Steff Metal

Valentine’s Day looms on the horizon, like a dark, looming thing.

It seems horribly clich’ed, but I’m not a Valentine’s Day fan. It seems like such a fake, commercial “holiday”. There’s no real “holiday” aspect to it. You don’t relax on the beach, or curl up on the couch with a good book, or hang out with friends. You buy some tacky teddy bear with a heart balloon and hope you’re gonna get laid.

The origins of Valentines Day are lost in the ages. No one even knows if it’s related to Valentine. It’s likely our modern traditions derive from the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia. When the Romans were Christianised, they transformed all their pagan holidays into church-sanctioned parties. In 496 AD the Pope declared Lupercalia the feast of St. Valentine, who had performed secret marriage services during their reign of Claudius II and was executed for this <>. Claudius ruled during a great period of strife and believed marriage made his soldiers weak.

In medieval France and England (thanks Chaucer) St. Valentines Day came to be associated with romance. The church tried to bring the holiday back to sacred pursuits, but it’s popularity as a day for courtship and romance grew. In the Middle Ages, handmade cards and gifts were exchanged between lovers, and this practise moved with the expansion of the empire until it reached the Americas, where the first commercial Valentines cards were printed in the 1840s.

I think, as always, the church takes these things far too seriously, and Valentines Day, if you choose to celebrate it, should be a day of fun and frivolity. But there’s so much pressure now: “how many Valentines did you get?” “What did YOUR husband do?”, “Don’t worry, I’m sure SOMEONE will give you a Valentine” that Valentines Day just isn’t any fun. And more and more people boycott this holiday, including us.

CDH said once “I’m not participating in a gift grab designed to make insecure women feel special. My job is to make you feel special every day of the year.” And it’s true, and I agree with him, and he does.

I tried to find a picture of a metal valentine, but these guys kept coming up instead. Aren't they ... well sculpted?

But not everyone agrees with me and I don’t see the harm in a retail-mandated excuse to indulge your beloved. As a lady easily swayed by romantic notions (although my idea of romance differs considerably from that of the “average” female) I offer some tips to my male readers on romantic gestures for your metalhead missus, for Valentines Day, or any day.

1. Instead of buying her sexy lingerie, find her a limited-edition Pestilence vinyl.

2. Instead of saying “I love you,” throw her the goat. (bonus points if it’s a real goat).

3. Forgo sappy flowers. She’d much prefer a deadly nightshade plant.

4. Instead of a heart-shaped necklace, present her with a Thor’s Hammer on a leather thong.

5. Instead of buying her heart-shaped chocolates, cook her steak, eggs and chips.

6. Instead of taking her out to dinner and a movie, rent a bunch of cheesy b-grade horror films and pop a giant tub of popcorn.

7. Instead of serenading her at her window, let her choose the songs in the car stereo.

8. Instead of scattering rose petals around the house, paint the walls with inverted crosses and pentegrams.

9. Instead of ringing the local radio station to dedicate a cheesy ballad to her, dedicate a song to her at your next gig. Bonus points if it’s Manowar’s “Pleasure Slave”.

10. Instead of a romantic picnic beside a babbling steam, go see a Deicide concert. 

Do you have any more ideas for metal alternatives to valentines traditions?

Steff

Omigod, there is a Mr Whippy parked outside out office with 150 FREE ice creams (with flakes and sprinkles) for the Foundation Staff. From a generous annoymous benefactor.

The world is a wonderful place :)

Heavy Metal and You, by Christopher Krovatin

Boy listens to lots of loud music and hangs with his friends. Boy meets girl. Boy falls dippy-happy-scared-as-hell in love with girl. Friends meet girl — and aren’t impressed. Girl meets friends — and isn’t impressed. Boy meets big dilemma. Boy plays music even louder.

I haven’t done a review in … several months. Rest assured, this will change now that I’m in the same place long enough to read books, watch movies and do things worthy of review.

Port O’ Call: Heavy Metal and Me, Scholastic, is a book aimed at the young adult (teen) readers.

Mateys: Written by Christopher Krovatin, who was born in 1985, the same year that Slayer released Hell Awaits.

Premise: Sam the pot-smoking, classical literature lovin’ metalhead meets Melissa, the girl of his dreams. Smart, cute, funny … and totally straight edge. After a disasterous date at a Deicide concert, Sam tries his hardest to please Melissa … but that means changing who he is. Giving up drugs, alcohol, smoking and his friends come easier than Sam thought, but Heavy Metal?

