A Very Metallic 2008 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As 2008 draws to a close, I thought I'd recap what has been my most metallic year ever. Some of you may remember an April 08 blog titled "Commitment" where I listed three goals for 2008: go to as many shows as possible, get a tattoo sleeve and finish my book. Well, I made two out of three - the book, sadly, is not going anywhere but that's okay.

This was, in many ways, an amazing year for me. I went on two amazing adventures with my best buddy Norma (Iron Maiden and Ozzfest) and watched her transform from a quiet suburban mom into an ass-kicking, hard-rocking MMA super hero. I got my Project Management Professional certification, which was a surreal endeavor in jamming my brain full of facts it did not want. I made some new music and am looking forward to making even more. Most importantly, I made a lot of new friends this year - for the first time since being a teenager, I have a social network of my own. For that I am very grateful.

My plans for '09:
1. Have at least one or two adventures with Norma. Plane flights are cheap, my dear - where are we going and who should be scared?
2. Go to as many shows as possible/play as much as possible with Drifter
3. Continue to make music with Tony Bracaglia and Poseidon's Anger
4. Develop my more aggressive vocal style and implement it
5. Learn Swedish
6. Implement my PMP skills and improve my standing at my job
7. Take a Krav Maga course, maybe get a personal trainer
8. Brush up on my standard transmission and large vehicle driving skills

I thought it would be fun to list all the shows I attended in 2008. I wrote down all the bands where I could remember them - some shows I only cared about one band and subsequently don't remember the others. Sorry guys. My memory is only so good. I have only one regret - not staying for Infernaeon in August. I got their CD in Sept and it fucking rules. I'll catch them in '09!

SKULLGAL'S METALLIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS of 2008
Jan 4: Soilent Green at Red 7, Austin
Jan 26: Arsis, Warbringer, Goatwhore, Exodus at White Rabbit, San Antonio
Feb 29: Goatwhore at Red 7, Austin
March 2: Averse Sefira, Immolation, Rotting Christ, Belphegor at The Meridian, Houston
March 14: 1349 and Enslaved twice in one day in Austin (for SXSW - some outdoor shithole and Red 7)
April 4: Sarcolytic at Room 710, Austin
April 10: Toxic Holocaust, Skeletonwitch, Soilent Green, Hate Eternal at White Rabbit, San Antonio
April 11: Drifter at River City Bike Fest, San Antonio
April 12: HOD at Red 7, Austin
May 2: Drifter at Room 710, Austin
May 8: Drifter at Rock City Ice House, Austin
May 18: HOD, Light This City, Soilent Green, Death Angel, God Forbid at Rock Bottom Bar, San Antonio
May 21: Iron Maiden at Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre, San Antonio
Jun 20: Iron Maiden at Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA
June 29: Possessed, Sadistik Intent at Red 7, Austin
July 6: Soilent Green, Chimiara, Dethklok at Austin Music Hall
July 26: Drifter at FBI #1, Houston
Aug 2: Drifter at Room 710, Austin
Aug 9: Ozzfest in Dallas (only bands that mattered to me: Goatwhore, Soilent Green, Ozzy, Metallica)
Aug 12: Soilent Green, Scum of the Earth, Kingdom of Sorrow at Red 7, Austin
Aug 15: Drifter at O'Rileys, Dallas
Aug 16: Disfigured, HOD, Rigor Mortis at Room 710, Austin
Aug 19: Disfigured, Manifestation, Infernaeon at Red 7, Austin
Aug 24: Testament, Motorhead, Heaven and Hell, Judas Priest at Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre, San Antonio
Sept 5: Drifter at Room 710, Austin
Sept 13: MOD at Room 710, Austin
Sept 15: 1349, Carcass, Aborted, Suffocation, Sarcolytic, Disfgured at Emos, Austin
Sept 26: Insecticide at Bonds 007, San Antonio
Sept 27: Drifter, Sad Wings, TMA, Suicide Solution at Red Eyed Fly, Austin
Oct 11: Nodens, HOD, Averse Sefira at Room 710, Austin
Oct 17: Nachtmystium, Vesperian Sorrow, Wolves in the Throne Room at Red 7, Austin
Oct 24: Watain, Ritual Killer, Withered at Walters on Washington, Houston
Oct 25: Watain, Ritual Killer, Withered, Sarcolytic at Red 7, Austin
Oct 31: Suicide Solution at Red Eyed Fly, Austin
Nov 7: Cro-Mags at Rock Bottom Bar, San Antonio
Nov 8: Dangerous Toys at Red Eyed Fly, Austin
Nov 21: Goatwhore, TMA at Ridgelea Theater in Fort Worth
Nov 29: Gojira, In Flames at La Zona Rosa, Austin
Dec 5: Capricorn USA, Drifter, Sad Wings at Room 710, Austin
Dec 6: Brujeria at Red 7, Austin
Dec 19: Broken Teeth at Room 710, Austin
Dec 20: HOD at Room 710, Austin

