If I could trade it all in for one thing.....

Long time no post here but hey, my LJ has been filling up. Speaking of
useless web space, I joined facebook. Today some one I know was saying how
one of her ex's just put down that they went to school together. Why? I
know I'm proud to include myself in the ranks of those that have been lucky
enough to have that honour. Let me tell you I would not change a thing.
Not how it ended, after all we have become such good friends now that it
really did work out for the best. I had thought about it and I just don't
think we could have lasted this long as a couple. Hell one of us would
probably be in jail for killing the other by now. So yeah if I had to do it
all over again I would. Not sure why I'm even saying this now but meh its
slow at work and I have nothing better to do.

_________________________________________________________________
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Sesame Street lets go of its 'top gun'

By Eric Heyl
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, September 22, 2006

Weary of his increasingly erratic behavior, Sesame Street producers will not extend the contract of the program's most popular muppet.

Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop, the parent company of the popular PBS program, told The Wall Street Journal yesterday that he is severing ties with Elmo.

"As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal," Knell said. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Sesame Street."

Knell would not elaborate. But those close to the show indicated PBS had grown increasingly irritated over Elmo's public embrace of Scientology.

Nor was the network happy when Elmo, in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, launched a blistering attack on the use of antidepressants to combat postpartum depression.

The final straw, industry sources said, was Elmo signing off on his spastic new likeness, TMX Elmo, which was unveiled Tuesday.

Parodying the panic-stricken movements of a typical choking victim, the latest Elmo doll doubles over, falls on its back and kicks its legs before finally rising -- cackling hysterically all the while.

"It completely undignified. It unbecoming of muppet who supposedly has intellectual acuity of 3-year-old," said a source close to Sesame Street who is not the Cookie Monster.

To Sesame Street and PBS executives, the doll also rekindled disturbing memories of Elmo's controversial appearance last year on "Oprah." The doll behaves much as Elmo did on the talk show when he passionately and clumsily declared his love for his onscreen romantic interest, the furry orange creature Zoe.

The couple since have spawned a young daughter, Silli, while denying persistent rumors that the child's father actually is the lovable blue muppet Grover.

The powerful Creative Artists Agency, which represents Elmo and many of Hollywood's other A-list stars, termed the firing "graceless and uncouth."

"This is no way to treat an artist," a CAA release stated. "This unconscionable action will cause brightly colored and highly marketable children's puppets everywhere to question whether they would want to work for an outfit that does this to its greatest asset."

Producers reportedly are involved in serious negotiations with Brad Pitt to replace Elmo in the upcoming sequel to the hit film "Elmo in Grouchland." The anticipated action blockbuster's working title is "Return to Grouchland: Oscar's Days of Rage."

Source

Sesame Street lets go of its 'top gun'

By Eric Heyl
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, September 22, 2006

Weary of his increasingly erratic behavior, Sesame Street producers will not extend the contract of the program's most popular muppet.

Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop, the parent company of the popular PBS program, told The Wall Street Journal yesterday that he is severing ties with Elmo.

"As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal," Knell said. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Sesame Street."

Knell would not elaborate. But those close to the show indicated PBS had grown increasingly irritated over Elmo's public embrace of Scientology.

Nor was the network happy when Elmo, in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, launched a blistering attack on the use of antidepressants to combat postpartum depression.

The final straw, industry sources said, was Elmo signing off on his spastic new likeness, TMX Elmo, which was unveiled Tuesday.

Parodying the panic-stricken movements of a typical choking victim, the latest Elmo doll doubles over, falls on its back and kicks its legs before finally rising -- cackling hysterically all the while.

"It completely undignified. It unbecoming of muppet who supposedly has intellectual acuity of 3-year-old," said a source close to Sesame Street who is not the Cookie Monster.

To Sesame Street and PBS executives, the doll also rekindled disturbing memories of Elmo's controversial appearance last year on "Oprah." The doll behaves much as Elmo did on the talk show when he passionately and clumsily declared his love for his onscreen romantic interest, the furry orange creature Zoe.

The couple since have spawned a young daughter, Silli, while denying persistent rumors that the child's father actually is the lovable blue muppet Grover.

The powerful Creative Artists Agency, which represents Elmo and many of Hollywood's other A-list stars, termed the firing "graceless and uncouth."

"This is no way to treat an artist," a CAA release stated. "This unconscionable action will cause brightly colored and highly marketable children's puppets everywhere to question whether they would want to work for an outfit that does this to its greatest asset."

Producers reportedly are involved in serious negotiations with Brad Pitt to replace Elmo in the upcoming sequel to the hit film "Elmo in Grouchland." The anticipated action blockbuster's working title is "Return to Grouchland: Oscar's Days of Rage."

Source

September 27th 1986: The Day MetallicA Died

Ok so bear with me on this one its going to be long. So for those of you who don't know not only is this year the 20th anniversary of Master Of Puppets but today also marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Cliff Burton. I may have been 7 at the time but his life, and death have really touched me. MetallicA are and for ever will be my favorite band and Cliff is my favorite member of the band. It was he who inspired me to pick up the bass, my tattoo is a tribute to him. The funny thing is not only did I never get to see him live, never mind even get the chance to meet him, I did not even start listening to the band untill after his death. So how though I feel some sort of conection to him through all the stories I've read about him. So feel free to read them, or not its up to you but today I will be celebrating his life.


