Bangin'

A long, long time ago, I was washing dishes. The cupboard where the cups went was over the sink. I opened the door it and put away a freshly washed cup. Obviously, I didn't close it completely because the next time I stood up after being hunched over in the sink I cracked the top of my head right into the corner of the door of the cupboard. It hurt so fucking badly! I was insanely mad at the universe so I punched the cupboard door as hard as I could. The door closed at an amazingly fast rate of speed. Sadly for me, it also bounced off the frame and reopened at the same rate of speed, smacking into the side of my face really, really hard. This point in the story marks the angriest I have ever been. It took me a full 2 hours to calm down. 6 years later I can mostly look back and laugh but there still is a small part of me that gets furious and wants so badly to go back to where I used to live and destroy that cupboard.

Renewable Energy

You know what's fuckin' Metal?

Metal.

If you knew me in my previous life as a high school student, you know that I was quite the Metalhead. (Is Metalhead one word or two? My spellchecker says two but my spellchecker was also programmed by nerds. I'm going one. Ironically, my spellchecker is also saying spellchecker is two words.) As my life progressed, I became broader in my musical tastes, listening more to the stylings of They Might Be Giants and assorted Ska bands. The end of my Metalheading (also a word) days came due to the money grubbing ways of one of my favorite bands of that time, Metallica. Metallica was not being Metal.

Much has been written about the feud between Metallica and their Napster loving fans, of which I was one. I am not one to give you a history lesson or morality lesson about the history of illegal downloads. All I'm going to say is I used to download a bunch of music from Napster and continue to do so through torrents and thepiratebay.org. I also go to a bunch of concerts, buy a bunch of merchandise and have put bands up at my house when they come into town. I guess I'm a modern day Robin Hood. And fuck yeah, I'm wearing tights. Can't get more Metal then that.

Anyways, because of Metallica basically saying I wasn't a good little fanboy, I stopped listening to their music and pretty much all Metal. Which was fine with me. I sold all my Metal CD's and got rid of all my Metal memorabilia. I certainly didn't miss it. I'd hear it every once in a while and enjoy the occasional tune but if anyone asked about my musical tastes, I would tell them about Reel Big Fish and Suburban Legends, not mentioning my head-banging (you're goddamn right I hyphenated that shit!) past. Not at all Metal.

It was only a matter of time before the dark side took me back. With a recent combination of becoming friends with a renewed metalhead, watching a little too much VH1 classic and becoming obsessed with Guitar Hero (the greatest game of the last 8 years), I am officially back on the Crazy Train. I've been scouring the web, looking for Metal and nearly jizzed (how in the hell is this not a correctly spelled word?) myself with delight when I found a Iron Maiden Anthology torrent. Since downloading that a nearly a week ago, I have listened to nothing else. In fact, as I'm typing this, "Can I Play with Madness?" is thrashing throughout my eardrums, reminding me of simpler times. So very Metal.

I'm still a bit mad at Metallica for all the years I've wasted not being Metal, but let's be honest. In the free music war, they lost, BIG time. I haven't paid for music in a long time, which is totally Metal.

So to those of you who once were like me, I'm calling you back. Pull the black leather out of the closet, loosen up your neck and throw your pointer and pinky high in the air, lightly gripping the remaining fingers against your palm with your thumb. Why? Because Satan is coming for you. And he's breakin' the law while he's running to the hill. And what is that in his hand? Why it's the Ace of Spades. When he gets there, you should probably shout at him.

Metal.

Nobody puts Baby in a Corner.

It turns out I'm going to be really bad at being a Dad. I certainly had my suspicions, being an idiot and all, but my fears of doing a horrible job raising my offspring were confirmed tonight.

Jenny and I were out with our friends having a nice dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. I was having the steak, shrimp and lobster combo because that's what you get when you go to a Japanese steakhouse. Our friend ordered the chicken so I mocked her for a while. It's a "steak"house. Gotta get the steak. And if they want to combo that up with assorted shellfish, who am I to complain?

Anyways, we're having a nice dinner and between bites we were talking about the forthcoming baby and its impending nighttime crying schedule. Our friends, having experience with their own children, informed Jen and I that the first few months would be quite non conducive to sleep what with the baby crying all throughout the night. We were talking about what would make a baby cry and what should be done. Our friends informed us it could be a assortment of ailments but sometimes a baby will just cry through the night for no apparent reason. I said "Well, if the baby just wants to cry, I'll just put it in the closet for a while."

This was the wrong thing to say.

Not only did our friends immediately stop eating and talking to stare me down, not only did Jen stop eating and talking to stare me down, but the Chef who had just finished cooking our meal and was cleaning the table stopped what he was doing to join the stare that the others at the table were now partaking of.

"What?", I said.

"You can't put the baby in a closet! What kind of monster are you?" said one of my friends.

"Why not?" I said. "It's a very nice closet."

"It doesn't matter if it's nice. You can't put your baby in the closet! That's child abuse!"

"How is that child abuse? It's a walk in closet with lights and a vent and carpeting."

At this point Jen chimes in, "You an idiot. The baby doesn't go in the closet."

If you know me, you know I love to argue. I'll even argue stupid ridiculous points just for the fun of arguing. But I really thought I was right on this one. I pointed out how I didn't want to put the baby in another room's closet or even another room! This closet isn't 5 feet from our bed. We would have easy access to the baby at all times, there would just be a sound blocking door between us. Besides, it's not like I want to put the baby in there all the time, just when it's crying and Jen and I need some sleep. And like I said, it's a very nice closet.

At this point the Chef shook his head and left, probably to go tell his buddies in the back about the idiot who's going to put his baby in a closet.

My wife and our friends honestly couldn't believe that I was arguing this. At one point Jen told our friends that I was joking and I do these kind of things to get a rise out of people. I told them all that while it is true I like to get a rise out of people, I was 100% serious that I thought and continue to think this is a good idea.

Turns out I'm a child abusing monster.

The next day, I asked a lot of different people at work what they thought of my idea. To a person, I got the same response from my co-workers that I got from my wife and friends. The one that really hurt was when I asked this guy Thomas who I consider to be quite the douchebag when it comes to his kids and even he agreed with the masses. I'm a horrible person, I'm going to be a horrible parent and I should probably do the kid a favor and die now.

I still can't understand what is wrong with putting a crying baby in a well ventilated, carpeted, lighted closet?! I'm asking you, as my blog readers, is there anyone out there who thinks this is ok? Or am I doomed to destroy my baby's life? Let me know.

PS - For some reason, everyone I talked to had no problem with me sleeping in the closet. Just not the baby.

PPS - I really don't care what anyone tells me. It's my baby and that crying little shit is going in the closet.