Don't Rush It

I have two blog ideas I really want to write.  But I'm not going to just yet.  I don't want to....rush it.  Don't rush it...hey a name for a blog!

One is going to be an amazing MLM inspired piece.  It's not a take down by any means, you do you if you're selling...whatever it is you sell.  But if I log on Facebook at least one person I know is selling something and it's always the same presentation and pictures and that is the funniest thing in the world to me.  

"If I just drink the juice once a day....my wrinkles will stay away (don't you dare steal that!!!  That is incredible, using it for that future blog, that's going to be the title now instead of MLM Fighter!)."    

So I thought I would write up a funny thing, snap some pics of "the humor" that I have for it, then watch the money roll in on the internet hits I wish I would receive for writing this blog, so then I don't have to work for the man (oh that's sort of the same thing as the MLM thing?  Is it!?). 

The second is the "I just got rich, what will I make people do?" post.  But that idea sucks and it feels like too much work for a one sentence joke.  So what would I do?  If you said "we" when talking about your favorite sports team you have to go to a desert island and watch nothing but their rivals play for the rest of your life until you stop saying "we", you're not on the team old chap.  

So let's jump in to my final Vermillion related post shall we!?  Vermillion Pt. 2 write up...cue the music!

So I don't have MUCH to write about concerning Vermillion, but there is a topic that gets me riled up.   

IF YOU LIVE IN VERMILLION VOTE FOR THE NEW COURTHOUSE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!  As someone who worked there I can attest that it is in fact a really crappy situation, you can literally smell the sewage as you walk in.  It makes no sense to renovate.  The argument that people living far away from downtown and won't be able to get there is invalid since it's the CLAY COUNTY courthouse (that means people outside of the town also need to go there...a lot of Vermillion people don't think about anything but Verm and it shows).  Also you have a bus service.  Also it's the future and there's bikes and roller blades and shoes with wheels in them and you can literally do everything by mail anyway so.....  

The only reason you would want to keep it is because it's "historical".  So historical I can't tell you a single thing that happened there (besides the story I'll tell you shortly...but that story is more HYSTERICAL...wordplay).  But hey keep the workers who work there in misery by keeping a building none of you ever visit (even though it's super historical!) and preserve that dumpster fire of a building.  I don't even think offices should go in there, just tear that mother down.  So here's a fun story from my time there...

Week 2 of my career at the Clay County Treasurer I had to use the restroom at the courthouse.  Tuesday's are court days.  I think nothing of it because it's not weird to share a bathroom for work with a bunch of....interesting people about to go to court, is it?  

I sat there, wondering how I went from my dream job (a TV show host literally weeks ago, which I willingly left) to whatever I was doing at the time (getting autos licensed in a legal, but extremely illegal feeling way to predominantly out of state people who go to live in Mexico or skirt local laws to pay cheaper car renewals in different states...by the way this job was legit super fun and I have a ton of stories, especially from the guy who sent me a lucha libre wrestling mask from Mexico...wow it's just weird describing this job in this run on sentence, I'll write about it sometime in more detail.)

Then my stall door opens, because there wasn't a lock on the door of the stall.  Some dude just opens the door and sees me sitting there.  He asks me if I'm trying to "get my rocks off".  I start to laugh because this is f'ing insane and not at all normal.  No, just trying to use the restroom sir, I hope you enjoyed the view.  As I get out and walk to the sink, I see an older man, looking like he's wearing nothing but a Hawaiian shirt, giving himself a full on bath at the sink.  Soap is on his legs, his face and arms and he asks me "what are you hear for?".  Sir, I'm working but this is starting to feel like jail already lol.  It's roughly 10 AM by the way.  

Literally a few weeks later, another Tuesday because of course, I think nothing weird can happen again right?  Yeah sure, I open the stall door for the bathroom and some crazy ass kid is just standing there, hiding...I legit thought I was going to get shanked so I  ran away in terror from this like 8 year old kid.  I think literally in that moment of running away, I thought, "I gotta move my family back to Nebraska!".  

So anyway, yeah, get those employees the hell out of that courthouse.  I have friends there I legit care about their safety.  

