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November 2, 2004
Democracy in Action
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"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." From So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams |
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August 12, 2004
I Got Run Over By a Bicycle
Again.
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I was walking in the park by the river this
evening, enjoying the unseasonably cool weather and completely unaware
of the terror that awaited me. Passing under a bridge just before
a small hill, a young couple rode by followed by an older woman
going much too fast on a brand new bike. "Eeeeek!" she
shouted, in an "I'm having fun" kind of way. She spotted
me. "Eeeeek!!" she said again. This time it suggested
something more along the lines of "I have no idea how to stop
this thing, but it's still fun". She hurtled straight for me.
"Eeeeek!!!" she repeated, and this time it was clearly
a bad eeeeek.
I'd like to say my cat-like reflexes kicked
in and I flipped into the air, rolling in slow motion just inches
above her then landing in a stylish crouch and removing my sunglasses
dramatically. In fact, she slammed straight into me, the front tire
going right between my legs (no, lower than that, thank God) and
throwing us both to the ground.
The young couple rushed over (son and daughter-in-law
I guess) and I got up to check the woman. She was stunned and scratched
but not seriously hurt. The man bounced between her and me asking
if we were alright. "Mom's first time on one of these things,"
he said sheepishly. First time on a bicycle? After a brief rest
they scraped her off the path and left for home and I continued
on my way with a sore wrist, a jammed thumb, and a beautiful welt
running up my arm.
The sad part is this wasn't the first time
I've been run over by a bicycle. When I was younger I was run over
by a bicyle in China. I looked left, looked right, looked left again,
stepped off the curb, and was run down by a bike that shot around
a blind corner.
The man who hit me picked himself out of
the road and turned on me angrily, only to step back with an expression
of almost comic horror when he saw I was a Westerner. My parents
were English teachers and China was hungry for outside experts so
we enjoyed an almost divine status. With one frantic backwards glance
the man leaped on his bicycle and zoomed away, probably fearing
he would be in big trouble for hurting me, and probably right. I
limped my way home, the victim of a hit-and-run bicycle accident.
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August 10, 2004
I Have Cool Friends
Sometimes among the bills and credit
offers, the mail brings something that makes my day.
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July 23, 2004
The Terminal Betrayal
Nobel prize winner, international financier,
and philanthropist Joshua Garton, a billionaire committed to spreading
democracy, has been kidnapped. International terrorist assassin
"The Vulture", enraged at the lack of website updates,
has Joshua marked for death. Now, alone and betrayed, he faces the
fight of his life as he struggles against all odds to update his
website in a deadly race against the clock.
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Ever notice how so many bestselling thrillers
have similar titles? Oh, you haven't? Well I have. For a genre that
promises pulse-pounding danger in the world of international espionage
where nothing is what it seems and every breath you take might be
your last the authors of these things sure don't stray from a comfortable
and familiar title formula.
Robert Ludlum is the most prolific offender
but a search for "thriller" at Amazon will yield more
cliché titles than you can empty a silenced Beretta into,
probably while driving your riced out Mini Cooper in reverse on
a one-way street in Prague and fending off Inga, the sultry Swedish
double agent who is just as likely to slit your throat as she is
to have a steamy love scene with you round about chapter five.
Just for fun I threw together a little toy
you can use to generate a title for your (soon to be) bestselling
thriller. In theory it should be able to generate every possible
title for spy novels, USA Network original movies, and even record
albums if you're generous. Enjoy.
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July 15, 2004
Kill Bill
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When Kill
Bill: Volume 1 came out I read the descriptions and knew I would
not see it. Nothing about it appealed to me. Last night the opportunity
to see it at no cost presented itself. Someday I will learn to listen
to my gut instincts. The film is a live action cartoon that requires
an appreciation of human destruction which I lack. I do not want
to be the kind of person who could enjoy this movie.
It suggests that Tarantino gets pleasure
from the enjoyment of violence and cruelty. Taken in isolation it
might be unremarkable, but considering his other work it is the
clear escalation of a common theme which his position and wealth
now allow him to explore unrestrained. He calls it an homage or
tribute, but what and whom he pays tribute to, his glorification
of remorseless and gleeful killers, his fetishizing of death and
dismemberment, the layer upon layer of reference to his favorite
ultra-violent films, and the painstaking care he takes to make pain
stylish and beautiful, all this in the end is a damning indictment
of his own sick inclinations. It is the artistically mature work
of an emotionally immature mind.