Why it’s Kreig: Krovatin has been compared to Nick Hornby – a well-justified claim. He writes with humor, raw passion and a deep respect for the music and the people who love it. A book like this could only have been written by a metalhead.

I love that it shows a character more like the metalheads that I know – intelligent, literate and articulate. Sammy is a real metalhead, a real person, not a caricature of us. He’s self-aware, he doesn’t spend the novel whining about no one understanding him or randomly inserting Slayer lyrics into conversation for comedic purposes.

He’s also smitten, and he makes mistakes, and you love him all the more for it. You love him because he’s you when you were sixteen, and in love, and you thought you knew what you were doing, but really you didn’t. Sammy deals with his situation, his perfect girlfrined – who wanted the intelligent, funny Sam without his friend and his smoking and his anger and his heavy metal.

Krovatin says:

“I’ve fallen for one girl too many who’s wanted some variation of who I am and only that. It eats you alive.”

It eats Sammy alive, too. And we read this, and we just want to jump into the book and give him a hug and tell him that actually, he’s a totally awesome person, just the way he is.

Melissa, the girlfriend, is another incredible character. She’s so human, you can’t hate her. She’s not an idealised, bitch girlfriend who’s easy to hate. She just doesn’t yet understand that chosing to be with someone means accepting all of them.

Likewise, Sammy’s friends remind me of real people I knew in high school.

Sam goes off on these amazing, off-the-wall awesome and totally hilarious rants – about music, about life, about hipsters. And they’re all so true:

“I’ve always thought that, as much as I utterly loathed some of it, music was still music, be it Annihilator or Good Charlotte or Ja Rule or Sigor Ros or Christina fucking Aguilera, and that assholes are assholes, regardless of their musical taste.  Hipsters, though, were the anti-what-I-just said.  There are hipsters for every musical genre: metal hipsters, Goth hipsters, rap hipsters, even country hipsters (well, a few).  And by the look of it, I had two emo/indie megahipsters in front of me – the worst kind.  I don’t know why, but it just seemed like those two genres of music bred more hipsters than any other.”

And, lastly, who couldn’t adore a heavy metal love story set to a soundtrack of Slayer and Testament and Paradise Lost?

Why it’s emo: It’s clear (and unsurprising given the author’s age at the time this book was written) that Sammy is a manifestation of the author’s own experiences and opinions. Krovatin even says as much in this interview. There is a real honesty about Sam – he’s a person I feel I really know.

However, he has a couple of emo moments – crying about his past and such – and they’re not as well shown as I felt they could be. The author, knowing his own internal thoughts so well, glossed over them a little, so the impact of Sam’s breakdowns wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Instead, he came across as a bit, well, emo.

Also, some more discerning metal readers might disagree with many of Sam’s listening choices. (Shadow’s Fall, what?) and could find fault in simplistic descriptions of the Norwegian Black Metal scene. But I don’t feel either of these points detract from the awesomeness of the story and characters.

Quote: “My teeth were nice commodities, and I did enjoy having kidneys, but I’d give them all away if someone threatened to take my Slayer albums from me.”

Rating: four horns for being a little on the emo side \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff

Dear Steff Metal

I’ve just been dumped by my boyfriend of three years. I feel like shit. He wasn’t a bad person or anything, and I thought our relationship was pretty good. I don’t understand why he suddenly changed his mind about us. I still love him and all I want is to have him back. I cry all the time and txt him begging him to take me back.

He now says he can’t handle me txting and calling and crying anymore and he doesn’t even want to be my friend. What? I lost my boyfriend and now I have to lose my best friend, too? We always said if we broke up we would still be friends – I feel totally betrayed. I miss the person who’s been beside me for over three years. My friends keep saying I need to calm down and forget about him, but I don’t WANT to. I want him in my life. Is that so much to ask?

What’s happening to me? It’s been a month – why don’t I feel any better?

 ***

Tr00 Metal hugs to you, sister. It doesn’t sound like you’re having a fun time at the moment. I’ve been there – it sucks to get dumped. It especially sucks when it comes from nowhere – you thought everything was peachy and then BAM. Welcome to lonerville. Population: you.

I’ve been here. And let me tell you how it turned out. It was not pretty.

My first boyfriend. We went out for 8-9 months. I was besotted. I had gone from a person who literally NO ONE would talk to, to having a sweet, caring, intelligent, totally hot boyfriend. I couldn’t understand why someone so awesome could like me, but he did. For a little while.