Speaking of Vermillion, so can someone do anything about that old Casey's eye sore as I drive back in to town this summer?  Nothing better than a run down gas station when you hit town, amiright?  One of the future mayors might be reading this, help me, help you!  And that old Pressbox spot, what is exactly going there in 40 years?

Well that's all I got about that town, see it wasn't so bad, just like three things and I didn't say anything too scandalous or make fun of anybody (I still can, but I wont'!).  Verm is a great town once you get past a lot of the fakeness, but that's literally everywhere.  I haven't been there in almost a year, so that'll be it for writing about my beloved hometown until I come back (and hopefully not avoid rocks being thrown at me from my last two Verm-related blogs).

So before I finish up, I have some random thoughts:

- I was looking at my blog numbers, because again I want to get successful at this (which won't happen, but I write because it's my passion...........it's my PASSION I SAY!) and make money off of writing...and I noticed that my biggest blog I've ever written is...THE BIGGEST/BEST/FAVORITE OF LIMP BIZKIT!?!?!?!  WHAT THE HELL!?  That's...that's incredible.  Looks like this blog keeps...Rollin' baby.  

- I saw a guy on social media bragging about having never touched fast food, just belittling people who have tried it or enjoy it (which I took personally because I'm the worst at watching what I eat).  And I wanted to think of something funny that's kind of routine that I would've commented back about and pretended that I haven't done.  Like, I wanted to type, "That's awesome bro, I've never used a computer, how crazy is that!?"  Just to see what the response would be.  But I also hate internet arguments with people I've never met.  So I put it in this blog instead.

- So I want to do a Q&A blog, but as I stated last week, I am completely terrified nobody will ask a question AND I'm terrified of what would be asked.  So if I had an eraser right now for my blog ideas, I would be erasing that one off of my notepad, but then writing it again because it sounds kinda fun.  So just in case, hey what do you got for quetions!?

And I'm DONE!  Next week I'll be writing about...something.  Maybe about the last year down here in Lincoln?  Ya'll want some Lincoln stories or what!?  I still have my parenting advice blog with Danny Gilbertson coming too, which that one sounds fun!

Thanks for reading,

Jeff

Limp Bizkit Style! (Favorite. Biggest. Best)

Last week I got to experience one of the best rock bands ever, live and in person Metallica.  It was an amazing show!  They played almost all of their hits...they had Jim Breuer open, and we left with :20 seconds left of Enter Sandman so my wife could get to work, it honestly was everything you could ever ask for in a show!  But it got me thinking, who was my generations (age 32-40) band?  THE BAND!?



Clearly each decade had a band or two that were theirs.  The 60's you liked the Rolling Stones or the Beatles.  The 70's you had Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.  The 80's you had Guns N Roses or Metallica.  The early 90's were Nirvana...but after them, who?  Who is our biggest band after Nirvana? 

Creed?



Nickelback?



No to all of them (although I came across a Nickelback song a while ago, and shockingly it didn't age horribly, I found it not...bad.  Shhhhhhh!  Don't tell.). 

And who would my favorite band even be?  All time it's the Beatles, and I really like the Strokes...but who is a sneaky contender for my favorite band of all time for pure rock?

Oh fuck...no way!?



Limp Bizkit?!  Could it be?  It...it is!



I love Limp Bizkit.  And I hope I don't offend Mr. Durst if you are improbably reading this, but I think the reason I like it so much, I don't have to think too damn hard about the music.  Fred, Mr. Bizkit, has basically 5 ranges of emotion:

1. Angry
2. Really angry
3. Angrily rocking out
4. Wearing hats
5. Songs that make him want to awkwardly dance and use of hands...



But it's all catchy!  It's all great...for the most part!  And if you ignore they came out with an album in 2011 (what the F!?) or legit have had an album in development for years after that, (the name you may ask!?  Stampede of the Disco Elephants...Limp Bizkit were either incredibly innovative with naming things...or never great with names...ever) they really had, at most, a limited time to deliver some arguably great music. 

