Today I saw a CNN interview done with a North Carolinean about the recently-decreed evacuation orders. With Hurricane Irene on the move, and projected to crash right into North Carolina, the National Weather service is starting to predict some pretty nasty possible outcomes.
This gentleman was explaining how they haven't experienced more than a 7-foot surge on his remote Carolina island since the 1930s, and how his property could survive a surge up to about 12 feet. He's defying police orders to vacate and evacuate. Good idea, buddy.
Hurricanes on the Jersey Shore and NYC? Who doesn't
believe in global warming now??
This is the type of gent you see on the news after the hurricane has passed, and has destroyed a small area of our country. He's the guy standing on top of his roof, only feet away from being swept away forever by a rush of ocean water, his only hope for life in clinging to some driftwood.
I have to applaud the CNN commentator. The guy said, "I'm staying here until the helicopters come in and pull me out of here." The commentator replied, "I don't think we should send a helicopter to rescue you after you've already been warned to evacuate, but good luck to you."
Later, another woman was saying how she was also ignoring the evacuation order, simply because she "has a spin class to teach on Sunday." Seriously? It's one thing to underestimate the power of the hurricane out of stubbornness. It's another to believe that people will show up for an exercise class following a devastating, and what is being called "100-year" storm.
Classic example of survival of the fittest, or, non-survival of the weakest and stupidest. I acknowledge that people in New Orleans may not have had the chance, or more importantly, the resources, to evacuate prior to Hurricane Katrina, which, as we all saw, resulted in imminent chaos and images comparable to third-world countries. But these people reek of machismo...the "I've been here for so long, I ain't goin' nowhere" type of guy. They've now had ample warning. I'd say "best of luck" to him, but as my uncle says, "Luck is for people without ability." These people are now beyond luck, and obviously fail at life.
(afternote: I'm happy to see that the damage done to mid- and north-Atlantic states wasn't as bad as first speculated.)
The first part of my day was spent driving from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, which concluded a 6,500-mile road trip that started in Wisconsin two weeks earlier. The entire trip looped me from Milwaukee to Denver, then to Las Vegas, onward to Pasadena, and up the coast all the way to Seattle by way of San Francisco and Corvallis. After taking in Pike's Place Market in Seattle and visiting with old friends Leigh Ann and Bjorn Myhre in Tacoma, good friend Josh and I made the three-day trek back to Wisconsin. This portion of the trip earned Montana the nickname "The Forever State," because it did in fact take us forever to traverse the 900-mile long stage.
Awaiting us back home in Wisconsin? A random, one-off show by political music giants Rage Against the Machine at a concert-goers Mecca, Alpine Valley. It seemed like a fitting end to an epic road trip. Earlier that summer, other good friend Adam (previously mentioned in this blog as Dirt D-O-double-G) had miraculously hooked up tickets for us through Ticketmaster. We jumped around our upper flat like kids on Christmas morning when Adam exclaimed, "Uh, we're in the FRONT PIT!" We had never even seen or heard of anything like a "front pit" area at Alpine Valley, but figured they'd allowed it for this show since fans would have otherwise ripped the seats out of the ground by the screws.
Now, I've been to a lot of concerts. By my rough estimation, I've been to between 250 and 300 "concerts." It's tough to gauge a realistic number since a few of those are festival shows. Do you count each band seen as one concert, or the whole day as one? At any rate, I've been to a very healthy handful of concerts and live music performances at all types of venues in all types of cities, ranging from dive bars in Stevens Point, Wisconsin to New Year's at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. I think Rage Against the Machine's Battle of Alpine Valley 2007 killed them all.
It's always tough to qualify concerts -- sometimes the musical aspect of the show can totally suck, but standing in the right area with the right people can leave you with a favorable perception of the show. Likewise, sometimes you're just not feeling the atmosphere, the venue, or the crowd, although the music truly shines. This night at Alpine Valley, everything fired on all cylinders.
