The 5 Best Myths (In Order of Bad Assitude)

5. The story of Cadmus. Cadmus was sent to find his sister, Europa, after she had taken by the god, Jupiter. In his quest to find his sister he consulted the oracle of Apollo in the hope that the oracle could privide her location. Instead, the oracle told Cadmus to follow a cow wo whatever ends and where it stops he will build a city and call it Thebes. Fine, whatever. Kind of sci-fi, but nothing great. As he left the oracle though, Cadmus saw a young calf. He hastened after it to a vast plain where it finally stopped and turned its head towards the sky.

No big, but here's where it gets all trippy and violent. Cadmus kissed the ground where he would build his great city and sent his men off to find water, which they did. Only they didn't expect the fountain that they dipped their buckets in to be protected by a giant fucking snake. UH-OH!!! Needless to say, the snake towered over the men and slew all of them. Cadmus, who had been sitting in the middle of his plain or whatever, soon went looking for them. He came upon their remains and the snake that had killed them all. He threw his spear at the beast and pierced it's guts (whoa!) and then used his sword to pierce THROUGH ITS FUCKING HEAD! Cadmus then pissed on his defeated foe while it still yet breathed, screaming "Adios, dick."

As he did this he heard a voice on the wind tell him to pick the teeth from the snake and bury them where his city should be. He did this and by the time the last tooth had been buried men in full armor and holding swords rose from the ground. Cadmus, alarmed, readied himself for battle, but instead the Earth Dudes all killed each other until there were only 5 left. These 5 declared peace and helped Cadmus build Thebes.

I don't know why this guy had to go through all this, but he killed a giant snake and then witnessed people grow from the ground and declare war on each other. He then made the few survivors help build him a city without batting an eye lash. Bad ass.

4. Actaeon. Coincidentallly, Actaeon was the son of Cadmus, the first King of Thebes. Anyway, he surpasses him in righteousness. Actaeon had spent a day hunting with his best friends and his favorite dogs. They had killed a lot, which makes them pretty cool already in a Last of the Mohicans kind of way. They decided that they had killed enough and Actaeon jumped down from his horse and searched for water. He soon found a cave and entered it. In the cave he found the virgin goddess Diana being bathed by nymphs. She yelled at him as he left, saying that he should tell his friends...if he's able. As he ran he grew the horns of a stag and soon noticed he was running on hooves instead of feet. He turned a corner and his dogs saw him and took chase. He ran as fast as he could, but was soon caught by the dogs and killed by his friends who couldn't understand that the sounds he made were cries for help. Before he died, the last thing he heard his friend say was "I wish the Prince could be here for this."

3. Minos and Scylla. Magara was under siege by Minos, the King of Crete. For six months the Magarans were able to keep the Cretians from entering their city. Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, King of Magara, had been spending the six months in Magara's highest tower looking down on the battlefield and had fallen in love with the sight of Minos. One night she went to her father's room and took the key to the city. She then cloaked herself and opened the gates and went to Minos. She gave him the city in the hopes that he might love her. In the fewest words possible, Minos, told her that she was despicable and he would have nothing to do with her. He then made a truce with the Magarans out of disgrace and left. As his fleet set sail though, Scylla grabbed the ropes to one of the boats and attempted to climb aboard so that she could still look at Minos. Not very cool, except for the really, really creepy Fatal Attraction bit. Here's the thing though, when Scylla's father Nisus awoke to find his daughter had betrayed him, his fury was so great that the God's turned him into a BIRD OF PREY!!! He then flew from his room and found his daughter trying to climb the ropes aboard the Cretian vessel and swooped down upon her, using his claws and beak to pull at her flesh. She fell, but apparently some total wuss of a deity took pity and changed her also into a bird. Apparently though, whener you see a bird dive towards the water with its claws open and beak wide, the bird is attacking her for her ancient crime.

2. Niobe. This lady rules. She was the Queen of Thebes and one day attended a festival honoring Latona. Instead of being cool about it though, Latona said she had more reason to be worshipped because she was just as beautiful as Latona, but also had seven beautiful daughters and seven heroic sons, while Latona only had one son and one daughter. I'm pretty sure if you could have sen the crowd that day, you would have seen a thousand people all backing away from her slowly, looking for the nearest exit. Anyway, Latona, totally not okay with this shenanigan, called on her daughter Diana and her son Apollo. They acted out her vengeance by going to Thebes and murdering all of Niobe's sons. Amphion, her husband, murdered himself once he heard his sons had been killed. Niobe cried along with her seven daughters as they found the brothers. Latona, however, cool as ever, insisted that she still was better than Latona. As the last words left her lips, her eldest daughter fell dead upon the brother she mourned. 5 others fell with arrows through their hearts until only the youngest was left. Latona grabbed her and pleaeded for mercy, but as she said it, her daughter fell dead from her arms.