2009 will bring many lovely metallic presents including the release of HOD's first full length, the Maryland Death Fest, a new Rigor Mortis CD and a new Goatwhore CD. I can't wait... this is going to be another amazing year, I can just tell.

Many thanks to all you who read my silly rants. See you in the pit!

No Fury for Xmas

I quit Fury yesterday. Just wasn't working out. One of those things.

The experience was good and the demo tracks we did were fun. I wish we could have played a live show but, eh... just wasn't meant to be.

Onto other things:
Tony Bracagila - check out "Live By The Sword" on his page. Am working on two new songs as well.

Chris Clark of Poseidon's Anger and I just did a theme song for the Rocky Mountain Rage hockey team. I don't know if they'll use it - sure would be nice. It's a fun song, kind of like "Rock and Roller Derby" from Ignitor. If Chris is cool with me posting it I'll put it up here and on my website for ya'll to listen.

If you've never heard the track I did for Chris, it's "Ching Shih" on his myspace.

And of course, Drifter continues to kick ass around Texas bringing our version of Iron Maiden to the hungry masses.

I've got other projects in the works as well. All in all, it's been a VERY metal year.

Wishing you all the merriest of Christmases, or at least an enjoyable evening if you don't celebrate the coming ol' Saint Nick.

Project Management - Even in Metal!

Yesterday, I passed my project management professional exam. It was a 4 hour, 200 question multiple choice exam. Yours truly hasn't taken a test that actually counted towards something in 17 years, so this was a big deal! PMP certification is highly regarded in the professional world as it is a set of rigorous standards and methodologies that require more than just book learnin' to implement.

Project management is called "the accidental profession." No one really ever sets out to become a PM. You kind of just discover yourself doing it one day (like I did). Many PMs are what I call "instinctual PMs" - people who are natural organizers and leaders. They might not have PMP after their name but they're a project management professional nonetheless. The metal community is full of them. For a long time I've been wanting to recognize all the "accidental metal PMPs" out there... here goes.

Hats off to the tour managers, the band leaders, the management reps, the label owners with vision. You are the guys and girls who keep the ship floating when it looks like it will sink, keep it steaming in the right direction - towards that next tour destination or album or video. You're the folks who step up when everything is chaotic and calm everyone, smooth ruffled feathers and find a way to gain agreement on something when it seems impossible. You're the ones who remember to print hoodies for that winter tour and to make sure you have a shovel at hand in case you must dig your way into the venue for load in. You sometimes sacrifice fun to be responsible and make sure the needed things get done. People follow and trust and respect you because of your proven success and positive conduct. You work hard, you have vision, and you share that vision. You are masters at your craft and some of you don't make jack shit for all your extraordinary skill but you keep doing it anyway. You do it for the love of it, the passion we in the metal community feel for our music.

So let's be thankful to all those folks who are initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling and closing those metal projects: albums, tours, merch runs, videos, festivals, shows. You make the hard work look easy. Cheers to you all!

Signed,
Skullgal, PMP and now officially certified dork!

Pop Goes the Weasel Part II

Otherwise known as The Great Debate About My TMJ Problems.

Some of you faithful will remember about 1 year ago I explored treatment options for my bothersome TMJ dysfunction. My jaw was clicking and popping a lot. Very annoying and sometimes startling because of the gunshot-like sound. Options ranged from "Do nothing, maybe it will stabilize" to "Cut your face into 4 pieces and bolt it back together and even then you might not be fixed."

