Note to Self: Don't Die.

cherishlife @ 2005-01-29T00:47:00

2005-01-31T06:02:01Z

It's days like these that re-affirm the fact that God doesn't exist.

^MY LORD AND SAVIOR, SATAN.

yyyeeeeaaaahhhhh

2005-01-17T21:23:32Z

Okay,
I'm dating a wonderful girl named Natalie.
I hate the internet still.
Two days ago I was on cloud nine, then I my cell phone broke and, on the way to the cell phone place, I got a ticket for an overdue inspection. Goodbye, $100. Goodbye, cell phone with 175 phone numbers in it. GOODBYE, CRUEL WORLD!!!!
Still on cloud eight, but money sucks.

Whatever... I'm going to Buffalo for a few days to see my lady.

Love,
*Graham

JOHN LUTZ: We're playing Poughkeepsie, NY soon. Send me a message or contact me or something...

cherishlife @ 2004-12-11T12:29:00

2004-12-11T17:27:22Z

Oh yeah, I met my soulmate at work on Wednesday...

but she has a boyfriend, is pregnant with their child, and they just bought a house...

She's still totally fucking cool, though, and I want to meet her boyfriend. The way I figure, with her being completely fucking amazing, her boyfriend has a lot to live up to and he seems to meet her demands for mate-material.

I was also offered a management position at Kwik Fill within 20 minutes of being at the Horseheads store! Flattering, yes, but I got rock n roll to make! If we didn't just sign with The Blade and didn't have huge tour plans, I would've taken the spot. I really like how Bill runs his station - a lot fucking better than Glenn does...

cherishlife @ 2004-12-11T12:23:00

2004-12-11T17:23:40Z

Tidbits of important news:
-Our signing to Metal Blade is official. Stoked, we are!

www.metalblade.com
www.thereddeath.net
www.lambgoat.com
www.purevolume.com/thereddeath

- that Dimebag Darrell shit is whack
- www.santamosh.com - HAHAHAH
- starting in February I will be unemployed and homeless
- AND I CAN'T FUCKING WAIT!
- SHOW TOMORROW IN BATH [with Marathon] IS CANCELLED
- we lost The Pickle, our only venue, on Wednesday
- any ideas for new places? Leave a comment and I'll take care of the rest.
- or someone else could for a change... It'd be nice to see a little more participation (rather than passivity) around here

- fuck all the naysayers, cuz I know there are gonna be a lot

cherishlife @ 2004-12-07T22:52:00

2004-12-08T03:58:15Z

heh... between myspace.com, livejournal-land, message boards and what have you I find it to be an interesting study into the way we try and project ourselves to other people (myself included) that don't even know us (or do, for that matter). You can make yourself out to be the coolest/saddest/hottest/whatever-est person in the world on the nerd but when it comes to real life you ain't got shit.

I'm glad I'm not online at all anymore...

Real life over a-life anytime.

[anyone get the Creation is Crucifixion reference I just busted? haha]

Love,
*Graham

I'm working 10 hours at the Horseheads Kwik Fill tomorrow. 1pm to 11pm. Stop by. It's my first day there so it'd be great if I was made to look like a big slacker that has friends stop in all the time hehe

cherishlife @ 2004-12-04T12:41:00

2004-12-04T17:41:46Z

Holy fuck I'm broke...
I've never been this poor in my life and it suuuuuucks.

$40 in the bank, $7 in my wallet, and $700 in credit card bills due this month. On top of other numerous, nominal - yet additive, expenses.

FUUUCCCCKKKKKK!!!

In better news, the other night I pulled out my RIPCORD LP, DOWN IN FLAMES LP, and some various 7 inches like CRISPUS ATTUCKS, E.T.A., and TEAR IT UP.

Yo Josh - I busted out my APATHEMY / BREAK OF DAWN split 7"!!! Then I remembered Birmingham, AL with the band that had three dudes from APATHEMY. APATHEMY ruled. Sick mosh, bro. WUZZAH SIC BE NO TALKIN SMACK TO MUH BIZNATCH. I BE CHECKIN THE SHITE! UNH!

cherishlife @ 2004-12-02T13:38:00

2004-12-02T18:44:58Z

Went and saw motherfucking ISIS last night in Syracuse with Charlie, Garrett, Jess, and this kid Matt I just met. (Matt's a chill dude, he gets the thumbs up from Graham)

Show was awesome. I AM IDAHO really, really impressed me. Knowing nothing about this band before the show, not even knowing that they are a local band, I was blown away. Emily from WORD AS A VIRUS was laying down some solid key-work, this dude I see all the time at shows wrote some really interesting guitar parts and used his effects board in a smart way that complimented the songs, the drummer was in SAVING THROW and AMERICAN HOT WAX and I've always had a lot of respect for his abilities, the bass player was some dude I've never seen before - but he was good and his parts were tasteful. They played two songs in 30 or 35 minutes. But they weren't boring.

THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES put on a great live show with, quite possibly, the most eccentric and flamboyant frontman I've ever witnessed. I was entertained fully by his prescence. At first I was annoyed, but then I realized I don't care. That's his passion. Those are his movements. He seemed a little overtly sexual for me, but they are probably one of the best live bands I've seen in a while. Musically... they get a "meh". My friend Andrew compared them to VSS, BIG BLACK, stuff like that... Me, being indie-rock dumb for the most part, compare them to a lesser-version of AT THE DRIVE IN. Not terrible, though...

ISIS stole the show with a set that lasted almost two hours. Live, this band is so much heavier than on record. I'm not even going to describe how awesome it was. The last song they played, which I'm pretty sure is the last song off the new record "Panopticon" [which I picked up last night and have listened to three times through already], was drawn out even more than on the record and turned into a very dramatic end to a great set. The way that band can play with the dynamics of a song, and pull it off live, leaves me in awe.

So yeah, I had a good time last night. Saw a lot of friends from the 'Cuse, had a GREAT time riding in a cramped Jeep with my friends :P, paid $3 for a beer, made faces at cars, talked tunes with Charlie... Fuck yeah!

cherishlife @ 2004-11-30T15:17:00

2004-11-30T20:19:18Z

Yo it's cool guys. Back on track now...

I'm doing vocals in a band called Nothin' Personal with Jed, Tom Buck, and Vern, and the lyrics are really stupid (but funny if you know me/us), the music is quickly thrown together NYHC in the vein of Madball/Agnostic Front, and we plan on being really drunk every time we play a show.

I play lots of Hold 'Em at Adam and Brian's place; usually with Trevor, too. We named my mom's old bong from back in the day "Mom". Numerous sexual innuendo jokes arose from that, such as:

"I can't wait to put my mouth around your mom."
"Hey! Pass your mom around!"
etc. etc. .......

I'm busy. PEACE.
-----------------------------------
December 12th, 2004
@ The Little Pickle (14 Liberty St.)
Bath, NY $6 / 4pm

HIGHLAND DRIVE
MARATHON
VERONA
EVA ANEXORA
...and possibly NOTHIN' PERSONAL...

www.highlanddrive.com
www.marathonarmy.com
www.weareverona.com
www.purevolume.com/suspect

cherishlife @ 2004-11-27T11:35:00

2004-11-27T16:38:08Z

I'm disappointed with a lot of things right now; hence, getting fucked up almost every night since we've been back from tour.

At first it was fun, now it's a defense mechanism. I'm not ready to deal with any of this.

- I'm broke
- my dad excluded me from Thanksgiving
- my dinner for Thanksgiving was a can of potatoes and corn. A fucking can of potatoes and fucking corn. You can all shove your "oh my family sucks" comments up your asses. At least you had a fucking Thanksgiving...
- Thanksgiving: by myself
- In my cold apartment
- bored/bummed
- the band is unnecessarily stressful right now
- I'M FUCKING BROKE

Seriously. What the fuck.

"I'm so tired of being tired."
- Tom Petty

cherishlife @ 2004-11-26T14:00:00

2004-11-26T18:57:08Z

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

FUCK ALL OF YOU.

cherishlife @ 2004-11-17T11:19:00

2004-11-17T16:39:09Z

Looks like we're coming home a day early...

fucking Pennsylvania. The state is retarded.

Some shows I/we are appearing at:
friday night fun
nov 19th
@ X Dreams Skate Park
Henrietta, NY
6pm / $5

-hue of two
-achilles
-the red death
-the killing gift (from nj, new stuff sounds like these arms are snakes with a girl singer)
-norel
-bema

info- halomymiddle@yahoo.com

Tuesday November 23
@ X Dreams Skate Park
3195 Brighton Henrietta TL Rd • Henrietta, NY
$6 / 6pm

MARATHON - FIRE WHEN READY - GHOST TALES - THE MARTYR MAGDALENE

http://www.purevolume.com/thereddeath
http://www.purevolume.com/themartyrmagdalene

Doors @ 6:00PM • $6.00

-----------------------------------------------------------

December 1st I'm going to see ISIS! You're jealous.

