December 09, 2004

• Oh, I misread the BBC link. Only 1 of the band has been killed, but some early reports said more.
• elektra discussion boards post from witness "i was up close to the stage on the side where DBD was playing.... then i saw the guy jump out of the crwod onto the stage... he was yelling something about how "you broke up pantera.... you ruined my life.... what about phil??? he needs heroin money..." or something like that then i saw the gun and he shot DBD right in the head... when DBD went down he kept shooting... then he turned around for bobzilla then vinnie... teh hole time i thought it was part of the show... i had blood on me i was so close..."
• That's completely fucked. What the hell is wrong with people?
• Fucking hell.
• Wow. This is nuts. I haven't heard much damage plan, but that's sure to change soon. The rest of the band is sure to be traumatized some. Definitely his brother is. I'm curious how long it took for the cops to show up. Sounds like they got with in 30-90 seconds or so. I'm impressed. Reading that discussion board, every body is shitting on a guy for talking about selling his ticket. There's nothing wrong with that.
• It's questionable, now that I've read more, whether that guy was really there.. the cops detained most of the patrons who were witnesses. There are however other reports which confirm what he said. The cop who killed the shooter was apparently either adjacent to the venue or in the venue already. This place has virtually no security, many photos from the joint show fans on stage, stagediving etc. This guy was a really great talent, I remember learning a bunch of his stuff when I was playing in bands in the 90s. But even if I didn't enjoy the music, I would still say this is fucked & shouldn't happen to anyone. Ohio recently changed its laws relating to people carrying concealed weapons, can anyone confirm/deny this?
• Fucking hell. Never into the music, but... fucking hell.
• Just did a quick Google. Ohio has a concealed carry law, but I doubt that the law really matters much when dealing with nutcases like that. I've never understood the American penchant for guns, incidents like this only reinforce my belief that handguns really don't belong in the hands of the general public. I'm not familiar with the band, or even the genre, but brutal violence is always deplorable, whenever it strikes.
• I was thinking the same thing. I've been detained for hours from just having watched a shoving match between drunks. I'd figure anyone there would have to stick around, answer lots of questions for the cops, answer lots of questions for the press, and then be busy calling loved ones. Especially the blood on the ticket part. Come on.
• Local news has reported that most everyone in the club was taken by bus somewhere to be interviewed, though the police estimate that about 100 people or so left the club before they could be questioned. As for the concealed carry law, yes, it has been enacted, but businesses are allowed, and often do, prohibit anyone from bringing in weapons. I imagine that Alrosa Villa does have such a policy (though I can't confirm). As PareidoliaticBoy said, though, I doubt I would have mattered with this guy. As an aside, PareidoliaticBoy, I, too, am perplexed by the gun obsession. When I told a recent acquaintance that I am moving to Australia, he actually brought up the gun control laws there as an argument against my moving there.
• i saw pantera w/ biohazard in daytona beach about 8 or so years ago. the mosh pit encouraged all types of craziness. one had to punch and shove and kick and bite and claw and beat one's chest like a primate just not to get trampled on. people were getting the shit stomped out of them and loving it. it was the most violent show i've ever been to and probably ever will be to. all seemed in good spirit and with a general sense of community though. bummer.
• .
• Especially the blood on the ticket part. She'll make millions on Ebay now. In other news, More than one billion children around the world face a brutal existence because of poverty, war and Aids. Shocking. Fucking Hell! /snark
• But these are dead Americans, Skrik.
• What's your point, Skrik?
• Wow. At least the brother plays a genre of music that will deal well with darker material... (Used to like Pantera in highschool...)
• But these are dead Americans, Skrik. This is not a US post. Note the poster.
• ixnay on the erailday
• I guess skrik's point is that because death and tragedy happen all the time all over the world, it is wrong for us to ever feel personally affected by any one incident. Is that right skrik? /annoyed
• Sorry
• .
• I think skrik's point was this happens and yet scott stapp lives to sing another day. to think, if there was ever someone asking to be a martry...
• I forgive you and release you.
• well this is a tangential point here, but yesterday whilst I was on the way out of my house I hear some pops, followed a moment later by much louder (and really scary) gunfire very close at hand. the cops arrived within 1 or 2 minutes of the loud shots, which I thought was pretty amazing. It turned out to be some kids up the street "playing" drunk teenagers shooting a gun into the air. anyway, my point is I think cops generally hop on this type of thing, which is good, no?
• Ohio does have concealed weapons laws now. (I come from TX, the *home* of concealed weapons! And Pantera.) Tons of businesses have those signs prohibiting weapons inside, which always kind of freak me out. Unlike TX's weapons laws, though, I don't think you have to go through non-violent conflict resolution/anger management classes to get your gun license. (Hopefully I'm wrong, here.)
• Oh, and while I'm not a big heavy-metal fan (though I always seem to end up dating them), I always had a soft spot in my heart for the guys in Panera. They wrote a cool song for the Dallas Stars (hockey team), and when the Stars won the Stanley cup, Pantera got a big float in the victory parade. In more recent years, the guys always seemed pretty involved in local affairs and supportive of the local music scene. This really, really sucks.
