Rocking in Shitville

Peter and Sammy were loading up the gear to head to a gig. It was a Tuesday night show which fucking sucked rotten asshole but it’s all a kickass fucking band like Targets of Demolition were going to get in this shithead town full of yuppie prick motherfuckers. People in shitville didn’t like to rock, they just wanted to be lame as hell and listen to crap ass bands like the Fudgie Boys and all that other frat rock shit. Still, the show was part of a battle of the bands which is something that Targets of Demolition were totally opposed to but like the other eight battles they had competed in that year there were extenuating circumstances that made it OK to play it even though all the other bands were sellout fuckfaces that sucked the corporate rock titty and licked Clear Channel’s balls as a habit. That’s why they always won and real bands like ToD had to give it their all in the 1:00 a.m. slot to the soundguy and the back wall. ToD DID NOT suck dick, (it even said so on their website) no matter what those assholes said on the internet. Someday ToD would find out who those pricks were and then the fucking hammer was coming down, no lie. You didn’t fuck with ToD and not get a beatdown. Not that it had ever come to ToD actually having to deliver the beatdown even when that jerkoff from Mountain Lyin’ challenged Peter to fight when he caught him peeling those gayass Mountain Lyin’ stickers off the bathroom wall at Rascals. ToD would have laid him out ToD style but the bitch and all his laughing ass friends weren’t worth it even when they were calling Peter and Sammy junior high school looking girls with Herpes. Fuck those bitches,

Anyway it was bound to be another typical gig in Fratville as Peter and Sammy liked to call it. Typical shit the room would be packed with these assholes in baseball hats while the gayass frat bands were playing and then they would clear out when the rock was delivered. None of the fucking dicklickers that lived the cubicle life could hang with real music anyway and ToD didn’t need their lame asses to rock. Bitches.

Peter and Sammy arrived at Hyjynx to load in for the show. Wouldn’t you fucking know it but the pricks from the Fudgie Boys were actually judging the fucking battle, What the fuck is up with that? Peter and Sammy knew that when Brent (the singer) showed up he would be pissed. It fucking sucked that Brent couldn’t ride over with the guys but his job at the stupid mortgage company kept him late making copies and shit. Brent had to go home and change his clothes too because khakis and polo shirts (he HAD to wear that shit, he didn’t actually want to like all the other assholes that did) were not ToD material. No fucking way.

Peter and Sammy loaded in their amps and stood around sullenly until one of the fucking geeks from the Fudgie Boys came over and said hey and asked if they needed a hand with anything. What a fag, fuck him. After they let Fudgie help them load in the drums and shit they went to get a beer and watch all the assholes stare at them. People in Fratville weren’t used to a couple of badasses like the men in ToD at the bar. All the stuck up bitches pretended they weren’t even there and the jock assholes were all like “excuse me” and “did you guys want to use this chair” and shit. What lame cocks.

Brent called on his cell and said his dad needed him to mow the lawn before the show. What the fuck man?!?!?! ToD was a brotherhood and all but shit, this was taking shit a little too far. Damn, this could totally fuck up the whole gig man! Shit!!!

Tomorrow…enter the rock.

Dashing thru the snow (in hell)

I need a tuba.

Rather, my lovely daughter's school needs a tuba and I have taken it upon myself to procure one, a grail quest only the grail is a tuba and the quest consists of me sitting on my ass typing requests for said grail tuba. Intentions - A+. Effort - C-

The tuba is for the school band, apparently they need the low end so they can fully recreate the din of the 1000 hounds of Hell braying for the flesh of the unrepentant. Those of you who have been to an elementary school's Xmas concert will probably recognize it by it's more recognized name; "Jingle Bells".

So if anybody has a tuba they need to get rid of or knows somebody that knows somebody that has a tuba they need to get rid of hook me up. It's a small giveback for the priceless entertainment I give for free on this here blog.

Better late than never mom always says!

So what comes first again...the sieg or the heil?"

