Oh The Shows We'll See

Living about an hour from Manhattan is pretty amazing. This has afforded the opportunity to see some great shows since my adolescents. I've seen shows at the now closed down CBGB as well as the original Knitting Factory in Manhattan now located in Brooklyn. Since these places have closed their doors, artists have found new venues to play and I've found some of my new favorite places to see shows.

Anberlin will be making their way back to the NY area, something they did not too long ago playing an intimate set in Brooklyn. This time they'll be playing at Irving Plaza. The last time I saw them was at The Best Buy Theatre with Switchfoot. This is going to be a way more personal show, and should be a blast as they tour to support their most recent release Vital.

Recently I saw Underoath say farewell to the New York area at Irving Plaza. Two years ago I saw Haste The Day say good bye at The Gramercy Theatre. Well, for the first time I am going to see Five Iron Frenzy on April 11th, who are saying hello the New York area after taking off quite a lot of time. They'll be taking House of Heroes with them who last came to the NYC area with Abandon Kansas last April playing at the Bowery Electric. 

Chris Goes to California to see PAX217 Reunite! Part One

Recently, I attended the PAX217 Reunion concert in Anaheim, California at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney. When telling people that I was in California to see a concert, they would say "Wow, that's dedication." It was hard to tell them just how much PAX217 meant to me. 

I remember being a teenager in the late 90's and the early 00's. It was at this time that I would be introduced to band like Blink 182, Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. I really liked the style of the music, but the messages didn't quite line up with my beliefs. 

One day at my church's youth group gathering, I was given a sampler CD featuring PAX217, Skillet, Stacie Orrico and The Normals. I remember someone else in the youth group gravitating toward Skillet while I liked PAX217. I asked for their album for Christmas 2000, and I got my request from Santa Mom.

I wouldn't be able to see PAX217 until the music festival Kingdom Bound, held at what was formally known as Darien Lake Six Flags. This music festival was the highlight of my year. The first year I went, I had PAX217 sign a poster and my CD. The last time I had PAX217 sign something for me was an American Flag that I had customized to match their message. 

PAX217's message is their namesake. Pax means peace in Latin, and the 2:17 is for Ephesians 2:17, "He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near." I figured that this message was something we should all embrace. Here is an old picture of that flag. I've since lost the flag after Sandy. 

 

After the music festivals, PAX217 wouldn't play in my area until they came to the now closed CBGB and I was super bummed to miss that show. I vowed that if they were to ever play a reunion show, no matter where it is, I would be there. This is the story of how I got there.

According to PAX217's Facebook Page, back in April of 2010, they said that if they get 1000 likes on their page, they'd do a reunion show. It was at this time that I recruited a few of my friends and got them to like PAX217's page. It wasn't until late 2012 that they announced a show for February 17th in Orange County. When this show was officially announced, I started looking into flying to California to see the concert. 

The airfare to fly across the country wasn't exactly cheap at the time. It looked as if, I would be held back by not being able to afford the plane ticket. But I kept hope alive. 

About a month before the show, I started looking at the price of plane tickets again. I started with my favorite airline, Jet Blue. I was shocked to see it was going to be affordable to make it to California for the show. But I hesitated. When the price jumped in the span of a day, I had to act and I booked my ticket. The plane ticket was only part of what it'd take to make this happen. I'd still need to get a hotel and rent a car for the few days I was in California. 

It was only a few days before heading to California and my hotel had not been booked. I headed over to Hotwire and found a great deal for 2 nights at the Hilton and 2 days in a standard car from Alamo. 

I had to move some days around at work to make this all happen though. I'm fortunate to have a job with such flexibility. It is one of the advantages to being able to make my own schedule, within reason. 

I found out that one of my favorite comedians was doing a live show in Los Angeles at Meltdown Comics the same day as the concert. The concert didn't start until 7pm and the comedy show started at 4:30, so I figured I'd be able to make both work. The ticket to the comedy show was only $10, so if I felt like I couldn't make it, I wouldn't be giving up that much money. But the opportunity to see the comedian was to great to pass up.

