Love is a Battlefield

This was going to be the first time that I'd be meeting Bruce's girlfriend.

This was going to the first time that Bruce and his girlfriend would be meeting each other's parents.

Bruce's brothers were not going to be there.

You would think that Bruce would've given me the head's up about these things (like when he told me about the weather for the weekend), but other than knowing that I'd be meeting Christina, I had no idea what was in store for me once I touched down in Pittsburgh - it was kind of a rude awakening. I already knew it was going to be a fast paced weekend since I was in town for graduation, but if I had known the weekend was going to be this intense, I probably would've tried harder to fall asleep on my red eye flight than sitting through the abomination known as National Treasure.

I found out Bruce's brothers weren't in Pittsburgh as I got off the bus from the airport. He told me as I was being rushed pretty much straight to the ceremony. He didn't divulge the part about the families meeting until after the ceremony. I felt perpetually in a state of motion the entire day so I don't even think I really reacted when he told me. I felt like I was watching Black Hawk Down, where at the beginning, the view just gets dropped in the middle of battle with no backstory preceding it. Not to say that there punches thrown or people yelling at each other in this meeting of families, but to say things were a little tense would be a gross understatement. If Bruce's brothers had been there, it would've made things a lot more comfortable for me. I would've had friends to talk to, since I knew that Bruce was very preoccupied dealing with the anxiety of getting to know his girlfriend's parents. Bruce's brothers being there would've also made my presence seem normal, but since his siblings weren't there and his best friend from across the country was, it seemed a little odd, I suppose. (Insert Brokeback Mountain joke here).

While Bruce's brothers weren't present, Christina's siblings were. The oldest of Christina's siblings was her sister who I believe was 16. This gave me someone to talk to so I could distract myself from the scene at hand, but at the same time there was a new level of discomfort. It's not easy to make small talk at a lunch with a teenager you've just met when you're 22 and their whole family is at the table, but it sure beats having to be part of the other conversation. "Ryan, do you have any stories about Bruce?" "Yeah, he didn't tell me that this lunch was going to happen and this is super uncomfortable. That's the kind of stand up guy that he is."

Awkward conversations aside, it seemed like the families were getting along and there wasn't going to be any drama. That was, until, Bruce's nose started to bleed. While I'm positive that there was no judgment passed on Bruce for this (no one thought he had a cocaine addiction), I'm sure Bruce was freaking out by this unwelcome little event. Ever since Bruce was a child, when his nose would bleed, it wouldn't clot as quickly as most nose bleeds, so it's not like he could run to the bathroom for a few minutes and be fine. Obviously, Christina's parents weren't going to hold this against him, but when anyone is in the middle of a situation like this, anything that goes wrong will undoubtedly make them feel like the whole world is crumbling to the ground.

Fortunately that was the only hiccup that we encountered at lunch. The check came and parents from both sides playfully argued over who was going to foot the bill. It was a relatively tame argument compared to the ones that my mom and his mom would get into back when we were kids living in Minnesota. Those arguments would often spill into the parking lot with one mom trying to stuff mom into the other's pocket, purse, and whatnot. While those arguments were never heated, they were embarrassing and drew way too much attention to us. I took the gentle sparring over the bill at lunch as a positive sign that the two families liked each other.

I would be asked throughout the weekend how I thought things went. While I knew this weekend was going to be a momentous occasion for Bruce, I didn't know the half of it. I knew Bruce would be taking his first step into the "real world" that weekend but Bruce had plans to take a much bigger leap that weekend. Though Bruce did shed some blood, he survived, and now he can share this story about how ballsy he was at his college graduation. He's got a witness and he made a believer out of me.

My Very First Metal Show

When I was in 5th grade, I had to be lab partners with a guy named Colin. He was a bigger, taller kid who had red hair that wasn't quite wild enough to be a mullet. We didn't hang out during recess or at lunch but it's not like either of us were disgusted by our pairing, at least not until he told me that his favorite band was Metallica. Like the good Christian boy I was, I told him "I don't listen to devil worshipping music". Not that I listened to Christian music as a kid, but Metallica seemed to be the opposite of Kris Kross, and that's what I was listening to at the time, so Metallica and Colin had to be evil. After all, Colin did pour vinegar into his test vial of sugar to ensure that whoever his lab partner was, they wouldn't want to sneak a taste.

Little did I know that Kris Kross would not withstand the test of time and that Metallica was the horse to bet on, but fortunately Colin and I never kept in touch after I moved to San Diego so he can't point that out to me. He also can't make fun of me that my first metal show ever was just a couple of weeks ago, at the ripe age of 27 years old.

You might expect a fascinating story of how I went from "Metallica is satanic" to "I'm going to a metal show", but honestly it's not much of a story at all. In fact, I still don't like Metallica. I like two metal bands, Mastodon and Dethklok and Mastodon is considered "metal for people who don't like metal" while Dethklok is a cartoon, though their music is actually well respected by the metal community. (Dethklok consists of Metalocalypse creator Brandon Small - who went to the Berkelee School of Music, Steve Vai's bassist, Frank Zappa's guitarist and a drummer known as the "Atomic Clock.)

No one can really take credit for getting me into either of these two bands. No one made me listen to these bands in the car, or slipped me a burned CD. For Mastodon, it was the critical buzz and the fact that they had Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) sing on their song "Colony of Birchmen" on their album Blood Mountain. For Metalocalypse, I had been a fan of Brandon Small's previous (and super underrated) cartoon, Home Movies (remember I'm a film major), so checking out Metalocalypse was a no brainer for me. When I found out that both these bands were going tour together, it was clear to me that this was a sign to go see my very first metal show.