I got too much for him. I did not have a good time at school and I struggled with depression and hating myself. I was so much fun when I was happy, but as time went by I grew less and less happy. I had a lot of emotions to work through, and I loved this guy and trusted him and dumped all of this on his shoulders. And it got too much for him. I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t have been able to handle me, either.

So he broke up with me. I didn’t take it too well. I went a little crazy. I was so in love and so happy and it totally floored me how much it hurt. It hurt more than a lot of the things bullies had done to me over the years. I did some stuff I’m really not proud of. His parents and my parents had a talk. I thought they were going to send me far, far away.

And one morning I just woke up and said “WTF?” I realised how ridiculous and selfish I was acting, and how my behaviour looked to other people, and how much I was hurting this person I supposedly loved. And just like that, I was ready to move on with my life.

Because of the shit that had gone down between us after the breakup, it was several years before he and I could look each other in the eye. Now, we’re not friends exactly, but we can hang out and everything’s cool. He’s still an awesome guy. We both understand that what happened in high school isn’t who we are now. We wish each other the best in life – it’s cool.

The reason you don’t feel any better is because you’re acting on all your conflicting feelings and not giving yourself space to grieve the relationship. You’re becoming the crazy ex, and you have to stop. Trust me, I was the crazy ex, and although everything’s okey now, that guilt doesn’t go away easily.

You don’t want to be the crazy ex, trust me on this. You don’t want to be the person responsible for causing pain and stress and anger and worry to another person, especially one you still care about. You don’t want to be the person your ex talks about with his mates over beer, where they all laugh about how nuts you are. You don’t want to be the person begging, the person saying “but I can’t live without you.”

You can live without him, and you don’t want to be the crazy ex.

You still love your boyfriend. But you’re angry with him, too. Angry and confused and frightened. You had a life with him – you had plans for the future. You had that security of knowing he was there. And now he’s not, and you don’t really understand what went wrong.

Maybe he was the most wonderful boyfriend in the whole world, but the fact is – he wasn’t happy with some aspect of the relationship, and that’s bothered him enough that he feels it’s time to move on. I’m not privvy to the details of your breakup, so I don’t know his reasoning, but he felt something wasn’t right for him. Maybe, once you’ve had a chance to mourn the relationship, you’ll be able to sit down and think about the things he said without crying, and you might start to understand where he was coming from. You might realise an aspect of your relationship wasn’t working as well as it could have, and you can formulate a plan to ensure this doesn’t happen with future lovers.

For now though, you can’t think that clearly. But consider this – he left you and you want him back. Why? Do you want a relationship with someone who’s not 100% satisfied with fabulous you? I don’t think so! He might be kreig, but he’s not the man for you!

You’re in a rational enough state that you can see your ex is not a bastard, and you can’t hate him. In many ways, breakups are easier if you can hate the person. But you love your ex so much you still want to be friends, even if you can’t have him, you still want him in your life.

But you can’t be friends with your ex right now. Maybe one day you can, but it can’t be now. I’ll tell you why. For three years you’ve come to him every time something horrible happened, and he’s made you feel better.

But this time, he can’t make you feel better when he’s the cause of the pain. You can’t expect him to hang out and be friendly and make you feel better when you both know the one thing you really want is for him to take you back. That’s not friendship.

Staying friends with your ex gives you control – you remain involved in his life and can keep an eye on his latest female interest. This isn’t friendship, either.

You need to stop trying to be friends with your ex, and cut off contact completly. No phone calls, no “hanging out”, no txts. Throw away your cellphone if necessary, unplug the internet, go and stay at a friend’s house in the next town over, anything to avoid that gnawing desire to cry at him and tell him how much he means to you.

When my second boyfriend and I broke up, I told him “I can’t see you for two months.” Even though the decision was totally mutual, I spent two weeks frantically pushing myself away from the phone so I wouldn’t ring him and beg him to take me back. It’s a symptom of suddenly being thrust into the world alone, again. The two months went by, we had coffee, the feelings had played their course without incident, and we’ve remained friends.

If you don’t give yourself space to grieve the relationship and rediscover yourself, neither of you a chance to really move on. And that’s not fair.

Here’s what WILL help:

Allow yourself to feel all the feelings. Take a day off work to cry, get angry, plot revenge, write a list of all their faults and bad habits. But don’t ACT ON THE FEELINGS. You’ve been acting on these feelings and causing unnecessary pain to yourself and you ex. Work through the pain in a healthy way, by relaxing, looking after yourself, being excited about the future, disentangling your lives, and reaffirming your own goals and plans.

