Posted 6:57 PM by Alfred

yo my peeps-

a few random thoughts as I've got a couple minutes of breathing space. I was listening to the new Def Leppard album today, which my coworker burned for me, and I'm getting scared because I'm actually starting to like it. I mean, yeah, it's just a bunch of ballad bullshit and a few sad sack rock outs here and there, but, still, I'm starting to like, hum along, and even sing parts of it, and I'm, like, scared.

And as you know, it's hard to like Def Leppard in their current incarnation without people talking. You know what I mean, they're saying ahem, and okay, and all righty then, and there goes mr. def leppard over there.

I know I told you the story of the first album I ever bought, but I haven't told you about the second one. It was Def Leppard Pyromania. Damn that album is a classic study in early 80's butt-rock. From there I had to quickly fill out my library and picked up High 'n' Dry and On Through the Night. I think High 'n' Dry is my favorite Def Leppard album, it pretty much rocks the hardest, pretty raw and hardcore (well, hardcore for Def Leppard, I mean, they weren't like biting off batheads or anything, but they weren't pouring out any sugar yet.)

This was all in elementary school. By the time I got to junior high, it was on to a harder diet of Iron Maiden, Dio, and Ratt. OK Ratt isn't very hardcore, but neither was I so gimme a fukn break. I remember at the small private school I went to, all the guys were into like death metal, so I had to fit in. I wanted so bad to get Iron Maiden shirts with the devil on them and shit, but my Mom had a strict no satanic t-shirt policy, so I had to find ones that conveyed my evil messages, but weren't obvious enough so that parents would understand. My favorite shirt to rock was my PowerSlave one, which I got away with because Eddie is all hidden in that Egyptian temple. Maybe my Mom thought I was getting into ancient history or something. The other shirt I had was a Van Halen 1982 official tour shirt and a Ratt shirt that said "Ratt Attack" with a giant tank on it rolling over a bunch of people with rats everywhere. I had baggy ripped jeans, but never scored the parachute pants. On retrospect this is something I am happy about I think, although those pants had a lot of convenient zippers.

I did a lot of dumb shit around that age. We used to wander around Sierra Madre after getting out early on Fridays and do our version of terrorizing the neighborhood, which involved ding dong ditch and ripping plants out of random gardens. Random acts of fucking things up was considered very cool. Probably the dumbest thing I ever did associated with being a little hesher was actually bang my head. I had always heard stories of "headbanging" and how you had to bang your head to be a true metal man. So I was at this party and it was really cool, we were playing whip each other with our bandannas, there was plenty of ripped jeans and baby-mullets in the house, and I decided I would get hardcore and bang my head into the wall.

Damn that shit hurt. I had a headache the rest of the night and decided that from then on, headbanging should be left to the experts, which did not include myself. I would stick to the headbob and the headshake and the jumping up and down, but no more smashing my head into hard objects, thank you.

Two blogs you should be reading: Kitty Bukkake and Mr. Know it All

peace out

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