With everything set, I woke up Sunday morning, the day I was to fly to California and I received a troubling email from Jet Blue. They said that my direct flight from JFK in New York City to LGB in Long Beach had been cancelled and that I'd be put on a non direct flight the next morning. While this wouldn't interfere with seeing the concert, I had paid for two nights at the hotel and two days for the car and didn't insure the purchase. If I was to change my plans, I'd still have to pay for the hotel and car. I called Jet Blue immediately and they were able to squeeze me onto a flight much sooner than the one I had originally been scheduled. I was hoping to see my Grandma before heading to the airport, but I called and told her I'd have to reschedule.

This concludes the first part of my trip to California to see PAX217 reunite. There's more to come, you won't want to miss it. 

When All We Have Is Taken

That is the title of a song by Edison Glass. It's a song that has been playing in my head since Hurricane Sandy made it's way up the East Coast. It's a lot like a song from my favorite band PAX217 called Free to Be, which is about someone waking up to their house burning down. Unfortunately, some people did wake up to their house burning down as well as flooded. Here is a line from the song that many people are crying these days. "But what should I drink? What should I wear? What should I eat? Where should I sleep?"

Like many other people affected by Hurricane Sandy, I lost most of my worldly possessions. I was in an evacuation zone. All of my belongings were off the floor and anything of importance or value was at least three feet off the ground. Three feet is an approximation, I didn't take a tape measure and make sure that everything had a three foot elevation from the floor, but the truth is that it wouldn't have mattered.

My apartment, like many other homes in my area flooded. The water rose to four feet in some parts and to 5 feet in other parts. But I did not realize this on my first visit to my apartment after the storm. I went to my apartment on Tuesday in the afternoon after traversing Long Island, going from the North Shore down the to the South Shore, where my apartment was. Once arriving at Montauk Highway, I was greeted by a police officer who wanted to know what business I had making my way down the street. I told him that I lived down there and he let me pass. I made it to the end of my block and before I cold make a right turn, I could see it was heavily flooded in the streets. I strapped on my hiking boots and started walking down the street.

Once I made my way to my apartment, I could see my landlord was home and that his front door was open. We made our way to my apartment through his house and he showed me the damage. At this point, all I saw was a few inches of water on the floor. He told me that my fridge had been knocked over and I helped him stand it up straight.

I then made my way into the living area of my studio apartment. It was then that I saw my iMac sitting in water. I could not understand this. At this point, I didn't think it flooded that bad, but I assumed the little bit of water moved the desk and the computer did a belly flop off of the desk. I was shattered by seeing this and left my apartment, neglecting any other damage done.

I was busy at work all week and it kind of brought me solace since I didn't want to mentally deal with the flooded apartment and the loss of my computer. It wasn't until Saturday the third of November that I returned to my apartment and saw the rest of the damage.

There were water lines on my dresser and armoire. The clothes hanging in my armoire were wet up to a certain point. It was at this point that I realized the three feet or so that I had raised my belongings was not quite high enough. I didn't just lose my iMac. I lost both of my flat screens. I lost my PS3. I lost my Wii. I lost my Roku and Apple TV. Luckily, I brought my iPad with me incase we lost power at my girlfriend's, we could entertain ourselves with that(We watched Haywire which I had saved on the iPad.)

I also lost most of my clothes. That includes many pairs of jeans as well as all of my work clothes. I had a bag of laundry left in the trunk of my car that I was too lazy to bring inside the week before the storm. I'm glad I was lazy, or else those clothes would have been lost as well. Lost in the storm were almost all of my band t-shirts.

I love music, and I love going to see music live. Since I was 18, I've been going to concerts pretty frequently. Some years of my adult life I'd go to nearly ten shows a year. Recently, it's more like 4 or 5 shows a year. At these shows I usually support the bands by buying a t-shirt. I had to have over 100 different band t-shirts. I had dreamed of one day giving these shirts away to fans of these bands, or maybe selling them, and giving the money to charity. Who would have known that I'd be the charity.

"What do you give the man who has everything?" Ever hear that before? That was me. I wanted for nothing. If I desired something within reach, it was mine. If it was out of reach, it was a dream, and I was satisfied to do without. But now here is the other question, "What do you give the man who has nothing?" The truth is that I'm not that man. I have more than nothing. I still have my car. I still have some clothing left. I was able to pull many personal items from my apartment, conveniently stored above the water line.

