Limp Bizkit, Descendents, AFI, Loudermilk, Geek Love, NBA, NXT, and more...

The Josh Wells Weekly, Episode 96

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Bella sleeps on the cat toy and that is how she wins the game.

Random Thought

I just tried listening to the first Limp Bizkit album (Three Dollar Bill Y’all $). Why? I don’t know. It was a whim. I used to love Limp Bizkit, no bullshit. I thought the first 2 albums were great when they came out. I even wore a red Yankees hat for a short amount of time. I was a FAN. But then I slowly drifted away from them. Their next few albums would come out and it just wouldn’t be the same. I’d lost my luster for Limp Bizkit.

I couldn’t get through the whole album. That isn’t to say that it’s bad but I just don’t identify with it anymore. But I get why a younger me did. Younger me was mad about things and didn’t quite know how to vent this anger so an aggro/white rap/rock band was the perfect vehicle for a confused young adult such as myself to get it out of my system. When people lit shit on fire at Woodstock ‘99 during LB’s set, I didn’t approve of it, but I got it. A band can only be successful with a single called, ‘Break Stuff,’ if they’re breaking through to a multitude of angry, young fans who wanna do the same.

I think I simply just grew out of it. And I almost hate saying that, like I was so fucking mature or whatever. But I think I got better at dealing with anger. A lot of the lyrics on that first album are very aggressive and a lot of the anger expressed at the world and women and whatever else was pissing a young Fred Durst off come off as primitive. It’s not like I stopped listening to LB and then all my anger went away. But I think I eventually wanted to put some of my focus on having fun and not being angry all the time. I was young and I wanted to fucking party. LB was not a party. LB was the dude at the party who you thought was cool till he got drunk and tried to start fights with people. He ruined the party. I had to walk away from that.

Movies/Docs I Watched Recently

Filmage: The Story of Descendents/All

(Prime)

I’ve been waiting to watch this documentary for years. But I’m cheap and it’s always costed extra money to rent it on the streams so I always passed and watched something else instead because there’s always something else. But finally, it’s free on Amazon Prime, so I went ahead and gave it a watch.

I consider myself a medium fan of The Descendents. I dig a bunch of their stuff, seen them live and enjoyed it, but wouldn’t consider myself a super knowledgeable fan. And for that reason, I found this documentary to be really good. It gives a pretty complete picture of their overall history, and there’s a whole lot of it. There’s a lot of line up changes within the band and even a change of band name. I feel like I have a better understanding now, especially the part about the band, ‘All,’ which is something I didn’t know a whole lot about. I always just referred to them as that band that used to be the Descendents but without Milo.

The Descendents are legendary in their own right. Who knows what the fate of pop punk/emo and other sub genres of punk and hardcore would’ve been without their contributions? The Descendents were the dorks who could rock the fuck out and punk needs some kind of dork-pride. The outcasts can’t be all tough guys and mohawks. Gotta give the dorks some love as well. I consider myself a bit of a dork and when I see the Descendents, there’s a part of me that identifies with their image and their message (a lot of their message being things like not being popular, coffee/food, and being silly… all dork staples).

A couple really cool things in this doc… first being how Milo (the original lead singer) seemed to be a supportive fan of everything the Descendents/All did after he departed.

The second is the story of drummer, Bill Stevenson. He is a goddamn punk rock icon/legend. He’s drummed for Black Flag and the Descendents. But maybe the coolest part of the doc is the story of his health, how they found a tumor in his brain, removed it, and how he lived on and seems to really dig the fuck out of life after all that. Very cool stuff.

I can’t recommend this doc enough.

Frances Ferguson

(Prime)

This is a really strange movie about a small town woman who is a substitute teacher who finds herself in a failing marriage with a baby and ends up having sex with a student. She’s arrested for it and ends up going to jail and that’s pretty much the movie. Her life falls apart but also sorta starts over again with a refresh. Despite Frances’s obvious character flaws, she is oddly enjoyable as a sarcastic, wiseass type.

