Speaking of "Spirit"...here is a post on "the spirit" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

I'm coming clean. Yes, I believe in God or a higher power...whatever you want to call it. I was raised a Methodist, left the church and the faith, and in recent years I have rejoined faith but my faith/belief is most likely different from most in this world. This may not be breaking news and I certainly am not "born again", but I figured I'd put it out there for the masses that don't exist in jwonderland and also its a great way for a lead into...NIRVANA!. Yes, that group from Seattle.

Yes, when I was young, before the liberty that comes with being 18 years old, I attended many a church functions. I attended them willingly and had a good time. Even went as far as to sneak out on some church retreat a couple of times and do some juvenile type things. Once, I even snuck out w/my friends with help from one of the chaperons. We wanted to run some underwear up a flagpole or something akin to that.

For the most part the gatherings were enjoyable probably because I was part of the Methodist Church. See, the Methodist, at least in my case, were the least worse in terms of going to church. We had as many moderates as conservatives and hell, we even had some liberals too. Not too much overbearing brain washing.
Speaking of brain washing, we had this great lady named Mrs. Stevenson who would have us over (her daughters were part of the group) to hang out and in the end most functions were at her place. Yeah, she was overbearing to a certain degree w/ her comments but no big deal because it was tempered with great sweets and a sunny disposition.

I can remember 1 evening real well. I was 15 or 16 at the time and I had just recently transitioned from basketball freak to surfing freak and increasingly music was a big part of my life. I had been raised on Jazz, R & B (especially Motown and Stax Records) as well as a healthy dose of classic rock (CCR, Hendrix, Zepplin, The Who to name a few). Mostly, at the time (1991), I listened to old music. Music that had already come out w/ the exception of U2, REM and a few other bands. I was too young to be a part of the NEW WAVE and PUNK movements of the 80's, which I now appreciate greatly especially The Minutemen.

However, I was old enough to be exposed at a great length to Hair Metal. Not cool metal, but hair metal and I absolutely hated that shit.

So there I was at this event and we are all playing pool in garage having a blast high on life and shit like that. Next thing I know, Daniel Ross pops in "NeverMind" into the Tape Player. I had heard the main single Smells like Teen Spirit by that fall, but not the whole album. It wasn't long before I was freaking out my fellow party goers by playing the tape over and over. At some point the garage was cleared and it was just me and the music of Nirvana. "This is it" I was thinking and that was was it. I liked Metallica (they were increasingly popular at the time...Enter Sandman anyone) and never thought of them as hair metal, but they didn't do it for me although I did enjoy the tunes. However, Nirvana's new album did do it for me.

It was the start of the 90's Alternative movement that was the catalyst for so much original music. I wanted to be a part of it and I wanted to be in a band right then. Click the link to get the background on this record.
THIS IS IT

After hearing the album, I remember thinking that the guitar my aunt had given me was probably a good start. However, one of my best friends, Drew Dunn, was too good of a guitarist to need a second guitarist to play with and certainly since at the time I wasn't a singer. At the time, I really had no claim on guitarist/singer. So I played bass and did it poorly all the while playing acoustic guitar on my own time and learning as much as possible about music in general. Little did I know that the bass is probably the most important instrument in Western "band" music. Over time I got better but by that time I was singing and no one wanted a singing bassist for some reason.

What makes Nirvana so important to me and of course even more important to others at the time was the newness of the sound and the message of the lyrics. The message of being an outsider with being uncomfortable with conformity. Believing something because other people believe it and for no other reason than that. The 80's were a shitty time for thinking and a great time for greed and for me the "white" racist standards of my community really didn't appeal to me. Conformity was the norm coming up in Great Bridge of CHesapeake, VA. Sure, others were saying what Kurt said, but Kurt reached a whole crap load of people. The outsiders who had not been interested in Punk or Alternative music. Why is this important? Well, from a strictly revolutionary perspective it makes money and gives opportunity to similar bands/artists worthy of delivering their music to the people.

NOTES:
The Baby on the cover

He was a reporter, Cobain that is. He was reporting what he felt and what he saw others experience. Those others were people his age. Youth trying to find their way in an increasingly confusing world that gets more complex as we are thrust into modernity. More to come on the great music of the 90's.
Thanks for reading.

Bush, Obama and Cheeeeney

Bush was bad but Obama is making him look worse.
A new poll finds that 60% of the American Public wants someone to investigate Bush and his colleagues for their wiping of their ass with The Constitution. Yes they took a dump on our civil rights and wiped their tight white asses with the document that guarantees those civil rights. Horay for the last 8 years but now those days are over we don't have sell our beliefs to the night. Sorry Sting I had to use that.

Torture

There is an argument, the proponent of which is Dick Cheney or Cheeeenie as Chris Matthews like to call him, that says that we must torture terrorists in order to win the so-called "War on Terror". Not so fast Dick! So the way to get to these guys is based on doing what we scold them so much for doing. How ironic. How hypocritical. Is that really the best way to get moderates on our side. Contrary to some ignorant opinion,even though a good number of the Islamic world may have negative opinions about US, it was only a handful who attacked us on 9/11. Some in the Islamic world like us and understand that aside from some of the piss poor military attacks perpetuated in our name, they know the American people are not necessarily bad.

GET OUT OF JAIL ZIGGY!

How I wish Ziggy wasn't in jail but hey maybe Nicki can help me with this. Is has been reported in the Baltimore Sun that slow car sales have backed up the new imports at the Baltimore docks. In fact, it was mentioned in the article that the Port Authority of Baltimore had to buy an additional 15 acres of land to store these aforementioned automobiles.


If double G Glekas was still alive we could get score him some Mercedes or a Toyota...possibly a hybrid if that dirty bastard even cares about the environment. Either way we would probably have to kill him because you know he's gonna try to low ball us upon delivery of said cars. Bastard.