We Sold Our Souls For Rock and Roll

I posted this you tube video of 'The Guitar Duel' from the movie 'Crossroads' (not the lame Britney Spears movie, it's the lame Ralph Macchio movie) on a blog I share with my fellow bus riders. Its a movie about a kid that is looking for a lost Robert Johnson song and runs into an old blues man that sold his soul to the devil at the crossroad in exchange for fame, which didn't turn out the way he had planned.

Anyway it got me thinking about some of the deals the devil has made and how he has sort of gotten cheap these days.

1. The Rolling Stones
I think the best deal ever brokered with the devil was the Rolling Stones. They have had lots of hits even after they lost Brian Jones in a swimming pool accident. I suspect that Keith Richards may have already died and is a zombie now. But for the most part they are still making money.

2. Elvis
I think Elvis got too good of a deal. Most rock stars die before they get old and fat. It may actually have been by the mercy of God that Elvis was taken when he was.

3. The Doors
The Doors got a pretty fair deal. Jim Morrison stayed alive long enough to finish up his good music. He was just starting into the fat bearded days. His last album L.A. Woman had some great songs on it. I think if he would have done one more album it wouldn't have been as good.

4. The Who
They had a pretty good career they recorded 8 studio albums before losing Keith Moon in his sleep after an overdose of Heminevrin (a medication prescribed to him to combat alcohol withdrawal symptoms)

5. Led Zeppelin
Zeppelin were very successful from 1969 until 1980 when John Bonham died. The cause of death was asphyxiation from vomit. 11 years, I'd say they got a pretty good deal.

6. Jimi Hendrix
From 1967-1970 Jimi Hedrix created some of them most incredible guitar music ever made. In 1970 he drowned on his own vomit which contained mostly red wine. Not a long career, but he definitely got his souls worth out of the deal.

7. Bad Finger
They had a good amount of success from 1969 until 1975 when Pete Ham hanged himself in his garage studio and in 1983 Tom Evans hanged himself in the garden - both were over issues of money they were owed but never got. I think this was the begining of the devils bad deals.

8. Nirvana
They reigned in the grunge movement and ruled the airwaves from 1989 until 1994 when Kurt Cobain shot himself with a Shotgun. 5 years is a pretty short run. I think Cobain got the bad end of that deal. On the bright side Dave Grohl has had a great career with the Foo Fighters.

9. Blind Melon
Formed in 1991 and recorded 2 albums before Shannon Hoon died in 1995 after an all-night cocaine binge. He was found dead on the tour bus by his roadies. I'd say not a very good deal with the devil.

10. Sublime
This is the worst deal ever. The band recorded 3 albums between 1992 and 1996. Lead singer Bradley Nowell died of heroin overdose on May 25, 1996 in a hotel room, just two months before the release of their self-titled third record, which became hugely successful. He didn't get to enjoy and fame or fortune.

So while making deals with the devil was all the rage in the 60's and 70's, it's not the lucrative business it once was. If you are even considering making such a deal I would suggest you get a real good attorney. Also you may want to add an extra guy to that band that is expendable. Like they do in landing parties on Star Trek.

Most of the information found here came from Wikipedia and a little hard work.

One thing I meant to mention, Robert Johnson (the original soul seller) was poisoned in a Juke Joint by the husband of a woman he was flirting with there.

Video Game Blame

** Production has begun on DOOM 4™ **

Sometimes I poke fun at video games by blaming things on them. Incase the sarcasm is missed, I just wanted to clarify my opinion on video games.

When I was 3 years old the game pong was released originally as a coin-operated arcade game by Atari Inc. It was on November 29, 1972.

Then came the Atari 2600 home video game console. I spent a lot of my hard earned money on games with big square pixelated games.

When I was in grade school I got my first computer. It was a little TRS-80 that attached to your TV set and had tiny little keys. I would by computer magazines that would list programming code in it. I would spend all day long typing in the code. Then I would debug it. Then if I was lucky It would work and I could play the game I spent all day typing into it. I would do that the rest of the day. Then, because I had no storage when I turned off the computer the game would be gone. I finally got a tape recorder that would save the program to audio casette. I went through a ti-99, Atari 800XL, IBM XT, Windows 3.1, 98, NT, XP. I ended up being a computer programmer.

I remember when the video game Doom came out. It was a very cool game. My buddy and I would play over the modem together. We even made our own levels. It still is a cool game.

When the Columbine High murders happened news outlets made sure to mention that the killers were fans of playing Doom. Since then it seems like a lot of people blame video games for everything wrong with society.

That is why I joke around and blame video games for all our woes.