Nick Offerman narrates the whole thing which is a nice touch because I guess it’d be hard to fully invest in Frances Ferguson as a protagonist when she kinda does some shitty things along the way.

If you’re looking for something offbeat and strange and also not super long, give it a shot.

TV show I’m currently watching

Loudermilk

(Prime)

Finally, I’ve started binging something new. And I’m binging it hard. I’ve been watching for less than a week and I’m already done with the 2nd season (seasons are 10 episodes so take that into account).

The dude from Office Space (Ron Livingston) plays a recovering alcoholic (Sam Loudermilk) who runs support group meetings. He’s kinda like a disheveled House in that he’s a bit misanthropic, very sarcastic, and delivers a lot of tough love messages. He was a music critic in the 90’s who used to tour with bands and I like this for two reasons. The first being the fair amount of 90’s pop references which I’m a sucker for. Also, he’s a bit of a music elitist and as much as I don’t wanna be one (and really don’t have the knowledge to be one), I can’t help being myself sometimes.

He’s roommates with his sponsor (Ben) played by Will Sasso who is really good in this series. Ben is covering a dark secret from Loudermilk which is a thing that plays out through all of Season 1 and bleeds into the beginning of Season 2.

Loudermilk is also asked to try and help Claire, the daughter of an acquaintance, who is messed up pretty bad on drugs. Claire ends up moving in with Loudermilk and Ben to try and get clean.

This show has a lot going for it. I thought I wasn’t gonna like it at first. But I’m into it. Loudermilk is kinda a dick at times. In fact, in many episodes, the first scene is an example of him just being a dick to strangers and it’s kinda like, ugh, do you really have to be such a dick to people? But he is an oddly likeable curmudgeon and also a lot of the story is about him realizing his own flaws and dealing with it in his own Loudermilk sorta way. Also, when he is being a dick to people, he is sorta saying things that the rest of us probably don’t have the courage to say.

The Claire arc is probably the most enjoyable narrative over time. I don’t wanna spoil too much but her attempt at sobriety plays a huge part of the overall story. Her and Loudermilk’s budding friendship is endearing and funny (and at times, challenging for both of them).

There’s also a lot of fun side characters, like members of Loudermilk’s support group, who we get to know along the way (like Mugsy, for example, who is played by Brian Regan and curses a lot and there’s something funny about watching Regan curse a lot). They’ll put an occasional spotlight on some of these side characters time to time and it’s usually a fun addition to an already enjoyable show.

The gang.

Album of the Week

Bodies / AFI

This has so far been an interesting year for fans of punk music if you happen to be of a similar Warped Tour generation as myself. So far this year has seen new releases from the likes of NOFX, Offspring, Dropkick Murphys, and now AFI. I’m not a huge AFI fan but I’ve heard a bunch of their stuff over the years just being a fan of punk/alternative rock in general.

This is a good album. I’m not a huge fan of their stuff but I found this to be an enjoyable listen. I’m mostly just glad there is a band like AFI. They offer an interesting lane for punk/alternative rock music fans. They got a touch of goth, a touch of punk, and a touch of overall solid song writing. Their vocalist, Davey Havok, is dynamic and incredibly talented. A band like AFI helps prove that not all punk sounds the same.

There were maybe two bad songs on here, and one of those bad songs (Tied To A Tree) could maybe be a big radio hit in the 80’s, despite me not liking it.

If you’re a fan of AFI, I totally get it. You’ll probably never catch me binging the discography or singing lyrics in the front row of a concert, but I’d definitely bop my head and enjoy a few concert beers in the back of the room without a complaint.

Book I’m Currently Reading

Geek Love / Katherine Dunn

Haven’t read a lot this week. Not a lot happening in the small amount I did read. Artie’s getting more popular with the crowds so he’s starting to have a lot more power in terms of calling the shots with the traveling show. A strange doctor has joined their ranks and I feel like she has ulterior motives but that hasn’t been made clear yet. She did team up with Chick to use his mental powers to heal a horse, or really, prevent a horse from dying and what they may be doing to keep that horse alive might be unethical or even torturous, even though Chick’s convinced the horse doesn’t hurt (Chick is really sensitive and adverse to hurting other people/animals/things with his powers).