cherishlife @ 2004-11-08T11:45:00

2004-11-08T16:53:08Z

Update for the masses:
We're doing well. This tour is SOOO much better than the last one. It's more comfortable, more laid-back, the shows are much better (in general), the dudes in Bloodjinn are fucking awesome to hang out with, we've played with some amazing bands lately, highlights being:
- Premonitions of War
- Embrace Today
- Ion Dissonance (THIS BAND RULES - www.iondissonance.com)
- Reflux (SEE ABOVE - www.refluxsound.com)

I've stayed in better contact with my family than last tour which is important to me (and them). Found out my cousin and her husband are having a baby in July! I'm really excited for them! They're gonna make great parents, I know it! Talked with dad and my stepmom for about 40 minutes last night. I miss them, they miss me, but they're happy I'm doing my own thing. Dad's birthday is today, too, and I'm missing that. Kinda sucks, but they understand. Mom's doing good (as usual). Grandma Betty isn't so much and I got to think about that the whole time I drove into Orlando, FL yesterday from 5am to 8am. Three hours of bum-out. haha Pretty sweet.

Slept in the van in Daytona Beach, FL last night. Shit sucked. I was wound up from dancing for Premonitions of War and Ion Dissonance and also wound up from SEEING Ion Dissonance tech the place out and rule fucking hard. So I stayed up late crunching numbers for projected attendances at shows I'm working on. Then I got to sleep in the front passenger seat and my back fucking hurts now. Oh well... We hung out at a sketchy Poker Room last night and three people were kicked out in the two or three hours we were chilling there haha

NICK TRUSIEVITZ: We're playing Daytona Beach tonight at NICELY'S TAVERN/PUB. I believe the show starts at 8pm. It's at the very end of International Speedway right next to the beach. Tomorrow is Jacksonville, FL. I don't know the details on that show. But call me if you need info and I'll try and get it to you. 607 794 0676

We also played with Ringworm yesterday as well as some FSU bands [Suffocate Faster and Death Before Dishonor]. Ringworm seem like fairly chill dudes. The FSU guys are something else... Scare the living fuck out of me...

Yeah I haven't showered in three days and I'm disgusting.

Hope you're all doing well, give me a call and I'll try and call you back if my phone isn't dead/out of free minutes :)

cherishlife @ 2004-11-02T21:30:00

2004-11-03T02:37:32Z

- almost got in a fight at our Halloween show
- for those of you that know me, you're probably surprised
- I was, too
- but I won't see my peeps at Bath shows get pummelled and stand around and watch
- Bullet Train to Vegas are fucking awesome [awesome dudes, too]
- tour is sweet thus far
- Bloodjinn are equally awesome dudes [as well as musically]
- I slept for 12 hours in the back of the van, somehow
- Paul and I walked an extra 45 minutes in search of cigarettes
- my new issue of Modern Drummer will engulf me for many dull, van-riding hours
- or I'll just sleep
- WILMINGTON, NC TOMORROW!
- that equals: SCHUYLER, Dan, and Vic
- STOKED, I AM!

Two things to check out:
Crotchduster - www.willowtip.com
Patton Oswalt - a comedian who we've listened to a lot already on this tour

cherishlife @ 2004-10-30T00:35:00

2004-10-30T04:37:55Z

Introducing:
"THE CUTS"

cherishlife @ 2004-10-27T13:08:00

2004-10-27T17:04:56Z

Too much shit to do before tour.

Prime objective being: FIX OUR FUCKING VAN THAT BLEW UP YESTERDAY.

Secondary/tertiary objectives being: do everything I have to do [which is too much]

cherishlife @ 2004-10-22T15:51:00

2004-10-22T19:50:14Z

Well... Yesterday sure sucked.

And so has today so far.

Slept for 2 1/2 hours in my car at the Kwik Fill parking lot. Left a note on the door for Glenn to wake me up at 5:45am... Worked eight hours. I'm dead tired.

This is what I stupidly, impulsively, and non-coherently let some sketchball do to me Monday:

Yeah, it's not THAT bad. But it's still pretty bad. I'm going to Binghamton tomorrow to see about fixing it. God, I'm an idiot... What the hell possessed me to do this?

Nice mustache, though... Right guys?

Ugh...

cherishlife @ 2004-10-18T00:04:00

2004-10-18T04:14:36Z

Shows to go to [hopefully, if I'm not broke]:
10/27 - Syracuse, NY Hatebreed, Terror, No Warning, Full Blown Chaos
10/30 - Syracuse, NY Engine Down, Since By Man
2/23 - Long Island, NY Cryptopsy

this will be added to as I find more shows. unh.

Just saw "Team America: World Police" and it was pretty funny. I wasn't super-entertained as I expected from the previews, but it was still a fairly solid movie.

cherishlife @ 2004-10-11T14:21:00

2004-10-11T21:30:15Z

What a long fucking week...

