Soundtrack of My Life (So Far)

Papa Roach, "Broken Home": The video contains images of a boy struggling with parents that are constantly fighting and have been since his birth. Throughout the video the band itself is shown playing in what appears to be the same house. The song contains lyrics like, "And my wounds are not healing, I'm stuck in between my parents," which really speak to me. My parents, Mary Jo and Charles (Chuck) Leichleiter, got divorced when I was only a couple months old. I spent a good portion of my childhood, up until around 8 years old, living with my mom and going to see my dad every other weekend. My father and I eventually got into a disagreement after I called my step-mom a bitch and I haven't talked to him since. My mom, Mary Jo, is a short, gray haired, 50 year old woman who grew up in the small town of Page, Nebraska on a farm. She does not go by the name Mary, on account that her step-mom's name was Mary and they did not get along, and tends to be angered when called that. She is an ex-hippy with an attitude that has had 2 jobs more often than she has had one to keep the roof over the head of her son and food on the table. My father, Chuck, is a balding, blonde haired and orange bearded, overweight, alcoholic trucker who has been smoking cigarettes since he was 9 and smokes 3 packs a day now. He was adopted along with his sister Anne when he was a kid. His real father died and his adopted parents ended up divorced. One of the lyrics, "I know my mother loves me, but does my father even care if I'm sad or angry, you were never ever there," sums up my relationship with my parents.


Linkin Park, "One Step Closer": The video opens with two kids following a hooded figure and then flashes to the band itself playing in a dark area with fire all around them. Throughout the video there are martial artists with elaborately painted faces. The chorus, "Everything you say to me, takes me one step closer to the edge, and I'm about to break. I need a little room to breathe, cause I'm one step closer to the edge, and I'm about to break," represents much of my childhood through middle school. I suffer from depression and the constant verbal assaults that I endured while I was in school and the physical attacks while walking home afterwards brought me to the verge of wanting to hurt myself and others. The lyric, "I find the answers aren't so clear, I wish I could find a way to disappear," was how I often felt during that period of my life since there was no real way I could escape the torment. Luckily my counselor Rachel, who I had been seeing since I was a child because of my father's alcoholism, was able to help me out through counseling sessions and some medication. One 20mg capsule of Fluoxetine, or a generic version of Prozac is to be taken daily. The capsules themselves are white with a green band reading PLIVA 648 on one side of the two piece capsule. They are a half an inch in length and about the diameter of a pencil eraser. The medication coupled with the support of others has allowed me to put up a good fight against my depression.



Three Doors Down, "Loser": Some of the opening images are of a wall with various pictures titled "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Best Dressed" and "Most Popular." The band is shown playing in a high school while the students are running around going to classes. Within the classes are a wide range of differing students. At Seward Public High School I was definitely not a candidate for the title of "Most Popular," in fact I was considered one of the losers. The small town of Seward with roughly 6,000 people is a very cliquey town and the high school is no different. There were the popular, preppy kids that included the jocks and there were the nerds and there were the scurvs as they were called. The popular crowd were all easily identified by their Abercrombie and Fitch or American Eagle shirts and expensive jeans with high dollar shoes. The scurvs, or what was pretty much considered the lowest class, consisted of the poor kids and outcasts. They were identified as often wearing lots of black or even just not wearing high dollar clothes. Every group tended to stay in there own parts of the school with almost no mingling except between the nerds and scurvs who sometimes fit in with both crowds. During lunch the nerds would sit with eachother, the scurvs would sit with eachother, and the preppy kids would sit with eachother. Being a small school rumors were common and they spread fast just like the images in the video of the girl standing in the bathroom stall surrounded by writings that read, "I hate Gretchen." The lyric, "Your getting closer to pushing me off life's little edge," is a message to those preppy kids that their words and actions have effect.



Drowning Pool, "Bodies": The video shows the former lead singer Dave (RIP) yelling the lyrics of the song at a psychiatric patient and also weaves in the band playing of the roof of a building being watched by a security guard. The chorus, "1. Something's got to give, 2. Something's got to give, 3. Something's got to give now. Let the bodies hit the floor," reminds me of the time I went to the Music as a Weapon concert headlined by Disturbed. To the concert I wore one of my favorite t-shirts of the time and brought my trusty lighter that was modified to produce a 6 inch flame. The shirt was black and had a picture of Ozzy Osbourne's face on the front of it. That night the shirt ended up with a torn sleeve and drenched in sweat. You don't sit at a rock concert. The floor of Pershing was packed with bodies pressed next to each other. Loud music emanated from the at least 6ft high black speakers on either side of the stage. The mass of bodies swayed and jumped and moved to the music played. Towards the stage security guards would poor water on the fans to keep them cool. Crowd surfers were moved up towards the front where the security guards would help them down safely. On particularly aggressive songs circular mosh pits would form. The bodies in the middle pushed each other around and often collided with the outside of the pit only to be pushed back into the center. In the mass of bodies if one person fell them it was a sure thing that more would follow and the bodies would hit the floor.