Keep away from drinking, drugs and sex with other people. Your mind and soul are already fragile enough, don’t bruise them further.

Channel your mixed-up feelings into positive activities – create music, write, paint, volunteer at local charities. Instead of getting angry at him, get angry about water pollution or animal cruelty. Making a positive impact on the world will help you realise how special you are.

Take a course in something you would never normally consider: Indian cooking, karate, kite surfing – show yourself you’re ushering in a new chapter of your life.

Stop obsessing over mementos – find all those cute soppy letters you wrote, photos or the song lyrics dedicated to you, and stick them in a box, way at the back of the closet. (Don’t give them back or burn them, because twenty years from now, you wish you had them to remember the good times).

Fall in love with yourself, because you really, truly, cannot have a happy, fulfilling relationship with another human being until you have one with yourself. You can’t give away what you don’t have. Cultivate a deep, healthy friendship with your body, mind and soul. Take yourself to a movie, treat yourself to a picnic, go to see your favorite band, buy your favorite ice cream and eat the entire tub while reading your favorite book. If you can’t spend time with yourself without feeling isolated, weepy, frightened, uncomfortable or lame, you need to work on falling in love with yourself (it’s not selfish, I promise!) I’ll write more about that in an upcoming post.

And lastly, listen to lots of heavy metal. It really does soothe the aching soul.

Opeth - the perfect first date music

CDH and I never had a real “first date”. New Zealanders don’t really ‘do’ dating – we meet people through our friends, or random strangers at bars, we make shy glances at each other for awhile, we hang out as part of a group, develop a crush on said person, get drunk, hook up, and then have an awkward conversation about whether we want to make it a regular occurance.

If I had to define our first “date”, I would have to talk about two occasions. Our first “date” type occasion was before we were officially a couple: I was at home sewing a costume and enjoying an evening in when a friend txt me “We’re at shadows, heading up to Trial by Fire gig … with CDH.” Eeeeep! I couldn’t miss this! I threw on a Judas Priest shirt and some vinyl leggings (eep) and bussed into town.

The night did not dissapoint. Trial by Fire played a great set, and CDH and I headbanged side by side for nearly two hours. For their encore they played ‘The Trooper’ and the whole place went crazy. CDH grabbed me and the dude next to me and everyone in the front linked arms and headbanged across the stage. Heaven. I came home with a huge smile on my face and my heart fluttering.

My second “first date” memory was a few weeks after CDH and I started going out – and I’d talked him into going to see Opeth with me. He’d never heard them before, but he got swept along in my enthusiam and thought “what the hell.” Plus, I shouted him his ticket. He took me out for ice cream before the concert, then we met a bunch of my friends and shoved our way to the front of the pit.

I’ve read dating guides who say taking someone to a concert as a date is a HUGE no-no, but I vehermently disagree. Opeth were amazing – Mikael plays complex time-signatures while singing two different vocal styles AND looking hot at the same time. They were humble, brilliant, and hilarious. I felt like I’d been lifted to another world. Everytime I opened my eyes, there was CDH, banging his head, the same knowing glint in his eye. He got it.

That’s why I married him. Love at first headbang.

If you’re admiring that Iron Maiden t-shirt-clad hottie across the bar and you’re debating asking them on a date, think a little about where you go and what you do. You’re totally heavy metal, so even if it doesn’t work out, you want to be remembered as the person who rocked their world. Dinner and a movie ain’t gonna cut it. I’ve got ten ideas for killer first dates, Steff Metal style.

1. Open up your local gig guide, close your eyes, and point your finger. Wherever it lands – that’s where you’re going. I don’t care if it lands on the local hip hop bar – at least you’ll be the best-dressed person there!Dress up in your best metal gear, laugh all night at the terrible music and give each other silly dares, like chat up the bartender, enter the breakdance competition and write ‘Eminem is da Rulez’ on your forehead.

2. Visit the local museum – especially if they have any exhibits on Vikings, war or ancient history. Pack a picnic lunch and eat it on the museum steps. Afterwards, feed your leftover sandwiches to the birds. Birds are kreig.

3. If your potential beloved is not into metal (I know, horror of horrors, but it happens), take them to a Deicide concert. If they’re not afraid of you by the end of the night, they’re a keeper.4. Take all your instruments down to the park and have an impromptu accoustic jam. CDH and I did this once with my keyboard and whistle, and his flute, bass guitar and a couple of drums. We had so much fun and so many people gathered around to listen.

