My Appendix Has Declared My Body No Longer Inhabitable...Who Could Blame it?

Warning: This Post was written under the heavy influence of morphine.

Middletown Regional Hospital

During the ages of 8-12 I was hospitalized about 3-5 times a year due to my asthma and during that time I became well acquainted with the staff and surroundings of Middletown Regional Hospital. As a kid, I weirdly looked forward to it since they had a Sega Genesis that they would let you play, and seeing as how I only had an old NES, that was enough to excite me. Honestly, with all things considered, I don't really mind hospitals too much since I've spent so much time in them.

I always assumed the next time I was to be hospitalized would be due to an accident on my motorcycle. I'm a great rider, don't get me wrong, but as the old adage goes: There are two types of riders, those that have been down and those that will go down. At the moment I'm in the latter camp, thus I've always had premium motorcycle insurance, but...

I've spent the last 8 years without medical insurance (much to the discontentment of my mother) however once Liv and I got married, she made it her mission in life to find us the best insurance possible so that I could finally get on my regulatory meds for my asthma (that totaled about $220 a month without insurance). So she rallied the support of her parents and my mother behind my back, and had them help flip the bill for insurance. I was furious that she would go behind my back and talk to others about my well-being, and I viewed it as a breach of trust. Why? Because I'm a too proud idiot a lot of the time. 

Liv's been up in Ojai the last few weeks acting as production-secretary on a movie (and kicking ass at it) so I've been using the time to get a lot of writing done. Unfortunately, for me to sit in a room, by myself for hours and hours on end is not something I can do without the assistance of some type of substance to help me focus. Generally, this is alcohol. So I went on a bit of a bender of sorts, downing about 1/4 a handle of whiskey a night to myself and writing. My body is no stranger to Jim Beam, so I had only very slight hangovers in the morning and little else... until Thursday morning.

Wed. night activities

Thursday morning at 5AM I woke up in agonizing pain. If being on fire is a 9-level pain, this was an 8. So I laid in my bed for four hours, rolling around in searing, cramping pain hoping for it to go away on its own, It didn't. Out of desperation I was trying anything, and downed an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol. When that didn't work, I convinced myself that if I could just take a shit (the pain was similar to that of the moments before diarrhea) I would again be fine. 

That's when my roommate knocked on the door to see if I could work on a project that day. He opened the door to discover me laying on the bathroom floor in my t-shirt and underwear attempting to make myself puke in desperation for anything to help. At that moment, I had convinced myself in my heart of hearts, that if I could only take a shit, everything in life would return to normal. So with a clouded mind full of pain, I begged him to go buy me an enema so that I could expel the contents of my stomach, At first he was reluctant, but the sight of me begging him half naked from the bathroom floor convinced him to do it.

Half hour later J.C. delivered a box with two enemas, wished me luck, and went to work as I got down to the deed. I read the instructions, got down naked on my hands and knees, inserted a cold plastic water-bottle up my ass, and squeezed the contents in. The process itself wasn't as bad as it sounded, but for me to get onto our small bathroom floor in the level of pain I was enduring was nearly impossible. I sat there on my knees, ass to god, and maintained the liquid inside me as long as I could. I then fumbled to the toilet, and although the water came out... nothing else did. So, I figured what the hell, I have two anyway, and I repeated the entire process again with the other enema.

Quickly running out of options and realizing that I must have actually hurt my body with alcohol consumption I looked at WebMD and attempted to self-diagnose my problem. Nausea? Check. Cramping pain? Check. Confusion? Triple check. The proposed-results horrified me, it was acute pancreatitis, a result of overdoing ones limits of drinking. I laid there, horrified that I may never be able to drink again and began to cry. As I did, I decided that if the pain wasn't any better in an hour, I was going to go to the hospital. Having time to kill and being me, I figured what the hell? Might as well distract myself. So I pulled up a website and jerked off for a half-hour in what was one of the least pleasing bouts of self-pleasure ever. 

In the midst of a painful afterglow, I knew that my time was up and I had to get professional help, so I lumbered myself into the shower, and sat there for 10 minutes unable to move due to my stomach's condition and attempted to clean myself as much as I could. I dried myself off, called my ever-dependable buddy Andrew, and told him I needed a hospital. He arrived ten minutes later with his wonderful girlfriend Ellyn, and away we went,

The ER

We arrived, Ellyn got me checked in, and we sat there enduring the emergency waiting room. ER's have to be the great equalizer in life as no one is there unless they have to be, and people from all walks of life are treated with the same disdain. I sat down next to a kid who insisted his chair was a drum-kit, watched Jeopardy, and waited. Eventually they took me back, I explained my symptoms and the woman agreed (after accusing me of being on drugs a dozen times), that my drinking days were over. The ER was overcrowded and no rooms were available, so the male nurse escorted me back to a section of the hallway that was to be mine for the next 8 hours. During said escort, the small little man made it a point to rub my nose in the fact that alcohol is a bad thing no less than 8 times in 8 different ways, thinking himself some type of holy messenger for those of us that were never told that excess can hurt you. Asshole.

The doctor eventually came and gave me the best news of my life, the location of my pain combined with a very heavily increased white blood-cell count meant that the culprit was NOT my liver or my pancreas, but was in fact, likely appendicitis! After he finished being wholly confused as to why I would celebrate such a thing, he then instructed me that I was to take a CT scan, which to me, screamed money lost. I argued that I could possibly be fine and there was no way in hell I was paying $1200 for some fancy x-ray. I asked for a form to release myself from care against orders, and Andrew, my amazing friend began yelling at me. "Listen you idiot, if it ruptures in you you'll be admitted for two weeks, how much do you think that will cost? Moron, get the damn thing." Thats when the doctor ganged up on me as well, grabbed my appendix and squeezed on the area making me squeel like a little girl. "That's not normal, listen to your friend."

My room

So I called my mom and asked her advice. Evidently, the insurance that my wife picked out was platinum and it covers nearly everything known to man, thus, the scan was $80. I'm a fucking idiot. The insurance that my parents-in-law, my mother, and my wife all bitched to me about getting was the same thing that was going to let me discover whether or not I'm about to have an organ explode. I got scanned, and they promptly diagnosed me with an about to burst appendix.

On the way out of the ER to be admitted into standard care, I passed the male nurse that gave me the 5 minute lecture about how I live my life, and stopped him. "Good news man! It wasn't the booze! It was just an appendicitis, I can still drink!" He stood, staring open-mouthed at me. "But I appreciate the lecture man, thanks!" They wheeled me past him and I cackled in a morphine ridden haze.

Andrew and Ellyn

Andrew and Ellyn sat with me all damn day. Andrew gave me advice, yelled at me when I was being an idiot, and made fun of all of the doctors with me. Ellyn memorized every doctors name we talked to, took care of all of my paperwork, and acted as my mother until Liv could get down from Ojai. They wheeled me into my little room, Matt and Sarah came to visit, and we all sat around laughing at what a fucking idiot I am. Eventually, they left and it was just Liv and I, I held her for a while, insisted I was going to be totally fine, and then somehow convinced her, though I was in extreme amounts of pain, that having sex with me was a good idea and we got down in the bathroom.

Blessed is a dumb fucking word, it implies that you are a victim of not having free-will, and that God has designed the things and people that are in your life, so I won't use that. I surround myself with good people that I would break my back to help out at any given point, but I am fortunate enough to have picked people that are willing to do the same for me. So thank you Andrew, Ellyn, Liv, Mom, Peter (father-in-law), Guee (mother-in-law), Matt, and Sarah for being amazing people who I don't deserve. And a special thanks to J.C. for enduring the shame of buying me an enema.