Verdict: Distasteful.
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July 9, 2004
Yo, Adrian!
The 1970's were a profoundly ugly decade
but time, and fashion, have a way of sneaking things past us. Rocky
reveals a deep truth: there's nothing new and nothing cool.
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I watched Rocky
(1976) last night for the first time in so long that it might as
well be the first time. No decade has succeeded in making itself
look so unashamedly ugly as the 70's. From what I remember the 70's
were ugly. They were a pungent melange of the worst of
tacky plastic mainstream and smelly unkempt post-hippie culture.
Watch Rocky, The French Connection, Taxi Driver,
even The Paper Chase, then look at a daisy. That simple
atom of beauty will knock your eyes out of their sockets in contrast.
If your eyes can stand the visual version of B.O. there are great characters in Rocky. Stallone defined himself in the role, Burt Young is repulsive as Rocky's slob friend, Burgess Meredith turns the loveable curmudgeon archetype into something fresh, and Carl Weathers' portrayal of boxer Apollo Creed is a joy to watch. He's flashy, tasteless, arrogant, but very smart. Why has this man had such a poor career? When I win the lottery I'll finance a film with Carl Weathers, William Marshall, Richard Roundtree, Jim Kelly, and Brock Peters; a kind of black cinema dream team. Alright, Marshall is dead but this is a dream after all. Things have changed enough in the last thirty years that Rocky looks like it comes from another world. But fashion is a strange thing. It's bizarre what comes and goes and comes again. The character who put me on this line of thinking is Rocky's mousey girlfriend Adrian, played by Talia Shire. Take a look: 
In the film she is meant to look like a
complete loser, a nobody, utterly uncool and devoid of style. Today,
without changing a thing, she could be the hipster babe sitting
on the library steps smoking a clove, drinking Turkish coffee, reading
Emigre. The height of cool
today was the epitome of lame yesterday. Nothing is cool. Ever.
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July 7, 2004
Yum
While I was minding my own business carrot
soup flung a craving on me that demanded answer. Keep reading to
learn how it turned out or check the title above for a hint.
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It's not often that I get a hankering but
when I hanker, it's the real thing. The other day I got a hankering
for carrot soup. I've never had carrot soup. I didn't even know
if there was such a thing. The closest I knew was carrot
cake soup but that was dessert. I wanted a meal and I was going
to have it if I had to do the manly thing and invent carrot soup
myself.
It turns out there are plenty
of carrot soup recipes. Maybe I lived a sheltered life. In a
last ditch effort to save my pride I decided I would develop my
own recipe. I like to think I'm a bit of a culinary scientist, a
kitchen adventurer who blazes his own tasty trails. Oh, I know all
about your "recipes" but those are just guides. Handrails
on the path to a meal. And they are written by people who have lost
the pioneer spirit and settled down. People who live two blocks
from a gourmet market, don't mind paying top dollar for leeks, whatever
those are, and own cookware forged from meteoric iron and quenched
in Himalayan snows. When I cook I use what I have laying around
and if I don't have exactly the right ingredients, I substitute.
Life is too short, and my teflon pan too scuffed, to waste preparing
food which, let's be honest, has a brief life before it metamorphoses
into something unpleasant.
Carrot soup was on the menu, but how to
prepare it? I browsed a few recipes for ideas. Emeril likes to put
apple in his carrot soup. Sounds good and I have a couple laying
around. Another recipe called for white wine. Good. Garlic? Don't
mind if I do. The choices are broad enough that I had to narrow
it down. My first inclination was a cream base but all I had was
1% milk or chocolate soy juice. Note to self: remember Chocolate
Cream of Carrot Soup. So, a stock base with apple, a little white
wine, and spices. I had green onion and that would do for a garnish.
Excellent.
My first inclination for stock was beef.
Every carrot soup recipe I found suggested chicken stock. That makes
sense. I use beef stock for lentil soup. Lentils are dark, and beef
stock is dark. Carrots are light, so use a light chicken stock.
A little apple makes anything better and
Emeril agrees. Even if you don't believe me, are you going to argue
with Emeril? He's on TV. He likes two apples, probably big ones
hand picked from a Washington orchard. His
recipe is almost half apple. That won't do. I had a couple small
Granny Smiths in a bowl so I decided to toss one in.
