John’s Crawlspace

I was going to take the sarcastic approach and make a post along the lines of…

“I just got back from this year’s Gathering of the Juggalo’s, and man was it awesome! I only got stabbed once, and my homie KrustyWill hooked me up with free meth all weekend long! Check out my pictures here!“

But I think this is worth a second look. I was already aware of the Insane Clown Posse “scene” (I’ve most likely posted about them before), but the pictures (and video!) from this event just blow my mind. I came across the pictures on a forum a few days ago, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them. I’m not a fan of the music, but everyone likes different stuff… No problem there. The thing is, every single person in attendance (based on those pictures) looks like a methed-out circus freak… And that is putting it nicely.

There was a time (back in 7th/8th grade I believe?) that I actually liked ICP. It was probably just the shock value of the music, but I still remember some of the songs, and they aren’t horrible. If I was hearing them now for the first time, sure, I’d hate them. But you know how that works… Music you liked way back in the day doesn’t sound bad to you now, even if you never listen to it anymore.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic here – What is it about this particular type of music that draws such a trashy, seemingly inbred crowd? Bands that fall into a unique niche tend to have their own unique followings (with The Disco Biscuits being another example of this), but the following of the Insane Clown Posse (and all of the other Psychopathic Records artists) are the most puzzling to me. I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule, but… Come on! I really don’t know what else to say.

If you didn’t watch that first video (“highlights” of the Gathering of the Juggalos”) that I linked to above… It really is worth checking out.

I never in a million years thought that I would be linking to Insane Clown Posse videos on YouTube from this site. It’s funny how that works. Anyway, I’m gonna go pick up a down-ass jugalette and kick back with some Faygo. MMFWCL.

In the apartment where I’m currently living, I have a “loft” style bed in my room that I built with my Dad. It’s bigger and not as tall as the bed in the example pic, but I suppose that information isn’t relevant. Anyway, at some point last night I was having this very vivid dream where someone was setting up booby traps for me, and I was narrowly escaping them. I woke up at one point and sat up in my bed. I must have still been half dreaming, because it dawned on me that my bed was actually some sort of platform attached to a wall above a pit, most likely bottomless or with Mortal Kombat-style spikes at the bottom. If someone would hit a switch, the bed would fold into the wall and I’d fall to my death into the pit below. Anyway, the reason I’m posting this story is because I woke up on my floor this morning. I remember climbing down from my bed at some point last night and then realizing it wasn’t time to get up for work, but it didn’t dawn on me until later why I was sleeping on my floor with a bunch of blankets and pillows. I have a futon in my room too, maybe that was involved in the dream as well? Who knows… I have a lot of strange dreams, but it’s not often that they have an influence on my actions… That I’m aware of, anyway.

Who sells condoms at a yard sale? Very strange… Maybe if you can pick up a pikachu at the same yard sale you can make a day of it?

Have you ever heard of psychedelic black metal? Me neither. I’ve gotta say it piqued my interest though, and apparently that is how A Forest Of Stars describe themselves. You can download their only release, “The Corpse of Rebirth”, here. I haven’t listened yet, so don’t be pissed at me if it sucks. I actually don’t like most black metal, so there is a good chance that I’m gonna hate this.

I went to see Dredg on Wednesday night. I’ve liked these guys for a while (I’d say 3-4 years) but never got around to seeing them live. They put on an awesome show – I was really impressed. They were opening up for the RX Bandits, who don’t get a link because they kinda suck. The majority of the people at the show were there for the Bandits actually, and soon after they came on I noticed a mosh pit forming. Not your standard punk show pit though… This was the friendliest mosh pit that I’ve ever seen (the least friendly mosh pit was at a Dying Fetus show). I’m pretty sure there was a rainbow coming right out of the middle of this thing. After the show, I was walking back to my car and for whatever reason I grabbed a copy of Philadelphia Weekly. To my surprise, the cover story was all about Camp Bisco. I had just gotten back from (my third) Camp Bisco two weekends prior. Anyway, I checked out the article online, and noticed that they used one of my videos from Camp Bisco on the second page of the article. Pretty cool. The article itself kinda sucks though… It makes Camp Bisco sound like a glorified drug festival of the worst kind (which I suppose it sort of is) and all of it’s attendees sound like drugged-out zombies (only half of them are, myself not included). What self-respecting festival goer pees on his own tent and then sleeps in it anyway?

I hate to admit it, but I text while driving… A lot. I’m damn good at it too. I’m actually better at it then I am at this game, which attempts to simulate it.

This guy has too much time on his hands, but the results are pretty damn cool.