Cliff Burton was born in february 10th 1962, to Jan and Ray Burton. He also had two siblings, his brother Scott and an older sister Connie. He grew up and went to highschool and junior collage in San Fransisco (Castro Valley), where he also had a job at an equipment rental yard. Graduating from high school in 1980, he joined a band called Trauma. Back Then Cliff was the Front Man constantly headbanging with his red hair flying.



Metallica got wind of this upcoming bass player during one of Trauma's gigs in the SF area. Lars and James agreed this was the man that they wanted to play the bass for Metallica. After many months of pleading and phone calls Cliff agreed to join Metallica on one condition; they would have to move to San Fransisco Bay area, and Metallica agreed.




Cliff and Metallica released three albums (Kill Ém All, Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets) and made six major tours.His first gig was on the "Kill em all for one tour" back on march 5th 1983. And his last gig was on the "Damage Inc." Tour on september 26th 1986. That's close to 200 gigs before this tragedy struck, when Cliff died in a bus accident in Sweden.
The date was september 27th 1986. He was only 24.

Cliff was cremated and his ashes were scattered at the Maxwell ranch.


Back in late 1982, it was decided that former bassist Ron McGovney wasn't really pulling his weight in Metallica. He wasn't taking the band seriously, which James and Lars had a real problem with. By that time, Metallica was beginning to go down. Lars and James were having problems with their Lead Guitarist, Dave Mustaine, because of his growing addictions and abuse of alcohol and drugs, and the terrible conflicts that he and James had on stage were becoming more frequent. Also James didn't want to sing anymore because he felt he wasn't doing a good enough job, so he proposed that he play Rhythm Guitar only.

Cliff was discovered in August of 1982. One of Metallica's peer bands up north making the rounds about this time was Trauma. In addition to being a favorite Bay-area club circuit draw, the band was gaining recognition through their one-song demo, featuring "Such a Shame" that eventually was transferred to vinyl on Metal Massacre II. More noteworthy, however, Trauma possessed within its ranks "the most head banging bassist" Lars and James had ever seen - Cliff Burton.




They initially spotted him during a live Trauma show at LA's Troubadour. Lars and James were very impressed by the way he played the bass.



"We heard this wild solo going on and thought, 'I don't see any guitar player up there.' It turned out it was the bass player, Cliff, with a wah wah pedal and this mop of hair. He didn't care whether people were there. He was looking down at his bass playing."
James Hetfield
Metallica set out on a grand pursuit to get Cliff to join the band. Burton presented the LA station band with an ultimatum, 'If Metallica relocated to San Francisco, he would join them.




Metallica, with all their problems, relocated to San Francisco, where they were better received than in LA. Their first jam with Cliff occurred in the house of sound-man Mark Witaker, where their was a studio type setup in his garage. At the time James and Lars were living there, having relocated Metallica to the Bay Area in 1983 to be closer to Cliff. They recorded a 4 track demo and on March 5, 1983, Cliff played for the first time with Metallica at the Stone, in SF. This was the beginning of 3 incredible Metalli-years.


Cliff lived with his family in San Francisco, and for three and a half years he worked hard to take Metallica to the top. After replacing Ron McGovney in late 1982, Cliff instantly made a name for himself with his classic "wind-mill" style of thrashing on stage, with his hair flying out in all directions, and with his outdated, completely "unfashionable" image. With his hair hanging straight down from him head, he seemed to be always dressed in a pair of bell-bottom jeans and a faded denim jacket. If it was cold, he wore a flannel shirt underneath.





Offstage, he was the ultimate laid-back Californian, a total opposite from his wild, aggressive on-stage attack. His sense of humor was great, as were his bass solos and everything about his stage presence. He was the most visual of all the band on-stage, he would just go wild. Cliff was also responsible for expanding the scope of Metallica's lyrical themes.


The best example of how cool and unflappable Cliff was happened in the summer of 1985 at their Castle Donnington Festival appearance (August 17, 1985). Having ducked beneath a flying pear which ended up embedding itself in his bass bin, Burton coolly sauntered over to his stack, picked up the pear, took two bites out of it and hurled it back into the crowd.





For a while there it really looked as if 1986 was gonna be Metallica's year. After all, their third LP, Master of Puppets, had literally taken the music world by storm and, in doing so, had made the band virtual mega-stars in the eyes of the metal-doting public. Metallica had finally "made it", and it seemed that nothing could halt their inexorable rise to even greater glory. Then, during the European leg of the group's phenomenally successful Master of Puppets world tour, something went wrong - catastrophically wrong...





Fresh from their triumphant UK tour, Metallica had headed once more for Scandinavia where they'd played three shows at the Olympen in Lund (September 24, 1986), the Skedsmohallen (September 25, 1986) in Oslo and at the Sonahallen in Stockholm (September 26, 1986). It was approaching dawn on Saturday, the 27th of September 1986, and Metallica's two tour buses were on their way to do a fourth show in Copenhagen. The were traveling along a god forsaken road between the Scandinavian cities of Stockholm and Copenhagen. Apart from these vehicles, the route was deserted, there was no one else traveling at that early hour of the morning. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, just before dawn, at about 5:15 am, one of the coaches swerved violently to its right and started careening wildly down the wrong side of the road. It was out of control, and a crash was inevitable. On board were the four band members, along with drum tech Flemming Larsen, guitar assistants John Marshall and Aidan Mullen, and road manager Bobby Schneider.