My apartment is uninhabitable for the time being and it could not come at a better time. Well, that's not necessarily true. A week before the storm, I had told my landlord I was moving out. I had lived there for six years and I was moving in with my girlfriend into a new place for both of us(It's a 3rd story walk-up, so while there won't be flooding, we will be drenched in sweat.) We had discussed what we would be using from my apartment before the storm came. We would have been using my flat screen, it was about 5 inches larger than hers. We would have had my couch in the spare bedroom, it was a futon. I'd be able to keep my desk in the spare bedroom, a room we are calling the office. We were going to use my kitchen table. It's a table I've had for about half a year and eaten at it only a handful of times. Meanwhile, my girlfriend has not had a kitchen table at her last two apartments.

As we move into this new apartment, which is rather beautiful and a step in the right direction coming from either of our places, it will be filled with mostly her belongings. She has nice furniture so that's not really the issue. It's more of an issue that it won't have anything that makes it feel like my home too. Most of my belongings will stay at the bottom of my closet. I have an emotional attachment to most of them, but don't belong where any guest could see them. Why would anyone want to see a Krusty the Clown Jack-in-the-Box? Or a Simpsons Christmas Story Book. Or a Simpsons Chess Set. By the way, my girlfriend hates The Simpsons.

For me, life will go on. As I tweeted to Joe Kelly of Man of Action Studios, "What is lost can be replaced and anything lost that had sentimental value doesn't erase the memory." I still have my life and all of my loved ones, which is more than many can say.

Skycrawl (Skyfall)

After coming up with the title of this entry, I figured out that I am not as clever as I thought. Coming up with parody titles is what Mad Magazine has been doing for decades. But I like to think mine are just as clever. With this preface, here is my review of Skyfall, the latest outing by James Bond.

Daniel Craig is back for a three-peat in this years Skyfall. Craig is back as Bond, Dame Judi Dench is back as M and Javier Bardem makes his first appearance in a Bond movie playing Raoul Silva, the villian of this film.

While Craig's first two appearances in the role of James Bond seemed to tie into one another, Skyfall falls outside of that contiunation. Vesper Lynd is long dead and forgotten as Bond moves on with his mission. This movie has many pieces usually found in a James Bond movie. It had a great opening chase sequence, exotic locations, and many love interests. But this time around, there were aspects of this movie that just didn't feel right to me. I'll do my best not to spoil any of the movie, but be warned, you might not like what you're about to read.

As you should know by now Javier Bardem plays the villian of this movie. You won't see him until about half way into the movie, and for a Bond villian, he doesn't really take up much screen time. While as a villian he is ingenious, there are certain quirks about him that just feel right to me. First of all, he is supposed to be a former MI6 agent. But the guy is Spanish. Or something. Ok, I checked, Bardem was born in Spain. I'm not saying that there can't be a Spanish MI6 agent, but it just takes me out of the movie. The other thing that took me out of the movie was how over the top Bardem played his character. Silva was so flamboyant and there was a certain scene in the movie that was semi-reminiscent of a scene in Casino Royale. If you can remember in Casino Royale, Le Chiffre has James Bond tied to a chair naked. The chair has it's seat cut out and Le Chiffre goes on to torture Bond by inflicting pain to his genitals. While in Skyfall, Bond is fully clothed tied to a chair, Bardem as Silva has a way to make Bond very uncomfortable. I could swear at some point, Silva was going to send his henchmen away and have his way with Bond. Very awkward.

There have been other villains of questionable gender identity, but for the first time that I can remember in a Bond movie, the male villain is clearly attracted to Bond. There have been plenty of female villians that Bond has taken to bed, but Silva was totally making googly eyes at Bond.  That's enough about that, there is something else in this movie that feels out of place.

This is where some spoilers might be read. Skyfall is the name of the estate where James Bond was born and where he was raised until his parents died. James Bond retreats to Skyfall with M to get a few steps ahead of Silva. While Bond has been gallivanting around the globe, the estates caretaker Kincade played by Albert Finney has been staying here. Or something. The estate had been sold after Bond "died", but Kincade was hanging around with a shotgun. Bond and M with the help of Kincade start setting traps in the mansion in preparation for Silva and his merry band of minions. It was at this point that the movie slowed down to a terribly slow pace and it started feeling less like a Bond movie and more like Home Alone. M sets a trap that actually seems like something Kevin McCallister would have done. She takes a light bulb and breaks it. Then she sticks the filament into a shotgun shell. She places the shotgun shell in a zip loc bag of nails and ties it off with the base of the bulb sticking out.

