It was a Monday. Just like any other Monday, Dave grabbed his paper bag lunch and headed to his garage, ready for another week at school – not as a student who sits in his classes half asleep and bored out of his mind, but as a janitor. The one responsible for the thousands of adolescents, in his mind still children, who haven’t learned one thing about being respectful for their environment. He was an ardent employee, one of the most tenured janitors that Farmville High has ever had.
He had no idea that this Monday was going to change his life forever.
The first half of the day went smoothly – he cleaned the tables after breakfast, went out for a smoke, cleaned the tables after lunch, took out the trash and had another smoke, then ate his own lunch. After he finished eating, he started to head towards the basement – a place off limits to all students and teachers, and rarely visited by anybody of authority. It was an unclean and unappealing place to be. He had to get some paint to cover up the superfluously spray-painted outer walls.
As he entered the stairway to begin his decent, the dank smell of which he was oh so familiar hit him. It was like a mix of mold, mud and tomato soup. The light switch was located at the bottom of the staircase, so he left the door open so he could safely make his way down the narrow path. He flipped the switch, and headed to the right towards a large metal door. The door had a sign on the front in big red letters that said “APPROVED PERSONELL ONLY,” for there were cleaning chemicals that could be dangerous if used in rowdy ways.
He unhooked his key ring from his belt loop and browsed for the correct match. He found it, the key with a blue cover on the top, and put it into the keyhole on the doorknob. He turned it to the right and shoved his shoulder into the door and bounced right back off; it hadn’t opened. He tried the key again, to no avail. Inspecting the perimeter of the door, he found nothing that was keeping the door shut and became quite perplexed as to why it was not letting him pass.
He backed up, eyes still focused on the door. His hand went to his chin, slowly rubbing the goatee which he was quite well known for. Suddenly, the lights all went dark.
He glanced around, trying to find a point of reference so he could find his way back to the stairway. But it was completely dark. He couldn’t see his hands as they were right in front of his face, and he could no longer see the prominent sign on the door which (he thought) was right in front of him. Panic began to overtake him, and he turned and tried to use his memory to get out of the basement. He put his arms in front of him, following the wall to the stairway. He made it back up to the exit door, and sprang out as fast as he could. What he saw next left him in such a state of shock that he could not move at all.
He stood, gripping the railing, staring out into the light that now streamed into an environment of which he was completely unfamiliar. There was no sure form to the world he was staring into. It was luminous and impressive, but he could not comprehend with words what he was seeing. His pupils dilated and out of nowhere he was face to face with a being. It was not human, but it looked as recognizable to him as his own wife. He hadn’t a clue where he had seen the face, the shape, the persona before, but he knew that it was not the first encounter with this thing he’d had.
It opened it’s mouth to speak, and what came out sounded like the roars of lions and the flow of water, and it echoed throughout his entire head. Somehow, he felt like he knew what the being was saying to him.
He was not entirely present in his body; in fact he looked down and saw that the body he had known was not there at all, instead he was soaring through what he could only comprehend as “the heavens.” When he looked back up, the being put his “hand” between the eyes of the perplexed and incoherent janitor and he completely dropped from his own state of mind.
Images of his childhood and what looked to be him as an old man, in yet another unfamiliar environment. He heard a sound that was as loud as a thousand claps of thunder and it was all gone.
It was a Monday. Just like any other Monday, Dave grabbed his paper bag lunch and headed to his garage, ready for another week at school – not as a student who sits in his classes half asleep and bored out of his mind, but as a janitor...
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
IP Blog 2 - Walker Leonard Onion Article
"Death Metal" Band Heavily Discriminated Against after Recent Music Awards
At last week's BOB (Best of the Best) Music Awards, many awards were won and presented, followed by a chorus of cheers and applause by the excited audience of privileged and famous Americans. Many big-time artists came out on top, and the winners more often than not had songs in the Billboard Top 40 at some point in the previous year. Lady Gaga won best live act, Kanye West won best song, and Jay-Z won album of the year. All was smooth.
Except for the results in one category; Best Metal Performance. Traditionally, the award has been presented to the mainstream of the metal category – bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and Tool. Although the winners have definitely been the most popular of metal bands, many “true” fans of metal argue that they are not anywhere near the best of the choices out there.
This year, the tables were turned. Relatively young band Between the Buried and Me campaigned for musicians to “vote their hearts out” in hopes of opening the doorway for their progressive style of music, incorporating genres from across the board. Apparently, the number of votes for the metal category in previous years had totaled about 2,000 votes, compared to Pop and Hip Hop, which receive about 15,000 annualy. This year, between the buried and me racked in 5,000 votes alone. They were given the award, accepted it and walked off stage according to plan.
Everything changed in the post-show interviews.
The owner of the BOB organization made this quick, stern comment about the band’s winning: “I am offended and distraught that a Death Metal band was allowed in the voting of my awards show. I know that others will feel the same way and back me in getting the award revoked due to offensive content.”
