I know all 2 of you must be wondering “what’s up with the Iceberg?” “Is he dead?”. But no.

I’m still around, I’ve just been busy working on my new project, OdioPlatonico (spanish only, for now), and trying to make ends meet by what it seems is a neverending string of jobs where I’m somehow considered a ‘volunteer’. I’ll be talking a lot about the ex-job I had and how they decided to fuck me over.

Of course, not everything is bad. Can you imagine me (ME!) teaching first and second grade? I wouldn’t either, but I love it.

And well, it’s almost december. Time for holidays and all-around shenanigans. So that’ll give me more reasons to show up more ’round these places. So if anyone cares, give me a shout out. I’ll be posting soon. I better go now, I’ve got storytelling to do tomorrow (again, ME!).

I’m happy. I could be happier, but there’s always 2011.

The Iceberg.

“Turn that frown upside down!”

Yeah, thanks, you disgustingly cheerful nincompoop. Now all my problems are solved, and I only have you and your witty one-liner to thank!

See, when people frown, it means they have something going on which is not, well, pleasant. It might be a quick nothing like a bad day at the office, or something more serious – I bet even the most optimistic of the bunch would feel stress upon discovering some incurable medical conundrum within their own body, or that of their loved ones.

Upon hearing “turn that frown upside down”, my frown will indeed turn upside down, if only for the quick instant when I do a 360° jump in the air and come crashing down with two katana swords into both sides of your neck, effectively slicing your body into 4 pieces.

Besides, it makes no sense whatsoever to turn a frown upside down. The expression means you should smile instead, but unless you’re a total tool, turning a frown upside down only means “raise your eyebrows”, which hardly, if ever, offers an ending to the situation which originally caused said frown.

So stop being stupid and cheery and cliche-y, and instead try to offer some real help instead. If you can’t help, throw money or beer my way, not your cute little sayings.

The Iceberg

I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about the music scenes I, personally, enjoyed, and whatever else was out there.

It all started when I bought my first LP. By the time “My Hometown” came on, I knew every single member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. I knew Falco was not the Rob or Ferdi Bolland that appeared to have written every single song on “Falco 3″. At the drop of a hat, I could mention (and still can) the three members of norwegian pop sensations a-ha. I knew there was a  Kiss and a Twisted Sister, although years would go by before I started to develop a taste for, um, heavier music.  Although I never enjoyed the pop scene in Mexico, I was well aware of who the main artists were – the Timbiriches and the Flans and the Caifanes and the Cafe Tacubas…

Then came my love for metal. And, as many metal fans, I made the mistake of believing that if you listened to metal, and dared to even consider thinking of listening to something else, you were a poseur.
Still, my dominance of all the irrelevant and minute details of every metal band imaginable was very much alive.
Once, on a very bad local cable show where the local DJ would play metal videos for half an hour, disguised with an oxygen mask and claiming he was transmitting from the centre of the Earth, they had a contest. “The first person to call and name all four members of Motley Crue will win this shitty cassette by a band from Brownsville, TX”. At this point, I had never listened to a Motley Crue song other than ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ which appeared on a compilation LP I had purchased years before. Still, I had read a couple of Circus magazines. Without a doubt, I picked up the phone and spouted off the names of these four people who had yet to become relevant in my life.
The cassette sucked, by the way.

Then, a funny thing happened. At the same time, metal was kicked out of the mainstream by some people from Seattle, and cable networks in Mexico FINALLY got around to realizing just how big of a deal this MTV thing was.

And while I could say the names of the three Nirvana members (who couldn’t at the time?), I started having difficulty keeping up with who the fuck was in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who was in Pearl Jam, and who played alongside David Pirner in Soul Asylum. I was no longer able to mention entire discographies of these people who were all of a sudden unavoidable.
That is the power of MTV. Or, let me rephrase. That’s how weak people are. Here I was, in 1993, preaching to people who had moved on to questionably “better” things, saying things like “…but… but… Pantera!”
Man, was I pissed. I shunned everything MTV (except for Beavis & Butthead, and Headbanger’s Ball – the latin version, hosted by some insufferable Chilean dude whose signing off catchphrase I still rip off to this very day: “Stay Heavy”). I shifted through moods between “GRRR WHERE’S MY METAL!” and “I WAS REALLY GOOD AT SOMETHING! WHY DID YOU TAKE IT AWAY!”.
I guess it didn’t help matters much that some of the bands I enjoyed back then tried selling out to the “alternative” crowd. And failed miserably.
I’m not even talking about Metallica, whose “black album” I initially shunned as a sell-out (hey, I was on a bandwagon), although years later I fail to see what’s wrong with songs like “Through The Never” and “The God That Failed”.
No, I’m talking about Megadeth, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and… yes… Warrant.