Who the bloody hell was she preparring for? The Wet Bandits/Sticky Bandits? Is Joe Pesce and Daniel Stern the latest Bond villians? I feel like if the bad guys ever made it to a flight of stairs, they would have been greeted by paint cans hanging from the banister railing. This took me out of the movie and is one of the reasons I didn't love this movie.

There were a few references to The Dark Knight in this movie, and I'm not sure if I was the only one to see it, or i might be reading into it a little much. When Bond and M are driving to Skyfall, one of them says, "A storm is coming." That's nearly a direct pull from The Dark Knight Rises. There is one scene where Javier Bardem escapes from containment and meets two of his henchmen who give him a police officer uniform. Hmmm, he looks a lot like The Joker in that scene from The Dark Knight where The Joker is dressed as a police officer when Jim Gordon gets shot. You can judge for yourself on that one.

  

There was another reference, where M tells Bond that it's easy to recruit orphans into MI6. This seems to be the same modus operandi for Batman when recruiting a new Robin.

While I might seem sour on this movie, it is a pretty good Bond movie, but as I said, it was slow in parts. There were definitely scenes in this movie that didn't belong in a Bond film, including a scene taking where M is on trial, brought about by the Prime Minister. It just didn't belong. But either way, it's the first Bond movie presented in IMAX, which I did pay full price for, a whopping $18.50.  Maybe you'll enjoy this outing by Bond. I'll definitely see the next Bond movie in theatres and even pay the $18.50 or maybe $25.50 by the time the next one comes out.

Thrown for a Loop (Looper)

Looper is the story of Joe played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who is an assassin with one very specific type of hit. He kills people the mob sends back in time. This is what Loopers do. When they want to stop being an assassin, they sign a contract that says 30 years from now, your time will come. You will be sent back and you will then have to kill yourself. It's called closing your loop. When you fail to close your loop, the ramifications are never ending as your future self knows what is going to happen over the next 30 years.

That's basically the plot of the movie Looper. It's kind of hard to explain, but I don't want to over explain it. I'll cut to the chase. Go see this movie, and now here is why.

Looper is 2012s answer to 2011s Drive directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Looper is a movie that goes beyond the sum of its parts and completes the experience. As I've said, Taken 2 was a blatant smattering of the sum of many parts, where as Looper is so complex and knit together so well, it is a masterpiece that is crafted brush stroke after brush stroke.

If you can remember, back in 1996 Jerry Maguire introduced Jonathan Lipnicki to the world as the kid who knew how much the human head weighed. Looper introduces one of the best child actors I've seen in recent years. Pierce Gagnon plays Cid, Sara's (Emily Blunt) son. His acting in this movie is near perfect and rivals that of the veterans he shares the screen with. The veterans who make up this movie include Bruce Willis as future Joe and Jeff Daniels who plays Abe, the man sent from the future to organize the loopers.

This movie involves time travel and meeting your future self in a way that is rarely seen. It uses seemingly obvious techniques to show the impact of current events on your future self. But it never feels obvious. At least not to me.

Hiding below the surface of this movie is a love story or several love stories, some running concurrently, some running consecutively. Joe knows when he is supposed to die, and like a dummy, falls in love somewhere along the way. When the time comes to pay the piper, he's reluctant to do so and has to go back in time and make sure that he can remain with the woman he loves past his expiration date. This is one of the love stories running through this movie. One of the most powerful love stories is the love Sara shows for Cid. Their interactions feel so real and their love story builds from a seed into a realization.

The end of this movie came and while I wasn't expecting it to end the way it did, when the credits started rolling, I felt satisfied. It felt like I was getting up from a meal, one that satiated my every gland. It felt like the end of the first date with someone I'd eventually spend a lifetime with. I felt satisfied, just to reiterate.

Please go see this movie. Leave all preconceived notions at the door and enjoy the heck out of this movie.