Misfits/Danzig/Graves Haters – SHUT UP Already

Much of what I’m ranting about won’t make a hell of a lot of sense to those outside the punk rock community, so for context I recommend you read about the 20 years of drama at the Misfits Wikipedia page…  That is, if you actually give a rat’s ass about my opinions.

Doyle touring with Danzig c. 2004

I've been a fan of the Misfits ever since my buddy Chris gave me one of their CDs.  In the punk rock DIY tradition, many other folks around the world were introduced to the band in a similar fashion or by word of mouth.

A lot of people in the punk rock community have, unfortunately, fully bought into the legal and creative drama surrounding the various-over-time members of the Misfits who have come and gone.  The quasi-Misfits factions can be summed up in three categories:

·         The Danzig faction, which fell in love with the raw, amateurish, and hyper-macabre recordings from the “Danzig era” (1977-83), and are nowadays fans of Glenn Danzig’s projects.  In their eyes, the Misfits ceased to exist in 1983 and today’s band is a massive identity theft exhibit.

·         The Michale Graves faction, which likes both the Danzig and Graves eras for their own distinct qualities, and totally blame Jerry Only for driving away two fabulous singers.  They have yet to learn that Graves is way better off playing with a band rather than doing acoustic shows.

·         The Jerry Only faction, or the fans of the “Modern Misfits,” who identify with Jerry Only’s vision of the Misfits being a family-friendly band that has never been more awesome than it is today.  Jerry Only was right; Graves and Danzig were wrong, and they’ll stick with Jerry to the end.

·         Oddly enough, no one has a problem with Doyle.  This makes everyone's life easier.

Since there’s never been a formal study done, I honestly have no idea what percentage of punk rockers identify with one of the three Misfits factions.  However, I have a feeling that most of the spunky rascals with any Misfits songs on their iPods are in one of the three factions and thus have way too much free time.

What makes the scene ugly is that members of the factions absolutely hate those of the other factions.  It’s like a Middle Eastern tribal war and there’s seldom any reasoning with these people because music is their life, and so their heroes—whether they be Glenn Danzig, Michale Graves, or Jerry Only—are the anchors of their identity.

Enter the nonpartisan Misfits fans like myself.  As far as the factional rivalries go, I can never bring myself to give a damn.  My damn bank is empty and I have no damn to give.  Don't ask me for a damn; I’m not a beaver. (That was a play on words; golf clap for you if you caught it.)  Seriously, I can understand how their ideas are clashing and these factions take it very personally because to each individual it’s as if their rivals are trying to invalidate their very identity, but seriously… Get over yourselves already.

Michale Graves in Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg

The two front men who seem to catch the most flack are Michale Graves and Jerry Only.  This is understandable since Danzig has experienced the most commercial success and naturally has a bigger fan base to take his side.  As much as people blame Graves for “killing the band,” they ignore three critical factors.  First, Jerry Only won the court case to get the rights to the band name and thus keep the Misfits alive.  Second, Jerry Only did the hiring and firing; he’s the one who brought Graves onboard.  Third, Graves developed his own style instead of trying to copy Danzig.  That in itself should command a little respect.

Regarding Jerry Only’s era (2000-present), there were a few years where I thought he should retire.  However, I totally love the Project 1950 album (go to hell haters, I’m not apologizing for that heresy) and I’m happy with the direction the band’s going, especially now that they’re picking up the pace with putting out albums.  Best of all, their concerts are A LOT of fun and I can't wait to go to one of their shows with a special fiend from Indiana named Brandy.

Furthermore, the fact that Jerry Only's songs don’t have the "F" word in them actually gives the younger kids—the next generation of fiends—something clean to present to their parents for inspection while they’re really on their iPods listening to the obscene Danzig era songs.  (Well done, Jerry, well done indeed.)  For that, I won't bring up the whole WCW episode, which I interpreted as the punk rock equivalent of elderly country singers going to Branson to die.

Factionalists can whine all day long about how Graves or Jerry Only “killed the band” with bad songs or cheesy albums, but it’s not as if Danzig didn’t come up with a few Godawful songs during his own tenure with the Misfits.  I dare you to find the songs “Green Hell,” “Demonomania,” or “Bullet” on YouTube, turn up the volume, and lie to yourself that the noise doesn’t annoy you down to the marrow of your bones.

