Sunday, August 3, 2008

Hardcore: The Unseen Safe House

A bare room with nothing in it but space in the morning. This room would most likely smell of old people or whoever used it last, maybe a birthday party of some sort. The room later that night after all the ruckus would smell of body sweat. The air would feel dense and humid and lonely once again, after all the ruckus. The everyday passerby sees the show as noise pollution. Some see it as a place where their kids would learn about fucking and drugs. This is the people that we consider to be the bad crowd. We want to keep our kids in school and church. If they aren't accepted it is their own fault for being so non-social. They use sarcasm and cynical remarks and it drives the normal kids away, this is why they are not accepted. These hardcore punk shows are just their path to self destruction, prison and suicide. That's what its told in the above ground anyway.

The hardcore scene has been alive, dead, and fighting for surviving in the minds of the American youth since the late seventies. It has always been what most people see as the junkies. Music that the criminals listen to and make. Tattooed low-lives that do nothing but scream angry songs about murder. This is so far from the truth its insane. Hardcore and punk shows have been the true safe haven of the non-socially accepted for years. The sad thing is that most teens are socially unaccepted. The even sadder thing is that allot of these kids never even hear of hardcore and think hardcore is just another word for metal and the only metal bands they have heard of is the bigger bands such as Slipknot and Disturbed which is told to them as the devil's music and such which is only a selling point for bands and most of the "nu" metal bands are just as corporate as the groups they claim to be against, but that's another story.

I'm not going to get into the history of hardcore and all that jazz. Its not the time for that. I really want this post to be more on a personally level, my own experience in the hardcore scene of the early 2000's. For me I found this music scene all own my own, with the help of some gracious friends and mostly self experience. My parents were and still are avid free will baptists and do not really listen to any music at all. I was picked on from kindergarten through eighth grade and didn't fit in at all. I didn't relate to my parents either (even though I was afraid of what hell was told to me to be and I went to church on a regular basis). I went to my first show with my friend Adrian in early 2002. The show was Zao, Unearth, and Stretch Armstrong. I saw a sort of unity in the crowd. This laid back yet energetic crowd that seemed to know each other. The bands were fine with just hanging out and drinking beers with the fans, but not as rock stars but as nearly best buds. I've never seen anything like it.

At hardcore shows it differs from rock shows and metal shows like a Pantera concert because even though some people drink, its not like everyone just go for getting plastered and acting a complete asshole and fucking some under aged slut and all her friends. You don't have to worry about some long haired drunk fuckhead trying to mosh. Rock shows seem to be these dingy nasty "sex, drugs, and rock n roll." Hardcore is "high fives, stage dives and hardcore." I have been to a few other genre shows but hardcore is where music seems to matter the most. Where music is the key ingredient, rather than just background noise to getting drunk and hitting on chicks.

Not until hardcore really did mix with metal and some of the more metal heads came out thinking it was just the same thing. The ideas clash and down hardcore went to just violent slug fests between the rival moshers. Boyfriends kick the asses of drunk old men. Straight Edgers take offence to some guy spilling been in their faces. See even the more anger fulled tough guy hardcore did seem to have this positive underline to their shows and show respect at the shows even though it was allot different from the more punk influenced "posi" hardcore of the mid to late eighties. Don't get me wrong I fucking love a great metal band as long as they are extremely talented and take the time to really think out songs. I'm really picky with metal. Bands like Between the Buried and Me who originated around the hardcore scenes of Raleigh now have tons of disrespectful drunks going to the shows and their shows get very violent and allot of fights break because of the clashing.

But now we go back, posi is seeming to be the new cool. I'm fine with that. When I think of a hardcore show I think of the good times, the sing-alongs. I think of my friends, the smell of sweat and salt. I think of how the outsiders don't get it. I think of how we are looked on as the junkies. I think of how I am not that junky. I think of how non of us are. I think of morality and respect, and how these virtues are avid at our shows. I think of how open minded everyone is, how no matter who you are, you are one of us as long as you have fun and show respect. I think of how I see people for the first time in their short lives, being themselves.

Thank you for listening.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Why Don’t I Have A “H.U.D.” In My Eyesight?

People sure do rely on the statistics too much. I myself was once guilty of this. The Statistics are not an accurate measurement of human nature. Actually no measurement is accurate. We are not computers. We do not speak in binary. We cannot be measured in numbers as a robot can be configured.

This brings me to my meat. My big daddy. My mother of pearl. My real sausage ball. I was told that statistics say that media violence affects people as a whole and not all people but as a whole. They said this is a fact because we can see it in numbers its something we can measure. I’m sorry but the human mind and actions cannot be measured. We are such a diverse culture on earth that nothing is constant. Everyone knows to have a successful science experiment you have to have a constant!

The even more specific of topics here is video games. I play “first-person shooters” or FPS video games. These games are very violent even with out blood (which usually gets a teen rating rather than mature). They help me with aggression and work stress and stress in the world at all! I have a lot of friends that enjoy the FPS. If this statistical accusation was true then myself among many other of my friends would be trained cold blooded killers that killed without mercy or remorse. This is not true. We are not cold blooded killers and I know of millions upon billions of earthlings FPS players who are not cold blooded killers but love to play these wonderfully violent video games.

Somebody once told me that what we did in videos games is what we would do if there were no consequence. Of fucking course it would be! Now let me explain what “no consequence” really means. No consequence doesn’t mean just no rules of government. I would still have a conscience, and a gut for morality without government and a respect for mankind. How do you think government got started. Human kind figured out really quick that killing everyone just for the sake of killings didn’t do very much for pro-creation. No consequence goes deeper than that. Without consequence means we have a world where people didn’t really die. It means when we die we get to start over and over and a recent checkpoint or manual save. It means that if we get hurt it only takes a bit from our health meter and we can replenish it by eating first-aid kits.

This of course is not reality nor is it even possible. It is only possible in the virtual safe haven of video game violence. Remember the gun was invented before the television, VCR, DVD player, and the X-box.