John Marshall: "We were on a two-lane road. The bus went off to the right, and I think the driver over corrected, cranking the wheel to the left to get us back on the road. The wheel grabbed, and the bus swung completely around. During this time, the tail of the bus was sliding, kind of fishtailing around and bouncing on its wheels. That was right when we all started to wake up. I think I bounced right out of my bunk. The bunks were like trays with foam in them. The foam was held in place by a wooden lip. When the bus started rocking, my back bounced across that lip. Afterwards, I could barely walk, it hurt so bad. The bus eventually slid to the dirt alongside the road. When the wheels caught, the bus rolled over on its side."








The bus's brief but horrific excursion came to a halt some 60 feet further up the tarmac. By this time, though, the vehicle was on its side and lying in a ditch by the side of the road near the small Swedish town of Ljungby.



During the unavoidable confusion that followed, the vast majority of the overturned bus's passengers managed to scramble free of the wreckage. Mullen and Larsen, who'd slept in right-side bunks, were pinned under the rubble for nearly three hours before the fire department jacked up the debris and rescued them. Those that emerged included three of the four members of the band. In truth, the survivors had been extremely lucky, as they'd all some how managed to escape with little more than minor injuries and shock. Lars broke a finger, James only suffered from minor superficial injuries and Kirk's eye was blackened. Kirk, who'd blacked out after being thrown from his bunk, snapped to consciousness and made his way through a side emergency hatch. Bobby Schneider, the tour manager, dislocated his arm, and another crew member had contusions.

Swedish police arriving on the scene of the accident immediately arrested the driver as a matter of routine. They later released him without charging him after further investigation revealed that the cause of the accident was black ice on a nasty bend in the road. This episode was simply a tragic and cruel accident that killed the way Metallica was building.


"We were all sitting out there in 35 degree weather, with me in my socks and underwear before someone gave me a blanket. I remember Kirk and James yelling at the driver. By then, everyone had begun to realize that something was wrong with Cliff. I remember James walking up the road a bit to see if there was ice on the road, because the driver had claimed he'd slid over a sheet of ice. Kirk was crying." John Marshall
Unfortunately, however, there had been one fatality in the accident. The deceased individual turned out to be one of the group. Cliff was sleeping on the top level of the right rear bunk in the bus when the bus started to roll and he was thrown out of the bus window. The bunks had toppled like match sticks, teetering into one another and collapsing into what resembled a pile of kindling.He was crushed by the bus in the accident and died immediately on contact. So, tragically, in the short space of those few dreadful seconds on that lonely Swedish road, Metallica's dreamlike existence was suddenly transformed into a hellish nightmare. Their 24 year-old bass player, Cliff Burton, was dead.


"I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I freaked. The bus driver, I recall, was trying to yank the blanket out from under him to use for other people. I just went, 'Don't fucking do that!' I already wanted to kill the guy. I don't know if he was drunk or if he hit some ice. All I knew was, he was driving and Cliff wasn't alive anymore."

"I just recall our tour manager Bobby saying, 'Okay, let's get the band together and take them back to the hotel.' The only thing I could think was, 'The band? No way! There ain't no band. The band is not "the band" right now. It's just three guys." --- James Hetfield - 1993

The dazed group dealt with their anxiety in the manner they were most familiar with: drinking. James broke two hotel windows and screamed, venting his rage. Kirk and his guitar tech, John Marshall, were so shaken that they left the light on in their room that night. On September 29th, Metallica minus one returned to the United States.

JAMES HETFIELD ABOUT CLIFF


We heard this wild solo going on and thought, ‘I don’t see any guitar player up there.’ It turned out it was the bass player, Cliff, with a wah wah pedal and this mop of hair. He didn’t care whether people were there. He was looking down at his bass playing.”

Cliff’s taken classes in school on music theory, things like mixing harmonies together. I think he took a junior college course.(1986)

I remember this guy lit my couch on fire a couple of times.

He was a wild, hippie-ish, acid-taking, bell-bottom-wearing guy. He meant business, and you couldn’t fuck around with him. I wanted to get that respect that he had. We gave him shit about his bell-bottoms everyday. He didn’t care. “This is what I wear. Fuck you.” He loved music. He was really intellectual but very to the point. He taught me a lot about attitude.(1993)

I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I freaked. The bus driver, I recall, was trying to yank the blanket out from under him to use for other people. I just went, ‘Don’t fucking do that!’ I already wanted to kill the guy. I don’t know if he was drunk or if he hit some ice. All I knew was, he was driving and Cliff wasn’t alive anymore.(1993)

People probably thought, ‘Oh, they're not going to do the heavy lyrics now because of what happened.’ Man, those lyrics mean a lot more to me now.

Knowing Cliff’s attitude, he’d kick our butts if we quit.





LARS ULRICH ABOUT CLIFF


Cliff was so completely honest to himself and the people around him. He hated all this being-put-on-a-pedestal bullshit.(1986)

We always miss Cliff, but he is kind of on the record "…And Justice For All". The song “To Live Is To Die” is really based on a number of riffs that Cliff wrote a couple of years ago. It’s kind of cool to have something written by Cliff on the new album.(1988)

I know Cliff, more than anyone else in the band, would have been the first guy to give us a kick in the ass, and wouldn’t want us to sit around. It’s what he would have wanted us to do.