I weighed my options and chose to wear my already paid-for mouthguard, which I lovingly refer to as "The Droolinator." It seemed to help at first.

Now, after a year of saliva-sodden pillowcases, my TMJ is three to four times WORSE than it was when I got my consults. The manipulations during the consults taught me about jaw locking... I don't ever remember it happening before, but after the dentists set my jaw in a specific position, I realized, yes, indeed - at certain times, I cannot open my mouth more than a centimeter. If I try to force it, it hurts in a coldly sick bone-on-bone way.

Now, my jaw is locked every morning when I wake. It takes me between 30 seconds and 5 minutes to figure out how to unlock it without it making a sound like a .22 pistol. Jaw also locks up or gets stuck while singing. That never happened before. Horrible sounds like crunching gravel come from my left TMJ at times. At a Drifter show in September it happened - so loud I heard it over the stage blast. Scared the shit out of me. I'm waiting for it to crunch then snap in two - probably at a show, since singing seems to be a major aggravation.

YET... I still have no pain as long as I don't force the joint. No headaches, neckaches, no unusual tinnitus (other than the minor ringing I have from 25 years of listening to metal). Maybe a slight feeling of fullness on the left side but only if I really listen hard to that part of my face.

So... I debate. It's not painful but it's not right, either. Pretty much every jaw-related movement I do requires a circular "unlock" motion at the start to get that bone back on the condoyle properly. I cant my jaw to the right when speaking to keep from getting stuck behind the condoyle and I think it makes me look like a douche when I talk.

TMJ dysfunction is poorly understood. Insurance companies won't pay for treatment because neither the syndrome nor the treatments are proven. Anything surgical has a mortifyingly high failure rate (85%). My symptoms don't immediately call for alarm because of the lack of pain. But I wonder... how long before I finally rub a hole in that cartilage pad and start grinding bone on bone? Then there will be pain, and it will be severe.

The last two days I did not wear The Droolinator. Locking was minimal in the morning. Perhaps my condition has evolved to a stage where the mouthguard now harms instead of helps.

It's a gamble. I'm not even 37 so I have at least 35-40 more years of quality time with this malfunctioning joint. Do I wait until it hurts? Do I hinge-unhinge 20 times a day while medical science encounters this enough to determine an effective treatment plan? Or do I bite the bullet (not literally, that would make me lock up!) and start down the path of a new mouthguard, then TENS treatment to tighten stretched muscles... all at a cost of thousands of dollars with NO GUARANTEE OF IMPROVEMENT?

I can't decide. But since I know you all like reading about the slow destruction of my body, I figured I would share.

Happy Holidays everybody! I'll be posting some music related thinks and thunks after Christmas when I have some time off.

Appropriate

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Ceremony of Opposites

Sometimes my life strikes me as profoundly absurd.

I spent yesterday (and the day before that and the day before that times 10) studying for my Project Management Professional exam. What goes in to a project management plan, earned value analysis, stakeholder management, the difference between quality assurance and quality control. Exciting shit. I'd rather carve out my eyes with a egg spoon. But getting the certification is important to me for some retarded reason.

When I was done studying, I met up with a friend and we spent 6 hours watching people go absolutely apeshit at a Brujeria show. During Brujeria's set, when all 4 vocalists were onstage screaming in Spanish and motherfuckers were flying through the air like some type of Cirque du Soleil gone mad, it hit me:

I'm just faking it. I'm not a professional. Professional people don't go places where folks are so drunk they stage dive into poles. They don't go places where a shirtless, sweating man wearing a Mexican flag bandanna over his mouth screams about drugs. And they especially don't go to those places and think things like "The project charter is external to the project team."

Absurd. My life is absurd. It is a hilarious ceremony of opposites and someday, my company is going to out me. I will be fired because they will have figured out that I am faking it.

And now, back to studying so I can still be fake AND have PMP-certified after my name on my business cards...

I'll leave you with a Brujeria video that trumps Saturday's show, but we had a couple guys like the diver at 1:35... enjoy!