Bush announces plans to visit Vietnam.

Harrah Marah Huzzah

Lots has been going on to leave me a tad weary, happy but weary. I can wrap up the New Orleans adventure with a summation that we ate, drank, sweated, laughed and had merriment galore. I still love the town as much as I ever did but am not in a great hurry to feel that heat or smell that oo-oo that smell again for a while.

One funny moment, seeing a conference attendee guiltily skulking out the doorway of the “Oriental Bodyrub Spa” that was across the street from the hotel. Pervert. I also had a beer with the guy that produced Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album. He bought my drink which I think was appropriate as he’s rich as fuck and I am not.

Saturday night the band played a last minute show at Jammin Java in the wilds of Vienna, Virginia with a Philly band called Marah. Neither band had ever played the room before, in fact Marah almost always plays at Iota when they come through town which is sorta our homebase as well. I was kinda nervous about the show as A) it was in what is demonstrably a coffee shop although a coffee shop with a stage and great sound system, B) we only had two days to try and get folks out to the show so we were relying almost entirely on an out of town band to draw folks to the room, and C) Ben was going on a canoe trip during the day (why people do these things I have no idea) and I was nervous about him having a Deliverance style run-in with the river dwellers and not being able to make it back for the show due to a hostage and ransom situation of some sort.

We got to the place sans Ben on time and hung out waiting for Marah to show up. They arrived in a nice red van looking weary as this was their sixth show in six days which makes for some hard living. Super nice guys though and very rock and rolling…their singer Dave had a swank jacket held together by duct tape and they all had beautiful guitars upon which to sturm und drang. As we were getting the stage set up a voice came a calling me and lo and behold my guardo camino from Milwaukee, Garrett, was there along with about 150 other people lined up around the building. He had actually read the email I sent about the gig and as he was in town he came out to rock out. It was grand to see him and his lovely paramour, he’s totally my favorite Henry Rollins style physical therapist that I used to move furniture with ever. Ben survived his white water adventure and got there right on time so fears allayed we got ready to rock it up.

Another nice touch to the evening; being that Saturday was the day before Dad’s Day and that the room was all ages and it was an early show the Mrs. came with daughter #1 and daughter #1’s best pal to rock and roll away. The girlies were having a great time and it warmed the darkness of the old heart to see my progeny out and about bopping around. She’s fantastically cool as cool as a kid can ever be. I’m a lucky guy that way. Her and her pal ran our merch table for us, how great is that?

Anyhoo the room was filling up and we had a bunch of folks come out to hang and bang with us. We started the set and had a great old time. Trey is getting more and more into the groove and the band right now is pretty much wildly goddamn fun. Marah’s crowd was great, very receptive and into the show which is as much as you can ask for playing all originals in front of people who don’t know you from a zit on their collective ass. It was sweaty and swarthy and just what we wanted.

Marah came on soon afterwards and got it on. I really, really like the band a lot. Great songs, show, presence, energy…..they busted out two hours of getting it done the right way. They have bits and pieces that remind me of a lot of bands both famous and obscure and wrap it all together very well. Dave has a voice reminiscent of love letters scrawled out on a thousand bars. Dirty but pretty. They have really strong songs and melodies, good dark interesting lyrics and lots of quirky without being weird for weirdness sake stuff going on in the tunes. The guitarist and brother of Dave, Serge, brings a lot to it playing harmonica and singing nice counterpoints to the lead stuff. They have distinct voices that work well together and it’s not so much harmonies as two lead vocals working together in a raspy duet. I dig. The lead guitar player is a dead ringer for Andy McCoy from Hanoi Rocks so they had that adding points to my scorecard. I highly recommend em’, check it out when they come to your town.

The night wound up and we were drinking beers and selling shirts and CDs and feeling the love. Ben had made a retreat to go ice down his arms and after loading up and settling up Philito and Jenn headed westward home to Doobie and Tipsy and the rest of the pack that were waiting for them. Trey and I stopped by the crappy bar up the street for a nightcap and then limped wearily back to the mansion on the hill. Rock night over and overall it was a big success for the band.

