If you are a person on Earth today, in some way or another, you are impacted by the choices and decisions of others. It has been three weeks of the biggest country on the planet attempting to bomb its neighor into oblivion. For many of those reading these words, this is the first time in your lives in which you have been so brutally aware of the plight of others.
“This ain’t no TV sketch,” DISCHARGE so aptly described the last night the world was facing a potential nuclear war!
I am a fucking survivor and I know a thing or two about having your world, life, and reality destroyed.
These blogs are not just about some crazy guy from Boston writing a bunch of nonsense about the bands from his youth.
Frankly, I am surprised that the prior four blogs featuring TREE, SAM BLACK CHURCH, TEMPORARY INSANITY, and WRECKING CREW were so well received.
This new blog about the gargantuan thrash giants WARGASM could not come at a better time.
I am on a plane at this very moment, traveling from Mexico City to Guadalajara. I am about to embark on a 10 day tour visiting 7 cities and sharing my story of surviving the impossible with Mexican punk rockers and people in the community. I have to do this to be okay. I left the United States in January 2018 because my tongue had been cut out and there were threats on my life.
Too many people didn’t take me seriously despite me telling the truth. It fucking sucks. Now I live in Mexico and that does not suck. I am happy here, living a much better life.
I do admit, I prefer orgasms over Wargasms, however, and we aint living in the most erotic of times so here is my tribute to the most influential and magical Boston Thash Metal band of my youth.
I know that many old-school metal heads can tell you raging stories of partying and thrashing with metal legends from back in the day.
I am gonna tell ya a story about me being 15, and running into the guys from WARGASM at the Mandarin House restaurant in Stoughton, Massachusetts.
It was around 1990, and I had already been tortured via pharmaceuticals for two years, that made me mentally sick.
It is funny that these days, half the people you know are swallowing pills daily for their impossible to prove invisible illnesses.
In 1990, I was swallowing pills daily that caused an invisible illness. I was, in reality, forced to take drugs that made me mentally ill. It is fucking crazy!
I do not delegitimize that impact of emotional distress and that people experience severe psychological challenges. I personally live with these challenges.
If you cannot understand that there is a reason why psychiatrists are consistently protested against and denounced in ways somewhat akin to doctors who provide abortions or gender-reassignment procedures, and if you care to promote good mental health, listen to survivors like the one writing these words.
Despite my parents’ endless brutal attempts to destroy me, they also facilitated my access and connection to metal, hardcore and punk.
My parents did not stay up at night conspiring about the ways they were going to kill or destroy their child. It is just what they did. They were both deeply unhealthy and I, their trusting child, openly spoke about what life was like behind closed doors. I was taught that telling the truth was important.
So for the purposes of truth and doing justice to these magnificent legends of Boston Thrash Metal, WARGASM; once seated at our table at Mandarin House, in not particularly lovely Stoughton, Massachusetts, I walked over and said hello.
Now that I think about it, if I remember correctly, it was Bob, Barry and Rich, sitting together enjoying their most certainly delicious dinner, and it was about 6 pm. I bet they were on their way to rehearsal, so this grown up metalhead kid is gonna believe and say Fuck yeah!
Metallica were the global kings of thrash metal, however, for a period of time, if you were from Boston (we say Boston to describe the entire region), then you know that Wargasm were and will always be, our personal metal heroes.
WARGASM never got the respect they deserve, and that may displease them and many. For me, a kid who was supposed to be in a casket decades ago, they are nothing short of legends and I am proud to celebrate them here today.
Why Play Around?
Precisely: live well, love hard and thrash harder!
Craig is a punk rocker from the United States, living in Mexico. After traveling to forty countries around the world giving talks and workshops on how he has Survived the Impossible, both professionally and for the Punx, he has been living in his mountain pueblo for nearly three years.
Contact Craig directly at survivingtheimpossible AT gmail DOT com and check out his most recently published books here “You’re Crazy” Volume Two and here: ‘The Craig Lewis Guide to Surviving the Impossible’.
Crusty Craig “Gregorio” Lewis is a longtime contributor to IDIOTEQ. Gregorio is a punk rocker from the United States, living in México, and after traveling to forty countries around the world giving talks and workshops on how he has Survived the Impossible, both professionally and for the Punx, he has been living in his mountain pueblo for nearly four years. Contact Gregorio directly at [email protected] and check out his numerous published books, at Sanity is a Full-Time Job.
