Tour Blog #2 (7/11 - 7/16)

San Diego was spent mostly indoors. We sat on couches, benches, chairs and other sitting devices, placing our bodies on them and resting accordingly. I got a six pack of "Shark Bite Ale" as a treat for myself, a welcome break from the Millers and PBRs and random van heated beers that get neglected, then found, then downed in a bittersweet celebration, hitting the pallet like a mouthful of fizzy beer flavored spit.

The show that night at Brick By Brick was a little disappointing. We got a free dinner from the restaurant attached to the venue, which is always welcome and an exciting little flirt with success. The service was so slow it was hard not to let out my inner Larry David and start complaining. The complimentary Stella kept me subdued enough to wait it out, but it was silly how long it took to get our food, which was altogether baffling as we were quite literally the only people eating. The result was a 40 ton lead brick of food crammed into my stomach 10 minutes before we were supposed to play. Performing with that much extra weight in your body is not ideal. It's hard to look enthusiastic when it feels like you're running a marathon pregnant with an elephant fetus frolicking in your bowels. There were a few times in the set when I'd burp between yowls and get a little taste of barf, or "vurp" as the kids called it back at Enatai Elementary. During the set Nat busted the head on his giant kick drum, grabbing the feeble momentum we had mustered and dropping it right on it's ass. I wasn't much help in the stand up comedy department either, I just wanted to take a nap, and stood there like I was waiting for a bus while Nat got a new drum from Scott. Two songs later Aaron broke a string and we were back in the same double fish tank, the audience watching me, me watching them watch me. We finished up the set and started partying.

Saviours were great. The Sword was great. Unfortunately people only really started showing up around 10 as Saviours were getting started so we got the dirt end of the show. Afterwards was a hushed hangout at J.P.'s house and then sleep.

Next day was Los Angeles at Spaceland, with Karen (Nat's special lady) officially on tour with us. We arrived really early and roasted in the sun while we waited for the bar workers to show up and open the club. Karen, Aaron and I took a walk and found a tiny little mexican restaurant boasting tour friendly prices on neon signs and I revelled in a most glorious pork burrito, giggling as a shirtless, muscular gentleman burst from beneath a pond and surprised an unsuspecting woman with enormous lips on the Mexican soap opera playing in the corner. I took a hint from past waits on tour and didn't do any heavy drinking before the show. Just some light drinking. It was free slurpee day at 7-11 so I got one and enhanced it with the giant bottle of Malibu rum that Yoni has been nursing for a bit. It will never stop being hilarious that Yoni has a giant bottle of Malibu.

The show ended up being sold out, and the only thing better than a sold out audience is a sold out enthusiastic audience. And the only thing better than a sold out enthusiastic audience is a sold out, enthusiastic, punctual audience that is there to see the opening band, which is what we got. The Spaceland show was easily the best so far and I felt really good about the set.

After the show we went back to Jared's house where he was preparing some hot dogs and beer for us. We walked in and I took a seat at his little patio table where him, his roommate Andy, and a few other people were hanging out. And now a tangent that will make sense soon...

A few weeks earlier a coworker and I were talking about various brilliant things like talking cats and shirtless anger incarnate. We had just done some work on the new Garfield video game for Nintendo DS and I had heard through the grapevine that David Yow from the Jesus Lizard had done the graphic design for the Garfield 2 movie, which is what our game was based on. Yeah. If you didn't know, David Yow lives in LA and does graphic design for movies. Apparently years of getting naked on stage, yowling your voice out of its throat, throwing pint glasses at the audience, bleeding, shitting, and encompassing one of the most violent rock personalities that has possibly ever existed gets a dude the necessary notoriety to break into the field of redesigning shitty cartoons for boring Hollywood marketing. He made it. I'll be happy if I can just get to the point where I realize I need to get a real job before my ear drums disintegrate. Old man internet couldn't confirm that he had worked on that particular movie, but I did get a good look at his IMDB profile that has a current picture of him where he looks kind of like a pissed off Bono without all the makeup and the shit-eating "hello, I am an enormous asshole" sunglasses. The picture looked...