Morning came soon after and I had to get on an airplane and go to North Carolina…..not the best thing I could think of to do with my day. I got delayed in Charlotte for the 5000th time, turned my brain off and watched TV at the airport bar and observed some poor drunken soul getting hauled off by the jackbooted airport thugs after he blew his cool at a gate agent for getting bumped from a flight that had been delayed three times. Poor sucker, he’s probably eating turnips and brown rice in a Gitmo holding cell right now for his terroristic activities.


I finally made it to Wilmington…cab , hotel, food, bar, bed.

Bah.

Home last night and up with the sun. I’m fucking beat but dammit if my hair doesn’t look spectacular.

Red 5 this is Wedge

After drying out from the soaking we took and resting up we headed back out into the steamy streets of New Orleans and strolled hither and yon. We found a decent place to sit and eat and mowed down three pounds of crawfish and two dozen oysters, tasty. I had never sucked the brain juice out of the crawdad heads but when in Rome and all that so….SLURP. Spicy, gross but spicy. The Mrs. would not partake but she enjoyed the spectacle.

We wandered back to Bourbon Street and chatted with the pornography hucksters trying to woo us in to their joints with offers of lap dances and titillation without quarter. I was wise enough to not press the issue and eventually we found a balcony to sit on and watch the proceedings on the street. Monday night in June in New Orleans…Girls gone Wild it ain’t. There was still plenty of bead throwing and the occasional baring of the breasticles but of the scary drunken Midwestern housewife variety rather than the nubile drunken coed type. Very scary, (and adherent to the laws of gravity). The rain earlier did little to wash away the filth and a lot to bring all the vile smells in the streets bubbling to the surface. It was noxiously fun, but still quite noxious. On the way back we stopped at the aforementioned Walgreen’s so I could get some deodorant, (bad packing on my part). Of all the things the management could have kept under lock and key at the nasty ghetto Walgreen’s unbelievably it was deodorant that was put behind the Plexiglas display case. Not Robotussin or lighter fluid or mouthwash or any other manner of item that could be put to some sort of nefarious use. Speed Stick. What the fuck? It’s like they want the city to smell like dirty underwear. The Captain Love guy was still at it although he kept his beanbag in his pants while inside the store, that was a plus.

We slept the sleep of the angels that we are and awoke to foggy windows and a weather forecast in the triple digits. Whee! More good food and daytime stuff involving some work later we met up with some coworkers for dinner at one of Emeril Legace’s joints, called Delmonico. I rarely eat at fancy schmantzy restaurants not for a lack of taste for good food but it just rarely occurs to me to go to such a place. When I do I usually enjoy it and don’t mind the enormous bill as I’m drunk on overpriced wine that I have no way of discerning the value of the bottle thereof, forthwith and ballyhoo. We ate and ate and ate and listened to stories from Texas Bob and Sparkles who were as amusing and entertaining as always. Texas Bob once made me laugh so hard on a drive between Amarillo and Lubbock Texas that I was sure I was going to crap myself. Even now when I hear the word “stinker” I start laughing.

Stinker.

Haha!

Anyway my Pops had dined at Delmonico a few years back and assured me that the wedge salad would be the best thing I have ever eaten. Dad is great like that, he gets wrapped up in stuff and for a period of time Film 123 will be the best movie ever right up until Film XYZ comes along and that becomes the best movie ever. The same thing happens with cars, position athletes, restraints, opera singers, and comedians but never books. He stands firm on the old literary opinions. He was pretty straight on the salad though, ¼ of a head of lettuce with about 9 pounds of bleu cheese dressing and red onions. Retardedly delicious. I followed it up with gumbo, a 16 oz. steak, lots of wine, some port, an Irish coffee and a mint. The mint almost did me in like the guy at the end of, “The Meaning of Life”. Hwaffer thin.