To keep the story short I'll just say that between work, playing shows, band practice, and driving to and from Cincinnati to drop Evan off I'm a little fucking beat.

I'm going to sleep at 7pm tonight and not waking up until I have to go to work tomorrow. Take that productivity!

[Something NOT to do on a 10 hour drive by yourself:]
only take five CD's with you and not have a working radio

cherishlife @ 2004-10-05T11:50:00

2004-10-05T15:46:33Z

Saturday, October 30th
FULTON FRIGHT FEST
featuring:
ANOTHER BREATH
EMBRACE TODAY
ON BROKEN WINGS
SINCE THE FLOOD
ENGINEER
BLACKLISTED
CANNAE
THE RED DEATH
LET GO
THE RISK TAKEN

@ the Fulton VFW
216 Cayuga Street - Fulton NY
$10 with costume - $12 without
Doors at 2:30pm - Show will run from about 3:00-11:00pm
ALL AGES ADMITTED!

Costume contests, prizes, LARPING, break dancing, beat boxing, people attempting to be scary, miscellaneous games, and free candy, of course.

October 31st - November 17th with BLOODJINN
Sunday October 31st
Venue: The Little Pickle
Venue Address: Liberty St. Bath, NY
Time: 3pm
Bands: The Red Death, Bloodjinn, If Hope Dies, Highland Drive, Bullet Train to Vegas, Tora! Tora! Torrance!

Monday November 1st
Venue: Cafe Metropolis
Venue Address: 94 south main st wilkes-barre, PA
Time: 6pm
Bands & Order:

Tuesday November 2nd
venue: wmuc radio
venue address: 3130 S Campus Dining College Park, MD 20742-8431
time: 6:30/7:00
Bands & Order:

Wednesday November 3rd
Venue: The Soapbox Lounge
Venue Address: 255 north front street Wilmington, NC
Time: ???
Band & Order: Bloodjinn, The Red Death, He is Legend, + 2others

Thursday November 4th
Venue: The Lime Light
Venue Address: 1724 Hwy 501 Myrtle Beach, SC Load in Time : 7
Show Cost: $5
Bands: TBA

Friday November 5th
Venue: All Books Cafe
Venue Address: 145 Central Ave Summerville, SC
Time: 6pm
Bands & Order: TBA

Saturday November 6th
Venue: Ground Zero
Venue Address: 3059 howard st spartanburg, SC
Time: 5pm
Bands & Order: TBA

Sunday November 7th
Venue: Backbooth
Venue Address: 37 W.Pine St Orlando,FL 32839
Price: tba
Load in Time: 10 am
Bands & Order: First Blood, Premonitions of War, Embrace Today, Ion Dissonance, Death Before Dishonor, Suffocate Faster, The Red Death, Bloodjinn, Dreams You Die In, Cut the Cord, plus more TBA

Monday November 8th
Venue: Nicleys
Venue Address: 710 E. International Speedway Blvd. Daytona Beach, FL
Time: 7pm
Bands & Order: TBA

Tuesday November 9th
TBA

Wednesday November 10th
Venue: Swayzes
Venue address: 2543 Bells Ferry Rd. Suite 650 Marietta, GA
Load in time: 530pm
Cost:$6
Bands & Order: TBA

Thursday November 11th
TBA

Friday November 12th
Venue: Cave9
Venue Address: 2237 Magnolia Ave. Birmingham, AL
Load in Time: 5:30
Bands & Order: My Final Mourning, The Red Death, Bloodjinn, This Day Will Burn

Saturday November 13th
Venue: Grandma's House
Venue Address : 10319 Kennerly Rd St. Louis, MO
Load in Time: 6pm
Bands & Order: Bloodjinn, The Red Death, one/cycle//occur, Boy Turned Robot

Sunday November 14th
TBA

Monday November 15th
Venue : Transmission Gallery
Venue Address : 840 W. Washington Chicago, IL
Load in Time : 6:30pm
Bands & Order : The Red Death, Bloodjinn, Hidden Wall of Machine Guns, +2 TBA

Tuesday November 16th
Venue: 10-34 Club
Venue Address: 5210 west 161st street Brookpark, OH
Load in Time: 6pm
Bands & Order:Bloodjinn, The Red Death, Sons Of Belial, Incentive, Nerve Gas

Wednesday November 17th
Venue: Champion Ship Carlisle, PA
Venue Address: www.championshippa.com
Load in Time: 5pm
Bands & Order: Bloodjinn, The Red Death, Suffer Channel, Alethian

Check out Arundhati Roy and her spoken word CD "Come September". One of my friends let me borrow it and it's pretty fuckin good narrative on a post-9/11 world. You can get it through the AK Press [www.akpress.org, http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/arundhati.html]. Seriously worth checking out. Howard Zinn is also on the CD as an introduction and then helps with the Q + A session at the end of Roy's speech.

