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Top 10 lists piss me off big time. Ninety percent of them are filled with the same hipster bullshit, the same trendy bands of the moment. I’ve got no problems with trendy bands. Some of them are actually decent. My problem is with people who only listen to trendy music, who never develop their own taste in music because they’re too preoccupied with making certain they are in front of the next cool thing. Fuck that shit. Being a music fan is not a coolness contest. If you don’t listen to music that means something to you, then you can go fuck yourself.

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Here are some Twin Cities area shows that meant something to me this year. Fleet Foxes, Hot Chip and whatever other douchey blogshit bands of the moment are nowhere to be found:

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Suicidal Tendencies, Madball & Whole Wheat Bread – Station 4 – 12/11....

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Last year, I flew out to ....San Francisco.... to see ST for my birthday. This year, they came to me. Station 4 was packed from wall to wall. Tons of my friends were there, too, since I had decided to call it my birthday party. By the time I walked out into the cold December night, I was soaked with sweat from stomping around and sore-throated from singing along, reminded why Suicidal Tendencies are one of my favorite bands of all time. With Madball joining in on the fun, this was easily the best show of the year.

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Hanson Brothers, Banner Pilot, Awesome Garys – Triple Rock – 12/14....

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Another show from my birthday weekend. Sunday night and snow coming down hard left the Triple Rock nearly empty. That didn’t stop any of these bands from having a blast and putting on a perfect show.

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Bane, H2O, Cruel Hands, Energy – Triple Rock – 11/20....

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Cruel hands were mind-blowing. H2O were not at they’re best, but Bane was fucking inspirational. I forgive the singer for calling me and my friend out at a show 10 years ago because we were making jokes about someone’s lame straight-edge coca-cola logo T-shirt.

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Taylor Dayne – Saloon – 6/29....

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Yeah, she only did about five songs, and she did them karaoke style, which was odd, but I got to talk to her for a second after the show and tell her how great she is. If that interaction had happened when I was 14, when I had a total crush on her, I probably would have passed out or something.

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Zappa Plays Zappa – ....First Avenue.... – 6/6....

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An amazing band led by Dweezil Zappa playing some of the coolest fucking music in the world.

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Today is the Day, Lair of the Minotaur, Mouth of the Architect, Complete Failure – Triple Rock – 4/5....

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You know how people talk about Mastodon? Like Mastodon is the future of metal, like they’re doing something brilliant, something mind-blowing, something untouchable? That’s the way people should be talking about Today is the Day. Another startlingly sparse crowd for an amazing and intense show.

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Doro, Fatal Smile – Station 4 – 3/30....

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I didn’t know much about Doro before this show. I went on a whim. One of the most amazing things in the world to see is a band playing to a tiny club as if it was a giant arena filled with people, yet still managing to keep the show intimate and honest somehow.

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M.O.D., In Defence, Daigoro, Kill Mosh Fuck Destroy – Big V’s – 3/14....

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I’ve already talked about this one at length. I saw M.O.D. four times in 08 and this was their best.

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Bob Mould, Halou – ....First Avenue.... – 3/5....

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Somehow I’ve managed to never see Bob Mould before now, despite having listened to his music for nearly half my life. All expectations were met. I’m one of those people who got into his music not through Husker Du, but through Sugar, so it was awesome to hear him play a ton of those songs.

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M.I.A., Egyptian Lover – Myth – 5/13....

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Yeah. Just fun. I guess this is my one hipster selection. I’m allowed.

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Worst show of the year: The worst of the year was also my first of the year. Necro, Psycho Realm and Danny Diablo at Station 4. But I’ve said enough about that one already.

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My most recent short story - “A Cowboy has to Ride” - has found a very unlikely home, an anthology of stories about bull riding called This Ain’t No Rodeo.



Originally, my story was about a supernatural bronc rider. I wrote it as a sort of tribute to Chris Ledoux, a rodeo champion and country singer. Unfortunately, the editor really wanted to focus on bull riding, rather than rodeo in general, so the story had to be altered a bit. Still, it’s a pretty fun read.

