Heavy-Metal Quilter

I swear, not five seconds ago I was bemoaning the state of heavy metal and then this came across my feed reader.

Metallica: What Went Wrong?

On my way into work this morning, “Enter Sandman” came on the radio. It was marvelous.

From the first note, it’s just delicious. And James Hetfield’s voice is scary without being cartoony. Plus there’s the great tension between the kind of kiddiness of the song and the throbbing evil of it. It’s hard to make a catchy song that seems like it could end in child murder, but here we are.

I used to think the Napster thing did them in, but I don’t remember being the least bit excited about Load or Reload, and that was before that.

Did success ruin them?

I don’t know. I remember when I was in high school, though, a black Metallica t-shirt was a requirement in most boys’ wardrobe.

Was it when they all cut their hair? Is that what did them in?

 

Just Sliding into Next Weekend

Church yesterday was nice. The women behind us tried to talk my dad into joining the choir. Jay had a good sermon about the difficulty of giving Easter sermons. His scripture was from Acts, about Peter’s coming to understand that the church is for everyone. If I weren’t a polytheist, I’d be very comfortable at his church, since his theology and mine line up quite a bit, until they diverge wildly.

The family is as dysfunctional as ever. The Butcher seems to be bearing the brunt of it this time, which I feel a great deal of sympathy for him over. Only one of my nephews was able to come this time, which was a little bit of a bummer. But it was also good to see my nephew, who is a million feet tall, with shaggy curly hair, which he must get from our side of the family.

For a teenager, he’s incredibly good-natured. Maybe he’s still young to be sulking around all the time. But he seems happy, just in his general being, and I hope that continues for him. When I’m with my family, I sometimes think that’s something that we don’t really even think is possible or that happiness just happens by accident, instead of being something you can open yourself to and have be a regular companion.

So, I hope he gets to keep that, you know?

He’s easy to make laugh, which I enjoy.