little bits on a not so little anniversary (a throwback)

well, the 9/11 anniversary has now come and gone, and i wanted to wait till AFTER midnight to let it all hang out and say, “hey look…nothing happened”. with the exception of the car fire at wal-mart that started my day (and no, it wasn’t my car) nothing happened. at least nothing i’ll write about. went to work, went to the gym, went to sonic, went to the house, watched a combo of that 9/11 documentary that those french guys shot that i hadn’t seen when it originally aired and the concert for new york on vh1. then i went to bed. yawn. not much to write home about, let alone post on the porno-fueled forum known as the world wide web. so here’s a couple lil’ ones for you…and the title was in place as a “just in case” thing…it’s the only two words anyone seems to nail on any of the verses to r.e.m.’s “it’s the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine)”. better safe than sorry, right?

english, mother fucker, do you speak it?

just a quick note left over from ozzfest…it was raining, right? REALLY badly for most of the day. as a result, as we have at EVERY outdoor show since woodstock (and probably before for all i know…even woodstock was before my time) we get mud people. they’re covered in it. they smell like it. they eat it, and to the chagrin of many, they throw it. and once they were all ushered out of the swamp land that was the space before stage two, they started tearing up the lawn hill. right before rob zombie, one of the promoter guys, or tour guys, or whoever, got on stage and made this announcement:

“people, please stop throwing sod. we all want to have a good time, and we all want all of you to have a good time, but this can’t happen with sod throwing. so please stop throwing sod. thank you.”

nice. only one problem. if you’re british (as he was), and in your forties (which he was), you know what “sod” is. if you’re a teenager, and from taco city texas (or austin, but either way), you know what DIRT is. you know what MUD is. but SOD? NO fucking clue. and as a result, the sod stayed air born. if only they spoke the language that’s named after them in the first place, huh?

we remember 9/11…but do we remember 7/04?

just one observation. a little something that bugged me about the “concert for new york” on vh1 last night, which i KNOW was a year old, but i hadn’t sat through a large portion of it. but the headliners surprised me…as did the high alcoholic content of the rescue workers, but i guess when the going gets tough, the tough get going…but then get REALLY drunk later. the forgotten half of the phrase. but never mind that now. the headliners they picked, to show our american pride, or to show how “these colors don’t run”, or countless other bumperstickerable phrases? SIR paul mccartney. SIR elton john. the who. the rolling stones. don’t get me wrong, all GREAT artists. and they make their country proud. only one problem…

this ISN’T their country.

it’s not. they play here. they tour here. a couple of them even live here. but they’re not FROM here. i know, i know…technically none of us are FROM here, unless you’re indian, or “native american”, or O.S. (original squatter) or whatever the term de correct is for the day. but hey, at least some of us were BORN here. i mean, these people are all british…the country we liberated ourselves from AGES ago. half the songs that were sung in patriotic spirit were about kicking their dart-throwing, warm beer drinking asses…and they headlined our “american pride” fest. even paul mccartney got a single out of it…”talkin’ ’bout freedom” (not his lyrical masterpiece, i might add…the title is basically all the lyrics are, repeated…a LOT). but what was our ORIGINAL freedom? freedom from the country he’s not only a citizen of, but a KNIGHTED citizen of…the highest honor you can get as a brit without being part of the inbred royal family. hello? am i the ONLY one that noticed this?

one bad bratwurst can ruin your whole day