I never saw Billy Corgan "back in the day," So when I had an opportunity to grab pre-sales for a week where I already had off I grabbed them. I'm totally glad that I did as it totally worked out even with having a pretty existential week and all. I was lucky enough to get a hotel through hotwire right across the street from the venue.

The building itself was a pretty interesting venue to say the least. My mind just races as to what it was previously, I just have to guess that it was a one or two plex movie theater at one point in time. Anyway the people in Grand Rapids are just really friendly and cool. This guy and his friends took me into their group and midway through the took me upstairs which was pretty sweet.

Anyway here is the setlist which totally worked and rocked as his new band sounds pretty good.

Here are a few pics



From the Floor

Billy

Crowd Shot!

I want to be a professional Photog like this woman!





I did get to hang with the opener Kill Hannah before they walked next door to the stripclub.

For some reason this old Cure song has popped back into my head. I was just thinking about concerts and if the possibility arose where I could time travel to see a show from the recent past what tour would I see? I think for me it would be the Disintegration Tour in '89. Maybe it's because I caught the tour for Wish and felt as if I was missing something.



In other news my manager passed away at work which really just slapped me emotionally inside the only way a death of someone way too young can do to you. I'm just glad that I had this week booked off since for some F'd up reason I need to get my head straight due to the universe smacking me across the face to make my numb on the inside as it seems to frequently do.

I have to ask, "Why does it seem as if I have this dark cloud" stalking me once in a while? F**K! I want to know, Is it possible to make lemon aid out of this Freakin' Lemon?

This is why I love the CBC

But for the people on here that love The National:

I don't know but I just love these promo films from the 60's. I could watch those Walt Disney ones where he talked about EPCOT & Space Mountain. At least I got my kick when I saw Ironman 2.

It's just odd that after all that I wrote about we're having serious talks within my family about such and such just in case "if anything happened!" It's kind kind of odd as when I was younger I just felt that life was just too overwhelming and long. That was until now I'm really faced with my own mortality.

Fuck at this point I just hope that I can get to the point where my parents die before me. At that point it would be a moral victory or in my case "Happy Losses." As I'm just wondering on a very serious level, "How many years I get get out of this body..."

So today marks the dozen year mark since my sister was killed in a car accident. It's times like this that force you to to really look deep into yourself introspectively. To be honest for some reason my mind has just been stuck in the period a couple years after the event. I don't know know why all of a sudden why the sensations of how I felt and why around 2000 are just flooding my memory at the moment but they are.

What is at the top of my head at the moment is the thought that I just should have shut it down and taken up life as a reclusive. The thought at the time was just that everyday when you walk out the door of your home, you lose something. That day 12 years ago I went to work and came home to the news that I lost a sister. Every day we depreciate in value, something wears and tears and it will never be the same no matter what you do. The little scar that you got from falling down and scraping your knee to even some bigger trauma. It happens and there is nothing that you can do to prevent it. What fixated me at the time was my Mom's cousin also passed away around this time. I just remember that I didn't want to go because basically at that time I was "On Strike" when it came to wakes & funerals. I never met her and to me it was just a reminder of shutdown process of my family tree. Christ after my sister dies I had visions of myself being Chris Patten, lowering the Union Jack on my family tree. (more on this some other time, because in actuality..._) Then a friend/lover (really a F'd up FWB but minimal benefits) of mine that same weekend was assaulted by the guy she was seeing as he threw her down the stairs. So I heard all of her legitimate anguish and pain regarding the negative experience she just had being thrown down a flight of stairs.

It just hit me all at once and I just remember embracing myself with clenched fists crying. One part vengeful, but in reality I was just mourning the shit that life and the universe dealt me. Really I'm weak when it comes to life. People kill my family and I can't stand up for myself to get ahead. With whatever positive I have going in my life it just in practicality zeros it all out to a neutral experience for my so called life.

It's been 10 or a dozen years since I had that experience feeling those sensations. Basically I've come to this conclusion. I should have stayed the Fuck in my little protective cage. Well you can't be totally agoraphobic, because you have to go out in the world and work to make some money and do a thing or two not to totally lose it.

I don't know to be honest if everything that I have experienced over the last say 7 years or so has been worth it. I've had some good times out and about, but in all honestly when I attempted to really push it to become a social butterfly I just got smacked down by the universe, Literally as I'm still going to physical therapy to get myself together.

I love my job and the schedule, but sometimes I wonder if I actually was meant to be one of those guys that works some midnight shift job. You know someplace to put myself where most people don't want to be so I can just exist with minimal human interaction. Sex would be an issue because who could have a relationship with you and even if you were around when you were off during the day or night, Normal people don't have sex during the day! At least not the bulk of the time on a regular basis.

Yes at anytime I could have busted out of my rusty cage, but I have continually passed. Last year around this time I had an opportunity to move to DC, but at the last moment I passed it up. Yea, theoretically it may have been on paper the best move since I'm almost finished with my MBA and I wouldn't have been able to do it down there, but at the same time staying around here has just sucked the soul out of me.

At this time I'm just going to keep it to big ticket items. Going or doing something that has a big enough risk/reward ratio. If you have read this blog over the last little while it just seems that has been my life. Just living for the few days a month where I have a tremendous amount of fun, then after that I just go back into a lull or suspended state until the next time.

To me it seems to work. Being elsewhere like Florida/Vegas or even Rochester makes me feel more alive. To be honest the Vegas category on this blog has brought me the biggest smile when I have been reading old entries. Really what kind of person does it make me?

I guess I'm the person that you can't deal with on a daily basis, just in short spurts. It's kind of sad but that's also the same way I like my relationships. The best one I ever had was a FWB on call and it worked out great for about 5 years. We only got together when BOTH of us felt like it and if we went 6 months without hooking up we didn't care and when we did get together was great.

In the end I guess it boils down to the wish that life had a PAUSE button...

OK, this is the last of the full songs. It only took me a week to upload everything. Then again you know how I am, slowly upload the moment to stretch it out longer. At least no one thought that I was in that parking lot for the whole week like everyone thought I was in FLA ever weekend. (although knowing that we know now I should have done that as the place may be ruined by the benzene hurricane coming next week :-(

The National Bloodbuzz Ohio, the first single off of High Violet. This song is like a worm in your head when you first hear it.

I hope everyone is not sick of me posting from The National's show from Rockin' the Knox?



This is one of my favorite moments of the show.

Matt & the band talk about flying JetBlue so they could watch the World Cup.