Crimson Sundown

Maybe we can bring back the light

I promised tQ a proper Tuesday post, and for the most part I am a man of my word!  What transpires below, is something that I have been thinking about for awhile now and finally just wanted to get off my chest.

In 2004 when American Idiot was released, it was a calling out to the country.  A declaration that the country was in a bad spot, and it took a gang of punks in order to let this generation know about it.  The themes were obvious;  the war in Iraq, a President and leadership specializing in fear mongering, and the youth of the country falling into waste and ruin.  No one can question how good the album was, nor will I spend any part of blog trying to tell you how I feel about it.  You all know that I feel like American Idiot is one of the best albums ever made.  The question now becomes … was it really necessary to make ANOTHER rock opera immediately after such a perfect album?

Green Day has just released 21st Century Breakdown their follow up to Idiot and a completely new rock opera narrative.  You won’t find old Whatshername coming back to make a cameo, nor will St. Jimmy be magically brought back from the dead.  No Jimmy is still dead with a gunshot to his head, but what we have in Breakdown are the characters of Gloria and Christian.  Whereas Idiot was content on talking about the problems of raising a family in the era of the “W” and Iraq, watching as communities are torn apart by children not coming home (whether it be the army or via drugs), Breakdown takes a more active approach at spitting venom at modern technology, prescription drugs, and organized religion to name a few.

The subject matter has changed a bit, but the style in which Green Day tells the tale is pretty much the same.  This is where my first issue with the album comes in.  It’s not exact, but it’s damn close enough.  The opening song is essentially filler, but it is followed by the title track, a 6 minute song that changes styles as you go on, describing the world that we live in.  Sound familiar?  It should, it’s what they did with “Jesus of Suburbia” on Idiot.  The rest of the album is filled with songs that don’t sound the same, but fit the same build as songs on American Idiot.  They even seem to come in the same order, so therefore you are stuck making direct comparisons to the albums.

Idiot talked about hard drug use, whereas Breakdown talks about abuse of prescription drugs and over diagnosing.  Idiot attacked the government, and Breakdown attacks the catholic church.  The back and forth with the similarities continue throughout and while it’s not a terrible thing, it feels very cookie cutter.  It might just be that I have listened to Idiot too much, but I don’t think I’m alone in that.  I’m sure others have noticed that at similar points in both albums, as you are listening you might be expecting them to go in a different direction, but they take the safe route instead and give you something similar to what you heard in 2004.

Musically Green Day have really hit their stride though.  They sound good, and are incorporating their full arsenal of additional performers.  Violin’s, acoustic guitars, timpanis and much more can all be heard in full effect.  That’s the good thing, but unfortunately Billie Joe Armstrong decides that the album should have a song dedicated to one topic per additional instrument he uses seemingly.  If the album was just shots against the things that I have mentioned above it would be similar to Idiot but at least it would be focused.  Not so on Breakdown.  The album hits religion, politics, the war, drugs, detorating conditions in major cities, and the nasty influence of mordern media and technology.  That’s a lot of songs to get through, and it would be fine if it was just a normal album.  Green Day though wanted Breakdown to be a rock opera and as a narrative, there’s just too much stuff that they are talking about at once.  The storyline starts to breakdown (haha, get it?), and as a result you either forget about Gloria and Christian or simply don’t care by the end.

Finally, the last problem that I personally had with the album is the timing of the album’s release.  This is a two pronged complaint.  From an easy spot, I mean it’s the next album after Idiot.  Breakdown brought upon a direct comparison and unfortunately it’s almost impossible to make a better rock opera back to back.  I don’t care how talented you are it’s tough to keep that momentum up.  Not even The Who did that, instead elected to follow up Tommy with Who’s Next, one of the band’s biggest commercial successes.

The last part of the problem is the timing with where the country is right now.  In 2004 the country, specifically young democrats such as myself were still in college and needed an anthem to rally behind to show their displeasure with not only George Bush being re-elected, and not only with the Democratic party giving us no good candidates, but also with our friends fighting in Iraq.  American Idiot was that album, as it stood for everything that we wanted to say to those in charge.  All I remember is playing the album in my dorm room with Katie, Pedro and Sundeep with me.  What started as harmless background music while we talked, turned into an epic listening party as no one said anything after the second track in an effort to absorb all that was coming out of the surround sound.  All we could say at the end was … “wow”.