Significant Other came out in 1999, that was my senior year of high school.  I was oddly shy at that time, so I spent a lot of time playing PS1 and listening to music at that time.  I listened and bought every type of music (thanks BMG!), but there was no album I played more than Significant Other at that time.  The next year I went to the midnight release at my local On Cue to buy Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water when it came out (I told you...not the best with naming things), it was arguably played more than Significant Other. 

They then followed that up with a criminally (see what I did Ras!?) underrated album in Results May Vary.  I liked it, it bombed, it was the beginning of the end, save for one last comeback with a song called "The Truth" which came out in 2005.  Then they were done.  And since then have there been any "new" bands to get as big as them? 



Go ahead, try to name someone as big.  Maybe Linkin Park?  But to me that's the same era, and Limp Bizkit was bigger.  Korn?  Comparable, but same argument.  Bizkit wins.  Green Day had the one brilliant album in the mid-2000's...nothing that great since (and they are a 90's band to me anyway).  Since then the biggest selling band is Imagine Dragons.  The best tours are nostalgia acts (sorry Metallica, that's you).  My favorite to listen to?  Besides a handful of new songs, I go to the 90's for my rock music. 

Rock is so different now.  Rock radio honestly sucks.  It's just the same old songs over and over again and then they throw in The Pretty Reckless every now and then because she's hot. 



She's Cindy Lou Hoo by the way in the Jim Carrey Grinch movie...think about that for a second...



Don't believe me on rock radio?  Go turn to your rock station now.  It'll be AC/DC...then a 90's rock band...then Ozzy, then Shinedown...then The Pretty Reckless, repeat.  Rock tours are nostalgia acts or recent ish bands that are good, but not great (and this is only my opinion, but bands like Five Finger Death Punch, Chevelle, Shinedown are good, and I love at least 2-3 songs by each BUT they aren't Metallica, the mystique isn't there for me.  If I met James Hetfield I would shit myself, if I met anyone in those bands above, I would literally have no idea.  I would have to ask Ras or Dino who they are.). 

We need some new music...and until we get that music I'm going to listen to what I like, and dammit, what I like is the BIZKIT! 

So what's this surprisingly, incredibly long intro leading up to?  We are doing a Favorite.  Biggest.  Best. Limp Bizkit.  I have recruited Ras and James to give their choices, as well as mine.  If you missed the last one, we covered blink-182 (arguably a band that should be in the discussion of best 90's band) with Beach which you can find Here!

Let's get started before this gets any longer!  And....go!

Ras's Selections:

Favorite: The Truth

Biggest: Nookie

Best: Full Nelson

I can't argue with any of Ras's selections, and I love the Full Nelson pick.  He dug deep in to that library.  The Truth is a song a lot of people haven't heard, and that's disappointing because it's really, really, really freaking good. 

James's Selections:

Favorite: N 2 Gether Now

Biggest: Nookie (a trend is developing!)

Best: My Way

My Way is arguably their 4th biggest song (full disclosure, I, Jeff, do not like Rollin'...blame the Undertaker.).  Clearly we all agree on Nookie, and N 2 Gether now is a classic that started them having a rap feature on their next two albums (Xzibit on Getcha Groove On and Snoop on the CRIMINALLY underrated Red Light, Green Light). 

Jeff's Selections:

Favorite: Re-Arranged

Biggest: Nookie (trend developed)

Best: The Truth

Nookie is clearly their biggest song.  Faith would be after that, then Rollin', then My Way...if I keep ranking them I'm just going to do another Limp Bizkit blog, and nobody wants that after this one. 

The Truth is such an underrated song, and at the time, it was really exciting to see if that was the direction they were going in since nu metal was dead in 2005.  Unfortunately red hats stopped being sold, so with red hats went Limp Bizkit. 

That's it for this week!  If you want to do one of these Favorite.  Biggest.  Best.  Be my guest.  Literally!  A few of you posted last time, so maybe 3 Doors Down would be a unique one.  Or Incubus.  I'd LOVE to do Eminem, but that ones too easy. 

Next blog will be the long awaited "The Kind of People Who Suck"...clearly flat earthers and anti vaxxers make this, but we all know there are more kinds of people that suck. 