I didn't have white wine. The closest I
could find was gin or balsamic vinegar. I think the juniper in the
gin would fight the carrot and apple flavor, and gin isn't as piquant
as white wine. Balsamic vinegar is good with chicken and chicken
stock is just liquid chicken so I went with balsamic vinegar. Thinking
it would be stronger than wine I cut the measure as well. If my
recipe failed this would be the turning point.
I had olive oil but it smelled funny. Butter
would do instead to sauté the onion and apple. A couple more
minor substitutions to accommodate the contents of my cupboards
and I had my ingredients, I had my recipe, and I was hungry. Time
to cook.
Carrot Soup the First
1 qt. chicken stock 1 Granny Smith apple ½ cup balsamic vinegar 2 lbs. carrots 2 tbl. butter 1 tbl. garlic powder 1 tbl. brown sugar 1 tea. kosher salt ½ tea. pepper 1 Texas Yellow onion See below for revisions.
Start by dicing the onion. Everything will
go into the blender in the end so you can chop it coarse for now.
Cut and core the apple and dice it too. I like to cut apples into
halves, then cut the halves in half again, then the quarters, then
the eighths. The remaining pieces are thin enough to crosscut quickly.
Suit yourself.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. I quickly
realized 2 tablespoons of butter is too much. Make it 1 tablespoon.
Dump in the onion and apple and fry them hot for a few minutes.
Reduce the heat and add the spices. I was feeling sassy so I tossed
in a pinch of chili powder and a tablespoon of brown sugar at the
last minute. Sauté on low heat until nice and juicy. You'll
want to eat it right out of the pan but don't. We'll be doing the
carrots while that works.
Every recipe I found said to peel the carrots
but that's work and peels are good for you. Leave the peels on and
cut the carrots into ½ inch pieces unless you have a better
idea. The fat ends might look big but remember: blender. Wash them
first because carrots come from the store filthy. They actually
put carrots with dirt all over them into a nice little bag then
sprinkle it with water. Bizarre. Warm the stock in a pot while you
chop and toss in the carrots as you cut them. Once the carrots are
in the stock, bring it to a very low simmer for 30 minutes, realize
the heat's way too low, and bring them to a low boil for another
30 minutes.
While the carrots cook, cover the onion
and apple mix with a cup or so of stock, add the vinegar, and let
it simmer too. Stir occasionally. It won't make a difference but
it makes the kitchen smell nice and it feels like you're getting
something done. Once a ½ cup of balsamic vinegar stared me
in the face I chickened out. I think ¼ cup will do nicely.
When the carrots start to soften you could
help them along with a potato masher. I don't have one so I used
a heavy whisk. It doesn't work so don't bother. Leave them for the
blender. When the time's up, add the onion, apple, and stock mix
to the carrots. The result doesn't smell disgusting so I might be
onto something here.
Puree the mix in the blender. You might
want to let it cool a little first. Trust me and my skin graft specialist
Dr. Reynaldo on this. Unless you have a walk-in blender, it will
take a few loads to get it all. Transfer it back into the pot and
keep it over very low heat. Don't let it bubble. Stir as needed.
It would be wise to have a little stock or water on hand to thin
the soup to your preference. You won't be able to resist taking
a little taste right now so go ahead. After tasting, take a moment
to realize that yes, you do rule. That is good carrot soup. Garnish
like you like and eat fast. I suggest a complimentary apple cider
to drink.
The apple sweetens the slightly bitter tendency
of the carrot and the vinegar gives it a savory edge. The amount
of chicken stock makes the soup very rich. Water might be substituted
when simmering the apple and onion. Next time I might use a whisper
less vinegar and add a splash of Worcestershire sauce. The soup
cries out for fresh bread but it was not to be this time. Next time
I'll make Irish soda bread. Final verdict: yum.
Carrot Soup the Second
1½ qt. chicken stock (or 1 qt. chicken stock, 2 cups water) 1 Granny Smith apple ¼ cup balsamic vinegar 2 lbs. carrots 1 tbl. butter 1 tbl. garlic powder 1 tea. kosher salt ½ tea. pepper 1 pinch chili powder 1 tbl. brown sugar 1 splash Worcestershire sauce if desired 1 Texas Yellow onion 1 or 2 green onions for garnish Serves 4 to 6 Use only as a guide. Be unique, just like everyone else! |
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July 4, 2004
Independence: Freedom Explodes 2: The Revenge
Save this title for when Jerry Bruckheimer
eventually makes an action movie based on the Revolutionary War,
starring Nicolas Cage as George Washington, Ed Harris as Benjamin
Franklin, and Sean Connery as General Cornwallis.