5. Go to the beach in a storm and take kreig photos posing on the rocks. Write each other’s names in runes in the sand.

6. Bake a birthday cake on Dimebag Darryl’s birthday and eat it in bed together while watching Pantera DVDs.

7. Invite them over to help you alphabetize your CD collection. If you’re a metalhead, you have more CDs than Hitler has enemies, so this is an all day activity. Kick your flatmates out and make steak sandwiches and drink mead and talk about music and life. Afterwards, verse each other at Guitar Hero – the loser has to run out for more beer.

8. Build a couch fort – nuff said

9. Dress up in your best 80s hair metal gear and hit the karaoke bar. Drink lots of rum and coke, and choose the most “metal” songs on the list to sing together. Do your best David Bowie and Axl Rose. To finish off the night, death growl to Britney Spears. Laugh together at your genius.

10. Take your camera and explore spooky places – cemeteries, old mills, asylums, parks. Take lots of ‘kreig’ photographs. You could even take a video camera and make a movie to show your friends. Afterwards, eat pizza, play ‘truth or dare’ and go splash in a fountain.

As usual, I’m passing this top ten list over to my kvltest readers. Do you guys have any other awesome ideas for kreig metal first dates? Have you been on an amazing date? A lousy date? Share with us!

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff

I found this truly insightful article on dating losers on The Frisky. It’s one man’s rebuttal to those articles in woman’s magazines about ‘How to Spot a Loser’. Read it. I swear the title doesn’t do it justice.

“Consider the flipside. Hey, we live like frat boys, but maybe we don’t want to live in a Bed, Bath & Beyond showroom. OK, we don’t call, but maybe you call, text, instant message, and Facebook too much? Yeah, sure, we talk about ourselves a lot, but only during the brief moments of silence when you’re not talking about yourself. And while we’re on the topic: We’re not cheap, your Daddy’s rich, not to mention that he was emotionally unavailable during your youth. And one other thing: That lipstick makes you look like the Joker.”

You can’t hold a person up to a fantasy “perfect partner” because sooner or later, they will fall flat. Yes, you need to understand yourself well enough to know what you want and need in a lover, but you can recite a laundry list of traits you expect them to adhere to. My husband doesn’t like Nick Cave. In fact, he can’t stand Nick. He’s obviously crazy, but I’m not going to divorce him any time soon.

We’re all losers, people. Dorky, metal-obsessed, nervous, sweaty-palmed losers. We’re defined by our “loserdom”, all of us. If you met me in real life you’d be talking to an extremely sky, oddly-dressed girl with wonky eyes and a tendancy to crash into things. I’m a total loser, and I would never want to be any different. Love is all about laughing at yourself with another loser – that’s what makes metalhead love so amazingly awesome. Love and kisses and Cephalic Carnage – how amazing is that?

The beautiful things in life aren’t easy, or simple, or compatible. I find the concept of “dating” so inherently flawed because so much of it is based on superficial attributes, and it’s spawned this whole dating culture, where we compare star charts, meet people online based on matching lists of favorite bands and read magazines that print those ‘how to spot a loser’ articles, and we can’t help but get sucked in, just a little.

Ladies, why are you wasting your time worrying about who’s paying for the check or how scuffed his shoes are or whether he’s called you today? Don’t we have more interesting stuff to wonder about, like how he’d look dressed in woman’s clothing or whether he’d like you to paint him a mural for his birthday? Aren’t there kittens to hug and sausage rolls to eat?

The thing about woman’s magazines everyone has to remember is that they’re targeted to an audience – young, successful woman who like to look good, feel confident, and take control. These are strong, sassy woman who’s men of choice – for reasons known best to themselves – resemble the men in these articles. But not all men are like this, not all woman are like this. We’re all losers, really.

Don’t worry whether you’re compatible – worry about whether you connect, whether you get each other. Whether being together just seems sensible. Worry about who will eat the last slice of pie, worry about which side of his neck to kiss him on, worry about that evil glint in her eye, worry about the fluttery feeling in your heart every time they walk past you in the hall and you happen to be carrying an entire stack of chocolate brownies and their very presence turns your entire body into a jelly blob which crashes into a pole and brownies fly everywhere …

Dating should not be about weeding the losers from the ‘creme’, whoever the fuck they are. Dating should be about meeting new, exciting and interesting people, and sometimes, maybe, feeling that connection that shoots lasers up your spine.

That’s all from me. Loser out!

Super snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff