As the mighty fall asunder, So also must we.

It's nearly impossible for me to write while listening to music, but for tonight, I feel that it is completely apropos and necessary for me to do so. It is nearing four a.m., and I must go to sleep immediately, as I am to go to the opera in the early afternoon tomorrow. I am listening to Stryper right now. I went to a Stryper concert tonight. Why, I even had a backstage pass. I've paid my dues. I didn't pay to go to the show. I get what I want, when I want it. That's what happens when you live life the way I live life. Tonight marks the second time I've seen Stryper. My friend Scott and I saw them in 2003 at the same place that we saw them tonight. So much can, and rightly should, be said about Stryper. Scott is a greater fan than I ever was, but to be fair, he is a good five years older than me, and therefore had a chance to be more into them in the 80's than I could have been. I must thank my father for introducing me to the band that I would, a mere twenty years later, attend in concert and heckle in a drunken stupor during a prayer in a concert venue where 1,100 people were completely silent. Let's see Motley Crue do that. This happened in 2003, the first time I went to see them, but this year, as they closed out the show with a nearly ten minute prayer, I did my best to heckle them and break the awkward silence that, upon further review, was only awkward to me in my slightly inebriated state. People: I warn you! For your own happiness, for nostalgia to truly remain nostalgic, I beseech you: DO NOT go to see bands twenty years after you liked them initially. This may be an obvious point, but believe me, please. You WILL be disappointed. Sure, you'll be impressed that they can play their instruments so well, but then you'll remember- "Oh yeah, they've been playing the same fucking songs for TWENTY years. They goddamn better be good at their instruments!" I saw Stryper for the first time in 2003. I saw them again in 2005. Tonight. What a fucking bummer. We met the band, too. I made fun of the new bass player (not Timothy Gaines, the REAL bass player for Stryper) for playing a five stringed bass. T.G. never would've done that. That's what we fans call him. T.G. That stands for Timothy Gaines. He's not in Stryper anymore. I also reminded Michael Sweet, the lead singer/ guitarist for the band that I met him and shook his hand in 1993 at a mall in Tulsa, OK when he was touring Christian book stores to support his horrible solo album which housed the hit "All this and Heaven too." Surprisingly, he didn't remember me. That's why I hate rockstars. So pretentious. So quick to forget. Life is a series of disappointments. I couldn't even swindle any squares out of their $25 Stryper shirts for my backstage pass, which I told them afforded them more liberties than the 'meet 'n greet' wristband they received for purchasing the awful new Stryper album for $20 at the show. If you think I'm lying, you're a damned fool. I have no shame. I also do not have $25 for a t-shirt. Schmoozing the merch guy didn't help either. So, I'm listening to a "best of" Stryper album that I downloaded when I came home tonight. It's the only thing I could think of to make myself feel better. People get old, people. Let the memory live where it is. Don't try to raise the dead.