Rodney Redbottom: Cast and Crew Screening

Cast/Crew Screening Poster

Hey folks! My new flick Rodney Redbottom is "in the can" as they say and we are having our cast/crew screening on December 6th 2014 at the Two Roads Theater in Studio City! It's been a huge undertaking and I'd like to thank every single person who supported the flick.

We'll have a trailer up in the coming weeks, but until then, I thought I'd take a second and offer you a chance to come and see the flick early! If you'd like to attend the only public screening that'll take place until our (hopeful) run in the festival market, we're going to give away 2 pairs of tickets to this invite only screening.

Not only that, but we're going to screen some MST3K shorts and two of my favorite movies of all time, Evil Dead 2 and Every Which Way But Loose!!! (subject to change).

How to you get them? Simply be among the first to email us at RodneyRedbottom@Gmail.com and ask! That damn simple!!!! Hell, we'll even give you a limited 11X17 poster of the film!

Be sure to watch here in the coming weeks as I'll be doing a series of articles on the behind the scenes decisions that went into making our little flick.

Stay sick Knif's!

My New Writing Gig!

I was lucky enough to come into my mid-teenage years with the dawning of the internet. Before this, I spent the ages of 13-15 living in a small-town in Ohio tracking down any punk album I could get my hands on by any means necessary. I borrowed old VHS bootlegs from my friends older brothers, I dubbed my friends’ fathers pressing of Never Mind The Bullocks and recorded it onto a cassette tape, I even recorded a local channel which broadcast old Much music episodes for the rare moment when a Bad Religion or Rollins Band video would be shown. Then, when I was 16 my aunt and uncle bought me a computer and a year’s subscription to dial-up internet and my life forever changed.

Still have my VHS/Cassettes 

Suddenly bands I had only heard of in legend like UK Subs, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag were just mouse-clicks away. Yahoo offered me countless images of punk clothing and I began to recreate the styles that I found there. Shortly I was on Kazaa and SoulSeek searching out bands that I had heard OF for years, but never actually heard. In short, the entire world that I had fought so incredibly hard to obtain knowledge of suddenly opened up to me.

So was Punk Rock more special when I had to seek it out at length, or did the internet finally give me the availability of the knowledge I always desired?  Did the scene benefit more from only including the people that had to aggressively seek it out, or is it better in this day and age that Punk Rock websites exist and offer an instant and nearly unlimited library of Punk Rock knowledge and culture? I tend to side with the latter, but regardless of anyone’s opinion, one thing cannot be denied: It ultimately doesn't matter, because either way, here we stand.

This is why I for one choose to embrace technology rather than just be yet another aging asshole bitching about the glory days and that is why I've chosen to write a series of articles for the Punk Rock news-site DyingScene.com

DyingScene.com Profile

I’ll be starting off with a series of How-To/DIY projects, the first of which is how to make your own Punk Rock vest that should be published very soon. After that I’m planning on tackling how to make your own stencils, leather-jacket, band-promotion, and so-on. Occasionally, to ensure monotony doesn't set in, I’ll break these up with a series of interviews/reviews and just plain news from the scene that I've been a part of all these many, many years (goddamn I’m getting old).

But don’t worry dear reader, I’ll still be publishing regularly here (or as regularly as I ever have). So if you’re one of the Pour-Souls reading this you can still expect my bitching and moaning to published here on a regular basis. Seeing as how Rodney Redbottom is now complete, I’ll be writing a bi-weekly post here about the making of it to offer my insight on how to make a short movie for nearly no budget. Hint: have talented, loyal friends.

So until then, keep a watch on my profile at DyingScene.com, watch out for Rodney Redbottom hitting film festivals this Spring, stay tuned here for more drunken gibberish from me, and oh yeah…. I’m writing a book, but that won’t be out ANYTIME soon.

Rodney Redbottom is in production!!!!

Lately I've only been updating my blog about once a month due to being in pre-production on my upcoming short flick Rodney Redbottom. RR is a short, dark-comedy about a young kid and his estranged relationship with his Grandpa. It's a cautionary tale about the danger of making assumptions without asking questions. In it, young Charlie discovers that his grandparents were into bondage. Told through the eyes of Charlie as an old man, we explore regret and the strangeness that accompanies the thought that all grandparents have sex... some kinkier than others. Think Jim Jarmusch meets John Waters.

It's an incredibly ambitious (if I do say so myself) movie that I have pooled nearly the entirety of my friends talent to construct. Without name dropping every single person that is involved in it (I don't want to leave people out and hurt feelings) I will say that the project would be entirely impossible if it weren't for the help of William S. Abramson (financier), J.C. Reifenberg (DP and all around badass), and Olivia Banks (Producer and Partner-In-Crime).

Expect a teaser-trailer for the flick in the upcoming month, the full trailer following in June, and a mid-Fall premiere. Until then, enjoy the free-downloadable full-res one-sheet for the project right here!!!!!

Also, a big thanks to the one and only John Roecker for the help with the tagline!!

Can I Still Allow Myself to Watch Woody Allen Films?

Prelude:
Lately I've been at an impasse. I really, really love alot of Woody Allen films, but at the same time the dude might be guilty of some really fucked up charges. I have really struggled with this fact since Dylan Farrow's public letter was published, so much so that I have abstained on watching any of his films since. This blog-post is not written to sway you in any way, shape or form. It was written solely by me in an effort to work out whether or not I should allow myself to watch and or enjoy his work.

Every film buff has a Woody Allen phase. Admit it. Whether you like him or not, at some point you have made it a point to catch several of his films in quick succession due to either your adoration of his work, or attempting to figure out what all the fuss is about.Which ever side of the fence you fall on, you cannot deny the fucker is one hard-working son-of-a-bitch. "Midnight In Paris" is not only my favorite film of 2011, but is the only film I have ever seen on the small screen (caught it early while working at Sony) that I then went to the theater to watch again that night.

Before analyzing the situation, there are a number of barebones facts that are undeniable about the situation, here are the pertinent ones as I understand them.

Mia Farrow is a fucking crazy ass bitch
Immediately after publicly accusing Allen of this horrible crime, Farrow was still aggressively pursuing

her role on his next project "Manhattan Murder Mystery". To continue a relationship in any way, shape or form with a man who you believe has actually sexually-assaulted your daughter means you are either batshit crazy, a fucking liar, or the most self-centered bitch on the planet. Hell, she even testified on behalf of Roman Polanski (who was also charged with having sex with a minor) during his trial. Does this mean the incident didn't happen? Fuck no, it just means that regardless, Mia Farrow is a fucking crazy ass bitch. The insanity doesn't end there either, Farrow continued to let her children around Allen after even after she found out he had sex with Soon-Yi, her stepdaughter, which brings me to the next point.

Woody Allen is a fucked up dude

Directly before the accusation of the molestation of Dylan, Woody Allen already had sex and a relationship with one of her daughters while in a relationship with Farrow. Yes, both people in this were probably of legal age (due to her not having a birth certificate it was assumed she was between 18-20 years old) at the time, but it was still his girlfriends daughter. Further, he publicly stated that “I didn’t feel that just because she was Mia’s daughter, there was any great moral dilemma. It was a fact, but not one with any great import. It wasn’t like she was my daughter.”. Does that prove that he molested Dylan? Nope, but it does prove that he is one weird motherfucker who doesn't have issues with fucking someone who looks up to him as a father figure.

