Stage Diving 101

Stage Diving Etiquette 101

Intro:
So you've decided to join our feathered friends (and bats and squirrels) in the sky through the act of flight! Congratulations! The choice to sacrifice your body and equipment through the impulsive and destructive act of stage diving can be a rewarding and entertaining experience. I've cobbled together this primer to help you through the process. Band-mates should have no fear! I've taken the time to include portions and positioning for them as well. Please note the handy guide numbers in the upper left corner of the images.



1) Ascend.
While common stage dives (off a stage or the more simple "crowd surf") can be enjoyable, a true epic stage dive should be executed from the highest point available. In this instance, our hero has chosen a conspicuously well-placed rolling staircase to the left of the stage. Ascend as high as comfortable, but note that the higher the platform, the more awesome you will appear. Bonus points for continuing to play while preparing to plummet.

2) Pose.
Make sure the crowd sees you! We all know the rhetorical question regarding the tree in the woods. Here, the bassist has taken the "notes become bullets" a.k.a. the "...because of the wang" pose. Several paying customers are already laughing with joy as he readies his body for immortality. Band Note: At this point, you should still be playing at top gear, oblivious as to the throngs of women and young girls no longer eye-fucking you.

3) "The Four Winds."
With mind cleared from distraction and body poised for certain doom, one must cast one's mortal being into the abyss with righteous fervor and a complete disregard for the young girls in the front row. What's more, your band friends have noticed you for the first time in months! The drummer expresses joy and jealousy as he is locked behind his cruel metal cage. A proper guitarist will show no interest in the goings on around him or her, but will instead seethe inwardly as the ill trim in the front row has suddenly developed a taste for "bottom end," if you know what I mean.

4) Landing.
Never assume that someone will catch you. Extending your arm to brake your fall will usually lead to a broken wrist and will lead to an end to excellence, so be prepared to tuck and roll. Use the crowd to increase your coefficient of friction and slow your now-bruised body -- like a bowling ball into hapless pins. It is at this point that the drummer has cocked his arm in an "Atlanta Tomahawk" position to deliver a frustrated drumstick to the head of the bassist. This is custom and one should always be prepared to deflect a stick headed for an eye or an orifice.

5) Momentum and the "Last Resort."
If you are out of audience members to collapse into, the guitarist or lead singer is usually the last safety and one should use any and all gymnastic means to use him or her as a brake. Our bassist has cleverly used the neck of his instrument to hook into the kneecaps of the guitarist as a Navy jet hooks into the cable on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Note that he has tucked his chin down to shield his eyes from the drumstick, which has found its target -- a bruised forehead is better than a bleeding eye.

6) Injury, Recovery and Hospice.
Pain! Pain is fleeting, and death is for the weak. You are alive and you will recover thanks to modern 21st Century medicine and the finest health care system that your parents can provide! Take a breath to fill your lungs with life-affirming oxygen and to clear your mind of suffering -- those are not twins you are seeing, mouthing incomprehensible words as you lie prone on your bruised coccyx, but rather the pretty freegan from two towns over who has a 40 year old canadian boyfriend. You're seeing double, friend! Band mates: Now is the time to elevate your concern.

7) "The Checkdown."
Like a boxer that has just been knocked down, it is best to walk through a checklist in your head while on the ground -- if you're on the floor, there's nowhere lower to go, so you avoid further injury due to collapse. It is recommended to take stock of one's limbs from the bottom up: feet, legs, hips, chest and head. It is now appropriate for other band members to abandon their positions and rush to your aide. At this point, the show is effectively over and no more music will be played. All that is left is for the stage diver to milk his feat for all it's worth.

8) Results.
The last step involves regailing the hero for his feat of daring. Audience members should applaud and those of the opposite gender should become sexually aroused. Band mates should stand about and deliver the line, "are you ok?" in as dispassionate a manner a possible. A traditional response should be something along the lines of, "I need a [drink/drug/whore]," but feel free to improvise! After all, YOU sacrificed your body like a virgin to Pelé, YOU have the right to demand offerings of your choice.