1. Medea. This woman helped Jason get the Fleece. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it is. You know what's cool, but not cool, but bad ass? When that same woman leaves with Jason. This causes her father to board a ship and lead a fleet after her and Jason to try and catch them. But like the sharpest tac, Medea had brought with her her young brother. When her father's ships approached them, she used sorcery to break her brother apart and threw his body parts into the water to delay her father.

That's not even close to all of it though. She also used her sorcery to give false hope to Jason's uncle. His uncle had kept Jason from his rightful throne. Anyway, Jason's nieces begged Medea to use her sorcery to save their ailing and aged father. She agreed, but led them along falsely. She told them that they had to drain the blood of their father...and they did, by stabbing him repeatedly. They then dipped him in her cauldron and before they realized they had been deceived and they killed their own father, Medea had hastened away on her serpent-drawn chariot. Repeat that last sentence again. Now you know why this is the most bad ass story ever.

One of Them.

Everyone has a day where everything seems...different. We all have our small grudges, loves, responsibilities we choose to avoid, and so on. For myself, it's almost exclusively the latter; although some of the former two are also present most of the time. Happily though my grudges and loves usually have an off switch, or, if nothing else, a numbing switch. But lately, and especially today, they've been piling on. It started a few days ago by simply over-hearing a conversation. It didn't involve me in any way, but it involved someone I care about and that can often times be worse. When it's you it's controllable. You can allow it to get to you or you can let it go as easily as trash in a dumpster. When it's someone you care about though, there's the urge to protect. That's when it's bad because for all your trying there's very little that you can do. It's out of your hands as much as you may want to help or even take on their problems for them.

This is the day I'm having. My own issues have combined with the lives of people around me, building up into a kind of crescendo. I guess it's the switch malfunctioning; which tends to happen every once in a while. Despite all this, the reaction that occurs when this happens is what is interesting to me right now. For myself, whenever this happens it is a singular experience. Nothing else effects me the same way. I usually run away. That's just how it work. For better or worse. When the problems around me; both for myself and for people I love, become too much I run away. It's not something I'm proud of and I'm actually finding it hard to write, but it's true. Ask my friends or my friends that aren't anymore.

I'm not sure when it started exactly, but I imagine it happened either when I was 13 or 16 years old.

When I was 13, my best friend was Mark Metzler. He was a straight arrow and thus not very cool at William Byrd Middle School, but I still liked him. Granted I wanted to be cool and I held this against him to a point, I guess, but he was nice and I thought his mom was great. I thought so much of her that I even called her "mom". No joke. He and I played tennis like we were possessed and played video games all the time; just like we were supposed to at that age. That year though, Mark had gone to a doctor and they found a brain tumor. I hadn't been aware of any testing that he had been going through and neither had my parents based on their reaction when I told them. I remember being called into the guidance office to be told what my friend was going through and I remember not thing much of it. They seemed concerned, but for some reason--I guess ignorance--it didn't affect me. I remember going home and looking in our Encyclopedia Britannica for "brain tumor" and calling my dad when I couldn't find that term, specifically. He came home as soon as I told him (probing more for a definition than sympathy) and we went out to eat and I guess that's when I began to understand it a little bit. Soon after, Mark had surgery to remove the tumor. I visited a couple of times and then I never went back. I didn't talk to him, I never called his mother "mom" again. The next time I was around him was at his funeral two years later. I felt so guilty when I saw his mom and even more guilty when she talked to me without any blame in her voice.

It wouldn't be fair to say anything about Mark without including the fact that he was steadfast in his belief in God. Personally, theology has never been a big part of my life, but it was everything to Mark. He went though multiple surgeries and years of chemo-therapy before his body became so frail that it died and I'd be willing to bet all the money in the world that he never stopped believing that he was going to go to heaven when he died. I don't know about heaven, but I know that I've never met anyone with as much faith in ANYTHING as he had in God. That takes more power of character then I think I'll ever have. And for the record, I do regret not being brave enough to keep going back to see him.