Was Allen indeed being treated for obsession over Dylan?

Taken from the custody transcript

In researching this case I discovered again and again reports that Allen had been in treatment with a "Dr. Coates" regarding treatment for his "inappropriate behavior with Dylan". Well I decided not to re-read what a bunch of fucking bloggers wrote and rewrote (scum of the Earth if you ask me ;-) and read the statement myself. According to the papers, he was not being "treated" for it, but the subject did arise while in therapy. According to Dr. Coates, the subject of Allen's preferential treatment of Dylan did indeed come up, but that he "did not see it as sexual". Basically the doctor discussed with Allen that he should not dote solely on Dylan and that doing so was creeping people out. What I find strange here is that the doctor recognized that he preferred the child, but did not believe that the attention was sexual in nature, something I would suspect someone of his profession is trained to do.

Dylan's claims
It is beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that Dylan believes she was molested by Allen at seven years old. How do you approach this claim as being potentially untruthful and not be a piece of shit? You could attempt to explain away that Mia could have brainwashed her into believing this, but jesus fucking christ, now you're questioning someone who has been through an insane ordeal. I feel dirty just writing these few lines on the subject, but then again, this is an exploratory piece. I myself have written briefly about being young and told that I watched a gun be held to my mothers head resulting in confusion of not being able to tell in retrospect what I have seen VS what I was told I had seen. To this day it is debated what actually happened. Is it a possibility that she is mistaken? Yes, I think I can speak with some very limited understanding to the effect of having people tell you what you saw and how that can cloud a young mind. Does that make it the case that it didn't happen? Shit no it doesn't.

The older brother insists it didn't happen
Moses Farrow is 8 years older than Dylan and denies that there was ever any inappropriate anything that happened during their years with Allen. Think about that for a second, that makes the kid around 15 years old when all of this was going down. I remember damn near everything from 15 years old. That either means that Moses is lying for Dad for his inheritance, being honest and nothing happened, or that he's technically retarded and never noticed anything. The first two seem like logical possibilities, but the dude seems well spoken enough to eliminate the third.

Conclusion:
That's a Readers Digest version of the nuts and bolts of it. Allen has a history of doing some weird freaky

The Whole Fucking Mess

shit and has not had problems with who he does it with, even if she's a daughter-like figure. Dylan was only 7 and impressionable, both from a nut-bag mother and a fucking weirdo father. I put a certain amount of stock in what Moses claims as he doesn't seem to be doing more than protecting his fathers name and he would have been a correct age to notice things of that sort from Allen. The custody paper's far from speak kindly about Allen, they even go as far as to say that he was detrimental to the children whether he committed the crime or not. Regardless, that cunt Mia Farrow put her children into harms way so I'd say she shoulders quite a bit of responsibility.

Did he do it? Fuck me, those are some murky waters. Dylan's insistence on the subject seems damning, but there isn't much more past that. Hell, there's even quite a bit of evidence to the contrary... so the dude very well might be guilty of an unimaginable crime. But this is America, and we are supposed to believe in innocence until proven guilty, and even the judge in the fucking custody case couldn't handle making a ruling on whether he did it or not. I have no idea if he did it, I wish to fuck I did.

To be completely honest, I thought that after researching this subject I would completely be against watching Woody Allen films ever again. But what it comes down to for me personally is that it's just not right to judge someone on one persons claims when there isn't a body of damning body of evidence to support it. After all, the weird bastard never has been accused of this before (as is usually the case with pedophiles). Perhaps I'm writing this and looking for an excuse to still watch Woody Allen's films, but I don't believe in my heart of hearts that I am. With all of the weird history, accusations, and drama in mind I choose to continue to watch his films, but I have the nagging suspicion that everytime I do, I will fell just a little bit dirty.

AntiCurrent Booze & Grub Review #2: Despaña: The Best Breakfast In Sydney

Once again, my admittedly limited taste in food, but tremendous taste in atmosphere and humans landed me in yet another amazing restaurant. A few months ago on what has been one of my numerous trips through Glebe (a suburb of Sydney) I was checking out a menu in the front of a restaurant when what I assumed was the waiter came out and had a very pleasant conversation with my fiance and I. After a few minutes we decided that regardless of how the food was, this was obviously a place that at the minimum, wasn't judgmental over the fact that I had tattoo's, piercings, and (to most people) appear to dress straight out of Mad Max.

I walked in and was immediately smitten by the place. Fishnets hung on the top of the walls with wine corks, homemade lights made from wine bottles adorned the area above the tables, and the place looked and felt like I had always imagined Spain to be. It was immediately apparent that this was not some mere Spanish style Tapas joint like the ones I had frequented so many times before, this was the real deal.

Amazing Mocha

Upon sitting down in the restaurant we continued our conversation with the incredibly colorful man who then introduced himself as Kezra, the owner of the establishment. According to him they had not been open long, but were beginning to build a reputation as one of the premiere Tapas restaurants in Sydney. I was skeptical as this is an ENORMOUSLY huge claim in an area that has three such restaurants within a two block radius. It being late-morning, I was ready to sit down and enjoy lunch when I discovered that they still had their breakfast menu in full swing. I ordered an astounding tasting mocha while I studied the menu.

I am a sucker for breakfast. Much to my fiances displeasure, if a restaurant offers breakfast as an option, I will choose it nine times out of ten regardless of what time of day it is. This occasionally makes it hard for her to split meals with me, which is something we enjoy doing, but being a tremendous creature of habit, I perused the breakfast menu. That is where I discovered the absolute wonder that is Catalan baked eggs.

Catalan Baked Eggs

This little known (at least in this area) monument to breakfast consists of three eggs, Catalan sauce (a creamy, olive-oil and tomato based sauce) manchego (an absolutely stunning cheese),  and your choice of chorizo, mushrooms, or salt-cod. The eggs are cooked over-medium and still have their yolk in a mostly runny consistency. When this is combined with the Catalan sauce, it makes for pure amazingness. The accompanying homemade sourdough bread is best utilized by using the yolk and sauce as a dip.

So we ate, I gushed over how amazing the meal was to the owner, and I have such returned over 2 dozen times. Now, yes, they are primarily a Tapas place, but based on my perfect experience each and every time, it is my new favorite breakfast joint in Sydney, and dare I say the world. In my many visits I continually promised Kezra I would come in for an actual dinner. Unfortunately it took me months to actually follow through this. After all, there are dozens of amazing places to eat diner in the area. When I finally did? Yes, it was spectacular, but....

I could go on and on about the greatness of the restaurant's dinner menu, but it well documented at this point by blogs 100 times my size. There are indeed many, many restaurateurs, newspapers, and magazines officially declaring Despaña THE best Tapas joint in Sydney. Personally, I agree, and it is amazing dinner food of which I completely recommend and attend often. However, I will leave those reviews to the people who will continually spout the same deserved praise to what is in my opinion, the absolute best and most over-looked breakfast in all of Sydney.