Authors appearing in This Ain’t No Rodeo:

* Shawn Sackman
* Bud Rudesill
* William Blake Vogel III
* Gerri Leen
* David Lee Summers
* Terry Bramlett
* Taylor West
* Camille Alexa
* Ann Wilkes
* L. Mahayla Smith
* MP Johnson
* Ramona Thompson
* Justin Stanchfield

Withersin's Unkindness anthology will be released on Halloween. It's a collection of 13 bizarre tales, including my newest, "Complete Breakfast."



Horror is about playing on fears. Most of them have been done to death. Luckily for me, some people have an irrational fear of breakfast foods. That's what "Complete Breakfast" is all about.

You can preorder a copy at the Withersin Web site.

"Are you ready to metal?" asked Kai Hansen, the singer of Gamma Ray and, incidentally, one of the original members of Helloween.

The crowd yelled something that probably meant yes. I agreed.

And metal we did.

Power metal, and I mean really good power metal, has some amazing powers. It's triumphant music that can really lift you out of a dirty, brick-walled club like Station 4 and take you "Somewhere Out in Space" or let you "Ride the Sky." Life suddenly becomes a lot less complicated. A lot better.

When Gamma Ray finished, gently returning me and the rest of the audience to this plane of existence on the wings of a soaring guitar, I couldn't believe that I had just witnessed an opening band. Helloween would have a lot to live up to.



While hanging out in the bar, waiting to find out if German's metal legends would be able to do it, I stood next to some old dude who went on a loud rant: "Man, it was 1984! I saw Helloween on Headbanger's Ball. Fuck Metallica! Fuck all of that other stuff! Helloween was it for me and they've been my favorite band ever since."

When his favorite band took the stage and powered through their first song, I laughed as the bouncers dragged the same dude out of the joint. Apparently, he wasn't a big enough fan to not be a douche bag.

It had been over fifteen years since I had seriously listened to Helloween. My friend had made me a mix CD to get me psyched up for this show, so I had a decent refresher course on the classics. I had Youtubed their more recent videos, which were cheesy as fuck to watch but fun to listen to. Surprisingly, just from those two sources, I was familiar with about ninety percent of the band's set.

After somehow making "Halloween," from their legendary Keeper of the Seven Keys album, into something that seemed even more epic than it did on the recording, they started into their more recent stuff. The soaring "Sole Survivor" gave me faith that their new tunes would keep me just as excited as their old stuff. The crowd agreed, singing along majestically and painfully out of key.

Midway through the set, the singer grew concerned about the state of the crowd's vocal cords. "How are your voices? Still up and running?"

Everybody cheered. He must have liked the response, because he asked the same question after the next song, then again after the next. He asked it one more time, only this time the crowd's response was different.

"Still up and running?"

Mouths opened and the vocal equivalent of tumbleweeds spilled out. The crowd was no longer up and running.

Not really though.

Everyone yelled the same response. Helloween played through the rest of their set and left the stage. When they reappeared moments later, the singer had changed his wardrobe. A black top hat sat atop his head and a shiny red jacket replaced the brown leather he had worn previously. Not being familiar with Helloween's shtick, this seemed pretty bizarre to me.

For their first encore, they went through the clichéd process of introducing each band member and having them play a solo. Ninety percent of the time, this routine bores the fuck out of me and this was no exception, particularly since their new guitar player, decked out with retarded red beads in his hair, played like he was either in some cock rock band or a new metal band, any type of band other than the band he was actually in. They capped it off by playing all of 25 seconds from one of their most powerful and epic tunes, "The Keeper of the Seven Keys." What the fuck is the point of playing 25 seconds from a song?

They left the stage, leaving me a bit bummed out. They couldn't go out like that. For a power metal show to be a true power metal show, it has to end with everyone in the crowd shouting along, joining their voices together and getting that whole soaring thing going.

Helloween came back to the stage, this time with original member and current Gamma Ray leader Kai Hansen in tow. Without any mention of the fact that this was a pretty amazing reunion, they took us back to "Future World," which has always been one of my favorites, before closing out with everyone in the crowd shouting along to the chorus of "I Want Out."

Yep, definitely a true power metal show.

