The 35th Precinct

Two hundred and forty-nine words today.

I happened to flip on the Grammys and catch Metallica playing "One" with classical pianist Lang Lang. I was skeptical because those are two things should not go together. There were moments when it sounded like a Metallica CD trying to drown out the mood music from your grandma's upstairs canasta party, but by and large, it worked. Lang Lang and the band had obvious chemistry, and it was clear that everyone was feeling their oats and having fun. James even busted out his old voice for the denouement.

But James, listen. You'll always be James Hetfield, King Shit in the mightiest band on earth, but you're old, ancient in rock terms. It's just a fact of life. Hell, your first-wave fans are in their fifties. There's no shame in being old when you shit gold. So be old and stop trying to deny your age by trying to be punk.

"Seek and Destroy"



( Three More Examples of Greatness )

Best touring band in the world, and perhaps the best band in the world. I'll stop now before Livejournal chokes on the magnitude of awesomeness.

Apparently, Load and Reload-era Metallica makes for great ficcing music, particularly when writing steamy, near-kisses. Who knew?

People bag on Load and Reload as shameless, money-grubbing departures from their thrash roots, and I can't deny that Lars Ulrich is a trend-hopping businessman in nut-hugging workout shorts and a powder-blue bathrobe(I'll never, ever bleach that moment from my brain), but I love them. "Until It Sleeps" is raw pain exposed, and "Bleeding Me" is probably one of the least-appreciated great rock songs. Hammett's solo is breathtaking, and the lyrics captured so much of my teenage angst. Most young people feel caught under the crushing wheels of their lives, but for me, the metaphor was quite literal. I was chained to the wheels under my ass, and one by one, my ambitions were crushed beneath them. My horizons expanded once I was beyond my mother's panicky grip and could spread my weak and hobbled wings, but the memory of such all-encompassing helplessness is never far and returns full bore each time my body betrays me.

So, I cherish these records as priceless moments of personal zeitgeist, when I was struggling to define myself beyond the stifling parameters of my disability. Are they their best albums? No. That would be Master of Puppets. But those records let me be angry when the rest of the world was telling me that I had no right to be, that I should be grateful to be alive, and not complain about all the small, quiet pleasures of the world that my disability routinely denies or impedes--sex, physical comfort, personal physical autonomy, the right to decide for myself if I need to use the toilet, the simple dignity afforded by having one's words considered on the same scale as everyone else and not magnified or diminished by the fact that I spoke them, freedom from terror at every stair or curb cut or broken accessible toilet. Metallica told me it was okay to think these things were unfair, and that it was okay to be pissed about it. And more importantly, to say so. Metallica sang for me when I couldn't make myself heard.

And at the same time, they helped me forget my anger and dream of a better time, and for that, I will always be grateful. Because of that, I will periodically listen to the albums that so many fans hate and find hope and a safe place for my anger.

They might not be my favorite band anymore--Rammstein has stolen my heart--but they will always be the most important, and for a few hours last night, I remembered it.

~cranks Death Magnetic~

You know that episode of Beavis and Butt-Head where Pantera's "Five Minutes Alone" comes on and Beavis scoots up to the TV, cranks the volume to fifty, and screams, "Yeah! Yeah! Now my eyes AND my ears hurt!"?

That would be me with my shiny, new Metallica CD. I bought it yesterday for five bucks at Hot Topic, and the sacred music it hasn't left my ears since then. I'm gobsmacked and giddy and over the moon, and though I haven't headbanged in years for fear of giving myself brain damage and making a lucky orthopedic surgeon wealthy beyond reckoning, I'm tempted to headbang myself into a neck brace. At least until I flip the chair backwards and stare at the bedroom ceiling like a pole-axed turkey watching the blade come down on my exposed gobbler.

Oh, my GOD. It's so crunchy and good and just clubs you in the face. It's as though they finally realized that you don't need to become a nostalgic lounge act because you've passed forty or because there are little people in the world who call you "Daddy." Load and Re-Load were great records; I certainly don't mean they were dreadful because the first chord wouldn't turn an amp to to so much plastic powder. In fact, "Bleeding Me" is one of the best Metallica songs ever.

But aside from "Frantic" and "Some Kind of Monster", St. Anger was a piece of self-indulgent, James-pandering swill. After that festering clot of purportedly deep but merely rank "creative" mung, I was among those who'd pulled out the spade and was ready to inter them on Has-Been Hill. Not without many tears and an abiding respect and gratitude for all they'd given my angsty, angry teenage years, mind, but with a steady hand and the surety that dead was dead.

Allow me to dust you off, sirs, and forgive me my faithlessness. Your crown, sirs?

Death Magnetic marries the technical polish of Metallica with the grinding roar and shameless bombast of ...And Justice for All and Master of Puppets. The lyrics are often brutally simple, but the arrangements are complex, alternating between thudding, tap-dance-on-your-ass riffs and soaring, wah-wah pedal-humping solos. Several songs feature abrupt tempo changes that are flawless in their execution. The changes in "All Nightmare Long", "Cyanide", and "Suicide and Redemption" are my favorites. The latter is an instrumental, by the by, the first since "To Live Is to Die" on ...Justice, and it's gorgeous.

I've listened to it obsessively for a day and a half, and I've yet to choose a favorite. "The Day That Never Comes", "All Nightmare Long", "Cyanide", and "Bruised, Beat, and Scarred" jockey for the crown depending on my mood.

Judas lives
Recite this vow
I've become your new god now--"Judas Kiss"

Vintage Metallica. No. Not just vintage Metallica. Vintage fucking Metallica.

Hallemotherfuckinglujah.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to headbang naked.

Eons ago, I wrote a handful of Metallica song parodies, and tonight, in a fit of nostalgia, I went looking for them. Miraculously, I found them. I wrote them in late '95 and early '96. Kirk Hammett was so impressed with "King Geezer" and "Until It Starts" that he taped them to the studio wall during the recording of Reload. He also asked what drugs I was taking and if he could borrow some.

So, preserved for posterity, here are my song parodies.

Ripping Dress(Creeping Death)

( Ripping Dress )




( Until It Starts )



( King Geezer )