I guess one of The Little Pickle's bartenders (venue where we do shows in Bath) got arrested for serving minors. That's not good at all. Hopefully:
a) we can still do all ages shows there
b) parents will LET their kids go to shows there; provided we can even hold them there anymore
c) we can still have the Halloween show there

We have a show in NJ today with SET ABLAZE and PUNISHMENT. Should be good. Tomorrow is our show up in Rochester with CIRCLE TAKES THE SQUARE, RENOUF, and FACE/TEETH.

I bought a new metronome last night. It's pretty sweet:

- Highly visual liquid crystal pendulum
- 13 different rhythms are built-in so you can practice to more than a click track
- Rhythms include duplets, triplets, triplets with inner beats omitted, quadruplets, and quadruplets with inner beats omitted
- Twelve reference pitches C4 -B4 for you to tune to
- Adjustable calibration (438-445 Hz)
- Adjustable volume
- Tempo adjusts from 40-208 bpm
- Tap function for setting the tempo
- Earphone jack so only you can hear it
- Memory backup function
- Approximately 250 hours of continuous use

Well worth my $30. I can work out our off-time, chuggy, mosh part thing now and keep the tempo right. [For music nerd reference the phrase is one bar of 7/8, 2/4, 3/8]

IT'S GO TIME!

cherishlife @ 2004-10-01T18:00:00

2004-10-01T22:24:04Z

Stupid crap for you to read about:
- went to see Unearth and Black Dahlia Murder in Buffalo Wednesday night. The sound was horrible, but BDM were well worth the $20. The drive up there was fun. Wilkinson came with us and it was sweet chilling with him. I got a voicemail from someone that made me curse very loudly in a rather angry tone. Yeah... "Hi." to you, too, you fuckin psychotic piece of turd. Terror were Vogel-escent and actually weren't very good. Mainly due to the terrible sound. Remembering Never are fucking TERRIBLE. I almost puked during their set because of the very strong stench of suck that was emanating from the stage area.

- bought a new snare drum and splash cymbal last week. 13" x 3 1/2" Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute in a cherry finish. Fuckin nice drum. Better be for what it cost. Also got a 10" Paiste Signature Series splash cymbal. Out of the 10 I tried out the most expensive one HAD to be the one that sounded the best.

- I work a lot.

- And that's okay.

- got more work done on my ribcage. We're getting there... She has eyes and lips and skin now. And the leaves are all done as well as the shading on the dress is finished. Now to complete the coloring of the dress and to do the background. I'm thinking another four or five hours of tattooing and I'm done. Fuckin ass shitter, man.

- if anybody needs an oil and oil filter change I'll do it for $10. I'll do a spark plug change and other random shit, too, if you need it for a couple more bones. CALL ME YOU FUCKS! 607 794 0676

I'm seriously broke and I want to change your mud-oil.

<3 Graham

cherishlife @ 2004-09-20T21:22:00

2004-09-21T01:36:55Z

Yup. Some pictures of TRD.

And this gem:

cherishlife @ 2004-09-20T20:49:00

2004-09-21T00:51:03Z

YO. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP?

There's a lot to update on but it doesn't matter.

I'm doing fine. Hope you are, too. Keep it posi.

Paul and I like to drink beer until 7:30am.

"Trust everyone but keep your knives sharp."
- Tattoo Tom

Friday I get to see Mike fucking Semrau in Connecticut!!!!!
YYYYAAARRRGGGGGGGG!

cherishlife @ 2004-09-14T16:29:00

2004-09-14T20:27:12Z

From the Ungovernable Force to Democratic Lapdog…
by Clark Giles

Let me be clear here from the beginning about something, an extended stay in a Turkish prison almost seems more appealing to me than the prospect of another four years of George W. Bush in the White House (and if more laws like the Patriot Act get passed, I might just end up there). That having been said, my fellow punks, you are being scammed and most of you are buying into it hook, line, and sinker.

As I have already stated, I am definitely not a fan of many (okay, most) of George Bush’s policies but writing your typical anti-Bush diatribe to a punk rock audience would do little more than illicit one collective “well, duh” from the peanut gallery so hopefully you will excuse me if I don’t waste my time or yours documenting all the reasons that Bush II’s presidency has not been kind to the youth of this country. Nor is the intention of this article to bash sites like Punkvoter.com (which I think had enormous potential when it started) but to question and critique what I see as the hijacking of our scene by individuals, political parties, and special interest groups who really have no interest in the punk scene above and beyond its use a voter demographic. So any criticisms in this article of my fellow punks should be taken as those of a “fellow traveler” with above all else a love for punk and hardcore in my heart. Hopefully they will be taken more as a call for a moment of clarity than one of cynical disdain for any of my fellow anti-authoritarians. All that having been said…

Since when has hardcore punk degenerated from Conflict’s “ungovernable force” to Kerry’s “loyal opposition?"