"Not sexy or too sexy?" The singer yelled from on top of the bar, referring to his scrawny, sweaty body.

A chorus of gruff voices eagerly replied, "Too sexy!"

The singer wasn't having it. "No gentlemen! Just ladies. Gentlemen, shut up! Ladies, not sexy or too sexy?"

And all the girls cooed, "Too sexy!"

Of course, this prompted the dripping little man to drop his tight red shorts and moon the crowd at the Uptown Bar and Cafe. The smile on my face only got bigger.







Let's take a step back. I had heard about Monotonix. I knew they had a reputation for getting pretty wild. I'm always happy to check out a band that knows how to push the boundaries in a live setting, but I'm also a very jaded music fan. I've seen some of the most notorious live acts around. I've seen fires. I've seen jumping off walls. I've dodged folding chairs thrown at me from the stage. I've failed to dodge urine.

So, as I waited through the blah opening acts, watching the tide of hipsters flow in and out, I wondered if this whole thing was going to be a waste of my time. Maybe it was just a bunch of hype.

My friend said, "If this band doesn't make you smile, you're a dork." That sounded like a challenge.

Around midnight, after a crushingly boring set by a band that made me feel like I had stepped into a Christopher Guest mockumentary about bar bands, Monotonix finally decided to do their thing.

They set up on the floor a few feet in front of the stage. The crowd nestled in around them. From my jaded music fan spot in the back of the room, I couldn't see much. I heard some rumblings. Fuzzy guitar riffs. Cagey drumming. Wild shouting. No bass? Ooooohhh, how avant garde. Typical garage band stuff. I saw heads nodding, but I didn't see much action. Yawn.

Then I saw the singer, already covered with sweat, rise above the crowd. As he moved across the sea of hands, he kept singing. Okay, I thought, so he can crowd surf. How many bands have I seen crowd surf? Is that all they've got?

Nope. They had more. A lot more.

The singer got tired of simply crowd surfing. He needed to improve the art by crowd surfing in a garbage can or while standing on top of the bass drum. I wondered, where is the drumming coming from if the drums are floating around on top of the crowd with the singer riding on them? I had no fucking clue, but the music still filled the room.

It wasn't just the music that filled the room either. The band wouldn't stay in one spot. Nor would they stay together. After a while in front of the stage, the singer and guitar player moved over to the other side of the room. They stood on one of the tiny tables together, their long curly hair flailing around as they rocked out.

When they got sick of that, they moved over closer to where I stood. They reunited with their drummer and made it seem like the most natural thing in the world that they had already seemingly played in every corner of the room.

And the music wasn't just an afterthought either. The bare naked rock is what fueled the whole ordeal. It turned out to be way beyond your generic garage rock fare. Yeah, the guitar was fuzzed out, but somehow it stayed cheerful. The riffs were goddamn musical smiles, good buddies wrapping their arms around your neck and pulling you back into the party. The drumming, despite always seeming to be teetering on the edge of disaster, managed to keep everything moving forward, not willing to leave anyone in the crowd behind. And the lack of bass? Who the fuck cares?

After the singer finished the butt show, he looked around the room. Guitar still rockin', he realized he had missed one important corner of the bar: the outside corner.

The guitar player held tight near the bar as the singer and drummer made their way through the crowd toward the place's covered patio. The crowd followed behind. When I got to the exit, I was surprised to see the singer standing beside the door, smiling wide and ushering everyone out. When he was satisfied that the patio was reasonably full, he climbed onto the metal rafters.

"Yasoo!" he yelled.

"Yasoo!" everyone on the patio replied in unison, banging on the drums that seemed to be riding around the crowd on their own.

"Sit down!" the singer yelled.

Everyone sat down.

As he hung from the rafters, he told everyone that on the count of four, everyone should stand up and he would dive down and everything would go crazy. At that point, I think the music had technically stopped, but somehow it was so infectious that it was still in my head and, presumably, everybody else's.

As promised, the singer counted to four, jumped into the crowd and everyone stood and went crazy one last time.

I walked away with a big smile on my face. Monotonix refuse to let anyone remain jaded at their shows. They simply won't allow it.