My story of being 16 is much more simple, I guess. It's the same story that everyone has at that age. You meet a girl, fall for girl and then everything goes bad, blah, blah, blah. Relatively speaking, this is nothing compared to abandoning a close friend, but being selfish as a teenager is about as simple as breathing and I was no different. My problems were great in my own mind and you couldn't tell me different. I fell HARD for that girl. She was blonde with really red lips and pale skin and I couldn't have been happier that she liked me. We had been friends for about a year up until that point, but I liked her and I'm sure as was obvious as hell about it (the word "sly" has never been in my vocabulary). One night we kissed and we ended up doing that for about a year, off and on. Her parents didn't like me and my parents didn't like her which at any other age would give pause, but we were dumbass kids.

To be honest, I do believe that I did love her and she's always been able to make me a little bit jumpy whenever she's around. That being said, the bitch broke my heart. Just conjure up the image of the Death Star blowing up Alderaan and you'll have a vague notion of what it felt like at the time. I know it's not pretty and it doesn't look good on paper, but after that shit, I just kind of shut-off for awhile. I stopped being nice or trying to accomodate others; even my friends (God only knows why they stuck around). I became the very definition of a jerk for three years. I easily abandoned others and would let them know why without pause.

That's where I think it happened. Granted, I've become much more approachable since then, but I've kept dragging that same emotional vacancy around with me for the last ten years. When things get bad, I go away. The reason I mention all this is because I'm starting to feel that itch again. It's been three years since I last ran away from my problems and friends and started over, but I'm aware it won't be the last. What's worse is that I've kind of resigned myself to it. Now, I just hope that I never do it to certain people, while knowing that I'll definitely do it to others.

Not to be too short, but this is where my day has left me. Not with all of this hindsight; that came with the writing, but with that vacancy beginning to show itself. It's just part of my personality now. Another trait along with having an unwavering love for film and music, a deep loathing of belly buttons and being tickled, self-loathing (thanks mom!), and all the others. I hope this particular idiosyncracy stays under wraps, but my optomism isn't so strong when I think about all the friends I don't want to leave.

Sonic Matador.

Currently, I'm working on a mixtape. I know this isn't so cool to do anymore. People seem to have moved onto creating CD's for one another and now I've even heard of people making iPod Playlists and mp3 discs for their bitches. This is wrong. The mixtape is slowly becoming a lost art form. No one seems too happy to receive them anymore since they don't, you know, play on a fucking iPod. Once again, this goes back to the mid-nineties mentality I seem enable to shake (*see: Leave Ethics to the Kids, ya'll!). The mixtape was THE way a boy could tell a girl that he liked her without ever having to actually say the words. It was the perfect subterfuge towards what would hopefully end up being a romantic relationship...if any of us ever manned up instead of hiding behind rare 7"s and the constant stories of what bands you had seen ("oh man, you should have have been in Raleigh for that Sebadoh show, man. Fucking Elliott Smith opened! Fucking ELLIOTT SMITH! Oh man, it was great. He totally rocked that show into another level, dude."). This never impressed women, unless they were as shallow as we were, which they were decidedly not. The mixtape could do things though. It was an entire conversation (one we would probably fuck up) about music without us having to deal with anxiety, nausea or the possibility that the girl might like us back. It was amazing and p.s.--I'm really fucking good at it.

Seriously, talk to my friends. I got that shit down. You wanna hear Justin Timberlake b/w New Pornographers? Done. You want GZA and Nine Inch Nails? Bitch, I got you covered like one of those really nice condoms that are never too snug and never fucking tear. Some pop punk and jazz; weed metal and paul mccartney? Fuck yeah, I can put the records on with one hand while jerking off to some filthy ass porn with the other hand and you'll think that shit was golden. No concentration needed, motherfucker.

I know it and that's why I can say it. I'm not saying that I have an awesome palate when it comes to music though. Let's get that straight. There's a lot of good music out there and I bet I only know 0.08% of it. I got indie rock locked down though and I'm starting to get pretty good with hip hop and dance music (girls who like dance music usually have fucking amazing asses and put out easily, thus my interest).

What it comes down to is that I might not make the most wide-ranging tape, but I make the best within my means. That's where the moniker "Sonic Matador" comes from, ya'll. I think of artists like John Lennon, Jon Brion, Kanye West, John Vanderslice, Arcade Fire are the kind of people who define what a Sonic Matador truly is; a person, or group of people, who jump into music head first. They invite all instruments and techniques and always come in swinging. When they get payed form a label, you know the first thing they're doing is blowing a shit ton of that money on new instruments, just trying to make everything expand more and more.