Sites such as Punkvoter.com say openly that their goal is to “get kids angry and scared” (see the CNN report on PunkVoter.com here) about the policies of the Bush Administration. Fair enough. But what aspects of the Bush Administration’s policies should we be angry and scared about? The incessant march to war, the Patriot Act, the continued encroachment of multinational corporations into our lives, the corrupting influence of money into politics, the blind insistence of basing our economy on fossil fuels, the deplorable way animals are treated in our society, the monopolization of our media, the money pit that is the “War on Drugs," the fact that gays are treated as second class citizens because of whom they choose to love, the Neo-Liberal Iron Fist of the WTO/NAFTA? Any of these? Some of these? All of these? Too bad that John Kerry doesn’t really differ from Bush in any noticeable or quantifiable (read: action not lip service) way on any of these issues. Yet, the punk scene continues to buy into the lie (a lie being hawked good naturedly by many of our own) that a Vote for a third party candidate is a Vote for Bush. Perhaps, perhaps not, but one thing is for sure: a Vote for Kerry is still a Vote for Corporate Personhood, the WTO, the escalation of the War on Drugs, the increasing loss of our private lives to government surveillance, the Department of Homeland Security, anti-punk legislation such as the Rave Act and the postponement of any real progressive solution for at least another four years. Is “The President is laughing because you voted for Nader…” as a line from a song on the Rock Against Bush compilation put out by PunkVoter.com and financed by MoveOn.com rails? No, in reality it is the corporations that are laughing because you have accepted the false dichotomy of only having a choice between Republican and Democrat. Rich and powerful forces have fed you a poison and given you another poison as an antidote. Come on punks, I expected more from you.

For those who are not aware, Punkvoter.com and many of its clone grass roots organizations receive much of their funding and support from political front organizations for the Democratic Party such as Moveon.org and America Coming Together who in turn get much of their funding from Billionaire George Soros (who has so far spent over $15.5 million dollars in an effort to unseat Bush but has earmarked much, much more that he has yet to spend…). The proverbial “man behind the curtain” came to light last March when the anarchist punk band Propagandhi withdrew their track from the then upcoming Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 CD after Fat Mike (the “face” of PunkVoter.com, CEO of Fat Wreck Chords) requested that they remove the liner notes to a song that stated “This message not brought to you by George Soros." I won’t spend time dwelling on the gentleman’s disagreement between the band and their label here because they appear to have worked their differences out and agreed to disagree but what is important to the crux of my argument is Fat Mike’s acknowledgement that even though George Soros was a corporate arms dealer and “screwed a bunch of countries to make his money” that he was in reality the lesser of two evils because he funds organizations such as Moveon.org and America Coming Together and “these organizations support us."

Okay, while I have always whole-heartedly believed in the maxim that “in a compromise between good and evil, only evil will profit," I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here and explore this thought process of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” for awhile. I mean after all…what better friend has the DIY political punk/hardcore scene had in Washington than the Democratic Party, the bastion of free speech and artistic expression? Let us not forget that it was the Democrats that gave us Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Research Council in the Eighties who almost single-handedly destroyed the careers and lives of many a punk and hip-hop musicians (see any of Jello Biafra’s old spoken word No More Cocoons records for a pretty damning indictment of the PMRC’s tactics at the time). Then in 2002, the Democrats pushed to enact the so-called “RAVE Act” which was co-sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (D., Texas) as H.R. 5519 and in the Senate by fellow Democrat Joseph Biden (D., Del.). You would be hard pressed to find any piece of recent legislation more crippling and damaging to the D.I.Y. punk scene as this collection of laws attached largely in part at the last second to legislation enacting a national “Amber Alert” system for kidnapped children (you can see the logical connection).

It is important to note that the word “RAVE” was removed from the version of the bill that passed and the language was broaden to include all musical events (and not specifically electronic music and dance as the original law stated) which had the unpleasant side-effect of providing local law enforcement entities who were never at a loss for excuses for closing down punk shows before to now have a federal mandate to do so, only this time, permanently (and this has been used to great effect in cities such as Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Salt Lake City at the urging of various corporate promoters who see money to be made in the hardcore scene) . In essence, The RAVE Act amends the federal "crack house law" to make it easier for federal prosecutors to fine and imprison business owners that fail to stop drug offenses from occurring. Businessmen and women could be prosecuted even if they were not involved in drugs and even if they took steps to stop drug use on their property! Because of its broad language, the law could potentially subject promoters convicted under the law to up to twenty years in federal prison for a single offense. Anyone who has ever been to a tried and true street punk show can easily see how such legislation tolls a death knell for the underground punk scene in a city with hostile local authorities. Thank you Democrats. These are the guys that are supposed to be looking out for issues of interests to punks? Well, it is of interest to me to be able to play a show that doesn’t involve Clear Channel, barricades, gorilla security crews, and Budweiser sponsorship. As an insult to injury, the Rave Act II (the sequel) has just been introduced by our Liberal friends. The Son of the Rave Act calls for even more draconian crackdowns on everything from house shows to collective spaces to all-night raves in a warehouse. So in essence, anywhere people gather to dance and have fun that doesn’t involve buying your tickets through TicketMaster.

Is it too much to ask that a site called Punkvoter.com ideally should promote a candidate or candidates from a political party who are ideally friendly (or at worst: apathetic) to the punk scene? If not, could we not at least agree to not nominate one from a political party who is actively trying to destroy us?

Speaking of third-party candidates…why does PunkVoter.com not have any information about alternative candidates on their site? Is it because they don’t wish to be seen as a puppet for the Kerry administration? Is that too cynical of me? Or perhaps it is because the organizers of the site question whether a punk coalition could be built around multiple candidates with an anti-Bush slant? If you are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building a website to ensure that Bush is not reelected, wouldn’t it seem to logically follow that you should at least offer some alternatives to the man in power? For that matter, even one alternative? Yet I could not locate anywhere on the PunkVoter.com site where I could find information on alternative candidates to the man so apparently reviled by the punk community as to spawn a site dedicated to his removal from office if not his impeachment. Would not the men and women running against George Bush make for a natural inclusion on the Links Page of a site dedicated to unseating the Commander in Chief? And does it not also logically follow that since Kerry is the default alternative to Dubya that Punkvoter.com’s lack of alternative candidates to Bush is in essence a tacit endorsement of Kerry? Especially when one considers that the way our state election laws have been written virtually insures that no third-party candidate will be on the ballot in every state?

Punkvoter.com makes the appeal on their website that “Something needs to be done to unite the youth vote and bring real activism back into our society. Punk rock has always been on the edge and in the forefront of politics. It is time to energize the majority of today’s disenfranchised youth movement and punk rockers to make change a reality. Punkvoter is about organizing the many diverse and regional movements into one voice of political change.”

Again, fair enough…if only that one voice was not saying “Vote Kerry." I agree wholeheartedly that I would like nothing more than to see “real activism” and “progressive politics” brought back into our society. Unfortunately, I don’t see how we are going to get there by jumping blindly on the Vote Kerry bandwagon. I want to see real activists in office, not fat cat Republicrats of either political party. I want to see an emphasis on the people, individual people, not corporations who enjoy all the benefits of legal personhood without the nasty side effects of having to work, put food on the table, getting sick, being incarcerated, or dying. PunkVoter.com does a great job at defining the issues to the few Democratic “Talking Points” to which Kerry is not at odds completely with George Bush or to a few broad statements that might resonate with the majority of the punk demographic such as “you are old enough to go to war but not to drink!”. In the CNN report on PunkVoter.com, Fat Mike cast a favorable nod towards John Kerry because “…he is a snowboarder, used to play in a band…” (seriously, watch this video yourself) Well, John Ashcroft used to be in a band too and I’m not really falling all over myself to see him elected Commandant in Chief. Let us take a novel approach and examine Kerry on the issues. Not on issues he commented on decades ago like the Vietnam War that no one our age remembers nor cares about but on real issues that effect us today. I would like to go into more detail about why all of these institutions/laws/issues are important and how they affect you as individuals but what started as a column has already turned into a novel so I hope you will forgive the shopping list-style format of this list.

WTO/NAFTA/IMF-

Kerry supports all of these institutions.

Education Reform/No Child Left Behind Act-

Kerry voted for the No Child Left Behind Act.

Patriot Act-

Kerry voted for the Patriot Act.

Reproductive Rights-

I will give Kerry his due here. He has come out in support of women’s reproductive rights. In fact, his promise to only appoint pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court is one of the major reasons that I will concede to the Pro-Kerry camp to vote for him come November.

