southsamurai

Brand new to me, never heard the band before. But I'll be deep diving for sure

No, the title isn't a typo.

Really, it isn't

The ocean breeze must have picked up and turned those sand dunes into a sand storm

Gaht dayum! That right there is some real shit.

March forth!

Not as heavy as the usual offerings here, but a decent track. The video is better than the song tbh, but the song is decent. Not their best, far from bottom tier musically.

There are many versions of this, some better or worse.

Once upon a time, there was a man who decided he wanted to get away for a bit. So his filled up his truck with gas and filled his motorcycle with gas and put it on the back of truck. So he gets in the truck  and he drives and he drives  and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives  and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives until he runs out of gas.

Then he takes the motorcycle off the motorcycle off the back of the truck and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides until the motorcycle runs out of gas.

So he gets off and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks until he can't walk anymore. He reaches a hotel and walks in to ask if he can have a room.

"Sure," says the manager, "but I have to tell you one thing." So they go into the living room where there's a table. He takes the candlesticks off the table, the chairs away from the table, the table off the rug, and the rug off the floor. There's a trapdoor there, which opens to reveal a long flight of steps.

So they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb until they're down the stairs. They're now in a long tunnel, so they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk  and they walk  and they walk  and they walk  and they walk until they reach a wooden door. He picks the key up off the floor, unlocks the door, opens the door, goes through the door, locks the door, and puts the key back on the floor.

And then they walk  and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk until they reach a metal door. He picks the key up off the floor, unlocks the door, opens the door, goes through the door, locks the door, and puts the key back on the floor. There are two green hills, so they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk over the two green hills. They finally reach a clearing with a table. On the table is a cage, and in the cage is a purple gorilla.

"Whatever you do," the manager says, "don't touch the purple gorilla." And so they turn around and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk and they walk over the two green hills. Then they reach the metal door. And do everything backwards. (Note: Keep telling it here to annoy people. I just don't feel like typing it.) So, the man is lying in his room later and thinks, "You know, I wonder why I'm not allowed to touch the purple gorilla."

So he goes into the living room. He takes the candlesticks off the table, the chairs away from the table, the table off the rug, and the rug off the floor. And he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs down the stairs and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks until he reaches the wooden door. He picks the key up off the floor, unlocks the door, opens the door, goes through the door, locks the door, and puts the key back on the floor. And then he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks until he reaches the metal door. He picks the key up off the floor, unlocks the door, opens the door, goes through the door, locks the door, and puts the key back on the floor. Then he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks over the two green hills until he reaches the purple gorilla.

He reaches in and pokes it. The gorilla starts going crazy in the cage. It starts thrashing about before suddenly breaking it open. So the man turns and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs over the two green hills. He reaches the metal door, and he picks the key up off the floor, unlocks the door, opens the door, goes through the door, closes the door, locks the door, and puts the key back on the floor. He starts walking away, thinking there's no way the gorilla can get through a metal door, before he hears a 'BOOM' behind him.

The gorilla broke down the door! So he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs until he reaches the wooden door. He pick the key up off the floor, unlocks the door, opens the door, and runs through it, figuring that the gorilla would be able to get through a wooden one. He runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs until he gets to the stairs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs and he climbs until he gets back to the living room. He slams the trapdoor shut, puts the rug on the floor, the table on the rug, the chairs up to the table, and the candlesticks on the table. He walks back to his room, hoping the gorilla wouldn't be able to get through. He goes in, and finds the purple gorilla in his room.

So he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs until he reaches his motorcycle, which has magically been refilled with gas. He gets on it and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides and he rides until he reaches his truck, which has also been magically refilled with gas.

He gets in the truck and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives until he runs out of gas. And he runs and runs and runs, with the gorilla still following... After a while, he starts to think, "This gorilla is going to chase me until I die. I might as well stop and let him catch me." So he slows down and comes to a stop, turning to face it. It still runs towards him, but slows down once it notices the man has stopped. Finally, it walks up to the man, taps his shoulder, and says, "You're it."

!try it. One means something adds up to an amount, the other means to wake up, and the emphasis is different between them!<

Not necessarily the best Alice ever, but pretty fucking good anyway

A bit less hard and heavy than the C/ usually goes, but pretty fucking good anyway

It's a true story. I was just reminded of part of it by a post elsewhere, and it got me thinking about the people involved and the impact it all had on me.

This seemed like a good place for it, even though it isn't really like most of the posts I see here.