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I forgot my camera for all the weekend's
festivities so this update is illustrated courtesy of Google image
search.
This weekend saw the return of my friend
Tom, on leave from northern Iraq, so myself, his brother James,
James' wife Angie, Mark (formerly of the band Far From
Sanity), and our friend Travis, decided to take him out and celebrate
his homecoming the only way we know how: billiards.
We play a sweet little game called Cutthroat.
Each player is assigned a numbered range of balls. The object is
to sink everyone but yourself. If a player scratches, everyone else
gets to bring one ball back into play. With five players such as
we had, none of whom are good at pool and several of whom were drinking
heavily, the chance of a scratch was extremely high. In five hours
we only managed to play four games. Granted, we devoted a large
portion of our time to trash talk but still... It quickly becomes
clear that a couple scratches late in the game can set everything
back to the very beginning. Good times.
While we played Tom insisted on buying numerous
rounds of bizarre drinks. Among them was a fun little concoction
new to me called a Cement Mixer. Recipe follows:
Cement Mixer
1 shot of Bailey's Irish Cream 1 shot of half lemon juice and half rum Hold the shot of Bailey's in your mouth and take the remaining shot. Shake head vigorously. While dealing with the resulting dizziness, realize that your mouth is suddenly filling up with lemon custard. Chew frantically. Ingredients
vary but that's how we got them. I also made the disgusting
discovery that sloe
gin is not at all like plain gin.
I had to shave my tongue to get rid of the taste.
That was Saturday. Sunday was Independence
Day, to be celebrated in the traditional way: meat and explosives.
I was invited to join another James and his family along with My
Old Friend Micah. This James is a second-generation German immigrant
and that means good bratwurst and mustard. He has kids and that
means major fire hazards when they get their hands on fireworks.
It seems that every piece of recreational
pyrotechnics is made in China. When they invented gunpowder they
got a perpetual monopoly on the manufacture of fireworks. After
a few centuries of work anything, even making colorful shrieking
explosives, would get boring, so to keep themselves entertained
the Chinese fireworks industry turned bizarre. How else to explain
a cardboard chicken that shoots whistling sparks from its mouth
and butt simultaneously?
One piece of Chinese fireworks I have never
seen in America (not that I've looked very hard) is the giant double
string of firecrackers, each the size of your index finger. It's
like a string of dried peppers only explosive. When I lived in China
they set these off for any reason at all including no reason and
they were loud enough to kill small animals. Many were the times
I woke up to a seemingly endless string detonating a quarter mile
away.
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June 25, 2004
Are We Having Phun Yet?
In the deepest recesses of a used book
shop a dusty tome is found, a book of forgotten knowledge containing
the secrets of the Ancients. The secrets of the lost art of Phun.
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From time to time the archaeologist's spade
brings to light a find which throws wide the doors of knowledge
and forever changes our conception of the past. The Rosetta Stone
was one such find, and the Dead Sea scrolls another. Still more
hold their secrets and await the one bold and skillful enough to
wake them. Today one of these long-buried keys to the past has been
found and I make its secrets known to you. Dark secrets. Terrible
secrets. Really dull secrets.
The book is called Phunology by
E.O. Harbin, author of such timeless classics as Games for Boys
and Girls, Games of Many Nations, and Gay Parties
for All Occasions. In this thick volume, hailing from the misty
past of 1923 and subtitled 1000 Games and Entertainment Plans,
our Mr. Harbin lays out the principles of Phun, a powerful system
of mind-altering activities. The people of the past seem to have
made use of these rituals for entertainment, and in my studies I
have come to believe that in our modern word "fun" we
see the half-remembered shadow of this archaic art.
But make no mistake! Beyond this linguistic
anachronism all similarity ends. For example: today our decadent
modern world requires eight hours of TV to achieve a state of entertainment.
Our music videos, if you can find a channel that still plays them,
cram hours of visual stimulation into three minutes yet we are not
satisfied. But the people of the past, those devotees of Phun, they
drank deep of entertainment. Behold!
Wow. But there's more:
Extraordinary. Dare I present one more? (Yes.)