I don’t have time for the rivalry drama nor do I subscribe to it.  I like all the Misfits eras for their own uniqueness.  For example, here are my top three favorite Misfits songs:

1.      Saturday Night (1999) sung by Michale Graves

2.      Where Eagles Dare (1978) sung by Glenn Danzig

3.      This Magic Moment (2003) sung by Jerry Only

Yours Truly with Jerry Only at the Key Club in Hollywood

Each of my three all-time favorite sings by this band come from different eras in Misfits lore.  The legal battles and the factional drama is all water under someone else’s bridge that I don’t have time for.  Sorry, but I have something called real problems to deal with.

Hell, I’m a full-time student, part-time soldier, and a full-time activist and writer in a never-ending struggle to implement my political ideology into public policy.  The latter is commonly referred to as the Ron Paul revolution.  Oh yeah, and I also have relationships and other forms of human contact to maintain.  Sorry, diehard factionalists, but I don’t care about your beef.  Your beef spoils my fun.

I'm impressed with Danzig nowadays for his advanced metal musicianship.  I like Graves nowadays because he's a fellow Ron Paul supporter like myself.  I connect with Jerry Only nowadays because he's a fellow Believer.  Glenn Danzig, Michale Graves, and Jerry Caiafa are all skilled musicians and entertainers whom I'd gladly seat at my table.  (Yes, Doyle can come too.)  Regardless of the vocalists who have come and gone or the era by which their songs and albums are labeled by fans, I like the Misfits.  End of story.

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Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein image by "Topitoxx" was obtained from Wikimedia Commons and used via CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
Michale Graves image by Gaudencio Garcinuño was obtained from Wikimedia Commons and used by CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
Image of Zach Foster with Jerry Only is the property of the brilliant, prodigious, humanistic visionary who authored this article.  Ya hear that?  It's my pic. Mine mine mine mine mine!

Secession, Shout-outs, and Ron Paul Shiznit

So yesterday Ron Paul delivered what’s probably his farewell speech to Congress on the House floor.  Did he really just call 400+ Representatives “psychopathic authoritarians” to their faces?  Why, yes, yes he did.  I see the election is over and Congressman Paul doesn’t need to behave himself either.  Bravo, Congressman, bravo.  Golf clap for Ron.

Honestly, I’m going to miss having that man fighting for all our rights in Washington.  Words simply are inadequate when it comes to finding a way to describe his accomplishments and the impact he made on my own life.  I’m especially touched by his opposition to SOPA and PIPA.  After all, had I not been illegally downloading audio books in January of 2009, I never would have stumbled upon The Revolution: A Manifesto and I probably wouldn’t be on the right side of history.

Now that Ron Paul is officially retiring from Congress I find myself crying like a fifteen-year-old girl who’s suddenly come to the brutal realization that Twilight is over, there will be no more books or movies, and Jacob will die alone.

Jacob will die alone.

But wait, there’s hope on the horizon!  There are hundreds of thousands of voters now sympathetic to libertarian ideas, tens of thousands of newly inspired activists carrying on the Ron Paul revolution, and the very real possibility that Rand Paul will be our figurehead and candidate in 2016!  [Angel choirs are singing.]  Okay, I’m not sad anymore.

Next, I’d like to put on blast all my fellow Ron Paul supporters who actually still believe in these secession petitions.  Unless you’re an authentic Southern nationalist, you’re probably just a whiny Republican or a militant-beyond-reality libertarian.  This protest is useless, Obama will not hear you out, and filing the petitions on WhiteHouse.gov gives them no more legitimacy than a police report that cites the witness seeing flying saucers before the crime took place.  The President’s answer to the petitions will be: “No. See 1865.”

The only way to enact change in government is by gathering a large mob of angry voters and protesting at the offices of elected officials one month before a primary election.

If you still have faith that these petitions will enact change, prepare to be more disappointed than the militant LP members who thought Gary Johnson would actually win!

Are you mad at me now?  Good.  You’re probably all conspiratarians anyway…  Seriously though, like Ron Paul, I have much love and respect for Gary Johnson.  What do they have in common?  Three main things:

·         A correct and inspiring philosophy of liberty and rugged individualism

·         A mountain of accomplishments that dwarf those of most human beings

·         Thousands of obnoxious conspiratarian supporters who thoroughly love wasting time on sign bombs and annoying the living hell out of me (and probably the rest of the planet).