Still, I had Slayer, Sepultura and Pantera, for mainstream stuff, and whatever other bands I could hear on those lonely saturday nights. I searched high and low for Fear factory and Strapping Young Lad albums, to no avail.

Then came the internet, in the late 90′s. I had all the infomation I ever needed about any band that ever existed, as long as I found my way into the appropriate Geocities page.
I was awesome for a week, because I knew the “real” names of Munky and Head, from Korn!

Then, Puddle of Mudd and Vertical Horizon and Marilyn Manson and Days Of The Sun appeared. And Deftones, and little by little this new thing became collectively known as nu metal. Unfortunately, the genre was plagued by lackluster bands like Limp Bizkit and this other bunch of clowns I came to appreciate years later: Slipknot. But it was all the same to me. Who needed to know who was in fucking Coal Chamber? Who, really, had anything good to them happen by knowing the name of the red ‘darth maul’ guy in Mushroomhead? Or was it Chimaera? Or StainD?
It was all a big pile of meh.

I’ll never forget the conversation I had with a friend. It changed my life forever. “there are these files called mp3″, he said, “that are music files. you can download music for free”.

That changed everything. Not that I’m particularly proud of downloading music, but then again, I guess I’m not ashamed either.
Legal aspects and intellectual property aside (I’ll buy Devin Townsend a beer next time he’s in fucking Ciudad Victoria), your whole perspective changes when you have a limited budget, and when you don’t.

The downside to all this is that I lost whatever ability I had to know ABOUT the music. An aspect I had lived with all my life. Who plays who? Who left the band and why? When did they release a Japan-only EP?
Who the fuck has time for that.

Between my aging and worrying about more important stuff than the latest Taproot album, and the exponential increase in music styles and performers, it became impossible to know even 5% of what was going on.

You might recall a post I made a while ago. Suddenly, the internet was abuzz with this Lady Gaga thing. And Katy Perry (if that’s her name). And people with weird last names like Mraz.  And I had no idea who they were or what they did.
I was too busy trying to distinguish between the Lambs of God and the Leviathans and the Mastodons within my own genre, thank you very much.

Then, something funny happened. For a year or so, I was privileged with Sirius radio. Since the “metal” channel played only Black Sabbath and Dio (what “true” metal fans love, if only because they’re classic), I started switching over to the Alternative station. And I became enamored with a few dozen songs, artists and styles which, admittedly, were new to me. Yet, I had no interest in knowing anything about the bands.
Suddenly, at 37, there’s nothing beneficial to knowing information about Snow Patrol, MGMT or The Decemberists. Actually, I’m way beyond the point where knowing about these artists is “cool”, and starts becoming “creepy”.

I’ve always loved music. The pop I listened to in the 80′s, the ever-so-many incarnations of “metal”, the industrial, the alternative, the hip-hop, the classical. I’ve bought over 2000 LPs, cassettes, CDs and VHSs and DVDs. I’ve spent hours upon hours on youtube seeing “never-before-seen (by me)” footage of many, many bands. I’ve read more Wikipedia pages than should be permissible by the medical profession. I’ve tried – I’ve really tried – to maintain a relationship with my music. Not only the music itself, but everything around it.

This current trend of mass-media coverage of music targeted to 10-year-olds pisses me off. I’ve been surrounded by kids all year, and all I hear is “Miley Cyrus”, “that other one”, and that “Justin Bieber” thing which looks like a cross between Macaulay Culkin and Ellen Degeneres. THAT, I want none of. If this is where the music industry is going, I’ll keep my Iron Maidens and my Anthrax’s and my Soilworks. No wonder the other trend is to go “retro”.

In any case, my whole point is this. If it had happened even one year ago, I would have killed myself. My music collection is a great part of my life. But since it happened two weeks ago, even I’m surprised of how well I took it.
See, there was an accident here wherein a stupid dog knocked my external disk drive from the table onto the floor – the very same disk drive (THE HELLION, I named it) which contained not only all of my music, but all of my files. Photos, text files, backups from my old computer… EVERYTHING.
Everything I ever did on a computer was there. And it is no more.
How do you exact revenge on a stupid creature that doesn’t know not to eat the other dog’s turds? You don’t. Whatever happened, happened. And I’m surprisingly OK with it.
Well, no. That’s not accurate. I’m not “OK” with it. I wish it wouldn’t have happened. But there’s no way in hell I’m going through the trouble of collecting back all my music. Whatever’s on my iPod will have to do for now.