With 21st Century Breakdown the problem lies in that right now Green Day want to spit some more venom at the world, but the things they are yelling at I don’t necessarily feel like we have to be campaigning for so much.  Sure the economy is in the tanks, but we have a new President in office and love him and hate him it’s a time of change and hope.  Now we don’t need to be hearing about every single one of our problems with no suggestions for what can be done.  Instead now we know the issues, and we want to tighten our belts and get to work.  Unfortunately for Green Day they want to start a revolution, and the revolution was already started.  It ends up sounding like they are late to the party.

Does this mean that 21 Century Breakdown is a bad album?  Not in the least, it’s a very good album.  Green Day just shot themselves in the foot by making such an iconic album before hand.  It’s a tough legacy to live up to, and one that they don’t ultimately make.  I can listen to selected tracks off of Breakdown but if Green Day was hoping that I would get goosebumps after every song like I did with American Idiot … well I’m sorry to disappoint guys.

For the past few years, LOST has been a staple show in my viewing rotation.  Many times, it has been the only thing that I felt was worth watching.  Now for some people, their intrigue for LOST is something that just spawned after watching the first season and seeing all the weird things happen and how people tried to deal with it.  Some might have even been enticed by the flashbacks and the connections that people had to other characters.  All fine reasons to like the show, but I know for me my obsession for the show was tied to one very specific moment.

Watching Terry O’Quinn in the first season was something that made everything click for me.  Honestly, the flashbacks and episode were fairly standard fare.  Here was a guy, with a boring job, no significant other, and someone that got picked on by many people.  Sucky of course, but by no means tragic.  That all changed for me, and my attention was cemented in place once the music kicked up in the background and the grand reveal was that John Locke was bound to a wheelchair.  This was the first of many “OH SHIT” moments that I have had with LOST.

Here was a man that was crippled in the real world, yet on this island he is able to walk.  Would certainly give faith and conviction to anyone put into that position.  Still to this day that scene envokes such emotion in me, that I can’t think of anything else overtaking it as my favorite scene ever, in any format.

Yet with the amazing, comes the down turn.  Locke has gone up and down as the series has continued on.  When Locke reaches his lowest, I feel defeated.  When he rises back up again, I personally feel like I overcame adversity with him.  I have had many opportunites to do this, because like a well written character, Locke has a weakness like anyone else, one that I can immediately identify with.

Locke spends so much of the series being told what he can’t do, that once he gains a bit of confidence in Season 1, it’s obvious that he won’t be taken down so easily.  Yet over time what you find out is that Locke has had some stable points in his life, before his crippling.  Exploiting and bringing Locke down is not a terribly difficult plan of action, as you simply need to fill him up with thoughts that he is someone of importance.

Like so many others in this world Locke just wants to be apart of something.  People will go up to him and tell him that he is special, that he is an extraordinary individual.  Once you have built him up to a certain point, that is when you can start having him do whatever you want for you.  After that, characters have simply dumped a now degected Locke because they know that he won’t do anything to them.  He’ll just crawl back up into his shell, waiting for the next person to build him up and crush him.

Why the long post about a fictional character?  Because when I watch LOST, John Locke stands out as a masterfully written character, one that I wish I could create.  What if there was a character that was just so abused and kept trying to believe in something, only to have it snatched away from him every time.  Now for John Locke in the show, each time his faith is tested, he gets one step closer to fulfilling his destiny.  Yet what would happen if a character who kept getting shit on decided to shun his destiny.  Would characters try and embrace him and put him back on the path of faith?  Or would they destroy him, because he could bring anymore destruction on the world?

This is what I’m trying to work on for Scion and while I can’t see anything else that is happening in the story, I have a clear image of this character that I’m trying to create.  I see him, and I see his inspiration that is John Locke.  My only hope is that I can make this new character of mine 1/10 of as impressive as John Locke.  If I can do that, then I assure anyone who plays in my Scion adventure down the road … you’ll be in for quite a treat.

We are on the cusp of something cool here people.  We are officially 2 for 2.