...exactly like the dude sitting next to me. Holy fuck. I had just picked a spot at the patio I knew so well and looked over to see my favorite rock vocalist of all time. The guy that all the other "crazy dudes" try to out-antic and just end up embarrassing themselves. David Yow, next to me. I have one chance to say something here, the only challenge is not coming off like a complete douche or annoying fan-boy. Right as I admit defeat and realize the only possible thing to do is casually hang out and introduce myself if the opportunity arises, the opportunity gets up, says good bye and walks out the front gate. Oh well. Now I get to tell everyone I "met" David Yow on tour and it will be our little secret that really I just sat next to him on accident, mentally shit my pants, and then sat there frozen with terror for thirty seconds before he got up and left. But the hot dogs were exquisite.

Next day was up to San Francisco for the show at Slim's. I wasn't expecting the amount of people that showed up and again we were privileged with a punctual audience. The show was fun. We had played Slim's before and it didn't go as well. We were on tour with the Blood Brothers at the time and it was one of those shows where the room was packed with people who didn't really care about us at all. The reception at this show was much better. I was also stoked on the show for another reason besides the elated roar of 500 bearded metal dudes after each song, because I got my first foosball challenge of the tour. It came in the form of a heckle between songs saying they could kick my ass at foosball. I got so pumped to get rolling with the game after the set, but sadly it was just a dude from Kill the Messenger challenging me on the behalf of his friend who wasn't even there. This didn't comply with any of the rules for foosball challenge so a game didn't happen. After the show we crashed with the amazing Seth in his amazing small apartment.

Next day was stressful. Here's the summary:
Wake up early to run errands. Takes us way too long to get out of the apartment. Nat accidentally locks his keys in Seth's apartment. Yoni is missing when it's time to leave and we have a very uncomfortable wait in 96 degree weather in the van, which we had unknowingly parked right in front of some kind of soup kitchen/needle exchange/methedone clinic/place where crazy cracked out drug addicts hang out on the street and stare at you while they talk to themselves. Find Yoni and drive to Seth's work in the middle off downtown San Francisco at 12:30 on a work day. We travel 10 blocks in 45 minutes. Get Seth's keys, go back to his apartment, get Nat's keys. Try to find a Guitar Center on the way to Seth's work and can't find it. Back to Seth's work to return his keys. Go to East Bay to pick up merch from Alternative Tentacles. Get back on freeway to find the 101 North to go to Eureka for a show that may not be happening. Get turned around in the tornado of confusion that is the Bay Area freeways and go the wrong way on 580. Don't realize we went the wrong way until we hit I-5. Give up and drive to Medford for another evening with the Schrags.

Stacy is the only person to our knowledge (besides me) that has an Akimbo tattoo. It's a huge compliment personally, and he also picked one of my favorite designs we've ever used. Here's a picture. It's on his wrist.












Yoni gets us up early to drive to Portland the next day. Get to show way early and hang out for hours at Dante's leeching off the free wireless. Played Mario DS and got to world 8. Said "fuck" close to 100 times in the process. After the show we partied on a roof. Passed out in the van, homeless style (shoes still on).

Next day we're up early again to get Aaron back to Seattle for an orthodontist appointment. I get dropped off at home for some quality one on one with my favorite girlfriend Maria and our little furry friend Max, and am bummed but not surprised that all she wants to do is watch Project Runway and talk about fashion. Great to be home! We make lunch, I do laundry, shower, play with kitty, and then its off El Corazon for load in. Maria and I pregame a bit over at the Lobo, and then return to the show. Seattle was a huge blast. It was my first being on tour and being home at the same time.

Tour Blog #1 (7/6 - 7/10)

Tour started with a quick jaunt down to Portland to pick up our illustrious roadie Yoni Kifle who had some photography up in an art show, and was delaying our punctuality hob-nobbing with various Oregon high brow 'artists' over bree and wine. Actually, he was getting drunk at The Tube while his art show was happening a few blocks away. Too cool for his own party indeed. We met at said Tube and indulged in a few delicious and welcome Hamm's tall-boys before heading over to see the art show, and by "see" I mean milling about the entrance of the crowded strip watching people smoke and nodding our heads in the vicinity of conversations about smart things like "films" and "body modification" (a fancy term for shoving pieces of metal under your skin in an attempt to look like the mutants in Total Recall). It was a good time though, and since there wasn't a show that night we could afford to hang out and take a drive break. Yoni joins us on all the tours and is an incredible photographer.