Fuck yeah. I'm definitely not one of those in that sense. But perhaps in my own small way, with a dead language I kind of am like that. Anyway, I'm in the middle of making a bomb ass edition for my girl, so I gotta run. Peace out to the big dogs up top! Sew it up! Mend it!

I Am America Incarnate.

Throughout the history of America there have been images or words that have defined their time. Patrick Henry riding his horse, furiously yelling "The British are coming!" is one of them. A black man is shackles is another. A Norman Rockwell cover of the Saturday Evening Post or an Ansel Adams photograph. A child burning after being hit with napalm. Nixon resigning from office. Seriously, the list goes on and on. There are hundreds that can be conjured up and I'm sure that there are many more to come.

That's what this is about. I am now among them. I am America Incarnate. No joke. I guess I must first say that all of these events must be put into context; much like my own. How is a black man in shackles as important if you don't know the history of slavery? Nixon without Watergate; not as iconic. Context is everything. Context is the most important thing.

These days we live in the fattest country in the world. When we want something we want it big. When we want a car? SUV. When we want a television? 42" Plasma Screen. When we want a hamburger? 1 lb., please. Explosions in a movie? HUGE! When we want to drink? Yeah, the whole 12 pack. This is context of which I'm speaking. This is the world of which I am now king.

I'll keep this short and sweet. I was watching television with my girlfriend not too long ago. We were drinking together and we had been smoking pot as well. This is nothing out of the ordinary both for myself or for anyone else as far as I know. We flipped the channel to "Armageddon", a modern day wet dream for anyone who ever wanted to see Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis teamed up with high octane action, explosions and an Aerosmith soundtrack. We were watching this for maybe a half hour when we smoked another bowl, I opened another beer, and then...a curious thing happened. I was getting a blowjob. Right there on my couch in the middle of my living room. The television was blasting. I had a beer in my hand. I was stoned as fuck. And for a second, just a second, I stepped outside of myself and saw the entire scene from the other side of the room. In that second I thought, "My God, I can almost see the American flag waving behind me." I was the modern American man. I was there and all the men and women from the past could see me. Patrick Henry, Nixon, JFK, the black man, the napalm kid, Bojangles, that Naval Officer and his girlfriend who he's kissing in New York, you know, in that picture. They and so many more like them saw me and I saw them. All in that second...we were one.

This is my tale. It isn't long, I know. But it symbolizes so much.
You're welcome.

Leave Ethics For the Kids.

I am at a bit of a disposition since I was a kid who grew up in the mid-nineties. Being a punk rock or an indie rock kid, as I was (am), has a lot of stigma's that come along with it. Many of them are a lot harder to shake than you'd think. I guess the bug gun is the punk ethic that has come with every generation that has lived by the punk rock musical code: you travel, play, eat sparsly, ask for very little money for both records and other merch, obide by the strict ethical standards. These are the die hard rules. I guess for most bands drinking and drugs would come into play as well. That can be left up to the individual. I don't think punk rock has an official position on that subject.

The problem with this punk ethic is the "not making money" part. This was already hard in the nineties, but now it's carried over to now. I understand the desire for many people to want to keep records cheap so kids can buy them; that's great, but it comes at a sacrifice. Maybe now, because of my age, I find myself unwilling to make those sacrifices so easily. For instance, I'm not well versed in travel, but gas is obnoxiously expensive. I feel like everyone who gets gas at the local station should be sitting there waiting for Bugs Bunny to shoot up beisde them with an "Idiot" sign pointed at them. Of course, I could do it instead, but the average American is way too tense and I'm not sure I want to test that kind of potential rage.

My point is that being punk rock is hard. It never wavers. Its morals are always the same. Times be damned! Age and health be damned! There comes a time, at least for myself and several others that I've spoken to about this, when you want to keep having the same global outlook. We all want that optomism, but we also want to be able to survive and make more than a living wage. If that means jacking up the price of a shirt or a CD that the money from goes straight to food for me and my friends, yeah, I'm doing that. I need to eat and I want to be able to get to the next town. These things have become so dead to punk rock ears though, that people don't understand that sometimes it's not an exaggeration. You NEED to eat. You NEED sustinence. I'm sorry if I'm not punk rock because the 7" isn't 3 dollars anymore, but fuck man, gas isn't even 3 dollars anymore. Give me a break and give the moral high ground a break while you're at it.

Of course, I'm sure the view is nice up there with all the really PC kids. Fuck those kids. Chill out.

*Wow, that took an amazing turn there at the end. Sorry. That's for another time.