Only one of the folks at dinner had ever met the Mrs. before so when she went to the bathroom I was assaulted with “SHE IS SO WONDERFUL AND BEAUTIFUL AND HOW DID YOU EVER MANAGE TO MARRY SUCH A FINE WOMAN” and the like. Seriously, that crap happens all the time and it gives me a complex. Am I not awesome, do I not deserve an awesome paramour? The way these people talk you would think I was some kind of a foul-mouthed, egocentric college dropout with maturity and narcissism issues. Sheesh.

You guys should see my hair today, it’s fucking fantastic.

So the night ended in a boozy overstuffed haze and I poured myself into the cab and tried to stay awake on the way back to the hotel. We had another long day of gluttony ahead and I needed my beauty sleep. Not as much as most other people obviously but even I have mortal needs, (just not as many).

Blame it on the rain

Traveling with the significant other is always a crapshoot. The norms of behavior that those of us unfortunate to have to travel for the job a lot are used to get completely and totally bonered out of reality when our more genteel, patient, sane and otherwise morally superior companions join in on the trip. To wit…..

I view airports as a personal challenge to my ability to control my most dark and murderous impulses. My preferred agenda when traveling: Arrive at airport, check in at self-serve kiosk to avoid any and all human interaction, get through the retardedly wasteful security check, find the bar closest to gate, achieve as drunken a state as possible, board plane and curl my body into a ball so tight my nuts could harden into diamonds on a transatlantic flight. When I’m unfortunate enough to have someone sitting next to me it’s earphones on and head down. I get to the destination, mutter at the offal who take too long to deplane, careen through the airport to the putrid cab stand and look for the most socially inept cab driver I can who I’m sure will not want to chit-chat. Get to hotel, dump bags, find bar…lather, rinse, repeat….done.

My wife on the other hand views traveling as a pleasurable exercise full of opportunity and humor. She enjoys people watching, the charm of cute little children pulling their little suitcases across her path, browsing overpriced bookstores, having a coffee and generally being wonderful to all of those around her. Normally hateful Skycaps fall all over themselves to take her bags, gate agents love her, she has funny conversations about belts and pants falling down with slack-jawed TSA dopes and giggles when she takes her shoes off. She is wholly and totally loved from the taxi stand to the runway.

That is SO weird, (don’t you think?)

So last week we traveled together to New Orleans for the longest extended trip we have taken sans bambinas since our honeymoon. It was her first trip to New Orleans and I told her about the wonderful fun that can be had and the culture (bars), art, (bars), music, (bars), and food (at bars). We flew direct which was a nice change and being the sweet son of a bitch that I am I gave her the window seat and took the middle so she could rest her head. The middle seat on any airplane sucks, the middle seat on an 8:30 a.m. flight when the aisle is occupied by an enormous gospel choir member that smells of dirty laundry and stale Kools is something even Dante’ would appreciate. There was a method to my madness though, my lovely other is way too nice to ever totally ignore someone who prattles at her on a plane so I acted as a buffer between her and Hurricane Gussie on the aisle and at least had silence on my side as I tried to breathe through my mouth and compact myself to the size of a walnut to avoid the sweaty roast beef arms and hamhock legs that were intruding on me to the left.

Mercifully my opossum routine worked pretty well and we got to New Orleans and retrieved the bags without too much psychological destruction from my rotund and aromatic neighbor. We deplaned, got the bags and headed to ground transpo emerging from the terminal into a blast furnace of heat and humidity that I thought existed only in voodoo movies like the “Serpent and the Rainbow” and “AngelHeart”, (I know all you stupids that will say, “that’s in NEW ORLEANS you stupid”….that’s the point of the joke….go piss down your stupid fucking necks you stupid fucking stupids). We took a cab to our very nice hotel on Canal Street and quickly encountered what will forever keep me from convincing the Mrs. to relocate to a Southern city….the absolute horrid line that is drawn between the haves (in this case conventioneers, drunken middle-aged harridans eager to flash their enormous gravity destroyed breasts to frat boys for bacteria covered plastic beads wrested from a Bourbon Street sewer drain, and us) and the have nots, (locals who have been snared in a circle of generational poverty).