After trying to poop and failing, Yoni got his things together and we hit the road down to Medford to stay with our good friends Stacy and Kimbo Schrag for the night. The drive was long, dark, and extremely scary for me because we haven't adjusted the headlights on our new van and they point down towards the ground at an angle that incites fear and surprise with only about 40 feet of road illuminated in front of you. Fortunately, death did not find us that night and we rolled in around 1:30 am, thirsty and ready to bum out our hosts who had to get up early the next day. Luckily, Kimbo and Stacy were ready to hang out though and we raged proper. Thanks for partying in the face of responsibility and jobs, we had a blast.

Next day was a haul down to Oakland to play our fist show of the tour at the Stork Club, a cool little bar on Telegraph. The weather could be described as "hellish", or "swimming through the devils colon". If there's one thing I hate it's a brutally hot day, especially when combined with not being in the shade or in front of a fan with an icy cervesa mashed against my crotch. We could feel it when we got up that morning. Mother Nature (evil slut) was cranking the shit up in an attempt to piss me off and make me cranky. Well, fuck you Mother Nature. We now have air conditioning, a razor sharp sword that I wield against your fiendish desires with all the righteousness of a 17th level Paladin in the din of battle against undead masses. I will cleave your whorish sun rays of ultra violet hate and bask in the holy glory that is the humble black vent next to my thigh, spitting it's cool refreshing love into our little traveling geo-dome.

I got a speeding ticket just north of San Francisco. I was trying to outrun heat.

The show at the Stork was a good time. Thankfully no racists were present, as we were led to believe could be the case by some local friends that were boycotting the club due to the owner being a man of ignorance and racial prejudice. But he wasn't there, and all the money that comes in goes to the bands, so all they boycotted was rock. A most heinous offense. Did an interview with Sound Scene Revolution before the show that should be up for podcast pretty soon here. The show was fun, saw some good friends, and played a spotty set that I would refer to as a "warm up". After leaving a few stupidly awesome drunk messages with my friends trying to score a place to stay, our booking agent Michelle took pity on us and figured she wasn't going to make much money off us if we started the tour bruised and junk-sick from a night on the streets and begrudgingly took us in. Stopped for some mission burritos on the way back to her place, and I force fed my road burn on some unsuspecting fools on Mario Kart DS before retiring to bed, champion racer of the mushroom kingdom. Party at Peach's house after the ceremony. Bring your own fire flowers. No lakatus allowed.

Next day we got up and shambled around Michelle's apartment, successfully weirding out her roommates enough to make them stay in their room and not say hi. Got some coffee with Michelle and talked business for a bit, shot the shit about mutual friends and japanese rockers, drank some wine, and hit the road to Santa Barbara. Thanks for putting us up Michelle. You are now officially bound to hosting us at any time we decree it necessary. Sorry. It was in the contract.

The ride to Santa Barbara was typical... It took place on a road. We sat in a van. We did things like read, sit in front of the air conditioning vents, look out the window, and erupt into a chorus of bitter opinions whenever the doors were opened while stopped. The show happened at Casa de la Raza, a hispanic youth center where we had played with Torche and Black Cobra a few months prior. The room that is used for shows was unavailable due to a Quinceanera that was happening. I guess it's a big deal for hispanic girls to throw a huge party on their 15th, kind of like a coming of age type thing for the parents to remember the days of collecting Bratz stickers, a celebration of life before shot-gunning tequila in youthful rebellion. Well, they had the whole building, which meant we got the patio. A show attendee made the astute observation that the show looked like it was taking place at the brothel patio seen at the end of Way of the Gun, sans fountain, pissed off dudes shooting each other, and naked babes running for cover. We also were there considerably early and I made a b-line for a taco truck that had served me a fucking glorious carne asada burrito before our last show. Unfortunately, the taco truck was of the mobile ilk and had moved to a more profitable location. Fortunately, the liquor store next door did not have wheels or an engine and was still in the same spot crammed with all kinds of delicious drinks. We stocked up on entertainment for the next few hours and went back to the van to start entertaining ourselves, the highlight being when Nat said something ridiculous and made Yoni laugh so hard his rum pineapple cocktail (out of a styrofoam cup) came out his nose and back into his drink, which he continued drinking. Craig and The Fucking Wrath dudes showed up and we pretty much turned the block outside the birthday party into our own little punk rock frat row.

