my careless contagion

Social Distortion's album White Light, White Heat, White Trash was released in 1996. I wrote previously about a track (I was wrong), which I recall seeing on MTV's 120 Minutes in probably late 1996 when I was home from college some weekend. I didn't know I'd later see the band play many times or that they would become a major influence in my life.  Crown of Thorns was released 25 years ago on the same album and remains relevant. Though it didn't mean anything to me for years, today it does. It's clear the singer/songwriter, Mike Ness, went through "the program," meaning some sort of mind-control protocols. The marks are all over his music, his life, and his body. (Once you know what to look for, you spot it right away.) Mass media, in turn, uses these programmed individuals to program the rest of us. I was thinking about a song on the radio the other day (Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar, who I also saw perform) and how it was blatant programming, ...

Written in 1987 and released in 1990, the song Ball and Chain is found on Social Distortion's self-titled album. Some of the timeless themes this song deals with are addiction, hopelessness, heartbreak, poverty, failure, and suicide — all themes I am intimately familiar with — and all made life feel like a ball and chain and not worth living. I know what it's like to think, "I can't take any more pain." This is a song I know by heart but heard yesterday on the radio, which isn't entirely strange, except I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Social Distortion in South Dakota or how many of them are listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon. That's okay; we don't have to know what we're listening to in order to enjoy it, right? Well, except Social Distortion sings a lot of "hard luck" songs, which are an acquired taste. As Social Distortion's singer, Mike Ness, has been known to say, "We don't sing no happ...

*I first heard this song when I was home one weekend from my freshman year of college (according to online archives, it would have been between September and late December of 1996). I tuned in late to 120 minutes on MTV to find this ... spectacle. I had never seen anyone who looked like Mike Ness playing music. Never heard anything like his voice. I thought, "Who is this old guy playing punk rock?" Anyway, he had my attention. I never imagined in my parents' living room that weekend that I would someday be at Social Distortion's concerts someday. And I would still be asking myself, "Who is this old guy playing punk rock?" The sentiment echoes in my life today. I've made so many damn mistakes. I've run people out of my life. I've hurt those close to me. For all of those who I have hurt, I'm truly sorry. I was wrong.* When I was young, I was so full of fear I hid behind anger, held back the tears It was me against the world, I w...