From a wall of fog emerged the face of a corpse framed by thin, twisted blonde hair. Blood dripped out of his mouth, forming a red death grin. He raised his microphone and began singing some of the greatest horror rock songs ever written.

Impaler began their 25th anniversary celebration by slicing through a pile of tunes from their first EP, Rise of the Mutants, and their first full length, If We Had Brains, We'd Be Dangerous. Among them, "Crack That Whip," in which the singing corpse lasciviously details how he doesn't "want no intellectual, I want something hot and wet, I want something sexual." Lyrics like those are what brought them to the attention of Tipper Gore and her PMRC, who would have rather seen Impaler dead than, well…

If anything the singer's delivery of such lyrics has become more potent. To the malicious snarl heard on those early recordings, he's added a barrage of evil growls, howls and roars. Impaler has grown more sinister through the years.







As I sang along, I looked around at the sparse crowd, shocked by the fact that this celebration of a band that has become a Twin Cities institution was not going to be witnessed by more people. This was especially disconcerting considering the treat the band had put together for the people who did manage to climb out of their tombs, and by the looks of some of the old metal heads in the audience, I mean that literally. They announced that they were going to take us through all of the eras of Impaler, one by one, with the members who originally played during those eras coming on stage to give us a blast from the past.

On the stage at the moment: Impaler 1983. While most of the band had dressed the part of the gore mongers they are, their guitar player must have missed a blood-soaked memo. His fancy clothes made it look like he had been expecting to do banker business. Luckily, his playing made it clear he was there to do the devil's business. His solos shined like butcher knives, cutting their way out of the songs and becoming their own evil entities.

One of the key elements that sets Impaler apart from all other shock rock bands is that these dudes understand old school punk rock. They demonstrated this by mutating classics like "Search and Destroy" and "Kick Out the Jams" into tunes that fit perfectly side by side with their own.

During one of the monster songs, a costumed psycho came on stage with a torch. The singer grabbed it and charged into the crowd, eventually landing right next to me. He looked around, his eyes wild. I backed away as he opened his mouth, spraying flammable liquid onto the torch, creating a burst of flames just above my head.

He ran back to the stage to join the band in proving that they understand the confines of their narrow musical subgenre, but aren't afraid to push against the walls to make certain everything they do brings something new to the table. Sometimes that means branching out into related B-movie topics like the fine art of lucha libre. Other times it means bringing the speed up and thrashing out on songs like "Goblin Queen." They don't rehash. They reinvent.

After they had finished taking the crowd through the first few eras and were changing over to the Undead Things era, I went down. Maybe my head banging and singing along got the best of me. Maybe I should have eaten more than baked beans and ice cream that day. Maybe I just got sick.

Whatever it was, it pulled the fog in too close. I stumbled to the bar, fell onto it and begged for a glass of water. My legs went out and I tumbled to the floor. The bartender yelled down for me to take my water. I mustered up the strength to grab it and swallow some.

A blurry dude asked if I was okay.

"I think I'm going to pass out."

"Do you want to sit down?"

"Uhhh," I said, climbing onto the barstool he shoved my way.

"Must have had too many to drink."

"I haven't had any drinks," I replied.

He said something about anxiety.

Kate, my girlfriend and partner in metal appreciation, emerged from the bathroom. I told her I wasn't doing so good. Babbled some stuff. I don't know if I was talking very clearly. I had to use my energy to keep from fainting.

Sometimes I like this feeling. I like the thought of my world curling up at the edges because my body is pissed about something. I liked forcing my mind to keep my body in check as foggy images of drunken metal heads and rocking corpses with mouths spewing blood circled around me.

Also, I had to shit. I kept thinking, if I pass out, I'm going to shit my pants all over Station 4's slimy floor. I pictured myself lying there, metal heads gawking as the brown stuff glopped up in my jeans. Not a cool scene.

When I got my strength up, I made my way to the bathroom, happy to find a clean toilet and two full rolls of TP. Passing out on the shitter seemed like a distinct possibility, but at least I'd be able to clean up if I did. Luckily, I won the fight and stayed upright.