The show was weird, as you would imagine a show in a patio at a hispanic youth center would be. The attendance was decent though, and The Fucking Wrath ruled pretty good, and we had fun. Sadly, the members of Akimbo had been partying a little too hard for a little too long, most notably Aaron, who blundered through the set with all the grace of a stunned gorilla. That's not to say Nat and I didn't have our fair share of forehead slappable bloopers, but Aaron had single handedly polished 75% of a fifth of Jack Daniels and you could hear the drunk in his amps. We were a conjoined machine of slop, producing new versions of our songs that sounded like we were 3rd graders playing along to seven different punk albums all at the same time. Ok, it wasn't that bad. I'm embellishing on the behalf of literary frolicking, but once again Akimbo was the embodied uppance that comes with drinking too much before the set. You think we'd learn one of these days.

Immediately after the show we found an In n' Out Burger and gorged in the manner assumed normal for alcohol enhanced appetite, then rolled to Craig's house for the night where we watched an instructional video on how to bar fight like a white trash judo instructor.

The next day was the highlight of tour thus far. We joined Craig, Ox Vs. Thunderbird dudes, The Fucking Wrath dudes, and the Santa Barbara party fun crew for their visigoth games, which are frighteningly close to LARPing in that people dress as vikings and other children of Cimmeria. Sadly, we had to leave before the real games started, but we did see a "Conan", an archer shoot an arrow at a tree, and a few pirates. We also spent a good hour sliding down a hill on blocks of ice, which was possibly the most fun I've had doing anything since I saw Starship Troopers for the first time. You can watch the video here, or just go to Maria's blog because hers is way smarter than mine. We will be submitting this to a yet unnamed soda company to try and get an extreme sports beverage sponsorship.

The show in Riverside wasn't too eventful. It was a blast seeing and hanging out with the dudes in The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower again, and laughing while they made fun of Willy. The show was in a huge, empty, concrete warehouse and the sound was horrendous. There was so much echo all the bands sounded like a wash of indistinguishable noise, which only fueled the drinking and desire to get out of that weird town. We drove back to San Diego with the Plot and now we're hanging out waiting for load in. Tonight we meet up with Saviours and The Sword for the next 10 days, and I'm eager to get the ball rolling on the mega rock that is sure to be... mega.

Leave for tour today

I leave for a big ol' month long tour today in an hour or so. I'll be using the blog to keep an online diary going which will hopefully document the straight shot success of Akimbo rising to the title of 'even better than rock gods'. But most likely it will be an amusing telling of our latest journey through disaster and social mockery.










The other day Maria and I had some cream puffs. They were pretty disgusting as you can see. But I wouldn't be honoring the Weisnewski family crest if I didn't eat it anyways. Shit was delicious.












Max helped me finish the last few bites. He's a good cat. He's in my lap purring right now. I'm pretty sure when I get up to leave I will be bleeding.










I almost gave up. Those things were awful. They tasted like snot cakes. But at the last minute Maria shouted words of bravery and encouragement and I rose to the task. I couldn't let her down and just leave the cream puffs to rot in the garbage. A hungry homeless person might get them.










That's right. Don't fuck with me. This could be you.

The Surging Tide of "Hipster Metal"

So recently I read a great article on "False Metal", or as the author Dave Burns very verbosely and eloquently took six pages to describe, "The Financial and Farcical Return of Heavy Metal". I've engaged in varying degrees and extremities of 'metal dudeness' for the greater part of my life, so naturally the subject is something that is not only near and dear, but one that I have my own fork-tipped opinions on. Friends can vouch, and probably complain that I will crucify or herald bands that seemingly sound exactly the same, citing minute and admittedly pointless technicalities as their admission to my personal banquet table of glory. I openly admit to being opinionated and picky about music, especially the loud heavy kind. It's hard not to be when you've seen as many bands as I have.

Here's the article: I hope you have 30 minutes. It was originally published in Lamentations of the Flame Priestess which has my vote for the best named metal publication. Ever. I will warn you that it is long, and at times seems very unfocused and meandering. You'll want to give up, to write off Burns as a jaded burnt-up husk of a writer who is just seeking some kind of vent for his personal frustrations at the current music scene. But damn if he doesn't wrap it all up nicely on the last page. He cites his sources and quotes, and basically calls out the elite underground press channels and labels on a huge money making venture bent on turning our beloved "heavy metal" into a flavor of the month cash cow. The last paragraph really grabs the whole thing by the jewels and holds it up for a collective gasp...