On that note, I would like to personally thank you for making the campaign trail even rougher for those of us who were actually winning real votes for Ron Paul.  We sustained enough damage from the Republican establishment without you guys delivering your Bilderberger speeches and handing out your 9/11 truth DVD-Rs.  Is it still libertarian enough if I can convince you to voluntarily commit yourselves into private mental hospitals instead of having the government sending you to public ones?  I sure hope so :)

A very clean, Hollywood representation of a conspiratarian

Conspiratarians, even if you have facts and hard evidence to back your kooky claims, you can’t shock-and-awe people with the truth.  You can’t shove truth down their throats and expect anything other than the gag reflex.  You have to spoon-feed the truth to people and even make it sound good so they want more of it.  Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…

Finally, I’d like to throw a major shout out to the folks at Ron Paul Problems and (the less funny or cared about) Objectivist Problems for being libertarians with a freaking sense of humor and an actual grip on bridge building, implementing our ideas into public policy, and reality itself.  Much love, mi gente!

I thought I’d take a break from politics after the election but now I realize it’d be counterproductive to the effort Ron Paul put in setting things in motion for the liberty movement.  At this point, I can’t wait ‘til December 2015 so we can all head over to Iowa and caucus for Rand Paul.

May the Force be with you.

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Ron Paul painting courtesy of Prison Planet. No known image owner.
Taylor Lautner photo by Eva Rinaldi and used via CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
Conspiratarian GIF courtesy of Ron Paul Problems.

I totally missed last night's episode of South Park and now I have to wait before it'll be available online.  I hate everyone.

Should California Secede from the Union?

Should California WHAT?  Are you insane?  Has anyone actually thought this crackpot idea through?

What they THINK Cali independence will look like

I fully understand the sentiments of many of the even-tempered conservatives, anarcho-capitalist libertarians, and even neoconservative Republicans (the kind who hate Obama more than Satan and are reconciled with God through his supposed Other Son, Ronald Reagan) who support this naïve utopian idea.

It also seems as if many of the people asking me to sign that petition firmly believe Ron Paul could have won as a write-in candidate, that Gary Johnson stole his thunder, and that using Instagram will significantly boost the integrity of their photography portfolio.  Now they believe that a petition will help bring about a peaceful 10^th Amendment-style revolution to restore state sovereignty and individual liberty.

I wish they would all quit this obnoxious exercise.  Then again, I could wish in one hand and drool in the other and we’ll see which one fills up faster.

In case no one’s figured it out yet, I’m completely against California seceding from the Union, even if I’m for secession in other countries.

First of all, I stick around in politics because I want to build bridges within the country, not fracture it.  I have just as much love for the Blue Ridge Mountains as I do for the sunrise over Boston Harbor and the sunset over the Mojave Desert.  Okay, well, maybe not so much the Mojave Desert….

But in all seriousness, Mass media and the hyper-polarization of politics has greatly divided Americans and splitting up the country will only further the division without actually doing anything about the polarized attitudes inside of every newly seceded state.  Elimination of the Democrat and Republican Parties doesn’t eliminate the masses who strongly identify with “the left” or “the right,” no matter how correct Murray Rothbard was in his Left, Right essay.

Second of all, I believe we owe it to the memory of our country’s Civil War veterans—both North and South—to remain united and find better ways to solve our national problems than cutting and running, and especially through fighting.  [Can we just elect Rand Paul already???]  If I may quote Confederate veteran Sam Watkins:

“Our cause was lost from the beginning.  Our greatest victories—Chickamauga and Franklin—were our greatest defeats.  Our people were divided upon the question of Union and secession…  The private soldier fought and starved and died for naught.”

In other words, it ultimately wasn’t worth it.  By the way, if anyone’s offended that I’m quoting Confederate veterans, they might as well stop reading here and now.  This is my rant and if they don’t like it, I will now make it my personal mission to offend them even more deeply.

Just because it’s possible for someone to respect the white, black, Hispanic, and Native American Confederate veterans doesn’t mean that person has the Birth of a Nation movie poster on their bedroom wall.  Sheesh!  [By the way, any politically correct bozo who thinks I’m full of it can Google search “HK Edgerton” and have their mind blown.]

You’re welcome.

What Cali independence will actually look like

Thirdly—and this is the one no one’s expecting—any libertarians who think this will be the new state for anarchist experimentation, or “conservative” Republicans convinced that secession will save us from the tyranny of Obama and help restore the Norman Rockwell painting of what California used to be many decades ago, are sorely mistaken.

[Let me point out that the former spend entirely too much time making maps of where the FEMA concentration camps are located while the latter believe that Rick Santorum was popular enough to have defeated Obama in the General Election.]