"The whole way that me and James write songs together... that was very much shaped when Cliff was in the band, and was very much shaped around Cliff's musical input. The way he really taught us about harmonies and melodies and all that kind of stuff... his vibe is always with us, and he was certainly a big part of the whole way that we got our chops together in the early days, about our attitudes and our musical vibe and our everything."

I wasn’t too angry in the beginning. I was obviously grieving, but the anger started setting in when I realized that it’s not new that people in rock-n-roll die, but usually it’s self-inflicted in terms of excessive drink or drug abuse. He had nothing to do with it. It’s so useless. Completely useless.(January 1987)




KIRK HAMMETT ABOUT CLIFF


If we had hung it up, Cliff would've been so pissed off.

To this day, I think about him every day.(1988)

He was always against looking too posey, he was always into just looking natural.

I had seen Cliff in this band called Easy Street when I was like 16 years old at a club called International Cafe in San Francisco… It always stuck in my mind.

This guy with wild, wild red hair flying all over the place and a Rickenbacker and a real distinct bass style and I thought to myself, ‘This guy is fuckin’ wild!The only person who was able to figure out a time and write it on a piece of paper was Cliff. He had an immense knowledge of timing, musical harmonies and music theory in general. (1987)

In Denmark while recording Master Of Puppets, we hung out a lot. We’d go out and play poker for 8 hours straight after being up for 24 hours. We’d find a seafood restaurant that was open, eat raw oysters and drink beer, scream at the natives while we were drunk… that’s some of my best memories of him.






JASON NEWSTED ABOUT CLIFF


He is the Hendrix of bass for his ground breaking style.

He was a great and very special talent… Cliff’s solos were absolutely brilliant.(1988)

There was a huge shadow there. I’d always looked up to him so much.



An interview with Cliff just before the release of Master Of Puppets



Q: When did you start playing?

CLIFF: I started playing in 1976. I used to jam around with some local friends, then I got together with these guys who called themselves EZ Street, named after a strip joint in San Mateo.

Q: What kind of music?

CLIFF: Oh, it was all kinds of weird shit. It was pretty silly, actually. We did a lot of covers, just wimpy shit. But I was with them for a while, for a few years. And that slowly but surely disintegrated. Then I saw Trauma and I thought, "Well, I might as well do that." Didn't have anything better to do.

Q: What are some of your influences?

CLIFF: My influences would be... well, first off, with bass playing it would be Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, Stanley Clarke...

Q: The gods. What about Steve Harris?

CLIFF: Um, no, I never really heard him until it was like....

Q: Till you'd already developed your own style?

CLIFF: Yeah. Lemmy [of Motorhead] also had an influence in the way he uses distortion. That was different, new, and exciting. Also, certain guitar players had an influence. People like... well, everything Thin Lizzy did has had an influence.

Q: Phil was great.

CLIFF: Jimi Hendrix, Ulrich Roth, Schenker to a degree, Tony Iommi--they also had an influence.

Q: How about your top five albums? This is kind of lame....

CLIFF: Uhhh... top five albums... Well, let's just say top five bands. Everything by Glen Danzig, which is The Misfits or Samhain, all of his shit. All of Thin Lizzy's stuff. What else? Jesus, what else....? Awww, shit!

Q: English Dogs? Credence?

CLIFF: Nah, nah. The old Black Sabbath stuff.... What else? There's a band called R.E.M. that I like a lot, strangely enough. There's also.... A lot of the old Aerosmith, the new Aerosmith shit, too. I like Aerosmith a lot.

Q: So how did you first get in contact with Metallica?

CLIFF: Trauma went down to LA and did some stuff. While in L.A., Lars and James saw us and decided that they would like to have me in their band. And so they started getting ahold of me and calling me, and I came to their shows here when they played Frisco. And eventually Trauma started to... annoy me... a couple of ifferent ways, so I said, "Later."

Q: Musically?

CLIFF: Musically? Yeah, yeah, it was musical. They were starting to adopt these attitudes about... well, it was starting to get a little commercial in different ways, just different general musical attitudes that I found annoying.

Q: You wanted to get heavier?

CLIFF: Definitely.

Q: So you told them--Metallica--that they would have to move up here to San Francisco if you were going to join.

CLIFF: Yeah, yeah. I told them that they would have to move up here because I wasn't about to move down to LA, because I like it up here. So they said, "Yeah, well, we were thinking about doing that anyway." So that worked out just right. So, they came up and we got together in this room that we're sitting in now, set up the gear and blasted it out for a couple of days. It was pretty obvious straight away that it was a good thing to do, so we did it!

Q: What do you have to say about the early days? You guys have obviously progressed a lot since then.

CLIFF: It was fun back then; it's fun now.

Q: You seemed to have a more "fuck it all" attitude back then.

CLIFF: Well, I think you could safely say we've matured musically, if not any other way, a bit over the past three years. And there's a lot more at stake now.

Q: Yeah, a major label and major management, right? Management's taking real good care of you guys, eh?

CLIFF: Yeah. Everyone who we've signed with is doing a great job for us. It's all going well.

Q: All right. Where do you think you guys will be a couple of years from now? You're obviously on the way up, but do you think you're gonna be up there with the Maidens and the Priests? It looks that way now.