"Mascara-wearing bands whose goal is to snort coke off of platinum records, alt-rockers posing as metallers and a venal metal media bending with the trends-these were the causes of the collapse of heavy metal in the early '90s that had a profound effect on the vitality of the underground. As a wise man once observed, history does repeat itself from time to time, but the first time around it is a tragedy and the second time it is a farce. The farcical nature of the current trends reproducing the atmosphere of the early 1990s is that it is all being done in the name of classic, true and honest heavy metal by individuals aping the sounds of the golden age without the passion and intelligence of the influences they are bastardizing for their own disingenuous ends. Yet there will be no significant counterattack: "journalists" in the metal media will either remain silent about these issues or willingly prostitute themselves by supporting bullshit music, the mainstream media will pick and choose whatever is being promoted as "the next thing" in metal and market it as such, bands with the influence and prominence to shape the terrain will take out less well-known versions of Avenged Sevenfold out on tour and champion them as real metal in order to remain "relevant," and many of the people listening to metal will unthinkingly embrace whatever is served up as metal to them. Still, the authentic, honest and true qualities of heavy metal is alive and well in some out-of-the-way corners and vibrant enough of a tradition that bands like The Sword and Avenged Sevenfold have glommed onto metal's folkways in an effort to become the next big thing. The impulses are not dead-they have just been twisted and contorted into shapes that serve trends fashioned to make metal into something meaningless for a marketplace devoid of any allegiances beyond the almighty dollar. However, despite the convergence of factors which precipitated heavy metal's implosion in the past, a collapse is not "inevitable"-these are events shaped by human hands and orchestrated by the metal and mainstream media. Maybe it is a fool's errand to walk in front of the metal and mainstream industry train carrying loads of cash and consumers to market in an attempt stop it, but now is the time for people who care about heavy metal and have any integrity or decency left in their veins to rip up the tracks and make the "underground" act like an underground and demand an independent metal media free from conniving industry machinations. In other words, it is high-time for people to make a stand for a metal that is honest, authentic and true-since others are already doing so in a false fashion with no other goals in sight beyond padding their pockets and increasing their self-important status."
~Dave Burns, June 2006

I want to hug the guy. But there's a "but", a big "but"... Some of these bands he is calling out I genuinely like. A lot. And they're bands that I will gladly take up arms for and wage a fierce and throbbing battle on the field of authenticity. The Sword is one of his flagship bands that he continually refers to as he builds his case against the aspiring commercial rock conglomerate. Knowing the band personally (+15 scene points) I will state that from my perspective they're 4 dudes who played their cards wisely and found a label, booking agent, and publicity agent that have enabled them to comfortably do what they really want: Get high everyday and play some seriously groovin' stoner jams. While it seems they may have dollar signs in their eyes, those dollar signs are actually thousands of little pot leafs that just happened to settle into a shape that kind of resembles a dollar sign, but also resembles a Laney full stack if viewed from the right angle.

However, Mr. Burns (heh) does indeed have a good point, and it's one I can't ignore. The ferocity of which The Sword and bands of their ilk have stormed into the underground is alarming, and clearly has the same kind of marketing blitz behind it that one sees from major labels. Remember when punk got huge? I mean HUGE? It's not as bad now as it was 7 or 8 years ago, but as a fan I remember feeling very offended that my little scene was turning into a huge, gross, candy coated fake version of itself. It's like the kennel scene in The Thing when beard dude watches his beloved dogs morph into a giant space monster that shoots green slime from severed veins. It's your little pet that you discovered and hold dear, and suddenly it becomes this crazy ugly version of your pet that is giant and kind of stumbling around with no clear focus other than engulfing your colleagues. The results of the 90's punk explosion are still bobbing on the bloody brine, washed up carcasses chewed by sea life and rotting on the beach, left overs we can still smell. No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Gold Finger, Blink 182, Rancid, Green Day, bands that in their youth had varying shreds of authenticity (Okay, not Gold Finger) but at some point were assimilated by the radio friendly corporate rock cyborgs (yeah, I imagine them like the Borgs in Star Trek the Next Generation) and began churning out forgettable radio rock that was occasionally heard on your Mom's favorite station.

It throws me back to when I was 17, and being a 17 year old male was flipping through my sister's Delia's catalogue looking at the model babes dressed in the latest fashions being pushed onto young girls with expendable (parental) income. I turned the page and to my absolute revolt saw a studded "punk" bracelet in their accessories section, right next to the plastic pink earrings and ankle-wear. I nearly tore the Misfits shirt from my back. I can't look at those catalogues now because it's creepy, and while I'm still at the nubile age of 25, 17 year olds are more "babies" than they are "babes".