The Gunpowder and Acid Incident (Part 1 of the Josh was Dumb in School Saga)

In the course of my so-called academic career at Madison Public Schools, I learned something at a very young age: It doesn't fucking matter. Until the 6th grade, I worked my ass of and several times was vocally refereed to as the "head of my class" by authority figures who cared to measure such things. However, with a school-system that was hesitant to teach evolution, and only did so as one of "multiple options you can go into yourself", 90% of what they taught was either bullshit, or far, far below anyone with a brain. As a result, I grew tired of their system and began to rebel against it (I went into detail some of the schools issues in this blog). For what it's worth, my grandfather (father's father), the once superintendent of the school system attempted to make this broken mess into something. This story is the first of three blogs I will be publishing about my major dealings with the powers that be during my Middle to High-school years.

Personal issues at home that I have spoke at length about in other blog posts combined with my having zero respect for such a laughable fucking school resulted in a heavy amount of early, outward rebellion from myself. Many people in these days were shocked by my disregard for the establishments rules and regulations, I however then and now, maintained that I was just ahead of the curve.. an early bloomer if you will. Anyway, this lead me to be very "experimental" at a young age, hence some of my many adventures.  One of the first major things my group of friends and I (more about them here) got into were explosives. We, as many other teenage boys at this age, greatly enjoyed occasionally blowing the shit out of stuff. Some of the gang would steal bottle rockets and such, but I always brought the gold as my Grandpa (Moms Dad) was a bit of a gun nut and thus, had plenty of artillery.

My Grandpa and I never had much in common. He drank alot and occasionally just wanted to argue about meaningless shit. He did love me, but being a battle-hardened, slightly crazy war vet, we really had fuckall in common. That is until the day I watched him blow up an old stuffed rabbit with a homemade artillery shell. Instantly we had what would be a lasting mutual interest in something... blowing shit the fuck up. Nearly every weekend we would cram some innocent toy and stuff it full of highly explosive materials hooked to some sort of detonation device and blammo! It was launched into a fiery oblivion. He introduced me to bottle-rockets, M-80's, black-cap, fuse, and most importantly... black powder.

Of all of the shady people I knew, James was the only one of them seemed as if he wasn't a total piece of shit (again, went into detail about him on this blog). James often bragged about his exploits with the older kids and one day in music class he made the mistake of talking about his experiences with acid. As soon as I caught wind of this, Nash and I immediately hit him up to get some. He quoted me a figure of way more money than I had access to at the time, but then asked me what I had to trade. The M-80's I had immediately came to mind. Unfortunately, he had a few already... but he did want something bigger. That's when I remembered my Grandpa's stash of black powder in the back of his closet. Nash and I then bartered 4 hits of acid (one for each of my friends and I) off of James for one full cup of pure black powder, and the exchange was set to take place the next week.

That weekend, I went to my Grandparents house with a much different plan than usual. Normally on these weekends I would wait till they were asleep and steal a few Miller Genuine Drafts from my Grandpa's drawer in his fridge, this time however, was different. I went to the cupboard to find a container with a top so as not to spill any in transport, but all I could find was my little cousin's sippy-cup. So making do, I grabbed it, went into his closet, filled it halfway up with black powder, and hid it away in my bag.

Seeing as how I lived in the country, did not have transportation, and lived 10 miles from him, I took the sippy-cup filled with gunpowder to school that Monday morning. In the middle of the day I quietly gave it to James and he hid it in his locker, promising to bring me acid the next day. As far as I was concerned that was the end of my involvement with it. It had left my hands and I assumed that he was smart enough to handle himself with it... boy was I wrong. What I didn't know was happening on his return from school would drastically change my life.

Somehow, the seemingly street smart dude dropped this container on the floor of the bus on his way home. Furthermore, he must have told at least a handful of people as to exactly what it was, but not necessarily what it was capable of. As the story from him goes, when it hit the floor on his bus trip home, a decent amount of it spilled out and a mutual friend of ours, Shawn, gathered it in a piece of paper and folded it up. Although I trusted James with this powder, I knew better than to give it to anyone with Shawns reputation, and he should have too. As soon as he got off the bus, a few of the "bad kids" all gathered round as Shawn put his face a foot above it and lit the paper.... thus igniting it directly in his eyes.

Now Shawn didn't sustain any permanent damage due to this, but he burned the shit out of himself and it effectively removed any and all hair he had on his face. To make a long story short, the ambulance came and treated him, the cops at the hospital made inquiries, Shawn rolled on James, James rolled on me, and the investigation officially began. Drug dogs made a sweep of the bus and positively identified there being residue of explosives. The cops intercepted James at school, made their formal arrest, put him in the car, and then came looking for me, ironically enough, in music class where the whole damn thing started.

They interrogated me for two hours with the assistance of the principle, the whole time of which I denied it... until they brought James out. James walked into the room, eyes swollen with tears, and he told me that it was over and that they knew nearly everything. The cops gave me one last chance to come clean, and in return, they would let my family collect me and not pull me out of the building and book me for the entire weekend. Fine, fuck it, I did it, I confessed. But with James standing there, I figured I'd do us both a solid and alter the storyline while I had him in the room. I explained to them how I sold the gunpowder to him for $20, and I saw him nod in approval, after all, why complicate this situation with the unnecessary addition of drugs.

They hauled him to jail and my parents hauled me away to the house. I was expelled, but seeing as how there was only two weeks left in class and I had A's, they went ahead and passed me with a C+. At home I endured the entirety of my family railing on me about what I had done. My Mother’s side of the family were more disappointed that I stole from my Grandfather than anything else, a fact of which I agree and am ashamed of. What really sucked is hearing my Father and his side of the family preaching to me about destroying my Grandfather's legacy (he had long since passed) and "ruining" the good Roush name in town (something they repeatedly did WAY better than I ever could a few years down the line, but that story is for another time).

I got a call a few days later and the court date was set (about a week and a half after the incident). My mother and I agreed it was best if I was represented by a capable attorney, so much to my father's disappointment, she called up the man that had represented her in their divorce. The man was damn good, and based on their prior experience, even agreed to represent me for free. Even though this good show of faith, my father refused to speak to the man or shake his hand. That was my dad.

I arrived in court with lawyer in tow, and we sat down in the cramped waiting area. We noticed the other families that were involved with this incident present as well. I darted my eyes a few times to avoid Shawn's scorched face, but eventually got up the balls to go and awkwardly apologize to his family. James' family and lawyer were also in attendance, though he was oddly absent (I later learned he had been in custody the entire time). Also gathered in the all-too-small area were a handful of miscellaneous witnesses to various pieces of this incident and their families. After several intensely awkward hours, we were all finally put before the judge.

We all had our time in front of the judge, Shawn got off completely due to the fact the judge decided he had learned his lesson. When it was done, his family got up and walked directly out... that's when I witnessed something that made me cry. James was brought before the judge in cuffs, his mother wailing hysterically, and his father shooting me a look of death. It was a terrible, horrid sight, which was made worse when it was all said and done. See, this wasn't James first offense.... nor his second. James was then scolded and sentenced to two additional months in Juvenile Hall, and I broke down when I saw this tough man walk out sobbing.

Then came me. My name was called, I raised my head up high and sat down next to my lawyer. I wasn't a tough guy, at least not yet. But be damned if I was going to let them see MY emotions. I sat down like a man to that table and expected to be carted off right after James. My lawyer got up, made my argument, stated this was my first offense, and made one king hell of a noble effort. Between the good lawyer and my clean record I got dealt 400 hours of community service and yelled at by a judge. It could have been much worse.