CLIFF: Well, I don't know. I try not to, uh I try not to speculate about those sort of things, you know; that way, I can't be wrong if I don't make a guess about it. It's just we try our best and we'll take it as far as we can, do what we can and see where it takes us.

Q: What was your most memorable show, do you think?You had a good time at all of them, I'm sure. You always look like you're having a good time.

CLIFF: Most of them, yeah. Sometimes, it, you know, gets to you a bit, but all in all the percentages are real good for the good shows. It's hard to tell when you're onstage you know. You don't really know what's going on; you just do it and find out what happens later.

Q: What about the Donnington bottles? Tell us about Donnington [Festival, England].

CLIFF: Donnington was a day of targets and projectiles. [Stuff] was piling high on the stage all throughout the day, and freaks were flipping.

Q: And it wasn't because they didn't like you.

CLIFF: No, they just do that because they like to do that. I think they liked us, though.

Q: Yeah, I heard good reviews. What about the new album, Master of Puppets? Tell us about it. What's your favorite song?

CLIFF: My favorite song is "Master." "Master," I think, is the best Metallica song yet. The lyrics are getting a lot better.

Q: Sounds like your music's getting more technical too, eh?

CLIFF: Yeah, everything's kind of growing a bit. It's progressing.

Q: What about the thrashier ones? The heavier, faster ones--"Battery" and "Damage?"

CLIFF: They're uh... they're uh... very fast. You know, typical kinda Metallica [stuff]. Fast. Then there's, you know, a bunch of other stuff.

Q: How did it go in the studio, as smooth as anticipated?

CLIFF: It took too long. We didn't manage our time all that well, but the songs were all real good and what we came out with was very good. Like I said, we could've managed our time a bit better, but all in all it was, I think, quite a success.

Q: It's a good follow-up to Ride The Lightening, then?

CLIFF: Definitely.

Q: OK. What about your equipment? What do you use for amplification?

CLIFF: I'm using Mesa Boogie amps, Mesa Boogie cabinets. I got some 4x12 cabs for them and some custom-built 115 cabs.

Q: What, to your specifications?

CLIFF: Well, they're basically a 115 stuffed inside a 412 box. So, you know, you uniform the fit with the backline. I'm playing Aria basses. Aria Black & Gold is the one I prefer.

Q: What happened to the Ricky [Rickenbacker]?

CLIFF: The Ricky needs some work. I had an Alembic for a while, which I was very happy with until it was STOLEN!! If anyone out there comes across a black spoiler bass with a fair-sized chip in the back finish, up around the side of the peg head, it very well might be mine, so... just send it to me.

Q: On the new album I heard some short bass solo type thing where you're using volume pedals. What's that about?

CLIFF: On this album it's the intro to a song called "Damage," done all on bass. It's about eight or 12 tracks of bass, a lot of harmonies and volume swells and effects and stuff. I would hesitate to call it a bass solo, it's more just an intro, but it is all bass. There's also a little bass solo in "Orion," it's right next to a little guitar solo. No one will probably be able to tell that it's bass, but it is.

Q: That's cool. Is it in the first break?

CLIFF: Nah. It's, uh, probably about two-thirds of the way into the song.

Q: I noticed, in some of the older songs, you've added a lot of fills that you weren't doing before.

CLIFF: Yeah, well, you get so you know the song like the back of your hand and you can just flip off and do different stuff. It's funner that way, it keeps me entertained. You know, something to do.

Q: What are your favorite songs from the first album?

CLIFF: (grunts)

Q: Probably, "Anesthesia?"

CLIFF: Uh, I don't really consider that a song.

Q: But that's your showcase there.

CLIFF: Well, yeah, but a song is a song, you know? That's a solo.

Q: That's true. Well, what are the ones you like playing live, out of the older stuff?

CLIFF: I like playing "Seek" live. It's easy, you know, I don't have to pay attention to what I'm doing. "Four Horsemen" is fun.

Q: Yeah, I noticed Dave [Mustaine of Megadeth, ex-Metallica guitarist] didn't play that on New Year's Eve.

CLIFF: Oh yeah?

Q: Dave left "The Mechanics" out of the set.

CLIFF: I didn't get a chance to see Dave that night.

Q: Not very many people did; they started before eight o'clock. I just though it was kind of strange. They definitely made a point not to play that in the set, and they always used to close with that.

CLIFF: Hmmm, that's interesting.

Q: Tell us about the Spastic scene [Spastic Children, Metallica's "joke" band].

CLIFF: Spastic Children. That's an excuse to bash a few and drink a few. You know, Spastic Children are a bunch of FUCKIN' ASSHOLES!

Q: OK. So, that's made up of you on bass... give me some details on this.

CLIFF: You want details on this, huh, Harald?

Q: If it's cool. Unless it's something you don't want massively publicized.

CLIFF: It's probably best not. Then everyone else is gonna ask me about it, right? Every time I go into an interview it'll be, "Oh, what's this?" Forget about it!

Q: It's just going out and thrashing, having a good time and not worrying about what it sounds like too much, eh?

CLIFF: We're not worried about much of anything. It's just something to do on a, you know, Tuesday night, when you don't have anything else to do. No big deal.

Q: Do you have anything to say to aspiring musicians? Let's say in your past, what did you do to stick it out? What's your advice?