Who needs those Britny Fox and NOFX and Jag Panzer and Ministry and Entombed albums anyway, right?

The Iceberg

Oops! I just realized something. One of these pictures was posted today on another site I used to like but lost all respect for recently. Oh well. In my defense, I had set this gallery up months ago. I hope you liked it.

The Iceberg.

Beautiful, huh? Look at the beautiful beach, the color of the Pacific ocean, the majestic mountain in the backgro -

What? You can’t see all that? Oh, yes! I zoomed in to the bottom left corner of the picture, to illustrate my point. I apologize.

There. Better?

See what happens when you stop being an idiot and zoom out just a little bit? Not only can you see more clearly, but you can appreciate the whole picture.

Why people decide to use full zoom on their life perspectives, is beyond me.

The Iceberg.

For reasons I am not at liberty to discuss right now, I’ve been keeping a very low profile these days. I’m paranoid enough about leaving the house to go to work, and the moments where I walk out of my house or back here, are excruciating. Much like Osama bin Laden, I am in hiding. The city itself is a horrible place, and on top of that there are personal situations that are, well, better off avoided. Still, a guy’s gotta eat, right?

I managed to scavenge some fish and a bag of frozen vegetables from my girlfriend’s house, purchased while things were much calmer. The visions of sharing a meal including said fish were plentiful, as she is much better at cooking than I can ever aspire to be. In any case, it’s what I had, it’s what I was craving, and well, it was time to get busy.

Here’s the ingredients I used (salt and pepper not pictured, because, quite frankly who wants to take a picture of pepper?

Between the veggie bag and the sauce bottles, you can barely make out a stick of butter. I bet you’re double-checking now.

First comes “Episode One: The Cooking Of The Fish”. I melted butter and proceeded to place my carcasses into the pan.
It was at this point that I discovered that yes, melted butter and vegetable oil are excellent conductors of electricity. Or maybe it was the frozen water stuck to the fish – oh, yes, I forgot to mention, since I’m reduced to hiding, I have only an electric stove. Gone are the days when I could cook with natural gas, but here’s hoping for better days ahead. In any case, I was electrocuted by a dead fish, as if my fucking luck could be any worse (hint: it got much worse, stay tuned).

That’s just the first of two batches of fish I was able to cook. I sprinkled salt and pepper, for taste. In my girlfriend’s house sits a bag of unused fish preparation, but my life is not worth risking for a bag with a picture of a happy fish. Or the rest of my spices.

Oh, and the reason my pictures suck today? Rainy day. And I’m not about to give my presence away by using a flash.

After cooking the fish, I stepped onto “Episode Two: Crunchy For All The Wrong Reasons”. I proceeded to take my bag of frozen vegetables and cook it in butter and soy sauce. Hey, veggies are good for you, huh? It’s not that I love fucking broccoli, or worse yet, cauliflower, but things as they are, I feel I’ll take all the nutrients I can.

As much as I didn’t want to give myself away by taking pictures with flash, the idiot electric stove decided to put on its own fireworks display. Soon after the butter finally melted, it said its last goodbye with a final WHOOSH!! and a blinding flash.
I carefully unplugged it, afraid I might get shocked again, and then not-so-carefully proceeded to stomp on it until my foot hurt. TAKE THAT, ELECTRIC GRILL!

Soon after, I proceeded to “enjoy” my fish with lime juice and salsa, and crunching semi-frozen broccoli and cauliflower.

Yes, I ate it all.

The Iceberg.

Yeah. If life handed me (or anyone else, for that matter) fucking fruit, I guess we wouldn’t be that worse off. But instead of lemons, life at times deals us REAL PROBLEMS, not lemons.
I know the meaning. “Make the best out of every situation, no matter how bad it is”. Fuck you and your good intentions. Go back in time and tell these vietnamese children they can have all the lemonade in the world:

I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

If life handed me lemons, I’d be baking all kinds of lemon pies, and quite frankly, instead of lemonade, I’d be much better off running to the liquor store, purchasing a bottle of tequila, and doing the shot-lemon-salt routine over and over again.

Yet, I’m lucky that in my life I’ve had problems which pale in comparison to others’. Does that mean whatever solution to my problems can be substituted with a shitty phrase which doesn’t make any sense? Well, no, technically.  But if all you have to offer when I’m in a crappy mood is something you remember you once read off a stupid Hallmark card, please do me a favour and stay away from me. Very away.

You fruit!

The Iceberg.