Motorhead, "Hellraiser": The video shows the band playing on stage and Pinhead accompanied by his minions sitting in the audience. Throughout the video it shows various clips from the Hellraiser movie. I grew up watching slasher movies such as Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th with my cousin Troy and Hellraiser has always been one of my favorites. In the movie there is a puzzle box that when opened summons Pinhead and his Cenobite minions. The first victim is a man named Frank who gets torn apart after solving the puzzle of the box. Later Kristy, the daughter of Frank's brother Larry, ends up solving the puzzle of the box and Pinhead appears before her telling her that they have to take her to hell. Kristy leads them to Frank, who had regained his body by absorbing the flesh of others, in exchange for her salvation. After Frank is killed the Cenobites turn on her though and she banishes them by reversing the puzzle. She then attempts to destroy the box only to have it taken by a strange man. Seven Hellraiser movies have been made following the first film, including Hellraiser:Bloodline which shows the history of the puzzle box and who Pinhead was before becoming a Cenobite. The theme in most slasher films is that the immoral and generally not nice people are the ones who end up getting killed by the main villain. The big bad guy kills the other bad guy basically. The evil is usually banished at the end of each film but is never really killed off and shows up next time.



Warning: Song contains explicit lyrics.
Mindless Self Indulgence, "Shut Me Up": The video is of a store clerk who basically goes crazy after attending a Mindless Self Indulgence concert. The video is just as hectic as the music is goes with. The song, and MSI in general, remind me of my friend Luke who, at one point, was my best friend. Luke is an avid fan of the cartoon Invader Zim, which is kind of crazy like MSI music and a fairly skilled player of Magic. He is short and has very curly black hair and suffers from alopecia, or spots where he loses hair. Luke wears a lot of black accented by usually bright colors such as pinks and greens and odd jewelry. Just like the lyric, "I can't wait for you to shut me up," most people can't wait for Luke to shut up. He is loud, obnoxious, and tends to be rude whether he means to or not but also usually ends up being the life of the party and the organizer. He seems to be capable of being friends with almost anyone. Too much alcohol and eventually drugs caused him to lose face with a lot of his closest friends. Many of which haven't talked to him in a long time. Despite being obnoxious and rude he is a very generous and good person to his friends. He has tried several times at going to school to become a chef and has failed everytime because he has partied too much. Nowadays he is just a pot head.



ZZ Top, "Sharp Dressed Man": The video follows around what appears to be a valet or something for a fancy establishment. He is dressed up sharply and eventually attracts a bunch of good looking women. He ends up leaving with the girls in the car they showed up in, which just happens to be ZZ Top's car that is in every video, after getting the keys from the members of ZZ Top. One look at ZZ Top and you think only one thing. Beards. Two of the members of the band have massive beards and the guy who doesn't have a beard, well his last name is Beard. Ever since my senior year in high school, excluding the times I have had to shave for employment, I have had a beard. My beard is a brown color that matches my normal hair. There are two streaks that have a reddish hue to them on either side of my mouth. My beard was practical. Less razors were gone thru and when its cold your face stays warm. My beard was never as long as the guitarists from ZZ Top. You can't just let your beard grow out of control. You have to trim it regularly and keep it well groomed in order to keep it looking good. The beard is a perfect accessory for whatever you wear and when kept in good condition can make you look way older, most people didn't think I was 18 with my beard, and more sophisticated. Just like ZZ Top's beards helped the guy get the girls, my beard helped me be a sharp dressed man.


Warning: Explicit Lyrics.
Papa Roach, "Between Angels and Insects": The video shows the band playing in a dark studio apartment. Every member of the band is wearing simple black clothes. Roaches are shown crawling all over the place. Occasionally the camera will have the appearance of going inside a band member's body. The lyric, "You're a slave to the system, working jobs that you hate, for that shit you don't need," reminds me of the daily grind of working at Kawasaki in a factory just to pay the rent and buy material goods. Every morning started the same. Get up, take medication, shower, prepare breakfast, and leave for work. There was a ritualistic eating of peanut butter sandwiches, drinking energy drinks, and listening to the same songs on the drive into work. After arriving at work about 30 minutes early and parking the car began the ritual of preparing the workspace and then settling down to read the Lincoln Journal Star. Every morning before the start of the shift everyone would preform a series of stretches to prevent injury. And then assembly would begin. Grab a supercharger assembly, put it on jig, bolt one pipe on and torque the bolts, repeat for the other side. Then take the assembled supercharger and mount it to the engine assembly torquing the bolts as you go. Repeat 100 times. Every workday was fundamentally the same and the only variance was the topics of conversations going on during working. Everything ranging from Delino's girl problems to trying to name bands, songs, or movies for each letter of the alphabet. Breakfast was always my lunch and during the lunch break I always took a quick nap. This routine went on for a year. "Present yourself, press your clothes, comb your hair, and clock in. You just can't win, just can't win. And the things you own own you."