CLIFF: Well, when I first started I decided that I would devote my life to it.

Q: That's probably the only way you can go anywhere, right?

CLIFF: Well, it works for me. I imagine there's a lot of people that devote their lives to it and don't achieve the success they want. I mean, there's many factors involved here, but that would be the main one, to absolutely devote yourself to that, to virtually marry yourself to that--what you're going to do--and not get sidetracked by all the other bullshit that life has to offer.




The only person who was able to figure out a time and write it on a piece of paper was Cliff. He had an immense knowledge of timing, musical harmonies and music theory in general."
Kirk - 1987

"Cliff's taken classes in school on music theory, things like mixing harmonies together. I think he took a junior college course. "
James - 1986

" I once called him up and said 'How do you like being a rock star?', and he was furious. He asked me never to refer to him that way again," said his sister, Connie.


"Cliff Burton was the man who had that wild spirit that makes a band like Metallica a quality band. He wasn't only the bass player, or someone else in the band who co-write the songs, he was the man who made Metallica reach the sky. After his death, Metallica sold their souls for fame and fortune, things that he would never wanted to deal with. He'd never allowed all that "Black Album" to happen, and neither that damn "Load" thing. When Metallica lost their bass player, they also lost their soul."
---Lars Ulrich---

“In Denmark while recording Master Of Puppets, we hung out a lot. We’d go out and play poker for 8 hours straight after being up for 24 hours. We’d find a seafood restaurant that was open, eat raw oysters and drink beer, scream at the natives while we were drunk… that’s some of my best memories of him.”--Kirk

“…we came up here and played with Cliff, who just blew the doors off of anyone we’ve ever played with. He’s the new Steve Harris of metal.”--Dave Mustaine

“I had seen Cliff in this band called Easy Street when I was like 16 years old at a club called International Cafe in San Francisco… It always stuck in my mind. This guy with wild, wild red hair flying all over the place and a Rickenbacker and a real distinct bass style and I thought to myself, ‘This guy is fuckin’ wild!’”--Kirk

Kevin Smith movie quotes

Randal Graves: Which did you like better? "Jedi" or "The Empire Strikes Back"?
Dante Hicks: "Empire".
Randal Graves: Blasphemy.
Dante Hicks: "Empire" had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings. All "Jedi" had was a bunch of Muppets.

Randal Graves: People say crazy shit during sex. One time I called this girl "Mom."

Dante Hicks: How many dicks have you sucked?
Veronica Loughran: Let it go!
Dante Hicks: How many?
Veronica Loughran: All right, shut up a second and I'll tell you! Jesus! I didn't freak out like this when you told me how many girls you fucked!
Dante Hicks: This is different, this is important. How many?
[long pause as customer buys something]
Dante Hicks: Well?
Veronica Loughran: Something like... 36.
Dante Hicks: What? Something like 36?
Veronica Loughran: Lower your voice.
Dante Hicks: Wait a minute, what is that anyway, something like 36? Does that INCLUDE me?
Veronica Loughran: Ummm... 37.
Dante Hicks: I'm 37?

Dante Hicks: 37! My girlfriend's sucked 37 dicks!
Customer with Diapers: In a row?

Dante Hicks: Embolism in a pool, what an embarrassing way to die.
Randal Graves: That's nothing compared to how my cousin Walter died.
Dante Hicks: How did he go?
Randal Graves: He broke his neck.
Dante Hicks: You call that embarrassing?
Randal Graves: He broke his neck while trying to suck his own dick!

Randal Graves: Listen to you, you're so repressed.
Dante Hicks: What? Because I never tried to suck my own dick?

Gwen: How is it that you recall the most trivial events?
Brodie: I'll never forget it. How many times do you get to see Smokey fuck the Bandit?
Gwen: Didn't I look just like Burt Reynolds?
Brodie, T.S. Quint: Except for the moustache

Brodie: Tell me, did you ever fart in front of her?
T.S. Quint: No, why do you ask?
Brodie: I never farted in front of Renee. Last week, I let one slip and today she dumps me.
T.S. Quint: Renee's not the shallow type. You're not insinuating...
Brodie: She was going down on me at the time.

Brodie: My Grandmother always used to say "why buy the cow, when you can get the sex for free".

Brodie: One time my cousin Walter got this cat stuck in his ass. True story. He bought it at the local mall, so the whole fiasco wound up on the news. It was embarrassing for my relatives and all. But the next week, he did it again. Different cat, same results, complete with a trip to the emergency room. Then, last week, I saw him in the pet store. He was buying another cat. I said, "Walt, what the hell are you doing, you know you're just gonna get this cat stuck up your ass too, why don't you knock it off?" And he says to me, "Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out?" My cousin was a weird guy.

Brodie: You're giving up? You? You used to be stand-up guy, what happened to him? The guy who punched Amanda's gross-out mother after she called him "low class".
T.S. Quint: That wasn't me. It was you.
Brodie: Oh, yeah.
T.S. Quint: And it wasn't her mother, it was her grandmother.
Brodie: No wonder the bitch went down so fast.