The judge then asked me if I had anything I would like to say, so I did. "I deeply regret my actions, and shall not do them again." I honestly told him. Then I continued, this time lying through my teeth, "I now have one hurt friend, and one jailed directly due to my actions, for that, I am deeply sorry as well."

Now, why was I lying through my teeth? Was I not emotionally impacted by the things that had happened to these two boys? Of course I was, and I was damn sorry I had to go to court because I stole from my Grandfather. But MY actions did not put them in their predicament, my terrible judgement merely enabled them to make bad decisions. Shawn was a nice kid, but at the end of the day he stole something he knew was dangerous and used it in a retarded way. And James? Well to quote Quentin Tarrantino, "He should have fucking better known better." He rolled on me, and although I hated to see an otherwise alright guy be put away, at the end of the day he still turned me in. Hell, it didn't even take him much coercing and he still got busted for the same crime at the end of the day.

THAT is the lesson I took away from this situation: What little you gain by rolling on a friend is nothing in comparison to what you lose within yourself.

Next time, The Marijuana Incident (Part 2 of the Josh was Dumb in School Saga)

Rebelling Teenagers or just Ahead of the Curve?

As I previously stated in this blog, I have had many groups of friends in my days. It just seems that as life progresses, I gain and eventually leave groups of friends to go on and do my own thing somewhere else. That is not to say I am still not completely and totally loyal to my friends, I still hang out with people from nearly every group that I have ever been a part of. Some groups form from necessity, some I've joined and they have become closer than my family, and some I will probably never encounter again in my life. For whatever reason, this just seems to be part of my natural ebb and flow of my life. This entry is another attempt at explaining THIS group so that readers can have some insight into my bigger, more ridiculous stories down the road without having to explain a ton of backstory.

At age 13 my friends mainly consisted of Nash, Fred, and James (names changed to protect the guilty). These guys were just as ahead of the curve as I was and were already smoking pot and drinking in abundance when I began to hang out with them that year. Fred was the brains of the group and I had known him since we were both in diapers as our mothers were friends in high school. Nash was a huge source of inspiration to me as he got me into Nirvana during this time and we both got into guitars and making music at the same time. James was good people but came from a shit family, he was rough and tumbly, but as long as you were on his side, you eternally had a good friend in your corner.

At this time I was little more than someone who was wrongly looking at his father as a rolemodel. Up until this point I had modeled myself directly off of my father (for lack of any other male influence). A few years prior to this I wore cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, thick rimmed aviator 80's style eyeglasses and blue jeans. I wanted to be just like him in a big and bad way in these formitive years.... at least until I realized what a miserably repressed piece of shit he genuinely was....

The Alcohol Incident:
We four would crash at one anothers house and drink each others parents booze and just generally raise hell with one another all in the name of good, clean anti-establishment fun. The biggest of these nights began and ended at my mothers house. She worked at Miller and 3 weeks before the party I stole a 12 pack of Miller Genuine Draft and hid it for the get together. Now... by hid it, I mean I hid it from humans. I didn't hide it from just her, I hid it from the world. I thought it best to make it disapear from public eyes by taking it deep into my woods, and burying it 3 feet into the earth. Overkill? Yes. But my Mom was crazy overbearing... so, better than being busted.

There we were, fireside and drunk. Completely annihilated on three beers a piece. At least we thought we were annihilated, as far as we were concerned this is what drunk was, this was the beginning, middle and end of drunk. After a while we noticed by the lights in her room that my mother went to bed and Nash and James snuck in and amongst at least 10 bottles of alcohol... they stole the bottle of lime gin. We then proceeded to my room, where they drunkenly spilled 2/3rds of the bottle all over my bedroom, making my room stick like potent 7-Up. In a panic, I deluded some food coloring and Sprite in water, added some lime juice and stuck it back in the cabinet where it sat until the day she moved, unused and un-drank.

The First Pot Incident:
Our first group attempt at smoking weed was less than fruitful. We had a solid lead in Jake (of whom will HEAVILY be involved in one of the next stories). Of all of the shady people I knew, Jake was the only one of them seemed as if he wasn't a total piece of shit. He lived near Jason's house, on the "wrong side of the tracks". Jake had an older brother and we all knew that they smoked pot together, so we decided to pursue him to acquire some. Upon calling. Jake instructed us to wait quietly down the street until he gave us a signal to come and pick it up so as to not arouse his Fathers suspicions. So, not fully trusting the situation, we each grabbed a weapon, mine being nun-chucks, and headed down the street.

We sat there for the better part of a half hour, lurking in the shadows before we suspected somthing wrong. Not wanting to split up for fear of missing Jake, Nash and Jason went back to the house to recall Jake. Jake instructed that he had hid the stuff in the car and to come and collect it, which upon their return, they immediately got to. They were gone an entire 2 minutes when we saw a shadowy figure approach us. We assumed this to be Jake until we saw that the person was holding a baseball bat tightly gripped in his hands.
Fred and I both readied to pull out our weapons when we discovered it was Jake's father.

"What the fuck are you boys doing here?" he asked, bat pulled back as if he were readied to strike us. We concealingly held our weapons, me with my nunchucks and Fred with his knife as I answered "We were waiting on Jake, he said he wanted to come and hang out." His crazy, drunken eyes darted back and forth at us with his bat at the ready as he began screaming about how much trouble Jake was in and how we were the cause of it. Fred and I just sat back under the dim light of the one streetlamp in the neighborhood while Jake's fucked up dad went on about our being terrible human beings.

Eventually he walked off muttering to himself, leaving Fred and I to just sit in bewilderment. We discussed our options about whether to stay on the street, awaiting the other two of our crew, or to return home when Jason and Nash returned. We then all darted off back to Jason's house at top speed. When we got there, we sat and discussed the hilarity of the event over Coca-Cola and popcorn.... because there was no booze, weed, or alcohol to be had.

AntiCurrent Booze & Grub Review #1: The Record Crate Bar & Grill - Sydney

In an effort to diversify this blog beyond the occasional insane story about my life, how-to's, bootleg releases, and general absurdity, I am going to branch out and blog about my drinking/dining experiences as well. Now, for those of you that don't know me personally, I have quite diverse taste. For instance, last night I was at a hole in the wall pub with graffiti on the walls where the overwhelming stench of of feces was permeating the room, and tomorrow I am taking the love of my life for a 10 course meal with matching wines at an upscale French restaurant. So these posts will range from everything between gutter-punk places that may be completely and totally unsafe to visit, to upscale eateries I shouldn't be able to afford and everything in between.

With that said, The Record Crate, located in beautiful Sydney, Australia (specifically Glebe) is basically Disneyland for seasoned music affectionados such as myself. Under one roof you can watch amazing live music, stand up comedy, view experimental live art performances, browse amazing quality hard to find records, eat great food and drink amazing beer. I've visited there only a handful of times and have already added amazing condition, original pressings of Tom Waits, The Pogues, The Clash, and Nick Cave, just to name a few. Basically this is my favorite place in the world.

Neville & I

Now, every record store worth its salt usually has one amazingly well-rounded owner/operator in charge of the ship and this place is no different. His name is Neville, and like all record store owners, he is a wealth of knowledge. This dude can school even the best informed record collector and teach him a thing or two about what pressing was made where and how it differs to other pressings at the time.