Dave Burns and I see the same thing starting to happen to metal. Again. The most flagrant violators are the "guy-liner" bands. Avenged Seven Fold, Atreyu, Himsa, etc... I know make up has it's place in metal, who can forget the first time they saw Dee Snyder with his enormous, lipsticked-to-all-hell mouth agape, between two rosy circles painted on his alabaster face? A true horror to even the most unshakeable warriors. But the difference between the afore mentioned bands and Motley Crue in a hot tub filled with champagne is staggering. It's like the new bands are trying to play it off that somehow they're cool for wearing eye liner and black nail polish, that they're tapped into some elite fashion vein and are leaking their secrets out into the pages of AP and Revolver. I don't know where this started, but there needs to be a huge collective slap in the face. YOU LOOK STUPID. STOP IT NOW. I AM BLUSHING FOR YOU. YOU WILL NOT BE PROUD OF THIS IN 10 YEARS.

Looks are one thing though. If the bands were actually good it wouldn't matter whether they went with Chanel or Loreal. The new wave of heavy bands is largely an uninspired throw back to good music that was played with soul and fire, and is now fizzling. The sounds you hear aped the most are Neurosis, At the Gates, Melvins, and of course the Sabbath/Kyuss/Sleep style blues riff rock. It's getting about as entertaining as a 1-2 drum beat in 1997. And if the tradition holds, it's right about when it starts to get really old in the underground that it explodes into the mainstream and the original fans are forced to shield their eyes from the nuclear blast that was their once beloved independent scene. Remember metal core in the late 90's? Did you ever see Botch live? That shit was it's own little grenade that we got to throw every other weekend, and now look at the bulk of the programming on MTV2. It's all cyclical, and it snowballs from basements and 75 capacity clubs into shopping malls and Ozz-Fest.

I do want to make it clear that this is not an attack on the bands, and more a rage against the hype machine that pushes and markets the bands. For the most part I am a fan of heavy rock and will champion bands like Lords, Big Business, Torche, Saviours, Mastodon, High on Fire and so on. These people are artists and should be treated as such. There's nothing wrong with being a successful musician, it's absolutely what I want, what any musician wants. These bands all deserve success, and in my opinion can make it to whatever plateau they're aiming for strictly on the merit of their ability to kick out the jams. It doesn't need to be inflated with hot air. In the end, I agree and disagree with Dave Burns. You can't completely reject a hyped up heavy band. Half the reason they're getting the hype in the first place is because they're good. But, he is completely and utterly on point with spotting the trend in the aggressive marketing of this music that I love, and a lot of the bands buying into it are utterly false. My anger and skepticism of "new heavy" is fueled by fear, a fear that something I hold very close will be torn from my arms, given a boob job, and then dropped into some jock's car stereo. When that happens, when you see computer programmers walking out of baseball games in Isis shirts, all of a sudden it isn't very special anymore. I can only hope that the bands maintain their integrity and use their success as a tool to keep making good music, and that we aren't left with a "Date Stephen O' Malley" reality TV show.

Anyways, read Dave's article. It's much more illuminating than you'd think, and while it's depressing to see that kind of mainstream marketing in the "independent" scene I feel equipped to deal with it knowing it's there.

Next gen videogames = Cookie jar on top of the fridge

My enthusiasm for videogames outside of work is like the ebb and flow of a tropical beach. At times it is a raging monsoon, crashing over into all aspects of my free time so that I can't even sleep without seeing some kind of zombie or Tetris piece hovering beneath my eye lids. Sometimes it is just a decorative background as I sit on my cabana (my couch), sipping a mai-tai (Pabst) and watching babes in bikinis (my cat, Max) strut (chasing bugs) along the surf (window sill). But should I choose to hang back and read in the sun, or bust out the boogie board and surf until dusk, it is always there, just skimming the coast of the vacation resort that is my life.

Right now these waters are stirring. It’s not quite the storm it has been in the past, but lets just say the ol' knee is acting up again. You can smell the storm on the wind. I have a fresh can of sex wax and am greasing up the Wave Bird. A new pair of jams with the tags still on lie in anticipation on the beach patio, and I've prepared a sickeningly smooth Boston mix CD. The proverbial “Surf" is indeed, "Up”.

