Wednesday, April 22, 2009

lists = good

I started doing these "5 things" surveys on fBook and I got hooked. I was trying to think of all the shows I've been to, and I realized I've already forgotten roughly half of them. So I'm gonna use this post to list all the ones I can remember, and I'll come back and update it as I remember more shows. I'll try to go chronologically, but after a few it'll probably just be whatever order I remember them in.

Here goes:
-Sugar Ray w/Everlast & 2 Skinny Js
-N*Sync w/ some chick I don't remember
-Eve 6 w/American Hi-Fi & Sum 41
-Zebrahead
-Concert for Artist's Rights: Weezer, Offspring & No Doubt
-Weezer, Tenacious D & Jimmy Eat World
-Blink 182 w/ Fenix TX & Silverchair
-Blink 182
-KROQ Santa Anita Microbrew festival: New Found Glory, Fenix TX, The Living End, Save Ferris
-KROQ Almost Aoustic Christmas 2000: No Doubt, Papa Roach, Moby, Deftones, Incubus, Coldplay (first U.S. show), At The Drive In, 3 Doors Down, Fuel.
-KROQ Inland Invasion 2001: Offspring, Beastie Boys, Incubus, Social D, Pennywise, Weezer, Long Beach Dub All Stars
- KROQ Inland Invasion 2002: Sex Pistols, Offspring, Social D, Bad Religion, Blink 182, Pennywise, Buzzcocks, New Found Glory, X, The Damned, Unwritten Law, The Vandals, Circle Jerks, TSOL, The Distillers, The Adolescents.
-Cypress Hill Smokeout (I WORKED this show, so I don't know if it counts. I certainly wouldn't have been there if I weren't being paid for it): Cypress Hill, Snoop Dog, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Kottonmouth Kings, Circle Jerks, Everlast
-Harley Davidson 100 Year Anniversary show: Stone Temple Pilots, Billy Idol & Nickelback
-Jack's 1st Show: Cheap Trick, Billy Idol, Violent Femmes, Journey & Def Leppard
-Def Leppard w/Brian Adams
-Def Leppard & Journey
-Tom Petty & Jackson Browne
-Eagles of Death Metal
-Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
-Reverend Horton Heat
-Hootenanny 2006: Reverend Horton Heat, Tiger Army, Flogging Molly, Supersuckers, Horrorpops, The Living End, Wanda Jackson, Lee Rocker, and about 20 others on small stages
-Warped Tour 2006: 30 Seconds to Mars, AFI, The Academy Is, Against Me, Anti-Flag, Bedouin Soundclash, Bouncing Souls, Buzzcocks, Casualties, Gogol Bordello, Gym Class Heroes, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Less Than Jake, The Living End, New Found Glory, NOFX, Paramore, Plain White Ts, Rise Against, Saves The Day, Senses Fail, Silverstein, The Used, Zebrahead & others (OK, so I cheated and looked up the list on this one, sue me.)
-Foo Fighters, Hot Hot Heat, and Weezer
-Foo Fighters, Against Me, and Serj Tankian
-The Living End
-Flogging Molly w/ The Briggs
-Queen w/Paul Rodgers
-Bad Religion
-Bad Religion
-Flogging Molly
-We Are Scientists
-We Are Scientists w/Bishop Allen
-Brian Setzer Orchestra
-Buck-O-Nine
-Coldplay
-The Decemberists with Loch Lomand
-Everclear, Fastball & Marcy Playground
-Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 40th Anniversary Concert: Cheap Trick, Aimee Mann, Joan Osbourne, Ian Ball, Al Jourgensen (from Ministry) & Al Laufer
-Good Old War & The Union Line
-Green Day
-Nekromantix, Horrorpops & Tiger Army
-The Aussie Invasion: The Living End, Jet, and The Vines
-Poison & Ratt
-Blink 182 & New Found Glory

OK - phew! That's all I can think of right now...I know I left out a lot of good shows (and I'm sure a few bad ones too). Now I think I'll rework this list into an fBook note that's categorized and has notes. Thanks for playing along with me on this exercise. I'll keep adding to the list as I remember shows.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

On a psychological note:

This one is personal. Don't worry, I'll get back to bitching about work all the time later. Just getting this one off my chest.

I am never going to be able to move on from my DUI. It was 3 years ago this year, and it was a fluke thing after someone spiked my drink, but I still take everything I see as an indicator that I am a failure and an attempted murderer.

I have hardly been able to watch or listen to any of the news this week about the Angels' pitcher. I feel personally responsible for every drunk in the United States, and I don't know how to remove myself from that. I hear people go on their rants about how senseless a tragedy it was, and they're right. But at the same time, looking at all "drunk drivers" in the same light without taking their individual situations into account is wrong. Making me go to 9 months of classes, 6 months of AA, check in with my "case worker" every other week, pay tripled car insurance for 10 years, pay $10k in fines AND mark "yes, I have been convicted of a crime" on every job application for the rest of my life, all because someone spiked my drink? It's wrong. Beating a sense of guilt into me that I will carry with me forever over something that truly wasn't my fault is wrong.

So here I am, afraid to drive to my parents' house on any holiday weekend, because I know that I'll be confronted with 6 marquee signs on the freeway all saying, "Report drunk drivers" on the way home. Every time a cop passes me on the street I cringe, because I'm afraid he'll pull me over just to harass me (Anyone with a DUI can be pulled over with no cause for the next 10 years and asked to take a breathalyzer). Every time some irresponsible idiot drives drunk on a suspended license for the 8th time and kills a carload of innocent children, I have been conditioned to feel just as guilty as him.

Brittany says I have a control issue, and I can't accept that things simply happen; I have to tell myself they happened because of something I did. She's probably right, but how do I let go of this? All I know right now is that if I keep letting things that aren't my fault make me feel like I've failed as a person, I won't last long.