Alice Cooper - Along Came a Spider

Continuing his string of great albums, the Coopster has done it again. Ever since the turn of the century, Alice has just been putting out one great album after another. Starting with 2000's Brutal Planet, we haven't heard a single bad CD out of him. "

"Along Came a Spider" is a concept album about a twisted serial killer, as seen through the eyes of the killer himself. It begins with some strange sound effects, and then a female voice says; "We found his diary today". After that, hang on for the ride. This CD is an Alice Cooper tour de force.

With such a macabre theme, you would expect a dark and gothic sound to the music, but that's not the case at all. The album is very uptempo. It's kind of weird and unnerving to find yourself sitting there tapping you toes to the beat of a song about a psycho. While listening to this one, it's really quite easy to forget that it's a concept album about a twisted killer, it sounds more like just a collection of great songs. It really sounds a lot like the early years Alice.

A few of the memorable moments of the disc include the opening track, "I know where you live", which is just some damn good catchy uptempo hard rock. The tracks single, "Vengeance is mine" is certainly one to grab your attention. And, amusingly, there is a really nice ballad, "Killed by love", in which he proclaims his love for his next victim, basically trying to convince her that this hurts him as much as it hurts her. Is that twisted or what?

I don't know if you would call this one heavy metal, more like just good rock n' roll. There really aren't that many artists that could put out a CD like this one and make it work, but Alice managed it quite nicely. After several listenings, I must say that this is some of the best work that Alice has ever done. I think this is the best new release of 2008 so far.

American Wars

It only makes sense when you think about it. I mean the Americans always being at war with someone. Occupations, Police actions, interventions etc. Whatever name you want to give it. It’s really all the same. But the real question is why. Why would anyone want war? Well the answer is really quite simple.

First off, you have to understand who’s making the decisions. The government. They have the last word. We often delude ourselves into thinking that it’s a democracy, but it’s not. Although they have democratic elections, they’re not a democracy, they’re a republic. Once the election is over, the people really don’t have a say until the next election. Until then, the government is free to do as they please.

Second off, you have to remember that money makes the world go round. Running a political party takes money, lots of it. Political campaigns gobble up huge amounts of money. So where do they get their money? From donations, of course. Big donations from big business. Working class people don’t have the money to make a significant donation. It’s the big corporations. They’ve got the bucks.

So where does the American Republican party get most of their donations? From the armaments industry and the oil industry. That’s where. Invading oil producing countries generates billions of dollars for the armaments industry, and causes the price of oil to sky rocket, which generates billions more for the oil industry. For the people making the decisions, war is a high profit business. It only makes sense.

If McCain wins the next American election, I think the Iranians had better brace themselves. Republicans are in the business of war. They can’t afford peace. Helluva way to run a county if you ask me.

China

From an international standpoint, this was the best thing that could have happened. China opened it's arms to the rest of the world. They opened up the doors and welcomed in people from all over the world and said come on in. For just a brief moment, they stopped living behind a wall.

It's really too bad that so many people decided to use this years Olympics as a forum to make some kind of political statement. They just don't seem to realize that all of their political rhetoric is just going to fade into the background noise. If they thought that they could make more noise than a billion people saying; " Hello world! Just take a look at us!", then they were sadly mistaken.

If there's one thing that China has in it's favor, it's people power. I'm really convinced that the people of China would just as soon leave the past behind them and get on with forging a better future. They really aren't interested in hearing a lot of protests and demonstrations.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the communist system. I'm just saying that China is a country in a state of change. They are undergoing a metamorphosis into what they were meant to be, and while it's not going to be what they were in the past, they're not going to abandon their identity as a unique and distinctive nation either. They will never be American wannabes. China will always be China.

These Olympics were simply an opportunity for them to show the world that they can play the game too. I think that they're going to be much bigger players in the game than they've been in the past.

MRI

It's got to be one of the most totally freaky experiences of my life. The MRI machine looks intimidating enough from the outside, but try being stuffed into it. Talk about your claustrophobia!

It seems that the x-rays of my neck revealed that there's a deteriorated vertebrae in my neck, and the doctor suspects that the nerve leading into my right arm is being pinched by it. Unfortunately, the x-ray only shows bone, not soft tissue, including nerves. So off to the MRI clinic I went.

First off, I had to drive to the south end of Calgary in the middle of Rush hour. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was right through all the damn construction on glenmore trail. It took me an hour just to get there. But that was just the beginning. The fun part was yet to come.

I stripped down to my boxers, and then laid down on the table. The technician, ( a cute blond half my age) told me that I might feel just a little bit cramped in there. She wasn't kidding. It was really hard not to panic laying in that incredibly noisy contraption, knowing that extreme magnetism was scrambling all the molecules in my body just to get an image of them. Nice.

Anyways, tomorrow I'll find out the results of the MRI. The doctor told me that the worst case scenario was surgery. Wonderful. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed.

Pinched Nerve

Well, somehow I managed to get a pinched nerve in my neck. Or at least that's what the doctors think it is. It's one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to me.

I woke up one morning about 3 weeks ago and my right arm felt really weird. Like I'd slept on it funny. Only problem was, the feeling didn't go away. From on day to the next, it just got worse. after about a week, my arm would go to sleep every time that I lifted it.

One day at work I went to lift up a skid, and my arm just suddenly gave out. It was intensely painful. It was at this time that I went to our first aid rep and told him about it. He insisted that I see doctor, and I did. He concluded that there's nothing wrong with my arm, and that the problem is the nerves in my neck.

The doctor put me on light duties and sent me for a whole bunch of tests. Next week I'm gong for an M.R.I. I'm currently going to physiotherapy 3 times a week, but there hasn't been any improvement. I'm typing this blog one paragraph at a time because that's about as much as my arm can take. I'm really getting sick of this.

To make matters worse, the doctor said that it may be necessary for me to have surgery. Apparently I have a deteriorated bone in my neck that's irritating the nerve, and it probably isn't going to just fix itself. Isn't that just great? Maybe I'm just getting old....... Bummer