For this "New Music Monday," let's talk about consistency. In a world where there’s constant motion and nothing is ever the same, it’s nice to have an old predictable standby now and then. The group Bad Religion, despite having a fluid lineup over the years, has been the model of consistency musically for the last 30 years. Formed in 1979, the group has done things their own way and on their own terms.


An independently ran band on a self started label both which have grown in the face of constant worldly change. 15 studio albums and a handful of live records later, the recipe remains the same. Sophisticated, socially responsible lyrics with soaring three part harmonies (oohs and ahhs). While musical ‘staticism’ is dangerous for most acts, Bad Religion has hung its collective hat on a way of writing and playing their music. And it works.

30 years is a long time to do the same thing and not get tired. “The Dissent of Man” is the fifteenth studio album from Bad Religion and coincidentally aligns with their 30th anniversary. And while it isn’t all that much different from stuff produced a decade or two ago, it’s kind of comforting to have a reassurance in something you have always known. Is it their best? I don’t think so but it is a solid addition to any Bad Religion fan’s library.

I’d estimate overall that “The Dissent of Man” has clear evidence of the Bad Religion sound, driving guitars, and pissed off lyrics. But I would say that there are tunes on this record that are clearly filler. Most of the songs are slower than the typical ripping anthems created in the past. That’s not bad or good. Just a little different. I wouldn’t say that there are definitive songs off this album. It’s one of those punk records you just let play because of a mix of standouts and filler. Bad Religion has always addressed the important stuff in their songs, social consciousness, political thoughtfulness, and existence. Greg Gaffin has that distinct voice of punk and has led hi band through the years of change and maturity while maintaining a truthfulness to his objective

Only Rain – Prototypical BR. A ripping beat, ultra fast guitar riff, oohs and ahhs, and metaphoric lyrics about judgment and the end of the world. Listen to this song if you have never heard BR.

Someone to Believe – BR has always run contrary to the grain and questioned beliefs of the masses and the need for people to follow a flock. Musically, it’s a punch in the stomach while the lyrics are about self awareness and confidence found in oneself rather than a pulpit.

Cyanide – Ah the analogy of lost love is like kissing cyanide. We all know the feeling. This is a little folksier, bluesy, BR. The melodic hardcore roots are there but its tempo is slower for the average listener

Bad Religion is one of the all-time great punk bands. They’re one of the premiere melodic hardcore bands, blending hooks and smooth vocals with hardcore music. After 30 years, the band is still touring and releasing new albums. As a matter of fact, Bad Religion appeared at the Showbox in Seattle several nights ago. They’ve always been a politically charged band behind the “oohs and ahhs”, and their new album is no different. If you are a fan of genre defining acts, Bad Religion is just that.

After three decades, the band can still hash out new material. "The Dissent of Man" is not a masterpiece by punk or music standards. However, the handful of distinct Bad Religion-true songs on the record make this album a worthy add to you collection. Furthermore, this is an album that will definitely satisfy BR fans and punk fans alike. To continue forging forward through the winds of change and the fickleness of the music industry is a major accomplishment. Can you do the same thing and remain relevant for 30 years? Not many of us can without reinventing ourselves. The element of punk consistency does not disappoint in "The Dissent of Man."

Moving has its perks and has its drawbacks. One of the perks is having a fresh start and forming new memories. One of the drawbacks is moving to a place which was a foreclosure and inheriting the skeletons in the closet from the previously booted owner. The great thing about foreclosures is that you can literally steal a deal from the asset manager from the bank trying to unload the property. But like I said above, there’s the unknown of what you might find in the closet. A new discovery has prompted today’s entry.

Our new home has been a great change of pace. While it was built in 2004 like our last home in Renton, we aren’t the first to live here. From what I can gather on the overall knowledge of the sale/purchase of this house, it has only been owned by one other family. And, it looks as if the home was purchased on the upswing of the market a few years back. I can only estimate that the value of the home at that time sky rocketed upward. Purchased on the way up, there was no where left to go but down in during the recession.

We experienced this with our previous home. But the difference there was that our home was reasonable in price, and while its value took off only to drop like a set of concrete shoes, we never lost enough value to negate our investment. We were always on the positive side of equity. I can only estimate that the case was the opposite for the last owner here. The value dropped, placing the previous homeowner in jeopardy with negative equity and also not being able to make their mortgage payment.

Research revealed that the previous owner was in the financial services industry as a consultant. I don’t know about you but I doubt I’d take any financial advice from a financial consultant who has lost their home to a foreclosure.

Their loss is our gain. But what we learned through the purchase of this house has been very valuable and not without a set of surprises. When we walked through the house, we really liked the layout. It was similar to what we had in Renton, just a lot bigger and in a better school district. Because the previous homeowner lost the house, it was obvious that they had let maintenance and care for it go. The home needed some serious TLC. However, it had huge upside.

But for all of that good stuff, there was some bad stuff.



The carpet was worn and dirty; walls were painted hideous colors from dissimilar palettes; window treatments were missing, the air conditioning unit was hacked out; the water heater had a blown thermal expansion valve; the furnace had not been serviced since it was installed; the central vacuum system was gone; there were large gaping holes in the drywall; the toilets were filthy and barely attached to the floor; there were bird nests in the external ducts; there was a dead rat in the crawl space vent; the house needed pressure washing; the gutters had small trees growing out of them; mice droppings under the carpet; vehicle tracks in the back yard; and water significant damage to the hardwoods because of a leaking water supply valve for the refrigerator.

We marched through this semi-complete list of shit above to get the house to our requirements for livability.

We are now reaching a plateau of activity with the final few things like window treatments. This week, we’ve been selecting and purchasing the window treatments we want for selected rooms in the house. Coincidently, we received a piece of mail with no return address. My wife and I opened it to find a small note hand written on yellow ruled paper addressed to us as ‘Homeowner.’


As I’m sure you’ve guessed, it was the previous homeowner sending us the note. It goes on to explain that they conveniently ‘took’ the custom window treatments and blinds from the house with the intent on using them again. ‘Custom’ and ‘using them again’ are mutually exclusive in this instance. The previous owner goes on saying that the window treatments are Hunter Douglas and were purchased at Costco for $4,800. Our previous home was brand new when we bought it and required window treatments. My receipts indicate that we spent approximately $1,700 then. Nothing close to the figure listed above. They then go on to say that they were going to sell them on Craigslist. But out of courtesy, they thought they would offer them to us for $1,500. What the hell?

You don’t pay your mortgage, you lose the house, you steal the blinds, vacuum system, and air conditioning, and then you try to sell the blinds back to me? Moreover, the note has no name, no return address, just a seven-digit phone number with no area code. Call us if you want the blinds. Bull shit. I’ll make you a deal, bring back what you legally lost due to your inability to plan and act responsibly and I won’t beat you senseless.

In any event, the previous owner won’t be getting my hard-earned duckets. I’m a firm believer in people get what they deserve. One more skeleton in the closet; the previous owner’s liberation of the window treatments. We don’t care; we’re doing our own thing anyway. Based on the interior color choices from this previous owner, I can only surmise that the window treatments might be pretty-princess-pink and/or blind-butthead-brown.

Don’t you hate when you get volunteered for something? It usually happens when you don’t even have a clue it’s occurring. For example, not showing up to a work meeting typically gets you nominated for some inexplicable and unrewarding office activity like empty-bottled-water focal. Suck.

Somehow, I was thrust into head coaching my son’s soccer team. Also, I really didn’t think Son #1 was going to play this season. But my wife brainwashed the both of us into the sport again. Last soccer season, I was an assistant coach on his team. It was just the right amount of commitment with not too much responsibility. What parent would want me to be their kid’s coach considering my potty mouth and poor attitude?

So I thought I’d volunteer again this season as an assistant. That didn’t last long as Kent Parks called and inquired whether I’d be the head coach for Son #1’s team. That sounds like a lot of responsibility. My wife felt my impacted schedule could handle one more commitment and spread the word about me coaching. Coerced into it, I called Kent and committed. Looking back, those were a great eight weeks of obligation I never thought I wanted to commit to.

In August, I picked up the coaches packet which had the roster, schedule, rules, head trauma forms, and every other legal and/or informative memo imaginable. This is Kindergarten-1st Grade soccer, right? What’s with all the propaganda? We had a team of 12 kids; 10 boys and two girls. The Angels; it didn’t sound like an entirely threatening name when compared to the Meteors or Mustangs. But no one laughed after we throttled other teams.


When the season started, we had a variety of skills, experience, and interest in the game. Focus at the first two practices was scattered for both the players and me. Numerous searches on the Google for drills for 5 year olds left me with not much. Wouldn’t have mattered, the kids just wanted to play. So I was reserved to doing a few kicking and dribbling drills and then on to scrimmaging to introduce fundamentals in a game scenario. That seemed to work the best.

This league played on a much bigger field than last season. It was eight versus eight players WITH goalies. The great thing was that we never had a shortage of kids wanting to play goalie. Because it was a novelty, every kid jumped at the chance to play in the net. And after the first game of the season, we never gave up more than one goal per game. Stonewallin’ suckas.

Kent likes to promote good sportsmanship religiously. Emails, letters, and other reminders were sent to us coaches to keep our players’ parents off of the refs and to not laugh at kids when they get shelled in the head. Additionally, we weren’t supposed to keep score during the games or our overall record. We’d be idiots to think our kids can’t count and aren’t conscious of how they are playing. During games after we were hammered goals on the opposition, our kids would do victory laps by me for a high five and a reminder that we have ‘x’ goals now coach.

Without keeping score or accounting for our record, we were 6-2 for the season. We were destroyed 5-1 in our first game. After that, no team scored more than one goal against us. As a matter of fact, we played the team from that first game again and shut them out 3-0. It’s our second loss is the game that really resonates with me. If I had to pick, it was my favorite game despite losing 1-0. Even at an offensive disadvantage, we spent the entire game was on the opposition’s side of the field. We just kept pounding them over and over. It wasn’t until late in the game when they finally got past midfield and made a goal.

In this game I saw so much teamwork and togetherness. There was a unity. They were friends having fun and the game was beginning to come naturally to them. They had collectively turned a corner. I was so proud how hard they played leaving everything on the field. We were disappointed in the loss, but the effort and teamwork was epic. In each game, our kids kept progressing. We started with varying degrees of skill in each kid. But by the end, each kid was amazing and we were working as a team. Not to mention that I really saw a competitive fire in the kids burning brighter each week. They wanted to win. It was apparent at practice and during games.

And then the last game. A little bitter sweet as the season was coming to an end. The last game was a massacre of the other team, 7-0. We had four different kids score goals and we dominated defensively. But more importantly, the kids were laughing and smiling the entire game. It was light-hearted, except when I substituted them out for a water break. Chirping in my ear, letting me know they wanted back in. I couldn’t believe the effort of everyone. Stealing the ball and passing through defenders to a teammate for a breakaway. Things just seemed to click.

At the beginning of the season, I had no idea what I was doing, or where we were going as a team. I didn’t want the kids to have a horrible experience nor have the parents pissed at my techniques. And now, I can’t even imagine a week without my team. Thursdays and Saturdays are sure going to be different now. This has been such an empowering experience. Much better than the previous season. It was such an honor sharing time with the kids, teaching them teamwork, and inspiring them to win. I’m glad I could be a positive role model in their lives. More people should aspire to be this to kids. After all, they are the legacy we leave behind. Of course my team leaves a wake of dismantled teams in their path. Don’t hate, my team could beat your team too.

Planning for a trip with Son #2 is always a challenge. It’s more than a trip. It’s a journey. You begin planning by gathering all of the variables of the travel equation. It’s a function of distance, time, and the amount of fish crackers you have within arms reach. A very close cousin, who’s special to me, was having her wedding in Sacramento. How were we going to get there? By air or by road?

It was either 2 hours of screaming with 150 of your closest enemies or 12 hours of screaming with family in a box on wheels. The automobile prevailed in this instance which seems counter-intuitive. But given the price of airfare for an entire family, the courtesy on other passengers’ ears, and the pricetag on my heightened anxiety, the decision was easily made.

The drive there was uneventful which doesn’t lend itself to much content here. But the story here is how Son #2 is unpredictable and at any moment, things change. After several gas and food stops, we had burnt through 13+ hours of driving and checked into our hotel in Roseville, California. We rolled in about 10:30pm to find our room equipped with two beds and a crib. In theory, this should work. Getting the kids ready for bed was easier than getting them to sleep through the night it would turn out.

Because things were wrapping up, my father and I headed down to the hotel bar. Unbeknownst to us, hotel bars in the Marriott in Roseville close at 10:00pm. Bad business if you asked me. Back to the room. Son #2 was not cool with sleeping on the first night. Constant crying. As we’ve learned the hard way in the last 23 months, he’s not cool with a break in routine of his life.


As I mentioned earlier, the purpose for the California trip was to attend and enjoy my cousin’s wedding. I was excited to be there for her. The catch is that both of our boys were ‘ring security’ in the wedding. In a strange coincidence, I was a ring bearer in her mother’s wedding 30 years earlier. I wasn’t sure if any good could come from this. With Son #1, give him responsibility, he rises to the occasion to please. However, with Son #2, let him off the leash and there’s bound to be a train wreck.


Rehearsal went well and the boys hammed it up. But the true test was when the rubber met the road for the actual ceremony. After getting all did up and waiting for the ceremony to begin, my wife and I agreed that I’d strategically place myself up front so that if Son #2 got unruly or nomadic, I could intervene. This would be conducive to keeping all children herded together.


If my cousin and soon-to-be husband, ceremony, location, and weather weren’t as perfect as they were, I’d say the ring bearers would’ve stole the show. Son #1 and two of his little cousins walked hand in hand as they entered the ceremony and approached the alter and groomsmen. Son #2 took his own sweet time and marched to his own drum down the aisle bringing up a distant rear. He walked up, stopped at his brother, did a lap around the officiant, and then walked back down the aisle the other way. Eventually, I caught up with him and held him removing escape as a possibility. The wedding was amazing and we all were very proud to see my cousin come so far to find happiness and wed the man of her dreams.

Reception involved Son #1 and #2 not liking the dinner and making a special request for crispy chicken and French fries, and what can only be describes as a strange yet intriguing style of interpretive dancing.


When the boys reached critical mass, we headed back to the hotel to plop them down for bed. Out of ingenuity and the courtesy of AT&T, we crafted make-shift baby monitors more commonly known as mobile phones. With free minutes to other AT&T phones, my wife called me, we put both our phones on speaker, left one with the boys in the room, kept the other, and headed to the bar for a beer. We could easily hear them out in the bar. Yup, on record as a bad parent. In actuality, our room was no more than 50 feet from the bar and we could see the door.

The next day we took off for home. Son #1 had school and I had to work. Obligations to the establishment for both of us.


The drive through Shasta was epic with the fall colors, curvature of the road, and lack of traffic. And did I mention there was a lack of screaming? If entire drive could have been like this, I would’ve drove for years. Too bad because things changed as we exited Oregon. Son #2 lost it and was inconsolable. Looking back, we can only guess the kid who needs structure and routine in his life was fed up of the weekend of hustling and 1500 miles of driving. We stopped at a truck stop and took him out of car seat and buckled him in with wife. He was so upset; we had very little choice in the cold and dark. He eventually calmed down and fell asleep on her while buckled in. Yup one more illegality for the trip. First baby monitors, now this. Because I’m writing this entry in the comfort of my own home, you can reasonably assume that we made it. Immediately, we put the kids to bed and the trip was complete.


To round it out, I got sick and missed the next few days of work. But that is such a small sacrifice to have had the opportunity for all of us to road trip together. It was a great journey that I can look back at fondly. Even though during it I was irritable at times. But more importantly, it was amazing to be in attendance at my cousin’s wedding. I’m so proud of her and how she has grown into an amazing woman even though at times she was a rotten little kid. Love you cuz and thank you greatly for letting us share your very special wedding. Everything was amazing and the boys behaved great and lived up to their ‘ring security’ title.