First two Clash Albums in One Set

For instance, I recently was in the market to purchase an original pressing of The Clash's self-titled record. He asked me whether I was purchasing it to collect, or if i was just wanting to spin some amazing sounding vinyl. I answered that I wasn't overly in need of collectability, and he pulled out a gatefold  2-for-1 pressing released by CBS records in the mid 1980's that contained their first two records. The cover was beat, but the discs were in fine condition. He informed me that these were not very collectible but for the price, you couldn't beat the value as both records were struck from the same source as the original pressings. So instead of purchasing an OG copy of the first album that I was just going to spin and ruin for $100 or more dollars, I got the same quality recording, plus their second album "Give Em' Enough Rope" for $15. These are the kind of deals/experience that only a few people have access to.

Brekky Sandwich

Not only is this an amazing wealth of knowledge and records, the food too is quite spectacular, in particular the breakfast. I've had a nasty habit as of late of closing down the bar and upon waking up, stumbling back down the road to have The Record Crate's amazing Eggs Benedict (although this particular morning I had the breakfast sandwich). For under $20 you get a full two eggs poached, toast, and bacon (which is actually known as Canadian Bacon to this State-side guy). This and a little hair of the dog is my usual order and I can not overstate it's ability to battle even the worst hangovers you've encountered.

Speaking of hair of the dog, the booze here is great. They have liquor available to make any cocktail you desire, but what's even better than that is that they have Kingpin on tap for a reasonable price. Matter of fact, Kingpin is so popular here that they named their houseband The Kingpins after it (more on them later). There are also a selection of other taps and bottled beverages as well, but in my typical fashion, I found the one I like and refuse to touch anything else.... unless it's a extra-dry, dirty, uncouth, martini.;-)

As for the entertainment, it is quite diverse. They recently removed the majority of the CD's (which is sort of a shame as I hate to see CDs fall out of fashion) and put them behind the main counter. This opened up an area to have small bands play and every Thursday night they utilize this space to let their personal houseband The Kingpins play. The band is quite good, verging on a funk almost reggae beat with a wide assortment of sounds. If you're in Glebe on a Thursday night, they are not to be missed for at least a half hour of performing. Past this, Neville has recently began utilizing his top floor to all kinds of different acts. Some of these are comedians, but many of these are avant-garde live performances bordering on the insane. It's well worth looking into anyone he would book, but even if they are not your cup of tea, there is still the downstairs main are and the outdoor courtyard where you don't have to partake in the experience.

All in all I cannot say more positive things about The Record Crate. Everything from the building, to the staff, to the food, to the drink, and most importantly, the records, are of the highest caliber. When visiting Sydney, Glebe is a must-visit area. It is very art-centric, containing indie bookstores, art galleries, eateries, and most importantly, The Record Crate which is a must-visit when anywhere near the area. A+++

What Doesn't Kill You, Can Make You Stronger

Many, many things in life shape the people we are to become. Many of them are the good influences like family and friends and the people who are truly positive examples of whom to aspire to be and how to act in life. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of those growing up (which isn't to say everyone in my family are bad people). Now, this isn't meant to be a pity party, but in an effort to maintain complete and total truth in the representation of myself on this blog, I would be leaving out a huge chunk of my story if I was to not speak of some of the terrible events that shaped my formative years, no matter how brutal it may be. It’s important to me that I be 100% honest on here because when it comes down to it, I am writing this blog for no one but myself. After all, even the worst events in life make you who you are, and bring you to where you are today.

At 8 years old my parents divorced. That was a damn good thing, although in retrospect, it did cause my mother to often inwardly freaked out and worry that I would blame her for breaking up our family unit. On the contrary, I could not have been happier when the news finally broke. This to me signified the end of brutal fights that often resulted with them destroying one another's property in the most malicious of manners. Many times it would even reach incredibly violent levels, building ultimately to my watching my Father hold a gun to my Mother in the hallway outside my room. He maintains to this day that he was attempting to show her the gun was empty. She maintains that he was holding it to her neck. My young recollection only puts them together with me glancing my father holding a gun pointed in her direction and my beginning to sob uncontrollably. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle of all three accounts.

Upon their divorce concluding, my Dad nearly immediately met a woman and got engaged. Her name was Teresa and she was from the hills of Kentucky. She didn't have a lot of money and she had two kids much older than I, but she seemed nice enough... at first. She even made it a point to tell me she thought I was a good kid and that I must have a good mother. Looking back, she is the reason I am completely untrusting of anyone who immediately fills you full of compliments before seeing who you actually are. This overcompensation usually masks a hidden agenda.

Right before they tied the knot, I noticed a distinct personality change in her as she moved into my house. She began to become cold and extremely judgmental of everything I did. This escalated in the coming months ultimately building toward her openly hating a 9 year old boy without attempting to conceal it in any way. I was very overweight at that point in my life and was a bit of a nerd. I had the highest scores in class and didn't have a lot of friends. And although I wasn't picked on at all, I was most definitely a shut-in.

Her hatred built and eventually culminated in her taking over my bedroom at the house. She took what had been my room (that I only used every other weekend when visiting my father) and stenciled hearts and apples on all of the walls. She decorated the room with creepy as fuck Raggedy Anne and Andy dolls and placed other inanimate antique-toys on the shelves that seemed to to stare at you with a look of rape and torment in their eyes (this bitch even had a stuffed cat in her living room). She threw away my bed and substituted two twin beds located 3 1/2 feet off of the ground so that I may share the room with her mid-20's son when he would come home from college. I eventually resigned myself to spending all of my time in my father’s barn playing around with woodworking tools and watching the Pittsburgh Penguins play hockey on his $3 TV in his "office” that consisted of a vacant desk and an empty refrigerator. I left my sanctuary only to sleep, and upon waking, immediately returned and spent the rest of the day there with my dog Bullet.

It even got worse as the time went on. Eventually I wasn't even allowed to make food in her house. When I would make a sandwich, she would literally walk behind me and throw things away as I placed them next to my plate while vocalizing derogatory comments such as "Who ever left this out must be a worthless fat piece of garbage" in her extreme hillbilly draw. She said this as I was standing next to the plate. I hadn't even left anything out, I was still using it. This treatment eventually got so bad that I started to form depression and by 11 years old I was suicidal. I would carry a serrated steak knife up to my room nightly and hack away at my arm. Why? It’s hard to explain, but physical pain was much easier and more immediately dealt with than the mental pain and instability that I was experiencing. I took great solace in that knife blade and unfortunately I still carry the scars of it to this day.

Whenever I was stuck there, my father would ultimately leave during the days and go to work on the weekends without me, leaving me to the care of a woman who would have been happier if I were dead. She would take money from my father under the guise of taking us to the mall, and upon getting there, give my step-sister $100 to go and spend and leave me with whatever I had in my pocket, which at age 12 was absolutely nothing. I would spend hours sitting in the center of the mall staring at the fountain and wishing I were dead while they walked around with my father’s money and gleefully wasted it while rubbing their purchases in my face.

At age 13 I was finally discovering who I was by being consistently beaten in the face by people I never wished to be. I got into music and guitars, and for the first time in my life I wasn't listening to what my parents told me was good music. I began to wear flannel and listen to early Grunge and Punk. During this time my father would periodically force me to attend dinners with him and his new family on a bi-weekly basis where I was clearly never wanted by anyone but him (and even that was debatable). It got to the point where I refused to eat with them and would pretend I was sick and hide in the truck the entire time while listening to my bootleg tapes of Nirvana on the truck stereo. I'm fully convinced that music is the only thing that actually stopped me from taking my own life during these days, although that did not stop me from attempting to do so.

During this time I was not only discovering music and who I was, I was also discovering drugs and alcohol. After one particularly terrible Christmas at my fathers which ended in the cops coming to break up my father and his wife, I ended up hammered for the first time. In his eternal wisdom, my dad told me that everything would be OK and that I should just have a shot and forget about it. One shot with him turned into five and five shots with my step-sister turned into ten. By the end of the evening I had consumed 13 shots of Jim Beam before passing out in my twin bed and falling flat on my face from the 3 foot fall when the room began to spin.

My early onset alcoholism was made worse when my father purchased a houseboat for his family. When I would attend I was given free reign over the alcohol and I put it to good use. After a day of directly discouraging remarks to my 14 year old face by someone in her 40's, I began to use both drink and drugs heavily as a crutch to get through the day. When I would eventually get hammered enough to get a little sentimental, I would inquire to my father why he would let his only son be treated like that. His answer was simple enough, I needed to grow up and stand up for myself rather than let myself be beaten down. It is because of this that my father is the single biggest influence I've ever had in my life. He is an easily manipulated, self-absorbed, coward of the highest level. Instead of telling his wife to fuck off and treat the only blood he will ever have in this life like they deserve to be, he chose to place the blame on the shoulders of a 14 year old boy. He is an ever shining beacon of all things in my life that I wish to never become.

This all culminated in my attempting to kill myself at age 14. One night, after a girl I was crushing on made it apparent that she did not feel the same way, I ate 50 aspirin and laid down in my bed for what I hoped would be my final time. This was not a spur of the moment decision, this was calculated. I had determined that it was easier to not exist than to live life as I was being forced to. It was a stupid move that only ended up with me eating a hole in my stomach and not able to eat for a week. What's worse yet is that no one noticed that I was not eating as they couldn't have given two shits about me and my mother was busy attending night school after her day job ended.

But the story ultimately has a happy ending, or at least thus-far it does. At age 15 I started doing a heavy introspection of my life and concluded that all of these people were pieces of shit and deserved each other. My father deserved the wife that would fill her Kentucky home with his furniture anytime they chose to separate for a few weeks, and my Father deserved the cold, unloving wife that resembled a frightful troll more than a woman. They all deserved each other and I was better than all of them put together. My life improved noticeably the day that I quit concerning myself with having a family that I deserved, and instead used the pieces of shit surrounding me as anti-role-models of how a human being should conduct affairs in this life.

The Fish, The Fisherman, and the Asteroid

Some days I'd like to be the fish, wild and free. Able to swim, and let life happen to me.

Some days I'd like to be the fisherman, working and content. Providing for my family, a life well spent.

And some days I'd like to be the asteroid, round and with girth. Taking out all life, on the entire fucking planet of Earth.

The Day I Traded My Car For Schlitz Malt Liquor

In 2001, instead of concentrating in school, I spent the majority of my time working at a automotive repair shop named "Top-Notch Automotive". We mainly specialized in body work on salvage-titled cars in an attempt to fix them up and resell them. We also did other more traditional work to other people's automobiles and occasionally had a few extra cars laying around that people were looking to unload cheap.

Some of these cars were lifted directly from the island of misfit toys, we had Blazer 4X4's with the top cut off and made into a truck, we had cars that looked fine and drove but stunk of rot, we even had a small 2 door Izuzu Truck with a 350 Chevy engine. It was a real plethora of cars no one had any love for and people would unload for pennies on the dollar to us. One of these cars was a rusted out 1986 Toyota Corolla Station Wagon, and after the company obtained it for free, it was given to me as a project car.

At this time, I already had a car and had zero use for it. Instead of doing the responsible thing and fixing it up and selling it for a few hundred dollars, I opted to keep it next to the field outside the garage and do terrible things with it. The Jay's (who I previously introduced in this blog) and I would all get stoned, hop in it, and use it as a personal go-kart. We would drive it 45mph around farmers fields, through cow-pastures, in the ravine, and occasionally use it as a battering-ram on wheels to fly people's trash-cans down the street or into their mailboxes. Many a wasted night was spent in the car doing the worst things a 16 year old could imagine.

The Jay's and I were always looking for places to go and smoke bud and drink. Most night's we just went behind my dad's company or wherever I was working at the time, but that got boring quick. We tried to hang out at Fat J's house, but his parents would get mad at us for smoking and at everyone but me drinking (they allowed me to drink because as they put it "He has problems at home.") We went to Kuban's house occasionally, but as he lived in the shed of his house, it was uninsulated and freezing cold in the winter. It was about this time that Kuban began dating a girl (of who's name I won't expose or go into detail about) and he became quick friends with her stepdad.

Well, "friend" is a strong word. This guy enjoyed drinking with, making fun of, and randomly knocking the shit out of Kuban, his name was Junior. Junior was a mid-40's white trash hillbilly that lived off of disability and spent both his day's and night's drinking shitty beer in his garage while staring at motor's and pretending to be a mechanic. Every now and then he would get drunk enough and mutter "Wanna watch somin' funny fuckers?" and pour gasoline into a motor on a stand, throw a crowbar on the fly-wheel, and crank-start the motor for a few minutes as he sat back and cackled. I was always unclear on whether he did this for shits-and-giggles, or whether this was his attempt at making it sound as if he was actually making head-way on a project to his couch-bound wife

In short, Junior was a lazy and worthless piece of shit. But, he was a piece of shit with a warm garage, so we occasionally would come over and hang out. Junior liked me as I tended to kick him back when he would randomly kick me, and I would even wrestle with him when he started to push me around. I suppose that's the sort of thing he respected, not taking shit. This made it twice as funny when he would kick Kuban because after a few hours of abuse, he would eventually gather the courage to fight back. Then Junior would, as they say back home, stomp his ass into a mud-hole. When he was in a good mood, and we had gotten him plenty (and freely I might add) high, he would then allow us access to a few of his beers. His main selection of choice? Schlitz Malt Liquor tall-boys.

One night,we were standing around his atrocious smelling propane heater that he ran with diesel fuel and began talking about cars. He was currently working on a 1987 Toyota and needed a transmission. I mentioned that I may have one if the price was right, so we walked over to his driveway and checked on the car he was working on.... and it was a beat up piece of shit. It was in worse condition than the car I had been using as a go-kart for a year. I laughed at him to his face and asked him what a working transmission would be worth to him to fix up this glorious automobile that he was restoring and he offered me fifty dollars.

Now, at the time I was basically broke and had long since lost the title to the car, so that eliminated all options of my driving it legally, but fifty dollars? What a joke. So I drunkenly countered his offer with emptying out whatever he had in his beer-fridge. We went and took account of the situation and there were 18 loose tall-boys of Schlitz Malt liquor. If you haven’t had Schlitz, let me inform you that this is bargain-bin booze. This makes Mad Dog 20/20 look like a Nappa Valley wine in comparison. It reeks of skunk, tastes horrendous, but at 5.9% APV, it will fuck you up and help you make terrible life-decisions... and I had already had 3 that night. So without hesitation, we made our drunken accord, I hopped in the back of Krazy’s Blazer, and off we went to go retrieve my go-kart.

There have been many, many drunken adventures on the motorways by many, many drunken 16 year-old's, and although I would never condone drinking and driving, this was one for the record books. Take a nihilistic 16 year old me, add booze, a car that he doesn’t care about selling in one piece, and the back-roads of Madison Township? That drive back to Junior’s made that car the talk of the town and was searched for for two weeks by the local Sheriff Department. The car may or may not have made several pit stops in many lawns, fields, and gardens. Also, the car may or may not have taken out a small rickety barn on an abandoned property. I say "also" not only for legal reasons, but in part because I had to be told the next morning what had happened.