Take one moment to think about the political reality of California… THIS STATE IS A BASTION OF LEFTISM!  Seriously, a California Republic will become the People’s Socialist Republic of California in, like, 7 freaking minutes.  Sure, recreational marijuana users won’t have to worry about the DEA, but there will also be:

• ·         Individual mandates that make ObomneyCare look like a fiscally responsible mere suggestion… (God forbid we should allow market-based solutions!)
• ·         Taxes and the state budget deficit flying to the moon faster than Red Bull’s impressive space program
• ·         More police to hassle everyone
• ·         More regulations and state control on private industry here than in the Third Reich.

Yes indeed, people will need that weed to get as high as possible just to cope with the depressing realities of life in the new Workers’ Paradise.

If we want to boost states’ sovereignty, nullification and noncompliance with federal law are a much better method than secession.

Now that I’ve angered libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, and Marxists alike, my work here is done… for now.  I’m off to procrastinate on Facebook for the 900^th time today.

Toodles!

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"Writing the Declaration of Independence" painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.  "Lenin on Board the Cruiser Aurora" painting by Sandor Legrady, made into a postage stamp by the government of the People's Republic of Hungary.  Both images were obtained from Wikimedia Commons and are in the public domain.

Even if the second one wasn't public domain, I still wouldn't pay any royalties to Marxists because it would go against their ideology.  People over profits, right??  Booyah!

Recovering from the Falcon Punch

I finally managed to pick myself up off the floor after the spinning kick to the jaw that was the 2012 General Election.  Good Lord, I’m still exhausted!  Hell, unlike your average idiot who only pretends to care about politics when the election debates start interrupting Monday Night Football, I’ve been involved in the election cycle since April 2011.

THANK GOD IT’S OVER.

I fully expected Mitt Romney to lose and, frankly, I don’t sympathize with all my fellow Republicans who couldn’t see this epic failure chugging around the mountain.  After twice losing to Barack Obama, I’m mildly surprised the RNC members aren’t committing mass ritual suicide like the Romulans do whenever they lose a battle to Picard.  Oh well.

Being a dedicated Ron Paul supporter, my vision for “restoring America” (whatever that means) stretches farther than one dumb election cycle.  I think most voters must have political ADD and serious Alzheimer’s disease since they’re all convinced this election is “the most important election of our time.”  Whatever, dudes, I’m not even 24 and I’ve already seen at least 4 or 5 of those, not even counting the midterms.  DGAF.

However, I was genuinely taken aback by the fact that every election I actually supported was crushed harder than the hopes and dreams of a 12-year-old girl who didn’t make the dance team, in part because her parents never told her she had all the grace of a dodo bird bred by Doctor Moreau.  Not one of my personal friends or heroes was elected.  Daaaaaaamn!

Even though I’m not joining fellow Republicans—still mourning Romney’s candidacy—in committing hara-kiri for disgracing Ronald Reagan, this election was a giant falcon punch even for me.

I was already over the RNC punching me in the heart through their destruction of Ron Paul’s candidacy, and I’d picked up the pieces and taken my leftover time and energy to campaign for a friend of mine running for Congress, another friend running for State Assembly, and another buddy running for the Colorado legislature.  All wiped out and in the 60s-30s margin.  Ouch!

Since 2008 the GOP had been obnoxiously crying “This is madness!” and the Democrats responded with a kick to the stomach and the words “This is SPARTA!!!”

I’m also reminded of the scene from Revenge of the Sith where Anakin Skywalker shouts “You underestimate my power!” just moments before Obi-wan Kenobi gives him a permanent height reduction.  In a nutshell, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party were Anakin while the Democrats were Obi-wan Kenobi, his lightsaber, and all the hot lava too.

Since I’ve already surrendered all my journalistic credibility to the idol of Star Wars fandom, I might as well continue with this political fanboy metaphor.  Like Yoda and the few remaining Jedi at the end of Episode III, I can finally go into exile from politics and enjoy my PlayStation for the first time in 8 months.

Better yet, the best is yet to come!  We in the “greater liberty movement” have reason to look to a new hope: Rand Paul 2016!

[Some people call this a “man crush.”  Whatevah, whatevah, I do what I want!]

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Election image courtesy of "DonkeyHotey" via Wikimedia Commons under license CC BY-SA 2.0.

Star Wars GIF courtesy of Ron Paul Problems.  Star Wars is the property of George Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd.  Or Disney by now.  Or the Chinese government.  Nobody really knows.  I'm beginning to care less and less.