Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

I'm glad I read this today. Now I feel a bit more comfortable avoiding Ozzfest. Geezer Butler (probably the Sabbath member with the most skill and integrity) admitted the band would play for 60 minutes. One hour. Two episodes of Seinfeld. Yup, 3,600 seconds. He wasn't even apologetic. It's like, "Yeah, one whole hour, it'll be hard work, but we'll get through it".

The author of the article doesn't even think that it is strange that a headlining act of a major music festival is playing for one hour. Ninety minutes is barely acceptable, but one hour? There is something wrong here.

Figuring that they have to play Iron Man, Paranoid, Children of the Grave, War Pigs and Black Sabbath, that leaves time for like 2 more songs, and whatever they are, I’m sure they will not be something that would be different and interesting.

I don’t know what the response has been, but with the lame set Priest is playing and an hour Sabbath set, I feel much better about saying “no thanks” to the money machine known as Sheezy (that was Sharon Osbourne’s nickname before she became a mega star).

As for good shows, I will be seeing Rush on their 30th anniversary tour this year. I can expect three hours (no Gilligan’s Island jokes please) of solid entertainment from REAL musicians instead of that side show known as Ozzfest.

Bush v. Kerry (aka Dumb and Dumbererer)

I am not a political guy. I actually hate politics. But in the wake of the recent death of President Reagan, I thought I would offer some political observations. Reagan these days is becoming less about politics and more about history. During Reagan’s presidency I was growing up. I was 12 when he came in and 20 when he left. I was never old enough to vote for him or against him. So it is difficult for me to comment of the politics of Reagan and his administration.

Reagan has been praised in public lately and that is a good thing. I think his accomplishments as president certainly outweigh his shortcomings. For a scathing column on Reagan you can read Ted Rall’s column. As a side note I think Rall is an extremist who lives in a fantasy world and has no true understanding of how the world works. I have deliberately not posted a link because Rall is such a scumbag, if anyone is interested you can go to Google and type in “prick”.

Anyway, I digress.

Reagan was a politician that we had faith in. Maybe the last one. We trusted him. I think he honestly did what he thought was right for the United States. The “scandals” of his presidency involved international affairs (i.e. Iran Contra) and perhaps he circumvented the law, but he was doing what he thought was right. No president since then has had that kind of integrity. I think everyone knows the President should not receive a hummer from a fat intern.

That brings me to today and the 2004 election. These two boobs running for president make the choices in 1996 (which I thought horrendous at the time) look good. President Bush is a bumbling stooge. John Kerry is no better (besides he looks like the Snow Miser).

Many conservative pundits praise President Bush. I really do not know why. He has given tax breaks to the super wealthy while giving little to no relief to the upper middle class on down. He has done nothing to curtail government spending, and has been unable to comfort the country in times of war and terrorism. In short – he is not a good president.

John Kerry would probably be worse, as an increase in taxes and increased government spending would be disastrous. Furthermore, I cannot imagine he and his fellow Democrats taking a tough stand on terrorism, so that situation would probably worsen as well.

Will we ever see a politician like Reagan again? Probably not.

Supernaut? - NOT!!

In the news this week, original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward has agreed to join the band in their summer tour headlining Ozzfest. I saw the original Black Sabbath a few years ago on their last final tour and I wish I hadn’t.

I grew up a Black Sabbath fan starting at the age of 12. At this time Ozzy had recently left the band and started his famous solo career. All through my youth I had dreamed of seeing the original Sabs in concert. I had imagined them playing many great songs from their 8 album catalogue. When this dream was finally realized a few summers back, it fell short of my expectations. They played for all of 80 minutes, and played nothing from the latter half of their catalog, basically only sticking to the first three albums.

Now, they are set to take the stage again. Will I be suckered in? I may, it depends if I can convince anyone to go with me. Funny, considering I like 3 other bands on the Ozzfest bill it seems like a natural. As a side note, I saw the Judas Priest set list for their reunion tour (they will be playing right before Sabbath at Ozzfest) and it was a bore. Very safe, very predictable, very vanilla. Certainly tailored for the casual Priest fan and not the aficionado. I fear Sabbath will be the same and I will leave the show disappointed yet again.

So who can I convince, maybe this guy would go. If so, then BD guy may tag along as well, but he has issues with some of the other acts on the bill. There are always my brothers in law; though one of them warned me to stay at the concession stand during Slayer since anyone not moshing may get someone’s left arm in their ear.

The question is: How many times will I let Black Sabbath let me down. As this man once said, “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

So Geezer, what’s it gonna be?