Between the Buried and Me’s fanbase immediately revolted after the clip was posted on the band’s Facebook page. They argued that the lyrics had nothing to do with what is defined as “Death Metal” and that the owner had based his argument off of hearing the music, not listening to it critically or interpreting the lyrics. They also countered that winners of previous awards had made direct references to violence and were not confronted after the fact.
Here is a section of lyrics in which we will compare those of Between the Buried and Me to former award winner Eminem.
BTBAM:
I'm in the middle of black water.
No sign of human life in any direction... the most peaceful event of my life seems to have typically turned into a struggle.
I'm in the middle of black water... no sign of human life.
Panic takes over my body.
I have indeed floated due to a non-reversible decision to flee.
Just for a day I told myself... my survival skills were lost years ago
Slide into the water
Become one with the sea.
Life seems so much smaller.
Swim to the moon.
Eminem:
Sult, you think I won’t choke no whore,
Til’ the vocal cords in her throat don’t work no more?
Texas Chainsaw, left his brains all danglin’ from his neck,
While his head barely hangs on
Blood, guts, guns, cuts, knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts.
Between the Buried and Me was, after all, stripped of their award and labeled as a “sporadic Death Metal band lacking structure and ease of listening”. The band has since announced that they are working on a new album entitled The Death Metal Diary, a concept album about the struggles of a fictional death metal band striving for success in a hip hop- and pop-dominated radio world.
Eminem’s latest single features the lyric:
Well I can be as gentle and as smooth as a gentleman
Give me my venom, an inhaler, and two Xenadrine,
And I'll invite Sarah Palin out to dinner, then
Nail her. Baby, say hello to my little friend.
THE END
(That said, Eminem is one of my favorite musical artists, as is between the buried and me, and was just used in this post as an example. He has songs with very insightful and honest lyrics as well, but is generally perceived as simply vulgar and repulsive.)
At last week's BOB (Best of the Best) Music Awards, many awards were won and presented, followed by a chorus of cheers and applause by the excited audience of privileged and famous Americans. Many big-time artists came out on top, and the winners more often than not had songs in the Billboard Top 40 at some point in the previous year. Lady Gaga won best live act, Kanye West won best song, and Jay-Z won album of the year. All was smooth.
Except for the results in one category; Best Metal Performance. Traditionally, the award has been presented to the mainstream of the metal category – bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and Tool. Although the winners have definitely been the most popular of metal bands, many “true” fans of metal argue that they are not anywhere near the best of the choices out there.
This year, the tables were turned. Relatively young band Between the Buried and Me campaigned for musicians to “vote their hearts out” in hopes of opening the doorway for their progressive style of music, incorporating genres from across the board. Apparently, the number of votes for the metal category in previous years had totaled about 2,000 votes, compared to Pop and Hip Hop, which receive about 15,000 annualy. This year, between the buried and me racked in 5,000 votes alone. They were given the award, accepted it and walked off stage according to plan.
Everything changed in the post-show interviews.
The owner of the BOB organization made this quick, stern comment about the band’s winning: “I am offended and distraught that a Death Metal band was allowed in the voting of my awards show. I know that others will feel the same way and back me in getting the award revoked due to offensive content.”
Between the Buried and Me’s fanbase immediately revolted after the clip was posted on the band’s Facebook page. They argued that the lyrics had nothing to do with what is defined as “Death Metal” and that the owner had based his argument off of hearing the music, not listening to it critically or interpreting the lyrics. They also countered that winners of previous awards had made direct references to violence and were not confronted after the fact.
Here is a section of lyrics in which we will compare those of Between the Buried and Me to former award winner Eminem.
BTBAM:
I'm in the middle of black water.
No sign of human life in any direction... the most peaceful event of my life seems to have typically turned into a struggle.
I'm in the middle of black water... no sign of human life.
Panic takes over my body.
I have indeed floated due to a non-reversible decision to flee.
Just for a day I told myself... my survival skills were lost years ago
Slide into the water
Become one with the sea.
Life seems so much smaller.
Swim to the moon.
Eminem:
Sult, you think I won’t choke no whore,
Til’ the vocal cords in her throat don’t work no more?
Texas Chainsaw, left his brains all danglin’ from his neck,
While his head barely hangs on
Blood, guts, guns, cuts, knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts.
Between the Buried and Me was, after all, stripped of their award and labeled as a “sporadic Death Metal band lacking structure and ease of listening”. The band has since announced that they are working on a new album entitled The Death Metal Diary, a concept album about the struggles of a fictional death metal band striving for success in a hip hop- and pop-dominated radio world.
Eminem’s latest single features the lyric:
Well I can be as gentle and as smooth as a gentleman
Give me my venom, an inhaler, and two Xenadrine,
And I'll invite Sarah Palin out to dinner, then
Nail her. Baby, say hello to my little friend.
THE END
(That said, Eminem is one of my favorite musical artists, as is between the buried and me, and was just used in this post as an example. He has songs with very insightful and honest lyrics as well, but is generally perceived as simply vulgar and repulsive.)
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