On the corner of the street just down from the hotel was a Walgreen’s drugstore where the local have not wrecks congregated to beg for change, act insane, smell like rotten shoes and generally be uncomfortable to be around. Sure that makes me sound like a dick but some guy with matted hair and a pegleg that is pulling his nuts out of his filthy sweatpants and following me around calling me “Captain Love” is just going to throw me off my game….I’m callous like that. Sorry.

We checked in at the desk and found our room was not ready so we headed down to get some chow and absorb the local flavor while our quarters were being made up. Like many people my memories of Bourbon Street are fond and have been built by long dark nights of massive drunkenness and totally idiotic behavior. Seeing Bourbon Street through the eyes and nose of my wife in the heat of the midday sun, well, that’s just not so good. In the light and heat of day the filth is everywhere, it’s wet and the whole boulevard smells like the dirtiest toilet in the crappiest bar in Butthole America. She was a gamer though and took it all in stride, having gotten her higher education in the East Village, (not to mention living with me), offensive smells and dirty drunken motherfuckers were nothing new to her.

We found a reasonably decent place to sit and eat and made good use of the one thing New Orleans has over just about anywhere else….the food. Even the cheap food, is nothing but fantastic. We ate and ate, (OK….and I drank), and watched the odd procession of families walking by the unisexxx and tranny strip bars with dad wistfully looking to and fro and mom shading the eyes of her brood from the amoral commerce happening all around her. Good times, I can just imagine Dad deciding to take up jogging later that evening and showing up from his run five hours later drunk with hickeys all over his pasty thighs and man-breasts. It’s that kind of city.

After we ate it was up in the air whether to walk or cab back to the hotel and I erred on the side of the stroll. Bad decision. We hit the street and immediately the skies opened in the way that can only happen in a semi-tropical locale. Rain of the horizontal variety soaked us head to toe and there was no relief anywhere and nothing to do but laugh at the absurdity of it all and keep on trucking. Thoroughly drenched we arrived back at the hotel and the lady at the front desk giggled at my soaked ass when I asked for my room key. I smiled as I inwardly damned her to suffering in a thousand hells and took the elevator up to 904, our homebase for the next five days. The trip was officially underway.

Next up…Orgasm and the wedge salad.

TESTIFY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Here we are....

The Mrs. and I are esconced in New Orleans at a very nice hotel on Canal Street. Yesterday consisted of travelling and getting caught in a torrential downpour along with cocktails and crawfish and oysters. Good stuff. I'm such a nice guy I bought her a swanky set of blue pumas to ease her aching feet....they are totally marvelous. Today should be good, going to a place called Delmonico's for dinner tonight, it's owned by Emeril.

BAM!

Whee.

My pants are still hanging in the shower drying from the soaking they took in the rain yesterday...what am I ever to wear?

I'm alive

Why no blogging? Well.....

I have recently done battle with some questionable Boston Market pot pie and lost in dramatic fashion. The show on Friday was great though, I fit the set in between bouts of projectile vomiting. My already pale skin took on a lusturous alabaster tone and made me look goth....goth with puke breath but goth all the same. Trey rocked and rocked well and we are on to the next big thing.

Later in the weekend I was rhino charged by a woman in my backyard. For real, she said she was a rhino and charged me. Terrifying. Post rhino charge I had to corral a different woman who shares a voice with Karen from Will and Grace from going skinny dipping in my neighbor's hot tub. I do not know said neighbors well at all and could not guarantee they wouldn't have shot her in the face for trespassing.

I leave for New Orleans with the Mrs. on Monday for a week of silliness.

Whee.

More soon, I promise.

I TASTE RUST!!!!

APPOGGIATURA MOTHERFUCKER!!!!