We arrived to Alpine Valley in the late afternoon and took shelter in Adam's Subaru Outback as the skies opened and offered a torrential downpour for 20 minutes. We noted that the lines to get in were already long for the lawn-boys...luckily we had no rush to get in since we were guaranteed standing room spots directly at the stage's front. We waited out the storm and entered the amphitheater to an already-packed lawn, most of which had since turned to mud. Everyone was muddy already. Mudslides a la Jewel of the Nile ensued; everyone was simply coated. The Battle of Alpine Valley was already raging and not a single note of music had been played. You think I'm joking? Check this video, captured before openers Queen of the Stone Age even took the stage.
We masqueraded around the mud pits as efficiently as possible and made our way down...down...all the way down to the stage. Just to make a point, I walked all the way up to the front gate and touched it when we got there. I've never been closer to the stage than at this show. You'd have to be ON stage to be closer. Queens of the Stone Age did their thing as Josh, Dirty, and I nervously took in the pit. We were flanked everywhere by dudes who were 6'6" and taller, 250 pounds and heavier, full of testosterone, and apparently both pissed off about life and amped for the show.
Knowing that we'd get our asses handed to us in the mosh pits during the show, I entered the show with only my wallet in my pocket. No phone, no glasses, not even chapstick. It proved to be a wise decision. Cameras were everywhere, and rumors that the band was taping this performance for a DVD release were flying like the mud cakes from the upper part of Alpine Valley. By this point, so many clumps of mud had been thrown around the place, we were starting to get muddy down in the front pit.
Rage Against the Machine took the stage after an absolutely ridiculously awesome introduction from guitarist Tom Morello's mom. The band immediately tore into "Testify;" the audience in the pit reacted by jumping, pushing, and clawing at anyone around them. It was brutal; it was a survival of the fittest; it was the Battle of Alpine Valley; and it was freaking incredible. You see that throng of jumping bodies 15 feet in front of Zach de la Rocha? That was us.
The crowd became more raucous and rabid with each song, and they played 'em all. Bombtrack, Killing in the Name, Bulls on Parade, People of the Sun, Revolver, Guerrilla Radio, Calm Like a Bomb...energetic Rage classic after classic. And for a loud (and the sound was quite loud) metal/rap band playing a single show, they were tight. Rage didn't miss a single note, de la Rocha jumped around the stage like a pinball, and the band fired on all cylinders. de la Rocha even offered a rant on the hypocrisy behind George W. Bush's entire political career and motives, launching the already amped crowd into more of a pissed-off frenzy.
The moshing continued. There were parts of the show where I had to resort to the extreme side of the stage for a breather, making me realize not only how out-of-shape I was, but how strong a throng of people can be. People generally tried to stop and pick up people who had fallen in the mosh pit, but it was so large, uncontrollable, and chaotic that you couldn't help but step on people during songs. At times it was safer in the middle of the mosh pits, as standing on the perimeter of it just meant you were the brick wall that stopped the flying people in the middle of it. There were no safe places; the entire general admission front pit was generalized chaos.
Tired, sweating, bruised, beaten, and completely muddy, we left right after the encore. I'm pretty sure either Adam or Josh had to leave their shoes in the parking lot because they had somehow turned from regular shoes to a clump of gritty mud, sweat, and sludge. We rehashed war stories on the way home like we just left Vietnam, started feeling sore spots and emerging bruises, and all vowed that we'd do it again in a heartbeat.
I still get chills watching those videos. Rage Against the Machine, I'm pretty sure you put on the greatest concert spectacle -- musically and experiential -- I've ever witnessed.