CosWatch, the wonderful idea started by Frega, Dro, Liv, Tee Morris and myself has officially been accepted as Press for Tekkoshocon in Pittsburgh, PA and as of today, Anime Boston in … wait for it … Boston, MA.  What follows after this sentence are my thoughts on the process and why I’m so excited about all of this.

This whole idea got started at Anime USA in Virgina this past November.  As anyone who has followed my rants for the past few years, I am a big fan of Anime Conventions and simply conventions of geekery period.  I think it’s a lot of fun to be in the same place as so many other fans, and have a forum to further your love of the hobby.

Yet this convention in particular, 2008 being our fourth year there, something was lacking.  Perhaps we had simply grown too old for this kind of thing (possible).  Maybe the event was just not well organized (definite).  Whatever the reason may be, the most fun we had was everyone huddled around the couch and table area in our hotel rooms, drinking and talking about things.

One thing that stayed constant, was our love and hate for the amazing and down right disgusting cosplay that we saw.  This is when the idea became a reality and people seriously considered trying to go to a convention and interview people, blog, podcast and take as many pictures as possible.  We wanted to give ourselves a reason to be at these coventions and we hoped that since that is our favorite part of this, that it would enhance what we were doing at the cons.

When I asked for press passes to Tekkoshocon in Pittsburgh, I firmly believed that we would get a ton of passes.  Mostly because it’s a fairly small convention and any press they could get to the event, would be good press.  I ended up being right, even though it took me forever to get in touch with them.  Granted we didn’t end up going to this con because of Dan’s birthday, but that’s besides the point.

When I filled out the press form for Anime Boston however, this is where I began to worry.  Boston is a HUGE convention, one of the biggest on the east coast next to Otakon, and they are known for being real sticklers on a variety of topics.  Yet here we are, heading to Anime Boston free of charge.  This event, since it was in such doubt, is somethign that I’m extremely excited for now.  Tekkoshocon I could deal without, as it was just something to do because I wanted to get this idea off the ground.  Now though we are going to a big convention which is going to be a real blast I think.

I will keep everyone posted on how preperation goes for this event and be sure to keep tabs on www.coswatch.com for the latest news from the convention!

Because of the generation that I am currently (and forever) situated in, technology is just going to be a part of my life.  Things have moved forward and expanded at such a fevered rate that sometimes it’s a little daunting trying to keep up.  I am constantly striving to do just that, keep up, and for the most part I do ok with it.  What I have found out though, is that while I may be aware of something’s presence, I am usually very old fashioned and feel like the way I’m doing things is just fine for the time being.

The easiest example for me to point to is obviously how long it took me to break down and move to the iPod.  I wanted to stay so close to the CD’s that had cluttered my living space for ever.  I liked having the liner notes, took great joy in the little easter eggs that artists would sometimes sprinkle through the packaging, and simply liked collecting something.  Of course, those days came to an end, and now I’m like everyone else and loving the way I can have my full music library with me at a moments notice.

I didn’t want to use a blog software for my website, I preferred hand crafting everything myself.  Part of me still does, but now the convenience of WordPress has superseded anything I could have ever done on my own.  Just last month I was talking about how Twitter just didn’t seem that interesting to me.  Today I am watching as Trent Reznor and Chris Cornell get into a flame war, and wake up to the image of Shaq sleeping, all from just 140 characters per message.

Twitter has now started me to think in a different way.  Before twitter I just didn’t get the entire idea of Blackberries and iPhones and having the internet hiding in the back of your pocket.  I mean why may the extra money for a phone plan with all of this data integrated into it, so that I can have a cool phone?  Yet here I am, realizing that the iPhone plans aren’t much more than what I already pay a month.  With it I would be able to get Google directions instantly, have my e-mail always with me, and anything else that I may need.

This whole thought process got worse last night, as I bought my first Blu-Ray disk.  Just like my first DVD (The Matrix fyi) the only Blu-Ray player I have is on my computer.  For a start, I think that’s just fine.  Right now I think the Blu-Ray player in the laptop is a wonderful idea, so that if I’m every away from the house, which is becoming more and more popular lately, I can have a high definition movie to watch with me on the go.  That and a 17″ widescreen is pretty awesome to watch a movie on when you aren’t home.