Anyway.

Years and years ago, the 80s happened. I know that's hard to believe, but it did. Towards the end of it, a chain of events led to me meeting two people.

A friend of mine had the hots for this girl, a senior. We were sophomores.

That friend introduced us, and wouldn't you know it, we hit it off in the way my friend wished had happened for him. It was cool, just a bit sad for him.

This girl, it turns out, was into boys and girls. She introduced me to the person she was dating at that time. This person was, though we didn't know the terminology then, the first trans person I ever met. Now, he had been assigned female at birth, and back then said that he had been born intersex. Well, he called it something else, but I'm not going to use it here. Later on, he did say that that was more wishful thinking than reality, but that's not important.

Well, we hit it off as friends. Pretty damn good ones. Good enough to share the girl, both separately and together. The together part was really awkward and not fun for either me or him, but we made it work anyway.

Eventually, everyone realized it wasn't going to work as a three way partnership, and we were all okay with that. We stayed friends for years, with a handful of fun nights trying things out again just to see if it might be fun as we aged.

But that's not the real story.

See, in terms of me, the experimentation and self discovery wasn't just sexual. They changed me.

Before I met the girl, my familiarity with things sapphic was damn near only from erotica and skinemax movies. And I was woefully ignorant of anything else about what was then called LGB issues. I'd never met a gay guy that I knew of. Turns out I had, but they weren't out until much later.

My friends took me along to parties and places that I would never have been able to go on my own. Partially because I didn't know they existed, and partly because I was a sophomore when it all started. Your typical 15 year old isn't getting into gay bars and brunches and house parties.

But, under the aegis of these two 17 and 18 year olds, I was introduced to what did a good impression of the area's gay scene.

This meant that I was hanging out with folks of all ages, all persuasions, getting into bars and clubs and being accepted way before anyone else I knew was thinking it might be nice to go to bars and parties someday.

This may seem like a bad thing. But my friends, and their friends, looked out for me. I wouldn't have accepted any drinks because I've never liked alcohol, but nobody offered them. Nobody offered me anything but a dance until much closer to 18.

It may not be apparent how powerful that was. The acceptance. Jr high had been hell for me. I was abused, assaulted, insulted and bullied every fucking day for years. It wasn't until the last year there that I had any friends at all.

But here I was in high school, and people liked me, and were happy to see me. And all these amazing people were gay, or bi, or in drag, or trans, though nobody was using the term then and there.

I don't know if anyone that hasn't experienced that kind of cruelty and then gained the acceptance of an entire new world can get exactly how powerful that feeling is. It was transformational. I'll not saying I got along with every single person, I didn't. But they still treated me with respect and kindness, and it was obvious I was welcome there despite individuals not liking me, or vice versa.

If they hadn't given me access to that world, I may not have later on become friends with my best friend, that's still my best friend now, because there's a possibility that I wouldn't have accepted him fully when he came out. I like to think I would have, but I can't pretend I was always perfectly behaved and open minded in the early days of my introduction to gay culture. I had a lot of ignorance and some preconceptions to move past. If my best friend had been the person that was my first step in understanding such things, I might well have fucked it up and not had him in my life all these years.

And, my trans friend, he was the first person to ever teach me how to fight. You'd think with us being pretty damn country, it would have happened one way or another, but it never did. My dad, later, would tell me he was scared I might hurt somebody because I was much stronger than I realized, but that's tangential.

My trans friend had learned some martial arts and had zero fucking fear of using it. And he taught me some. Not a lot, because he was nowhere near knowing enough to really teach, but enough that I discovered I could fight if I had to. Enough that, later on, when I needed to fight better, it led to me diving into martial arts seriously for most of my twenties and up to my late thirties when disability fucked that up.

The girl that we both dated taught me I was worthy of being wanted, romantically and sexually. She taught me a lot in that regard that led to me being the kind of person that can stay friends with exes. She started me down a road to self confidence and a sense of joy with partners that was part of what my wife fell in love with.

Those two were perhaps the most influential factors that weren't relatives in me having most of the good things I've experienced in life. And I didn't make those connections until tonight. Well, this morning now lol. I can look back at all if the time I spent with them and draw a very clear line to who I am, and many of the things I hold dear.

Now, life happens, and we drifted apart. Mostly after I graduated high school and started working, but it did take a couple of years. We still run into each other, though they broke up by the mid nineties. And we say hi, and chat a little, but that's usually it.

But next time, I owe them a great big thank you