Beyond the Ruins

We walked into a packed Gilman st. show. On stage a young twenty something dude in a muscle t-shirt, with a grown out bleached blonde mohawk growled into the microphone. His veins were visible as he screamed his righteous indigination to the crowd.
"The animals, the animals, alcohol is bad, blah, blah...."
A murder of gangly white trustfunders pressed up against each other and sang along to his words of didatic truth.
"The animals, the animals, alcohol is bad, blah blah ...."
With raised fists, or two pointed fingers they chanted along to the song lyrics in a manner that would bring shame to the casual sunday night choir practice at the local assembly of god.

The set ended and Violett and I went to get burritos. Picante burritos is located in an area of berkeley that is obviously being reshaped. My former roommate has a studio out there and I can remember her talking about the changes that have happened in the last five years that since she opened up her studio by the waterfront.
Initially the area was a wharehouse area but is now turning into lofts and bougerosie arts and crafts.

The picante was a good example of one of the side effects of this process of urban "revitilization." Picante is a combination between fast food and a dine in restaurant. You stand in line to get your food after which you are given a number. Then some lackey who is paid shit brings you out your food.
I have previous experience in one of these horror shops. I worked at a place called Asqew grill for 9 months. It had a similiar set up. When your order was place you got a little colored block instead of a number on a little piece of metal like at Picante.

Anyways Picante tried to give the vegans some cheese and we returned it without too much of a fuss. The manager gave us an apologetic rim job along with a coupon for a free burrito. So for all you scum bag vegans out there say that they gave you a burrito with cheese and its a buy one get one free deal!
We came back to the gilman in time to see 7 generations setting up. We had come out to see both 7 generations (from souther california... thousand oaks I believe) and gather. Both bands are straight edge vegan themed bands. For their genre they are the creme of the crop.

7 generations played a thirty minute set which was dedicated with a fair amount of sappy monologue from the singer of 7 generations to Gather.( Gather in true form dedicated their set to 7 generations) The singer to 7 generations also mentioned his high school days, which obviously means that he's awesome. Who can't get passed their days in the gauntlet that is high school without some ressentiment and trauma? He noted how in his freshman year of high school in the late 90s there were 70 vegan kids but when he graduated there were only two (one of course being him). Why can't the kids be pure these days? Why!?

One of the more interesting aspects of the night, interesting in this case meaning laughable, was the rants about the straight edge vegan community (evidently there is one!) Gather talked in between songs about how great the straight edge vegan community was. How the scene had been really great and supportive blah, blah, blah.

Anyways the music was pretty entertaining, and the fans were entertaining as well. Its not too often that I get to be packed in with so many rich, white, young kids, as I did that night. My one friend said that she felt old at the show, which was a real flair of warning as she is only 20.