After all that, do you think I put my tail between my legs and bailed? Fuck no! That's how serious I am about the greatness of Impaler.

I hunkered down at a little table with Kate and watched the rest of the show. Impaler took us through their horror rock history. Severed heads were impaled on stakes, the meat eaten out of their necks. Band members were bashed with giant mallets. Fire was sprayed overhead.

Impaler 2008 played tunes from their latest release, Habeas Corpus. Then they took us into the future of Impaler. They proved that they can still introduce new twists and turns by playing songs from their upcoming concept album, Cryptozoology. These songs, "Minnesota Ice Man" and "Jersey Devil" tell the stories of mysterious creatures, while remaining as memorably monstrous as the rest of the band's catalog.

To close the night, they brought the whole gang onstage. The past and present collided as all the old band members joined the new. A virtual army of guitar players synchronized up to play the song that defines the band, "Shock Rock." As they tore through it, their stage psychos – Dr. Corpse, Crisis Control and other costumed goons - tore up the stage. They went wild, slamming folding chairs into each other. In the melee, the singer fell to the ground. A nurse rushed onto the stage to help, only to have her caring attention repaid by getting her guts chomped out and spit all over. Never before and probably never again will that song ever be played with such intensity.

Happy 25th anniversary Impaler!

(Impaler played at Station 4 in St. Paul, Minnesota on 9/20/08)

Two facts need to be known about Billy Milano, lead singer of M.O.D.:

1. He is a big dude
2. He is a fucking bad ass

Number one was obvious the minute he hefted his mass onto the stage at Big V’s in St. Paul yesterday night. The dude has some size to him. For the benefit of those in the audience who may have been blind, he continuously made reference to this fact. "I weigh 300 fucking pounds!" Actually, he never used the word fat, nor did he mention that he’s only somewhere in the five and a half foot range, so perhaps the blindies had a picture of a tall muscular guy. That image may be a better match to his hardcore thrash vocal stylings, but is definitely not the case.

Strangely, he didn’t seem to see any conflict of interest as he peppered the set of M.O.D. and S.O.D. classics with multiple versions of the song "Bubble Butt," about chicks with fat butts. Now, it’s possible that he was hiding a chiseled granite ass under his track pants, but I kind of doubt it.

When it comes to fact number two, I’m not talking about bad ass as in he plays bad ass thrash metal, but that’s true too. The guy knows how to put together a set list. Despite the fact that, between M.O.D. and S.O.D., he has put out ten albums and two EPs in the last 20 or so years, the vast majority of the songs were pulled from only two: U.S.A. for M.O.D. and Speak English or Die. These are the two albums that everyone knows and loves and he knows it. In fact, only two songs were played that did not appear on one of those two albums: "Alphabet City Stomp," off the new disc, Red, White & Screwed (which is actually really awesome) and Fear’s "I Love Living in the City," which they did on the Gross Misconduct album.

Despite the fact that these tunes are a couple decades old, he played them like he just wrote them yesterday: with all the intensity and energy his big ass can muster, banging his head and letting the sweat from his long curly hair slop all over the folks in the front row. Other bands seem to get bitter when fans only want to hear old stuff. M.O.D. is not one of those bands. They don’t care, as long as everyone’s having fun and thrashing their asses off. But that’s not what I’m talking about when it comes to fact number two.

I’m also not talking about bad ass as in super offensive, though that is also true. The guy has a habit of jabbering on and on, making all sorts of racist remarks about dot heads and fags. That shit just flows out of him naturally. M.O.D. are not being offensive as a joke, although they are often quite funny in that "Man, I should not be laughing at this, but it is goddamn hilarious," sort of way. They are not being offensive as some sort of performance art. They aren’t doing it because they want to piss people off, although they don’t really care if that happens along the way. They are being offensive because Billy Milano is a legitimately offensive person, with a head full of misinformed politics that he thoroughly enjoys sharing with the world as if he’s some hairy, magnanimous emperor sharing gifts with the humble metal kingdom he reigns over. When he segued into the tune A.I.D.S. (Anally Inflected Death Sentence) by complaining that people are too concerned about saving dogs and other animals, but they don’t do enough to rescue gerbils from gay people who stick them up their asses, there is a pretty decent chance that he actually means it.