Shannon Hamilton: Yeah, who's your favourite New Kid. Yeah, call me Joey. Oh, come on. Don't make me get loose. Yeah, that's right. Call me Donnie. Oh, girl. Oh, please don't go girl.
Jay: Goddamn. This is one wacky game show.
Brodie: [to the cops] Hey! That girl's only 15!
[cops focus their attention on Shannon]
Shannon Hamilton: Ah, 15. I thought she was 36!
[cops are approaching him]
Shannon Hamilton: Come on, guys. Tell me you wouldn't have popped her.

Shannon Hamilton: You see, Bruce, I like to pick up girls on the rebound from a disappointing relationship. They're much more in need of solace and they're fairly open to suggestion. And, I use that to fuck them some place very uncomfortable.
Brodie: What, like the back of a Volkswagen?
Shannon Hamilton: No. More like someplace girls dread.

Banky Edwards: Alright, now see this? This is a four-way road, OK? And dead in the center is a crisp, new, hundred dollar bill. Now, at the end of each of these streets are four people, OK? Are you following?
Holden: Yeah.
Banky Edwards: Good. Over here, we have a male-affectionate, easy to get along with, non-political agenda lesbian. Down here, we have a man-hating, angry as fuck, agenda of rage, bitter dyke. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?
Holden: What is this supposed to prove?
Banky Edwards: No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? The male-friendly lesbian, the man-hating dyke, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny?
Holden: The man-hating dyke.
Banky Edwards: Good. Why?
Holden: I don't know.
Banky Edwards: Because the other three are figments of your fucking imagination!

Holden: So, uh, what do you wanna do tonight?
Banky Edwards: I dunno. Get a pizza, watch "Degrassi Jr. High".
Holden: You got a weird thing for Canadian melodrama.
Banky Edwards: I got a weird thing for girls who say, "Aboot."

[Alyssa on the phone with Holden after she paged him]
Alyssa: One minute and five seconds; you are such my bitch.

Alyssa: Let me ask you something. Can men fuck each other?
Banky Edwards: What, are you asking for my permission?
Alyssa: In your estimation.
Banky Edwards: Yeah, sure.
Alyssa: So for you, to fuck means to penetrate. You're used to the more traditional definition. You, inside some girl you duped, jackhammering away, not noticing the bored look in her eyes.
Banky Edwards: Hey, I always notice the bored look in their eyes.

Banky Edwards: Archie is *not* fucking Mr. Weatherbee!

Alyssa: So, you've never been curious about men?
Holden: Curious about men? Well, I always wondered why my father watched Hee Haw

Banky Edwards: Now THAT, my friend, is a shared moment.

Hooper: Archie was the bitch and Jughead was the butch. That's why he was always going around wearing that crown-looking hat... he was the king of queen Archie's world.

Jay: Yo man, tell me something about me.
Rufus: You masturbate more than anyone on the planet.
Jay: Aw fuck, everyone knows that. Tell me something nobody knows.
Rufus: When you do it, you're thinking about guys.
[a shocked Silent Bob stares at Jay]
Jay: Dude, not all the time.

Loki: Hey, you know, fuck you, man. Any moron with a pack of matches can set a fire. Raining down sulphur is like an endurance trial man. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, outside of soccer.

Metatron: God? Lonely. But funny. He's got a great sense of humor. Take sex for example. There's nothing funnier than the ridiculous faces you people make mid-coitus.
Bethany: Sex is a joke in heaven?
Metatron: The way I understand it, it's mostly a joke down here, too.

Jay: We figure an abortion clinic is a good place to meet loose women. Why else would they be there unless they like to fuck?

Liz: He said that faith is like a glass of water. When you're young, the glass is small, and it's easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn't fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.
Bethany: You're suggesting I need to get filled?
Liz: In more ways than one. You need to get laid, Bethany Sloane. You need a man, if only for ten minutes

Rufus: Mary gave birth to CHRIST without having known a man's touch, that's true. But she did have a husband. And do you really think he'd have stayed married to her all those years if he wasn't getting laid? The nature of God and the Virgin Mary, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that's just plain gullibility

Bethany: What are you?
Metatron: I'm pissed off is what I am! Do you go around drenching everyone who comes into your room with flame-retardant chemicals? No wonder you're single.

Bethany: Oh, so those weren't tits I saw Jay cozying up to?
Serendipity: [hugs her breasts] What, these? You should know better than anybody at this table that tits don't make the woman.
Rufus: Hell, the tubby coat-wearin' motherfucker's got tits, that damn sure doesn't make him a woman.

Jay: In a world gone mad, we will not spank the monkey, but the monkey will spank us

Miramax Security Guard Gordon: Echo Base, I've got a 10-07: two unauthorized on the lot, requesting backup.
Echo Base: [over Gordon's walkie talkie] I thought that was a 10-82.
Miramax Security Guard Gordon: No sir, a 10-82 is disappearing a dead hooker from Ben Affleck's trailer.
Echo Base: [slightly amused] Oh, that Affleck! Backup on the way...

Jay: Hey, wait a second! Aren't you the guy who fucked the pie!
Jason Biggs: You see! It's never "Hey! You're that guy from Loser" or "Hey you rocked in Boys and Girls." No, it always comes back to that fucking pie! I'm HAUNTED by it!
James Van Der Beek: You put your dick in a pie!

James Van Der Beek: You've got the wrong guys! Doesn't anyone watch the WB?
Jason Biggs: I'm a teen idol, dammit! Don't you recognize me? Look at me. I'm the pie fucker.
Miramax Studios Security Guard Gordon: [to his buddies] Yeah, well. In prison, he'll be the pie.