I am simply speechless. If our forefathers
found this fun, er, phun, how far have we fallen if it strikes us
as incomprehensible idiocy? Were they so starved for entertainment
that even this would do? That conclusion is impossible. No, they
were a breed apart. A higher form of life than we poor souls. They
feasted on finer things than we, and they lived in a world of golden
light and endless joy. For theirs was the secret of Phun.
Footnote: Mr. Harbin went
on to write many books on the subject of entertainment, including
both The Fun Encyclopedia and The
New Fun Encyclopedia, the latter published in 1940. By that
date we can see that "Phun" has in 17 short years devolved
into "fun", and the texts nearly lost to mankind forever,
probably in the Nazi book burnings. More to come!
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June 22, 2004
What's the Worst That Could Happen?
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This popped up in my Worst-Case
Scenarios desk calendar. I mean, yeah, this could be pretty
bad but it doesn't stand up to "How To Survive a Nuclear Blast"
or even "How To Jump from a Moving Car".
I've been on awkward dates but it would
have to be rabbit-boilingly
bad before I smashed my way out a window.
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June 19, 2004
How To Boost Your Self-Esteem
The author braves the flora and fauna
of Trek Expo 2004 on a semi-ironic journey into flabby terror.
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Let me get the self-incrimination out of the way right now: I like the old original Star Trek. My earliest TV memory is of watching The Devil in the Dark on a tiny snowy screen. There was a brief middle-school infatuation with The Next Generation but like a kidney stone, it passed. I soon realized that the adventures in sensitivity embarked on by that crew of model U.N. rejects lacked the visceral appeal of the original series. The Next Generation characters were clichés, or at best, talking heads for Political Correctness. The original characters were people. They were alive. Their relationships felt real, not acted. They had flaws like everyone else: Bones' racism, Spock's overreliance on logic, Kirk's... Kirk was seriously messed up. But that's what made them so appealing.
And it was more than just characters. The writing was masterful. D.C. Fontana's influence on science fiction is vastly underrated. Other luminaries contributed including Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, and Robert Bloch. The art direction was a minimalist tour de force that remains distinctive and compelling even today. It has become iconic. The cinematographers and directors are unsung geniuses of composition. The crew's bright primary color uniforms lent themselves to bold visual arrangements and each scene formed a perfect tableau like a painting. Enough nostalgia. Now that I've assured I'll never have another date once Google finds this page, let's make fun of some even bigger nerds.
This weekend saw Trek
Expo 2004 come to town. It's a yearly con organized by local
comics-games-geek superstore Starbase 21. It's a little known fact
that the comic book guy on The Simpsons was directly modelled on
the owners / operators of Starbase 21. That's a lie, but one that's
easy to believe.
The scope of Trek Expo goes beyond Star
Trek into the wider world of science fiction and other geeky pursuits.
For years I've meant to go but after missing Trek
Expo 2003 (Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner) I vowed
to attend this year. After 2003 it would take a miracle to meet
my expectations and Trek Expo 2004 did not fail to fail. This year's
big-name guests were Gil Gerard and Erin Gray from the abysmal series
Buck Rogers in
the 25th Century, and the not-so-bad Ron Perlman (Hellboy,
Beauty and the Beast), Ray Park (Darth Maul, X-Men's
Toad), and Brent "Data" Spiner.
After signing in I took a spin through the forest of dealers' booths that took up most of the expo center. Most of them were selling attractive photos of celebrities and movie stars but vandals had scrawled their names all over them. They still wanted at least $50 for them. The rest of the inventory was 10% bootleg Airwolf DVD's, 20% t-shirts with comic book logos or sayings like "Forced To Live With Muggles", and 70% Orlando Bloom posters. There was a booth selling replica lightsabers that really light up and in the time it took to walk past I heard three separate people ask, "Can you fight with them?" Marketing researchers take note.
Sci-fi conventions are a people-watcher's paradise. Everywhere you look you see someone dressed as a Klingon, or wearing an authentic and detailed Star Trek uniform, or dressed as a Klingon. And don't forget the Klingons. In a crushing defeat for the cause of feeling smugly superior there was not a single Klingon visible at Trek Expo 2004. There were surprisingly few costumed people running around but those who were running around were glad to pause for photos. Conventions like this create a weird exhibitionism in people who spend the rest of the year avoiding social situations.