(Stupid Party at Java Studios, 2/22/08)

Yes, I Went To Disneyland

Disneyland is many things, and a mess of contradictions which I am still limping my way through. Currently. In no order:

1) It's smaller than I remember. Now, I've not been there in 12 years or somewhere thereabouts. In any instance, the forced perspective in the buildings (Main Street gets narrower and the buildings get shorter as they approach Sleeping Beauty's Castle) is now less effective now that I am 6'2". There is also an argument for my "seeing better," if that makes any sense. What took a whole day to walk around now takes about 20 minutes and most of the time is spent waiting in line for rides, which speaks to the designers' grace in jamming so much shit into such a (relatively) tiny space and still managing to give each Land its own entry way and exit.



2) Disneyland is BIGGER than I remember. There's a whole second park, with a second admission fee (Disney's California Adventure), which was built over the old parking lot. Now you take a tram (or walk through Downtown Disney, a weird little shopping mall/esplanade thing) to the main gate from the multi-story parking garage with super-high-flow escalators and a view of scenic Anaheim over and beyond the Magic Kingdom.

2a) Disney's California Adventure is clearly not meant for people from California. Or maybe it is, but that has a certain cynical implication that the good people of the state of California are too dumb to go visit their own (real life, with real bears) attractions. My family and I took a cursory walk through it and I was pretty unimpressed.

Consider below:



Poppies: Check. They are the state flower. Well done. They're all along the highway.

Retro Font: Check. Sell the postcard image of sun-drenched beaches and Beach Boys compilations.

Movie Theater: YOU'RE IN LOS ANGELES MOTHERFUCKER GRAUMAN'S IS VERY CLOSE BY MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO. SHIT IS CRAZY.

Pen: I don't get that. It must be some Miramax-Barton-Fink leftover shit.

Sun, Surf, Palms: See: "Movie Theater," substitute "Venice" for "Grauman's."

3) Disneyland is scary.



There's a lot of skulls. I recall there was a skull count a few years back (which was done apropos of nothing) and the number was pretty high. Or higher than you might expect or think of off the top of your head. There's a lot of blacklight stuff and fucking two story WOOZLES (above) which will clearly haunt your dreams. We can joke all we want about Coney Island being a strange and violent looking place, but all things are equal in this instance and in spite of Uncle Walt's best wishes, Disneyland is closer in spirit and execution to the old carnivals he was trying to render obsolete than we might want to admit. Permanence is great, and the safety record of the park is unbeatable, but content is content is content and the Indiana Jones Ride is just as dark as Dante's Inferno.

4) I might just be getting cynical ("getting," "ha, ha") in my old age. I mean, the holiday re-dressing of the Haunted Mansion (the ride, not the sad Eddie Murphy movie thing) for the Nightmare Before Christmas was pretty cute, and clearly had a lot of thought and love behind it (unlike the sad Eddie Murphy movie thing). Kids seemed to be having a good time still, which is important, because when the STOP having a good time we should burn the place to the ground, and people closer to my age seemed to be having a reasonable time as well. So what does this say about me?

I CAN HAS ATE FWIENDS? ^_^

According to yesterday's math (December 15th's math -- the day of my portentous birth; to some a day to be scorned) I have eight friends. These are their portraits. If you see them on the street, congratulate them for their wise choice to not alienate me.



Matt brought me artworks in a similar vein to this series, for which I am grateful.



Melissa brought cookies of the homemade variety. They were (emphasis on the past tense. They are with God now) excellent and peanut butter with jelly dollops. I am grateful.



Chuck brought wine, which was a welcome arrival. He also took the time to swing by before band practice. I am grateful.




Gersh brought himself, which is important because we decided we'd known each other for seventeen (17) years. Go figure. I am grateful.



Ally brought Yuengling, which is important because it is nourishing and good for you. I am grateful.



Alex also brought Yuengling. Actually you could parse his arrival in several ways -- You could say that he brought the Yuengling while Ally (see above) brought HIM; You could say that he brought Ross (see below). I am grateful.



Ross arrived and watched Slapshot with us, which is important because it is the finest movie of All Time. I am grateful.

