both my conscious and subconscious minds gnaw on it for a while, before I feel at ease to talk about it and deal with it.

So, Beautiful Wife went to the doctor this morning.  Well, it turns out to be a very normal thing.  A Lipoma - a fatty, benign tumor.  About 1% of the population has them and they are typically not treated unless they start to cause problems or start growing rapidly.

So, the sword hasn't fallen, but it is sure still hanging up there...

Punk Rock Friday - Harry Bridges by Rancid

Back in my much more glamorous days of fronting a punk band, one of the main themes I wrote about was the class divide in the US.  So, in that vain I present to you Harry Bridges by Rancid:
Live Version from '94 (great concert footage, decent sound) Album version (better sound) For anyone interested here is the wiki page for Harry Bridges and Blood Thursday (referenced in the first line of the song).

You can probably guess where I fall on the political spectrum, but I respect all opinions given the person respects mine.  So, feel free to discuss.