That’s all I’ve got now. I’m super busy with work and don’t really have time to be posting this at all (I’ve been piecing it together slowly but surely over the past few days) but I couldn’t allow my site to go for a full month without a half-decent (!?!) post. Anyway, I hope to summarize Camp Bisco and Rothbury sometime soon. Have a great weekend.

Have had zero time for this site lately, super busy with work. Six months ago, I found myself going home from work almost every night of the week. Lately though, it seems I’ve had something going on every night. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like I’m constantly running around. Anyway, I’m taking a break from working on laying out newsletters and thought I’d post that I am heading to Rothbury after work today. I could probably make an entire post just bitching about creating newsletters… Different email clients all render certain HTML elements differently, some ignore certain tags altogether, and you have to use HTML tables because CSS positioning is largely ignored… I feel like I’m creating websites circa 1995, and in that regard it definitely blows. Did you know that Outlook 2007 uses MS Word (not even Internet Explorer, which in this case would actually be great) to render HTML? What kind of sense does that make!?!

Anyway, This is the 2nd year of the festival, and it’s also the 2nd year I’m going… And I can’t wait. Come on clock! In the meantime, the life of a nail is pretty damn cool. I’ll try to make some time to post about the festival when I get back. Have an awesome July 4th weekend, I’m pretty sure I will.

Can someone explain to me what’s going on here? Take a few minutes and read some of these threads. I’m not sure I can believe that this is real. It seems like an elaborate joke by 4chan or something. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve accepted Obama as my personal savior and all, but these people are beyond fanatical. I’ve already seen a lot of people acting like he’s the Messiah, but this just takes it one step further. Can this possibly be real?

While I’m asking questions to no one in particular, what’s going on with Twitter? I signed up in early 2007 after noticing some buzz about the site. Signs indicated that it had potential to be the next big thing, but after messing with it (albeit briefly) I just couldn’t get into it. I suppose I understand the appeal, but it didn’t do anything for me. Anyway, over the last month or so, it seems like Twitter has absolutely blown up. I only know a few people personally that use it, but it’s all over the media. Every TV show seems to have one. Businesses are embracing it (I convinced my company we needed one for reputation management/customer interaction and created one) and I feel like I see it/hear about it everywhere I go. Can anyone pinpoint what triggered this? I don’t think the site has changed much since I originally signed up, so why did it take so long for people to embrace it? For the record, I still think it’s as lame as I did on day one. That being said, you can follow me here: w00t. What’s does the word ‘hypocrite’ mean? As you can see, I’m trying to embrace it.

Finally, a trailer for Where The Wild Things Are. That looks awesome. I loved this book as a kid, so I can’t wait to check it out.

I checked out Friendly Fires (and White Lies) at the First Unitarian last night… Pretty good show. I love going to that place, it’s pretty small and intimate, and you can bring beer in with you. It’s awesome to catch bands there before they get too big to play in venues of that size. Friendly Fires is what you could call a guilty pleasure for me. They’re very poppy, but the songs are catchy as hell. I can’t help but like them.

So Bonnaroo just made a bunch of additions to their lineup… Notably Dillinger Escape Plan, MURS, Passion Pit, High on Fire, Shadows Fall, and Public Enemy. They also added a bunch of comedians, though the only one’s I care about are Michael Ian Black & Michael Showalter. I can’t believe that High on Fire and DEP were added, I think that’s awesome. It’s definitely cool that they’re broadening their horizons. I really hope that Rothbury follows suite and adds some decent metal (let’s forget that Shadows Fall is on there for now) because I already got my ticket.

Well let’s see… Not much else worth mentioning has happened recently. My phone got run over by a car over the weekend… Yep. I did manage to keep that phone for almost an entire year though, so that’s got to be some kind of record for me. I pay insurance on my phone every month for this exact reason. Anyway, I went to the Verizon store on Sunday and they still wanted $50 for a replacement phone, and they’re gonna give me the exact same crappy model (the VX8350). So I decided to protest this by not getting a new phone. But then I realized that I’m still paying for service, but I have no phone to use it on, so Verizon wins. I broke down and ordered a new phone today… Lame.

I only have a second here to post, but I just wanted to make note that the initial 2009 Bonnaroo lineup has been posted on the official site. A lot of the bands on there were rumored to be there for the past month or so (especially Phish and Springsteen) but I’m most surprised to see Down on there. They are one of my all-time favorite bands, and I always thought that they should play Bonnaroo, but never thought I’d see it happen. Then they put Mastodon and The Sword on the lineup last year. Still can’t believe that Down is playing Bonnaroo, I’m actually tempted to go again this year (though I always assumed I would never go back) but I’ll have to see the Rothbury lineup, since I had much more fun there than I ever did at ‘Roo. Anyway, that’s all, gotta get ready for work.