Sustainable Energy-

While Kerry has claimed that "Being responsible about the environment is not some goo-goo, do-gooder, silly notion that you embrace once a year on Earth Day, it’s important to life itself” that doesn’t do much to explain why his family owns a fleet of SUVs, five mansions, and a Gulfstream V private jet that burns tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel annually. Even the Republican governor of Kerry’s own state, Mitt Romney, has one-upped him by suggesting the replacement of the whole fleet of government vehicles with bio-diesel friendly engines.

Gay Marriage-

Kerry opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions.

Corporate Responsibility-

While Kerry has railed again and again about “Benedict Arnold” CEOs, he and his wife have made and continue to make a financial killing in stock dividends that they own in some of the very same companies who have made the outsourcing of American jobs an art.

Media Monopolization-

Kerry has increasingly voted for legislation that further allows for the concentration of national and local media in this country to a point where 80% of all media is concentrated in the hands of six global mega-corporations.

Iraq-

Kerry supported the sanctions against Iraq and then later, the notion of pre-emption for military action in the country.

The Drug War-

Kerry supports the continuation of the drug war.

Participatory Voting-

Third party candidate Ralph Nader has continually challenged Kerry to answer whether or not he would support a set amount of free air time for all ballot qualified candidates on all FCC licensed television and radio stations, a constitutional prohibition of corporations contributing or participating in elections and a uniform Federal standard for election eligibility as opposed to the state by state mess we have now up to and including the “draconian ballot access rules that severely restrict third party and independent candidates”. To this day, Kerry has not responded to any of Nader’s inquiries obviously because it is the advantages that the current Federal and State laws provide to the Republicans and the Democrats that allow potentially vote-sapping individuals such as Ralph Nader out of the Presidential campaign. Nor has Kerry commented on why he does or does not support same-day voter registration.

Animal Liberation-

Are you kidding?

Snowboarding-

Kerry is apparently pro-snowboarding.

Bands-

Kerry has been known to listen to “music” and at one point may have even played in a band…

So let’s review here…why should punk rockers be voting for Kerry again? Why should I have any faith at all in the Democratic Party? Because they aren’t Republicans? Sorry, that isn’t enough for me. I support many of the ideas (and all of the bands and labels) behind Punkvoter.com but this incessant siren call of “Vote Kerry, Vote Kerry” being drilled into kids’ heads will only lead us to disaster. To me, punk rock has always been a counter-cultural movement (as in “in opposition of” the prevailing culture) not a sub-culture (as in “subservient to” the Democratic party in the hope of being thrown a post-election bone). Reading many of the bands’ “Guest Columns” on PunkVoter.com, I see many eloquent arguments (and many not so eloquent I must admit) against institutions such as the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, NAFTA, and the Drug War. Too bad no one on the site seems to be drawing attention to the fact that Kerry voted for all of these things. Kerry isn’t anti-establishment, he is part of the richest 1% of Americans. Sorry kids, Kerry is the Establishment.

So I would like to make a modest proposal to the scene as a whole, your time and money and publicity would be much better spent trying to reform our broken winner-takes-all electoral system than merely trying to forestall the inevitable slide by pushing to elect Kerry. We need greater ballot access, instant run-off elections, “clean money” elections (like Arizona and Maine have on the state levels), same day voter registration, and election days should be national holidays (or at least moved to correspond with a holiday). You wouldn’t fly in a plane with a broken wing just because it has the ability to get airborne so why are we continuing to settle for the choices that the S&P 500 wants to give us? Furthermore, what we definitely do not need is tens of thousands of punk cds out there telling us that Nader cost Gore the election, a myth that has been soundly exposed for the falsehood that it is on numerous occasions. Pat Buchanan cost Bush four states in the last election (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico) and no one is pointing fingers at him.

“Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?,” Johnny Rotten, from the Sex Pistols once sneered. No matter which of the two major party candidates should happen to win in November, I have a feeling many punks will be asking ourselves this same question. Until then, I’m sorry, but I am going to spend my time working for a real alternative.

Clark Giles runs Happy Couples Never Last records, a vegan-friendly punk label out of Indianapolis, plays in the hardcore band The Dream is Dead, and after all this…still likes NOFX, though in true hardcore fashion “only their old stuff….”
http://www.hcnl.com/
http://www.thedreamisdead.com/

I kill my boredom with dumpstering. I missed it.

cherishlife @ 2004-09-13T11:12:00

2004-09-13T15:10:05Z

She's making me self-destruct and I hate her for it.

But I think I'm making a comeback. I'm done with this hell.

cherishlife @ 2004-09-07T20:58:00

2004-09-08T01:02:32Z

I live in Corning, NY now.

Same phone number:
607 794 0676

Different scene:
76 E. 2nd St.
Corning, NY 14830

Come visit my shit!