The first movie I picked up was Wall-E, and I can’t come up with enough clever ways to tell you, the reader, just how damn impressive the picture and audio quality is.  It just looks completley uncompressed, so the texture quality and detail level is unlike anything I have ever seen.  I can see individual rust spots on Wall-E’s face, right next to the specific type of round bolt that keeps his face together.  It’s ludicrous how good it all looks.

Does that mean I dive head first into Blu-Ray?  No.  Like anything else, I will slowly build up to that point.  First I need a bigger TV that can get me 1080p, and then I get the player, and even then I can only get specific movies on Blu-Ray.  Animation and Action movies are worth it to me, because the high definition quality makes the movie better.  I don’t need my comedies or drama’s in high def.  What’s the point, so I can see how bad of a job the makeup artist did?  Not to mention that I can’t justify the $30 a pop price to rebuy all of my previous movies.  I have over 200 DVD’s, and there’s no way I’m going to buy them multiple times.  Shit, some of them I shouldn’t have bought even once.

With the other technology, it’s the same policy.  When my phone contract is up, I might switch over to the iPhone, or just get my parents off the plan and get a Blackberry.  Simply put I just don’t know yet.  Technology is great, but it’s very expensive and early adopters always get screwed.  I’m a wait and see kind of guy.  I don’t mind that I didn’t get something first.  I just like getting something that works …

Anyone who has followed my online career knows that I have periods of ludicrous updates and activity, and then I go away for a long time.  This situation, is somewhat of a middle ground as it really hasn’t been so long, but still long enough for people to question what the hell I have (or more appropriately haven’t) been doing.

It has been little over a month since my update on the RPG campaign, and I suppose I will start there because it requires the least amount of effort.  Things are going well in the adventure right now, as we are hitting a balance of extremely difficult encounters, but the characters are just on par to make it through.  For me, this is what I wanted.  The threat of death is real (we’ve had at least 2-3 close calls for PC’s), and the group is doing some really epic shit.  Kudos to them, it only gets better / worse from here on out … depending on your outlook of course.  =)

The first annual Diablo 2 Marathon weekend took place on the 13th and 14th and to say that it was a success would be an understatement.  Games started Friday night at about 9 PM with Josh, Corey, Luke, Dan, Katie and myself all going up against the minions of Diablo.  Friday night ended at 2:30 AM, with us half way through Act II.  We picked up right where we left off at about 11 AM on Saturday, minus Katie, and we kept going until 10:30 PM that night.  In that time we finished up all the acts, killed Diablo, dropped Luke off in Boonton, killed Baal, had a drinking game, took a shot at the end of each act, and did the Secret Cow Level.  Suffice to say, I still don’t think I’ve recovered after all of these days.  I have a feeling that this is not the last time we do a Diablo 2 fest, not to mention what we are going to do once Diablo 3 comes out.

Final gaming note, is that as you can see on the right, my Death Knight is doing fairly well for herself.  =)

With the geekiness out of the way, it is starting to finally hit Katie and I that the wedding is coming.  We are about 4 months away, and really there’s a lot that still needs to be taken care of and of course I feel like it could never get done in time.  I haven’t been hit by a wave of nerves or jitters yet, only a profound desire to just have the wedding already.  It’s shaping up to be one hell of a party, and really I just want to have it already.  Excitement is really starting to work it’s magic over me, and I’m fully embracing the big life change that I’m in store for.  Katie shares my sentiment.  If we could have the wedding in all of it’s glory tomorrow, we would do it.  But alas, we have some more things to finalize, and a more days to sit through, but in the end it will be worth it.

Other than that, things are quiet on this front.  I will promise you further updates to come, and in a more timely fashion.  I also promise you that there will be a lull.  Hopefully not immediately after I post this, but one can never be so sure.  Until that day then …

In many parts of the world, New Year’s offers us a chance to reflect on what we have done throughout the year, and plan on what we would like to improve on for the next.  Thankfully for you, faithful reader, I will not bore you with such tired bullshit.  I could pontificate elaborate tales of what I did wrong over the past few months, and then make detailed plans on how I improve myself in the upcoming cycle of the Earth’s rotation around the sun … but we’ve all read those blog posts enough haven’t we?

