I wont spend too much on this, but last Thursday Nicole, Sean and I hit up the Warped Tour. I won't go into excruciating detail, but here are my overall thoughts:
1. You know that Wooderson quote in Dazed and Confused "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age." Yeah, I think this kind of logic applies to the Warped Tour as well. Either I'm getting older, or the crowds are getting younger. Maybe it's a combination of both, I don't know? What I do know is that the way girls dress at the Warped Tour made Miley Cyrus look wholesome. I know its hot ladies but seriously, just rock some shorts. Walking around in booty shorts or bikini's or worse... you're just asking for that assclown from Cobra Starship to invite you to his tour bus.
2. The amount of quality bands was amazingly low. Look, I know it's supposed to be diverse, and I know that I don't like/understand many of the musical genre's the Warped Tour caters to, but this years installment was really weak. And the kids ate it up. Cobra Starship had a crowd about twice as big as The Bronx. 50 kids watched Broadway Calls, but 1000 watched some band named Valencia? Hell, Against Me was dwarfed by Motion City Soundtrack one stage over. I don't know... At least the Street Dogs had a respectable amount of kids. Which leads me to point 3....
3. Overall it was so-so. Say Anything played a decent (dare I say enjoyable) set, and TSOL and the Van
dals proved why punk rock has, and will outlast whatever variation of nu metal comes along, but for the most part most bands were a disappointment, or downright terrible. Evergreen Terrace was unrecognizable, to the point where I had to ask someone in the crowd who I was watching (for the record, I was watching ET cause Nicole wanted to see them.) Rise Against's set was terrible, and Angels and Airwaves were boring (well, what did I really expect from AVA.) Even the Street Dogs were just good, and not great like they always are.Cobra Starship, however deserves special mention.
I've had the misfortune of seeing plenty of terrible bands (Circa Survive, Nightmare of You, that terrible band that opened for Tiger Army that consisted of a computer and drums,) but Cobra Starship takes the cake. While waiting for the Vandals to take the stage I walked up to Sean, and he had this strange look on his face, like someone released a stink bomb or tipped over a portapotty. Then I caught a whiff of what he was smelling. On stage was a late 20's once pop-punk member of Midtown turned emo hipster Gabe Sapporta (I know that's not how you spell his last name, but he gets no respect so I won't even look up to see that it's wrong) telling his crowd how they all want to fuck him. It's here I'll add that his fan base is made up of 13 year old Hellogoodbye loving teenage girls. Then he proceeded to bring Jeffree Star on stage to ruin a perfectly good Gwen Stefani song. I heard him play 2 1/2 songs in 20 minutes, while he spent 10 minutes talking. And the kids ate it up. However, one band made up for that craptastic performance...
4. Against Me! played maybe the best set I've ever seen at Warped Tour (up there with Pennywise in '07, NOFX and Anti-Flag in '06, and The Unseen and The Offspring on '05) Ripping through songs, and giving the energy to tracks off New Wave that they were sorely lacking. I'd bore you with the rest, but I'll just give you the setlist: New Wave/Stop/White People For Peace/Pints of Guinness/Baby, I'm an Anarchist/From Her Lips to God's Ears/ Sink, Florida, Sink/ Don't Lose Touch/ Thrash Unreal.
Final Summation: Next year, there better be at least 5 Agaisnt Me's! or I'm staying home. Man, Against Me's! looks weird.
Anyways, so essentially summer is over for me. I start school Tuesday. I'll go more in depth later on my school schedule, but for now, here's my Summer 2008 playlist:
Shwayze - Corona and Lime/ The Alkaline Trio - Help Me AND Burned is the House/ Against Me! - White People for Peace AND Those Anarcho Punks are Mysterious/Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Longshadow/ The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound AND Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts/ Tegan and Sara - Hop a Plane/ The Hold Steady - You Can Make Him Like You/ The Bouncing Souls - Kid/ The Clash - Hateful/ Tupac - Do For Love/ The Falcon - Building the Perfect Asshole Parade/ Smoke or Fire - Delawhere/ Coldplay - Lovers in Japan/ The Loved Ones - Brittle Heart
Normally I'd be angry with the current 10 game crapfest from the Angels, but at 15 games up and a share of the AL's best record, I can't really complain. You know why? Because Justin Speier won't be in close playoff games, that's why!
Another reason why the 49ers are the worst run franchise in the NFL... They are ready to hand over the reigns to J.T Sullivan on the basis that he knows Mike Martz offense. Sullivan has performed decent (not great like ESPN wants you to believe) in the pre-season, but it's Alex Smith's job. People forget that he was coming off a promising 2007 season and led the 49ers to two wins to open the season before separating his shoulder. Mike Nolan, swallow your pride and give the ball to Smith. Remember it took Drew Brees a couple years and some motivation to elevate his game...
Is there any athlete in America (or the world) more dominating or amazing as Michael Phelps. Before you answer that question remember that Phelps is not a NFL quarterback, a NBA or MLB star, NASCAR driver, golfer, or even a MLS star/ Premier League has been... he's a swimmer. Now read that question again and answer truthfully. Sorry Tiger...
I'll end this long and somewhat interesting blog with yet another list. It's something I was thinking about today as an older lady whipped our her checkbook, and asked me for a pen...
QUESTIONS I HATE WHILE WORKING IN THE PHARMACY:
1. "How much will my co-pay be." (another variation is "Why is my co-pay so high.") I don't know lady, how much did you pay the time before, cause chances are it will be close to that. What, you want to know now? How about you wait twenty minutes, cause we have to process the son-of-a-bitch first. And no, I don't know why you're paying $6 instead of $4 for your goddamn metformin! Why? Cause I don't work for Blue Shield, ma'am.
2. "I'm here to pick up a prescription (end's conversation)": No shit, really? I thought you were to admire me in my white smock.
2a. "I'm here to pick up a prescription for Ted (end's conversation)"
2b. "I'm here to pick up a prescription for Smith (ends conversation)"
2c. "Is my prescription ready?(ends conversation)"
How about I take you out back, take half of your money, kick you in the nuts, and we call it a day?
3. "Why hasn't the doctor gotten back to you /called in my prescription?" Cause your doctor either a.) doesn't like you b.) is nailing his assistants, or c.) is unbelievably busy helping his hundred other clients and hasn't gotten to it. Or maybe he has and we just don't want you to have your medication... that seems to be a popular thought.
4. "Can I pick up my medication now?" As in right this second? Sure. Normally we have to process the medication, make sure you have no allergies to the medication, make sure you get the right medication and the right count. But shit, for you we'll just give you the pills. Now get down on your knees, and suck them out through this tube... but close your eyes.
5. "Do you have a pen." I shutter every time I hear this question. Not so much that it bothers me that they want a pen, but more so that they are still writing checks. I mean, come on, how out of date are checks? If you answered incredibly... you'd be right!
I'm out...
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