Chapter 9: The Reunion Tour

The fire never goes out and I know this. Here is my reunion tour already. I said I was done with the Last Day on Earth but of course I'm not really. My new idea is to create audio video blogs with no words. Just short music and video clips. I'm still going to do it but I haven't had the time to get them together yet. It will take a bit more effort than just writing blogs(crap!! I hate that word!!) but it will be a whole new landscape. For now..Let's have a reunion tour. It's a joke that might only be funny to me but you know when so many bands break up and everybody gets bummed out then they just come back in a year or so. That's what's happening with this project..it just keeps going..Like Rob Santello said, "There is no final chapter." Its true but I feel good about putting the last chapter in that context, for some reason it makes sense and now we can all enjoy the reunion tour.

While we are on the subject this directly relates to one of my annoying tendencies. I always want to be done..I want to sit back and sigh and say, "alright that was good, let's just chill out now." Laziness? Yes, you've got it. A little laziness is ok but it can really screw things up at times.. I mean there truly is no rest for the wicked..We are always creating and living even in our sleeping dreams. Some part of me wants to just shut it all off for a while. I don't really know what that means??? I mean,, shut what off??? I guess I'm just ventilating my wacky ideas and thoughts here most of which don't make any sense…or maybe they do. The reunion tour rocks on.

Tonight was a pretty awesome night… but I have to give a little back story for perspective so you can feel the impact. DJ is another good friend of the Souls who has been working as a stage/guitar tech and keyboard player for a while now. He has organized his own soccer team that plays all year round in an adult league which has a summer season and a winter indoor season. The name of the team is Jersey Shore FC and they are totally the Bad News Bears. They have only won one game in seven seasons and DJ wasn't even there when they won the game. He was on tour with the Souls. To his credit he has kept the team going loss after loss after loss. He just loves to play. Whenever I can, I go and play on the team. I love to play soccer and I'm pretty good. I'm not much of a watcher and supporter of the pro leagues but I love to play. It was one of my first passions in life so it will always be dear to my heart. I would spend hours in the backyard juggling a soccer ball just to see how many times I could keep it up. It was a challenge I created on my own time and could set my own pace with.

Tonight was a great moment for the Jersey shore FC who have lobsters and mermaids on their uniform logo by the way. There were a few new players that showed up and a guy who never played goalie in his life played a great game. The goalie definitely gets.."The Budweiser Player of the Game Award!!" He truly did amazingly for someone who never played goalie. The team we played wasn't amazing but they had some good players and it was a great game. You have to keep in mind every other time I have played with the JSFC its pretty much target practice. Tonight it was a glorius battle full of drama and great moments from beginnig to end. Everybody played great. We really played like a team even though only a few people knew each other. Another big difference from past games was we had a lot of substitutes so we all could rotate in and out to get a little rest. In the end the JSFC won their second game 4-3. It was awesome. I assisted the winning goal and made some pretty good plays on defense too. JSFC stands at 1 win and 1 loss two games into the winter season. Anything is possible.

Since I mentioned Rob Santello..You all should check out his recent poetry/blogs. I love them. For those of you who are interested, Rob has been a good friend and inspiration in the life of the Bouncing Souls for many years. He was one of the first tour manager/merch people we ever had. He wrote a book that was released through Chunksaaah records documenting a lot of his experience while touring with the BS in the early days. Check out some of his blogs @:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=48458677&Mytoken=7C4689CE-B016-4022-92D3C82CE04D650049337441

His book is called: "Bloodclots in the Mainstream"

I didn't think I was going to write anymore for a while..especially about soccer but that just goes to show..you never know. Anything and everything is interesting depending on how you see it and when inspiration strikes you've got to run with it. I'm still learning/constantly reminding myself that life is about how you see it. It's about developing your own perspective. Without that, we really feel lost in some sort of not so tasty sauce. Here is a message I received that really strikes a chord on the subject..I was so refreshingly knocked out by this message from Nicole:

Its funny how life has a way about her of bringing certain things to you right when you need to stumble upon them...kind of like she's aware of what you're ready to be receptive to.

Im a pretty long winded, analytical person and I find comfort in words. Be they my own words or the words of others. Ever since I was 13 tagging along to sweaty shows in dingy, smelly venues across Southern California, music has been a key element in my personal and social growth. It's been a long road, but along the way I've learned to separate my self and my own ideals from the things I've learned through music. Ive learned that it takes more effort than simply listening to other people, that you still have to forge your own values and work on keeping your own conscience clear and karma good... Ive come up with a mantra that I thing sums it up pretty well "Its one thing to sing along and bob your head to the lyrics and music of others, but its a far different thing to actually live your own philosophy".

In the transitional phase that I find myself in its become apparent to me that so many people use music and other artistic expressions of other people to create their own identity. We subscribe to them, carry them around like flags to let people know who we are...how we think and what we identify with....like brownie badges of social acceptance. I belong to something because as evidenced by the Sick of It All shirt Im wearing. . . Its sort of a ridiculous contradiction of sorts if you really consider it. "I listen to punk rock music, therefore I am punk rock...whatever that means.... Jello Biafra tells me that the system is corrupt and so therefore I must believe it to be so and march around waving my middle finger in the air at the social majority which I so abbhor". We do it because we're supposed to do it, but do we even know WHY? When do we finally start to accept responsibility for our own ideals and start to ask ourselves what is corrupt? How did it get that way and what can I do to change it?

I think so much of our lives we are trying so hard to "be" something, to live up to a particular image which we have decided defines ourselves...but in the process we forget to allow ourselves to find out any real truth about the person we really are deep down inside that facade. For whatever reason I've realized this year that the person I had become as perceived by other people (and even myself) is really nothing more than one defense mechanism stacked up after another. For the first time in my life I can admit how exhausting it is to maintain all of those walls constructed around the truth that is really Nicole.

To have you articulate your need for love and acceptance, to have you acknowledge that no matter how many thousands of people offered you those things, none of it mattered because you didnt love and accept yourself? It knocked the wind out of me with its relatability. Im on a path of self discovery. And in this time I've referred back to so many records that I've wrapped around myself like an old familiar sweater. How many breakups have bands like the Descendents and the Bouncing Souls seen me through? How many social winters have I pulled out that old sweater to protect me from the lonely cold and indifference? I'd listen to Kids and Heroes on repeat like it was vegan chicken noodle soup for the soul...and feel like "SOMEONE FINALLY GETS IT!!" To know that someone on the other end of those lyrics which had helped to form my own identity can still be going through his own version of self discovery? It validates things on a whole other level. We are all a work in progress. Even the people who seem like they're light years beyond ourselves. . . There is a time in every adults life where you have to realize that the shit your parents, or "the system" or [insert crutch here] put you through is no longer an acceptable excuse to be an asshole. You're an individual and its time to accept responsibility for who you are. Jack Nicholson's character in the Departed said it best "I dont want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me". WORD!

On the pyramid of needs outlined by Maslow, the need for security and love and acceptance are the second and third tiers- only after basic human needs like food and water...acceptance of ourselves can only be reached once we've acquired those things from other people first. But some of us get stuck on the second and third rungs...we dont know how to pull ourselves onto the next. We dont know how to accept ourselves. At the top is self actualization. I think that for me, self actualization would be to finally see myself as who I am - without superficial banners to wave around proclaiming who that is to the rest of the world. To know myself and finally love and accept who that is? That would be a real step towards enlightenment. It seems so far away....

Thank you for the words you've shared with so many of us fucked up suburban punk kids throughout our lives. Without those words, a lot of us wouldnt even know who we are. How heavy is that?

;)

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=13484441