Instead I’m going to make this short, sweet, and meaningful.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who reads this site, who hangs out with me, and who has been in my life.  You are all fantastic people, no matter how small or large your role in my life may seem.  Without you, I would be a rather bland human being, and that would simply be a tradegy.

Tonight as you celebrate, whether you are partying with the Joey V, or drinking elsewhere and have to pee, I want you to raise your glass and give thanks to all of us having a pretty good thing going on with this thing called life.  Enjoy your celebrations, and I wish everyone out there the best of luck in the upcoming year.  Until next time, good night and good luck.

It’s that time of the year again.  The time of year when we all get together, our band of brothers, and go wage war on our livers!  Damn stupid organ never stands a chance of surviving.

Normally I wouldn’t post about Wildwood, in that we all know it’s coming, and we all go and have a blast.  This year however takes on a slightly more special meaning, at least it does for me.  This will be the last year before we all go off and get married.  Myself, KFJ, Lukey, and Josh are all going to be saying our vows and getting our “Game Over” T-shirts starting in August and moving all the way through October / November.  Instead of going to Wildwood, I will be on my honeymoon, and KFJ will be tearing his hair out trying to get everything ready for his September swary.

Now of course I don’t mean to say that this is the last trip to Wildwood ever.  Heavens no!  But in the classic sense, Wildwood has in general and at it’s core, been a bachelor’s weekend.  It’s a trip with the guys where you go and get drunk for every minute you are down there, you watch bad movies, you swim in the pool and make fun of the saps who walk a mile to the beach, and you laugh and have a blast.  It’s all a great little thing, and I have been lucky enough to go on many occasions at this point.  So for me, and for a few other of my friends and brothers, this is the last bash that we get before we have our lovely new brides.

Plans will of course be made the following year, after all of our weddings and such, and hopefully most of, if not all of us will be present for those subsequent parties.  I don’t see this as the end of an era, simply the last trip before I’m slightly changed by the letter of the law, but not changed at all from who I am and what defines me as a peson.  I’m sure there will be a call to arms and all of the guys will assemble again.  The only difference will be, instead of being sans girlfriends / fiances … we’ll be sans wives for the week.

Truth be told … I can’t think of a better present to give to our wives.  Lord knows they have to see our stoopid faces for the rest of their lives.  Give them a week reprive would certainly be in their best interest.  =)

The bags are packed, boxes overflowing, and the U-Haul is reserved … it’s time to move.  After a little more than a year living in Hackensack and the wonders of Bergen County, I am once again on the move, back to lush Morris County.

I’ve moved before.  Moving from my sister’s to Hackensack was an ordeal for sure.  Yet why the strange blog title?

The more I thought about this whole process, the more I realized that this is a very new life event for me.  While it is true, that I haven’t lived in my parent’s house for about 3-4 years now, I haven’t really ever lived on my own either.  Allow me to explain.

The first two years are rather easy to explain away.  I left my parent’s home and I simply moved to my Sister’s house and took residence there, attempting to not get trampled by little girls.  The rent was cheap, the food was free, and all was good.  Yet rightfully so, my sister thought it was time to move on.  I needed to move somewhere else and she needed to ensure that all the kids had a room of their own.  I quickly scrambled trying to find a place to crash on my modest salary and was coming up rather short.

This is when Katie came in and told me about her Grandmother’s house and how they had a tenet there who they wanted to get rid of.  I took on the task of living there, and for the most part it was great.  Of course I had to deal with the initial issue of living in the same house as an elderly woman and her caretaker.  However, as anyone that came over can attest to, the place was pretty much all mine and that never became an issue.  Still though it really wasn’t a place of my own.  At least it never felt that way until Katie’s grandmother passed away, and not even then so much.

So now I have set out on my own.  Well, semi on my own, as I will be living with the future Mrs. Joey V, but you get what I mean.  It’s a place that is mine.  A place where I had to call up the electric company and tell them to bill me.  A place where I had to call and install fiber optic awesomeness for Phone, TV and Internet.  A place … that I can call home.

Feels good to finally say that, after 3 years of never feeling truly like I had a place to lay my head.  I’m glad it’s finally here, and it’s in the spot that I have now.  =)