Fact number two is actually tricky. I’m talking about the classic definition of bad ass. It was hard to see at first. It’s kind of hidden. You see, M.O.D. aren’t interested in being one of those bands that just gets up on stage, thrashes hard through their set and then takes off. Instead, the time spent playing music is very small compared to the time spent goofing around and bullshitting. With a huge smile cutting through his beard, Billy Milano spent ten minute chunks of time telling stories about how television writer and producer Larry David paid him 20,000 bucks to use "Bubble Butt" in some show with Kirstie Alley and how he was madly in love with some buff wrestling chick named O.D.B. ("One Dirty Bitch," not "Old Dirty Bastard," who is not a chick nor a wrestler and is also dead). While watching him chuckle through these tales, it’s easy to think, this is no bad ass, this is just some goofball who may have been a bad ass at one point in his life because he has tattoos.

Any semblance of bad-assness was further buried when he introduced the song "Get a Real Job," by talking about getting old and how when he sees hot chicks, all he really wants to do is cuddle with his dogs. That’s just plain not very bad ass.

And he sure didn’t seem bad ass when a couple of dudes started brawling in the mosh pit. When the fists started flying, he did not say, "Yeah, kill each other you wingnuts!" Instead, he whined, "Come on guys, don’t fight. There’s no point in fighting."

I, on the other hand, love seeing fights at shows. I don’t want to be in them, but I’m certainly not interested in being that peace maker guy who gets in the middle and tries to reason with a couple of goons who have violence on their beer-soaked minds. It amazes me how silly it can look sometimes. The two hairy guys in this brawl, for example, were anything but graceful. They just shouted, pushed each other around and tossed a few meandering jabs. I couldn’t even hear the sound of them landing over the buzz of the crowd. Weak. Yawn. I’ve seen grade school playground fights with more pizzazz.

Further more, Mr. Milano didn’t seem to mind it when people heckled him. All he did was make some silly comment back about teabagging them or that he knew he was offensive and didn’t care whether anyone agreed with him or not.

At least, that’s all he did at first.

When he made the comment about all the dot heads in this country screwing everything up, it pushed one dude in the audience over the edge. This guy moved close to the stage in his North Face jacket and his middle finger raised, shouting shit at Billy Milano. "Just play the song."

Some girl in the front row, who Mr. Milano had mentioned he chatted with on Myspace (also, not bad ass), slapped Mr. Middle Finger in the face. Of course, Billy Milano yucked it up and mocked the guy for being bitch slapped. Then they played "Speak English or Die"

After one more run through of "Bubble Butt," the band started to introduce their last song. The offended dude in the North Face jacket approached the stage again, shouting something. Again, the girl in the front row slapped him across the face. The guy wandered around for a moment, rubbing his face.

I kept my eye on this dude as he paced around the mosh pit area. He was clearly thinking of something. I could almost see the light bulb turn on over his head as he approached the stage one more time.

"There’s still time for you to…" was all that I heard him say.

Whatever the rest of it was, it must have been pretty good, because the smile dropped right out of Milano’s curly beard. Like the mighty hippopotamus, Billy charged off the stage, fists flying. In one brilliantly fluid movement, he used his 300 pounds to quickly plow the guy through the crowd about twenty feet into the nearest wall, slamming him into it and commencing with the punches. There was no talking, no playing around, no sissy pushing matches. Just straight to the decking, the way a fight should be. The way a true bad ass knows a fight should be. "There’s no point in fighting." Pffff.

After a suitable amount of beating, Big V’s bouncers casually strolled in and pulled the two apart.

Billy moved back to the stage for the final tune of the night, a violence-charged rendition of S.O.D.’s "United Forces." I smiled and shouted along. My standards for what I expect at a thrash show had just been raised.

P.S. Out of the three shows I have been to at Big V’s, two of them have involved brawls between unruly crowd members and the headlining bands. I’m starting to think this shit happens there a lot. From now on, I’m calling the place Big Violence.

