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“i’m a dirty frat boy on a dirty soccer team”

this is one of the funniest things i’ve seen in a long time. not exactly consistent with what i saw of frat life on defiance, ohio tour though. after the show in birmingham alabama, some kids offered us a place to stay, and we took them up on that offer. somewhere in the conversation the words “frat house” kept coming up but i just thought it was an ironic house name, or maybe a former frat house turned punk house like the one we played at in bufallo. but, when we reached the security checkpoint outside of the gated and ultra-posh looking birmingham southern university, i realized that this was a frat house for real. the kids who offered us a place to stay were very nice, but on a whole, i think some of the other frat kids hated us. we got sprayed by a fire extinquisher for one, and it’s tough to tell if that was just drunken antics or some kind of primal territory marking. in any case, i went to bed before the naked dude dance party really infuriated the frat kids and before i had to be subjected to any fucked up utterances, but i’m told that both were pretty intense that night. in any case, i appreciated the kids who were nice enough to give us a place to stay, and the fact that decent people can be involved in fucked up institutions. i just hope that they can maintain the confidence to change them rather than just accomodating the things that they might disagree with. i’m also a bit distressed at how easily we all slipped in to staying there. i guess it just shows that punk or frat kid, middle class is middle class and that creates a commonality that’s far stronger than most punk kids would like to admit. it’s sad that oftentimes punk resembles the privilage, mindlessness, and elitism of a frat just as much as it resmbles something more meaningful, community oriented, or diverse.

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every other time that i had seen them play, the sweat, the screams, the gyrations all seemed to be an expression, a culmination, of something bigger – like everyone in the room had lived through the same things, had the same relationships with each other, struggled against the same forces and adversity and that the music and the response to it had burst forth either in celebration or in desperation.

this time, there was just as much energy, but when the words were sang (or screamed) together, it seemed for the sake of screaming words together and the dancing and the flailing of the boy next to me seemed for the sake of proving that he could dance and flail more than anybody else. the band made attempts at grace, at charity, and i believe that they were genuine, but the avenues that permitted their pursuit were so narrow. despite all the noise, it seemed hollow and empty.

my first reaction was to pass judgement, but ultimately, things are what they are and the way things are often transpires even with the best intentions in mind. after all, we’ve seen this all before, and life goes on.

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defiance, ohio and the war on terror

hey yall!! hope yer doin good. i just wanted to tell you about this funny/scary thing that happened! me and dan were at the wto protests in montreal (buckwild!) and when we were on our way back into the states the border cops were giving us a really hard time and searching my car like nobody’s biz. in the trunk they found a lyrics booklet from yalls cd and one cop was like “HERES some anarchy stuff!” they started Freaking Out and grilling me like “who is defiance ohio! how closely are you associated with defiance ohio?! when is the last time you saw these people?! what is terrorware?! where is defiance ohio now?!” and i was like “what! i don’t even know!” then the cop was like “i’m gonna check this out!” and he went inside to look at your website.. and he made a copy of the booklet! the weirdest thing was that i had tons of books and zines that were really radical/specifically about anarchy but they just skimmed over those.. it was s o weird! i don’t know what their conclusion was but they finally let us go and we were laughing so hard but it was also pretty fucked up, especially since we had just endured several days of police abuse and our patience for bullshit was worn quite thin. AAAHH!!! anyways, shit, hope yer having lots of fun, maybe i’ll see you next month, i’m thinking of driving to bloomington before i go to south america. that’s where yall live right? don’t worry, i didnt tell the police! hahaha Love syd

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song lyrics for new bucket band song that i wrote while in pa

when we picked up our slingshots and smashed the glass on the SUV,
were we suddenly more safe or suddenly more free?
and did the symbolism mean anything to anyone but me?
and did we forget what we were driving for?

i’ve got a sneaking suspicion that this feels like revenge.
and that we’re caught in a cycle that seems like it never ends.

and i’d like to believe
that i could be tough enough or smart enough
to force every one to agree
but there’s a tradeoff in this game we play
between waging wars
and living lfe as we please.

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making php more verbose

in .htaccess
# debugging stuff
php_value error_reporting 17
php_flag display_errors On
php_flag display_startup_errors On
php_flag track_errors On

to enable changing stuff by .htaccess (the ‘AllowOverride All’ is the important one):
#Restricted set of options

#Options -All -Multiviews FollowSymLinks
Options FollowSymLinks
#AllowOverride None
AllowOverride All
#Order deny,allow
Order allow,deny
#Deny from all
Allow from all