• Skrik's point seems to have been that there is only one shocking or upsetting thing in the world at a time, and only one level of shocking or disturbing nature. Every other bad thing on earth just ceases to exist. Doesn't that sound nice? This is one of those unfortunate things that is defined, to me, by its randomness. There might not be a reason. It just happened. Can't imagine witnessing it; how disturbing.
• That message board thread is some QUALITY entertainment. In a sick, sad and pathetic way.
• Skrik's point was to try to bring a sense of perspective to this crime. Some two-bit (two-nickel, if you insist) singer is killed, several bystanders are wounded. It's terrible, but on the world scale, it's nothing at all. We are rarely shocked about the world scale, though.
• And when you think about it from a geological perspective, the constant scream of degrading carbon drowns out the sounds of your grief anyway, so can we please move past the "oh-the-poor-humans-are-dying" fixation?
• Skrik -- I can see your point, and it's sad that (lesser) celebrity deaths affect us so, when the deaths of non-celebrities do not. At the same time, though, I find it difficult to comprehend large-scale genocide (which is how I characterize the 1st world's atttitude about AIDS in the 3rd world); the idea doesn't really fit into my head. It's hard to be shocked when you don't really understand it -- the best I can do is try my best to take it in and do what I can to help. I think it's a bit easier to empathize with the death of a musician and several others in a club. We've all been in clubs, and can better imagine what it would have been like to be there. Or, as a fan of the music, a person could feel some personal connection to the person killed. The two experiences (or perhaps our reaction to them) -- while they both deal with people dying -- cannot really be compared.
• Uh... actually, what meredithea said. I'll stop being a dick now.
• this argument seems too silly to comment on, but Im really bored at work so: it's normal and even healthly to be more personally affected by things that happen to people close to us, (whether because we know them, we're a fan, etc.) and less affected by things that happen far away or to people we feel no connection to. How would you live if everytime someone in China died, you reacted as if it was a member of your family? We need some detachment just to be able to get on with our lives. Of course sympathy for the whole human race is a laudable goal, but I don't see how refusing to care about Darrell's death somehow makes you a better person. Wouldn't it be better to care about him AND everyone else too? As for me, i saw Pantera at the Ozzfest in Virginia in the late 90s. I wasn't a fan, but they did inspire the audience to tear up the lawn and throw sod in the air, which is something.
• Some two-bit (two-nickel, if you insist) singer is killed. Yeah, and I bet his stupid family and loser friends will like, cry at his funeral and stuff. We are rarely shocked about the world scale, though. Of course we aren't, precisely because on a world scale war, starvation, poverty, child mortality and other mass human tragedies are endemic, as much a part of the landscape as floods, hurricanes and droughts. Does that make mass death less tragic? No. Does this make the sudden death of a particular individual, unrelated to ongoing mass global deaths less tragic? I don't think it does. Very often we only relate to these things when it's brought to a personal level in any case - that's why ads for Children's Aid funds show us individual kids rather than pie charts. I don't think there is a 'correct' perspective for anyone's death.
• Skrik: Why don't you take that web page you linked, print it out as a pamphlet, and hand it out to mourners at funerals? Drive around to all your local funeral homes, and tell all those people to quit their crying and get a fucking sense of perspective!!! Don't they know there's children with AIDS??? What the hell is wrong with people?
• We are rarely shocked about the world scale, though. rule well my son.
• When did Monkeyfilter become such a hippie commune? Like, I don't have to clean until Friday dude
• On a selfish note, I think I'm shocked by this senseless violence because it could happen to me at any time. However, my chances of becoming an obscure third world statistic are pretty slim right now. Plus, the general suffering in the world is grinding and endless, while this was a startling outburst.
• Don't feed the trolls.
• Argh Maybe not, but dude, those goats aren't going to milk themselves.
• Milking goats doesn't have to be a chore with Hoegger's Deluxe 2-Goat Milking Systems!
• I don't recall trying to feed any trolls. But sorry if I did.
• Do trolls eat a lot, by the way? Could be a pet suggestion for another poster here.
• He got shot because he sucked.
• Open up that feedbag again...
• The Boy Who Cried Shocking! Have some pudding ;)
• And some cockpunch to wash it down.
• Dimebag who the fuck cares am I right RIP Dimebag WTFCares (who the fuck cares-2004)
• When YOU die (& I hope it is soon) I won't make a thread about it. OK?
• Also, just to state yet another bit of rampaging obviousness, mentioning something in a post on the internet != spending all of one's time on it, being upset unto death about it, or focusing one's life on it. Just FYI.
• I'm obsessed with the screams of carbon.
• Wurwilf: Oh. OK then. Carry on. As you were.
• Looks like the guy was a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. Which means something like this could happen to any of us, should someone as ill as this guy become obsessed with you for whatever reason makes sense to them. I had a chick become convinced I was stealing ideas from her, and that everything in a book I had published was her writing - I found this out because that's what she was telling people. I confronted her and ended up saying, "Look, I know you're out of it right now (which, par for the course, she denied) but I'll still kick your ass if you keep this up". She stopped. What I want to know, given the guy was obviously out of it for years, is how a guy who talks and laughs to himself, is getting kicked out of local businesses for weirding people out, and who is at least known to the cops gets a gun and ammunition.