P.P.S. In Defence played before M.O.D. and they ruled it. Lead singer Ben Crew was out of town, so the band needed two alternates to fill his shoes: One of the other guys (the guitar player, I think), plus that hairy dude from the band Faggot. The hairy dude’s seemingly natural hairiness was augmented by the hairy pink gorilla costume he wore as he rolled around the mosh pit singing tunes like "Boom Box Crew" and "Call More Dudes." The energy level was through the fucking roof, rampage style.

P.P.P.S. I also got to see M.O.D. at the House of Rock in Eau Claire, WI, on the previous night. That show was a little more restrained. Other than Billy Milano making constant threats to people smoking cigarettes in front of him ("I’ve got emphysema, motherfucker! I’ll kick you in the throat!"), the violence level was minimal. Oh, and my friend Jere got pissed off when Milano was shit-talking Barrack Obama. "Vote for the Mexican! Vote for the Homie!" Jere yelled before throwing his drink at Milano and then screaming "Pussywhipped!" about fifty times. Milano threatened to beat him up for throwing the drink. No violence came of it, which, looking back, is a good thing, because I would have been the one stuck jumping in front of 300 pounds of Billy Milano to prevent him from messing with my bud. That’s one I don’t really want to ever have to take for the team.

P.P.P.P.S. I didn’t have the heart to tell Jere that Obama isn’t actually Mexican.

If you're interested in going on some sort of idiot safari, a good place to start is the U.S. post office of your choice. I have had a nearly 100% success rate at idiot-spotting during my trips to the P.O. The idiocy can range from minor, such as arguing that the increase in post office charges is a rip off with one of the people behind the counter while people are waiting in line, to major, like bringing in an armload of junk and expecting them to package it up for you.

Here are a few of my favorite recent idiot sightings, all of which took place at the Edina post office near my home (Note that all of these sightings occurred while at least half a dozen people were waiting in line behind the idiot):

The guy who didn't understand first class:

This guy walked up to the counter to drop off a letter. Part one of his idiocy was waiting in line to send a letter when he could have simply dropped it in the mail slot outside, or in any mailbox anywhere, for that matter. Upon being handed the letter, the postman informed the customer that he didn't have enough postage on it.

"What do you mean?" the customer asked. "There's a stamp on it."

"You have a 39 cent stamp on it. You need a 41 cent stamp. The rates increased about half a year ago."

"But it says first class," the customer stated.

The postman went on to explain that first class was indeed a class, not a cost. He dutifully and clearly educated the customer that he couldn't simply slap a first class stamp on a big package and expect it to be sufficient to have that package mailed first class.

The customer's response: "But it says first class."

The argument went on, with the postman veering off into an explanation of the forever stamp that only served to confuse the customer further. After a few more mumblings along the line of, "If it says first class, it should mean first class," the customer finally agreed to purchase the two cent stamp required to gain sufficient postage.

The guy who didn't understand why the stamp machine was there if it didn't work:

The Post Office stopped using the stamp machine in the lobby. Instead of just removing it right away, they turned it off. Could a guy just go in and buy some stamps from the postman? Of course not. The guy needed to start a heated debate about why they would leave it in the lobby if it wasn't functioning.

At the conclusion of the man's rant, the postman replied, "I hope they get it out of here soon so I don't have to explain it to any more people like you."

The guy who wanted to exchange his old stamps for new stamps:

I understand that sometimes dumb questions happen. They are simply part of life. I have probably asked one or two in my day. What shouldn't happen is an extensive argument about the dumb question.

For example, when a guy asked if he could exchange his old 39 cent stamps for new 41 cent stamps, he could have simply accepted the answer the postman provided: "No."

Instead, he had to push it.

Of course, the postman had to ask why the guy couldn't simply put an additional two cent stamp on the envelopes. After all, that's what the two cent stamps were made for.

"I just can't do that," the guy replied.

Obviously curious, the postman asked, "Why not?"

"Well, when I send business mail, it just doesn't look professional."

The argument continued. Eventually, the postman tried to conclude it. "I understand that you want to exchange stamps for aesthetic purposes, but we can't do it."