Likewise, there’s another set of antonyms people use when describing their own, or other peoples’ personalities: they’re either optimists or pessimists. And, well, whatever. Me? I have both traits. I just don’t use either one to describe myself.

And optimists, man. They have their cute little sayings for everything. Every single problem one can have can be washed away by comparing it to a cloud, a lemon, or other random innocent-looking objects (the most delusional of this bunch will oftentimes mention something regarding God’s will, God’s plan, or other god-related tripe). If only things were so simple.

Case in point:

To which, I humbly counter:

See, technically, the silver lining only happens sometimes, and only if a series of factors take place. Factors such as “the position of the sun, regarding the cloud” and “the density of said cloud”. In fact, the ‘silver lining’ effect happens because the outer limits of the cloud are less dense than the rest, and thus more sunlight is allowed through.
But enough about science. I know what the message is. That every difficult situation has something positive in it huh? Like, “sorry your whole family died in a horrible car accident and you will forever be scarred by having to identify your childrens’ bodies at the morgue… but at least the coffee’s great here at the funeral home, amirite?”. You sneaky optimists, you. But, see, your argument is flawed. Exhibit A:

We’d much rather not have the cloud there, altogether. I know you mean well when you say nonsense like this, but please, keep your happy outlook to yourself, OK? Or at least offer something more than a mere cliché. Thank you.

The Iceberg

PS
No families were harmed in the writing of this post. It was just an example.

Nah. Just a spammer fucking piece of shit, who calls himself “Red Tulip”. And if the name wasn’t ridiculous enough to be a giveaway, having British glamour model Lucy Pinder as his profile picture surely ended his aspirations to “get” me. I somehow doubt Lucy Pinder would have only 16 Facebook friends.

Nice try, though. Here’s a thought: Find someone who’s not already famous, and use her picture instead. I hear there are millions of pictures of chicks on the internet. Retard.

The Iceberg.

But alas, a 1990 20th Century Fox movie this is not. And technically, since I live on my own anyway, it might be considered stupid to refer to my current state as “home alone”. Worse still, I won’t be sitting here watching old gangster movies while eating large quantities of junk food (I have to work, and I’m broke), I won’t be joyously jumping on the bed exclaiming “I made my family disappear!” (my bed sucks, and so does most of my family, sadly), and if two people force their entry into my home, I’ll be as good as dead before I can even think of funny shenanigans with tarantulas, paint cans or air guns (because this is Reynosa, after all).

But I feel ‘Home Alone’ because my girlfriend is out of town for the next few days. She’s visiting her family. This is just the icing on the cake that has been a really shitty life for me since, let’s say, friday. I am, to say the least, emotionally exhausted. Some would say I feel ‘emo’ – just a couple of Paramore songs away from cutting my wrists and growing a patch of hair over my eye and wearing ridiculous accesories from Hot Topic.

For some, having the girlfriend away for a couple of days would be a great excuse to do all the things one would ever want to do – get together with friends, catch up on your movie-and-TV-watching, head out to a bar after work with a couple of coworkers… you know the drills. But I don’t feel like doing anything except getting off work and crawling into bed. And even if I felt inclined to do any of these things, well…

I’ve been in Reynosa for a relatively short period of time. In this relatively short time, I haven’t sought out a social lifestyle. I’m never invited anywhere, and I haven’t been working long enough where I can buy a grill and have people over, either.
I have one good friend, and a bunch of acquantiances. Last time I tried setting up a plan with said friend, he had a mechanical mishap on his car, but assured me as soon as he got that taken care of, he’d call me. Not surprisingly, he never did. You see, my social like is not exactly going all that well. Another example happened on saturday. My former coordinator at work left in order to pursue a better lifestyle for herself. We saw each other at work, and well, I wrongly assumed goodbyes were in order. When I finished my class, she had left. No farewells, no pip-pip-cheerio! (she’s british). Nothing.

Sunday was fucked up – the most fucked up I’ve seen a particular fucked-up situation get. My daughter is in my hometown, but I have to pretend she’s not because everyone who knows me is instructed not to let me know my daughter is there, and I don’t want to betray anyone.
This is fucked up on so many levels. First, the obvious ones. You thought me calling my ex a ‘cunt’ was just a tantrum? There you go. You be the judge. Then, of all the people that very well could have let me know this particular BREAKING NEWS, only two people did. The rest, and I know who they are, took their alliances elsewhere, so to speak. They picked their side (again). They picked the wrong side.

So, yeah. I’m home alone. Just about ready to head out into the 40-something degree weather and kick ass at whatever little I have left in my life for this week: my job.

I think a “Cheer Up” gallery would be in order. And beer. Stay tuned.

The Iceberg