In college, a good friend (we'll just call him "Dirty") introduced a great concept to me: the Fantasy Friendship League. It was a self-made list of your "starting five" friends at any given time, because the concept of having a "best friend" was beginning to seem a bit elementary. Obviously, everyone in your "starting five" were among your best friends, but the #1 or #2 starter were the friends who were really performing well at the time -- you know, like the ones who would go and buy you a pack of smokes on the way over to your house, or who would take their friend's PointCash card to get them food from Taco Bell only to find out that you were stuck at the drive-through with a zero-balance card and no cash. (Both of those earned, or should have earned, me a #1 or #2 position at the time, Dirt.)
These days, I've barely got enough friends to fill out a "starting five" and ample bench squadron, but if I were constructing a list based solely on top 5 friends in Pulaski, I know who my #1 starter would be. MTV Jams. That's not to say I haven't met anyone here yet. I've met a lot of great people...in fact, everyone I've met has been super friendly, helpful, and welcoming. But, I can't exactly have the superintendent of Pulaski schools and other co-workers as my starting five. Like I said...they're great, nice people, some of whom may eventually find their way into my starting five. But for now, they're co-workers and newly found acquaintences. I've always had a staunch stance on "work friends" vs. "real friends," at least since being employed by The Pointer at UW-Stevens Point. Ahem.
MTV Jams has been there for me at all hours. Like a true friend, it's not always bringing its A-game, but more often than not provides me with a great source of entertainment, a chuckle, or offering me something to think about. On Monday, in honor of the release of the new Jay-Z/Kanye West album, we were able to share in a glorious day of nothing but Jigga and Yeezy videos. There were old classics, newer additions, and plenty that I hadn't seen before.
I'd have to say that beyond the obvious greatness of every Jay-Z video ever made ('03 Bonnie & Clyde, what?!), the most ridiculous video that has capivated me is "9 Piece" by Rick Ross and Lil' Wayne. It's all there --- superfluously self-promoting lyrics, ridiculousness, tattoos, and of course...cell phones. (Warning: it's the explicit version and it's...well...explicit.)
OK, in all seriousness, here's a truly great rap video.
I've officially made the move northbound to my new home, Pulaski, Wisconsin. I wrestled with the choice of moving to Pulaski, which is where I'll be teaching, or Green Bay, the closest and largest city (I wanted to use the word metropolis, but just can't) in proximity to Pulaski. Ultimately, Pulaski won out, with the rationale that I'd rather drive to Green Bay twice on the weekends to hang out as opposed to driving to Pulaski five days per week to commute to work.
Pulaski is small. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can count the town's dining options on two hands. You've got McDonald's, Dairy Queen (good for ice cream but I'm not sure I've ever tried actual "food" from DQ), Subway, Cousins, two small Mom-n-Pop diners (one of which definitely used to be a Hardee's), and a Chinese place that is called China Wok or Panda Garden or Emperor's Buffet or something like that. I've found through the years that small Chinese places like this are either decently good or really bad. I'm obviously hoping for the former. Either way, I foresee myself eating at Cousins and Subway. A lot. Anthony Bourdain will not be shooting any episodes for No Reservations in Pulaski, or even Green Bay.
There are two gas stations. A few bars. And a lot of farming and machinery type cooperatives, which brings me to the point of this post. The farm smell is strong. Much stronger than I've ever experienced. I have memories of driving through the country as a youngster and burying my face in my pillow while my mom took deep breaths of cow-soaked air, "Ahhhh that fresh country is great!" I always thought, "How can you like that smell?" I guess that's the difference between someone who grew up on a farm and myself, who grew up in a city. I prefer the smell of dead bodies and feral cats over cows.
I went for an exploratory walk tonight and passed two farm machine-type co-ops that were dispensing grain, or loading trucks with fertilizer, or doing whatever it is that they do at those places. The odor was strong. I'm not saying that Pulaski smells like...well, you know. But my biggest adjustment in moving to Pulaski won't necessarily be adjusting to the small size of the town; it'll be adjusting to the crazy, overwhelming scent of farm and cow.
I do believe that Pulaski will grow on me, especially as the schoolyear draws closer. But I really hope that I get used to that cow and farmy smell pretty soon.