The customer hung around and tried to argue his point some more, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

So, fellow idiot watcher, take my advice and go quickly to the nearest U.S. post office. You will be glad you did.

I dream about music a lot. Sometimes, I dream about upcoming concerts. Right now, I'm eagerly anticipating a Minneapolis show by legendary politically-incorrect thrashcore titans M.O.D. in March, so it isn't surprising that I had a dream about it last night. Here's how the show went down in my dreams:

The venue made me a little nervous. I had been to plenty of basement shows before, but never to one in the attic of a house. To get in, I needed to climb a ladder and crawl through a short tunnel. I arrived late, so the cramped attic was already packed full of punks and metal heads. Unless I stood in the center of the room, where the roof peaked, I couldn't even stand up straight. The surprisingly well-lit place was all unfinished wood. There was no stage, so to speak, just a spot in the middle of the crowd.

"I guess there won't be any moshing or the whole thing might collapse," I said to someone crowded in next to me.

Nervous, I asked around to find out why we weren't at one of the usual spots. It turned out that my friend Kevin from Pink Reason, who was in charge of setting up the show, couldn't find any other place. Sure, I felt a bit claustrophobic. My head filled with images of punks falling through the floor, an avalanche of splintered wood and torn limbs, but I was also pretty excited. I've been to so many shows. It isn't very often I get to experience something truly new. This could be a blast.

My late arrival caused me to miss the opening bands. I didn't mind. I was there for one reason only: M.O.D. Judging by the anticipation that mixing with the sweat that dripped off everyone's faces, I wasn't the only one.

After a couple minutes, the drummer, guitar player and bass player entered. These guys were nobody. They were just hired guns to back Billy Milano, the true face of M.O.D.

Hearing Milano climbing up the ladder, the crowd went nuts. They cheered and jumped off the walls. I felt the floor shake. Then Billy reached the top of the ladder and stared through the narrow tunnel that led to the attic. His bushy brown beard failed to disguise his look of confusion. After a moment, that confusion turned to anger.

"What the fuck is this?" he yelled. "I'm not doing this. This is ridiculous! We're not playing here, not in a fucking attic!"

He shuffled his heavy body down the ladder and made his way out to the front lawn, where he decided to chill out and have a beer. That gave me an opportunity. I followed him down and tried to convince him to play.

"Remember the American Legion you played at last night in Eau Claire?" I asked. "That was cool, right? Well, Nate, the guy who set that show up, uses that same equipment for shows in a tiny basement. The equipment here isn't much different."

I knew it wasn't about the equipment. I knew it was about the space. I knew it was about him stuffing his sizeable self into the tiny attic.

"Everyone really wants to see you play. Did you see how nuts they were going up in there?" I tried a different angle.

Billy Milano shrugged his shoulders. Before he had a chance to reply, Kevin approached.

At first, their conversation seemed friendly, even jovial. Billy goofed around about what a stupid place this was to plan a show and how ridiculous it even was that Kevin would think such a thing would be a good idea. Then Billy Milano whipped out an old machine gun with a bayonet and shot Kevin. Laughing, he put the gun down and approached me. All of the muscles in my body tensed up. I didn't know what to do.

Then Kevin got up. He wasn't shot at all. He was shocked.

Billy hadn't actually pulled the trigger. He had jabbed Kevin with the bayonet. This bayonet was different. Instead of a regular knife, it was made out of a shocknife. These are combat training tools that cannot cut anything. Instead, they deliver a strong shock intended to simulate the feeling of being cut.

Kevin grabbed the shocknife bayonet and took it off the gun. Immediately, he put Billy down with a shock stab.

They were having fun. With a playfully malicious look on his face, Kevin asked me if I would like to be shocked/stabbed. I declined. Instead, he went around shocking random people. Other people had shocknives as well and the show turned into a big shocknife stabbing party.

I tried to stay on the outskirts, talking to Billy Milano about salvaging a show out of this. No luck. In the end, Kevin shocked me anyway. It hurt like a motherfucker and I passed out.

That's when I woke up from the dream. I hope the show turns out differently in real life.

Have you ever had a dream about an upcoming concert?

Freak Tension.