The next generation of consoles is on the way. Xbox 360 is already out, and the new Nintendo (Wii) and PlayStation (PS3) consoles have been announced and are looming like diamond plated gargoyles atop a golden castle made out of my own spent dollars (it’s pretty big). Currently I'm a bit out of the loop on exact details for each console, as well as specifics on which games are the star attraction for each individual dork magnet. I've remedied my ignorance with a check made out for $25. I know that sounds like an impossible galactic feat, and I bet you wish you could do the same. It's easy. Write said check, and mail it to Game Informer, and you will be privy to the new shit once a month for the next two years. For now I am still a relative ignoramus on the "next gen”, but allowing 6-8 weeks for delivery, I will soon be a goddamn pool of wisdom. Here's what I do know, which is pretty much an amalgamation of the gossip I picked up on that came back from E3...

Nintendo Wii:
Let us all cheer in triumph, for Nintendo has leapt from their crystalline pedestal and set up shop down here in the real world. Once the undisputed champion of console games (SNES days), they were savagely toppled in the early-mid 90's when the PlayStation took off and instead of following the new wave of cheaper, more accessible games on discs, decided to stick with cartridges on the Nintendo 64. Games were roughly around $60-$70 each, and while it had a few gems and classics, for the most part the game library was a weak stream of drool dribbling from a sleeping giant's mouth. A stream of giant drool that I, nor my parents, could afford. I was overjoyed in the late 90's when the GameCube was unleashed, and I leapt back into Nintendo's loving arms like a sleepy 5 year old after a night over at Gramma’s. Shit was like Jerry McGuire. You had me at hello. The design was perfect, the games were great, the controller fit my hand like a mitten filled with pudding, and best of all it was cheaper at release than all the other systems. Since then I have meticulously focused my gaming primarily on Nintendo, and while it hasn't shared the mass gaming appeal as Sony's armor clad stallion, or Microsoft's X-Treme hardware powerhouse, it has done nothing but relentlessly satisfy me. Alone. In my living room. Not only because it is a goddamn saint of a system, but it also signaled Nintendo's collective head being removed from it's giant corporate ass so that they may spew and spout quality gaming once again upon the Mario hungry masses.

As the next wave of systems gets closer, I have completely put my faith in the Wii, for a few reasons. First and foremost, it seems as if Nintendo has stuck with beating their competitors on the price tag, a hand-out to the working man like myself. A brand new Wii at around $200 will cost about half the amount of an XBox 360, and one third (one fucking third!) of the PlayStation 3. The dirt that Nintendo rubs in these corporate faces is a list of launch titles that is over 40 games long. We get our reasonably priced cake, and get to eat it on the fucking spot.

The other kicker about the Wii, is the completely overhauled controller. It's a wireless, motion sensitive stick with a few buttons on it. That means you're gonna swing it when you want to hit a baseball, you're gonna aim it when you want to shoot an arrow, you're gonna lift it when you wanna block a punch, and I suppose you're gonna accidentally break it on your coffee table when you're grappling with a tentacled alien. At first I was adverse to this idea. Over the years I have grown fond of the motionless droning that is accompanied with gaming. The sitting on the couch and rotting away, the dry eyes that practically peel when you blink, the aches in the knee when you shift for the first time in an hour. It's a comforting ritual that I have nurtured into a relaxing meditation, and I was initially put off at the notion that my humble "me time” was going to involve jumping around my living room like a pixie in the snow.

However, reports from E3 say nothing but incredible things about the handling, likening setting down the wand and walking away to being an infant torn from the teat mid-suckle. Aside from that, it will function just like a normal controller as well, and will even have attachments (for a little extra $krill of course) to give it button functionality similar to what we're used to in the current state of console gaming. See? Old man Nintendo isn't as senile as we thought. It completely changes the current method of controlling for those who want a fresh breeze (me!), but makes the tried and true an available option for those that want it (me too!). I'm not up to par on the launch titles, but I have seen video of people playing the new Zelda game, swinging the wand like a sword as Link engages his enemies. Talk about geek dreams come true. I just want to know where the blowjob hole is, because that's the only thing it's missing. Well, it is missing Resident Evil 5, but I have a feeling Capcom will come around. They originally announced the Resident Evil series as exclusive to Nintendo, but you can get part 4 on PS2 now, and any exclusivity pretty much went out the window when it got pimped to Hollywood as the latest excuse to see Milla Jovovich naked. I died a little when I saw Nemesis tromping around like some kind of Stay Puff Marshmallow Zombie, but that's a different post for a different day.