All day the main stage was host to a parade
of stars. Ray Park talked about how he got into acting and did his
best to avoid killing Sala Baker (Lord of the Rings non-eyeball
Sauron, various orcs) who was goodnaturedly doing everything he
could to start a fight. Gil Gerard and Erin Gray talked about the
Buck Rogers TV show and Gil's later work on Sidekicks,
a mid-eighties white-cop / martial-artist-Asian-kid buddy series
also known as The Last Electric Knight for no possible
reason. It was a tough act to follow but Ron Perlman was up to the
challenge.
For a fantastically ugly man Ron Perlman's
had a pretty good career.
He worked with Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose, played
a heartthrob beastman in TV's Beauty and the Beast and
had a recent hit with Hellboy. He told of how a role in
Guillermo del Toro's weird Cronos led to their friendship
and the director fighting for years (with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's
support) for Perlman being the only possible choice for the role.
When he got to the Q&A it became obvious: his only fans are
six-year-old boys and hot girls. Maybe it's the roles, maybe it's
the weird creatures, maybe it's the fact that he's willing to cover
up his face, but the chicks dig him. Hard. Yet he's one of the most
down-to-earth humble celebrities I've seen. Take it from me, someday
they'll make a Tom Waits
biopic and Ron Perlman will be the one to play him. You heard it
here first.
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June 18, 2004
The Mark of Cain's
My friend's band played a late-night
show at the historic Cain's Ballroom and a good time was had by
some. Bonus Feature: the first TI update.
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Saturday my friend Mark's band Far
From Sanity played Cain's Ballroom here in Tulsa, the most infamous
and prestigious concert hall in the state, and I showed up to support
the home team with My Old Friend Micah.
The Cain's has been around for over 75 years
witnessing a veritable pantheon of musical talent. Originally the
hall was built for dancing and the main room still has the original
spring-loaded hardwood floor. In the 30's it became the home of
western swing when Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys (Originally
the Light Crust Doughboys when they were sponsored by Light Crust
flour. Corporate pressure goes back a long way.) relocated to Tulsa.
The immortals of country and western music look down from portraits
on the walls: Bob Wills, Roy Rogers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Gene
Autry, Hank Williams, and more.
The place boomed but by the late 50's the
new was wearing off. Western music was in decline and the ballroom
acquired a reputation as one rough roadhouse. The city prosecutor
declared it a menace because of the number of gang fights and all
the trouble it attracted. Bob Wills and company moved on and Cain's
Ballroom switched hands a few times until promoter Larry Schaeffer
bought it in the 70's, restored it, and reopened as a rock hall.
A few months later in January 1978 occurred
the event for which the Cain's is most famous. The Sex Pistols played
as part of their strangely considered tour of the South. It was
the only US tour by the Sex Pistols prior to their reunion and they
avoided the coasts in favor of the audiences most likely to least
appreciate them. But that one show assured the ballroom's fame.
Everyone who visits is obliged to ask, "Didn't the Pistols play
here?" at least once and the hole in the backstage wall allegedly
punched by Sid Vicious is maintained as a kind of shrine. It's rumored
that putting your hand in the hole will cure you of not being addicted
to heroin.
Since then the Cain's has been host to some
of the biggest acts in modern rock history, many of them when they
were just getting started. That might be because once they hit it
big they wouldn't be caught dead in a town like Tulsa but we like
to think it's the quality of the Cain's that makes the difference.
The Police played here before they were big. So did the Ramones,
Talking heads, Elvis Costello, the Cramps. It's seen everything
from Willie Nelson to Crystal Method. Not bad for a joint that started
out as a garage.
Back to the present. Far From Sanity played
the second stage as part of the Infinite Records Showcase, sharing
the bill with a lot of bands you've never heard of and never will.
The flyers list them all and I've never seen such a concentration
of free fonts since the time I googled "free fonts". When a band
first forms, step one is to choose the perfect name and step two
is to make a logo. Step three is usually "write songs and practice
them" but for some bands step two is enough. A few of the other
bands were Afterlife (Adler.ttf),
Second Flesh (DemonNight.ttf),
and Lowlife (SamarkanNormal.ttf).
It's hard to know which is the better resource for new bands, ubl.com
or Larabie Fonts.
Despite the late start the crowd was enthusiastic
and FFS played well. They've been together a few years now and though
they've gone through enough guitarists to form an opening band their
sound gets tighter and tighter. It's not my cup of tea but it's
tasty if you're into metal. I'm not saying that just because they're
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Copyright © 2004 Joshua Garton