Jay: Tickets? Since when did they start charging for the bus? Didn't we used to ride that shit to school every morning for free?

Jay: What's twistin' this bitches tit?
Justice: Maybe it's because girls don't like to be called bitches, Jay.
Jay: They don't? How 'bout fine piece of ass?
Justice: How 'bout not.
Jay: Then what the fuck am I supposed to call you?
Justice: Something sweet, ya big goof. Something nice.
Jay: Boo boo kitty fuck?
Justice: That's... a start

Jay: Hell yeah, that's because he's from my sperm. See, I knocked up this hot woman friend of ours that I fuck on the side so as to not be all the way gay, but my tubby husband here is 100% queer. He LOVES the cock.

Randal: Kennedy, all right JFK himself. When he was in office, he stood before the world and promised them a man on the moon within 10 years. Thing is nobody had started working on a space program at that point. JFK had no data to back up his claims, no inside into the practicality of space travel. But you know what he had?
Dante: Marilyn Monroe.

Randal: What are ya, some kind of homophobe?
Dante: No, I just don't want to be diddled by some insane German scientist and his friends, after they've hacked my foot off!
Randal: Need I remind you, this is for the flying car?
Dante: It ain't worth it.

Gertrude Steiney: [very pregnant Gertrude is getting ready for the VMAs] You try getting ready quickly when you look like this! I'm so fat and there's gonna be nothing but beautiful skinny girls there!
Ollie: That's because they're all coked-out whores, honey.
Gertrude Steiney: [now crying] I wanna be a coked-out whore!

Boy #3: My Mum says my Dad has brown eyes because he is full of shit.

Randal Graves: You're the one in the bestiality business.
Sexy Stud: Hey fucko! We like to call it inter-species erotica.

Randal Graves: That look was so gay, I thought Sam was gonna tell the little Hobbits to go for a walk so he could saunter over to Frodo and suck his fucking cock. Now *that* would have been an Academy Award-worthy ending.
Hobbit Lover: Hey, faggot! They're not gay. They're hobbits.

Randal Graves: Have you and Myra had sex yet?
Elias: Well, not that it's any of your business, Randall, but she can't. You know how every girl's parents put a troll in them? Well, Myra's is named Pillow Pants. And so, if I put my... thing... in her, Pillow Pants will bite it off.
Randal Graves: And Myra told you this?
Elias: Boyfriends and girlfriends talk to each other about sex stuff, Randall. You'd know this if you ever had a girlfriend.
Randal Graves: Have you and Myra even kissed yet?
Elias: We would have already if it wasn't for Listerfiend.
Randal Graves: Listerfiend is her mouth troll, isn't it?
Elias: [shakes head] Women.

Randal Graves: Since when did 'porch monkey' become a racial slur?
Dante Hicks: Since ignorant rednecks started saying at a hundred years ago.
Randal Graves: 'Porch monkey' is something my grandmother use to call me because I use to sit on the porch all day looking at the neighbors.
Dante Hicks: That's like calling someone a "kike". Did you ever think that your grandmother was a racist?
Randal Graves: No way. She had the utmost respect for the Jewish community. She use to tell me to be nice to the Jewish kids or else they'd put the sheeny curse on me.
Dante Hicks: WHAT THE FUCK!?
Randal Graves: What!?
Dante Hicks: Sheeny is a racial term for Jewish people. Your grandmother was a racist.
Randal Graves: My grandmother was not a racist! Wait... Now that I think of it. She did refer to a broken bottle as a "nigger knife" once. Maybe my grandmother was kind of a racist.
Dante Hicks: You think?

Randal Graves: You swung at me!
Dante Hicks: You ducked.
Randal Graves: Because you swung at me!

Randal Graves: You can't get a chick ya mook. You're too weird and sad.
Elias: [gets angry] I turn down chicks left and right.
Randal Graves: Your chicks are your *left and right*.

Dante Hicks: You wouldn't wanna be with a girl with an oversized clit?
Randal Graves: No! 'cause the next stop is a guy with an undersized dick!

Randal Graves: [to Dante, about the phrase 'Porch Monkey'] I'm taking it back, you just watch!
Randal Graves: [to little kid] What can I get for you, you little porch monkey?
[mother gasps]
Randal Graves: [to mother] It's cool. I'm taking it back.

Randal Graves: [After the Quick Stop is burned down] Terrorists?
[Dante looks at him in disbelief]
Randal Graves: I left the coffee pot on again, didn't I?
[Dante nods yes]
Randal Graves: Shit! Now where am I gonna take chicks to fuck when my mom's home?

Randal Graves: Seventeen year olds nowadays are crazy. They're up for anything. They even like it when you go ass to mouth.
Dante Hicks: You never go ass to mouth, Randal.
Randal Graves: You sound like my mom.

Teen #2: A fucking Bible?
Jay: Hey, that's the Holy fucking Bible!

Jay: Sometimes I wish I'd done a little more with my life instead of just hanging out in front of places. Maybe be an animal doctor. Why not me? I like seals and shit. Or maybe be an astronaut. Go into space and shit. Be the first to find a new alien lifeform... and fuck it. People would be, like, "There he goes. Homeboy fucked a martian once."