Eventually we pulled up back to Juniors where I was informed that the deal was to be renegotiated due to Junior now having drank 3 of the beers in question. So without hesitation, I threw him the keys, grabbed a trashbag, loaded in the remaining 15 cans of hellish bargain-booze, and took off again into the night to see what other hell there was to be raised. I ran into Junior a few months after that and asked him how his transmission exchange had went. In typical Junior fashion, he informed me that after they had pulled it from the car, they drunkenly dropped it off of it’s stand and cracked the case, making it completely useless to them. The remains of that car sat in his front yard until far after I graduated high-school and moved to California.

DIY Hi-Fi On a $300 Budget

I've recently gotten back into vinyl in a big bad way. Yes, I have always bought records throughout the years, but recently after doing research on the benefits on not having to deal with the over-compression plaguing CD's these days (known as the "loudness wars"), I've decided to only buy vinyl if and when available. Now, does that mean that many new albums produced today are not directly taken from the CD? Of course not, but it will always at least be on par with the CD quality and in most circumstances the over-compression stems from post-audio-engineer and takes place in the CD duplication factory. That means that 95% of the time, even if an album was recorded digitally, if the engineer is worth his salt, the vinyl will still be more listenable. Also, I personally just prefer to have a more substantial physical product to hold and study at the end of the day.

I work alot in the field of audio, so when I get time off, I want the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to creating the best sound possible from any given album. The problem with this is that a true Hi-Fi system can run you upwards of $20,000 depending on how much of an audiophile you are. Although I do want the best sound possible, I have limitations to what I am willing to spend to hear an album (you could get a car for the price of some systems after-all). This led me to piecing together my new setup from scratch which although the sound may suffer just a tad, it's basically unnoticeable to anyone except the best trained ears.

Hi-Fi systems can be broken down into this: The Needle, The Turntable, The Preamp, The Receiver, The Speakers. In the purchase of each of these, I was determined to get the biggest bang for my money possible. Some of these deals I had to hunt down, but most are readily available for anyone to purchase.

The Needle & Turntable:
With a bit of research, I found THE introductory model of turntable. It is the Audio-Technica LP60. For under $100 it is THE best deal on the market, however it's stylus (needle) and belt are a bit lacking for quality. This is best remedied by a company named LP Gear who sell a $99.95 LP60 that comes with a new diamond tipped needle and carbon fiber belt. The only downside of this model may become apparent when hitting the last few songs of a side of an album. As the needle gets further away from the outside, the downward pressure is greater. Too much downward pressure creates distortion and is bad for your LP's. This is fixed on most systems by adjusting the counter-balance of the needle-arm, however this introductory model does not have a counter-balance and must either be returned to the factory if the problem arises, or, you can follow my quick tutorial HERE to learn how to do a DIY counterbalance.

The Preamp:
The LP60 comes with a built in line-level preamp that is of decent quality, however the biggest piece of a HiFi system is the placement of a tube preamp in front of the receiver. After researching tube amps for weeks, I came upon the "Little Bear P-3". This is a DIY kit that comes with every piece you need to assemble you're own tube preamp. It is Chinese in origin, but the build quality is very solid. Communicating to the seller is occasionally hard to near impossible as English isn't even their 3rd language (pretty sure they just run everything into Google Translate) but they are easy to work with and very appreciative of your business. I had a problem with the left channel output of mine and they immediately sent me a replacement board for free. It takes just a bit of "balls" to assemble this as you are working with a transformer after-all, but just assemble it with common-sense in mind and look at the pictures on the site to mimic it's wiring and you're gold. The thing is quiet, has zero unwanted noise, looks beautiful when plugged in, and sounds absolutely amazing. I would recommend purchasing an in-line power cutoff so that you don't have to unplug/replug the system every time you wish to use it. The only downside is that the stock Chinese tubes aren't the highest quality, but that is easily fixed with a few quick, cheap purchases from The Tube Store

The Receiver & Speakers:

Honestly, this may be a point of contention to any audiophiles reading this article. For the price, it is my opinion that you should go with one of the cheaper "all-in-one" surround sound systems on the market. You cannot beat the price of these and they open you up to other uses aside from just the turntable. I would never buy one of these new however and used is another bad bet, but I purchased my "open-box" system for $125 and it had an MSRP of over $400. Just get last year's display model and purchase the optional 5-year insurance policy and you've made a solid bet. Personally after hunting 3 Best-Buys in the area, I purchased this one. Just make sure that the reciever has an "RCA In" option and you're good to go. The bad thing about these cheap systems is that they jack up the watts by using inferior 3OHM speakers (smaller OHM = Bigger Watts). This is easily remedied by purchasing good quality 8OHM speakers that can handle the amp load... which I have yet to do.


So that's it! I spent under $300 and assembled my own DIY HiFi Setup. My plan is now to upgrade one bit at a time to achieve my perfect setup. First up will be the speakers, followed by a well-reviewed receiver, but for the time being, this setup sounds amazing and is on par with systems I've seen costing around $1200!

AntiCurrent Archive Vol 3: Rancid- Let's Go / Wolves Demos

Greetings, for the third edition of "AntiCurrent Archives", a collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I chose some seminal demo's from two of the biggest albums to ever hit the world of punkrock.  Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

On the heels of releasing their debut album, Rancid recruited former U.K. Subs guitarist Lars Frederiksen and completed what is known as their classic lineup (one that would withstand the test of time until drummer Brett Reed's departure from the group in 2006). This was 1992, and the band was recording demos for an album titled "Let's Go" that they had no idea would get major nationwide airplay, ushering in the triumphant return of punkrock's spitting in the face of worldwide culture. Also included on this are the demos for "...And Out Come The Wolves" which showcased the bands ever-maturing style of blending punk and ska forming their trademark sound. If the Phil Spector sound can be best characterized as a "Wall of Sound", then Rancid's patented formula is the equivalent of a "Brick-To-The-Face of Sound".

These demo's are a little rough around the edges, just as punkrock is supposed to be. I actually prefer a few of these versions to the cuts that made it onto the album. Additionally, there are a few nearly lost treasures on here as well, like the song "Do You Wanna Dance With Me" that wouldn't resurface until Lars' solo band rerecorded it for the Viking album, retitling it "Little Rude Girl". This release documents a band that was still discovering exactly how to best utilize an amazing lineup of musicians that would take over and change the face of not only punkrock, but rock n'roll as well.

If you enjoy these, please purchase the album from the band via whatever format you prefer... personally I suggest buying it via their recently rereleased discography available on 7 Inch vinyl. Completely remastered, these records have NEVER sounded so good.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
Mp3 Zip Archive

The tracklist is:
1. Tenderloin       
2. Ballad Of Jimmy & Johnny       
3. Dope Sick Girl       
4. Radio Radio Radio       
5. Just A Feeling       
6. Someones Going To Die Tonight       
7. Ghost Dance       
8. Roots Radicals       
9. Sabrina       
10. Do You Want To Dance With Me       
11. Sick Of It All       
12. The Way I Feel About You       
13. End Of The World Tonight       
14. Crucify Me       
15. Im Gonna Blast Em       
16. Leave It To Tomorrow