The narrator (Oly, the hunchback albino dwarf daughter) moves from past to present and I haven’t gotten deep into the present but I’m guessing things in the past lead up to how they got to where they’re at now, but where they’re at now hasn’t been made very clear as of yet. More to come…

There’s a lot of strange/cool art out there when you google image, ‘Geek Love.’

Random sports thought of the week

Chris Paul is entering the NBA’s Covid-19 health and safety protocols. They just completed their sweep of the Denver Nuggets and await the winner of the Clippers/Jazz series. But depending how long that takes, Chris Paul could miss some games and that would be tragic.

I stated last week that I’m hopping on the Suns bandwagon and the biggest reason is I’d like to see Chris Paul win a ring. This would be a sad ending to the Suns’ run if they were to be eliminated without Chris Paul being able to play.

This is the part where I begin to wonder if I cursed the Suns by hopping on their bandwagon in the first place. I’m not the superstitious type but it also feels like just when I found a fun thing to get behind in the NBA playoffs, the whole thing starts to collapse. I might just be overreacting. Paul might be available for the next series and even if he isn’t, maybe the Suns are still good enough without him.

These playoffs remain fun. Kawhi has a knee injury that I thought would ruin the Clippers chances of beating the Jazz but I could be wrong as the Clippers were able to beat them in Game 5 last night (with a mighty performance from Paul George).

The Bucks have been more competitive than I thought they would be against the Nets and the 76ers choked last night giving the upstart Atlanta Hawks a chance to take a series lead (3-2) and look like a credible threat to upset the top seeded team from the East.

The Suns were the most dominant force in these playoffs but now who knows? My guess is Brooklyn still takes it all but hopefully the playoffs have a lot more competitive, fun games to offer before it’s all said and done.

We are all sad Chris Paul.

Random pro wrestling thought of the week

NXT had a Takeover and it was okay. It was just okay. It was, ‘In Your House,’ so there were some old school themes. But mostly, I found the card to be predictable and lacking of surprises. A couple of the matches were decent but nothing felt special like most Takeovers. It felt more like maybe 2 weekly episodes of NXT crammed into one night. There were no title changes and no surprises. There was a weak send off about William Regal saying maybe his time is done and it’s like why would you wanna end an average PPV with that kind of bummer? (I mean, I get it… it’s supposed to get you to tune in to next week’s show.)

The card was top heavy. Too much top talent was included in the main event match, a Fatal 5 Way. I’m not sure what NXT has planned over the coming months, but it felt like they crammed 3 or 4 main events into that one match and now it’ll feel slightly like overkill to see any of these combatants fight each other in the near future (which is highly likely to happen).

I also just don’t get the push of Xia Li.

I think it’s a possibility that I’m slightly spoiled by NXT. This PPV was still better than most WWE main roster PPV’s. I guess I just expected more. I was very underwhelmed. Even the, ‘biggest crowd in CWC history,’ thing felt forced and not important.

Xia Li after reading my NXT Takeover review. She would break me so many apologies.

Weekly Top 5 List: Top 5 Music Phases I Went Through That I’m Not Proud Of

1- Limp Bizkit/red Yankees hat phase

2- Bright Eyes and other sad music/I wanna wear fake glasses so chicks think I’m deep phase

3- MC Hammer/Vanilla Ice/parachute pants phase

4- Radiohead phase (I’m not super embarrassed by this but if Radiohead is your favorite band, you should probably consider things like sunshine and hanging out with your friends)

5- Deadhead/hippie phase (another one I’m not super embarrassed about but I mean, I used to wear tie dye t-shirts in public)

Weekly Quote

“I was a kid who got picked on in school, and now the guys beating up those kids were wearing red caps and using my music to fuel that aggression. But if they listen to the lyrics, the aggression is targeted at them.”

-Fred Durst

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