I found out about this show on a bus trip from Minneapolis to Chicago. Surprisingly this isn't the only concert I ended up getting tickets to on this trip (Jon Brion + Nels Cline = mind explosion). I didn't have wireless for my laptop on the bus, so I called Sherlan and he happily picked up the tickets for the metal show.

A couple of friends voiced their concern about my safety regarding this show. I didn't really think it was warranted since these two bands don't have a typical metal following. Sure, since they're metal bands, they'll have some metal fans, but they're also two bands that reach non-metal audiences, with Mastodon reaching the hipsters and Dethklok reaching cartoon-loving nerds. Of course, that didn't prepare me to see a guy wearing a Bathing Ape button down shirt when we got to the show. (Also we parked next to a car with a license plate that read M. Bison)

The show itself wasn't a disappointment, but I would say that it was pretty much the same as a regular concert except for the fact that kick drum is mic'ed to be intentionally ear drum shattering loud and that the bands take little break after a few songs from all the intense shredding and drum beating that they do. Also, the Dethklok soundcheck might've been the only soundcheck ever that has amused me, as their roadie went up to each mic and growled a monstrous "HEYYY!" into each mic before walking off stage. Check one two, one two, this surely was not.

There was a mosh pit, there was some crowd surfing, but all in all, it wouldn't be that different than going to a Foo Fighters show. There were no animal sacrifices or prayers to satan. Nothing was harmed during the concert (except in cartoon form, lots of things die in the world of Dethklok, including mermaids), but more importantly my ears weren't ringing and no one made me bleed with their spiked bracelets or whatnot. I know that while this was not a typical metal show, and that most shows aren't as violent and grotesque as I was led to believe as a child. So while I do feel bad for being so judgmental as a child, what happened happened and I can't change that, nor can Colin change the fact that he put vinegar in the sugar. Dick.

The Only Thanksgiving that Mattered

I don't remember many Thanksgivings from my childhood. In fact, the earliest Thanksgiving I remember was from freshmen year of college. The plan was to spend Thanksgiving at my sister's place in LA. I was having a hard time reaching my parents and finally when I did, I was informed that I would have to find a way to get to my sister's place since they were taking care of my grandmother in LA and wouldn't be able to swing by to pick me up since they weren't coming from San Diego. I scrambled to find a ride and was finally able to find one via a dorm mate of mine named Fred.

Fred was a foreign exchange student from France but his English was pretty good despite his accent. Fred was studying music at school, I often would seem him playing the piano in the dorm. He was also a Rastafarian so he, his room, and his car always reeked of weed. There was also the one time where he tried to fit himself into the dorm fridge, but I think that was a result of alcohol, not marijuana. I liked Fred a lot and we got along really well, he and his friend once opened a show I was playing by rapping in French. Having previously established a friendship prevented the following conversation from sounding as hostile as it probably reads:

"So Fred, I know you're French, but are you going to celebrate Thanksgiving since you're here in the States?"
"I don't celebrate cultural genocide, man."
"So what are you going to do for the time off?"
"Party. I'm going to LA and I'm going to party."

So, that is the earliest Thanksgiving I remember, and I remember it because of my car ride with Fred, not because of the food or the people I actually spent the day with. Perhaps, that's why, since then, my parents and I have quickly bypassed the traditional turkey meal for whatever we feel like eating that day. We've gone from having Thanksgiving meals with a family of 8 down to a family of 3 since my sisters have married/dispersed throughout the United States.

A couple of years ago, Bruce's mom had a brain aneurysm in the Spring. I remember getting the news from Bruce and then relaying it, first to my mom, and then to all my sisters. The relationship between Bruce's family and my family doesn't end and begin with the boys (Bruce, his brothers and me). Bruce's mom and my mom are very close, my mom says they are "like sisters". On my first trip back to Minnesota in 2004, Bruce's mom welcomed me back by saying that "one of my sons has finally come home" (NOT in reference to the prodigal song story). We're as close to family as can be without actually being related by blood.

This is why, later that year, my parents and I jumped on a plane and flew to Minneapolis to spend Thanksgiving with the Lee's. I was unemployed at the time but that wasn't going to stop me from making the trip. Not to compare my situation with the level of tragedy that Bruce's family was facing, but I must say it had been a pretty crappy year for me as well. I lost my job and got out of a long-term relationship in a 48 hour span. I wouldn't say I was really stressed out at the time, but just being in Minneapolis helped put my mind at ease and helped me focus on what was more important, and that was being there for Bruce and his family.

We kept our visit low key. We didn't tell a lot of people we were making our triumphant return to Minnesota (first time I was going back with my parents). My parents did end up visiting a couple of friends (once dragging me along), but for the most part, we kept the focus on spending time with the family. I went to a hockey game with the boys, my parents went to lunch withe Bruce's dad, and there was time spent at the nursing home. Thanksgiving itself was a nice low key affair; some people from church dropped by and ate with us, but no one that knew my parents or me. It was definitely a bittersweet time for all of us but we were glad to be there.

On the night we left back for San Diego, we made one last visit to the nursing home to say goodbye to Bruce's mom. My mom sat beside her bed and held her hand, and while she couldn't speak, I know that she knew what was going on in the room. My mom started to get emotional, which immediately started getting me emotional, while my dad did his best to be a calming presence in the room. Finally, it was time to leave the nursing home and to leave Minnesota.

By no means did we want this to be the circumstance that finally brought us back to Minnesota, but it did redefine Thanksgiving for our family. I don't expect this holiday to be this impact on us every year but it is a reminder that it's about togetherness, even if Fred is right about the cultural genocide aspect of the mythology. When I have kids and they ask me about Thanksgiving, I'll have to tell them the lie about the Pilgrims and the Indians, but then I'll tell them about the time the Paks left California to break bread with the Lees in Minnesota and I'll be proud to tell them all about that story.