And OK, the name of the system is pretty lame. "Wii". As in "Wii I'm having fun!" Or "Can you pull over, I need to Wii on that guy's lawn.” Or "Darby O' Gill had many Wii friends." A catastrophic marketing decision at best. But hey, I'm talking about it...

I have forgiven them on the name, and it's purely because I'm so excited for what it entails. If someone were to serve me a medium rare rib eye smothered in A-1 on a naked Japanese girl, and tell me it's called "Turd-pentine”, the inadequate title of such a dish would be immediately forgiven at first bite, nay, as soon as the salivating began. A name is just a name, and it isn't going to make actually throwing fireballs in the next Mario game any less awesome. Troof!

PlayStation 3:
I like to think of the original PlayStation as being very similar to the queen bitch in John Cameron's Aliens. It kind of just arrived on the scene, and was met with shock and surprise when we saw the first few games. Twisted Metal and Toshinden Battle Arena just kind of lurked out of the ceiling and devoured our space marine faces, caught the attention of the public (which would be Burke, played by Paul Reiser) and pretty much lured us in to the den of a gigantic beast dropping gooey eggs into our living rooms from a seemingly endlessly throbbing thorax. Or is it abdomen... Whatever. But all of a sudden it wasn't just Nintendo anymore being followed around by his annoying little brother, Sega. PlayStation pretty much killed Nintendo as far as consoles go, the only thing that kept the grandfather of games intact was the namesake of the various franchises, and an iron gauntlet grip on the handheld gaming market. I for one supported it at the time. I didn't like the duplo lego feel of the N64 controller, and the price tag on the games seemed inconceivably expensive. The PlayStation looked just as good, had a much more intuitive and comfortable (although slightly intimidating) controller, and had a shit load more games at a better price. It was a giant, game producing monster that took over with the systematic efficiency of an insect colony.

Sony's big trump card was the release of the PS2, where they beat Microsoft and Nintendo to the punch by releasing their next system months ahead of their competitors, a move that Sega attempted as well and ultimately was crushed under Sony's massive thumb. They also managed to secure all the franchises and 3rd party titles that we were all craving. It was an obvious choice to own a PS2. Still is. The machine still holds up as a fantastic, affordable console. I have one, almost never play it because it would be sin to ignore the cute lil' GameCube, but I would still rather let acid spitting ants devour my body from the feet up than let it go.

So the PlayStation name has a certain reliability to it. There will be lots of games. Lots of good games. We will get our Metal Gears, our Resident Evils, our God of War, our Medal of Honor. The graphics look awesome, the games are shaping up nicely. Not a huge list of launch titles, but that's not unusual. I was all about the PlayStation 3, until I heard how much it was going to cost. $600. And it's not a joke. Or maybe it is a joke, on us. Maybe the top floor of the Sony building in Japan is like some kind of fucked up room in Willy Wonka's factory where Japanese game publishers are taking our money and using giant Dr. Seuss machines to turn it into candy versions of us toiling away at our jobs, and then eating us, and then drinking sake' and laughing at the candy versions of us, and then politely throwing us up into their napkins because they've eaten so much money they're sick. This is probably definitely true. It's the only logical explanation for asking that much money. The worst part is that they've been called out numerous times by the press at the outrageous price, and every official statement has been something along the lines of:

"It doesn't matter how much we're asking. You will want to buy this machine. You will want it so bad you will probably break it trying to figure out how to have sex with it."

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that a price tag that high, combined with the rampant arrogance of Sony's top execs (borderline insanity, actually) puts the PS3 into the category of Ferraris, first class plane tickets, 1000 channel cable packages, and whipped cream cheese. It's an unnecessary luxury that is too expensive in the face of other shit that will work just fine. I officially don't give a fuck about the PS3. No wait, I do. I want it to fail. Hard. I want that thing to fall flat on it's $600 nose and be trampled under the crowd of people in line to buy Nintendo shit. I want Sony to go down as a martyr, spreading the message that this elite pricing is a recipe for disaster. I want Sony to realize the only way to save their position amongst the console war is by dropping the price to undersell Nintendo. I want those Japanese execs in the Sony building to start digging through their own shit to find the scraps of our money that they turned into candy. Yes. I want them to eat their own shit.

XBox 360:
Fuck Microsoft.