[#8 Removed at #8's request, 9/18/08]

Now, there were MANY others who were invited and did not appear. MANY others. Those... people... will be dealt with in my own time. Their remains will likely be posted here later.

My love to you all. I am now 28. I feel like shit.

The Way That I Rhyme

There's not much to say about this set from Darkside Haunted House -- it speaks for itself, I think. I will add that it was one of those jobs you're happy to take just because the situation is so weird that it becomes a crime NOT to take it. There's a Disneyland-style line-maze that serves to pace attendance and allows guests cycle through and experience a series of terrors. One such section featured a series of hillbilly-Deliverance-style vignettes. Our host and guide said, dryly, "Guess what our theme was last year?"

This comment reminded me of one of my cleverer moments, if I do say so myself. Back in college one of my video professors was a heavy in the early Experimental Video, Queercore and Riot Grrl scenes in the 80's and 90's (and was even namedropped in Le Tigre's "Hot Topic") and she and I would frequently butt heads over this and that. For example, she would accuse me of misogyny and in turn I would make my work more misogynistic because... well... wouldn't you?

Anyway, a few years after we graduated George and I went back to talk to some of our more beloved professors and in the course of conversation asked what Cecilia was up to.

Professor: "I'm not sure. Last I heard she was in Ireland working on a horror film."

Me: "You mean, like, slasher-horror or the horrors of gender relations...?"

Professor: "..."

So I never got a good answer, and I suspect I was right.

Like Brett Favre, Richard Gin Is Having Fun!

To a point, anyway. Yes! I was in Sweden! Yes! I was only there for forty and one-half (40.5) hours or thereabouts and when you factor in the travel time (about twenty [20]) hours, you begin to figure out how hectic life can be. You understand how painful life can be when you consider that the airplane was showing a mini marathon of late 80's to early 90's TV hits including Wings and Cheers (with Shelly Long, no less).

Now, to be clear, I'd still be in Sweden right now (or perhaps Norway) if it were not for NY Fashion week -- I had to come back on time to pick up my requisite days on the party circuit (seriously) and as much as I need a vacation proper, I'd like to keep the momentum from last month.

Dan's oldest kid said he imagined Sweden to be full of 'dragons and dwarves fighting with axes.' I'm paraphrasing. Some others would have you believe that you can't swing a dead cat in Sweden without braining a six-foot (6') tall amazon with shimmering flaxen tresses and boobs out to here.

(gestures)

Neither of these scenarios are true, sadly. I add "sadly" for obvious reasons.



Another sad thing:

The thrift store clothes in Gothenburg (I will not make assumptions regarding the hipness of the rest of the nation) are all from American institutions, including AYSO, the Y "M's" and "W's" CA and the United States Army. Aside from my disappointment, I don't know what to think of this, though the low quality of the selections suggests that the Swedes dispatch a warm body to Domsey's with one hundred (100) US dollars and a round trip ticket with the order to "bring back what you can."

On the topic of Swedish Monies, the twenty (20) Kroner note has a CHILD RIDING A GOOSE. This is very important and the mere fact that some brilliant person came up with this idea (lifted from Swedish legend or history or not) shows how far our European friends have advanced beyond our simple American understanding.



We had difficulty finding endemic foods at first. It seemed that every restaurant we passed was italian or french or a burger stand of some sort which might have been good eatin', but why bother when the promise of meatballs and herring was so tempting. The concierge at Gothia Towers pointed us in the direction of a swedish soul food joint about one (1) kilometer away, and we ended up pigging out on... meatballs and herring. The fresh ligonberry jam is the hurdle that IKEA can't clear. The warm nordic food sits well in the gut when tromping around ill-paved medieval cobblestone streets stalking locals with a camera in the spirit of adventure and staving off any sort of future jet lag (see paragraph two (2) of this formless essay).



In all, Gothenburg is not a nation of contrasts. It appears to be (in limited experience) to be decidedly Swedish, though the good people speak superb English and are cheerful and willing to help out disabled tourists like ourselves. This has not stopped me from making jokes about their language (see post below) and I will be doing so again once I take formal shots of the hilarious candy bars I packed into the country.

Final Grade: A+, would travel to again.