Until next time,

Jeff

Father Figure

Man that song is amazing!  RIP George Michael.  Limp Bizkit should remake it, just to get that career back on track.  But then again, I love song covers.  Which this blog is going to be about!

What, did you think this blog was going to be about being a parent?  As you can tell if you're an avid reader (which I know you are) I haven't written a blog in weeks.  Why?  The kid is super time consuming!  It's tough, because when she's asleep, you want to sleep, but then you end up doing something else.  Then when you want to sleep, you gotta take care of the kid.  Adult stuff.  So the blog has sadly been thrown to the side, until now.  But I will put a few random thoughts on parenthood right now:

- kids love to cry for no reason, it's not just food and poop
- if you are watching a show, they will cry at a really good part
- when they smile at you, your heart freaking melts
- random strangers will come up to you and the baby, and do baby talk
- oh, and our stroller is a celebrity, bigger celeb then the kid.  It's a stroller that folds up in to a car seat, people lose their minds, and randoms won't stop talking to us about it

So if you know me personally (and if you don't, you should, I'm great) you know I love music.  I also really, really, really love rock covers of pop songs.  Above I referenced one of the most well known covers of a song, Faith.

It's good....but it goes off the rails at the end.  I don't even like it to be honest with you.  If you're going on a cover from Limp Bizkit's collection, unpopular opinion I know, but I love Behind Blue Eyes...sorry, not sorry The Who fans (overrated band btw...sorry, not sorry).

Since we're on the rap/rock trail, let's get to the next cover that is phenomenal...Word Up! by Korn.

Incredible, isn't it?  Rap songs in to rock is really hard, and they did it.  The only one that did it better was a band named Framing Hanley, who covered Lollipop by Lil Wayne.

Another little known rock band that was amazing was Local H, who had a song called Bound For the Floor (trust me, you've heard it), but they have an insanely good cover of Toxic by Britney...

On the other spectrum of that, there is a remake of Cry Me a River, which was my favorite cover of all time, until the lead singer of the band did something so horrendous, I don't want to mention it in this blog.  Feel free to pull it up, but I just can't listen to it anymore.  So my favorite cover now falls to a different Britney song.

Britney would be proud!



Wow, remember that version of Britney Spears!?  Around the same time I discovered the song above, Johnny Cash had released his classic cover of a Nine Inch Nail song, Hurt:

Nirvana also had an amazing cover of well, of the David Bowie classic, The Man Who Sold the World:

Nirvana drummer, also known as the coolest guy in music Dave Grohl has a great cover of Tiny Dancer, go ahead and take a listen, if not just for the chorus.

Finally, if you are a visitor here, you know of my love of Hall and Oates, picture found here: Hall and Oates and Jeff

Well here is a cover of my favorite song by them, I Can't Go For That (No Can Do).

Which this link brings up two questions:

1) Why aren't kazoos in more songs!?
2) There need to be more song titles that use a parenthesis.  If my band (Gotch Gracy) actually had any songs, we'd have a parenthesis in about half of them.

So these are just a few of the best covers of all time.  I know I missed a couple (Killing Me Softly by the Fugees, Metallica's version of Turn the Page, any cover of Rebecca Black's "Friday")... so the following song is one that SHOULD be covered, like immediately.  But first, a side story.

My cousin Brad and I (who are starting a podcast, stay tuned), had a debate over which song should have a cover.  I always pushed for Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson, which in my head I assumed I always told him.  Fast forward a few years, the lovely band Alien Ant Farm came out with a cover!  Overjoyed at me being awesome and thinking it'd be a great rock cover, I told Brad.  Brad... let's just say he doesn't believe I ever said such a thing.  Brad is a jerk, this will be covered on a future podcast, guaranteed.

To move along to his song that would make a great "rock" cover, Lisa Loeb with "Stay"....he is correct, if he in fact came up with that idea on his own....

Well that's it for this week, thanks for reading like usual.  I have no clue what the next blog will be about, definitely not Trump or politics...unless it's the "long awaited" who is the next person who should run for president.  Until next time!

Jeff Kleeman