I promise video games are not inherently evil. They don't create killers. I played video games all my life and I have never hurt anybody.

Gym Class / Running in the Halls

When I was in High School I thought it was lame that gym was a required class. I used to think that the district was overstepping their authority by making me take it. They want to make sure I get enough exercise? Who is watching their exercise? Next thing they will want to make sure I am eating right too. Oh wait they did do that as well. With the school lunch/breakfast programs and it seems like someone was always trying to replace the candy in the vending machines with healthy snacks.

After I got home from school I would hangout with my friends. We played basketball, football, Frisbee, tennis, skateboarding, biking and ran a lot to get away when we pulled pranks or threw water balloons at cars.

Now I think kids get home from school and either sit in front of the computer, the television, the video game console or maybe even do homework.

Because of this I have changed my mind about gym being a required class. Not only should gym be required, I would take it even further and suggest that they encourage kids to run in the halls. That would give a kid 9 times a day to get a little cardiovascular workout. Students and Faculty would probably have to wear helmets and pads to avoid injury, but I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

But remember no "Running With Scissors".

Uppercase and the Upper Class

i went to my daughters kindergarten orientation tonight. they gave us hints of things we could do to prepare our children for school. one of the things they said was not to teach your kid to right their names all in one case.

it made me wonder why we even have capital letters and small letters. whats the point? the only real reason is to show that something is important. like a persons name or the title of something. i think they were created by someone who needed to feel important.

look at the states, the most important city in the state is the capitol city. the 'most important' letters are capitals.

capital letters are stuck-up. they think they are better than the lowercase letters. i bet if you were a lowercase letter that was attracted to an uppercase letter its parents would disapprove of you. they probably wouldn't let their uppercase progeny date a lowercaser.

if you are a lowercase letter you come from the wrong side of the sentence. lowercase is equal to lower class. uppercase is equal to upper class. its the whole caste system in linguistics.

i think the time has come to streamline the alphabet by doing away with capital letters. capitalism was a great system in its hay day, but i think its time to overthrow the uppercase.

power to the people.

Hey, Teacher. Leave Us Kids Alone.

I remember from first grade an experience that still bothers me today. My teacher had me go to the other first grade teachers coat closet to find my coat. While I was in there I bump a box of wood blocks and one fell on the floor. The teacher yelled at me and made me sit in the corner of her classroom. I felt so wronged.

Well the kids nowadays don't take that kind of crap from teachers anymore. They organize.

In WAYCROSS, GA nine students who were mad at their teacher planned to get even with her. They brought in a broken steak knife, a crystal paper weight, toy handcuffs, several items and tape and stuff.

She must have really made the kids upset for them to actually plan out an attack and then actually bring the stuff to do it.

While I am not condoning violence, I think there is a lesson to be learned here.

Jesus said, "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).

I think it was a parable and he really meant "its better to be drowned in the depths of the sea than to have the kids hit you on the head with a paper weight, handcuff you and stab you with a broken steak knife.

It could just be that these were troubled kids anyway that have a distorted sense of reality. Probably from playing too many video games and listening to too much heavy metal and I am sure TV violence is in there somewhere. Maybe they weren't held enough as babies, or maybe held too much and of course the video games, video games, video games.

VIOLENCE IS NEVER THE ANSWER!!! Besides, that first grade teacher who scarred me for life is already dead. She seemed ancient when i was in school. She must have been a hundred when she finally died. Guess the devil was afraid of her too.

Here are some non-violent ways to get back at your teacher, because jail is a scary place for kids. Almost as scary as the FLDS compound.

Shade Hall, A Member of Mrs. Wolfe's 4th Grade Class at Wiggin Street School came up with these ideas:

1.) Follow her or him around. This bugs my teacher because you're supposed to be getting your work done, but you're not.

2.) Interrupt the teacher during math class, while she is teaching you another way to subtract, you could yell out "This is boring!"

3.) Walk around when class is going on. This bugs your teacher because you are supposed to be doing work.

4.) When your teacher tells you to get your stuff don't get it. Instead get it in class.

5.) Talk. Don't do any work.

6.) Ask to go to the restroom every five seconds. Your teacher will get mad because you are not doing work.

7.) Pretend you are sick for a long time, and if you don't get caught for a year, go on the last day so you get your report card.

8.) Pull all the books off the shelves. This bugs my teacher because if she does not catch you, she has to pick it up.

9.) Sleep during class. I have never done this because it is always noisy.

10.) Run in the class room. This really bugs my teacher. I wrote this book because all this stuff really bugs my teacher.